Have you seen a crystal ball that reflects everything around it in multiple images? Sadiqa Peerbhoy’s House of Discord is exactly this multi-mirrored ball that she dangles adroitly in the middle of Mumbai city throwing up reflections of what one loves and regrets of that great Indian business centre.
As I made inroads into the Peerbhoy’s tale of the Deshmukh family with its multi-layered plot and subplots, Colleen McCollough’s The Thornbirds profiling the dysfunctional Cleary family came to mind. Peerbhoy’s character delineation is as smooth as silk draping the reader in its emotional rigours, suddenly catching him unawares on a roller coaster ride of impassioned highs and lows. Not just that, the author has the skill of evoking compassion for even the nastiest of her protagonists. Whether it is the autocratic matriarch or the spineless father, she deftly reveals a facet in them that incites the reader’s admiration. In that respect, I found her characters true to life…absolutely, naturally human.
I cannot say enough about her ingenious sketches of the house as well as the vibrancy of Mumbai, past and present. I could actually visualize the house in my mind’s eye…one of the many charming yet sadly dilapidated sprawling villas that dot the backyards of Mumbai’s modern high rises. In fact, the house itself is the chief protagonist of Peerbhoy’s tale. There is even a ghost residing in it lending a heart-breaking poignancy to its eventual, relentless demise. The backdrop of Mumbai or Bombay culture; an erstwhile unified patchwork of communities, religious tolerance, easygoing socializing, focus-only-on-business attitude being forcibly converted into a violent, insular, bigoted society is painted in bold colours on her canvas. The discordance in the lives lived within the Barrot House echoes the discordance outside it.
Command over language and its proficient use to full potential is another signature of this author. I must mention how much I enjoyed her brilliantly original metaphors and idioms. They were so pleasurable that I would go back and reread the sentences to fully relish their flavour.
Even-paced, the tale never flags and there always another exciting incident around the corner to keep the reader constantly on the edge. Still, I wish the English son who enters quite late into the family portrait had something more to contribute than just his presence.
The House of Discord shelters not just any family; its distinctive, idiosyncratic members wheedle into your heart, get under your skin and wield the power to live in your mind long after their tale ends. I hope I shall have the opportunity to enjoy many more enthralling epistles from the abundantly creative pen of author Sadiqa Peerbhoy in the near future.
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