OF RUMOURS LIVED AND TOLD

• On a lazy Sunday afternoon after a lunch of succulent pork and chilled beer Andrea settles down with her uncle and aunt to retell family stories of Akkai a Roman Catholic nun (and Andrea’s great-aunt) who died under mysterious circumstances. • This gets Andrea thinking about the lives of the other nuns in the family – like bold and brassy salsa-dancing great-aunt Deidre who left the convent to be the Principal of a college; others soft and steely like Akkai and the don-like Stella Marie a nursing superintendent. • Andrea realizes these women have played a large part in the architecture of her childhood in the Mangalorean Catholic community of Bangalore. • As she talks to family members about the nun-aunts Andrea unearths some peculiar and quirky aspects. Through whispered stories in the family she comes to appreciate the porous convent walls the nun-aunts and the family navigate. • But she also encounters unexpected reticence from some of the family whose memories of the nun-aunts are somewhat differently textured. • This richly human memoir tells the story of how a young girl finds her way through a flood-tide of recollections and emotion to navigate the tricky shoals of family ties in an effort to bring closure to the family past.