Anjali Joseph - The Living

This is the Voice of Heaven, said the radio, and next in our special music programme of devotional songs we are playing you an early recording by Pandit Bhimsen Joshi.

The old bullfrog.

But the familiar tabla beats began, and the background incantation: Vitthala Vitthala Vitthala Vitthala …

Aa-aaa-aa-aa-aaaaa!

The voice was young, not the stentorian tones I remembered. It leapt for joy.

Prrrr, prrrr, prrr, prrr.

I couldn’t remember my anxieties, my hopes, my plans, my fears. I was carried away, and there was nothing to do but let go. The rhythm and warmth of the world flowed through me and like a lover I opened myself, and marvelled at my luck.

I’d like to thank:

In Kolhapur, Mr Vinayak Kadam of

Adarsh Charmodyog Centre, and Irfan Inamdar.

Salil Bijur, Dr Arti Khatter and Dr Farrokh Wadia.

In Norwich, Jason Larke and all at Van Dal Shoes.

A chapter of this novel first appeared in Granta: India

in January 2015. Thanks to Ian Jack and Yuka Igarashi.

Lettice Franklin and all at Fourth Estate in London;

V. K. Karthika and all at HarperCollins in Delhi.

The trustees and judges of the Desmond Elliott

Prize and the Betty Trask Prize.

Anjali Joseph’s first novel Saraswati Park (2010) won the Betty Trask Prize, the Desmond Elliott Prize, and the Vodaphone Crossword Book Award for Fiction in India. Another Country , her second novel, was published in 2012. She lives in India.