The Village by the Sea (A Puffin Book)

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Family is a powerful theme with different permutations and meanings in the text. Firstly, family is extremely important for providing comfort, succor, and support. Hari and Lila work together to take care of their parents and their siblings, and Hari's being away from them all for so long wears on him heavily. However, family can also be tough if certain members aren't doing their part. Father becomes a burden and a disgrace to the family because of his bad choices, and Mother, while completely innocent of wrongdoing or blame, is still a burden in the sense that she cannot do anything that a parent should do. Finally, Desai suggests that family does not simply have to be the people who share your DNA; rather, Mr. Panwallah (and Jagu to a lesser extent) functions as a family member to Hari and gives the boy what he needs to survive and thrive. Kindness of Strangers Recommendation: I strongly recommend this book to people who may have thought they are poor and something they do not have enough to live. Also, to foreigners especially who want to know more about India and about how the people live in India. I really appreciated about author’s writing style. She has a beautiful writhing skill, which is smooth and dainty. Thus, I felt I became Lila, and I felt all the feelings which Lila would felt about her family’s predicaments while I was reading. The next night there seems to be some festivities at the de Silva house. There is confetti, and the de Silva children and adults are all making merry until late at night. When Lila comes to sweep the next day, she notices heaps of wrapping paper on the floor. We learn that it is Christmas, a holiday Lila is unfamiliar with, although her sisters have heard of it at school. The de Silva children bring some candy for Lila and her siblings, and she tries to give one to Pinto, who is tied to a tree because the de Silva family is afraid he will bite their fancy purebred dog. Hari is washing the de Silvas' car as they prepare to leave. The celebrations are delightful and heartwarming for the family. Hari slips away for a moment during the preparations to see the man at the Mon Repos. He talks with him briefly about bird watching and suddenly realizes that he is Sayyid Ali, the impassioned speaker from Bombay. Ali is kindly like Mr. Panwallah but expresses sadness about the changes coming to Alibagh. Hari tells him what he is doing and Ali perks up, admiring Hari’s will to adapt. Lila visits the hospital weekly and is happy her father has quit drinking. The visits are hard but she is grateful to see her mother’s progress.

Village By The Sea is the perfect book for the lazy afternoons. It is a unique blend of descriptions and a good story of hope, despair, poverty and how life can change with the simplest of things. The narrative was believable because none of the changes were really drastic or magical but it left the reader with a positive feeling. The story shall remain etched for long in my mind because of the way it connected. I will give it a near perfect rating despite the flaws I have pointed out because ultimately it won my heart in the poignant way it brought to life a little village called Thul, much like how Malgudi once captured my heart. There is no comparison between the geniuses of both but Desai's characters Lila, Hari, Bela, Kamal, Mr. Panwallah are similar to people I have met in life, who seem like people I know personally because her words brought them to life. And for that, she receives my wholehearted applause.

Angus Macdonald, Development Advisor, added: “We are not trying to build a city centre development; we will be creating a waterside village. The launch in September was a real celebration of both the history of Mount Wise and its future. Hari is the only boy in the village with no boat and no fishing job. The fishing fleet comes in, and the women wait on the shore anxiously, carrying baskets; the fishermen begin to loudly auction off the fish. A large woman wins the auction and takes a large basket of fish. A tonga-driver comes, and there is another auction to see who will get to ride with him.

They return home to eat a mollusk and chili curry. Their father has gone to the toddy shop to drink all night with the other village drunkards. Later, their father comes home with the other drunk men, who waste the lantern oil and laugh loudly as they find their way home in the dark. All the dogs wake up and howl. The noise frightens Lila. Hari hopes their father steps on a viper and dies. Their father lurches into the hut and passes out in their mother’s room. The house is silent, “full of fear and anger and nightmares.” Chapter 2 years old Lila and her brother, 12 year old Hari live with their younger siblings Bela and Kamal and their parents in the village of Thul near Bombay. Their mother is anaemic and malnourished and therefore bed-ridden, their father is an alcoholic who frequents the local toddy shops. Phil Burgess, Group Director of The Architects Design Group, said: “Mount Wise is a very special place with a unique collection of Georgian buildings set in a remarkable landscape in the heart of an urban area. Our challenge has been to integrate new buildings into this setting in a manner that will enhance and not detract from the beauty of the place. In their hut, the sisters express their gratitude for the Mon Repos visitor, who was not driven away by the monsoon and who could pay them so they could eat. However, they miss their parents and Hari. Lila thinks he may return when the monsoon is over, during Diwali. Chapter 11 Even though Shahani writes mostly of Baumgartner’s Bombay (1988) , The Village by the Sea can be viewed in a similar light. She says, “Desai's Baumgartner's Bombay is neither Baumgartner's Bombay nor Desai's; in fact, the Eliotian nihilism of the Unreal City finds its hollow echo in Desai's rendition of Bombay, even more than in her earlier novel, Voices in the City, set in Calcutta. Her novels are peopled with ‘isolated singular figures’ says Rushdie referring to the protagonists in Fire on the Mountain and Clear Light of Day [Rushdie 1988-91:71]. Baumgartner, an exiled Jew, epitomises the exiled psyche at its most lonesome. The city in Desai's novel becomes a metascape that projects the inner climate of the mind. For Baumgartner, the crowds and the clamour of Colaba Causeway represent the ‘mainstream,’ ‘leaving so little space for him.’” Again, though she is talking about Baumgartner, it is not a stretch to see Hari in this description of “an isolated singular figure.”

Lila and Hari are the oldest children in a poor family. They live in Thul, a small fishing village located next to the sea in a rural region of India. The family has not always been poor, but fell into bad fortune when the children’s father paid a large sum of money to a man who promised to get him a job in Mumbai. However, the man lied to him and disappeared with the money. After the incident, the father fell into a deep despair and began drinking and neglecting the family. He does not earn a living, but borrows money from the neighbors to buy alcohol. Anita Desai writes about things she knows and things she does not, in the book, 'The Village by the sea'. Things she knows, Mumbai, wealth, how to sell Indian culture and the colors of India. What she does not know (among other things), poverty, what people who have no money are thinking, daily life.