Song of the Cuckoo Bird: A Novel Paperback – December 27, 2005

My treasured mother recommended this book!!! There are so many things I love about this book the first of all that it is set in INDIA!!! Generally I find books set in India and written by Indian authors wonderful and this was no exception.What else did I love? It is set in a Ashram with a female guru. The Ashram is run by the bizarre father of the guru and how he impacts each of the inhabitants is fascinating. Each woman is located at the ashram because of less than perfect circumstances and watching them grow as souls is delicious. I loved the depiction of Indian culture and relationships. The rich way the author describes all aspects of this book like feeling a complex fabric tapestry. Oh the depiction of different types of love soul opening!!

This book captures your attention and holds it thru to the end. It was so interesting on top of a great story . I was sad when the book was finished because I enjoyed it so much and wanted to read more !

Song of the Cuckoo Bird is a fascinating book portraying the different customs in Indian culture and how outcasts live by these customs.Kokilia, a young Indian girl, comes to live in Tella Meda, an ashram, where she must wait to menstruate before she goes to live with her husband. She decides that she doesn't want to leave and lives there for the rest of her life amongst other people who are not accepted anywhere else, whether they are the daughter of a prostitute or a widow whose relatives do not want her. The relationships between the characters are very intriguing, and are slightly similar to the tight-knit environment of a small high school. The people in the ashram all have different morals, values, and beliefs, and this often leads to conflict. However, they all have one thing in common that binds them together; they have no other place to go.It is amazing to read how the characters hurdle obstacle after obstacle and carry on with life despite their numerous problems. The chapters alternate points of view and show the differences between the characters' hopes and fears and how they think of each other. What I like the most about this book is how all of the characters still hold onto their aspirations despite their social situations. Also, I like how the author mentions what is happening politically in India while the residents of Tella Meda are carrying on their everyday lifestyles. Because they are so out of touch with the real world, these things do not affect the characters. It is interesting to see the differences of how the death of a prime minister is handled by an urban city dweller compared to how it is handled by a poor outcast in a small town. What seems like a big deal in the city seems like nothing in Tella Meda. The small sheltered environment is the only home the characters have, so they only care what is happening in that place.The only problem I have with this book is that there are too many characters that have similar names, and it is easy to get them confused with one another. Some of these characters are even unnecessary; the author just eliminates them from the story entirely.All in all however, this book is a great novel. So many different events happen, making the plot exciting and interesting, and with the different points of view on each of these events, it is possible to see all sides of the story.

I loved getting to know the characters in Telia Meda , an ashram/home for those with no home, in India. The descriptions of the culture, beliefs about gods and goddesses, the food and morals through the generations are fascinating.

This is an unusual story beautifully told. What most interested me was the changing Indian social and cultural climate over the course of several decades.

One of the best reads in a long time. Real India, real people, set with real historical events.

A beautiful story. Well written.I would have liked more .highly recommended.

I have read many books of this genre, especially stories taking place in India. This novel wove a multi-hued tapestry of generations, cultures, and complex relationships. The story was both very creative and very believable. I would highly recommend this book for those seeking insight into Indian culture, and for those seeking understanding about what it is to be human.

