When Their Son Moved into the Tree. Review on Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard - Kiran Desai

“...Sampath Chawla, born in a time of drought into a family not quite like other families, in a town not quite like other towns.”

In her debut novel, Kiran Desai talks about life’s everyday problems, including love and family relationships, in a very comical, yet engrossing manner. The story is set in an imaginary town called Shahkot somewhere in Northern India.

In a time of a terrible drought, Sampath Chawla- is born. At first, he is a total failure in life. He struggles to pass school, then struggles at his job, and then is fired by his boss. The only things that he is good at are daydreaming, and singing to himself. He also has to cope with his strange family-- his father, Mr. Chawala, Kulfi, his mother, Ammaji, and Pinky, his sister.

Desai has done an excellent job of delineating her characters. Each of them are colorful and hilarious in their own manner. A closer look at the characters:

Mr. Chawla--he is the head of the family, worries about Sampath’s future and about making money.

Kulfi---one of my favorite characters in this novel. She is eccentric, and is obsessed about strange foods and making exotic meals for her son.

Ammaji---Mr. Chawla’s mother. She secretly enjoys her revered position in the household, while complaining about the lack of attention being paid to her.

Pinky---Sampath’s younger sister, who is annoyed by the other members of the family, thinks she has an acute sense of fashion, and is in love with the Hungry Hop Kwality ice cream boy.

To escape from the worries of the world, and of course, his family, Sampath finds solitude by climbing an old guava tree in a deserted orchard, outside the city. Since he used to be a postal worker (and read everyone’s letters) before being fired, he finds it easy to pose as a clairvoyant sage and soon gains respect from the people of Shahkot. People come from all over India and Sampath is known as the “Baba”.

His family, seeing this opportunity as being financially helpful, advertise Sampath’s name and sell his pictures. Soon, a bunch of drunken monkeys appear at the scene and add to the overall comic effect. However, the monkeys are out of control and threaten the town’s peaceful existence.

The people of the town, inlcuding a spy who wants to prove Sampath as a fraud, come up with different (but all equally hilarious) plans to get rid of the monkeys that put poor Sampath in dilemma. The ending is somewhat abrupt, and the only part of the book which could have been better.

This novel is filled with numerous hilarious events. There are also great quotes and plot is well developed. There are some serious messages that Desai skillfully interweaves subtly within the comic plot. However, as I said, the ending could have been better. The language is not hard to understand, and it is pretty short. Other than that, I would recommend this unique novel to everyone.