Tulsi
Badrinath

A second novel is a litmus test for an aspiring writer. The first novel is usually filled with autobiographical inputs, but the second? A repeat performance could fall flat if it adopts the reminiscential mode. There is, of course, the standard mix which can be tempting but will certainly land the author into the slot of a time-pass writer. So how do we view Man of a Thousand Chances ?

Tulsi Badrinath's Meeting Lives was more of a soft remembrance of domestic imbalances trellised by India's cultural artefacts. Man of a Thousand Chances attempts a complex tracery of a coin thief's feverish movements to get back the stolen gold into the museum. Like Paris of Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Tiruvanathapuram of Neela Padmanabhan's Pallikondapuram , the metropolis vies with Harihar for the hero's slot. However, Tulsi remains focussed on the North Indian element in the multi-coloured, multi-flavoured Chennai society.

Stealing a rare coin struck by Jehangir is quite easy for Harihar Arora, as he is an assistant curator in the Madras Museum. As one belonging to an extended family of traders, pawning it is not too difficult for him either. The quirky charm of the novel lies in Harihar not being a hardened criminal. A typical, honest middle-class fellow, he needs the money to celebrate his daughter's wedding grandly and prove to his relations that he should not be dismissed as one belonging to the salaried class. Understandable, as his little son had been lost in the mazes of Chennai years ago. This is a stand he must make and we get to have a festive show.

Tulsi is in form. All these men and women are goody-goody but who can gauge the depth of middle-class follies? All this thieving and pledging, selling Plasticart containers and cutting down on dal and vegetables, where a cup of hot moong dal with ghee melting in it is a thrilling luxury. All the struggle and anxiety and the razor's edge walk on honesty ends up in one day's glitter of georgettes with chamkies. And the predictable hiccups of a Chennai wedding:

"Don't ask, yaar, I'm going mad. You should have seen the plates the caterer brought. Filthy, dented stuff. I told him to take it back and get better ones. He says he will only put up two counters. I told him he better put up four or I'll cancel his contract. How will two counters serve dinner to all the people?"

But the pressure of time brings the marriage to a happy conclusion and the daughter is given a send-off by the moist-eyed parents. The problem remains. Will Harihar be able to replace the coin in its place or would he be exposed as the coin-thief? We cannot swish the pages fast, since Tulsi has gone for a basket-weave construction maintaining a parallel bond between Harihar-Sarla and Lodha-Kumar.

No horizontal reading! It is then time for us to wonder whether fate is indeed inexorable. Is it bad karma that Ratan was lost forever and good karma that Harihar escapes by the skin of his teeth? Tulsi is good to the patient reader and helps us connect the painting of the deer and Harihar's deliverance from what had seemed to be insuperable impediments:

"The tiger poised to attack him was the fear of discovery; the fire, the loss of all his money; the hunter, Lodha placing him in the greatest jeopardy by depriving him of the coin and the deep river waters the shame and ignominy in which he would drown ... Divine grace had ensured that like the doe had delivered her calf, he had steered Meeta into her new life."

Man of a Thousand Chances marks a new turn for Indian fiction in English. Intellectually stimulating, and yet emotionally iridescent. Almost every movement in place. The bronze Shiva of the Museum did deserve Harihar's hug. For once, the Destroyer had become the Preserver!

Man of a Thousand Chances attempts a complex tracery of a coin thief's feverish movements to get back the stolen gold to the museum

Just when one was about to give up on (most of) Indian fiction in English as being too clichéd, self-conscious and stereotyped, along came Tulsi Badrinath's Man Of A Thousand Chances. Set in contemporary urban India, it is a beautiful story of life in an Indian metropolis, characterised by its demands of tradition and modernity, made remarkable precisely because of the sheer ordinariness of the characters and the little moments that make up their lives.