With one notable exception, I've enjoyed all the Amulya Malladi books that I've read. A couple are outstanding, one or two slightly formulaic, but they're always worth the effort. Malladi writes families - often dysfunctional families - really well and in 'Song of the Cuckoo Bird' she creates a pseudo-family from a bunch of lost souls and unwanted people. The Cuckoo Bird of the title is Kokila, an 11 year old orphaned 'bride', sent by her in-laws to pass her time in the Ashram at Telia Meda whilst they wait for her to be old enough to consummate her marriage. Whilst Kokila is marginally the 'lead' character, there are plenty more fascinating (mostly) women at the Ashram. Kokila's friend and peer is Chetana, the daughter of a prostitute, constantly fighting the poor karma of her birth.The Ashram is home to people who have run out of other places to live and the group of unwanted children, beaten wives and widows and divorcees live out their time in the orbit of Charvi, the guru/goddess whose father claimed to see the holiness in her at a young age and set up the community to support her.We follow Kokila and the community through her life on joining Telia Meda at 11 years old, through to the eventual closure of the ashram, a scope of about 50 years. Each chapter starts with a couple of facts about what was going on in India at that time - from the 1961 liberation of Goa, conflicts with Pakistan, the Bhopal tragedy, the re-election and subsequent assassination of Indira Gandhi and many other landmarks of history. Only on very rare occasions - most notably the assassination of ex-PM Rajeev Gandhi by the LTTE - does the action in wider India actually encroach on the story. I thought that was a great shame. I would have appreciated more connection between greater India and the tiny isolated world of the Ashram. There's also an irony that will become apparent much later that Charvi predicts a great tragedy that of course occurred just a few years later but not within the scope of the story.Is anybody ever really happy in this book? Yes, there are fleeting moments of calm and contentment in between life seeming to throw more than their share or tragedy and mistreatment on the inhabitants of the ashram. The women reflect frequently on all they don't have - their own homes, a good husband, children, a place in society - but at times they are happy and things aren't all bad. Chetana is the woman who most takes control of her life - despite her tough beginnings - and Kokila finds her own kind of love a couple of times. Most of the men in the book are a pretty rum bunch, filled with prejudices or drinking themselves into oblivion and whoring around the small town. Even then there are a few who aren't completely deplorable.I liked the extended time frame, the slow changes that crept up on the community as time passed and the house fell into decay and history marched on. It's hard not to think that the inhabitants of Telia Meda made something special in the house with the white roof revolving around their not-so-sure-of-herself guru.It's a great read. Local words are shamelessly NOT translated (thank goodness, I've had my fill of indexes at the back of books explaining every non-Anglo word - you don't NEED to know, just go with the flow) and the book is full of the colours, sights and smells of the Southern Indian coastline of Tamil Nadu. It's very different from the setting of many Indian novels and all the better for that.I think I have only one Malladi book left to read. I'm reluctant to find myself with nothing left to look forward to.

