28th Book of 2023
With this one, I am done reading 3rd book in row written by Indian female authors. After Koral Dasgupta and Preeti Shenoy, I tried my hands on Shunali Khullar Shroff’s “Lovein the Time of Affluenza”. This 292-pages book published by Bloomsbury is a wonderful take on the life of riches living in the prominent societies of Mumbai. It is always a fascination to know what happens with people who live in abundance of money - how is their life different from ours and what kind of struggles they go through. This book talks about the protagonist- Natasha and all the other characters closely associated with her.
Shunali, through her protagonist, speaks about the challenges that every person has to deal after marriage. We always discuss about how divorces have become a regular phenomenon and don’t take a minute to blame it on the rich society living around us for making this as common as having babies after marriage. The book discusses about how Natasha falls into a dilemma when she finds her best friend, Trisha, cheating on her husband. She wishes to break the news to Trisha’s husband- Nakul as well as to her husband- Varun as both the men are friends as well as business partners. She decides to maintain silence but the whole scenario makes her question about her own life and marriage. Here onwards, Shunali has been able to make us relate with her at all twists and turns. Natasha takes almost the same decision that any person would have taken but its impact makes us think about our own perception of what we had done in her situation.
Shunali makes us think about why marriages become boring after a point of time. She speaks of how women are expected to take efficient care of both – home and work together without faulting whereas men, conveniently, choose to be busy at work without giving much prominence to their family. She also raises a concern about how parenting is expected to be a full-time job for a mother whereas father is unapologetic for not being in touch with his children and their basic needs. She highlights how a man is always sandwiched between his wife and mother and has to balance off the situation between both of them. She has also highlighted on the responsibilities of a man to be a good-earner which is often taken granted by housewives.
I am glad the way Shroff has discussed about extra-marital affair in her story. Initially, it does sound immoral even from the way the protagonist of the book perceives it but author makes no mistake in signifying how it becomes the only choice for the person who is not even receiving bare minimum from their partner. This part of the book makes us a little uncomfortable but makes us question the reality of our modern lives where it’s so easy to find a new person to enjoy the missing part of our marriage with them or even end up falling in love without any guilt or shame. Authoress has also managed the Natasha’s part here onwards and didn’t let the story end up on the predictable path but gives it a good turn and make us feel good as a reader.
Shunali’s writing style is interesting which is filled with appropriate ingredients of detailing and specifications that helps us understand the ambience and aura of a scene and imagine everything as it’s happening with one of our acquaintances. The characters are nicely crafted as it helps us relate with all the protagonist’s friends and family members. We are able to understand their mindset and personality quite easily to know how they would interact in any scenario. This helps the book become a perfect page-turner as we wish to read how they’ll react and respond to Natasha when she’ll discuss certain scenarios or happenings with them. I wish if author could have avoided mentioning few characters in the initial pages of the book who didn’t have much to do with the story as it consumes our mind in remembering their names and references.
Shunali’s humour and sarcasm are the USPs of her writing as it is really wonderful and heartening to read about certain self-talk that the protagonist does with herself and her expressions when she deals with moments where she finds herself not responding in an idealistic way. Even the dialogues written while the characters converse with each other in light and tough situations are scripted mindfully as it makes us smile while reading them. I am impressed with the way Shunali has spoken about a married woman’s ordeals who belongs to a rich society - without being preachy or imparting modern woke feminism which is thrown everywhere these days - where even wrongs of a woman is always right whereas a man is wrong even for raising his voice on a legit concern.
Overall, this is indeed an entertaining book. I will rate it 4.5* out of 5.
Thanks!
WRITING BUDDHA
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