Harihar Arora, son of a Marwari businessman settled in Chennai and Assistant to the Curator of the Madras Museum, is about to embark on one of the momentous events that mark the life of an Indian householder; the marriage of his only daughter. Unfortunately, such an occasion calls for a specified number of ceremonies and an elaborate ritual of gift exchange, failure to comply with which would result in a significant loss of face; but compliance means huge expenditure, which Harihar cannot afford. A desperate Harihar decides on a daring and equally desperate plan: he steals-"borrows", rather-a rare, historical gold coin minted by the Emperor Jahangir and pawns it, with every intention of redeeming it at a later date, when money he had invested in a new fund reached maturity. However, when that day dawns-not before several disturbing revelations and nerve-wracking moments-the pawnbroker, who had himself been duped into "lending" the coin to a ruthless collector, informs Harihar that the coin had been melted for gold, in an attempt at some face-and reputation-saving of his own. A distraught Harihar, staring at certain disgrace and ruin and unsure of what to do next, decides to place his life in the capricious hands of fate, while pondering on the vagaries of life and the mysterious workings of karma.

Badrinath is certainly not the most skilful of writers ? while there are some lovely descriptions and memorable moments, there are several awkward turns of phrase and punctuation errors too. But what makes Man Of A Thousand Chances a good read is her gift of characterisation- every person in the story, even the most minor one, is sketched in loving detail. The very ordinariness of the characters makes them very real, and therefore immediately accessible and easily identified with. Badrinath's book is not set in some quaint village that exists only in the author's imagination; nor is she writing about beauty pageants or the lives of the jet-setting rich and the famous. Her book is about people like us, with worries and concerns and pleasures that are all too familiar, laced with a lot of sympathy and none of the condescension that one would find in the works of a less empathetic writer. She draws out the little, routine moments of everyday life-a cosy little family dinner, mother and daughter sitting together to admire the shine and dazzle of new clothes, annoying colleagues-in a way that makes even the mundane remarkable.

Any good work of fiction is marked by the attention it pays to the socio-geographic location in which the story is situated; in this novel, the city of Chennai comes alive, with its colours, smells, sights, bustle, problems, cuisine and idiosyncrasies. From the water problems plaguing the city's inhabitants, turning the arrival of the water tanker into a momentous event, brightened by the colour-coded vibrant buckets each household brings out especially for the occasion, to the noise, slush and cheerful activity of marketplaces, to the descriptions of hope and joy surrounding the yards of shimmering cloth in saree shops, to the crowded beaches on weekends-everything serves to make Chennai not just the backdrop, but an important part of the story, perhaps even the central character.

Of the other characters, perhaps the most endearing is Meeta, Harihar's beloved daughter. Her innocence and sweetness, and her joy at her impending wedding and new clothes, tempered in equal parts by fear and trepidation, are beautifully captured. Badrinath's characters are never black or white-Harihar himself is a male chauvinist of his times, and not averse to adultery if the opportunity presents itself; so while he evokes sympathy, his shoddy treatment of his wife, Sarla, also arouses intense irritation. She is possibly the most complex character in the book?an undercurrent of pain forms the sub-text of all the events in the Arora family, the pain surrounding the inexplicable disappearance of Harihar and Sarla's young teenage son Ratan. He is the invisible fourth member of the family, conspicuous by his very absence, informing every relationship, every thought, every action of his parents and sister. It is to Badrinath's credit that she never dramatises this heartbreaking episode in their lives, but allows it to stay in the background for the most part, as it possibly would in any real family.

For anyone with even a remote interest in history, the descriptions and discussions around coins, miniature paintings and sculptures in the Madras museum will be a pleasure to read. Explained at great length by the curator, Mahadevan, these episodes add to the reader's cache of knowledge. However, the chapter devoted to a discourse on karma and rebirth vs responsibility and accountability, designed to bring about clarity to Harihar's ethical and moral dilemmas, flags a bit. It's an interesting issue, no doubt, and one we have often wrestled with, but attention tends to falter when Mahadevan's monologue continues for a few pages without a break. And while Harihar's coming to terms with himself and his actions, and his changing equation with Sarla, seems a bit abrupt, the end, even though it seems to tilt on the side of fate, is satisfying enough.

