This book starts in the 1920s in India when Sharan is a child. As she gets older, she is the more beautiful of the two sisters, but her mother won't marry her off until her sister gets married first. So, Sharan steals the man meant for her sister and he brings her to Canada. The book follows Sharan and her husband in Vancouver, but also jumps forward in time and follows her niece Nimmo when she grows up and has a family in India. A third main character, Leela, also comes to Vancouver from India. The book continues up to the mid-1980s (Indira Gandhi's assassination and the aftermath) alternating between India and Vancouver.

I wouldn't have chosen this book, except I was reading it for my book club Turns out, I really liked it. I was drawn in quickly and wanted to keep reading. I learned a lot about India and its history that I didn't know. I always appreciate a historical note at the end of a book and that was included here. ( )

What began as a somewhat hopeful book, quickly and devastatingly spiralled into a travesty. I was left with the shock of death and loss for all characters and after reading the novel I was angry at its historical injustices.

At the same time, I regretted investing emotional attachments to characters who were deeply flawed. My sense of the novel's downfall lay at the heart of the characters' weakness to pride.

From Harjot Singh's listlessness and "disappearance" long before he actually decided to leave his family because of his wounded pride of not being able to land at the shores of Vancouver once arriving by the Komagata Maru.

To his daughter, Sharanjeet (Bibi-ji) Kaur, who privately resents her station in life and her duties, unhappy to be obedient to her mother or selfless to her sister, Kanwar. But this attitude is not entirely due to her spoiled upbringing, but rather an internal pride, vanity, and materialistic ambition that drives her to steal her sister's marriage prospect, Khushwant (Pa-ji) Singh and eventually her niece's own son, Jasbeer.

Leela (Shastri) Bhat is ostracized by her grandmother, Akka, and her father's relatives because she is considered a "half-breed," a daughter of a Punjab, Hari Shastri and an English woman, Rosa Schweers. And rather than accept her genetic fate and cultural liminality, she loathes her own grey eyes, fair skin, and "White" culture. Instead she prides herself in becoming the wife of a prosperous and prestigious man, Balachandra (Balu) Bhat, who comes from a well known Punjab family and high caste, and submerges herself in adhering to Indian traditional practices. Leela, opposite of Bibi-ji, resents being pulled from her home in India to Vancouver, fearful of becoming yet again, nameless. Yet, though she suffered racial cruelty from her Indian grandmother, she fails to understand and accept her son's choice in marriage to an English woman.

These and other characters provide a backdrop to the cruelty and harshness of the warring factions of the Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh people, which led to The Partition of India (with its Hindu majority) and Pakistan (with its Muslim majority). Violent acts of brutality by government and militant groups climaxed to the eventual killings of pilgrims at the Golden Temple. This act in itself prompted the assassination of Prime Minister, Indira Ghandi, which then led to vengeful killings of Sikhs throughout India. And a year later, Air India Flight 182 is bombed killing 329 people on board from Canada over the Atlantic Ocean.

Perhaps it was Badami's intent to situate her characters at the "wrong time in the wrong place," but also to propel them forward into devastation and loss due to extremely wrong choices that stem from deeply rooted pride and discord.

The book is without resolution. It is merely a haunting reminder of the brutality and injustice of war, the interconnectedness between people, their actions, and their consequences, and the cost of life for the sake of land, name, autonomy, and religious freedom, where moderation seems to be the best answer, though rarely used.

It's a novel of extremes, but then again, extremity is at the heart of this book's subject and a lesson of tempering it, is still yet to be learned.
( )

“Indra the god of heaven flung a net over the world … Its shining strands criss-crossed the world from end to end. At each node of this net there hung a gem, so arranged that if you looked at one you saw all the others reflected in it. As each gem reflected every other one, so was every human affected by the miseries and joys of every other human, every other living thing on the planet. When one gem was touched, hundreds of others shimmered or danced in response, and a tear in the net made the whole world tremble.” (106)

