The Hero's Walk

Book Title: The Hero's Walk

Author: Anita Rau Badami

Length: 384 pages

Brief Description: The Hero's Walk, which won the 2001 Commonwealth Writers Prize for best book in Canada and the Caribbean, is set in the sweltering streets of Toturpuram, a small city on the Bay of Bengal. It explores the troubled life of Sripathi Rao, an unremarkable, middle-aged family man and advertising copywriter.
As The Hero's Walk opens, Sripathi's life is already in a state of thorough disrepair. His mother, a domineering, half-senile octogenarian, sits like a tyrant at the top of his household, frightening off his sister's suitors, chastising him for not having become a doctor, and brandishing her hypochondria and paranoia with sinister abandon. It is Sripathi's children, however, who pose the biggest problems: Arun, his son, is becoming dangerously involved in political activism, and Maya, his daughter, broke off her arranged engagement to a local man in order to wed a white Canadian. Sripathi's troubles come to a head when Maya and her husband are killed in an automobile accident, leaving their 7- year-old daughter, Nandana, without Canadian kin. Sripathi travels to Canada and brings his granddaughter home, while his family is shaken by a series of calamities that may, eventually, bring peace to their lives.

Why I recommend it: I was drawn in to this book by the story of ordinary people going through emotions any person can relate to. From disappointment, loss, to the journey one travels when coming to terms with life’s circumstances, this story grasps and tugs at your every emotion. The writer is able to vividly depict and evoke the emotions of a guilt ridden, ill-tempered father who now has a second chance and do right by his dead daughter and raise his granddaughter, Nandana. Badami’s portrait of a lost and bewildered child, Nandana, is both restrained and heartbreaking. This book hooks and reels you in with every detailed line, while providing depictions of a blistering India that are not overbearing, yet still visual. The discovery of a hero and heroism that can appear in life’s unexpected disasters is a beautiful undertone that is interlaced throughout this book.


Do I have a copy others can borrow: YES