“All those people who say, ‘Take no notice of those widows. Without their husbands, they’re irrelevant.’ We’d be invisible in India; I suppose it makes no difference that we’re in England.”
Some would shy away from reading this book because of the title or judge it for being an inappropriate chic-lit. Or some would just give a blank and a very constrained surprised look, like my father did when I asked him to pick it up from the bookstore for me, because that’s our expected reaction to erotic anything. But when I read what it was about I was intrigued because it seemed there was more to it than the amusing title. I enjoyed reading this book so much! Don’t let the title throw you off. Though these erotic stories are scattered throughout, this book goes way beyond that.
Along with it coinciding tales from the past of these Punjabi families, the book centers on Nikki, a 22 year old, second gen immigrant, living in London trying to find her passion in life. Dropping out of law school, leaving her father’s dreams for her behind, Nikki finds her new home above the pub she starts working in.
Nikki signs up to take a creative writing class at the Gurudwara in South Hall. Where the colors, the people, the smell of spices in the air, hearing Hindi and Punjabi on the streets, the warmth of the Indian culture embracing you completely on chilly streets of London. On her first day, Nikki goes to class expecting to teach creative writing to a bunch of bored Aunties, which soon turns into a English literacy class, when she realizes her students can barely read a word of English.
As the classes begin, during one of their storytelling sessions, the women clad in white, start to discuss these stories from their past or romanticize them as they go on. And to Nikki’s surprise they escalate pretty quickly. When her stunned reaction doesn’t please the ladies, she realizes she was judging them on the same reasons they were judging her, the way they looked.
Nikki and the Widows do find their common ground and they all start looking forward to the classes. Nikki is faced with a new dark side of the society they live in. Where she finds out about girls mysteriously dying because of the cultural norms that were not followed. Where women marry young and fly across the country to perform their obligatory wifely duties, but when their husbands are no more, they become unrelated too. Exchanging these explicit stories not only liberates these women but also opens them to the changing modern society they are now a part of. As these stories start to spread, bringing in more traction to the classes, Nikki needs to find a way to deviate the sudden attention to the sessions in the Gurdwara and soon.
Though these issues and the circumstances may not seem relatable but their nuances are plausible. Jaswal's writing was so easy to read, you get immersed almost immediately, while her stories had a slight E L James touch to it. Definitely not what I had expected when I first wanted to read it, but a one worth reading.
“Perhaps passion and excitement were meant to be secondary to a stable adult life.”