The publishers would do well to invest in a copyeditor, though-even good books can lose their charm if commas in the wrong places make you cluck-as they make me- with annoyance and lose the thread. Because a good read this certainly is-Badrinath has pulled off the rare feat of painting a picture of the "real" India, complete with real characters, without resorting (much) to stereotypes

The Chameleon Called Karma Pooja Sharma During the reign of 17th century emperor Jehangir, gold coins were minted for the king's beloved wife Nur Jahan. She became the only empress to have her own coinage without ascending the throne. One of the biggest Mughal coins, the 1,000-mohur, weighing around 12 kilograms was also minted in this period.

This coin found its way to the coffers of the Nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Osman Ali, and is now locked away in a Swiss vault. It is one such coin that becomes the karma leash of Harihar Arora in Man of a Thousand Chances.

Weighing two kilograms and worth millions, the coin is in a Chennai museum where Harihar works and hatches the plan to "borrow" it. As Harihar's colleagues watch mahouts trying to control an enraged elephant, he steals the Jahangir coin and rushes straight to the pawnbroker.

Having pawned the invaluable piece for `2 lakhs, guilt-ridden Harihar goes home to his wife Sarla and soon-to-be-married daughter Meeta. Harihar is determined he will return the money and restore the coin soon after Meeta's wedding. Harihar notices his wife's crumpled sari and preoccupied look. He resents her transformation from the shy woman who would greet him at the door wearing fresh clothes and a special smile. He recoils at sight of her tooth that had turned blue and could not be cured because of the money involved. As his daughter displays before him the purchases of the day he is drawn into a labyrinth of memories. The story of how his father had moved to Chennai for business unfolds. Harihar's estranged relationship with his elder brother Ashok had led him to move out of the family business and the family house. He had then found a job at the museum and a mentor in his boss Mahadevan.

From Sarla's angle, the world looks different. The fact that she trades in shares has been kept hidden from her husband all these years. He believes she spends her time trying to sell plastic kitchen boxes and "getting nowhere". That, however, is far from truth. She has a mind and flair for business and is able to earn some money out of it. Another hidden name arises as we hear Sarla's story: Ratan, the son who had gone missing and was never found. Despite all the years Sarla grieves for her lost son and somehow holds Harihar responsible for him.

A second generation north Indian in Chennai, Harihar's household is a queer mix of traditions and language. Sarla's learns bits of Tamil from her maid and the family works out a part-Tamil part-north Indian menu for the wedding. With sufficient cash at hand now, Harihar buys his wife and daughter saris of their choice. He has invested in a fund which will come to maturity soon after Meeta's wedding. From this Harihar plans to buy back the coin. While the wedding is in progress Harihar gets to know that the fund managers are unable to pay back investors. On the other hand, the coin is spotted by a collector who recognises it's real value and takes it from the pawnbroker. The pawnbroker tells Harihar the coin had been melted down. Dejected and beaten, Harihar is sure the loss of coin will be discovered anytime soon. Fate, however, has several surprises in store for him. Not only does he escape being accused of theft but is also able to mend his decaying relationship with his wife.

While one might think a second chance can make a world of a difference, this is the story of the man who gets a thousand. Caught in the storm of affairs surrounding his life, Harihar makes desperate attempt to make sense of it. His boss and mentor Mahadevan helps him connect the dots between karma and destiny. As Mahadevan takes him through a tedious journey from Gita's karma to Schopenhauer's will, Harihar emerges a man ready to take charge of his tumultuous life.

The Man of a Thousand Chances is Tulsi Badrinath's second novel. She has made an attempt to bring together aspects of karma and art. She is unable, however, to weave the theme into the story. The exploration of karma and art by Mahadevan towards the end stands aloof from the rest of the narrative. It is also hard to believe that a mere lecture could induce a major change in Harihar. However, Tulsi has a keen eye for detail and her portrayal of family life is seamless. Be it Meeta stealing glances at the picture of her fiance or the husband, wife and daughter filling their weekly store of water; the descriptions are warm and colourful.

