Song of the Cuckoo Bird by Amulya Malladi

Song of the Cuckoo Bird Reviews

• 
  Gorab

  Excellent read. When I think back on what was so good about it, there isn't anything particular.
  A story spanning across generations from 1960s, of inhabitants of Tella Meda, an unconventional ashram, also serving as an orphanage and an old age house.
  
  Nothing exceptional about the plot, or the writing style, or the characters. Most of it is like a commentary on their day to day lives. But the way these characters blend and form that bonding is what makes it an interesting read.
  Every chapter begins with a couple of major news headlines from that year. That makes it way easier to relate to the passage of time between chapters.
  
  Amulya's mother, Lakshmi, helped her write this book. Their conversation about the characters of this book is added as a Reader's Guide in the end. That gives insight on how these characters were etched. Enjoyed reading that conversation very much.
  
  Recommended: For folks who love to immerse themselves in day to day lives of their book characters, without bothering much about where or how the plot is moving.
• 
  Chandler

  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!!
• 
  Chahrazad

  This is the 3rd book I read by Malladi. She's an excellent writer and her prose is great but it's her characters that leave a significant impact on me. Her characters are so real, so complex yet so simple; they go about their daily lives without any fuss but the impact they leave is so pronounced. Kokila, Chetana, Charvi, Subhadra, and others will stay with me for a long time.
  I definitely recommend it.
• 
  Ahtims

  One of the best books I've read so far this year. I just loved this book from the first line to the end, though the end was a bit bizarre. I loved the house, the disjoint characters, the way they live together and help each other inspite of glaring differences between their temperaments and circumstances - I would like to reread this book and I would definitely recommend this to anyone and every one. These sort of stories are my forte - where nothing much happens, days pass by and people do the best to live and to learn. I felt very close with all people. It was as if I was an impartial observer living with them. Amulya Malladi is great.
• 
  Aditi Varma

  After the previous 2 books that I read by the author, this book was a disappointment. It's not like I haven't ever read and liked some book set in a very different time or culture. But nothing about the setting, the characters, the storyline, enticed me about this book. I kept waiting for it to get better. But it didn't. It wasn't a pleasure to read. It had a proper ending, even if somewhat rushed. Highly unsatisfactory.
• 
  Emily Kestrel

  Song of the Cuckoo Bird provides a glimpse into Indian daily life and social change, through the eyes of the women who inhabit Tella Meda, a house in village by the Bay of Bengal. The story revolves around three women in particular: Kokila, an orphan; Chetana, a prostitute's daughter; and Charvi, believed by some to be a guru.
  
  The history of Tella Meda begins when Ramanandam, a writer who is controversial for his views on women's equality, thinks he recognizes signs of holiness in one of his daughters, Charvi. At first, Charvi herself denies being a guru, but many people find comfort in her presence, and the house becomes an ashram and a sanctuary for the unwanted.
  
  Song of the Cuckoo Bird was interesting, and it was easy to get into the story, but it never engaged me on an emotional level. Perhaps that was the result of the sheer scope of the story, a snapshot of so many characters taking place over several decades. I was most interested in Charvi, and why she kept playing the part of a guru when she never seemed to believe it, but the narrative only rested on her point of view occasionally. Even so, I would definitely recommend it.
• 
  ☆Ruth☆

  Based in India during the second half of the twentieth century, this is the story of a house and the women who lived in it. I found myself experiencing a completely different culture and way of life through the lives of the protagonists. It was a fascinating and engrossing read - the characters lived and breathed for me and regardless of the difference in backgrounds, I could identify with their pain, their heartache and their joy. Naturally there were words and cultural references that I didn't understand but I found that it didn't really interfere with my enjoyment of the book.
• 
  Baljit

  I would rate this 2.5 stars. It's a story of the people who by chance end up living in an ashram with one woman who has been given the status of a goddess. The dynamics between the characters is interesting and spans many decades, but it lacks some emotional depth, so it is not in the league of Indian writers like Mistry and Umigar. I would however, read other novels by this writer to see how her writing develops.
• 
  Prital Nicholls

  All about the lives of women over the course if 50 odd years who live in a ashram in india. I love reading book about India and thus enjoyed it . A good insight into South Indian customs.I think more could have been made of the characters and some events in the story leave un answered questions and don't add to it. All in all an enjoyable read but not a favourite.
• 
  Shweta Kesari

  Her stories in one way or other casts reflection of the reader's story as well, as the incidents that are captured are very relatable and narrated with honesty.
  
  This one by Amulya is different from her other works - where stories are formulated from domestic tell-a-tell. I enjoyed this change, as I was on a spree to read all of her books. I see myself draw learnings from her writings, the charcters and the life they were to play. Not sure if the time imprints at the end of each chapters, helps in any way or not, but glad that this time its not recipes :).
  
  There's so many characters and their stories involved, but not for once did I feel that something is missing or going out of the trail. I thoroughly enjoyed the first-half, but second half seems a bit stretched.
• 
  Swagata Tarafdar

  It's a book spanning four decades in post-independence India, beginning in 1961 and ending in 2000. The novel depicts the lives of women inmates at an ashram situated at Telia Meda, Andhra Pradesh. The plot is quite interesting with many strong women characters. The characters seemed to me as trapped in their own lives, own circumstances. They tried hard to escape their destinies, but not always succeeded. These women differed from the women of mainstream society as Telia Meda provided shelters to the discards of society.
  
