Savi’s beginnings were inauspicious. Her upturn started in the house of the nuns, where she was schooled and learned that keeping her head down was the way to get ahead. Seconded for service to a rich household, put in charge of the youngest son in the house her life seemed ordained for service.
When an attraction to a budding artist got in the way, along with an attempted rape, and deaths, the couple fled first to the coast, then on a steamer to Yemen where Missy and Ananda now with new identities, skipped to America. Fast forward many years, two brilliant children, a flourishing business, Missy has never got over the fact that she is an illegal immigrant in America.
When Arun comes into Shilpa’s life, Missy feels that her world is tilting. Only when Shilpa goes to India to meet the family, does the karmic forces come full circle to reveal that this is the family where Missy and now her ex husband caused mayhem and unimaginable grief when they lost their eldest son in that initial brutal assault. The explanations decades later being accepted by the family of the actual stories of the deaths was the beginning of peace for Missy.
Very descriptive of the domestic situation in the house in South India as well as the situation in America, it gave a glimpse of how hard it is for some to adapt to a different way of life, and also how easy it is for second generation immigrant children to live in the manner born in the new country. The feudal system of servitude which prevailed in rich houses in Asia may exist still on a reduced level though dictatorial attitudes may be absent today.
Engrossing read.
Sent by Hera Publications for an unbiased review, courtesy of Netgalley.
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