Gone with the vindaloo By Vikram Nair
Moving in time Gone with the Vindaloo is a tale with multiple intertwined stories that unfurl as the narrative progresses Read the complete review of Gone With The Vindaloo at Vikram Nair Positives Mouth watering descriptions the destined to cook storyline which rings true of dreams coming true simple narration that helps to interlink the many sub stories some humor realistic feelDidn t work Novel lacked pace the intermittent sex scenes didn t work and felt quite unneeded I wouldn t recommend it for every food lover but it s not a very bad novel for a debut Vikram Nair I was Intrigued by the name and expected a funny light read however it turned out to be quite a disappointment The story had a promising start and some great descriptions of food but was greatly hampered by the lack of a coherent storyline Intermittent and unnecessary sex scenes were also a bit of a downer The authors attempt at correlating dialogues and locations with Mitchell s Gone With The Wind could have been charming but fell flat due to the vast difference in subject matter and characterisation Vikram Nair Oh dear While I normally can pick up a local book at an international airport bookstore and come away with a little treasure that provides local insights and color this time I feel betrayed This is easily the worst book I have ever read The publishing house should be ashamed of itself for ever agreeing to publish this I can only conclude that this author was writing solely to please himself and maybe it s self published but then how did it get into an airport bookstore The writing style and construction were extremely hard on the reader Additionally it seems that the author never stopped to think that his book while written in English might be read by English speakers who do not also speak Hindi The entire book was splattered with Hindi words at least I assume they were Hindi but I suppose they could have been one of India s many other languages with no glossary and nothing in the context that would help a reader know what the author was talking about Really quite discourteous to the reader. I hung in there until the end and did find the last 30 or 40 pages to contain in interesting story but the first part of the book was in a word awful Vikram Nair Be prepared to order or want to cook Indian foods during this read Like food porn via words the food descriptions will leave you hungry every time With a bit of American war history and a parody on marketing and business it s a super colorful and magical read warning bodily functions abound so don t be feint of heart for fluids and flatulence Vikram Nair Kalaam a kathua by caste a spinner of yarn discovers by delicious accident that he has a god given flair for concocting the most delectable recipes a gift that he passes through his son Param to his grandson Pakwaan the true inheritor of his passion and talent It is Pakwaan s extraordinary rendition of the Vindaloo honed to mouth watering perfection that catches the fancy of everyone who tastes it including Svetlana a nirvana seeking Russo American who is convinced that this dish and its very exotic creator is the answer to the Western world s craving for all things exotic But what adventures await the starry eyed Pakwaan in the great US of A the promised land of possibilities Delightfully subversive and consistently irreverent this many layered debut serves up imperialism consumerism and packaged food in a whole new light. A rollicking ride through a century s worth of history Gone with the Vindaloo follows the lives times and exploits of 3 generations in a family of cooks Vikram Nair Gone With The Vindaloo Mohit Singla informed me was published at the time when Western publishers were just about discovering Indian authors and long before the Chetan Bhagat wave of literary madness too over our senses and therefore publishing sensibilities That s just a factoid for you it has nothing to do with the book or the review The first thing I will talk about is the language because that in itself is a double edged sword a dodharee talwar as Mr Nair would put it the language appeals immensely to native hindi speakers and will keep them amused It will though baffle everyone else and make this a disconcerting and off putting read for the non Hindi audience Not just non Indians mind you but non Hindi speakers Unlike Kevin Kwan who chose to include translations of Singaporese I coined that word to describe the multitude of dialects that are found in Kwan s books on every page of his Crazy Rich Asians trilogy to make them readable for a wider audience thereby ensuring a highly distracting read a lot of people tend to drop the first book and watch the movie instead because of this very reason Nair is clearly in no mood to appeal to anyone except the people who are ekdum desi and therefore will guffaw over the liberal inclusions of colloquial hindi phrases and Hinglish. Now let s talk story narrative pacing etc Toh plot yeh hai ki there s Pakwaan a young third generation cook who starts off with a wet dream that involves making Vindaloo thereby prompting his father Param the head cook in an important IAS bureaucrat s household into telling him the story of his grandfather and his cooking heritage Pretty much 2 3rds of the kitaab ka safar passes in this interspersed as it is with peeks into the present day and the people who make up Param s world The narrative then segues into the story of Svetlana and the American love affair with Indian Spirituality Gurus Rishikesh Swarg Ashram etc etc. 0 the original Vilayat being England the home country Thereon the epic tale of dreams starts to sour even as Nair skilfully writes his expose into America s obsession with consumerism and how they have a knack for idiot proofing everything for the sake of capturing mass market revenues The pace of the book is like a tonga ride that starts off slow while you adjust to the rhythm of cartwheels and clip clopping hooves and then the pace hastens until you realize that what for you has been a leisure ride to take in the sights is a journey the tonga wallah is keen to finish quickly because he has other things to do Like Gone with the Wind whose title the book bases its name on the book too ends on an ambivalent note and you don t quite know what to really make of it except that with all the food references you re hungry for dal roti and maybe some tikka and boti. It s a really well written and well edited book though and light hearted enough to while away time on a sunny wintery Sunday It s witty irreverent and the kind of hook you ll read once and then pass along to someone else saying ek baat toh padhiyo zaroor kaafi funny si hai But don t expect this one to find a permanent place on your bookshelves In the vein of some of Mr Nair s bawdier remarks the hook he wrote over a period of ten years is like Umrao Jaan Ada pleasant company to pass away time with but not biwi material Vikram Nair her palate luxuriated in the taste and sting of chilies and cinnamon the tartness of vinegar so deliciously rounded with the sweetness of gur the tang of mustard with the sweetness of onions is how Nair describes Vindaloo The book is filled with delicious notes like these interspersed with history and humor about the times of British Raj Good read I felt the characters could have done with a bit depth but on the whole totally enjoyed reading yet another yummy book which has been craving for food From biryani t Vindaloo this years reads aren t doing anything to my diet Vikram Nair
| Gone with the vindaloo By Vikram Nair |
| 9789350095898 |
| English |
| 312 |
| Paperback |
.. Additionally the book was filled with flashbacks and changes of scene without any line spaces or other punctuation that might clue the reader that there had been a change: So read on only if you re desi otherwise give this a miss, At the start of the last third of the book Param finds himself in America embarking on his dream of cooking Vindaloo for the firangis in what is referred to Vilayat 2