[amazon_link id=”0385338198″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ][/amazon_link]Title : The Hope Factory
Author : Lavanya Sankaran
Genre : Contemporary Fiction
Publisher : Dial Press
Pages : 384
Source : Netgalley / Publisher ARC
Rating : 4.2/5

This book is the story of two main protagonists – Anand K. Murthy who runs his own business, and Kamala, a housemaid who works in his home. Anand is the owner of Cauvery Auto, a small factory which manufactures pressed metal sheets for car parts. He is marries to Vidya and they have two kids. Kamala works at the Murthy home. Her overarching objective in life is to educate her young son Narayan so he can have a bright future, and for that she scrimps and saves.

Both Anand and Kamala, socially and financially in very different classes, face large life-changing problems. Anand’s business is doing well, for Cauvery Auto is courting a Japanese customer. If this deal goes through, Anand will need more land for Cauvery Auto’s expansion. However land is expensive, and scarcely available in the location Anand needs it. He resorts to help from a shady-looking “LandBroker” to smooth out the murky land acquisition process, but things don’t seem to be going well; he should have listened to his intuition.

Kamala is a young widow, with strained ties to her brother, so has no one to depend upon except herself. Her relatively stable life is upset when her landlord contemplates selling off the home to a property developer. Kamala must find an alternative home, or cough up a large sum of money to assure her continued use of the one room tenement. Her financial worries are accentuated by worries about her young son consorting with the wrong kind of people.

This book seemed pleasant reading from the outset, but as it progressed it gathered heft and conviction, resulting in a very satisfying read. The author develops her characters and their settings very well. Anand comes from humble roots; on one hand he has a father who disdains this want of “new money” and on the other he has Harry Chinappa, a blustery father-in-law given to pomp and show. Vidya too, is very influenced by societal trends, and her quick, changing personality now contrasts sorely with Anand’s calm stolid nature.

Kamala has always been poor. Her life has always been a struggle, the struggle to find a job, the struggle to get nutritious food for her son, the struggle to save him from the lowlife friends he consorts with, the struggle to save her meager earnings for Narayan’s future. While I felt for Anand’s predicament, Kamala’s story truly touched me. Ms. Sankaran narrates many details of Kamala’s life, and in those little details we see her sad plight. Putting body and soul together, after hours of hard work should not be this debilitating, but it is – in modern, shining India.

We hear of the travails of the poor via Kamala’s tale, but the rich have a different demon to fight. Anand is an honest, conscientious man, unwilling to pay bribes to get work done. Unfortunately, bribes are the necessary evil in getting any governmental work done. Politicians and corrupt officials, who must work for the people, are instead hand-in-glove to make their fortunes via bribes and kickbacks. A symbol of this hypocrisy is Vijayan, a much liked young politician whose unctuous party-men put no little pressure on businessmen like Anand to “contribute” to the party fund.

Anand had recently watched, mesmerized, a National Geographic television program about early American pioneers pressing into the hostile regions of their country – and had thoroughly identified with them. Like those pioneers, he had survived an unimaginably hostile world. A world where everything had to be fought for, every detail planned. Things that could go wrong, would. Things that shouldn’t go wrong, did. Add to that the Indian government, a strange, cavernous beast that lay hidden in grottoes and leaped out, tentacles flailing, suckers greedy for bribes.

The author touches on important struggles via Anand and Kamala’s stories, and creates a very believable picture of modern Indian society. It is divided into the haves-and-the have-nots; Kamala and Anand at the ends of a very deep chasm between the two. Society seems to be losing its moral moorings. Greed knows no bounds, and a culture of kowtowing to the rich and powerful, while treading upon the weak, seems to be very much the rage.

Sankaran’s writing is heartfelt. Her unfussy prose, descriptive detail and deft characterization make reading a pleasure. I enjoyed this book very much, and would highly recommend it.