Can You Hear the Nightbird Call?, set in India and Canada, takes place over several decades from 1928 to 1985. It is the story of three women, two Sikh and one Hindu, and their families, which begins in the women’s childhoods. Bibi-ji, born in Panjaur, steals her sister’s fate in marrying and immigrating to Vancouver. Leela, of Bangalore, is “half and half” Indian and German, part of two worlds but wholly belonging to neither – ultimately, she, too, will emigrate from India to live in Vancouver, sharing in Bibi-ji’s immigrant experience. Finally, Nimmo, of New Delhi, is the daughter of Bibi-ji’s lost sister – haunted well into adulthood by the violence she witnessed as a child when India was first partitioned. As tensions between the Hindus and Sikhs escalate in India, all of the women are affected. Thankfully, they cannot know to what extent their families will have tragedy rained down upon them as the tensions give rise to the massacre at the Golden Temple and the assassination of Indira Ghandi; and eventually climax in the bombing of Air India Flight 182.

Badami skillfully writes not only well-developed characters here. She masterfully integrates point of view into a theme of conflict: the immigrant experience, the Sikhs, the Hindus – and then casts her net, Indra’s net as it were, over all of the enmities – quietly (or perhaps not) reminding us that “so was every human affected by the miseries and joys of every other human, every other living thing on the planet.” In this regard, I think Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? is translated into something much larger than itself. Impressive, and highly recommended.

“Chance brings lives together in unexpected ways and breaks them apart with equal randomness.” (90) ( )

A gripping tale that places the violence in north-west India in the context of families and of Canadian expatriates. ( )

Can You Hear the Nightbird Call?
By Anita Rau Badami

What began as a somewhat hopeful book, quickly and devastatingly spiralled into a travesty. I was left with the shock of death and loss for all characters and after reading the novel I was angry at its historical injustices.

At the same time, I regretted investing emotional attachments to characters who were deeply flawed. My sense of the novel's downfall lay at the heart of the characters' weakness to pride.
From Harjot Singh's listlessness and "disappearance" long before he actually decided to leave his family because of his wounded pride of not being able to land at the shores of Vancouver once arriving by the Komagata Maru.

To his daughter, Sharanjeet (Bibi-ji) Kaur, who privately resents her station in life and her duties, unhappy to be obedient to her mother or selfless to her sister, Kanwar. But this attitude is not entirely due to her spoiled upbringing, but rather an internal pride, vanity, and materialistic ambition that drives her to steal her sister's marriage prospect, Khushwant (Pa-ji) Singh and eventually her niece's own son, Jasbeer.

Leela (Shastri) Bhat is ostracized by her grandmother, Akka, and her father's relatives because she is considered a "half-breed," a daughter of a Punjab, Hari Shastri and an English woman, Rosa Schweers. And rather than accept her genetic fate and cultural liminality, she loathes her own grey eyes, fair skin, and "White" culture. Instead she prides herself in becoming the wife of a prosperous and prestigious man, Balachandra (Balu) Bhat, who comes from a well known Punjab family and high caste, and submerges herself in adhering to Indian traditional practices. Leela, opposite of Bibi-ji, resents being pulled from her home in India to Vancouver, fearful of becoming yet again, nameless. Yet, though she suffered racial cruelty from her Indian grandmother, she fails to understand and accept her son's choice in marriage to an English woman.

These and other characters provide a backdrop to the cruelty and harshness of the warring factions of the Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh people, which led to The Partition of India (with its Hindu majority) and Pakistan (with its Muslim majority). Violent acts of brutality by government and militant groups climaxed to the eventual killings of pilgrims at the Golden Temple. This act in itself prompted the assassination of Prime Minister, Indira Ghandi, which then led to vengeful killings of Sikhs throughout India. And a year later, Air India Flight 182 is bombed killing 329 people on board from Canada over the Atlantic Ocean.

Perhaps it was Badami's intent to situate her characters at the "wrong time in the wrong place," but also to propel them forward into devastation and loss due to extremely wrong choices that stem from deeply rooted pride and discord.

The book is without resolution. It is merely a haunting reminder of the brutality and injustice of war, the interconnectedness between people, their actions, and their consequences, and the cost of life for the sake of land, name, autonomy, and religious freedom, where moderation seems to be the best answer, though rarely used.

It's a novel of extremes, but then again, extremity is at the heart of this book's subject and a lesson of tempering it, is still yet to be learned. ( )