Book Update: Chapter 1-7

So far, I have through chapter 7. This book is set in the 1980s, because it is forty years after India gained its independence in 1947. At first I was very confused by this book, because Meenakshi was going to Maharja's birthday party, and the Maharani which is Maharja's wife, is pregnant with their first male child. Meanwhile, a crow had asked Meenakshi for a seed, and Meenakshi had said no mulitple times. This confused me because crows do not talk... at least in real life. I figured that maybe she was dreaming or maybe she was hallucinating about something in her past. While this is happening, Sundar, which is Meenakshi's husband, was tending to their elephants when a monsoon hit. The elephants became terrified that they trampled Sundar "until there was little left of him but shards of bone." The author described the events during the hurricane very well, which is known as a monsoon or cyclone in India. Finally, in chapter six we get to hear more about Parvati. As a child, she was always very healthy unlike the majority of the children in her village. As she got older, none of the kids wanted to hangout with her and her family received a lot of hate, especially her mom. They thought Parvati was the cause of all of the bad things in the village. Also, she had a gift with dance. Once, her mother left her home with the fire still burning and she was able to dance through the fire without getting hurt, which truly showed that she had a gift for the art of dance. This book has been a little confusing and different from most because of the "talking" crow and stereotypes from her being healthy, but I like it.