Milk Teeth – Redevelopment and finding strength
Book Name: Milk Teeth
Author Name: Amrita Mahale
Publishing House: Westland Publications
Cities adapt to new things. They develop themselves to provide a healthy environment. This novel discusses how Ira, Karthik and Kaiz look at their city. Their perspective on the city changes as they grow up. Amrita Mahale has brought the nostalgic memory of city people for sure. For me, Bombay is an unknown place. She made sure to explore those areas.
It is normal in the literature classroom to discuss longlists and shortlist of any award. Longlist and shortlist are the books selected by judges to give the concerning award. Normally a longlist will not be published publicly. The shortlist of any award will be released by the audience. Each list will be released at a prior time. Sometimes there will be voting among readers, sometimes it will not. I came through this novel because of the JCB Prize. This novel was one of the longlisted books.
JCB Prize
JCB Prize for Literature is an Indian literary award. It is established in 2018. It is awarded annually with a 25 lakh INR (38400 USD) prize to a distinguished work of fiction by an Indian writer working in English or translated fiction by an Indian writer. The Literary Director is Mita Kapur. The winners will be announced each November with shortlists in October and longlists in September. It has been called “India’s most valuable literature prize”.
The JCB Literature Foundation was established to maintain the award. It is funded by the English construction manufacturing group JCB. Publishers are allowed, per imprint, to enter two novels originally written in English and two novels translated into English from another language.
Amrita Mahale
Amrita Mahale was born in Mumbai. She grew up in five cities across India. She studied aerospace engineering at IIT Bombay and Stanford University. She was part of the Sangam House writing residency in 2017-18. Amrita Mahale is the author of the novel ‘Milk Teeth,’ published by Westland Context. Her writing has appeared in Hindustan Times, Scroll, Himal Southasian and Brown Paper Bag.
Sangam House writing residency
The word Sangam in Sanskrit means “going together.” Sangam House intends to bring together writers from around the world to live and work in a safe, peaceful setting, a space made necessary on many levels by the world we now live in. The residency programs are designed for writers who have published to some acclaim but not yet enjoyed substantial commercial success. Sangam House seeks to give writers a chance to build a solid and influential network of personal and professional relationships that can deepen their work, in effect, expanding and diversifying literature. Amrita Mahale was part of this program during 2018.
Plot
Milk Teeth is all about the apprehensions of shedding the old and absorbing the new. It can be the new infrastructure, rules, eateries, or even the changed attitudes of the city dwellers. The story strolls through the city’s palatial structures, dives into its underbelly and emerges to reaffirm a multitude of contradictions, the plurality weaved inextricably into its identity. Every character in the book has a clear story. Each character offers a different lens through to view the same city. The characters in the novel find themselves in adapting situations. The tale of the city is huge and the theme of the novel is excellent. Wait for Part 2 to know about those.
The tale of a city in flux
Ira Kamat and Kartik Kini, childhood best friends. They meet again as adults in Asha Nivas. Asha Nivas, the dilapidated building in Matunga where they grew up and their parents still reside. She works as a beat reporter covering the municipal corporation. He has recently moved back to Mumbai to work as a consultant in an American company. When the landlord intends to tear down Asha Nivas and build a glitzy apartment complex, a shrine to the aspirations of new Mumbai, the tenants of Asha Nivas have to decide their collective stance. Meanwhile, after deciding to get married with the support of their parents, Ira and Karthik’s relationship is tested when her former boyfriend Kaiz re-enters the picture.
Themes
Amrita explores class, community, sexuality and gentrification. Milk Teeth is a sharp, funny and moving look at middle-class characters in a city that’s leaving them behind. The characters find that they are sandwiched between their parents and their ideas. Each of the characters struggles with something that I have also struggled with: Kartik’s self-doubt and professional dissatisfactions, Ira’s anxiety about her lack of cultural capital, Kaiz’s anxiety to prove that Mumbai is his home. And each of these is linked to the novel’s central theme: finding your place in a changing world while trying to remain true to an idea you have of yourself.
Amrita discusses Bombay, not the modernized Mumbai. The book captures Bombay in all its glory and gloom with the situations that governed the city during those times. Sublime descriptions of the city and its grandeur made me read. The crumbling city sets an example of the crumbling relationship of Ira.
Mahale’s writing
The real conflict is stirred by the depth of Mahale’s writing. Every character clash, falter, raise hackles, we struggle to choose sides. I had a tough time picking sides between well-written characters. To that extent, the characters made me empathise.
Conclusion
Amrita Mahale’s Milk Teeth has grown very well. There is no way for that temporary to fall. Milk Teeth marks the arrival of an accomplished new writer. If Mahale’s milk teeth have such a bite, I can’t wait to read what a permanent set will be like.
Never feel that I have said anything about everything I have missed a few things to make everyone read at least once. Grab the book or kindle version. Read once. Everyone might enjoy Amrita Mahale’s effect to bring the image of Bombay along with so many themes.
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