Product Description

At 52, Shiv Murthy is a New Delhi professor of history. He leads a mild, unremarkable life until, while his wife is away, things spin out of control. First, the young and passionate daughter of an old friend breaks her leg and moves in with him. Even as he struggles to care for Meena and ignore his increasing attraction to her, a group of religious extremists challenges one of his lessons on medieval India. His instinct is to apologize, but the voice inside his head keeps asking: “Do you imagine an ordinary man cannot be a hero?” The decision he makes will prompt readers to ask themselves the same question.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1127379 in Books
• Published on: 2004-08-10
• Released on: 2004-08-10
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 7.99" h x .59" w x 5.22" l, .53 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Thoughtful and perceptive, this novel by a young Indian writer-her first to be published here (her debut novel, The Thousand Faces of Night, won the Commonwealth Prize for first fiction)-suggests provocative parallels between life in contemporary New Delhi and the U.S. Its main issue is the militant attempt by religious fundamentalists to revise a historical event. The man who unwittingly sets this uproar in motion is diffident and naive Shiv Murthy, a 53-year-old history professor at a correspondence college. An extremist group accuses Shiv of anti-Hindu bias because of his lesson about the 12th-century poet and social reformer Basavanna, who campaigned for citizen equality and called for the end of the caste system. The media sensationalize the dispute, hate mail pours in and violent protests occur on both sides. These unsettling events come at a time when Shiv's personal life has acquired a new dimension. His 24-year-old ward, Meena, who has broken her leg, is recuperating in Shiv's home, and Shiv's wife is away. In addition to the sexual feelings she arouses in Shiv, Meena introduces him to young political activists who take up his cause. The university, meanwhile, withdraws his syllabus and pressures him to issue a public apology. Shiv's moral crisis brings back memories of his father, a social reformer who disappeared when Shiv was a boy, but whose lessons about personal courage still resonate. While the narrative poses important questions, it lacks dramatic tension. Meena's presence in Shiv's home feels too convenient, while Shiv's largely reactive personality is colorless, even when he does make a decision to attempt "a raggedy bit of heroism." Still, Hariharan succeeds in illuminating the siege-like mentality that exists when extremists set the agenda for intellectual culture.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Historian Shiv Murthy enjoys the intellectual challenge and the serenity of his work writing lesson booklets for a New Delhi correspondence university, an existence rendered all the more meditative this summer because of his wife's sojourn in Seattle with their grown daughter. But his tranquility is short-lived. Meena, a 24-year-old student and political activist whose out-of-town parents asked Shiv to be her "local guardian," has broken her knee and needs a place to stay. Shiv is utterly unprepared for the cosmic impact this bright, zealous, independent, and voluptuous young woman has on him, particularly after his frankly human interpretation of the life of Basava, a revered twelfth-century Hindu poet and revolutionary, enrages a fundamentalist religious group and puts his career in jeopardy. With entrancing grace and adept distillation, Hariharan orchestrates a bittersweet time of siege and a piquant season of awakening as she considers the persistent significance of the past, the toxicity of dogma, and the inseparability of the personal and the political. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
“A heady mix of myth, modern mores, politics and lust. . . . Heartbreakingly funny, moving and as relevant as today’s headlines.”—The Washington Post

“Githa Hariharan’s fiction is wonderful—full of subtleties and humor and tenderness.” –Michael Ondaatje

“If this premise seems to be drawn from the headlines of modern, B.J.P.-dominated India, Hariharan amplifies the themes of courage, dissent, and responsibility in her protagonist’s private life. . . . The result is an engaging portrait of the mild-mannered professor.” –The New Yorker

“Appealing. . . . By turns bewildered, titillated, embarrassed, and frightened out of his wits, Shiv makes a sweetly sympathetic hero for a story that is part comedy of manners, part comedy of ideas.”—The Boston Globe

"A modern fable . . . beautifully told in a spare style that is as modern as its subject."--The Baltimore Sun

"A witty, insightful novel . . . Hariharan tells the tale with a realistic grasp of how people interact and a highly evolved sense of the absurd." --The Seattle Times

“Intelligent . . . [Hariharan’s] deceptively simple prose belies the artistry of her phrasings and she writes with an infectious concern for her characters.” --San Francisco Chronicle

“Admirable. [Its] themes . . . extend beyond India or its current situation. They are universal. Ms. Hariharan has written a fine novel that leaves much to ponder long after its conclusion.” –The Richmond-Times Dispatch

“[Hariharan is] an outstanding writer.” –J. M. Coetzee

“Eloquently written . . . a quick read, and fascinating to any outsider. A modern book, it reads like a classic with gorgeous prose and intense conflict.” –The Oklahoma Gazette

"Imaginative . . . entertaining . . . [The] strength of this highly readable tale is that it is a delicate blend of humor, tenderness and insight." --Tucson Citizen

“Wonderful . . . Ms. Hariharan executes the vastness of India’s historical terrain, and the minutiae of one sagging human being finding a flicker of inspiration, with great dignity and intimate humor.” –The Asian Reporter

"Engrossing . . . re-establishes [Hariharan's] reputation as a deft storyteller." --India-West

“Hariharan captures Shiv’s besieged existence with just the right amount of angst, confusion, polemic and humour. Hariharan has written . . . [a] persuasive work that tells of the perils of sectarianism and silence in the face of oppression.” –Far Eastern Economic Review

“Hariharan writes with anguish, pain and anger about what is happening to our country. I put In Times of Siege on top of my list of books that must be read.” –Khushwant Singh in The Hindustan Times