The Hero's Walk

The Hero’s Walk (2000) is a novel by Anita Rau Badami. It won the Regional Commonwealth Writers Prize, Italy’s Premio Berto, and was longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction, as well as a finalist for the Kiriyama Prize.

Plot Summary

The novel takes place in the fictional town of Torturpuram, near Madras, in southern India. It is the middle of July, and Sripathi Rao is on the balcony of Big House when the phone rings. He doesn’t answer it the first time, nor does anyone else. When the phone rings a second time, however, no one is on the other end when Sripathi answers. When it rings a third time, Sripathi picks up and receives bad news, news that shakes him to his core: His daughter, Maya, and her husband, Alan, have died in a car accident in Canada, leaving their seven-year-old daughter Nandana an orphan. The news is a terrible blow to the family, which has already been struggling through years of strife and latent hostilities towards one another.

Maya was Sripathi’s and Nirmala’s only daughter and eldest offspring. She was a bright and loving girl. She did well in school, earned a degree with honors from Madras University, and then received a scholarship to study at a prestigious university in America. Her parents were very proud of her. Before she left the country, she married Prakash Bhat through an arranged marriage. Prakash is an educated young man from a good family who studied in Philadelphia at the time. However, three years into her studies, she met a man named Alan Baker, with whom she fell so in love that she married him. She wrote a letter home informing her parents, who didn’t receive the news well. Sripathi was so angry he cut off communications with her. Maya continued to write letters, which Nirmala read, but Sripathi did not. Maya would call and talk to her mother. Sripathi refused to talk to her, and wouldn’t let her visit. It was nine years from the time Sripathi stopped talking to Maya and the news of her death.

Listed as Nandana’s legal guardian, Sripathi has to travel to Vancouver, Canada to pick up his granddaughter. Since her parents’ death, Nandana has been staying with family friends, who also happen to be Indian, but she cannot legally remain with them. Nandana is confused by the entire situation and cannot grasp the fact that her parents are gone and not coming back. She resents her grandfather, whom she calls the Old Man, because she knows that he hurt her mother’s feelings. After her parents’ deaths, Nandana stops talking.

Sripathi goes to Vancouver, packs away Maya’s life, and brings Nandana back to India. Nirmala cares for her well, and Nandana gets along with her uncle, Arun, swimmingly. She avoids Sripathi and her great-grandmother Ammayya. Sripathi is indifferent, and Ammayya is mean, as she is with everyone. The family strains to remain civil with one another Arun and Sripathi don’t get along). Nirmala and Sripathi each mourn Maya’s death in different ways. Sripathi is constantly worried about money. Even though they are Brahmins, they have little money, and their house is in bad shape. To make matters worse, Sripathi learns that he will be losing his job soon.

Nandana adjusts to life in India the best she can, but she plans on returning to Vancouver as soon as possible. She even tries to run away a few times. She plays with a few of the kids from the neighborhood from time to time. There is an area between two buildings that the children call the Tunnel. They are afraid of it, which makes it a sign of courage and bravery for those who will go through it. One of the girls offers to let Nandana play with her PlayStation if she will go through. They will meet her on the other side. Nandana goes through, but the girls are not waiting. Mrs. Poorna, a poor woman who lost her daughter years ago, finds Nandana. Mrs. Poorna takes Nandana back to her house, thinking Nandana is her lost daughter returned.

Nirmala gets worried when Nandana doesn’t come home. She also doesn’t know where Sripathi or Arun are. She begins to search for Nandana. When she cannot find her granddaughter, she enlists anyone who will help. Sripathi and Arun return home and help look. Sripathi goes out alone to find her. While caught in a torrential downpour, Sripathi at one point has flashbacks about a similar situation he was in with Maya. The full force of his despair, mourning, and guilt hit him hard, to the point that he loses himself in his memories. Arun later finds Sripathi, who is now confused, cold, and disoriented.

Mr. Poorna brings Nandana back to the Rao’s after he returned home and discovered her with his wife. He is extremely apologetic for his wife’s behavior. The Rao’s are just glad to have Nandana back. Nandana missed her relatives so much while with Mrs. Poorna that she begins speaking again. Sripathi is very sick. It takes him a while to recover from the ordeal out in the storm.

Life begins to look brighter for the Rao’s. Sripathi’s sister, Putti, is finally engaged, at the vehement disapproval of Ammayya, to Gopala Munnuswamy, who is of a lower caste, but for whom Putti has been pining for a long time. Arun gets a job and promises to help his family by sending home whatever he can. Sripathi decides to sell the house, something he has been loath to do, but realizes the practicalities of it. He and Nandana slowly grow closer. Ammayya dies, and the family scatters her ashes in the sea at the same place where the family scattered Maya’s ashes. Sripathi and Arun mend their relationship, and Sripathi finally feels proud of his son.