This one’s a romp! It starts from a dog’s eye view of the bustle of a New Delhi railway station then pans out to reveal a colourful cast of characters (human and animal), a fast-paced plot, and a tragi-comic take on the city and the Indian nation. It’s so filmic, so Bollywood and so much fun.
Tasmanian author Polly McGee keeps the sights, sounds, smells and sensations coming right at you so you could easily be one of the pack dogs, monkeys aloo-paratha-stuffed dowager aunties, rickshaw drivers, chai wallahs and other odd bods swarming through the city streets.
You’re right there when Poona feeds and treats the wounds of the city’s pariah dogs on Kamla Nehru Ridge; when the (gloriously named) civic figure, Pushpant Godboley, declares war on the dogs and rampant monkeys; and when the hungry news hound Sita realises the potential of footage that confirms that the one-eared dog Rocky saved a woman from rape.
You’ll also cringe at the lecherous behaviour of a civil servant, rue the despair of a suicidal housewife, marvel at the arrogance of a megalomaniac monkey and applaud the wit of a female journalist.
So strap yourself in for a rollicking good ride!
Lowly Weed
Into this swirling maelstrom, McGee drops a terrified Australian woman called Lola Wedd (or ‘Lowly Weed’ as the cardboard sign held by the driver waiting for her at the airport would have it).
Lola is in New Delhi ‘to marry a complete stranger for money and go back to Australia with him as her unlawfully wedded engineer’. It’s an act of revenge.
While she waits for the wedding date, she works in the kitchen at the Hastinapuri Estate where she meets Baj, a driver-turned-pashmina-vendor.
Their shy, almost completely unspoken love story includes a tender moment when Lola leans very lightly against Baj’s shoulder. McGee describes this encounter beautifully: ‘They both sat in the moment, like countries that had just discovered a shared border. Neither speaking, just testing out their new configuration.’ Nice.
It’s from this point, however, that things start to unravel for the pair.
After three months in India, Lola can see how her decision ‘to be a human visa’ (and therefore give an Indian man a better life in Australia) has had terrible consequences for others. She is wracked with guilt and must make amends. This, unfortunately, means she must leave behind newfound Indian friends … including Baj.
The hard stuff
There’s blood, guts and rabies in this tale, so, if you’re squeamish, be careful. Dissolving organs, evisceration and dog bites in some very painful body parts to name a few.
The book also asks some hard-hitting political questions about women and their human rights like:
- ‘Why were tens of thousands of women still being raped and abused every year in India?’
- ‘Could India, as a nation, ever reach its global potential when half its citizens were treated like dogs?’
It answers the questions through a public address by three of the book’s central female characters at a rally. Their message? ‘It was no longer private or shameful to be a woman in India, that your gender didn’t make you obedient and invisible—and that disrespect [from men] would have consequences.’ The women then show quite clearly how these consequences can play out.
McGee’s first novel arose from her lived experience and this shows in its vivid detail. There is also an impressively comprehensive list of Indian terms at the end to help people like me who have less knowledge of the sweets, insults, greetings, gods and goddesses of this fascinating and eclectic nation.
I’m not the biggest fan of narration from an animal’s viewpoint but I thought McGee managed this well with Rocky the dog and Paksheet the monkey pack’s leader. Her skilled handling of the animal rights focus also enhanced my connection with the story rather than spoiling my appreciation of it; an impressive achievement.
Tempted? Smell the spices, see the colours, love and loathe the characters. Step into this bookish Bollywood and enjoy the flash of sequins, the stain of henna and a lot more theatricality and thinking besides.
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