13th Book of 2020!
There are some books that reach you at a time when you don’t have clarity yourself- if it was meant to come at this point of time in your life or it is just a co-incidence. This book by the debutante authoress named Neha Mehrotra titled “How much is too much?: Divorce in India” is a take on women who are on the verge of getting divorced/thinking to do so/have already gone through it. The authoress, Neha, has herself gone through this cycle hence she has accordingly written her own experience along with it raised many questions and points that shall make you dig deeper into the society that we live in.
This book published by Notion Press in around 92 pages is a short book but speaks volume. In India, as soon as anyone who has completed education and started working, is enforced to get married- which leads to people either getting into an arranged marriage hurriedly or come up with their current immature relationship in front of their parents and get into love marriage. Both of these alternate steps are done just because society wants us to get married within a particular age-limit. And this book initially discusses Neha’s pre-marriage pre-marriage journey and then how her life changed in a very short span of time itself when the reality surfaced her life with the same partner not responding in an expected manner after marriage.
Being a woman herself, Neha has generally spoken from women point of view, but not once while reading this book did I feel that men were generically termed as someone who are the reason why marriage fails every time. I have so many of my acquaintances about whom I hear are in a painful marriage because their husband mistreats them and several other reasons. We always feel how hard it is to go through this whole procedure of getting mistreated or ignored and then thinking of divorce, taking that decision and then going through the process of divorce and its after-effect – This book tries answering all these questions in the face of Neha’s own experiences from women point of view as they are the first person to be blamed for a failed marriage due to the prejudices in the society.
The book hits you regularly due to the conditions and confusions and dilemma a woman has to go through once the marriage seems not to be working anymore. Also, how many women are keeping quiet and staying in a marriage just for the sake of respect in society of herself and her family is discussed which is more tragic. The good part is in the 2nd half on how author tells about the after-effect of getting divorced. Reading those sections made me realize how tough it gets post separation after staying with someone under the same roof for so long. How traumatic it becomes sometimes. The book covers a lot of details that a woman under the same condition can learn from and take the further steps accordingly.
Now talking about the drawbacks- I felt that as author mostly covered only those conditions which she experienced whereas she should have talked with more such women and covered every kind of conditions in which a woman seeks divorce and how hard/easy going through the path then is. Also, the divorce procedures are not elaborated but that is the main thing I was looking out to learn from this book. Author could have given detailing on the same including several other conditions in which who is being favoured by our law.
Also, I understand that the topic is too negative and when someone has experienced it itself, there are too many negative things to talk about and less positives, still I feel, author should have mentioned taking divorce and the whole thing as a positive experience rather than something which is again a difficult experience for women. Because I feel few women who must be thinking of getting freed from the bond might get scared and live the same way even after author’s intention to settle them free from marriage which are not working in any which ways.
Overall, this book is a needful book for the women going through this and needing advice. I give this piece of work 3.75* out of 5. I would wish the authoress to write another book on the same topic either in form of fiction or non-fiction giving more clarity on many unanswered questions in this short book. This book is worth your time.
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Thanks.
WRITING BUDDHA
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