The Inheritance of Loss (2006)

In ‘The Inheritance of Loss’ two things unravel: as one generation is physically displaced and emotionally dispossessed from their colonial inheritance, another generation is struggling to find its place in a post-colonial India, coming to terms with its history and place in the world hierarchy.

Kiran Desai’s second novel, ‘The Inheritance of Loss’ is set in Kalimpong, at the foot of the Himalayas. It’s the mid-1980s and everyone’s lives are about to get engulfed by a Nepalese uprising for an independent state.

Sai, a teenager propelled by circumstances to live with her embittered grandfather and his cook, is in love with Gyan, her Nepalese maths tutor. Cocooned by the majestic and sprawling landscape, Sai is shaken out of her self-absorbed reflections and wandering life to confront the realities of a betrayal – one that marks a turning point of her sense of ‘self’ and her way of life.

Jemubhai, Sai’s grandfather and a retired judge of the Indian Colonial Service, now spends his time with the ironically-named Mutt, his beloved dog, his sole companion. Sai’s arrival pushes him to retrace his personal history, confront his buried memories of his much-maligned wife Nimi and question the path he has chosen to take in life.

Sai and the judge are both looked after by the cook, fiercely loyal to the family he serves and never questioning the demands and standards expected of him. Caught between the protesters whose conditions he tries not to confront, and a master whose treatment is nothing short of ridicule and contempt, for me, he is the most tragic character in the novel.

Kiran Desai with her winning title
Image by Belinda Lawley © All rights reserved by TheManBookerPrizes

Biju, is the only child – and the only hope – of the cook. Having been given the ‘opportunity’ to make a better life for himself, as well as his father and his community, in the US, Biju lives a life of abject misery, moving from one menial job to another. He yearns to go back, but how will this changing India receive him?

Their neighbours Father Booty, uncle Potty and the ageing twins Lola and Noni are part of a coterie desperate to cling on to an old worldview, and its aesthetic and material constructs. They want the old India back and they also want old Britain back – but as both disappear, can they adapt?
The novel explores topical themes of migration, nationalistic sentiment in a post-colonial world, the rights of oppressed communities, the realities of political protest, the divisions of class and caste to name a few.

What really drew me to ‘The Inheritance of Loss’ is Desai’s keen sense of observation and razor-sharp sarcasm. Nothing really escapes her, whether it’s the first flush of a teenage romance, the unquestioning exuberance of a dog’s life or the raw ambition of those in line to get a visa to another promised land, the US. Desai won the 2006 Man Booker Prize for her novel – no mean feat!

Watch Desai talk about the novel:



© 2007MTA, YouTube

All these characters are facing the brunt of a shared history, and as they each try to cope with the changes around them, not one will escape unscathed. In a sense, they have all inherited and experienced loss, but their personal and passionate struggles to carve a place for themselves within an uncertain national reality is what will win them our compassion.

What next?

• Read Pankaj Mishra’s 2006 review of this novel in The New York Times
• Buy the book at Book Depository