Rohini Lall’s maiden
venture, ‘The Sour Faced Moon’ is an odd one. The beginning of which, by the way I
really enjoyed. I thought that the book had a good foundation and a
weaving start, which it could have gone on with...
We begin with Zaamir
Agha Khan, who has a certain optimism about how his life would end up. His hopes
and visions are wonderfully illustrated in the first chapter. How he travels to
India from Afghanistan, how he trusts his horse to bring him to his dreamland,
are all details that are brilliantly written about.
But then, we jump
forwards to green-eyed Imroz’s life. He runs a shop in India and has only the
stories of his past and his forefathers, which he does not like. Then, of
course we have other characters like Imroz’s almost blind
muezzin father, Farooqh, the Andersons; Nicholas, Emma, Danielle, Bryan and Joshua and a whole
other sundry group of characters.
I do not know how they
all fit into the story, though they have individual stories of their own. The
first three are Nicholas, Emma, Danielle and Bryan. Nicholas is the head of the
family with the beautiful Emma who is now dead, and their daughter, Danielle.
Danielle, who is in love with Imroz but leaves India for Australia for almost
twelve years, and comes back to India with the green-eyed Bryan in tow.
Bryan
is a young boy, who takes to Imroz and all the Indian ways with abolutely no issues. There
is also Joshua, but how he fits into the story remains mystery, with only hints
for the reader.
Why?
You ask… I cannot give you the answers because that was how the book ran. So
many questions are raised but the answers are not provided.
The
story moves on and one sees a lot of things happening. The past, the present, boatmen,
brick kilns, children, and Rogan Gosht and even kites and cricket make an
appearance, but one cannot find an ending to any of these stories. There were probably
more than two main stories and every one of the stories has misery, regret and sorrow.
Including in the title. The moon, which looked up on all these people could
only have a sour face.
On
the whole, I felt that the novel could have gone two ways. Either, it could
have been in short story format. Or the stories of the Khans and the Andersons could
have been running parallel to each other and had proper endings, allowing the
story a wholeness, that it lacked.
The
reason I am not putting it away, is because of the author. Her style of writing
deserves marks. She grasps the emotions and manages to draw the reader to not put down the book, immediately. But, unfortunately the story does not end
properly, too many unresolved issues, I guess…
Author: Rohini Lall
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Leadstart Publishing, an imprint of Frog Books ISBN: 9789383562305
Price: India 195/-, Elsewhere: $8
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