First Impression
BY SUCHITRA BEHAL
The Space Between Us; Thrity Umrigar; Harper Collins; Rs. 350.
WHEN was it that you last thought of your household help as human? More importantly in a crunch who would you trust — the help or your own family?
Sera Dubash, a Parsi housewife, is bound to her home and hearth and her only daughter Dinaz and her son-in-law Viraf. Sera has had a difficult life but in the autumn of her life she is beginning to relax.
Her life cannot be complete without Bhima, her help, who has seen her through her ordeals. Sera looks after Bhima's granddaughter's education.
Everything is all right till Bhima's granddaughter becomes pregnant and gives up her dreams of college and a better life. An embittered Bhima tries to get the name of the child's father but is pushed away by the granddaughter till one day the situation becomes clear. Both women are confronted by a naked truth. To this point the author has managed well, but then the plot suddenly deteriorates into a soap opera with accusations flying fast and thick. With a predictable ending the book once again reinforces stereotypes.
It's A Mom; Shefali Tsabary, Penguin, Rs. 195.
MOVE over, Dr. Spock. All those months spent reading through cut and dried formulas for bringing up that perfect baby seem so outdated when compared to this brave little book that tells you just how tiresome motherhood can be. No, it's not anti-baby. It's just a book that takes a long and hard look at the celebrated notion of motherhood. It acknowledges all the fears and emotions that a woman experiences when she first becomes a mother. The book deals with bringing up your child but also more importantly with you — a mother who must and can have a personality apart from her child. It tells you how to tentatively reconnect with lost friends, find the love you must have felt for that man who is your husband, look at your newly acquired body and learn to love it and also get out of the house before you are doomed. Read it even if the first child is already in your life. And get your man to do so too.
Or The Day Seizes You; Rajoshri Chakraborti; Penguin; Rs.250.
NILADRI DASGUPTA'S marriage is over. His wife has chucked him for a new lover. Niladari flees to London trying to forget. Then comes the news of his uncle being murdered. He is forced to confront his life, the way it was and where it has taken him. His nightmare has only just begun and as he steps into a new chapter he knows he must make peace with the old and also recreate his life. Even as he tries to reach out to his daughter, Niladri's sense of alienation with his past overwhelms him and he moves away to yet another journey.
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