One finds it hard to reconcile how a man may get so many chances while the others struggle for a single go. If we were to believe the words of Harihar's mentor Mahadevan, that's where karma comes into play. The story moves through pensive scenes without breaking into a common laugh at the face of destiny. While to a simple man like Harihar Schopenhauer may be too much to understand, humour can provide the perfect umbrella to take shelter from the moods of karma. After all a coin is as much a slave of karma as the man who carries it.

Karma for thrills V.R.Devika Tulsi Badrinath's second novel, Man of a Thousand Chances, explores many ideas relating to Indian art, the psyche of an art-collector, and the role of free will and karma in life.

Raja Rao the philosopher novelist once said that we occupy both a geographical space and a vertical spiritual space in India. "I want to map both these spaces in my writing," says Tulsi. In her first novel, Meeting Lives, she explored the philosophy of vedanta in daily life. In Man of a Thousand Chances, she explores karma.

Even when she is writing about abstract ideas, she blends them into a story that is well-written and rooted in the details of ordinary middle-class life. Harihar Arora, the protagonist, seems to lack the intuitive craftiness that allows a middle-class man to survive urban life in a city like Chennai. When he steals a valuable Jahangir-era coin from the museum where he works, as a reader, one's first reaction is to be alarmed at his foolhardy behaviour. However, it is true that a lot of artefacts from our museums have found their way into private hands.

Harihar pawns the coin, expecting to pay back the pawnbroker very soon and return the coin to the museum. This harmless act, he thinks, will help him conduct his daughter's wedding. But things don't go the way he plans.

After many twists and turns, Harihar achieves his aim and escapes being caught. But his son, Ratan, is missing, and it takes a while to understand that what Tulsi might be suggesting is that Harihar has suffered in advance for his crime.

He tries to make sense of his life and seeks answers from his boss Mahadevan, only to be told "God does not figure in the theory of karma, so it can seem very, very harsh". This part can be read again and mined for fresh insights, depending on the reader's own understanding of life.

While the philosophical pondering is done well, the role of the hijras in the plot and the fate of the missing boy are left unfinished. The book begins like a crime thriller, proceeds somewhat in the fashion of Crime and Punishment, but is really a philosophical thriller.

Purse and Persuasion Susan Visvanathan Tulsi Badrinath has produced another elegant work, which explores the urban map in new ways. In this novel, she brings to our attention the banality of middle class chores and the concern with the details of these. It is the contradictions within the facade that interest Badrinath. Essentially, she has the eye of the passerby, but that passerby has been for decades looking into the hearts and lives of a North Indian diaspora community living in Chennai. The intimacy with which the map of Mount Road or other familiar mnemonics are created in this novel is interesting.

Harihar, the nondescript clerk, who is assistant to a curator at the Madras Museum, steals a gold mohur which weighs two kilos, and which has exquisite calligraphy and images embossed. The coin was struck by Jehangir, who minted gold coins in dedication of his love for his Queen, Noor Jehan. She was a very powerful empress in Mughal India, who left a monument to her warrior father, filigreed in marble and semi precious stones, which still stands in Agra for us to see.

Harihar steals the antique coin because he needs to have an extravagant wedding according to custom for his daughter. They belong to a wealthy clan of spare parts dealers who have shops near Mount Road. His choice of a profession in the Government is because he cannot bear the company of his overbearing brother, who has cheated him. The novel works with the idea that ethics and moral choices face everyone equally.

How do novelists work with the idea that what people do are essentially the catalyst for narrative? Tulsi Badrinath does not have a prescriptive voice on documenting morality. The story teller in her just takes us along a rapidly escalating sense of panic on all sides, while the romance of an arranged marriage is provided with an unerring sense of knowledge of how it goes and why it works. The details of the preparations for the wedding of the loved daughter is very microscopic and like a stacatto text of reading wedding photographs. This is a technique which is often used by novelists, who if they have not been present at an event, will read the narrative off for you from any source. However the parallel structure of the plot which involves the theft of the coin (Harihar calls it a 'loan' from the Madras Museum where he works) is quite dramatic. It deals with the case of events which frighten both the protagonist and the reader, with a practiced hand. There is a tedium of everyday things, the spate of unusual events which happen at marriages which may be called emotional sleight of hand, their is the aspect of civility and carnality which are communicated to be very very normal indeed (lust and hyprocisy) and there is real evil, which cannot be hidden from view

