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Baumgartner's Bombay by Anita Desai

Everyone loves a rags to riches story. Even people like me who look down on non-award winning authors. But most often, the good books are not about this theme.

But this book is the opposite of it. It is riches to rags story. The story is really too good but too depressing. The story of teenage boy Hugo, whose father vanishes in Nazi Germany, whose shop is taken over by a non-Jew person and  both mother and son are not even able to protest, and who comes to India in search of better fortune.

But we know the end. We know that he will end up the ugliest slums of Bombay with no one in the world to call his own except for some stray cats.

Yes. We love to read good books. Which means we read depressing books. But even we wish that, if only the fortunes turn for Hugos of the world. If only there is justice in this world. 

The books is Baumgartner's Bombay by Anita Desai. And my rating is 5/5


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