The Sari Shop: A Novel

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Summary: Journey into "an intoxicating rich life of colour and silk"
Review: "Tucked neatly between Talwaar Furnishings and Draperies and Chanduram's Fabrics" in Amristar is the Sevak Sari House. Bajwa gives a gratifying glimpse into the daily life of Ramchand, a shop assistant. She also brings us into the relationships of the shop assistants - Gokul, Chander, Shyam, Rajeshi and Hari - with each other, their supervisor Mahajan, and the wealthy women on the other side of the counter. One day, a fortuitous chain of small events disrupts Ramchand's routine, inspiring him to make up for lost opportunities in his past.

Bajwa offers no flippant happy ending (except for those already privileged and protected from life's brutalities). Instead, she portrays the tragic futility of one man's effort to challenge injustice.

Bajwa uses simple word choices and skillfully weaves in vernacular to draw us into the Amristar community, using strong detail ranging from Ramchand's toothpaste to his idle fantasies. We glide smoothly into a world where mothers fight over the single municipal tap and the cooling monsoon blows in after months of sweltering heat ... and where a rupee stretches further than we thought.

Most satisfying is the description of the shop itself. We step in from the noise, heat, dust and charged interactions in the street to the cool, dark interiors of the shop "packed from shelf to shelf with crisp Bangladeshi cottons, dazzling Kajeevarams, Benaras Silks, chiffons, crêpes and satins..."

My regret was that Bajwa did not use her strong descriptive skills evenly to draw out the inner thoughts, emotions and interpretations of the characters. This left me reaching for more intimacy with them, especially as the conflict heightened in later sections of the book. There was also an occasional use of colloquialisms and clichés, which made the narrative feel discordant in parts.

A great first novel - I look forward to the next.

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Summary: Really depressing...
Review: As a fan of Indian fiction I was really excited to read this novel. I had read a glowing review on it and put my name on the local library list for it. Boy was I disappointed! The writing was overly simple and dull. Ramchand, the main character, elicited no sympathy from me. I never felt like the author adequately explained the inner turmoil that was so central to his character. Overall I found the book depressing.

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Summary: Understated Elegance
Review: In this debut novel by Rupa Bajwa, the story starts in a slow, languorous way, but soon picks up in tempo. Her descriptions are vivid. I actually saw the rows of small houses cluttered together by the narrow lanes of the old Amritsar as I read the novel. Written in simple, clear prose, the book oozes understated elegance. It also reminded me of a vast, dark pond, its water calm, still and ripple-free as on a windless day, but with deep, hidden undercurrents that pull the readers in effortlessly and drown them in her magical world. Ms. Bajwa understands the human heart. Long after I finished the novel, her Ramchand still lingers in my mind. That India is teeming with millions of Ramachands is a sobering thought. She is a truly gifted writer with a smooth voice. I did not come across a single shrill sentence. An astounding first novel.

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Summary: "Money, congestion and noise danced an eternal, crazy dance"
Review: Longlisted for Britain's Orange Prize for Fiction in 2004, Rupa Bajwa's The Sari Shop turns the world of a small shop in Amritsar, India, into a microcosm of the society, allowing the author to explore big ideas within an intimate environment. Exploring the lives of ordinary shop salesmen, both at home and at work, as they struggle to make ends meet, she juxtaposes them against some of their wealthy clients, highlighting dramatically the economic contrasts in their lives and the differences in their expectations. From her opening description of the raucous awakening of a small neighborhood, she presents the kinds of homely details which make the setting easy to visualize, despite the cultural differences.

Ramchand, now twenty-six, has been working as an assistant at the Sevak Sari House since he was fifteen, doing the same job day after day, going to a small dhaba with some of the other assistants for something to eat at night and sometimes to the movies. He has little hope of improving his station and, with his parents dead and no family in the city, little opportunity to meet a marriageable young woman or change his lonely life. Through flashbacks, the reader learns about Ramchand's family background and how he came to live alone in Amritsar.

As Bajwa slowly draws the reader into the lives of other characters, the reader empathizes with them. Kamla, the wife of Chander, another of the shop assistants, is an especially pathetic case, a young woman who has been victimized by society, her husband, and her husband's former employers. Rina Kapoor, daughter of the wealthiest man in Amritsar, however, is also, in some ways, a victim of her economic situation, as are the women for whom shopping for saris is a primary activity. Only a few women here seek independent lives, these being women for whom it is an option because of their economic privilege. Kamla has no such options. When the lives of Ramchand, Kamla, Rina, and Chander intersect in a shocking climax, lives change forever.

