Money all the way

A family saga, sometimes entertaining, sometimes flagging in energy...

The author of Music Room, Namita Devidayal revisits readers with her second novel Aftertaste, a long engagement of a business family's deep obsession with wealth and abject genuflection in the presence of money and jewellery. The narrative then threads through a saga of resultant folly of greed and the associated toxins that set in with familial relations, where much is compromised ethically.

Themes
The central and recurring leitmotif in the story is money (at times tad overstated). “Money has a mind of its own….like a river it takes its own course. If you try and control it, at some point the bund breaks and the water flows where it wants to.” Aftertaste traces the saga of the Todarmal family's control and flow with the forces of money. Daddyji and Mummyji's lives alternately revel in the scent of wealth or grapple with the vicissitudes of dwindling fortunes. In one dark and down moment Mummyji strikes upon the idea of setting up a Mithai shop as a business venture. Their two sons Rajan Papa (the older, stodgy, feeble- willed) and Sunny (the younger impatient one) join the family trade. The daughters Suman (the beautiful, spoilt one) and Saroj (the younger, reticent one) feed off the family business in more ways than one.

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