Ladies Coupe

Akhila has spent a life of self-denial, giving up her ambitions and dreams so that her widowed mother and her siblings can have a better life. At 45 she realizes that they are still taking her sacrifices for granted and are even treating her with scorn. It is time to strike out on her own, but she is afraid because some say that a woman living alone in India will be unable to cope and will be assumed to have behaved immorally. When she feels that she can no longer tolerate the suffocating conditions imposed on her she knows that she needs disinterested advice. She buys a railway ticket to a seaside resort on the southernmost tip of India and travels overnight in a carriage restricted to women, where, somewhat improbably, she spends part of the night and the following morning seeking the opinion of her fellow travellers. It's a good fictional device. Each woman has led a different life and has a different story to tell. Interspersed with these accounts, Anita Nair gives another instalment of Akhila's own experiences and her reaction to what her new companions have to say. The result is a sampler embroidered with figures representing Indian women: the grandmother protected all her life by her loving husband but despised by her son, the servant abused by the rich boy, the teacher who has given up too much in an unequal marriage and now longs for revenge, the woman who has become so submissive that her husband no longer desires her, the adolescent whose bond with her grandmother is stronger than her parents can comprehend. The dilemma for these women is stark, a choice between depending on a man who will cherish and protect them but who might become a tyrant and the satisfaction of relying on their own ability to live a full life. Nair explore these themes with passion and sympathy, sprinkling her writing with vivid images that reflect the beauty and character of her country. (Kirkus UK)