Bombay was the city everyone came to in the early decades of the nineteenth century: among them, the Goans and the Mangaloreans. Looking for safe harbour, livelihood, and a new place to call home. Communities congregated around churches and markets, sharing lord and land with the native East Indians. The young among them were nudged on to the path of marriage, procreation and godliness, though noble intentions were often ambushed by errant love and plain and simple lust. As in the story of Annette and Benji (and Joe) or Michael and Merlyn (and Ellena).
Lovers and haters, friends and family, married men and determined singles, churchgoers and abstainers, Bombay Balchão is a tangled tale of ordinary lives – of a woman who loses her husband to a dockyard explosion and turns to bootlegging, a teen romance that drowns like a paper boat, a social misfit rescued by his addiction to crosswords, a wife who tries to exorcise the spirit of her dead mother-in-law from her husband, a rebellious young woman who spurns true love for the abandonment of dance. Ordinary, except when seen through their own eyes. Then, it’s legend.
Set in Cavel, a tiny Catholic neighbourhood on Bombay’s D’Lima Street, this delightful debut novel is painted with many shades of history and memory, laughter and melancholy, sunshine and silver rain.
Set in Caval, Bombay Balchao is a tale of a Goan Catholic family that has been beautifully told by Jane Borges. If someone asks me what I liked about this book, first thing I’ll say—the narrative structure, the atmosphere and the weaving of intergenerational storyline. I felt like I was sitting in one of those Chaupati and listening to someone’s life story. While reading Balchao, I could easily connect with the history of Catholic Mumbaikar and found a lot of new facts and points as well.
The lucid, simple writing along with a strong storyline that goes back and forth between events makes it enticing, captivating and interesting. Weirdly, although I have never been to Bombay but I’ve always had this unusual feeling that I might not like that place. After reading this, seems like I do want to visit Bombay and roam around these places, trying to capture the essence.
Creating an extraordinary tale from ordinary story, that’s a task Borges accomplished rather marvellously. There’s talk about history, architecture, a couple of interesting recipes like Prawn Balchao (😁), culture and human tendencies.
I am so happy that I picked this one up. Totally recommend it!
Bewitchingly Paranoid 