The Road to Mumbai
By Ruth Jeyaveeran
Houghton Mifflin Books, 2004


Review by Pooja Makhijani
From Kahani April 2005

Would you like to attend a top-secret monkey wedding?

Yes? That’s what I thought! So, put on your pajamas, crawl into bed, and join Shoba and her toy monkey, Fuzzy Patel, as they zoom off to Mumbai for singing, dancing and tasty food on The Road to Mumbai by Ruth Jeyaveeran (Houghton Mifflin Books, 2004).

Hours later, we land, completely lost, because Fuzzy’s calculations have been incorrect. A nice camel named Ismael offers to take us to Mumbai and a coconut juice seller named Anil gives us fresh juice. Shoba wants to invite Ismael and Anil to the wedding, but Fuzzy convinces her that they would be bored to tears.

You see, Fuzzy Patel is a bit of a snob and thinks that it would be “improper if the common riffraff showed up, expecting to be invited.” So, we continue on our journey.
We meet a line of elephants, a group of monks, and a snake charmer as Fuzzy gets more and more lost and loops all over India. Shoba (and I) wants to invite them, but Fuzzy tells the elephants the portions of food will be too small, assumes that the monks would prefer to spend their time in prayer, and notifies the snake-charmer that it will be a most unhappy event.

Oh no! We’ve arrived just in time for the laddoos and funky monkey music but none of the guests are here! The Balrajes have a sick grandmonkey, the Tamarinds are expecting a little one, the Jaiprus are in Bali and vacation…

Will the wedding be a disaster of enormous proportions? Ruth Jeyaveeran, our trusty guide (and author and illustrator of the book) probably won’t let that happen, but you’ll have to read and find out!