I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book – it is an amazing story that revolves around the relationship of 2 sisters. The author uses an incredible amount of detail to create vivid images in the mind of the reader. I had a hard time putting it down.

I was thoroughly absorbed and involved in the story right from the beginning. Intricate character development, easy to imagine and empathize with the various lives, their personalities, plights, joys, and relationships-both the obvious and hidden sides.
With the author's ability to bring to life the settings vividly and in depth (without becoming too lengthy), it enhanced greatly the visual sense and overall enjoyment of the book...to feel the time of day, the sounds, lighting, tastes, smells.
The well-timed rhythm of the book leads to an ending that left me with a sense of hope and possibility in the complex world of human relationships, and change, evolvement through the power of risk, courage, and love. Highly recommended!

There is a musicality that permeates Ameen Merchant's exquisite debut novel. Right from the name, The Silent Raga, (the Tamil Mounaragam is more eloquent, but would be meaningless to Western readers), to the way its chapters are structured after the various stages of a raga's performance in recital, and the mellifluous prose they contain, and in the way certain sentences or words are repeated as a refrain, there is an inherent musicianship about the enterprise.

Two skeins of intricately wrought narrative unspool simultaneously, like melody and harmony. Within the first few pages, one is hooked as the question, "How did they get here from there?" forms in the reader's mind.

"Here" is the protagonist's present: Janaki Asgar, the Brahmin Hindu second wife of a Muslim film star. She is famous now in her own right with a successful classical music academy whose students are on the verge of international renown. It has taken her ten years to reinvent herself. Naturally, there are the psychic scars of abruptly severed ties and the whiff of scandal. "Here", geographically is Bombay or today's Mumbai.

"There", in purely physical terms, is a small town in Southern India, not far from Madras or present-day Chennai. Its distance from Bombay is considerable, though far less than those of perceived differences of caste, religion, and tradition. In the past "there", Janaki is a middle-class Brahmin girl with few prospects and no hope. An early adulthood is thrust on her when, plucked out of school upon her mother's untimely demise, she is dispatched to the kitchen to become the family cook and cleaning woman, plus replacement mother to the younger sister upon whom she dotes.

As it is with millions of such girls in India, this Janaki must live a life of servitude, first in her father's home, then in her husband's (if her family can rustle up a sufficiently attractive dowry sum), without murmur or question. But Janaki is different. With a survivor's canny instincts, she realizes early on that tradition can ensnare only if subscribed to. Her common sense makes her modern in our understanding of the word. And she plays the veena-a stringed instrument akin to the sitar-divinely. A gypsy woman, to whom she gives alms, prophesies that the instrument will be her salvation.

This prediction and a shocking incident galvanize her into putting an escape plan into action, or so one is led to think. It is best that no further details of the plot are revealed to ensure untarnished pleasures of reading and discovery.

What is fascinating is that Ameen Merchant has populated his book predominantly with women. Men-the perpetrators, the oppressors, the aggressors, and yes, sometimes, saviors-remain shadowy figures. Apart from three male characters, one feels pity and a cold contempt for the men, and turns ones attention back to the women characters, who are uniformly compelling.

One cannot ask why the women do not rebel, or leave, or tell the oppressors to go to hell. Feminism, as it is known in the West, cannot be transplanted to South Asia and expected to flourish. The women themselves would not subscribe to it. What one can hope for are the quiet epiphanies that come to the Janakis of the world. Janaki uses her wits, and one knows from the outset that she has forged her own destiny. Perhaps change was imminent, for Mallika, the younger sister, gets to follow her desires for education and an empowering fulfilling job. But how did it happen? The author offers judiciously measured morsels of information and expertly draws out the tension in his tale, until it progresses to a satisfying, emotional crescendo.

Ameen Merchant has retained many of the Tamil words and locutions that are part of everyday speech, often because they do not readily translate into English. This does not reduce the pleasure of the non-Indian reader, for the meanings are readily apparent from the gist of the sentences. His spot-on descriptions of the rhythms of small-town life and each task that comprises the quotidian routine transcend the humdrum and take them into the realm of the poetic. The remembrance of long-forgotten sights, colours, customs, tastes (yes, there are many tantalizing South Indian dishes mentioned), and textures is among the many pleasures of the book.

And when Janaki and Mallika finally meet again, it is as though a benediction has been pronounced. The concert has ended, and that, dear reader, is our cue to stand and applaud.

Two great qualities of this novel: one, the vitality of the characters, smart and passionate, and ensnared in a plot that is full of the play of fate and reality, feeling as familiar as one's own life, however removed that life may be from theirs. Two, the sheer physical allure of the places and scenes. The description is never overdone, but this seems to be a book which can't resist the sensuality of India itself.

There is something about books about India…. It is as if images and descriptions of the place are uniquely strong and vivid in the minds of readers in English. Sights, sounds, smells, the touch of India, arise from the prose in The Silent Raga: It could all be a kind of touristic indulgence-except that we are hearing a voice of intimate familiarity with India. And beyond that, the pretext and reason for the poetics: the musical scale which informs the whole book. That is inevitable because a major motivation/driver in the story is the making of Indian music.

A rhythmic current of narrative quickly sets in, a page-turning curiosity develops, because the characterization is both rich and strange. Yet not exotic: these people are so easy to identify with. I can't say how Merchant makes this happen, but he does. He involves us in the narrative, for suspense, mystery, complete catharsis-pity and terror. There is intelligent, incisive scrutiny of multi-generational family relationships, female-centred, somewhat reminiscent of Tamarind Mem. A reader soon identifies whole-heartedly with how these Indian women feel and react, even if the reader is not an Indian woman. The now-hackneyed remark is unavoidable: the author is not an Indian woman either.

The compulsion to move the story along is finely balanced with the judicious amount of lyrical imagery in the text. The haste of curiosity is at odds with the desire of the mind to linger, over the evocations of food, climate, the air, the voice of the place. For instance, one recurring series of descriptions of electric light sources. Bulbs and lamps keep appearing, in various conditions of age and frailty, and their particular characters, and the particular qualities of light they emit, seem to stand in some way for memory itself, whether memory of a time that is gone, or of ways of making and structuring things in human civilization that are flawed, or insufficient, or less esteemed. So many visions of electric illumination, whether sad or dim, or garish, or warm and generous, come to linger in the mind like actual memories of light observed.

If the raga is a mysterious craft to most English-speaking readers, The Silent Raga's emotional depths begin to suggest something of it as it moves along and we are touched and seduced by turns. It is like being drawn into the ecstasy of musical rhythms; no scholarly knowledge or ability is needed, other than knowing how to listen.

Apparently this is the question that inspired Merchant to write this book. But he leaves us to figure out whether or not Janaki (ie/ daughter of King Janak) refers to Sita the banished heroine of the Ramayana or some other Janaki he has encountered in his life.
I for one can see many parallels between the story of Sita and that of Janaki in this novel. Both are 'defiled' by a mlecca or demon, both give birth to twins in their exile and both go on to live lives that are a mystery to those they left behind.
Regardless of wheter or not this is THE Janaki or not, the novel weaves a captivating story about two sisters - the one who leaves and the one who is left behind. There is tragedy without being melodramatic, there is an insiders look to Bollywood without being salacious. But what is most impressive is the insight into the psyche of women, particularly considering it was written by a man.