Stealing Green Mangoes: Two Brothers, Two Fates, One Indian Childhood

by Sunil Dutta, Sunil Malhotra (Read by)

Overview

A memoir—written in the wake of a cancer diagnosis—that zeroes in on the crux between two brothers: one who became an LAPD officer, and the other a terrorist

Sunil Dutta is a twenty-year veteran of the LAPD. Before that, he was a biologist at the University of California and a translator of classic Indian poetry. Before that, he was a destitute refugee, one of so many uprooted by the genocidal violence surrounding the Partition of India. Back then, he had a brother. Back then, they were children together, chasing whatever fun and solace they could find in impossible conditions. Sunil looked up to Raju. He admired his strength, his character.

Raju took a different path. He was arrested, he fled the law, he became a fugitive. He became a terrorist. Then he became a father—and then a murderer.

After being diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer later in life, Sunil urgently wanted to understand what choices had led he and his brother down such radically different paths. In Stealing Green Mangoes, Dutta takes us from his family home in Rajasthan to America, to France, to the streets of southeastern Los Angeles, homing in on the questions that tore him and Raju apart: Can you outgrow the madness that made you? Can you make peace with the ghosts of your past?  

A memoir with sweeping, spiritual ambitions, Stealing Green Mangoes tells the story of a man who pushed back against the forces that captured his own brother and built a compassionate, meaningful life in a broken world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982688691
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	10/01/2019
Edition description:	Library Edition
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 1.50(h) x 5.00(d)

About the Author

Sunil Dutta was a police sergeant with the Los Angeles Police Department, and was the author of the books Freedom, Partition, and Terrorism; Bloodlines; and Lightning Should Have Fallen on Ghalib. He was also a professor of homeland security and a recognized expert in terrorism issues. Prior to joining the LAPD, Dutta was a scientist with a specialization in biochemistry.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 News from France 5

2 Raja Park 23

3 The Exile 35

4 A Maharaja in Raja Park 55

5 A Jaipur Romance 67

6 Falling Out 95

7 The Dangerous Game: Raju with Khalistanis 117

8 Must Love End in a Tragedy? 131

9 Flight of Love across the Oceans 147

10 Science, Idealism, Disillusion, and the Search for Meaning 163

11 The First Day 173

12 Victims as Killers 199

13 Criminals? Victims? Do We Have A Choice? 227

Acknowledgments 239

Editorial Reviews

06/24/2019

A dark thread of crime and violence poisons a family in this anguished memoir. Dutta, an LAPD police sergeant, traces his traumatic family history back to the carnage surrounding the 1947 partition of India, when many of his Hindu relatives were killed as they were driven out of Muslim Pakistan. Growing up poor in Jaipur, India, Dutta and his brother, Raju, were regularly beaten by an uncle. Raju later embarked on a colorful and then tragic criminal career, committing fraud, identity theft—including a yearlong impersonation of a terrorist—and murder. Dutta’s own life followed an opposite but equally fascinating path: after moving to the U.S. in 1986, he gave up a career as a biologist to become a street cop in Los Angeles, where his experiences challenged his assumptions that crime is caused by poverty and social disadvantages and illuminated his agonized search for reasons behind Raju’s transgressions. Throughout, Dutta combines gritty firsthand accounts of mayhem with dashes of philosophy—“As some fleeting thoughts about the indignity of death and the transient nature of the physical body as the custodian of the spirit wafted through my head, I saw the left hand of the corpse suddenly quiver.” Dutta’s remarkable family saga makes for a fascinating meditation on crime and responsibility. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"Biting.... [This] thought-provoking book asks a central question: How did two brothers — both raised in poverty, abused at home and shaken by the family’s loss of status in a status-obsessed society — take such divergent paths?" — Los Angeles Times

“Facing a grim cancer diagnosis, author Sunil Dutta reflects on the childhood he shared with his brother Raju....Dutta’s memoir unpacks the pain of their shared past to make sense of the way their lives diverged as adults.” — Time

“The poignant memoir of two brothers raised under the dark shadow of Indian Partition who forged wildly different paths in life.… Moving, honest.… A powerful memoir of deep loss driven by the author’s desire to get at harrowing answers to difficult questions.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Dutta’s story is both unimaginable and utterly American…. An overall cracking-good read.” — Booklist

“Readers will connect with Dutta, relishing his success and sharing his frustration.... An insightful read about the strength of individuals to overcome adversity, reminding us that while our past and family do contribute to our identity, they do not define who we become.” — Library Journal

“Moving from India to Los Angeles, from a chaotic and difficult upbringing to a life of fulfillment, Sunil Dutta thoughtfully examines a timeless question: can we control the course of our own lives? At once electrifying and heartrending, Stealing Green Mangoes tests the bonds of love and family, offering a moving meditation on how we might make peace with the world around us.” — Jason Rezaian, journalist and author of Prisoner

“Stealing Green Mangoes is a wrenching and spiritual memoir, a profound exploration of the people and places who made us and the choices we then made. Dutta effortlessly traverses time and continents in this unique examination of brotherly love.” — Ivy Pochoda, author of Visitation Street and Wonder Valley 

“Stealing Green Mangoes has it all: social upheaval, petty crime, despair, poetry, true love, collective trauma, dueling brothers, and a protagonist struggling to understand the impulses that drive human beings toward violence while trying desperately to shake himself free from the nightmare of history.” — Josh Rosenblatt, author of Why We Fight  

“A gut-wrenching, poetic account of an impoverished boyhood in India, the love story that took him to America, the remarkable life that encompassed a serial-killer brother, academic triumphs, classical Indian music, a career with the LAPD, and then cancer.... This memoir crowds life, despair, death, and a thousand poetic references into too few pages.” — Eloisa James, author of Paris in Love

From the Publisher

Facing a grim cancer diagnosis, author Sunil Dutta reflects on the childhood he shared with his brother Raju....Dutta’s memoir unpacks the pain of their shared past to make sense of the way their lives diverged as adults.

