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Book Review
Home life of a couple
NAANII: Dronevir Kohli; Kitabghar, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi-110002. Rs. 300.
THIS IS a long story of a lively and realistic picture of the home-life of a Punjabi couple working as immigrants in the U.S. It has a close-knit structure of the goings-on in the couple's home beginning from the arrival of the wife's mother (naanii) from Delhi to help at the time of her daughter's delivery of a second child and ends with her return to India.
The mother is left to fend for herself in her home in the winter in a land all new to her, as the couple go away to their work early morning. She receives rebukes from her own daughter when she asks questions they regard as impertinent and outside her concern.
She is told every time that she is in America where her Indian habits have to be given up. Her consolation comes from the company of the children who accept her as she caresses and entertains them putting up with their little mischiefs.
The family moves from one location to another and the father too arrives from India; the domestic scenes and the holiday outings and the children's naughty behaviour and frequent loss of face of the parents make their stay a bitter sweet imprisonment.
Along with the description of the strange ways of American social life as encountered by the Indian family, the story makes absorbing reading.
J. PARTHASARATHI
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