Fashionably Desi

"She dreads her turn on the matrimonial circuit, especially since Mummy is always complaining about how difficult it will be to find Jeeta a good husband, with her dark skin and sharp tongue..." [link]

Oh, in the name of sweet baby Krishna, please!!

Generational conflict, conservatism as defined by an implied outdated culture versus liberal-seeking, custom-fighting daughter who wins the right to choose. Very dramatic, as every good Indian household ought to be. When I see books like these at stores now, I roll my eyes and summon the deities for divine intervention - but I always read the blurb. I am attached to these books. As a teenager, it was important to me to feel part of some greater collective of diasporic South Asian 15 year old girls all wondering why they weren't allowed to go to sleepovers (to this day, the greatest mystery of my life.) I always felt some degree of shared experience by reading books with sari-draped, henna-painted, Orientalist-tinged covers. So, while this cover makes me want to claw my eyeballs out with henna-covered fingertips, I am actually, deep in my gut, grateful for their existence. Annoyed by their proliferation, but grateful nonetheless.

I need to get in on this McSouthAsianifying of children's lit. I appear to be in fashion.