Looking for a book title / author of a particular novel set in India?

Question

I'm looking for the title of a book I read *years* ago. It was set in India and was about a boy and girl growing up. I believe that toward the end one of the characters ended up having s*x next to a river (interesting what you remember).

I can help you with the title: it is a line from the poem "All things Bright and Beautiful", I remember that because there was a James Herriot book of the same title that I almost bought too. And that seems to be the problem in finding it, I need to slog through all the Herriot novels and hope to find this one. I've been trying to with no luck.

The poem, btw, to jog anyone's memory is

" All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures great and small,

All things wise and wonderful,

The Lord God made them all."

Thanks!

Answer 1

A suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

Answer 2

Could it be?

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy?

I remember reading this a long time ago and know it about a brother and sister...

  

Answer 3

The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy

I wrote an essay on it! It's such a powerful and emotional book! Even if it isn't the one you mean, I HIGHLY recomment reading it.

Just to add more info:

It's about a pair of two-egg twins, a boy and a girl (Estha and Rahel) who grow up with their mother (Ammu) in an Indian family. Due to scarring events in their childhood they become hollow, distant adults with problems who then re-unite at the end of the book.

It's narrated in a strange time-line, it's not chronological, it shifts between past, present, more remote past, more future present... etc.

The couple having s*x by the river is Ammu and someone I won't tell you about so as not to spoil it :P

(PS: choose me as best answer if I helped you! ^_^)