A storyteller who has walked around with an untold story in their heart knows the restlessness, and anguish, it causes. Such is the story of Amisha, a soul that was born to tell stories. And this is what makes “The Storyteller’s Secret” by Sejal Badani a highly endearing read, or as my kid would say “un-put-downable”.
Jaya, the pseudo-protagonist (you’ll know why I call her that shortly) acts as the narrator who ties the story together. Grappling with the reality of three failed pregnancies and a marriage that has drifted apart as a result, she looks for solace in her surroundings. Growing up as the only child of Indian immigrant parents, with a wide chasm between her and her mother that she has never been able to bridge, she treats the third miscarriage as another lost opportunity to love and cherish a child of her own.
Looking for an escape route, she responds on behalf of her mother to a letter from her dying grandfather in India, who wishes to meet his daughter. Jaya knows nothing about her mother’s roots, as that has always been a subject that her mother refuses to talk about. She arrives in India, to a remote village in central India, to find out that her grandfather has died. She is greeted by Ravi, the family servant who has been around since her grandmother, and who was her grandmother’s closest confidante.
From here starts the story of Amisha – Jaya’s grandmother – narrated by Ravi. It is evident from the outset that Amisha was a woman with thoughts well ahead of her times. She dances at her own wedding, hires an untouchable as a servant, decides she want to go back to school when the Britishers construct one in the village, then decides she wants to teach at that very same school. Beyond everything she wants to tell stories. She uses stories to teach her own kids, she uses stories to teach the kids at the school, and her life’s greatest desire is to be able to write these stories in a form which everyone could read. However, these desires in a patriarchal society are nothing short of blasphemy, and the school which had given roots to her stories become her undoing.
If the storyline sounds fantastic, it is. While Amisha comes across as a true storyteller, bursting to tell stories, and trapped like a bird in a cage when she is unable to, the story itself is fraught with errors. Making it evident that the writer has neither been to the places she speaks about, nor has researched sufficiently about India – past and present. An untouchable practically runs her entire household, she has a long-ish whispered conversation with a Britisher at a “Holi Milan” where the whole village and her husband have also assembled, spends hours with him alone at school after school hours and no one in the village, including her husband, raises a question – and this is India in the 1920’s/30’s we are talking of. And while I am not an expert on pre-independence central India, I am fairly certain from my experience living there in the 80’s that women were never addressed as “Shrimati” in conversations in first person.
The language is conversational to the extreme, which may appeal to some readers. But if you are looking for quality narrative, you will be disappointed.
The author has a beautiful and touching story to tell. The only thing the book needed was much better editing and a well-researched setting to be a classic love story. Read it for the love story and for the love of stories only.
—
Reviewer’s Rating: 3.5/5
Be a good Samaritan: If you liked this review, please share it with others. If you did not, share it with us in the comments below
We regularly publish original book reviews. Contact us if you are an author/publisher and want us to review your work. For partnerships, drop an email to contact@tell-a-tale.com.
Our affiliates:
If you would like to purchase ‘The Storyteller’s Secret’ by Sejal Badani, you can do so from our affiliates at
Amazon (Hardcover): The Storyteller’s Secret
Amazon (Kindle Ed.): The Storyteller’s Secret
Tell-A-Tale gets a small share of the purchases you make from the affiliate link, helping us bring you the stories you love to read.
