The one thing that will definitely make you want to pick up Dr Anuradha Marwah’s latest book is its tongue-in-cheek title. With Aunties Of Vasant Kunj, Marwah takes you into the life of three distinct middle-aged women aka the Aunties. The almost 300-page book is peppered with incidents and nuanced details that take you into the heart of South Delhi’s Vasant Kunj where the action unfolds.
Aunties Of Vasant Kunj revolves around three women, all of whom have nothing in common except for living in a Vasant Kunj DDA colony. There’s Shailaja, a professor who teaches romance at a Delhi University college. She moved to Vasant Kunj after a messy breakup with her ex with whom she had been living for more than a decade. Then, there’s Dinitia – a staunch feminist and social activist. She is also a single mother. Finally, there’s Nilima Gandhi, a housewife who serves tea and biscuits to everyone and has taken to Buddhist chanting.
The three women are dealing with their woes. Shailaja deals with a lecherous boss along with her breakup, Mrs. Gandhi deals with her cheating husband and a nagging mother-in-law, and Dini deals with her newly formed relationship with someone who is far off from her social circle and the return of a former lover. The book dives into detail about how these women navigate through their lives and end up forming an unlikely friendship that helps them survive the many problems of Vasant Kunj – water woes, neighbours, and whatnot.
In her book, Marwah presents these middle-aged women as normal human beings. They are not put on a pedestal where you start worshipping them. As a reader, it is even difficult for you to root for any of these women because they are presented with all their inner thoughts (good and bad) and their flaws. You see them as normal people, someone who might be your neighbour.
What makes Marwah’s book a witty read is how there is an emphasis on dialogue. The author has taken the pain to fill the pages with conversations and dialogues. While there are enough descriptions and inner monologues, these dialogues help the reader better understand the characters and the setting. At one point, the book becomes autobiographical as well, when Marwah inserts a few pages from her life for the reader. She bares her soul to the reader and leaves them to figure out if the story is autobiographical and which character might be drawn from her life. She builds the story from shared experiences and lets the women talk.
Aunties Of Vasant Kunj, however, fail to make an impact on you. It’s not because of the characters or the plot, it is primarily because the plot needed more meat to sustain itself. It needed sharper details and backstories. You might fail to relate to the characters or their situations. At certain times, it relies on clichés. But despite this, the book manages to tackle important issues with the required depth. It subtly deals with marital infidelity, identity, women’s desire, caste, and class issues. Laced with humour and irony, the book makes for a witty and incisive read.
The book is available on Amazon.in and Flipkart.
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