The interpreter of the maladies of immigrant life

Hindi writer Susham Bedi's novel in translation offers an ambitious, multi-modal view of NRI life in the US

- Aditya Mani Jha

The novel foreshadows every major NRI issue depicted in 21st century pop culture.

In Every Room Has a View (2025), Sujit Saraf's novel about prosperous Indian-Americans living in Silicon Valley, a dark comedy unfolds as the central characters set out on a search for a Hindu priest in San Francisco.

Eventually the jeans-clad pandit they zero in on takes far too many liberties with Vedic rituals, much to their chagrin. A similar anxiety pervades the opening pages of The Fire Sacrifice by Susham Bedi, originally published in 1989 as Hawan and recently translated into English by Jerry Pinto.

In the world of Hindi literature, Bedi (1945-2020) is known as one of the pioneering chroniclers of the NRI experience, depicting the inherent in-betweenness of her immigrant characters’ lives. In addition to her novels, Bedi was known for her work as a foreign correspondent in the 1970s and 1980s, bringing slices of European and American life to Indian readers.