Around India In 80 Trains

Having owned a hardback edition of The Inheritance of Loss, left to sit on my shelf for over six years, I waited to arrive in Siliguri in West Bengal to purchase a flimsy, torn and blatantly photocopied edition of this beautiful book to accompany me up to the foothills of Mount Kanchenjunga before I read it. The story begins as orphaned Sai is sitting on her verandah reading and looking up every so often at the beautiful mists hovering around Mount Kanchenjunga, while her grandfather, an ex-judge sits playing a game of chess against himself. From the outset it's clear that the desires and raw emotion of the young adventurous Sai who now lives in the care of her grandfather and a cantakerous old cook, will clash enormously with the quirks and often bizarre habits of her grandfather, a symbol of a retired and unflinching generation. At the same time, Nepalese insurgents determined to reclaim Gorkhaland for Gorkhas upset the order of things and throw both Sai, her grandfather and the cook into an emotional and heart-breaking adventure.

Desai's novel, which won the Man Booker prize in 2006, jumps back and forth between New York and India, laying bare the heartaches and hopes tied to immigration and the wide-eyed lust for a better life. Her language is simple, affectionate and endearing and somehow she makes a sad and hopeless struggle into a delightful, beautiful novel.

If you take the toy train from Siliguri to Darjeeling, much of the landscape is very similar to that which Desai describes in her book.