The Flight of the Swans

by D. Devika Bai

The Flight of the Swans is a rich and fascinating family saga set in British India and Malaya. Cursed, and with blood on his hands, Captain Ramdas Rao Bhonlse is forced to flee Killa Fort, which has fallen to the British. A strange flight of swans signals his flight from Killa; a flight that will drive Ramdas and his family into further adversity. But great adversity spawns great dreams. Ramdas dreams of ousting the British from his motherland. His sons, the handsome and irascible Nilkanth and the plain and romantic Madhav dream of possessing the same girl, Tara Bai, who is the most beautiful courtesan in the land. And Ramdas’ granddaughter, blind Arundhati, dreams only of seeing one day. Woven into this tapestry is a lone white swan inextricably linked to the ebb and flow of the Bhonsles’ fortunes as they flee across India to Malaya.

At once magical, poignant and exotic, Devika Bai’s debut novel mesmerises as it unravels the love, loyalty and courage of the Bhonsles. The saga unfolds against the backdrop of war, famine, family conflict and social injustice, and hurtles towards its inevitable end in a masterful blend of history and fiction.

 
Pub Date: April 2005 | Price: S$23.50 | Paperback (B format) 320pp
Fiction / Hstorical | ISBN: 978-981-05-2367-1 | Territory: World (all languages)
     
D. Devika Bai is a retired school administrator of Malaysian Indian descent. Her short stories and articles have been published in print in Singapore and Malaysia, and online in several North American e-publications. She is the great-granddaughter of one of the earliest Tanjore Maratha immigrants to British Malaya.
“New voice of Malaysian fiction”
–TODAY

“ The Flight of the Swans, Devika Bai has firmly marked for herself a place in the Malaysian literary scene”
–New Straits Times

“Devika Bai has a wonderful eye for detail.”
–Rani Manicka, author of The Rice Mother (winner of 2003 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize)

“Swans is a sweeping saga of the Bhonsles – from the fall of India to the British and their journey of hope to then Malaya. Devika identifies most with the fearless and independent Rani Meera Bai, who takes on the British and relaxes by reading, listening to old Tamil songs and watching classic movies.”
–The Star

“Swans contains a lot of historical, cultural and religious details”
–The Sun