Teaser Tuesdays: Virgin Gingelly

I am still reading Virgin Gingelly by V.Sanjay Kumar. It’s not a large book but there’s a lot packed within these pages, and it takes time to distill the language.

I do love his caustic way with words, an example of which is below:

virgin_gingelly

I was twenty years old, born to a placidity called Ramanathan and a career housewife called Engadi Irukae.

That’s what he called her. If his tone was fond that meant Where art thou? Most often he barked and that meant Where the hell are you?

My mother cooked, swabbed and swept. And she fetched. His slippers, his reading glasses, his endless glasses of water and his ointments.

~ Virgin Gingelly by V.Sanjay Kumar

I think most Tamilian households will relate to this teaser. A lot of us grew up in a similar atmosphere in Chennai, I am sure.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

teasertuesdays31

  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
  • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

11 comments

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  1. Sandra Nachlinger

    This sounds like an interesting story of a completely foreign culture (to me). I don’t think I’d like the husband at all!
    My Teaser is from WITHOUT A TRACE.

  2. Cleo

    Wow that is evocative, we don’t use the word ointment very often and yet I can almost smell them… Not sure if I could be his wife though 😉

    • Nishita

      @disqus_mUBrEiIQ5D:disqus eww, the sound of that word ointment sounds so yucky, doesn’t it? Poor wife who fetched and carried for him. Hopefully, she didn’t have to apply that ointment 😀

      • Cleo

        Hmm… I hadn’t even considered that – feeling quite ill now from the awful image now in my head 😉

  3. Juli Rahel

    This sounds really interesting. I’m trying to broaden my literary horizon a little bit, so I’m going to have to check this one out! Thanks for sharing 🙂 hope you have a good week!

    My Teaser Tuesday

    Juli @ Universe in Words

    • Nishita

      @nataliecleary:disqus I don’t know. Many of us grew up in such a traditional setup. It was hard on the wives though definitely.

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