A review by kali
The Tiniest House of Time by Sreedhevi Iyer

4.0

This is a deeply immersive book, covering large political upheavals in Malaysia and Myanmar/Burma, portraying the experience of the exodus from Rangoon to Assam in the 1940s, and the reformasi protests in Kuala Lumpur in the 1990s. Huge crowd scenes are rendered in beautiful prose. But the heart of the book is by Grandmother Susheela's hospital bedside as her daughter Sandhya reads to her from the Gita in Tamil. They are connected by shared histories of love across religious divides. Two yolks from the same egg. Through their connection, Sandhya writes her grandmother's memories and stories, so that all who have lived will always live. That book, and this one, are the tiny houses of time where cultural, religious, language divisions dissolve, and we get a glimpse, a recognition of our shared humanity.