Tulsi Badrinath provides a multi-tiered text to discuss what she's most interested in which is the discussion on karma. She falls into her familiar low voiced murmur about how Hinduism is about living, the calculations of the past and the future coalescing in the often unthinking present. The female characters are often very staid, though they do unusual things such as make phulkas and fry ladies fingers, while playing secretly on the stock market. Several females are scattered through the text without very serious intent, the focus being on the pathway that the Mohur creates as it rolls along without volition, upon in the hand of very greedy men. The mozaic of India appears very astutely in the fragmented locations in which people find themselves in.

If one accepts that human beings are often venal, dissecting venality is as necessary in the understanding of corruption although fate releases the abject and willing practitioner into a desirable anonymity. However, murders, as Umberto Eco showed us in the Name of the Rose, may spill across the narrative, one too many, when individuals long for objects, beyond the power of purse or persuasion.

Review by Indu. K. Mallah Where does the mundane end, and the mystic begin? Where does predestination end and free will end? And where indeed does prarabdha karma end and prayaschitham begin? These are some of the questions that the author etches on our collective consciousness with the stylus of her craft in the book under review.

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Badrinath's love of art in all its forms, particularly of the beauty of coins, comes across very strongly, highlighted by her note to the reader, where she exhorts the reader to make a "living connection with history" through (vintage) coins. Her meticulaous research is evidenced by the description of Jehangir's coin: 'the raised calligraphy', the Persian Nastaliq script', 'the glorious sweep of alphabets compressing into this small disc an entire universe of love".

This is a highly-readable book, painstakingly researched. The middle-class North-Indian-family-in-Madras milieu is meticulously evoked in great detail, though in some places, the details get a little tedious. Badrinath has a flair for local colour, ading verisimilitude to the narrataive, whether she is describing the preparations for a North-Indian wedding in Chennai, or the urban landscape. The local patois too is convincingly evoked.

As one reaches the last page of the book, and closes the cover, one cannot help feeling that there are many loose ends. The issue of Ratan, Harihar's missing son, is never resolved, the accountability of Kumar hangs fire. Above all, Harihar's own predicament is left in the air. He comes across as a God-fearing, law-abiding man with a strong conscience who evolves as a more understanding man and husband. How then can he live with this grave lapse, without any qualms?

Perhaps this book is not meant to have a 'conventional' all loose-ends neatly tied ending. Perhaps, as Thomas Transtomer, current Nobel Laureate for Literature said of his poetry, this book is a meeting-place between the writer and the reader, and the latter is meant to take the baton from the former. Or, perhaps, just perhaps, all loose ends will be neatly tied in Harihar's next birth, the sequel to this book.

Review by Ravneet Jhulka like many Indian fathers, is faced with scraping together enough money to pay for his daughter's wedding. As a curator in an Indian artifacts museum, he finds himself suddenly presented with the answer to all his problems in the form of a rare Mughal gold coin. Convinced that he is only 'borrowing' the coin, he takes it and pawns it to get some ready cash until the wedding is over. However, unforeseen difficulties wreak havoc with his plans to redeem the coin and lead him to reevaluate his relationships and position in life.

Badrinath dives right into the story with the theft of the coin happening almost immediately. This hurried pace robs the scene of any drama or significance. In fact, I initially skimmed over this part without realizing it, thinking I was reading descriptive material. Upon re-reading the section, I again felt the lack of any nervous build-up or anticipation and reluctantly moved on.

