Gypsy Masala
Preethi Nair
HarperCollins
2004
Fiction
Pages: 256
Price: £ 3.99
ISBN: 0007143478
Paperback
First, the bad news. This is a story with a moral: follow your dreams. The African dancer jumps to the beat as this moral is drummed into your head in every page of the book. Did you ask why specifically an 'African' dancer?
That's a question for Preethi Nair, but let me guess: India is a land of exotic dreams for westerners, but we Indians know better. So our substitute for the wild, wild, east becomes Africa.
explores this theme through the lives of three members of a somewhat dysfunctional Indian family living in London. Molu (or Evita as she calls herself), and her foster parents, Sheila and Bali, are visited in their dreams at different times of their lives by the African dancer urging them to listen to their inner voice rather than settle for a mundane, dispassionate routine.
Sheila, once a girl with boundless energy, grew up in a devout Catholic family in Goa, where she fell in love with Rodrigo. However, soon after he left Goa for further studies, Sheila's debt-ridden father started intercepting his letters, hoping to marry his eldest daughter off to the highest bidder. Believing Rodrigo had been unfaithful to her, Sheila agrees to marry Bali, of whom nothing is known except that he’s a Hindu doctor from Kerala. Sheila, her dreams shattered, thereafter settles to be a dutiful, but grim, wife.
{{/usCountry}}Sheila, once a girl with boundless energy, grew up in a devout Catholic family in Goa, where she fell in love with Rodrigo. However, soon after he left Goa for further studies, Sheila's debt-ridden father started intercepting his letters, hoping to marry his eldest daughter off to the highest bidder. Believing Rodrigo had been unfaithful to her, Sheila agrees to marry Bali, of whom nothing is known except that he’s a Hindu doctor from Kerala. Sheila, her dreams shattered, thereafter settles to be a dutiful, but grim, wife.
{{/usCountry}}Sheila's confusion and disillusionment rises with Bali using work as an excuse to keep his distance. Years after their marriage, she comes to know that Bali was married once before, and his first wife, Kurmilla, died while giving birth to a still-born son.