Joseph’s debut is set in the eponymous — and imaginary — suburb of Bombay and concerns a trio of characters seemingly chosen because not much is going on in their lives. There is middle-aged Mohan, whose trade as a writer of letters for the illiterate is half-heartedly pursued while he dreams of becoming a writer. His wife, Lakshmi, similarly under-employed, watches television soap operas in between desultory attempts at doing the housework. Then there is Ashish, Mohan’s 19-year-old nephew, who has come to live with the couple while he is at at university.
Ashish seems, at first, to be marginally more engaged with the outside world than his uncle and aunt, if only because he is engaged in a clandestine affair with a fellow student. But when this ends badly the lad is reduced to mooching around his uncle’s poky flat, speculating about the lives of the various relatives whose pictures he comes across in the family photo album. Another affair begins, this time with an older man — his English tutor — and it looks for a while as if something more risky is about to happen. Perhaps the values of the old, conservative world, as personified by the denizens of Saraswati Park, are about to collide with the more liberal ideas of the new India?
But even this relationship peters out, and Ashish’s relations with his uncle and aunt are never put to the test. Instead, it is Lakshmi who, after the sudden death of her brother, decides to make a break for independence. Leaving her husband and nephew to fend for themselves, she goes to stay with another sibling, in what appears to be an unspoken demonstration of dissatisfaction with her marriage. Meanwhile, Mohan putters about writing a short story, and Ashish makes friends with plump, jolly Madhavi, whose lively manners and fondness for chatting on her mobile phone at least make her seem part of the modern world.
The at times deliberately dated feel to Joseph’s story only adds to its charm. With its lush descriptions of Bombay and sharp eye for social nuance Saraswati Park offers much to enjoy. In Joseph’s depiction of India, one catches echoes of the gentle humour of an earlier generation of writers. Which may be part of the author’s intention: to show that the new India is as many-faceted as the old.
Saraswati Park by Anjali Joseph (Fourth Estate, £7.99; 300pp. To buy this book for £7.59 visit thetimes.co.uk/bookshop or call 08452712134)