However, once I got past the first part, the novel developed into an engrossing and beautiful story ... for a while. Badrinath is a master in describing the finer points of daily Indian life. The stomach-in-your-throat feeling of riding in a motorized rickshaw, the unspoken interplay between brothers, sisters-in-law, and husband and wife are all poignantly voiced and vividly detailed. At one point, I became so home sick for the sights and sounds of India I began looking at airline tickets. She also throws us into the typical Indian wedding scenes, bringing back to mind all those delicate glances at an unknown bridegroom and that uniquely Indian moment when the pure joy of marrying off a daughter turns instantaneously to the pure sadness of realizing you've married off your daughter. Badrinath truly has an amazing ability to capture the daily insignificancies of Indian life and meld them together in a richly evocative form to move the storyline forward. The characters were wonderfully voiced and thoughtfully drawn-out. There was not one person in the novel whom I did not actively have feeling s toward. I hated some, loved some and felt compassion for many of them but Badrinath's writing made them so real that it was easy to form an opinion on the character and life of each person. I suppose a critic could say that Badrinath uses stereotypes to populate her novel but who cares??? Almost all of us are stereotypical in some ways and Badrinath's genius is using those stereotypes to base her characters and then providing unique details to flesh them out.

Here comes the addendum. As the novel wraps up, we get a lengthy lecture from one of the ancillary characters on karma and fate and I don't know what else. It almost felt like Badrinath got tired of writing and decided to end it on a whim. There was a ribbon of Harihar's search for life's motivating forces throughout the novel but it certainly did not feel like the overarching point of the book. And there was certainly not enough to warrant a wordy and in-depth discourse that served as a conclusion. As with the beginning of the novel, I felt that these scenes were disjointed and did not match up with the rest of the novel.

Overall, Badrinath is fantastic at relaying the nuts-and-bolts of the story through her characters but she definitely falters in the more intense parts of the novel. In those scenes, she loses the drama of the moment in the mundane details of everyday life and we lose out on the thrill of an emotional roller coaster. This was certainly an enjoyable book and one that stays with you for quite some time because of Badrinath's nuanced writing but it could certainly have used a little more drama and a little less philosophy.

Philosophical Thriller Geetu Vaid Is life just a series of accidents and coincidences or a beautiful tapestry each weave of which unfolds a sublime plan? Is man a master of his destiny or a slave of past karma?

In her second novel, Man of a Thousand Chances, Tulsi Badrinath enters this tricky territory vacillating between existential and fatalistic philosophies. Harihar Arora, a second-generation North Indian museum curator in Madras is Badrinath's ordinary, honest and principled protagonist who steals an antique gold coin from the museum to get some cash for his daughter's wedding. Harihar finds himself in a bind when he first finds that he has lost all sources of redeeming the coin due to a fraud money fund and later when the pawnbroker, to whom he had pawned the coin, tells him that he had melted the coin.In her second novel, Man of a Thousand Chances, Tulsi Badrinath enters this tricky territory vacillating between existential and fatalistic philosophies. Harihar Arora, a second-generation North Indian museum curator in Madras is Badrinath's ordinary, honest and principled protagonist who steals an antique gold coin from the museum to get some cash for his daughter's wedding. Harihar finds himself in a bind when he first finds that he has lost all sources of redeeming the coin due to a fraud money fund and later when the pawnbroker, to whom he had pawned the coin, tells him that he had melted the coin.

The multi-level narrative is racy in parts, with its ordinary surface level persona and the sublime undercurrents keeping the reader riveted to those chapters. Badrinath excels in painting scenes with words. Whether it is the excitement and hectic activity of an Indian wedding, the well-plastered chinks of a joint family or of a marriage or the life in Madras, with its queues for water tanker, shops and markets or beaches, all are portrayed beautifully and simplistically by Badrinath. But then there are times when the narrative drags, as the author tries to give a voice to the subtle undercurrents of spiritual dilemma as Harihar gets gyan on karma and destiny from his boss Mahadevan towards the end of the book. As the dialogue meanders from Krishna's karma sermon to Schopenhauer's power of "will", one wonders how Harihar can get an instant soul makeover from Mahadevan's words.

In the similar vein, the author's bid to add twists and turns to the plot add artificiality to the whole tale. Elements like the CBF fraud, Sarla's sudden luck in the share market, Harihar's dalliance during his daughter's wedding, and the murder of the pawnbroker seem concocted and author takes little pain to convince the readers about these making one stretch the limits of credulity to go on. Characters of Harihar's wife Sarla, daughter Meeta, too, are typecast - the unexciting, untidy and sometimes careless wife and an obedient daughter. And then there is the author's unabashed effort to give a clean chit to her protagonist, to give Harihar his thousand chances as the four days of incessant rain in the end hint at the Deluge and the birth of a new life, a new world as Harihar, the man of thousand chances get purged of guilt - guilt of stealing a valuable antique and of not doing enough to trace his son.