  The characters will stay with the readers for a long time even after finishing the story. They were thrown into a life which was not their own choice, the only exception being Kokila, the protagonist of the story. Charvi, the guru of the ashram, who was anointed guru by her father but who herself was unsure of her divinity, was never able to have a traditional family. Chetana, a prostitute's daughter, tried hard to get a normal life outside Telia Meda, but failed miserably. Kokila, who stayed in the ashram and refused to leave it for her husband's home, searched for love in men much older than her
  
  Overall, a pleasant read. But the writing, I felt, could have been better.
• 
  Heather

  Well written, great story, with very personable characters and plot line. I liked the time lapse between chapters, and historical details woven it. It made the passage of ~50 years much easier to grasp and work with the story. The only issue I had was that some of the chapters re-summarized what happened the chapter before to explain the actions of a character. This is somewhat repetitive since you read the actual details a few pages before. Other than that, I enjoyed the book.
• 
  Katie M.

  I liked the idea of this book much more than the book itself - the prose is pretty painful, all tell and no show. But still, for the idea of it - and the potential of what this book could have been - it gets a dubious 3 stars.
• 
  Sangeetha

  This book had me captivated for a week. It reminded me of God of small things, the ease with which the storyline moves forward. There was no mystery, or conspiracy in the story nevertheless you wanted to continue reading. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it
• 
  Barbara

  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. Chetana is 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.
• 
  Aada

  Song of the Cuckoo Bird is a novel consisting of short stories. I think the structure worked fairly well even though it couldn't be considered original.
  
  The characters were mostly likeable and some of the stories were quite interesting. I ended up wishing the best for each of the women of Tella Meda, regardless of their flaws. However, the novel was pretty repetitive and predictable. I got tired of the constant foreshadowing like "She never saw him again" and "She would know later". This writing style is okay in moderation, but in my personal opinion the book contained too much of it.
  
  The most intriguing part was the setting. I was excited to learn more about Indian culture, which is far too foreign for me. Having a character that was a guru was an interesting choice.
  
  To sum up, I would say Song of the Cuckoo Bird is has a fascinating setting with an okay implementation. Apparently Malladi wanted to explore India's history through real stories, which is a beautiful idea in itself, even though the book had its shortcomings.
• 
  Ashwini Shenoy

  Song of the Cuckoo Bird is the story that revolves around the lives of people from three different generations, their beliefs, their desires and everything in between.
  The book starts with Kokila's entry into Tela Meda, a house-cum-ashram where everyone is welcome. Tela Meda and its inmates are quite popular in the small town of Bheemunipatnam because of Charvi, who is believed to be an enlightened soul and revered to as a goddess. She is probably the only one in Tela Meda whose image is not tainted. Thus the story shows us the lives of different characters, their mistakes, their regrets and how they go about living their lives in spite of everything that happens to them.
  The book is full of energy and keeps you hooked to it till the very end.
  
  Once you're done with it, you cannot help but wonder what happened to the characters (Spoiler alert!) after Tela Meda was brought down and a year later the cuckoo bird returned to its new nest.
• 
  Sarah

  If you are looking for an easy holiday read that is full of laughs this book may not be what you are looking for - give it a read anyway, its a brilliant book. If however, you are looking for a great read, full of drama and Indian culture then you will not be disappointed. I thoroughly enjoyed this book it was well written with interesting characters. Already I have checked that Amulya Malladi has written other books so I have something to read next, I think I have found myself another favourite author. I would happily recommend this book to other readers.
• 
  Cynthia

  Great book and a fast read. This is my second book by this author. I love her writing style and how this story had wonderful complex characters. The story spanned over 40 years. There is happiness, sorry and conflict. Chetana was my favorite character. She was stong willed and very kind. This book also brought to light arranged marriages and how there is a caste system in India. The author weaves the story with detail, passion and conviction. I really enjoyed this book.
  
  Rating 4 out of 5
• 
  Shiva Priya

  Beautifully written story of how a cornucopia of characters become a family despite their circumstances, even without love at times. Perfect glimpse of the changing times and how the main characters adapt. It is yet another testament of how, no matter the age and era, the choices we make sometimes stick with us for the rest of our lives.
• 
  Ruth Phillips

  Excellent
  
  Another excellent book from this most talented writer. This book was very engaging, and I found it very hard to put down to take a break. I liked how the author tied in historical moments into her storyline. Great book!!
• 
  Pansy

  Life in an offbeat ashram in India. The descriptions of the physical setting were interesting and painted a thorough picture. The character development left me unsatisfied and some of the personalities blended together. Overall an interesting read.
• 
  Raghvendra Singh

  Very poor writing
  
  This book is a waste of time for people who read this book as it dose not give hope to it's character rather it's a grim story of women living in a ashram.
• 
  Harsahil Singh

  Very slow and paces like an indian tv serial
• 
  Bindu dani

  It was like I myself was living inside telia meda.....amazing journey.. totally enjoyed the book