Reviews & Musings

About the book: Source:  The Hindu Business Line Kalyani comes from a lineage of famous devadasis, though there is no place for her talent in the Madras of newly independent India.  The devadasis, once celebrated as artists, are shunned as 'prostitutes' in a modern country. In exchange for a comfortable life as the wife of a wealthy arts promoter, Kalyani has to keep her origins hidden and abandon her mother, Rajayi.  When a Bharatanatyam dancer from the city sets out to record Rajayi's dance repertoire on film, the carefully wrapped-up past threatens to unravel.

From the Blurb:  Source: Goodreads.com At lunchtime on 27 April 1959, the handsome naval commander Kawas Nanavati was told by his English wife Sylvia that she was having an affair with their flamboyant businessman-playboy friend, Prem Ahuja. Later that evening, armed with a revolver, Nanavati stormed Ahuja’s bedroom and shut the door behind him. Three gunshots were heard going off inside. Ahuja was dead. Ahuja’s murder set in motion an extraordinary public frenzy – thousands descended on the streets of Bombay chanting in favour of the hero Nanavati and the jury, swept off their feet by the dazzling naval officer in the dock, returned a ‘Not Guilty’ verdict. This trial was the death knell of the jury system in India.  It hurtled a judiciary keen on preserving justice into confrontation with an executive bending to the will of hysterical crowds and tabloids and Nanavati’s powerful friends in the establishment. In this laboriously researched book – part thriller...