[2] The Cinnamon Gardens of the title is a nursing home in Sydney, set up in the 1980s by Maya and Zakhir, a Sri Lankan couple who fled their country during the civil war.

Now Zakhir is missing, and Maya is a resident of the nursing home which is now run by her daughter Anjali.

When a friend of Anjali discovers that Maya and Zakhir once toppled a statue of James Cook which once stood at the nursing home, he lodges a complaint with the Human Rights Commission, accusing the couple of racism.

Writing for The Guardian, Zoya Patel noted: "At first glance, Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens, the latest novel from prolific Australian author Shankari Chandran, may look like a light affair: a tale about a diverse group of elderly Australians living in a family-run nursing home in Sydney.

But beyond the twee cover and cozy title, Chandran's novel has serious heft, spanning several timelines and tackling complex topics like race, trauma and the structural inequality engendered in so-called multicultural Australia...Chai Time in Cinnamon Gardens is an enticing, if not entirely realised, opportunity for a wider conversation about Australia, the diversity of its people and the gaps in our collective cultural knowledge.