About the Book: Birds of Wood
A poignant domestic fiction about love, repentance and trauma blanketing
generations. In 1970s Delhi, a Malayali Syrian Christian family bids to make a
life in a city that is itself being remade. Joey, crippled by arthritis, clings
to parochial ideals of the ancestral village he left behind. His wife, Ammal,
suffocates under the weight of a household hinging on obedience and appearances.
Meanwhile, their three daughters grow up between the deep fault lines of
punitive traditions. Outside, Delhi convulses. The Emergency has given way to an
uncharted political time, the aftermath of the 1984 massacres lingers, and a new
upwardly