A Matter of Time

Shashi Deshpande

Oct 2000 · Penguin UK

About this ebook

An absorbing new novel from the author of ‘That Long Silence’ and ‘Roots and Shadows’ When Gopal walks out on her for reasons even he cannot articulate, Sumi returns with their three daughters, Aru, Charu, and Seema, to the shelter of the Big House, where her parents, Kalyani and Shripati, live in a strangely oppressive silence; they have not spoken to each other in the last thirty-five years. As the mystery of this long silence is unraveled, a horrifying story of loss and agony is laid bare, a story that seems to be repeating itself in Sumi’s life... Set in present-day Karnataka, ‘A Matter of Time’ explores the intricate relationships within an extended family, encompassing three generations of men and women. At the heart of the novel is eighteen-year-old Aru, struggling to understand her father’s ‘desertion’ and her mother’s ‘indifference’, and in the course of a few turbulent months, forging entirely unexpected relationships that are destined to change the course of her life... Deeply unsettling, yet with moments of warmth and laughter, this is Shasi Deshpande at her poignant best.

About the author

Shashi Deshpande, daughter of the renowned Kannada dramatist and Sanskrit scholar Shriranga, was born in Dharwad. At the age of fifteen she went to Mumbai, graduated in economics, then moved to Bangalore, where she gained a degree in law. The early years of her marriage were largely given over to the care of her two young sons, but she took a course in journalism and for a time worked on a magazine. Her writing career began in earnest only in 1970, initially with short stories, of which several volumes have been published. She is the author of four children's books and seven previous novels, the best known of which are The Dark Holds No Terror, That Long Silence, which won the Sahitya Akademi award, Small Remedies and Moving On. Shashi Deshpande lives in Bangalore with her pathologist husband.