A Matter of Time by Shashi Despande

A Matter of Time by Sashi Deshpande
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It is challenging, yet fun, to read Shashi Deshpande’s novels – it’s like solving a crossword puzzle. Characters pop in at random with no explanation as to their status. I ended up drawing a genealogical chart to keep track of the myriad relationships.
This is archetypal Deshpande – a couple of extended dysfunctional families blundering through life with their individual foibles and skeletons from musty old cupboards tumbling out.
She writes with a lyrical beauty

Everything grows wild here, nothing is scaled down to a cultivated prettiness. The bougainvillaea has become a monster parasite clinging passionately to its neighbour, the akash mallige, cutting deep grooves in its trunk, as if intent on strangulating it. But high above, the two flower together amicably, as if the cruelty below is an event of the past, wholly forgotten. The champak seems to have no relation to the graceful tree that grows in other people’s yards. Grown to an enormous height, its flowers can neither be plucked nor seen, but the fragrance comes down each year like a message that it is flowering time again. The branches of the three mango trees are so tangled together it is as if they have closed ranks to protect the walls of the house, which remain damp, months after the rains.

It goes on this way, graphically evoking the ambience of a neglected garden around a hoary old mansion.

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