A Town Like Ours

Kavery Nambisan

Aleph,242 pages, Rs 395

In Pingakshipura, the water is a poisonous black colour and the hair on every child’s head is white. The setting is a village-turned-town like many others in India, where every life hides a story. Reclining on her thin mattress in a room at the corner of the temple, Rajakumari, a retired whore and long-time resident, shares some of these tales. Saroja and Sampathu are unlikely lovers who have both fled scenes of murder. Kripa and Manohar are a childless couple discovering something new about each other after long years of marriage. Lectric Mamu has been injured by the infidelity of the one woman who is immune to his charms. Then there’s Gundumani, the boy with the crooked leg, his almost-sister Rukmini, and a temple priest who birthed the town’s new divinity—Sugandha Enterprises. This is Nambisan’s seventh novel.