If you were to judge Anuradha Marwah’s by its cover the way I did, you’d be sadly disappointed the way I was — at first. Both the title of the book and its back cover blurb suggested that the story within would be light and fun, but it turned out to be the opposite. Yet, I rather enjoyed it.
It’s a perspective on women that few people in India write and as an auntie myself for the last 20-odd years, it made me grin with unholy glee. is about three women in their late thirties, each dealing with issues they never could have imagined existing even 10 years earlier. The first and the most stereotypically auntie-like is Nilima Gandhi, a blingy woman with three bratty children, a mother-in-law from hell and an indifferent husband.
But Nilima has no idea how she wound up like this. Marriage just swept her into this life, the way an earthquake might turn the whole world upside down. Shailaja is a contract teacher at a Delhi university college and moved to Vasant Kunj after her live-in documentary filmmaker boyfriend of 13 years fell for a young actress.
Shailaja has always believed she’s strong. After all, she did overcome her family’s resistance to her live-in relationship. But since then, she’s merely coasted along in her personal life and in her career.
Now she has no idea how to deal with life. Finally, there’s Dini, a single mother and a social worker. Dini’s principles have led her to believe that she’s overcome the labels that most people live by.
But when.