Manju KapurReseñas

Home tells the story of a middle class merchant family, the Banwari Lals, who specialize in the creation and sale of saris and and other traditional Indian garb. The story begins when Sona, the beautiful teenage daughter of another merchant family of somewhat lesser standing, enters the store with her mother, and the eldest Banwari Lal son falls immediately in love with her. Reluctantly, his family agrees to arrange a marriage. Theirs is a love match, and the couple are happily married with one not-so-small problem: after 10 years, Sona has been unable to conceive. Her sister Rupa is in the same situation.

The first half of [Home] focuses on Sona's adjustment to living with her in-laws and, later, the other sons' new wives and children. As the only childless wife, she is forced to "mother" Vicky, son of her husband's sister whose unhappy marriage ended when she burned to death in a suspicious "cooking accident." Sona dislikes the boy because he is dark-skinned and sullen, and Vicky isn't treated much better by the rest of the family. When Sona finally gives birth, Vicky is more or less left on his own. At this point, the book shifts attention to her daughter, Nisha, a beautiful child who (for reasons left unstated here) falls victim to violent nightmares and is sent to live with her aunt, Rupa, and her husband, who care for her as if she were her own child. As she reaches adulthood, Nisha's longing to be a modern woman clashes with her family's traditional values.

The book started out slowly slowly for me, and I had a hard time empathizing with Sona and her many complaints. Things got better when Nisha was the focus, but unfortunately, the ending was a real disappointment, one that I wasn't expecting and that knocked my rating down by a full point. On the positive side, Home provided some insight into traditional Indian families and their values and how both are being forced to adapt to social change.½

i am a big fan of jhumpa lahiri and loved her previous set of short stories and namesake too.

'A woman without her own home and family is a woman without moorings'
By sally tarbox on 17 Jun. 2012
Format: Paperback
An interesting read that opens with the cremation of the narrator's mother. She subsequently tries to understand her mother's life better, researching her history and recreating events.
The mother, Virmati, was one of the difficult daughters (the narrator, who only tells us a little about herself, was the other). Resentful of having to spend her teenage years assisting her constantly pregnant mother, she dreamt of further education and fell in love with a married professor...
This isn't a love story as such because the professor comes across as such a curiously selfish and unpleasing individual that I found it hard to see how Virmati maintained her feelings for him. Also it isn't a story of a 'strong woman' breaking society's norms - although she does indeed go against her family, she lets her husband choose her university course and fears to join political activists for fear of his disapproval.
Set in the 1940s, the backdrop of the Partition of India gives added interest to a very readable novel.

Home tells the story of three generations of a cloth merchant family, once living in Lahore and now operating an expanding business in Delhi having moved there after Partition. Kapur has a knack for creating vivid character description, but unfortunately few of the cast of characters were people I ended up feeling much empathy for. The plot also meanders a lot, and while the way some characters drop away and plot threads are abandoned may be realistic—no one's life has a tidy narrative arc—it can be frustrating for the reader. And that ending... I couldn't decide if it was trite or darkly subversive, but either way it felt abrupt and anticlimactic.

[Those of you with triggers may want to note that this book contains extended graphic descriptions of child sexual abuse.]½

Kapur writes in a direct, lucid style with generous use of Indian English idioms to give an authentic feel to the dialogues. Her characters and the situations that confront them are grounded in reality.

Unfortunately though the plot development seems to reinforce rather than challenge the idea that a woman's happiness depends on having a husband, children and a large extended family. Feminists will probably not enjoy this book.

Spoiler alert:

There are also some passages about sexual encounters involving a minor which are uncomfortably long.

The author brings together three generations of women in what today are two countries: India and Pakistan. The book starts with a daughter at her mother's funeral, filled with conflicting emotions and the realisation that she didn't really know her mother. What comes next is her journey across India and Pakistan in search of some kind of closure, talking to family and friends and gathering information. The story of her search intermingles with that of her mother's story and that of her grandmother.

