Crane's Morning - Hardcover

Aikath-Gyaltsen, Indrani

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0345383664 ISBN 13: 9780345383662

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1994

Synopsis

In the Indian village of Mohurpukur, Vikran Sen, a noted playwright recently released from a Calcutta prison, enters the life of an eccentric, traditional family

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

A beautifully rendered second novel (Daughters of the House, 1993) set in a remote Indian Shangri-La that--like the best of fables--limns a time of benevolent transformation. When Vidya, a woman of great insight, wakes to see a flock of cranes ``weaving their patterns'' in the sky over Mohurpukur, she knows that change is on the way. As she tells her beloved nephew, the eccentric but intuitively sympathetic Kunal, whom she raised and in whose home she now lives, ``the shuttle goes backwards and forwards, much the same year after year, and then the pause, like a hand wavering over a work basket looking for a new color to thread into the fabric of our days.'' And change begins that very morning as Kunal, the last of the great Kushari men, meets a starving and troubled stranger, Vikram Sen--a well-known playwright and the putative agent of change--who has just been released from prison after serving a brief sentence for his part in his wealthy wife's suicide. The Kushari family are also troubled: Gargi, who married Kunal on the rebound, mourns her lost love; Kunal regards himself as a failure in everything--from his work as a college principal to his role as a father; daughter Pia is terrified of Miss Bose, her bullying teacher; and old Miss Kushari worries that she will have to sell her Big House. Kunal feeds Vikram and directs him to the Big House, where Vikram finds work and unexpected happiness. Soon old secrets are revealed, the wicked routed, goodness rewarded, and true love found at last: perhaps too many easy happy endings, but then this is essentially a fable about the people who live in a wondrous place ``that distilled happiness and restored souls.'' Wisdom gently deployed in luminous prose: a story Indian in setting but universal in its appeal to the human heart. A distinguished accomplishment. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Booklist:

Aikath-Gyaltsen's newest novel is sunnier than her last, the tempestuous Daughters of the House. It takes place in the tiny village of Mohurpukur and revolves around the somewhat eccentric Kushari family. Kunal is the only male. Gentle and bumbling, but intuitive and pure, he had aimed for the peaceful simplicity of bachelorhood but, ever chivalrous, married his distant cousin Gargi when her mysterious city beau broke off their engagement. Gargi and Kunal have an uneasy relationship that they neglect in favor of caring for their three young daughters. Everything is in stasis when the story begins, and everyone is short on money and dreams. Change arrives in the handsome form of a stranger named Vikram Sen, who promptly informs Kunal that he has just been released from prison. Kunal's aunt Kanan judges Vikram a good risk and allows him to move into her crumbling but grand Big House. Everyone is pleased until he and Gargi meet. As this little drama plays itself out, it becomes an almost magical tale of reconciliation. Not to say that there's anything shallow here; on the contrary, Aikath-Gyaltsen possesses a sort of X-ray vision into the heart, an unerring vividness of language, and a quietly wicked sense of humor. Donna Seaman

About this edition

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0345383664
• ISBN 13: 9780345383662
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 243