“The Indigo Sun” by Rupa Bhullar

I found “Indigo Sun” by Rupa Bhullar to be, like the curate’s egg in the famous phrase,  “good in parts.” It captured effectively the smells and sounds of Rajasthan and gave you an in-depth account of life there, but the story was slow off the blocks. Also, I could not reconcile myself as a reader to what I felt were some glaring anomalies. The character of Maya was well sketched and totally believable. But that little fellow Ananda, the son of a watchman in a hotel! How on earth did he get so much wisdom from being an uneducated boy. I could not believe that someone like him could hold forth on so many subjects under the sun. I found those parts quite boring. 

The story is of Maya, a successful psychiatrist in New York who has so many worldly possessions yet finds something missing in her life. Her quest for an answer brings her to Jaipur, the fabled Pink City in Rajasthan, India where she had lived as a child many years ago. She retraces some of the steps she took in those far away days and re-connects in the process with aged relatives she had only heard off. She recalls her childhood here before her father passed away suddenly bringing their world crashing down. Her mother then had managed to migrate to the United States with little Maya, thanks to the assistance of her brother. Maya had over the years done well in her new environment  and had met with considerable success.

Her interactions with Pia her old friend from her college days were entertaining and true to life but her meetings with the mysterious gypsy enchantress Leela who was more imaginary than real seemed rather far fetched to me.

The story tends to meander and did not hold my attention as a consequence. If you like fast paced stories, this one is not for you. However, if you like books that are very descriptive and well-written but short on a plot, you might enjoy this. Of course, you need to be interested in philosophy to some extent to derive the best from out of the book.

At over 280 pages, I found it to be too long, perhaps because it did not consistently grab and hold my attention  as a reader.