Book: Won't You Stay, Radhika?
Author: Usha Priyamvada
Translation: Daisy Rockwell
Publisher: Speaking Tiger
Pages: 184
How Long it Took Me To Read: 3 days
Plot Summary: After her widowed father marries a younger woman, Radhika’s world falls apart. She feels betrayed—the emotional and intellectual bond that she had forged with him since the early death of her mother breaks with that sudden marriage. To escape the unbearable situation at home—the growing rift between her and her father—Radhika moves to Chicago to pursue her master’s in fine arts. She returns to India two years later, burdened by a sense of alienation and homesickness, only to realize that while nothing had changed in her country, everything had. The family that she had longed to be reunited with barely acknowledges her arrival. The sense of belonging is missing, leaving her in ‘an emotional state of in-between-ness, of universal unbelonging’. As days pass, Radhika is paralysed with ennui, which tinges all her relationships—romantic or filial. So she lies on her takht, bored, immobile, uninspired…
An extraordinary chronicler of the inner lives of the urban Indian woman, Usha Priyamvada is a pioneering figure in modern Hindi literature. Won’t You Stay, Radhika? , first published in 1967, expertly explores the stifling and narrow-minded social ideals that continue to trap so many Indian women in the complex web of individual freedom, and social and familial obligation. Daisy Rockwell’s sensitive and skilful translation brings this poignant Hindi novel to a new set of readers.
Review: Sometimes saying that a book was way ahead of it's time feels a little redundant. Like we are simplyfying it's very essence. Because of course, this book and its subject matter was way, way ahead of it's time when it was first published in 1967. A young woman from a good family, leaves India with a married white man and moves to America, scandalising her family and those in her social circle. The novel mostly deals with her coming back home and trying to find herself and a home again.
To say this novel deals with a woman with Daddy Issues might be simplifying matters. I cannot believe that this book came out in 1967 and deals with complex familial feelings, less than ideal Indian family and a daughter who is not some idealised and perfect Indian girl. A girl gets insanely jealous about her father's new relationship and acts out in rebellion forever changing the course of her relationship with her beloved father. I love reading about mildly dysfunctional families and Indian families are a perfect backdrop for all kinds of complicated emotions.
I loved how real and messy and unvarnished this narrative was. The awkward family reunions, the shifting equations and the feeling of ennui that Radhika feels on her return to India. The whole idea of you can't really come back home again comes alive in this book. You might return but the idea of home changes and sometimes people change and home, as you know it has changed. Radhika's homecoming felt so real and the silences and tension all leap out of the pages.
I really enjoyed the writing and the way in which Radhika and her dilemmas were brought to life. The new people she meets and the two men who catch her attention, all this kept me hooked and very invested in this tale. I empathised with her but I don't necessarily think I liked her very much. Her feelings while valid, seemed a little too self-indulgent and her petulance came across as petty. Maybe things were different in 1967, maybe people didn't see their parents as people. So in that context Radhika being so upset with her father's decisions to remarry makes sense. But sitting in 2024, I couldn't help but judge her and her tantrums a little bit.
I overall really enjoyed my time with this book and I am really excited to pick up more books by the author.
Rating: 4/5
