I don’t know about you but I simply couldn’t resist a book called The Hindi-Bindi Club with a cover like this. Get the impression that it might be feel-good Indian chick-lit? Correct! And what a refreshing change.
Kiran, Preity and Rani are grown-up daughters of parents who immigrated from India to America, trying to forge their way in the modern world while trying to please families who still have one foot set firmly in India.
Kiran is divorced from a white rock star, much to her father’s disgust; Preity has everything but closure on a teenage romance; and Rani is struggling with her inherited demons. But are their lives, their problems, so very different from those their mothers faced?
Actually, we get to find out because some chapters are narrated by the daughters, and some by their mothers. This could be a recipe for way too many cooks in the kitchen but instead it provides a closer perspective on mother-daughter relationships, especially Indian ones, where respect of one’s elders has traditionally been much more of a focus than in the Western world.
And speaking of recipes, there’s one at the end of each chapter for everything from Goan shrimp curry to Indian truffles to homemade samosas. Admittedly, I was never tempted to make anything but I did get Indian takeaways twice in three days while reading this gem.
Monica Pradhan writes a very nice note to the reader at the back of the book in which, among other things, she offers to join any book club gathering via speakerphone. She certainly sounds like a pretty cool chick to have in the fold, but I wonder if she knows about the time difference!
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