FAMILY

In Manju Kapurs emblematic new novel the seemingly tranquilwofid of a joint family is coming apart. Banwari Lal patriarch of a cloth business in the middle class New Delhi neighbourhood of Karol Bagh is a believer in the old ways. Men work; out of tlte home women within. Men carryforward the family line women enable their mission. His two sons unquestioningly follow their father in business and in life but their wives will not. Neither will his grand-daugltter who makes considered unavailable to the women of the family. With unswerving attention Kapur follows the members of this traditional family into the uneasy world they come to inhabit. From the frenetic sensory overload of modern urban India she construc.ts a story as intricate quiet and dazzling as the fabric produced by the family. Told in a sustained colloquial voice Home startling its sweep_and unerringly accurate in the bleakness and hope it presents.