The Immortal King Rao by Vauhini Vara
The Immortal King Rao was a book I had given up on, last year I think. But something drew me to the same, earlier this month and once I was invested with the little Rao's growing up years in his little village in the back of nowhere past the East Godavari districts, I couldn't stop reading about the rise and rise of a Dalit dark-skinned man right at the centre of the world power, the riding the waves of innovation in tech-corridors of Corporate America, who then ultimately fucks up and then retreats to a small island. Yeah, it's as fascinating as it sounds, but wait there's more! So frankly, I thought The Immortal King Rao was an ambitious novel, on the lines of Midnight's Children , that takes a sweeping multi-generational tale and mixes it up with an eerily prescient vision of life on dystopian earth caught up in the throes of global warming. There were bits of the novel that were a brilliant trip drenched in nostalgia, especially the parts of Rao's childhoo...