Book: Inside the Haveli
Author: Rama Mehta
Pages: 245
Read On: Paperback
How Long It Took Me To Read: 6-7 hours
Plot Summary: This book tells the story of Geeta, an urban educated young woman from Bombay, who gets married to Ajay, a man from a conservative family in Udaipur. After her wedding, Geeta leaves the carefree and modern set-up of her household and moves into a conservative haveli of her in-laws, an old-fashioned place where she must remain in purdah, a home where men and women do not mingle. In this house, she must raise her three children and learn to carve out her own identity.
General Thoughts: I don't know how exactly I came to own this book...I saw it on Flipkart and did a bit of research and found that this book was inspired by the real life of the author and was a piece of feminist writing from modern-India. Yay! Thought I and quickly ordered it and saved it to read it during my Indian Books in August
I read this book in one sitting and I have pretty mixed feelings...
Review: This was a book where I went in expecting one thing was was given something else entirely. First up...I really don't see any feminism in this book. Geeta for most part just goes with the flow in her new home and doesn't do anything to really carve out her own identity or voice her opinions. She in fact got to appreciate the life and bonds inside the haveli and began to accept the direction her life was taking. Now there is nothing wrong with that, seriously, if you want to adapt to your new home and new life situation- there is nothing wrong with that. So many women throughout history have done just that. Hell, women still do that to this very day. My issue was the incorrect blurb behind the book. I kept reading and waiting for Geeta to do something...anything to speak out and speak her mind. She didn't. This really is a book about a young woman adjusting to her new situation and for that it isn't a bad book.
The book follows Geeta from the early days of her marriage to a couple of years in..the birth of her children and the routine of her life. I didn't mind it. The life of the women in this haveli was interesting, life in purdah, being secluded and their own rules by which they spend their lives was interesting to read. I have read about purdah before...mostly in history, women who cover their faces and live only in the women's quarter and don't mingle with men, even the men from their own family. It was nice to read about purdah in slightly modern times.
The writing was strictly OK...the prose was OK at best.
The other thing I enjoyed was the many servants in this house and their roles in this household. I didn't know servants could wield this sort of power...limited power but still, the maids in this house was pretty incredibly strong and sometimes even corrected Geeta.
The was this whole upstairs-downstairs thing going on this book. The home-owners/masters and the servants of this house were all very close and the masters cared for the well-being of their staff, in turn the servants were deeply loyal and attached to their people.
But nothing really happens...life goes on and Geeta gets accustomed to this way of life. Sometimes even finding merit in this life!
The purdah system just didn't invoke a sense of being trapped or claustrophobic in this book. Geeta complains about being covered up and under a ghunghat but only fleetingly, her day to day life just didn't come across as being stifling.
Also, we were just not told enough about Geeta's life in Bombay...so this seclusion and strictness had nothing to compare with. We can only imagine her life in Bombay and that she might have had certain basic freedoms but none of that is ever properly articulated.
Ditto about her marriage to Ajay, he remains at best a shadowy secondary character who we don't get to know at all and the nature of their relationship or whether this is even a happy marriage or not.
In fact, even Geeta remains incredibly superficial and by the end of the book I still didn't really know her.
Plus there was no glossary in my edition and that was a pain because Rajasthani words were frequently used and I didn't know their meanings.
There were too many characters...way tooooooo many and it got a bit confusing at times.
Overall, I didn't hate the book, I enjoyed reading about life in purdah...well when I say enjoyed I really mean it was interesting. But it certainly didn't read like a piece of feminist writing. So I was slightly disappointed.
Rating: 2.5/5
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