Book Review: The Inheritance of Loss

Written by Kiran Desai, set in 1986 India, The Inheritance of Loss follows the lives of a retired Judge, his teen granddaughter and their cook living in Kalimpong, a small town in the Himalayas, and the cook’s son, Biju who has moved to America in search of employment.

Though the blurb was passive and wasn’t particularly interesting, the title The Inheritance of Loss caught my attention. While the book is slow-paced and doesn’t have much of a story, it feels real. The writing is gritty and raw, it's like watching the characters come alive in front of your eyes and you end up observing them as a helpless bystander in an unfortunate incident. The book’s obvious themes are cultural identity, nationality, and the loss of identity. Through every character, Kiran Desai erected such an accurate depiction of post-colonial Indians, the ones standing on the flimsy line between India and the west. Despite being set in 1980s India, the characters and the setting is still very relevant to current Indians, who are either too Indian or too anglicised to be Indians.

All the characters have inherited the loss, the loss of being from a poor, conflicted country which was brought to that condition, by years of colonisation and ruthless exploitation. The looting of a nation and its people’s identity.

The judge, shunned and buried his Indianness long ago, and assimilated into his coloniser’s culture but was never truly accepted. Yet, the Judge hates everything about his country. He was a brute to his wife, tortured her, and turned her into a lifeless being, as she reminded him of that very Indianness he tried to escape from. The Judge shows no remorse for all the cruelty he has imparted on his wife, his child, and many others, but has a deep love and bond with his dog, Mutt. The Judge, tolerates his granddaughter, as she’s anglicised and doesn’t have anything Indian in her. The judge has lost his identity, he’s neither English nor Indian.

Sai, his granddaughter, studied in a convent before her parents died. Sai has lived with her grandfather for 10 years now. She was fine in her little world with the judge, the cook, and her neighbours, till she meets Gyan. He is her tutor and she falls for him. She questions her identity, living in India and never truly experiencing what it's like to be an Indian.

The cook, worked for the judge for years and lives in the only hope that his son is leading a great life in America. Biju, the cook’s son who illegally immigrates to America lives a battered life, working for low wages, living in kitchen dungeons and being treated like a miscreant. Biju doesn’t understand his purpose in New York or why is working to death, in a faraway country for meagre money. Biju worked for many restaurants in New York City, put up with the mistreatment and he wishes to see his father desperately. He inherited the loss, the loss of being poor.

Through the several other characters, Desai shows the many ways people have inherited the loss. The social status, caste, wealth, poverty and mostly the loss of identity. The book will impact you with its gripping and poignant writing, evoking a sense of sadness, because of the loss, that was inherited by generations of Indians that is still being passed on.