Author Origin: Toronto, ON- lives in Brampton, ON
Page Count: 404
Genre: Fiction/YA
Difficulty: Easy-ish
Grade Level: 9/10
Key Talking Points: Indian culture, class-based discrimination and poverty, responsibility to yourself vs. responsibility to your family, the lengths we go to for the ones we love.
Sensitive Subject Matter: Sexual assault, culturally motivated violence
Warning: Mehta has a George R.R. Martins-esque love for killing off characters you love with very little fan-fair. But why, Mehta? Why?!
I'm going to come clean right off the bat and tell you that I know Shaun Mehta personally. He and I work together, and it seemed natural for me to include his work early on in this project. Mehta is the kind of person who can be telling you a story that you know should be making you sad or angry, but he tells it in a way that makes you laugh the whole way through, saying "That's so terrible!" while trying to catch your breath. For that reason, I find it surprising that much of his writing is more serious than it is humourous. Divya's Dharma is that way. Don't get me wrong, there are some very funny moments, but the issues that he tackles in this novel run very deep.
Summary: The novel gives us a few narratives that seem disconnected at first, but then like dominos their connectivity becomes clear as they begin to impact each other, knocking each other down. The past collides with the present, with repercussions into the future for many lives that are all linked to one another. The core narrative is about Divya, a Canadian college student with parents who immigrated from India while she was still in the womb. She is spending a semester in Southern India on an exchange program where she is thrown into Indian culture, both the pros and cons. The first chapter, and bits and pieces thereafter, read more like a travel blog than a narrative as we see through Divya's eyes and experience it all with her. This is helpful though, as we are endeared to Divya as she describes both the beauty and the beastial underbelly of the country, and experiences all the things we'd be worried about if we were traveling- from embarrassing miscommunications, to terrible digestive disasters, to getting swindled by locals. Early on we are provided with this description that resonates with me:
"It's like every era of human history and technology have merged here, she thought as she watched an old man with a great white beard, and wearing only a dhoti, talking on a cell phone.
Before leaving Canada, she had read many articles on how Bangalore - known as the 'Garden City' - was considered the Silicone Valley of the East, a symbol of prosperity and progress of India, and a sign of the nation's entrance into the Age of Information Technology. But as Divya drives past six naked children begging a man in an expensive business suit for money, she did not see any of that. Instead, what she saw was a country trying to project itself one way to the world while desperately trying to mask its countless problems." (32)
From here, Divya starts the social dance of making friends and finding her place in the school community. There is a budding romance, written with a very Eleanor and Park innocence that you can't help but smile at, but instead of two misfit teenagers, they are two attractive, fairly popular twenty-somethings. You are introduced to quirky characters that go on quirky adventures. Divya does attend some school. And that seems to be the focus of the story until all the problems of the world collide with Divya's life. These are hinted at through the jarring events of the prologue, but more subtly through the dates that title the chapters. The rest of the novel takes us downward through tragedy after tragedy with very little relief. Even though I knew they were necessary to tie all the pieces of the plot together around the two protagonists, I still found myself mentally screaming "Man! Cut these kids a break!" Mehta's strength as a writer is evident most clearly in these scenes of terror and human rights atrocities that scatter the novel- and I mean that in the best way possible. You slip into an unconscious reading state where the pages fly by when conflict is occurring. The language takes on a different flow and texture in these scenes when compared to the everyday interactions of the young cast of characters.
Teacher Note: I've given this novel a difficulty level of "easy-ish" for a few reasons. First, while the language is generally accessible for a grade 9/10 reader, there are also a lot of words and phrases connected to Indian culture that may frustrate someone not familiar with them, and not willing or able to infer their meaning or do a little research. I bumbled along using my inferencing skills until I realized about halfway through that there was a glossary at the back. A young reader would probably benefit from having this pointed out to them from the start. Second, while the majority of the novel follows pretty E rated romance, as described above, there are also some scenes of extreme brutality and violence. Nothing I think a grade 9/10 couldn't handle, but they should be areas that are addressed and discussed. The novel also provides some very interesting avenues for discussion regarding the poverty and discrimination of India's caste system, which could lead to cross-curricular connections in a few different subject areas.
I do have some questions when it comes to the text, however. There may be a few *SPOILERS* here, so read at your own risk... 1) The main 'big-bad' from the text runs an adoption agency. He runs a massive corrupt criminal organization from the adoption agency, but I struggle to imagine him saying on career day, "I think I'd like to work with children" or even "I think children would be the perfect way to gain political power in this country." He needs to work there for certain aspects of the plot to work, but it seems a bit contrived. 2) I have a number of questions about the interactions of the different castes of children in school. We learn that there are government policies regarding how many of the lower caste children can attend colleges, which makes sense, but we see higher caste Zamindars and lower caste Dalits interacting almost as friends without any reference to larger class issues at the school the characters attend. It makes you wonder if Mehta is suggesting that the younger generation in India is less bound by the classism and discrimination of their parents, but as a high school teacher myself, it seems to me as if young people latch on to difference as the foundation of their social interactions, especially if hatred was their bread and butter growing up. Therefore, the depiction of the kids seems a little idealistic, especially when contrasted with the events going on outside the campus. 3) Divya's father starts the novel as a heroic character, one who seems to be a champion of the future India is hoping for. However, he slowly morphs into a monster, and a monster even worse than the 'big bad' simply because he started off good. This is hard to believe, and makes it hard to sympathize with him, even in his grief when we'd like to be on his side. It is even harder to believe how Divya forgives him so easily. When she is reunited with her father after the violence he has sanctioned, she is very hard to read, and given that we are in her head, this feels alienating for us. She seems to give in to him so quickly.
Final thought: This novel is great for people that know nothing or very little about India- the ways of life, culture, beliefs, challenges, and may also be a nostalgic read for young Canadians whose family came from India and so they also had a culture shock when visiting for the first time. Even if you really have no interest in any of that, the individual and societal conflicts are captivating.
If you are interested in reading Mehta's work, you can search his name on Amazon, or visit his website.
http://www.shaunmehta.com/home.html
I would also highly recommend his "Illuminated Shadows" series, which he describes as CSI meets Game of Thrones. I was going to review the first book in the series, but Mehta pointed out that it is perhaps a little less 'school appropriate.' I guess all of my actual CSI and Game of Thrones watching has desensitized me. A great read, nonetheless.
📚 Ms. CAN Lit
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