HT reviewer Chintan Girish Modi picks his favourite read of 2023

Chetna Maroo's debut novel "Western Lane" is a moving story about three sisters navigating grief and relationships, with a focus on sport as a means of healing. The novel offers a rare portrayal of a Jain family and explores themes of diversity and adoption.

I learnt about Chetna Maroo’s debut novel Western Lanefrom the shortlist for this year’s Booker Prize. When I picked it up, I had absolutely no idea that I would love it so much.

Of bereavement and the immigrant experience in the UK (Picador)

This novel revolves around three sisters – Gopi, Khush and Mona – who are 11, 13 and 15 years old respectively. Their mother has died recently, and they are being raised by a single father who is a Mombasa-born Gujarati Jain man making his living as an electrician in the United Kingdom. After his wife’s death, he tells his daughters, “I want you to become interested in something you can do your whole life.” I interpret this as his way of leaving them something that would outlast his presence in their lives – a sort of inheritance.

While Khush and Mona are present throughout the novel, Maroo focuses on Gopi’s journey. Her father trains her to play squash, subjecting her to a regimen that seems brutal but slowly takes over her whole life. Having played squash for many years, Maroo translates her knowledge and passion into moving prose and shows how sport can help an individual process grief.

I have never come across a Jain family, or even a Jain character in a novel set in contemporary times. As someone who grew up in a Jain household, Western Lane was a welcome change in this regard. I know of Jains in the United States and Australia because I have relatives there but I have never known any Jains of Kenyan heritage like the ones in this novel. Fiction truly has the power to broaden our limited imagination.

Chintan Girish Modi (Courtesy the subject)

Maroo explores relationships other than the one between the father and his daughters. Gopi gets involved with a 13-year-old boy named Ged, and her father gets close to Ged’s mother. Mona is attracted to Shaan, a boy of Pakistani heritage but feels guilty that her mother would have disapproved if she were alive. Interestingly, Mona’s father is of the opinion that Indians and Pakistanis are “brothers”. The novel made me wonder why the two parents feel so differently about Pakistanis, and if this is because the mother’s social circle is less diverse.

The emotional arc of the novel gets even more complicated with Aunty Ranjan and Uncle Pavan coming into the picture. Since they are unable to have a child of their own, they offer to adopt one of the girls. The manipulative Aunty Ranjan manages to convince their father that the daughters are a handful, and he would not be able to take care of them on his own. Read the novel to unpack this family drama, which deserves to be turned into a screenplay.

Chintan Girish Modi is a freelance writer, journalist and book reviewer.