37  India – Tabish Khair – The Bus Stopped – July 2016 (Score 4.78)

This book basically tells the story of a bus journey between two smallish towns in India, the passengers being a fairly motley group of people. Some are on the bus from the start of the journey to the end, while others get off at and intermediate stop, or get on at another.

We read of the lives of the bus driver, the conductor, a petty thief, a village woman carrying her dead baby, a Danish company representative (who may or may not be planning to bribe a senior government officer to buy the products the Dane wants to sell for his company), and a number of others, including a eunuch. This is the first time I have come across one in any book.

We see the way of life of well-off people, peasants, tenement dwellers and others. We learn from one chapter that eunuchs were once far up the social scale as a result of the Moghul invasion and could be in charge of the harem, or have a senior political position at court. Their decline started with the Victorian “values” introduced to India under the Raj. Now they are effectively untouchables, and are militantly trying to be brought up the social scale.

The language in the book is frequently rather robust. It may well be used by the characters represented, but it still seems unnecessary for this story. I found this book to be entertaining in a gentle way, and I scored it at 6.0.