The stunning ending is melodramatic, and Ramchand's change of character may not be completely realistic, but the story moves effectively from its quiet character study at the beginning into a compelling story of characters whose lives overlap, often unwittingly. Sometimes darkly humorous, the story has considerable charm because Ramchand himself inspires empathy. Intimate and thoughtful in its depiction of the various social strata which make up the community, the novel is more understated--less sensational and less political--than some of the more panoramic epics which have come from India in the past decade. Mary Whipple

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Summary: Intereresting, but....
Review: Not a bad first attempt, but there are definitely flaws. Characterization is hit or miss - some characters are much better developed than others, and even the better developed ones can be a bit hit or miss. Imagery is great. Plot is unfocused, choppy, and ends with the equivalent of "and she died." (Not really a spoiler.) I'll check out a second novel...this was a passable read.

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Summary: "When you explore life, you also explore yourself."
Review: Ramchand has obediently worked as a clerk at the Sevak Sari House in the city of Amritsar, India for eleven years; alternating his time between the Sari shop located in the city's old bazaar and his one room apartment with minimal possessions. His simple life, however, takes a drastic turn when he is ordered to take a selection of saris by bicycle to a prosperous family who is preparing for their eldest daughter's wedding. Upon entering this strange new world of extravagant automobiles, air conditioning, servants, and wall-to-wall plush carpet Ramchand's mind goes in a tailspin. He has never encountered such luxury before and is deeply affected.

From this point forward Ramchand's consciousness is awakened to the issues of class that surround him in his everyday life. He becomes interested in the lives of the various woman who visit the sari shop and listen to their conversations revealing their affluent lifestyles and snobbery attitudes towards others. At the same time, and also at the other end of the class spectrum, he becomes acquainted with the dire situation of his co-worker and his wife who reside in a tin shack in a poor section of the city. Ramchand's experiences quickly led him into a dizzying philosophical journey with potential serious ramifications for many.

While THE SARI SHOP contains an engaging and highly entertaining plot, Rupa Bajwa's prose is often uneven and lacks a clear direction, especially towards the middle, that can possibly attributed to this being her debut novel. Hopefully her writing skills will improve and she will continue to publish thought-provoking books with memorable characters in the near future. Recommended, especially for those who enjoy Indian literature.

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Summary: An interesting read!
Review: Rupa Bajwa's debut novel, "The Sari Shop" deals with the life of Ramchand, who worked as a shop assistant at the Sevak Sari House in Amritsar since the age of fifteen. The work itself is quite monotonous for Ramchand except for the occasional chat and gossip among women who came to the shop looking for saris. Through the eyes of Ramchand, we see the competitiveness nature of these women, their ideals and values and the class problems that existed in Amritsar. In essence, Ramchand's life was uneventful. That changed when Ramchand was asked to bring some saris for Rina Kapoor, the daughter of a rich businessman in Amritsar and had a glimpse of what it was like to be rich and educated. Through all this, the author also introduced different characters in her book. These includes Kamla, the drunkard wife of Chander another store assistant at Sevak Sari House, Lakhan the food seller who lost his son, and a few others. The author also depicted how the lives of these characters intersected with one another.

I enjoy this book as I like the way the author vividly described the streets in Amritsar or the personalities of the shop assistants at the Sari shop. The author was able to make her characters "come alive." The pace of the book is slow, but do not be deter by that. It is definitely the style of the author and it seems that she took her time to make her readers understand and emphatize with her characters. My only suggestion is that I wish the author provided some transition when she moved from Ramchand's life to Kamla's as she did it quite rapidly which left me wondering at that point what happened to Ramchand. Other than that, it is definitely worth investing your time in this book.

Rating:
Summary: good first novel
Review: This was an enjoyable book despite it being depressing, especially towards the end. I would recommend this to anyone interested in India. I've never been there so I can't say how realistically life in India was portrayed, but it has made me think about life in developing countries for people who aren't part of the educated classes. There are some minor faults, but overall it was very good for a first novel.

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Summary: Disappointing debut
Review: With a great title and subject, it's too bad Bajwa couldn't turn out a novel of greater interest and skill. Ramchand, the main character, is just not interesting enough to carry the weight of the story, and his central perspective limits the story's range. Her most believable characters were the middle-class ladies; they could have appeared more prominently. Her upper-class belles were soap-opera concoctions. A Fine Balance, The Namesake and Brick Lane all have far more merit.