TGIF!

In every Ocean of difficulty, lies an Island of
opportunity.

I have just completed reading a Vikram Seth novel, a novel I started last week. The story is set in the formative years of India post Independence, and revolves around a Mother's search for a suitable boy for her daughter and along the way the stories of various families whose paths intersect. The book includes an enormous cast of characters but each of them are easliy distinguishable from each other The book is deftly written but very lengthy.

I was very impressed with the way Seth has gotten into the skin of each of his characters from toddlers to teenagers, from the middle aged to the old.. After reading the book I feel like I have gotten to know all the members of the various families so well. One difficulty I faced was properly understanding the 'Ghazals' even though the urdu poetry was translated. Some of his other works include 'Golden Gate' and 'An Equal Music'.

Seth now lives in Salisbury, England. He was born in Kokalta and interestingly the novel 'Suitable Boy' is set around the time he was born. Seth studied PPE(Politics, Philosophy and Economics) from Oxford and spent 11 years at Stanford and failed to get his Phd. He has just launched his 'Two Lives' published by Time Warner.