The guru of love - Upadhyay, Samrat
Summary: A math teacher and tutor earning a low wage and living in a small apartment with his wife and children, Ramchandra becomes involved in an illicit affair with one of his students, Malati, a beautiful, impoverished young new mother. - (Baker & Taylor)
Booklist Reviews
Upadhyay demonstrated his considerable gifts for depicting the dynamics of place and the complexities of relationships in his standout short story collection, Arresting God in Kathmandu [BKL Ag 01]. In his utterly absorbing first novel, he continues in this vein, depicting Kathmandu in a time of escalating turmoil as poor rural Nepalese swell the population, Hindi holidays stretch tight budgets, and students and workers agitate for a democratic government. Math teacher Ramchandra earns so little he must tutor private students to support Goma, his sweet-natured, once well-off wife, and their two adolescent children. His growing frustration over his persistent poverty and his in-laws' stinging contempt are taking their toll, as is his attraction to a student, the beautiful and very poor unwed mother Malati. Once the epitome of discipline and self-sacrifice, Ramchandra falls hard for Malati, wreaking havoc at home. After a period of anguished separation, his forgiving wife returns and insists that Malati and her baby join their struggling household. Goma's all but cosmic compassion, wisdom, and love form the gravity that holds this precarious universe together as Upadhyay's lucent and tender storytelling gently unveils the strange interplay between self and family, the private and the political, and most mysteriously, the erotic and the spiritual. ((Reviewed November 1, 2002)) Copyright 2002 Booklist Reviews
