With Mother’s Day coming up, I would like to share with you some of the mothers in my novels. First is the heroic Sita in Forest of Enchantments. She is one of the earliest single mothers in literature. When she is abandoned in a forest due to no fault of her own, she brings up her sons Lav and Kush by herself, with grace, courage and intelligence. This book recasts the stories of the epic, the Ramayana, from a woman’s viewpoint.
Next is The Last Queen, the true story of Maharani Jindan, the last queen of Punjab, who rules her kingdom with feisty courage after her husband Maharajah Ranjit Singh’s death. A most unusual woman for her time, the 1800s, she dispenses with the veil, speaks directly to the army, and makes crucial political decisions. This historical novel shows us how a mother’s love for her young son and her determination to preserve his heritage gives her the strength to fight the British until her last breath.
In the Queen of Dreams, we move into the territory of magical realism with a mother who can interpret dreams and sometimes see into the future, and a daughter who longs for the same gift but does not possess it. The book also focuses on the racism experienced by the South Asian community in USA in the wake of 9/11. There is a granddaughter here, too—and as the novel progresses, we discover that she may be the most powerful possessor of this gift.
As you might guess, I love writing about 3 generations, and that’s what I’ve done in Before We Visit the Goddess, too. It is the tale of a grandmother, a mother, and a daughter, and how they connect across the world and across the generations in unexpected ways. An important theme in the book is traditions, both good and bad, and how we carry them into the future. Set in USA and India, the book is full of recipes, especially of the world-famous sweets of Bengal, which is the part of India I come from.
If you’ve read any of these books, I’d love to know your thoughts. If you haven’t, I hope you’ll consider picking them up.
