Teaser Tuesdays: Delhi Mostly Harmless

This week’s teaser is from Delhi Mostly Harmless by Elizabeth Chatterjee – a book about the author’s experiences of living in Delhi for a year.

At the entrance of the Metro surfaced an Auntie, one of India’s terrifyingly disapproving older matrons. She was a particularly large example of the species, swaddled in an aggressively green and expensively silken sari. She cast a cold predatory eye over the narrow tube of the carriage. There were no seats. Suddenly, without seeming to move a muscle, she materialized in front of me, and turned in a slow wordless arc, and began to reverse.

For a long moment I stared at a vast onrushing expansion of green. I had a strange sensation of falling, like a skydiver plunging headfirst towards a well-tended lawn. And then she sat on me.

~ Delhi Mostly Harmless by Elizabeth Chatterjee

I like the author’s irreverent writing style but I am a little torn about the tone of the book. While I don’t expect a writer to go gaga over a place she’s visiting, there is a little too much mockery of Delhi and its people to suit my taste.

Still, I’m just a few chapters in so hopefully things change later on in the book.

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!
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5 Comments

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  1. says: FictionFan

    Even from the teaser, I felt what you said about the tone – I’ll be interested to see whether you think it stays like that all the way through…

  2. says: Jen

    Glad to hear your feedback on this! Curious to see the official review to learn if the tone shifts…Delhi isn’t my favorite place, but there is certainly a ton to do and see and it has it’s own character and charm.