The three generations of women are very different. The grandmother has had some education, but is sent away from her family when she marries into a good Hindu one. Constantly pregnant, she relies more and more on her eldest daughter, Virmati. While Virmati does her duty, she is starving for some sign of affection from her mother, but none is forthcoming. Her mother is just too worn out to give of herself emotionally. Her daughter studies longer, despite her education being interrupted by family duty. She is encouraged by a visit of a glamorous city-dwelling cousin, who has chosen to study rather than marry. Defying the wishes of her parents, Virmati keeps on studying, putting off the date of her wedding more than once. When her aunt (and neighbour) takes in a lodger, the U.K.-educated Professor, her life is turned upside-down, torn between filial duty and love for a married man. Perhaps surprisingly we know least about the granddaughter, Ida, the original narrator of the book. She has clearly been unhappily married and estranged from her family, but we can only glean information from her reaction to her mother's story.

The most important them is that of women, their lives, their fate. Their only validation seems to come from marrying and having children, preferably sons. Those, even those from forward thinking families, who decide to continue their education, or even not to marry, are viewed with disappointment and suspicion. The granddaughter's own story shows that despite the time that has passed.

The situation of women can also be seen in the secondary characters. In Lahore, Virmati shares a room with an activist fighting against the coming Partition. She appears to be one of the few truly happy characters, somehow managing successfully juggle family and education. Her cousin is also an important role-model, stressing that women need to see education and a career as a choice not a last resort. Virmati's love rival is the Professor's wife, a barely literate woman chosen for him as a child. She tries to please her husband, a man who barely thinks of her, and understandably doesn't like the interloper. She tries to be a good wife, as she has been taught, sadly not realising that she can never satisfy him. Both women suffer at the hands of a man who wants his cake and to eat it, not caring about the consequences.

What is sad, for me, is the lack of communication between the women. You would hope that a mother would want her daughter to have a better life, a more satisfied existence, but the women presented here protect the long-standing traditions more than the men. It seems that tradition is more important, especially as the actions of a daughter affect her whole family.

A very interesting read, a portrait of one and then two countries through the lives of women. The struggle for independence and education in two countries finding their feet in the difficult post-Independence era. It definitely made me think, not only that, it made me take a long, hard look at the relationships between the women and generations in my family.

Difficult Daughters tells the story of Virmati, a young woman who falls in love with a married professor just as her family is planning her own marriage. It vividly describes India around the time of partition, but more importantly gives more depth to a story which sounded familiar. It would be predictable to write the story of a rebellious daughter who embraces education and career as an alternative to arranged marriage, but what Kapur does is more subtle. Virmati makes tentative moves into independence but in fact makes very few choices for herself and yearns for a conventional life with her lover.

Likewise, this isn't a predictable story of forbidden love. 'The professor' (as he is primarily referred to) is a selfish and domineering character, binding Virmati to him when it would be kinder to let her go and preferring the romantic ideal to the real woman. He is as domineering as her family, albeit with different values, and her interest in education is largely shaped by what he wants her to become. Virmati is likeable but often frustrating, an intelligent woman letting everyone else control her life - a problem which isn't neatly solved. These complications made the novel far more interesting to me, but it's not for someone who's looking for a conventional love story.

On a negative note, the story does drag on a bit in the middle and sometimes Virmati becomes irritating. I also thought Kapur should have expanded a little more on the life of Virmati's daughter, the narrator. Her background is deliberately vague, but she meets Virmati's family and friends to learn about her mother and I would have liked to find out how these characters from the main story had developed and aged.

