em_beddedinbooks 's review for:

The Toss of a Lemon by Padma Viswanathan

4.0

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This is an epic saga of a Tamil Brahmin family spanning more than 3 generations. The story starts in the late 19th century with the child marriage of the main protagonist, Shivakami at the age of 9. She bears two children, the eldest a girl with magical element of shedding gold dust from her body whenever she is emotionally disturbed, the younger one a boy, who is supposed to have killed his father due to his bad horoscope. The story unfolds to show the difficulties Shivakami face in bringing up her children, her close alliance with her lower caste foreman Muchami, the gowing up and marriages of her two kids, their children and grand children. It also raises issues on the then main concerns of the country - the fight against untouchability, the impoverishement of the Brahmin race, Indian freedom struggle and the slow progressive changes coming into India. The saga ends in the 1960s after spanning nearly a century. It was an interesting read. As most South Indian Brahmin cultures are similar, I could identify with the incidents in the story to those I heard from my grandmothers. It was a nostalgic read. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the Indian culture of the nineteenth and twentieth century. Others may find this a bit boring.