New World Raga
A pitch-perfect collection about Indian expats in America.
Karma and Other Stories, by Rishi Reddi (Harper Perennial; New York; 2007; 240 pages; $12.95)
By Magdalena Hernandez
Good artists hold a mirror up to nature, to reveal the contradictions of the human experience. Great artists know how to let the contradictions be, resisting the urge to whitewash or resolve them.
Straight out of the gate, short-story writer Rishi Reddi, L’92, demonstrates a great artist’s understanding in Karma and Other Stories, a confident, expressive debut collection.
Many of Reddi’s stories explore the dilemmas faced by Indian immigrants in America. Her characters have come to the United States—in many cases, the Boston area—to seize bigger opportunities. Under the author’s gaze, they both advance and lose in their pursuit of happiness.
The plots revolve around a number of conflicts: between East and West, men and women, the generations. Repeating themes underscore the isolation of individuals, the impossibility of knowing others. Again and again in the book, protagonists find themselves unmoored in America.
Testament to Reddi’s imagination and empathy, the strongest stories often boast characters least like her—a teenage boy, for instance, or an elderly man. Though the author spares none of her characters, detailing each with a sharp yet sympathetic eye, the follies and fates of all are compassionately chronicled.
Inevitably, some perish in their new land. Others hit serious dead ends. The title story’s description of migrating birds sums up the pervasive uncertainty: "Whole flocks get confused when they see city lights. Some die quickly when they slam into the sides of buildings and towers. Some spiral slowly down into the lighted area, lose their way, and are trapped among the buildings when daylight returns."
In addition to the exhausting confusions of immigrant life, the stories expose a basic disconnect between ordinary people. To suggest community, some of the stories are loosely linked—two characters from different stories are students of the same dance instructor, for instance. Even so, a sense of separation is the constant backdrop.
"Karma" contrasts siblings "as unlike each other as any two brothers could be." The elder, Shankar, is a struggling ex-professor just fired from a convenience-store job. His younger brother is a successful cardiologist. With the gap in wealth, in a reversal of cultural norms, the younger sibling is the head of household. When Shankar is cast out of the shared family home in Lexington, he and his wife struggle to stay afloat, until a penchant for rescuing injured birds leads him to a job that helps him atone for an earlier wrong.
The first story in the collection, the mordantly humorous "Justice Shiva Ram Murthy," offers another nuanced study of isolation. A seventy-year-old judge from Hyderabad, a recent arrival in Boston, thinks he’s ordered a bean burrito at a Back Bay fast-food joint. Instead, he bites into a tortilla filled with beef.
Outraged—he’s Hindu and therefore forbidden from eating beef—he considers suing the restaurant. As he stubbornly searches for legal redress, he comes to realize how little he knows about a childhood friend, a more experienced Indian émigré who had been his lunch companion that day.
Make no mistake: The self-absorbed judge is granted no epiphany or radical transformation. Reddi (who was herself born in Hyderabad—she now lives in Brookline with her husband and daughter) is too smart a writer to conjure such an easy ending. The close is less definitive, and more satisfying.
Other stories show other Indian Americans struggling against the mainstream. In "Devadasi," teenage Uma, the child of a former Raytheon v.p., visits India for the first time to attend a wedding. Uma may be an outsider, but she enjoys an enviable position in the social order of her parents’ native country. Nonetheless, her culture shock is deep. By the end of the tale, Uma is unsure about her place in either world.
"Lord Krishna" follows another teen, Krishna, who isn’t fitting in at an elite Wichita prep school. Ignorant football players label him "towel head." The pretty girls pay him no mind. He’s falling short of his successful father’s expectations.
Then one of Krishna’s teachers seems to intentionally disparage the boy’s namesake, a Hindu deity. The upset boy announces to his parents that he wants to change his name, causing his angry father to reassess his privileged position in Wichita society: "[H]e was a self-made millionaire; he belonged to the second–most exclusive country club in town; he lived in the same neighborhood as Henry Stone, president of Stone Industries, a Fortune 500 company. Why hadn’t all this money protected his family?"
Ultimately, Krishna figures out how to respond to his teacher. His resulting act of rebellion against his father is a lovely note, with none of the pat certainty a less-gifted writer might have dressed it with.
Reddi started writing fiction before attending law school at Northeastern. Even as a lawyer at the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, she would write at home in the mornings before leaving for the office. Reddi kept working in environmental law for ten years until she decided to quit the day job to devote more time to finishing this collection.
The resulting stories are immensely readable. Reddi is a gifted storyteller who knows how to construct compelling narratives. And every character detail rings true. From one character’s favorite snack to another’s cheap sandals, the pitch-perfect elements flesh out three-dimensional people.
We’re gratified when some of these characters break through their isolation to find a degree of redemption in their unfamiliar surroundings, by empathizing with those who are unlike them in background, perhaps, or by dancing, connecting with the natural world, or remaining true to their beliefs.
Reddi weaves all outcomes with a light hand, so that the reader never feels lectured or preached to. And the universality of the narratives is unmistakable. As is true for the best art, we can return to these stories over and over, to find new truths that startle, new issues to contemplate.
It’s a supremely entertaining book. What more could we ask of an artist?
Magdalena Hernandez, MBA’02, is a senior editor.
Bookmarks
You Can Do It! The Boomer’s Guide to a Great Retirement, by Jonathan D. Pond; HarperCollins; 2007
Every stage of the baby-boomer lifecycle thus far has been painstakingly documented. Why should retirement be any different?
From Jonathan D. Pond—a former lecturer in finance at Northeastern—comes this valuable handbook for people preparing for retirement, especially those born between 1946 and 1964. This cohort, the oldest members of whom turned sixty last year, accounts for about 26 percent of the U.S. population. The calendar and demographics are creating a perfect storm of reasons You Can Do It! may just fly out of bookstores.
Pond, a respected financial-planning expert, covers a great deal of ground, tackling such subjects as making investments, handling real estate,
paying for escalating health-care and college-education costs, and other age-appropriate matters.
Older readers may want to focus on the chapters about critical pre- and postretirement choices. Younger boomers will zero in on sections about retirement plans, investing, and preventing financial fiascoes.
Refreshingly, Pond emphasizes how to maximize your economic position, regardless of your salary level or 401(k) balances. Through this book, filled with worksheets and examples, he offers himself as a coach who can take you from good to great fiscal shape.
Less scolding than many other gurus in the personal-finance market (we’re looking at you, Suze Orman), Pond covers the essentials in a straightforward manner. Boomer readers will no doubt benefit from this user-friendly, upbeat guide.
It may even light a fire under Generation X. But perhaps that’s a topic for another book.