Secret Daughter, by Shilpi Somaya Gowda, is a story of a mother’s love, and her daughter’s struggle to find her place in her adoptive family. The main characters are Kavita and Jasu, and their daughter, Usha. They live in India in the 1960s. As the story opens, Kavita has just given birth to a baby girl. Her husband takes the baby away from her and has the baby killed because baby girls are not valued in Indian culture. Jasu longs for a boy, but when his wife becomes pregnant again and has another baby girl, Kavita and her sister take the baby to an orphanage in Mumbai, a large city nearby.
This thread of the story is interwoven with the lives of the two other main characters, Krishnan and Somer. They are both medical students when they first meet; he is a native of India, studying medicine in California. He becomes a neurosurgeon, and she has a family practice. They marry and subsequently, she has two miscarriages. They decide to adopt a baby from India, and this is where the two stories meet. They adopt Usha, whose name is changed to Asha.
The chapters of the book alternate between the two stories. Somer never really fits in with Krishnan’s family although she travels to India to arrange the adoption. When Asha is a teenager, she visits her grandparents in India and finds that she really feels at home there. This creates a tension between her and Somer, and finally Somer and Krishnan separate. In the meantime, Kavita and Jasu have had a boy, and everyone in both their families is very happy.
When Asha visits India, she goes to the orphanage where she was adopted from to try to find out about her birth mother. The records weren’t complete, but she does find some information.
Does she ever meet her birth parents? You’ll have to read the book to find out! This was a gripping story that pulled me in to the world of the characters immediately. The Indian world that is described is something that none of us know—the poverty, the prejudice, the gap between rich and poor, the disregard for human life. This book gave a look at that world.
This really is the story of two mothers: one who has children who are not wanted, and one who cannot have children of her own. Both situations are sad but common. Here, we would call what Jasu did to his first baby “murder,” but in India, it was commonplace to get rid of baby girls. The author weaves these two heart-breaking stories together in a book that will draw you in from the very first page.
Completely agree with you. I felt like I had visited India after I read it.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you like it.