Time

Stealing Green Mangoes is a wrenching and spiritual memoir, a profound exploration of the people and places who made us and the choices we then made. Dutta effortlessly traverses time and continents in this unique examination of brotherly love.

Ivy Pochoda

Moving from India to Los Angeles, from a chaotic and difficult upbringing to a life of fulfillment, Sunil Dutta thoughtfully examines a timeless question: can we control the course of our own lives? At once electrifying and heartrending, Stealing Green Mangoes tests the bonds of love and family, offering a moving meditation on how we might make peace with the world around us.

Jason Rezaian

A gut-wrenching, poetic account of an impoverished boyhood in India, the love story that took him to America, the remarkable life that encompassed a serial-killer brother, academic triumphs, classical Indian music, a career with the LAPD, and then cancer.... This memoir crowds life, despair, death, and a thousand poetic references into too few pages.

Eloisa James

Dutta’s story is both unimaginable and utterly American…. An overall cracking-good read.

Booklist

Stealing Green Mangoes has it all: social upheaval, petty crime, despair, poetry, true love, collective trauma, dueling brothers, and a protagonist struggling to understand the impulses that drive human beings toward violence while trying desperately to shake himself free from the nightmare of history.

Josh Rosenblatt

"Biting.... [This] thought-provoking book asks a central question: How did two brothers — both raised in poverty, abused at home and shaken by the family’s loss of status in a status-obsessed society — take such divergent paths?"

|Los Angeles Times

Dutta’s story is both unimaginable and utterly American…. An overall cracking-good read.

Booklist

Facing a grim cancer diagnosis, author Sunil Dutta reflects on the childhood he shared with his brother Raju....Dutta’s memoir unpacks the pain of their shared past to make sense of the way their lives diverged as adults.

Time

"Biting.... [This] thought-provoking book asks a central question: How did two brothers — both raised in poverty, abused at home and shaken by the family’s loss of status in a status-obsessed society — take such divergent paths?"

Los Angeles Times

Mirroring the author’s intensity, intelligence, and central-Indian vocal tones and rhythms, Sunil Malhotra gives a first-rate narration of this wise and penetrating memoir. As a boy, Dutta followed his heart from the crowded refugee camps of Jaipur to the mean streets of Los Angeles. He led an accomplished life as a translator of traditional Indian poetry and a plant biologist, and, finally, at 34 years old, he joined the Los Angeles Police Department. Conversely, Dutta’s older brother, Raju, followed a divergent path of petty theft, small-time terrorism, and finally murder. How could two brothers brought up in the same environment be so different? Malhotra’s voice reflects the philosophical questioning, pain, and guilt Dutta felt, along with his sense of responsibility for being his brother’s keeper. B.P. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2019 - AudioFile

Mirroring the author’s intensity, intelligence, and central-Indian vocal tones and rhythms, Sunil Malhotra gives a first-rate narration of this wise and penetrating memoir. As a boy, Dutta followed his heart from the crowded refugee camps of Jaipur to the mean streets of Los Angeles. He led an accomplished life as a translator of traditional Indian poetry and a plant biologist, and, finally, at 34 years old, he joined the Los Angeles Police Department. Conversely, Dutta’s older brother, Raju, followed a divergent path of petty theft, small-time terrorism, and finally murder. How could two brothers brought up in the same environment be so different? Malhotra’s voice reflects the philosophical questioning, pain, and guilt Dutta felt, along with his sense of responsibility for being his brother’s keeper. B.P. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2019 - AudioFile

★ 2019-08-18
The poignant memoir of two brothers raised under the dark shadow of Indian Partition who forged wildly different paths in life.

Dutta (Bloodlines: The Imperial Roots of Terrorism in South Asia, 2015, etc.) and his older brother, Kaushal ("Raju"), were born in the late 1960s to poor Hindu refugees in Jaipur. Their Indian father, a government clerk, had arrived in 1959, forced by the violence after the Partition to flee his homeland. From enjoying the status of Brahmin to living in a near-destitute condition, the family spiraled over the decades into "bitter shame" and familial squabbles, a toxic atmosphere in which Dutta and Raju were raised. While Raju was by nature precocious, charming, and daring, the author, in contrast, grew inward, becoming idealistic and shy. In moving, honest prose, Dutta follows the disparate trajectories of their lives. Raju became entangled in a relationship with a rich, older gay man, which propelled him into posh jet-setting and eventually a criminal life abroad. Meanwhile, the author fell in love with an American woman and followed her to America in 1986. Dutta went to school, became a research biologist and then, in an odd but determined turn, a police officer in Los Angeles and a professor of homeland security and issues-involved terrorism. Meanwhile, Raju descended into the life of a con man and, later, terrorist. Both were cancer survivors. The memoir opens with a shattering call from France, where Raju had married and was living, to notify the author that his brother had been incarcerated for murder. Throughout, Dutta captures the enormous sense of humiliation wrought by this crisis; in Indian society, he writes, "the responsibility for a crime lies not with the perpetrator, but with the entire family."

A powerful memoir of deep loss driven by the author's desire to get at harrowing answers to difficult questions.

Kirkus Reviews