It was adapted into a television series of the same name by the BBC in 1991. [4] There was one notable actor Saeed Jaffrey who played the part of Mr. Penwala the watchmaker. A novice actor named Nishan R. Wijesinghe played the lead role of Hari.

Jagu’s wife begins to mumble that men can go out and get drunk but women can do nothing but lie down and sleep. Hari haltingly tells her that his father drinks too. She is sympathetic now, and asks if he beats his wife. Hari nods and coughs. She sighs that tomorrow they will get him some medicine. This book is one which made me reflect on so many things including the smallest everyday decisions. One of the best middle grade fiction I have ever read. Lila and Hari are the oldest children in a poor family. They live in Thul, a small fishing village located next to the sea in a rural region of India. The family has not always been poor, but fell into bad fortune when the children’s father paid a large sum of money to a man who promised to get him a job in Mumbai. However, the man lied to him and disappeared with the money. After the incident, the father fell into a deep despair and began drinking and neglecting the family. He does not earn a living, but borrows money from the neighbors to buy alcohol. The first time i read this book was at school. It was our literature book in Grade 8. I thought oh no heres another boring literature book and i started reading it. But i was wrong. :)They return home to eat a mollusk and chili curry. Their father has gone to the toddy shop to drink all night with the other village drunkards. Later, their father comes home with the other drunk men, who waste the lantern oil and laugh loudly as they find their way home in the dark. All the dogs wake up and howl. The noise frightens Lila. Hari hopes their father steps on a viper and dies. Their father lurches into the hut and passes out in their mother’s room. The house is silent, “full of fear and anger and nightmares.” Chapter 2 Jagu might have a restaurant with a lot of customers, but he still lives in a slum, Hari realizes. The hillside is muddy and the huts are derelict; Hari wonders why Jagu brought him here. The huts cannot keep the rain out. It is dark inside. The Village by the Sea by Anita Desai – for mature 4th graders and up – Realistic Fiction- quite the powerful book, I couldn’t stop reading this one. I just loved reading the perspectives of children living on a quiet island where development of their area is inevitable with a fertilizer company moving in and how desolate a situation can feel. Additionally, the helpless feeling conveyed in the story with two parents barely helping the family survive was quite heart wrenching. The character development within the story and cultural perspective naturally integrated in was incredible. I think this book is an ideal story to read for children developing their international perspective. Thrilled that this is one of the books my Year 6 students are reading for our Flipped Reading project. Here are two portions that were my favorite in the book:

The writing was simple and it was really easy to read. I didn't like how it distanced me from the story and from the characters though. Anita Desai's descriptions were okay but not great. There was a lot of colourful imagery in the book and that was great. I did like how women were represented in this book. They were represented as the ones who kept families running. The young man speaking at the temple is named Adarkar and he is a member of the Maharashtra State Legislative Assembly; Hari feels like he should stand with Adarkar and defend the rights of the village in Bombay. He turns over the options: take a dull, low-paid job with the new factory, or go to Bombay? The ice-man comes and Hari collects the ice chips and puts them in a bag before hurrying towards home before the ice melts. This book also imparts quite a few ‘messages’, the most prominent one being that of ‘change’. Change is inevitable in life and in society. All one can do to prosper is to adapt to it. When the government decided to set up a factory, the villagers resisted the change fearing the repercussions of it. But a twelve year old Hari learnt to adapt. His plans of a small poultry plan and a watch repair shop displayed his awareness of the changes that would soon take place in his small village and his willingness to adapt. Also, a thirteen year old Lila adapts to life throughout – whether be it taking up the responsibilities of her family or accepting the DeSilvas’ or finally agreeing with Hari’s plan – adapting according to the situation has always been Lila’s way of life. Lila visits the hospital weekly and is happy her father has quit drinking. The visits are hard but she is grateful to see her mother’s progress. The Village By the Sea study guide contains a biography of Anita Desai, literature essays, a complete e-text, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

The wheel of time keeps turning regardless of whether or not people want it to. Factories will be built. Jobs will be gained and lost. Former modes of working and living will fade away and others will take their places. Change and adaptation are not easily done, especially by older generations, but they are often what is necessary to keep going. Whereas someone like Sayyid Ali deplores change, Mr. Panwallah embraces it. Hari respects both of these men but ultimately adopts Mr. Panwallah's perspective because it is what he has to do to survive, and what he has to do to find meaning in life and respect for himself. Freedom When Hari reaches the market, the ice-man has not yet arrived due to a traffic delay. He welcomes the wait, needing some time to be alone as he feels he has been shoved around by crowds a lot recently. Hari has given up on asking Biju for a job because he knows the Bombay man is more clever and wily than Biju and that he probably spoke the truth. Then there is that ever present message of ‘Hope’. You would think that kids like that - growing up in extreme poverty, with an alcoholic father and practically non-existing mother, with no supervision or guidance - would end up as a bad lot. But no, even in such a situation, it is possible for a ‘Hari’ to emerge and a ‘Lila’ to thrive. Even at the worst situations the young ones never lost hope. May be it was their innocence or maybe it’s just who they were. Help is always there for those who really need it – be it in form of a Jaggu or a Panwallah or the DeSilva family. When he gets home, he finds that his mother’s condition has improved and that his father is slowly beginning to recover from his alcoholism. He starts a small business raising animals and thinks about using what he learned from Mr. Panwallah to open his own watch repair shop in the village. The story ends on a hopeful note with the family’s situation finally beginning to improve.

