title: The Age of Shiva: A Novel
author:  Manil Suri 
description: The second novel from Suri (The Death of Vishnu) follows Meera Sawhney from her unhappy 1950s marriage to aspiring singer Dev Arora through to her own son's coming-of-age. After an impulsive act forces Meera's marriage at 17, her complex, controlling father decries her tying herself (and, by extension, her family) to the provincial, lower-class Aroras. Meera soon finds herself pulled in different directions by her in-laws' religious orthodoxy, her father's progressivism (which doesn't run deep), her husband's self-pitying alcoholism and her own resentment. She finds salvation in the birth of a son, Ashvin; mother love, which Suri describes in intensely physical terms, gives her life passion and purpose, and overwhelms her adult relationships. But as India modernizes, Meera senses that Ashvin, and she herself, must live their own lives. Suri renders Meera's perspective marvelously, especially in small particulars (such as Meera's deliberations around the cutting of Ashvin's hair) and in the perils and conflicts Meera faces in her relationships with men. He also takes a close look at Hindu practices and charts the rise of religious nationalism in the years following Gandhi's death. Suri's vivid portrait of a woman in post-independence India engages timeless themes of self-determination. <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
zlib_text: [previous](slide12.html) | [Table of Contents](toc.html) |
  [next](slide14.html)
  
  * * *
  
  ## 12
  
  ### Glittering Stone:  
  Steadfast Guardian
  
  The being on the huge wooden throne in the heart of the fortress at the center
  of the stone plain is a construct. Possibly he was created by the gods, who
  fought their wars upon that plain. Or perhaps his creators were the builders
  who constructed the plain--if they were not gods themselves. Opinions vary.
  Stories abound. The demon Shivetya himself is not disposed to be unstinting
  with the facts, or is, at best, inconsistent in their distribution. He has
  shown his latest chronicler several conflicting versions of ancient events.
  Old Baladitya has abandoned all hope of establishing an exact truth and,
  instead, seeks the deeper range of meaning underpinning what the golem does
  reveal. Baladitya understands that in addition to being foreign territory the
  past is, as history, a hall of mirrors that reflect the needs of souls
  observing from the present. 