Shadow Play (30 page)

(Those of you who know my film
Shakuntala
will have recognized its opening moments. I found an excellent seven-year-old to play the part, and we gave her a big beach ball to throw in the air and catch, with me standing at different spots towards which she was asked to run, but whenever I watch that sequence, I find I have failed to convey the sheer blitheness of my real-life model.)

As dusk gathered and we walked out of the park and along the bank of the largest lake, Raj's mother smiled and pointed out the dozens of couples on all the benches and under the trees. She wondered if some of them were students of hers, looking away as she went by. It suddenly occurred to me that Raj and Sunayani would have been regular visitors here as well, during their courting years, since they had lived just up the road.

First of all, I'd like to thank my agent, Kent D. Wolf; my editor, Marcia Markland; and her assistant, Kat Brzozowski, for all their help and efforts in making this publication possible. Thank you also to Diana Szu (formerly of St. Martin's Press) for championing this book at a key period in its life.

A big thank you to V. K. Karthika and Renuka Chatterjee for their support, encouragement and feedback, which played such a big role in the publication of the first (Indian) edition of this novel.

Thank you to Claudio, Clare and Chloë, without whose hospitality I would simply not have been able to imagine a Brazil to write about, and to my friend Ibrar, for the constant warmth of his welcome in London.

I'm especially grateful to my friends and colleagues in the Department of English Literature at the University of Edinburgh – too many to name here – for their support over several years, which has taken so many different forms.

Thank you to Christophe and Karen at
La Bagatelle
restaurant, Edinburgh, for very useful details that fed into the restaurant episodes in this novel. I'd also like to mention two books from which I've adapted a couple of anecdotes for
use in that same section:
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character
by Richard P. Feynman et al., and
Life Is a Menu – Reminiscences and Recipes from a Master Chef
by Michel Roux.

There are a few works from which I've quoted excerpts in the novel:
High Windows
by Philip Larkin,
Don Quixote
by Cervantes (translated by J.M. Cohen),
Fury
by Salman Rushdie, and
William's Treasure Trove
by Richmal Crompton.

A big hug to Ankur and to the Sens for their love and support; and finally, for every other uncountable, unspecific thing, my acknowledgements to Sasha, and to Ma and Baba.