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About
A moving and beautifully told story set in a the tumultuous days after the Partition of India and Pakistan, about a wrestling champion and a courtesan struggling to hold onto the world they knew amidst the eruptions of history.
In a ruined city after the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan in 1947, Ustad Ramzi is still famed as a wrestler of unparalleled strength and technique. But now Ramzi's power-if not his indomitable will-is on the wane, while his younger brother Tamami, unconcerned with traditions and hierarchy, hungers for immediate fame and glory at the risk of family honor.
The courtesan Gohar Jan was once celebrated throughout the country for her beauty and the seductive power of her singing, her salon thronged by nobles, rich men, and infatuated admirers. But the aging Gohar Jan's world is changing, too. Ustad Ramzi and Gohar Jan are both beloved paragons of a world that no longer exists, in a bewildering new reality indifferent to their art.
In a ruined city after the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan in 1947, Ustad Ramzi is still famed as a wrestler of unparalleled strength and technique. But now Ramzi's power-if not his indomitable will-is on the wane, while his younger brother Tamami, unconcerned with traditions and hierarchy, hungers for immediate fame and glory at the risk of family honor.
The courtesan Gohar Jan was once celebrated throughout the country for her beauty and the seductive power of her singing, her salon thronged by nobles, rich men, and infatuated admirers. But the aging Gohar Jan's world is changing, too. Ustad Ramzi and Gohar Jan are both beloved paragons of a world that no longer exists, in a bewildering new reality indifferent to their art.
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Reviews
"The book works like an ache in the heart, evoking cultures and values that, while not necessarily perfect, represented something larger than the self; their replacements, by contrast, are small and mean. The pages come alive with the grunts of the trainee pehelwans and capture the last echoes of Gohar Jan's sitar. A story that purports to be about decay resounds with the stuff of life. This is a
Forbes India