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prachi 's review for:
Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows
by Balli Kaur Jaswal
Will I ever be able to look at ghee the same way again after reading this? No. Was it worth it? Yeah.
I listened to the audiobook version of this, narrated by Meera Syal, and it was light, fun, funny, and heartwarming (not to mention infinitely relatable, as a South Asian woman living in the West myself).
The story starts off with a young law school dropout in London, Nikki, who has lost her way and doesn't know what she wants to do with her life (big mood, girl). She starts teaching an English writing class to a bunch of Punjabi widows at the community center/temple. I assumed the novel was just going to be about her finding a purpose (and, perhaps, some romance, as the protagonists of stories like these are wont to do), but, midway through, a couple of fairly heavy themes emerged in this fun romp of a novel: honour, shame, family respectability, silence, agency, and pressure in the context of the lives of Indian women.
As much as I related to Nikki, the star characters of this novel are, quite frankly, the Punjabi widows themselves. They had me laughing and crying and their characterization was so strong and realistic that they practically leaped off the page into my real life. Perhaps it's because I know so many women like them; I sit next to them on the bus, meet them in the Indian grocery store, run into them on their evening walks. I wondered, from time to time, what these aunty-jis do in their spare time, and I'm ashamed to say that I, like Nikki, sometimes forgot that they're people just like me who have hopes and dreams and rich inner lives. Maafi maangti hoon, aunti-jis -I'm sorry for dismissing you the way that Indian society so frequently dismisses widowed women because what function and purpose could these dried husks of women possibly serve now that their husbands are gone.
And with that, I can comfortably give this book 4 stars (tbh, it's more like 4.5) because it did, for me, the best thing any book could do - expanded my sense of empathy and helped me step into someone else's shoes. Well, chappals.
P.S. - I knocked a half star off because around midway through the story, you begin to see the shape of how it's going to end. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and the journey to get to ending was so enjoyable that even its predictability didn't dampen the experience.
I listened to the audiobook version of this, narrated by Meera Syal, and it was light, fun, funny, and heartwarming (not to mention infinitely relatable, as a South Asian woman living in the West myself).
The story starts off with a young law school dropout in London, Nikki, who has lost her way and doesn't know what she wants to do with her life (big mood, girl). She starts teaching an English writing class to a bunch of Punjabi widows at the community center/temple. I assumed the novel was just going to be about her finding a purpose (and, perhaps, some romance, as the protagonists of stories like these are wont to do), but, midway through, a couple of fairly heavy themes emerged in this fun romp of a novel: honour, shame, family respectability, silence, agency, and pressure in the context of the lives of Indian women.
As much as I related to Nikki, the star characters of this novel are, quite frankly, the Punjabi widows themselves. They had me laughing and crying and their characterization was so strong and realistic that they practically leaped off the page into my real life. Perhaps it's because I know so many women like them; I sit next to them on the bus, meet them in the Indian grocery store, run into them on their evening walks. I wondered, from time to time, what these aunty-jis do in their spare time, and I'm ashamed to say that I, like Nikki, sometimes forgot that they're people just like me who have hopes and dreams and rich inner lives. Maafi maangti hoon, aunti-jis -I'm sorry for dismissing you the way that Indian society so frequently dismisses widowed women because what function and purpose could these dried husks of women possibly serve now that their husbands are gone.
And with that, I can comfortably give this book 4 stars (tbh, it's more like 4.5) because it did, for me, the best thing any book could do - expanded my sense of empathy and helped me step into someone else's shoes. Well, chappals.
P.S. - I knocked a half star off because around midway through the story, you begin to see the shape of how it's going to end. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and the journey to get to ending was so enjoyable that even its predictability didn't dampen the experience.