Biju’s boat is being built. The village children like to come and watch. Biju has hired workmen from Alibagh, the district capital, even though the Thul men have been building boats all their lives. Biju likes to sit in a chair and watch the progress. His fat wife comes to watch sometimes as well, but gets tired easily and retreats to their fancy house with its many displays of wealth. Biju’s wife knows the village gossips about her, and she doesn’t like it. The villagers feel strangely proud that their tiny village is producing such a fancy new boat even if they dislike Biju and envy him. The children taunt Biju about the smuggling rumors, but he is too old and fat to catch them and scold them. The portrayal of a poor family with an ailing mother, having many siblings who are still very young, a drunkard father is quite accurate and I can say there are families in my locality and neighbourhood similarly. The Village by the Sea is a young adult novel written by Indian writer Anita Desai. The novel was first published in London in 1982, while the U.S. version of the book was released in 1984. The book tells the story of two Indian siblings, Lila and Hari, as they try to improve life for their impoverished family. The novel won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, a British book award, in 1983. Monsoon season is hard for both Hari in Bombay and the villagers by the sea. When Hari hears on the radio that fishing boats out of Alibagh were lost in a storm, he decides he must return home. He knows he belongs with his family by the sea. He decides to go at Diwali, and continues to learn the watchmaking trade from Mr. Panwallah in the interim. The project has required extensive architectural research and close dialogue with a highly enlightened and passionate client. We have also engaged in philosophical debate with the Planning team at Plymouth City Council to create a design language which ensures this ‘special place’ remains just that for future generations.”The Village by the Sea is the story of evolution of Lila and Hari into ‘adults’ as they face their family’s predicament. The story has a gentle voice and is very impressive. Desai brilliantly portrays the issues in the village of Thul, doomed for destruction b the advance of industrialisation. Hari asks him, curious, if he is celebrating the Hindu festivals because he thought he was a Parsee. Mr. Panwallah replies that he is Parsee but he believes in sharing and enjoying everything. Hari thinks about what Ramu told him while he works in the fields. He cuts his toe and notices a snake; he wonders whether he will be able to get a job at the factory, since he did not finish school. He can read and write but he never took an exam and has no degree. Does he even need a degree to get a factory job? He can work hard—surely that’s all that a man needs.

In their hut, the sisters express their gratitude for the Mon Repos visitor, who was not driven away by the monsoon and who could pay them so they could eat. However, they miss their parents and Hari. Lila thinks he may return when the monsoon is over, during Diwali. Chapter 11 During the monsoon season, things are tough in Thul as well. Try as they might, the girls cannot keep water out of the hut. Fires are smoky and the huts are damp. There is no fish for the village. Jagu growls at his wife to get the boy food and his wife begins to complain that she cannot feed their own children. Jagu is fed up with her and leaves to go get a drink. After he leaves, she falls silent. Hari is embarrassed and feels bad for her. The book begins incredibly slowly, the excitement does not seep in until after the halfway mark, when Bombay comes into picture and changes things. The narrative though, is very vivid. Desai makes it so beautiful that we can smell the salty tang in the air, feel the sea breeze on our faces, and also feel the pain of the hunger and poverty and the hope and dispair of a little family in the village. Desai brings the scene alive in our minds and engages us with little responsible Lila who wears her special pink saree to the village market and of small determind Hari who wants to go to Bombay so his family will have good lives. It is this speciality of the author that makes the book work for me. I have read many books that were claimed literary masterpieces but I feel this book is better than some of them.The village is angry. Hari goes to the market to search for ice to cool their mother’s forehead. Hari notices a large crowd outside the temple on his way. Boys, fishermen, farmers, women, and all sorts of diverse villagers have gathered to hear a young man speak. The man has come from the district capital of Alibagh. He is concerned about the string of fourteen villages that are threatened by the new factory development, telling them that the waste from the factory will be dumped into the sea and will kill the fish. What will they do without the sea? Lila as a hard working young girl who has to do all the house work plus cooking and getting her younger sisters ready for school.