The Hero's Walk - Hardcover

Badami, Anita Rau

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1565123123 ISBN 13: 9781565123120

Publisher: Algonquin Books, 2001

Synopsis

In a small town by the Bay of Bengal in India, Sripathi Rao, a headstrong man and disenchanted copywriter, lives in his crumbling ancestral home, uncomfortably aware of the encroaching modern world. Then, early one morning, Sripathi is awakened by a call from Canada: his long-estranged daughter and her husband have been killed in a car accident. Their surviving seven-year-old child, Nandana, is about to become his reluctant ward. Yet Nandana has never met her grandfather, has never been to India, and hasn't spoken a word since the tragedy.

With The Hero's Walk, Anita Rau Badami ushers us into the colorful lives of the Rao family: Nirmala, Sripathi's frustrated but dutiful wife; Ammayya, his miserly and eccentric mother; his sister, Putti, unmarried and in her forties, still dreaming of love; and Arun, his only son, an unemployed environmental crusader. When Sripathi brings Nandana to India, life suddenly changes for the entire family. Small, silent Nandana, in fact, may be the one person who can bring harmony into the house and hope back into her grandfather's life.

Steeped in the colors, customs, and sensuality of India, The Hero's Walk is a moving story that shows the potential for heroism in the small acts of ordinary people. It presents a family in all its messy, glorious contradictions with insight, humor, and compassion. And it marks the arrival of a gifted writer of uncommon talent and heart.

About this title

Review:

The Hero's Walk, the second novel by Anita Rau Badami, is a big, intimate book, the kind that seldom strays beyond the doors of a single residence. Set in the sweltering streets of Toturpuram, a small city on the Bay of Bengal, The Hero's Walk, which won the 2001 Commonwealth Writers Prize for best book in Canada and the Caribbean, explores the troubled life of Sripathi Rao, an unremarkable, middle-aged family man and advertising copywriter.

As The Hero's Walk opens, Sripathi's life is already in a state of thorough disrepair. His mother, a domineering, half-senile octogenarian, sits like a tyrant at the top of his household, frightening off his sister's suitors, chastising him for not having become a doctor, and brandishing her hypochondria and paranoia with sinister abandon. It is Sripathi's children, however, who pose the biggest problems: Arun, his son, is becoming dangerously involved in political activism, and Maya, his daughter, broke off her arranged engagement to a local man in order to wed a white Canadian. Sripathi's troubles come to a head when Maya and her husband are killed in an automobile accident, leaving their 7- year-old daughter, Nandana, without Canadian kin. Sripathi travels to Canada and brings his granddaughter home, while his family is shaken by a series of calamities that may, eventually, bring peace to their lives. --Jack Illingworth

From the Inside Flap:

In a small, dusty Indian town near the Bay of Bengal, a middle-aged man lives in his crumbling ancestral home, uncomfortably aware of the encroaching modern world. Sripathi Rao's life hasn't turned out the way he thought it would: his job as a copywriter is unrewarding; his old widowed mother nags him; his unmarried forty-one-year-old sister is on the verge of sexual combustion; his only son resists gainful employment; and his silently resentful wife blames him for the estrangement of their daughter, who lives in Canada.

Then tragedy strikes: Sripathi's daughter and her husband have been killed in a car accident. Their seven-year-old child, Nandana, is about to become Sripathi's reluctant ward. Yet Nandana has never met her grandfather, has never been to India, and hasn't spoken a word since the tragedy. When Sripathi brings Nandana to India, life suddenly changes for everyone in the family, and the worn threads of Sripathi's world begin to unravel. Small, silent Nandana may be the one person who can bring harmony into the house and hope back into her grandfather's life.

Steeped in the colors, customs, and sensuality of India, The Hero's Walk presents a family in all its messy, glorious contradictions. With insight, humor, and compassion, The Hero's Walk shows the potential for heroism in ordinary lives.

About this edition

• Publisher: Algonquin Books
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1565123123
• ISBN 13: 9781565123120
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 359