Brahma's Dream by Shree Ghatage was a book I snatched out of a pile of stuff my sister was giving away last year, but she'd never gotten around to reading it herself, so she couldn't give me a preview.
Brahma's Dream is set in India just before it gains self-rule, and concerns the family of Mohini, a child whose serious illness dominates her life.
This is one of those middle-of-the-road books that was neither amazingly good nor offensively bad, and therefore I struggle to come up with much to say about it. That makes it sound bad, but it isn't--I enjoyed my time with it. I thought Ghatage did a good job with exploring life on the precipice of great political change, although the history and politics of 1940s India is more backdrop to the family drama than central to the story. I liked Mohini and her family; because the nature of her illness necessitates a lot of rest and down time, Mohini is naturally a thoughtful child, as her thoughts are sometimes all she has to amuse herself. However, she never crosses the line into being precocious, which was a relief.
Neither did I feel like the book leaned too hard on Mohini's illness to elicit sentimentality from the reader. Obviously, an illness like hers is the biggest influence on her life, and on the lives of her immediate family, and there are many moments you sympathize with her because she can't just be a child the way she wants to be, but I didn't feel like Ghatage was plucking heartstrings just for the sake of it.
Reading the relationships between Mohini and her family was heartwarming, especially with her grandfather, who takes great joy in Mohini's intellect and is often there to discuss the import of various societal events with her.
Ghatage's descriptive writing really brings to life the India of the time, with the colors, smells, sounds, and sights that are a part of Mohini's every day.
It reminded me of another book I read about a significant event in Indian history (the separation of India and Pakistan) told through the perspective of a young ill girl,
Cracking India.
On the whole, this was a sweet, heartfelt book. It's not heavy on plot, but if you enjoy watching the story of a family unfold and the little dramas that play out, it's enjoyable.
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