But she has very deftly woven the numismatic element into the tale and the detailed stories of different coins are engrossing as the author uses the art and spirituality connect to link the past with the present. The underlying contrasts and comparisons are striking as one sees a subtle hint. An antique is lost, a theft which no one discovers, this is just like Harihar forgets his principles to steal Jehangir's gold coin and no one in his family or friend circle comes to know of this convoluted side of his character. The loss of the coin is discovered only when a bigger theft takes place in the museum making one wonder if Harihar's indiscretion would also be revealed in a larger context one day.

Coin-tossed Destiny Monideepa Sahu Why do the just and innocent suffer for no apparent fault of their own? And why do some people get away with murder most foul? Why are some blessed with more money than they know what to do with, while others are forced to lead a hand-to-mouth existence? These and allied questions, which most of us wonder about at some point in our lives, are examined in the course of this novel. At first glance, middle aged, greying, careworn Harihar Arora seems anything but heroic. Striving to rise above petty joint family rivalries where he is the underdog younger son, Harihar secures a job as assistant to the curator of the Madras Museum. He struggles to make ends meet on a modest salary, and plug the unforeseen places from where his money leaks away triumphantly. In addition to these commonplace tribulations, Harihar's only son Ratan disappeared mysteriously, several years ago. All attempts to trace the strapping young man have failed, yet Harihar, his wife Sarla and daughter Meeta cannot face the fact that Ratan may be dead. Harihar now focuses his love, resources, and even his life's ambitions, upon arranging a grand wedding for his darling Meeta and securing her future happiness. The basically honest Harihar steals a rare gold coin minted by Jahangir from the museum and pawns it for ready cash. He considers this a loan, and has every intention of redeeming the coin after the wedding. Soon his life's savings, deposited with the City Benefit Fund, will mature with a hefty interest. Meanwhile, the wheels of fortune turn against Harihar and thousands of innocents like him, as they lose everything to scamsters running the bankrupt City Benefit Fund. With ruin staring him in the face, Harihar bravely pulls off Meeta's wedding, hiding his inner turmoil from his loved ones. While performing Meeta's marriage, his brain throbs with the foreboding of impending doom. Yet he is pleased to note how handsome and cooperative Meeta's bridegroom is. "A dreamy light in his eyes touched a sensitive chord in Harihar by reminding him of Ratan. He struggled to quell the unbidden wave of grief swamping him but had to openly wipe his eyes." His only solace is Meeta's happiness. Can Harihar redeem the priceless coin from the pawnbroker and save his honour? This selfless love raises Harihar above the common herd, as does his appreciation for the priceless works of art in the museum. The author deftly draws us into a sense of intimacy. We empathise with Harihar and wish him to succeed. Harihar and the other characters are finely drawn. They come across as convincing, real people with flaws and amazing strengths. Harihar's wife Sarla, for example, is at first glance a nondescript, not too educated homemaker. Yet, it is she who comes up with surprising resources to support her husband in his darkest hour. The other relatives, with their mix of rivalries, grudges and goodwill, could be members of our own extended clans. It's difficult to like Kumar, the maniacal coin collector, or even relate to his crazed obsession. But this fits in with his sinister role in the story. Harihar is by turns both a victim and a mover of his own fate. Beneath the beguilingly simple surface of an interesting story are deeper philosophical questions which Harihar, and by extension, the reader, are compelled to examine. In the end, Harihar sees that "life, despite the worst of circumstance, was not a prison. Each day with every single thought and act of his, he was building his future lives. If he paid attention to the now, he would ensure an excellent, though indescribable, later." As this well-crafted, smoothly written novel draws to a satisfying close, a long and contrived diatribe on karma breaks the flow. From pages 275-287, Harihar's erudite boss discourses on whether only fate, or human will and effort, counts in the course of human life. This detailed philosophical commentary breaks the dramatic impact of the novel, and drives home a little too strongly philosophical ideas permeating Harihar's story.