Malladi's only long novel is the story of Kokila, a young Indian woman who is orphaned at the age of 11, shortly after her betrothal. She is taken to live with intellectual and sage Ramanandam Sastri, who, in his wisdom, has decreed that his daughter Charvi is a guru or demi-goddess, and established an ashram in her honour in a beautiful town by the sea. Kokila loves her life at the ashram, particularly her friendship with Chetana (the abandoned daughter of a prostitute, offered a home by Charvi and her father) and with Ramanandam's son Vidura, who she comes to love. Indeed, so happy is she in the ashram that when the time comes for her to move to her husband's home, she refuses - even though turning down a husband will in effect bar her from marriage for life, and turn her into a despised spinster. Kokila hopes against hopes that, staying in the ashram, Vidura may allow their affection to mature into something deeper, and in the end marry her. But instead, Vidura disappears, and Kokila is left in the ashram with Ramanandam, Charvi and Chetana. A traditional life and marriage will not now be possible for her - but over the years she finds solace, in observing and helping the multiple women who live at the ashram (Sudhabra, the cook, who has her own marriage secret, Chetana, who returns when her marriage is in trouble, Charvi, who both resents and exploits her role as a guru), in a strange relationship with Ramanandram, in fostering a child.. meanwhile, as the women live their secluded lives, India is fast-changing around them.Apart from a nasty account of how Kokila and Vidura has 'such fun' tying fireworks to the tail of a cat after Diwali, the first part of this novel is rather lovely, particularly the descriptions of the 'enlightened life' that the women live at the ashram, and the landscape around. Kokila is a mysterious and intriguing character, and for the first 100 pages or so I really cared what happened to her. I also liked Malladi's idea of contrasting life in the ashram with the troubled politics of India outside. And in the later stages of the book, it was interesting to contrast the outgoing life of one of Chetana's daughters with her mother's very domestic existence. The women's different stories were also interesting. However, I felt the book ran out of steam quite quickly, and that Malladi was quite narrow-minded about various things. For example, I thought the relationship between Ramanandam and Kokila was very narrowly portrayed; Malladi seemed convinced that Ramanandam 'must' be exploiting Kokila and Kokila 'must' be fooling herself in believing herself in love with them, just because of their age gap - and Kokila's behaviour towards her lover became extremely nasty. Also, if Ramanandam was so terrified of Charvi, why did he not either marry Kokila, thus legitimising the relationship, or just leave well alone in the first place? If he was so religious, didn't he believe his behaviour was damning him? Kokila's later romance with the doctor just fizzled into nothing, for no reason, as did the subplot about her adopting a child. Moreover, once Malladi had got past the death of Ramanandam, the story seemed to lose focus. There was little plot, just endless anecdotes from the women about how meaningless and sad their lives had been, culminating in a ridiculous plot on Charvi's part to save her ashram by pretending a tidal wave would strike it, and the ending felt very low-key. Kokila became so much less interesting as a character in the second part that I felt it would have been better for Malladi to tell her story in the first part, and the story of Chetana's daughter - to whom things really did happen - in the second. And I didn't understand the importance of the cuckoo bird. Malladi could have also explained bits of Indian lore and religious customs better for the non-Indian readers, such as the role of the guru.This book had interesting ideas, and introduced some interesting themes about Indian society, but it wasn't that engrossing in the end. Anita Desai, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Arunadha Roy and Arundati Roy offer better and more involved pictures of India - so I'd recommend them much more.

Another wonderful novel by Amulya Malladi. I loved this book and felt really sad when I finished it, as I just wanted to be with the characters still. You feel you are there with them when you read this - and all Malladi's other novels too. I have read 4 of her novels and loved each one. I have just bought the next one! If you like Jhumpa Lahiri, Isabelle Allende or Amy Tan, you will also love Amulya Malladi.

I really enjoyed this book.It's telling the life stories of several very different women thrown together.They, appear to live little lives, but not without love, happiness, trauma and sorrow.Whatever is thrown at them they show they are survivors.

Took a while to get into this story but once I did I found it quite engrossing. It was interesting to follow the events in India through the years, tying up wth the happenings in the story.

Characters developed with such depth, maddening and thought provoking to read of the deeply ingrained sexism in this culture, but the book is brilliant, I really felt as if I'd stepped into Tela Meda myself.

The characters were all flawed in many ways but showed great humanity as well. I was draw in immediately and felt l knew them all by the end. I was left wondering what their alternative lives could have been like. I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in people and their motivations

Very Interesting and involving on human and countrywide levels

A great book in which to lose yourself. Follows an orphan girl through five decades, weaving in the stories of the people (mainly women) she lives with in a Southern Indian ashram. News bites give context to the story.

The story is slow to start but a real satisfying read when you get to the end. The only reason I gave it four stars is because it is slow to get going.

Irritating typos, grammatical and formatting issues.

Well packaged but pages yellowing.

Beautifully written with descriptions that bring the story alive. A saga of relationships and changing values. Happy endings make for good holiday reading.

great book having returned from india from holiday I really could relate to the characters

I finished this book only a few weeks ago but it is already fading from my memory. In “Song of the Cuckoo Bird” we follow the lives of a group of people (mostly women) who have experienced abuse, suffering, tragedy, hardship and heartbreak and have found a home and a surrogate family in a “benign” ashram (benign in comparison with the one in Bapsi Sidhwa’s “Water”) run by a woman who may or may not be a goddess (she is not sure herself). The setting and the characters are well drawn and the writing is quite good but the story didn’t engage me enough to leave a lasting impression.