Alphabet Soup for Lovers

I guess it is quite natural for a foodie to indulge in a novel that features food in it though I cannot quite decide whether to call Anita Nair’s Alphabet Soup for Lovers (2015), a lovestory couched within a book on comfort foods or a book on comfort foods with a love story. She intertwines love, zest for life and memories in a novel set in a tea plantation in Anamalai Hills. 

The novel is narrated by Komathi, a maid who has been Lena’s family from the time she was a girl. Though she was a fiery brat in childhood, Lena  settles down into a quiet life with KK, her civil lawyer husband. However, Komathi is unhappy with the placid kind of relationship that Lena shares with KK. 

Lena chooses to marry KK precisely for the reason that she is not in love with him. They are childless as Lena lost a baby in an ectopic pregnancy. To while away her time, she teaches the children in the tea plantation creche. The entry on inji shows her attitude to the young couple, which she says is too placid for a couple in their late thirties.

The turning point in their lives is the arrival of Shoola Pani, a celebrated South Indian filmstar into their lives. He comes to stay in one of the vacation homes owned by the couple. Shoola Pani is a superstar and wants a break from his busy schedule. He shaves off his well groomed hair so that he will not be recognised during his holiday. 

During their first meeting, both Lena and Shoola Pani are completely repulsed by each other. Shoola Pani is shocked to realise that Lena is not bothered by his celebrity status and Shoola Pani dislikes the fact that she has recognised him. However, within a week he starts walking with her to the church cemetery in the hills.  The place becomes Arcadia and they become Lee and Ship to each other, whom she names after the proverbial phrase for strangers in love- “ships that pass in the night”. 

Komathi looks at Lena and recognises what she is up to and she remembers her own youth when she was in love with Rayar, a Marathi worker in the tea plantation. It was Lena who had caused him to go away much to Komathi’s heartbreak. 

She remembers the comfort food of thayir with rice she used to have when he went away or the wendiyum rice that Lena’s mother fed her when she lost her baby. Lena can stand the indifference that is part of her marriage but not her vulnerability when in love. 

In this well written and ingeniously woven novel, Anita Nair celebrates food and life and  the many interconnections between them. The book definitely made me crave for it to last a little longer. 


Pics: From the novel

Chain of Custody (2016)

It was only in February that I read Anita Nair’s Alphabet Soup for Lovers, which was quite a memorable one. In her recently released Chain of Custody , the second of her Inspector Gowda novels after Cut Like Wound, she portrays the city of Bengaluru ridden with corruption, violence and child trafficking.

Inspector Gowda is shown to be a maverick in his investigation methods,  passion for his Royal Enfield and for the women in his life. Along with his assistants Santhosh and Ratna, he sets out to solve the case of a missing girl Nandita, his maid’s daughter.

A young girl Rekha is coerced into being an escort to a rich man by her boyfriend Sid. She lies to her family and discovers herself to be in danger when this rich doctor is found murdered the next day. She breaks down completely without having a soul to breath her troubles to.

Nandita goes to school and on her way back visits a church. She is kidnapped by child traffickers and brought to a brothel. There are others, both boys and girls, molested and killed by their abusers. She cries for help and there comes an angel in the form of a stranger.

An MLA is found to be a paragon of virtue as he had married his handicapped girlfriend. The two are an ideal couple but she finds out his secret phone conversations and interest in young girls. She decides to take action and searches all his files to find out who he really is.

Connecting these three parallel stories is the city of Bengaluru, where anything is possible according to Inspector Gowda. His case is solved in a gestalt moment when his son brings in a friend Suraj who happens to be Rekha’s brother.

The novel portrays a disgusting world of child trafficking , where children around the age of twelve are nabbed in clear daylight and later finished off after being sexually exploited. Written in a very racy style, the book keeps the reader on edge and is a good read a la the stories of Feluda, our good old Indian Sherlock Holmes.