MARC Record from marc_columbia

LEADER: 03803cam a2200373 a 4500
001 4889557
005 20221109193756.0
008 040915t20042004nyuc 000 0aeng
020 $a1560256281 :$c$22.95
035 $a(OCoLC)ocm56509149
035 $a(NNC)4889557
035 $a4889557
040 $aBKL$cBKL$dDPL$dSPP$dOrLoB-B
043 $aa-ii---$an-us---
090 $aRA424.5.M43$bM437 2004
092 0 $a362.9/54/552$222
100 1 $aMehta, Ved,$d1934-2021.$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n79066640
245 14 $aThe red letters :$bmy father's enchanted period /$cVed Mehta.
260 $aNew York :$bNation Books ;$a[Berkeley, Calif.] :$bDistributed by Publishers Group West,$c[2004], ©2004.
300 $ax, 190 pages :$bportrait ;$c21 cm.
336 $atext$btxt$2rdacontent
337 $aunmediated$bn$2rdamedia
490 1 $aContinents of exile
520 1 $a"Ved Mehta's acclaimed Continents of Exile series ends where it began - with a portrait of his father, Amolak Ram Mehta. But this, the final installment of the eleven-book series, which has been appearing over the last thirty-two years, is its emotional crescendo, the story of the author's discovery of his father's affair with a married woman in the British India of the 1930s." "The story has its origins in the 1960s, when Mehta by chance finds his father weeping uncontrollably on his mother's shoulder during a New York dinner party. As a result, the son begins to unravel a family mystery that takes him on a painful and revealing voyage into his father's British past in Simla, the magical hill station and summer capital of the Raj. Step by step, he is forced to confront his father's passionate clandestine affair with Rasil, an exquisite beauty who in her teens was abducted from her poor family and raped. She was subsequently rescued by a Hindu philanthropist, only to end up trapped in an abusive marriage to a rich businessman." "Years earlier, when the Daddyji of the story was working in the Punjab Himalayas as a medical student, he had met a young shepherdess on his rounds, and been intoxicated by her greenish-blue eyes, fair skin, golden hair, and the Nepalese lilt of her voice. At one moment, he caught sight of her concealed tattoo of the consort of Lord Krishna. She said that she, too, intended to marry the voluptuary deity." "Some fifteen years later in Lahore, Dr. Mehta encounters a socialite whom he recognizes as the hill girl of his youth by her tattoo. They reestablish contact and in time become lovers. Their affair is kept alive by the exchange of love letters, or Red Letters - sublime if eccentric works in themselves - that Mehta's father treasures for the remainder of his life as a memento of his enchanted time." "Mehta's exploration of his father's love affair proves painful, as the son realizes that the entanglement, a passing episode in sixty-one years of a loving marriage, had shattering psychological side-effects on his mother - a close friend of Rasil's - and also on his own life."--BOOK JACKET.
600 10 $aMehta, Amolak Ram,$d1894-1986.$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n79066489
650 0 $aHealth officers$zIndia$zPunjab$vBiography.
651 0 $aIndia$xSocial life and customs.$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh86007592
650 0 $aFathers$zIndia$vBiography.
650 0 $aAuthors, Indic$y20th century$vBiography.$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh2007101587
650 0 $aAuthors, American$y20th century$vBiography.$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh2007100576
650 0 $aBlind authors$zUnited States$vBiography.
800 1 $aMehta, Ved,$d1934-2021.$tContinents of exile.$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n88506893
852 00 $boff,glx$hRA424.5.M43$iM437 2004g
852 00 $bbar,stor$hRA424.5.M43$iM437 2004g