Mughal Emperor Jahangir's gold coin is stolen from a museum. What happens next? Sriraj Ray The book is centred on an ordinary, otherwise honest working man, in an extraordinary problematic junction in his life. Harihar, who works in the Madras Museum steals a rare gold coin minted by Mughal Emperor Jahangir in order to fulfill an age old Hindu responsibility of a father, i.e. to marry off his daughter. He decides to pawn the artifact only temporarily, and to return it after the wedding but finds himself in a fix when he realizes that the coin has been melted and used by the pawnbroker.

Harihar Arora, the 'man of a thousand chances', is a second generation North Indian who lives in Chennai is engaged as the Assistant to the Curator at Madras Museum. His family consists of his wife Sarla and his daughter Meeta, whose wedding he arranges by pawning the gold coin. Harihar does not share a great relationship with his wife. The plot is made interesting by the fact that Ratan, the couple's son went missing four years back and they are constantly in anxiety to find him. This is Tulsi Badrinath's second literary venture and is written elegantly in simple prose style. The first being Meeting Lives in 2008.

The daily life of a middle class family has been clearly depicted in the novel and is central to the theme of the book. Harihar holds a grudge in his life towards his wife because he believes she does not keep the house in tact alone, along with herself. All she is concerned with is cooking and putting food on the table on time. He silently recalls days when she "would greet him shyly at the front door, dressed up in a fresh stretched saree, matching bangles ... yearning to go out somewhere with him"; she's past it and wanders their rented apartment with "hair twisted in a thin plate ... one of her crumpled house saris on".

The ordinariness of middle-class existence puts t beat the parts on the girl's wedding, which is widely covered in the novel. Badrinath does well to represent the entire ritualistic process of a 'big fat Indian wedding.' She describes in some detail the colossal effort in putting together a satisfying Indian wedding.

How does Harihar manage to redeem himself of the sin of stealing and also carry out a huge traditional responsibility of giving his daughter's hand in marriage, well, do read and find out. The book does also go on a philosophical tangent by exploring ideas of karma and free will. All in all, a present and light read.

An Explorer of Spiritual Space

Review by Karishma Attari The character cast of Tulsi Badrinath's Man Of A Thousand Chances sounds more like the setup to a great punch line. What do Mughal emperor Jahangir, the Chief Elephant of the Big Temple, a graduate bride-to-be, and a Chennai pawn agent have in common?

The answer is Harihar, one of the more interesting protagonists in recent Indian fiction. A man past his prime, Harihar is the picture of middle class mildness: a museum curator who must marry off a daughter in appropriate splendour.

The action opens with Harihar committing a life-defining act - he steals a rare gold coin minted by Jahangir (a coin that was in his possession for safekeeping at the museum), and pawns it. This is meant to be a temporary tap and Harihar fully intends to restore the coin.

What follows is an overlap of plotlines that Badrinath would have us believe mimics the operation of karma. First Harihar discovers he is on the verge of financial ruin. Then he finds that it is no small matter to collect the coin even by paying for it, as it has attracted the attention of a predatory numismatologist. Meanwhile, his mousy long-suffering wife has achieved a measure of independence that will change his life.

It appears that the universe is teaching Harihar an important lesson, and this isn't the first time either. The tragic disappearance of his teenage son is a loose thread that dangles through the book, attracting the question of karma like static. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do good people do bad things?

Badrinath writes a compelling novel, only to pull up short and discuss the meaning of karma, which is something of a leap from the entrancing ordinariness she details of sari shops, water tanker episodes, and family jaunts on the beach. Even more jarring are the fantastical historical jaunts Badrinath sends her villain on; they would make a magical realist blush.

The prose could be improved: word selection and grammar seem slapdash. Yet Man Of A Thousand Chances somehow endures in the imagination, just as its inviolable hero does looking fate in the eye.