After reading & enjoying ‘Home ‘ from Manju Kapoor I went out searching for more books from the author and picked up ‘Difficult Daughters’ (read it, yet to review) & ‘A Married Woman’ (picked it up in a sale). This is the Story & Journey of ‘Astha’ a normal middle class girl. Like any average Indian Parents her parents are worried about her marriage (as soon as she enters her teens). Her mother has always been pestering her to be mentally prepared for marriage she has been brought up in a manner that she has to get married ASAP and satisfy her husband. Her father though is more interested in educating her.   The initial pages of the book depict the pre marriage life of Astha. How she falls in love &  gets dumped off (thanks to her mother), she explores the physical side of relationships (though she shares only few innocent kisses she scares off the boy with the thoughts of marriage). She is eventually married to Hemant, an US returned MBA graduate. Her parents are happy with the alliance because she is being married off in a very good family (read, they have the means to buy their own house in an affluent society).  Astha enters the marital phase of her life like any female, not knowing what to expect. She dutifully molds herself to the needs of her husband and family. Over time Astha’s gives birth to a baby girl & then when she is pregnant again she marks a difference in her life. Her liberal husband suddenly wants a baby boy only and she has to go through various rituals, as suggested by her mom to be successful in this mission (yes, it’s a mission for her). After fruitfully bearing a son for the family, her life comes to a stand still. Her once contemporary and always ready to help husband suddenly becomes a not so involved father. Astha has all this while taught in a school to pass her time. Its here that she meets Aijaz, a drama teacher. In him she sees vibrancy and life.  However he is killed in Ayodhya.  From here on Astha’s life gets a meaning. Astha meets Aijaz’s widow (though Astha knows about that quite later).They both feel a strong bond between them and they eventually get into a physical relationship. The intimacy and comfort she receives from this affair, contrasts strongly with the distance she feels in her rigidly defined role as wife and mother. Though, eventually she has to take a decision to be either with her love or to stay within the safe bonds of family. The books depicts all her struggles to stand up on her own….to do what she wants…what she eventually chooses or gets is something I’ll leave untouched so that you can go back and enjoy the book….   Astha gets into this relationship because in Peeplika she finds a partner who lets her grow, who lets her find herself. She is happy with this relationship because she has found and nurtured it herself, it has not been found by her parents. She is in that stage of her life where she starts feeling that may be her husband is not holier than thou, and may be he has been cheating her also. So when she gets into the physical part of this relastionship she enjoys it, basically because 1st she thinks that despite the fact that she is hiding something from her husband she is not actually cheating him (as she is not a relationship with a man). And according this reason is so very thought provoking....  2ndly whatever is happening in this relationship is her own doing and she is not being guided by anyone.   The author has tackled some common marital problems in this book though I won’t say that the solution which she has selected for Astha is the correct one. There are some loopholes in the plot, like Astha’s sudden makeover into a political animal, by virtue of her meeting a political activist, Aijaz Khan, who alerts her to the growing religious fundamentalism in India, is quite sudden and unconvincing. Even the destruction of the Babri Masjid as the backdrop to the novel is ineffective, because it is inconsequential. It is just a backdrop and nothing else….   But still I would recommend this book because of the effective writing of the author. The way she has depicted Astha’s married life & the game her mind plays would be identified by many. It might even makes us ponder over our relationships...   Its strictly for the Female Population….

The book is about a large joint family in Delhi and the main focus is on Two sisters and their journey. The book traces the lives of the 2nd generation in their family but main focus being the female protagonist...Nisha (daughter of one of the sisters)....What makes this book worth reading is the reality....reality of an average human being....however good we might be but there always is a bit of selfishness in each of us which lurkes in the background and comes on forefront with circumstances......The book very beautifully shows the closeness and destructive limitations of Indian family values. Its shows how much we might claim of being advanced but their are limitations in our thinking....Even Now having a son is considered better than having a daughter....the book also beautifully captures the differences which exist in our society as far as caste et all are concerned.....respect in society is more important than the happiness of our own family... The story also has instances with which u’ll relate to immediately but we never discuss them out in open.....The book is worth a read.....it made me buy another book of this author.....hoping that this will also be as interesting a read....   

Nina is a thirty-year-old English lecturer in New Delhi, living with her widowed mother and struggling to make ends meet. Ananda has recently emigrated to Halifax, Canada; having spent his twenties painstakingly building his career, he searches for something to complete his new life. When Ananda's sister proposes an arranged marriage between the two, Nina is uncertain: can she really give up her home and her country to build a new life with a husband she barely knows? The consequences of change are far greater than she could have imagined. As the two of them struggle to adapt to married life, Nina's whole world is thrown into question. And as she discovers truths about her husband - both sexual and emotional - her fragile new life in Canada begins to unravel. Tender and compelling, "The Immigrant" is an honest exploration of a marriage, what it costs to start again - and what we can never leave behind.½