The Sari Shop

"The Sari Shop is written by Rupa Bajwa and is nowhere near as well known as the other books I have chosen. Most people in India haven’t even heard of it. But it is a great book and puts you in touch with something that’s very Indian and very universal at the same time. This is the story of a poor young man, a sari shop assistant in a big Indian city, who spends his days unfolding and folding saris for his boss. He has his hopes and dreams and longings and these give color to his life. They are not realized and yet he survives the destruction of his dreams. The Sari Shop follows in the footsteps of Godaan in the way that it reveals certain truths about India. It makes you understand what it means to be poor and without prospects in a city. It’s about not having a future, and the desires and the longings of being without a future. And yet it is a profoundly hopeful book even though there are some moments where it’s very cruel. But unlike Godaan, it is written in English. It is about urban India but not about middle-class English-speaking or bilingual India — and that is very difficult to do in English. I tried it in a story called “Hope” which is based on the true stories of five people that I met on the streets of Delhi. I know just how difficult it is to find the right words in English for something that happens or is told to you in Hindi. But Rupa Bajwa pulls it off brilliantly and you forget that you are reading something that is not happening in English. She goes beyond translation and that’s a real achievement."