The premise is quite simple. A dysfunctional relationship between a mother and her daughter. It's an everyday thing. Hey! Who didn't love and hate their mother? But then why I have difficulty in what I feel? Why I have this itchy feel about the questions I don't want to answer?
Tara and Antara have a difficult relationship. When Tara starts to develop Alzheimer's disease, Antara has to deal with her feelings for her mother and if she can care for her who have never cared much for her. A mother who always looked at her daughter as the enemy. A mother who resented her daughter. And as a daughter who needs and doesn't need her mother at the same time, Antara is conflicted. As the page turns, your sympathies shifts from mother to daughter to mother. It's like getting whiplash.

There's something deeply unsettling about this story. Maybe we are trained to see mothers as these godly person that we forget that they are also people with all the feelings. Or we are trained to think that our Indian families are this trademark sacred family thing that this story repulses us. And reading about how Tara treats her daughter makes me think about motherhood as a whole.

But this story is highly realistic about one thing. That Indian family can be highly dysfunctional and not all mothers are these saint-like beings. The sharp words of the author pierce our expectations and show us the things we can't accept. 
This book is an organized mess. Controlled chaos. One cannot understand it to the deeper level when you don't have an experience of having a mother like Tara. Tara and Antara are symbiotes. One cannot live without the other. They are different but yet the same.