Hello, readers! It is Monday again! As it is Monday, welcome to another #5OnMyTBR update. The rule is relatively simple. I must pick five books from my to-be-read piles that fit the week’s theme.

This week’s theme: No Prompt

Because there is no prompt this week, I decided to feature books written by Indian writers. Once I am done with my foray into East Asian Literature, I plan to read works of Indian writers.

5OnMyTBR is a bookish meme hosted by E. @ Local Bee Hunter’s Nook where you chose five books from your to-be-read pile that fit that week’s theme. If you’d like more info, head over to the announcement post!

Title: Chemmeen
Author: Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai
Translator (from Malayalam): Anita Nair
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Publishing Date: 2011
No. of Pages: 238

Synopsis: 

First published in 1956, Chemmeen was adapted into a film of the same name, and won critical acclaim as well as unprecedented commercial success. A deeply affecting story of love and loss set amidst a fishing community in Kerala, the novel transports us into the lives and minds of its characters, Karuthamma and Pareekutty, whose love remains outside the bounds of religion, caste, and marriage. Then, one night, Karuthamma and Pareekutty meet and their love is rekindled while Palani, Karuthamma’s husband, is at sea, baiting a shark.

Title: Ghachar Ghochar
Author: Vivek Shanbhag
Translator (from Kannada): Srinath Perur
Publisher: Penguin Books
Publishing Date: 2017
No. of Pages: 118

Synopsis: 

A young man’s close-knit family is nearly destitute when his uncle founds a successful spice company, changing their fortunes almost overnight. As the narrator – a sensitive, passive man who is never named – his mother, father, sister, and uncle move from a cramped, ant-infested shack to a large new house on the other side of Bangalore, the family dynamic starts to shift. Allegiances realign, marriages are arranged and begin to falter, and conflict brews ominously in the background. Before he knows it, things are “ghachar ghochar” – a nonsense phrase meaning something tangled beyond repair, a knot that can’t be untied.

Elegantly written and punctuated by moments of unexpected warmth and humor, Ghachar Ghochar is a quietly enthralling, deeply unsettling novel about the shifting meanings – and consequences – of financial gain in contemporary India.

Title: One Part Woman
Author: Perumal Murugan
Translator (from Tamil): Aniruddhan Vasudevan
Publisher: Penguin Books
Publishing Date: 2014
No. of Pages: 240

Synopsis: 

Kali and Ponna’s efforts to conceive a child have been in vain. Hounded by the taunts and insinuations of others, all their hopes come to converge on the chariot festival in the temple of Maadhorubaagan, the half-female god. Everything hinges on the one night when rules are relaxed and consensual union between any man and woman is sanctioned. This night could end the couple’s suffering and humiliation. But it will also put their marriage to the ultimate test.

Title: Grimus
Author: Salman Rushdie
Publisher: Overlook Press
Publishing Date: 1982
No. of Pages: 319

Synopsis: 

’A mixture of science fiction and folktale, past and future, primitive and present-day . . . Thunderous and touching.’
Financial Times

After drinking an elixir that bestows immortality upon him, a young Indian named Flapping Eagle spends the next seven hundred years sailing the seas with the blessing — and ultimately the burden — of living forever. Eventually, weary of the sameness of life, he journeys to the mountainous Calf Island to regain his mortality. There he meets other immortals obsessed with their own stasis and sets out to scale the island’s peak, from which the mysterious and corrosive Grimus Effect emits. Through a series of thrilling quests and encounters, Flapping Eagle comes face-to-face with the island’s creator and unwinds the mysteries of his own humanity. Salman Rushdie’s celebrated debut novel remains as powerful and as haunting as when it was first published more than thirty years ago.

‘A book to be read twice . . . [Grimus] is literate, it is fun, it is meaningful, and perhaps most important, it pushes the boundaries of the form outward.’
Los Angeles Times (Source: Goodreads)

Title: Water
Author: Ashokamitran
Translator (from Tamil): Lakshmi Homstrom
Publisher: Heinemann Educational
Publishing Date: 1993
No. of Pages: 95

Synopsis: 

Ashokamitran was born in Andhra Pradesh, India, in 1931. One of the country’s most highly regarded writers in Tamil, he is the author of numerous short stories, novellas and several novels.

It is the summer of 1969. In the middle of the worst drought seen in Madras in many years, Jamuna is struggling to hold together the threads of a life on the point of crumbling. Seemingly friendless, manipulated by her love, scorned by her sister Chaya for her emotional weakness, Jamuna soon finds herself in the depths of despair. Water is a modern classic, a curiously cool reflection on the chaos of life in the city.