Turns
out – quite a lot!
By
Zee Monodee
Hello,
beautiful people!
I
hail from a beautiful island located in the Indian Ocean – Mauritius. Imagine
white, sandy beaches; crystal-clear, blue, aqua, & turquoise lagoons;
spectacular coral reefs; sun shining for 300+ days a year; temps rarely, if
ever, going lower than the eighties on the coasts. Take this up another notch –
you have just about every race and religion of the world living side by side as
friends, neighbours, colleagues, even family....
Paradise
on Earth, innit?
Not
so fast.... Because, you know, there is always another side....
It’s
not really bleak. Like, it’s not Hell, you know.... But it’s not exactly a
piece of cake, either. Why don’t I let some of my Mauritian heroines tell you
about this state of affairs?
In
Once Upon a Stormy Night, Simmi Moyer is a young, rich, and up-and-coming
executive vice-president of legal affairs in a big local conglomerate that went
international. She’s made it, right? Not so fast....
“One
would think that career success and personal fortune would pave the way for all
the good of this world, but you’d be wrong. At least here, in Mauritius, it
doesn’t work this way. Because, you see, I’m in my thirties...still childless,
and worse, single! And when you know I come from two distinct worlds – my
father was white; my mother of Indian origin – you’d suppose I’d be a bridge
between our different ‘clans’, right? Wrong. I don’t belong on either side. I’m
only at my place in my job, but how long can a woman draw her fulfilment from
stepping up the career ladder alone?
Is
it any wonder, then, that I asked for help from Madame Eve? Even for one night,
I yearn to be a woman, to be my own person, with a man who’d take me for who I
am in my heart and soul, and not for everything I represent in this society.
Too much to ask? I hope Madame Eve and 1NightStand can deliver....”
Once Upon a Second Chance doesn’t have a Mauritian heroine per se, but British-born
Leila Al-Nadir, with her Arab roots, finds herself on this island that looks
like Paradise, but is merely the confines of her own version of Purgatory....
“I’ve
known Hell, and that was in the household of my first husband...‘husband’ being
a loose term, given how my father sold me to that old man to become his
broodmare, back in the United Arab Emirates. Abu Dhabi became my prison...until
someone freed me...to then drop me in to this Paradise that feels like
Purgatory.
What
sins have I committed to be first abused by a man for a decade, then freed, to
be loved and cherished for one night by my saviour, and for this said saviour
to then strike me out of his life as if I were a bug on a windshield? For, you
see, Khalid Al-Nadir, that good Samaritan, married me, made me his wife even in
his bed, and then drugged me...to leave me, all alone, waking up in an unknown
household in Mauritius. A land where I should be free, where I should
belong...but where I exist as a shadow of that former self I hardly
remember....
His
stepmother – yes, there is a story there, but I won’t rehash it now – wants me
to move on, and her solution comes through setting me up on a blind date with
Madame Eve’s 1NightStand service. Is that Eve woman a miracle worker? Because
nothing short of a miracle is going to make me want to embrace life again....
Can she work such a coup?”
Born
of Mauritian parents in London, Lara Reddy, the heroine of The Other Side, is
the ultimate big-city, Western cosmopolitan girl. While climbing the rungs of
the corporate ladder, she falls short from another raised dais – that of her
decade-long, arranged marriage to a ‘proper’ boy of Indian origin. Back to
Square One, she finds herself in Mauritius....and it really is Hell for her!
“I
only got divorced, for God’s sake. Not like I was sentenced to solitary
confinement for life after a serial killing rampage or anything! But this is
the year 2000 in this backward society that still clings to the mores and
traditions of an era long gone by. Divorce = making the divorced woman a
pariah; the man still gallivants around like nothing ever happened to tar his
image! Don’t the woman ever dare to step out of this reclusive box society has
forced her into!
But
you know, Hell got its name because everything that can go worse there does get
even more awful. Like when you happen to cross paths with your first love – the
one that got away – and it turns out he is still a member of the
aristocrats-like descendants of the island’s white settlers, and you’re nothing
but the great-great-granddaughter of those indentured coolies brought to this
island to work the sugar cane fields owned by these very same white folks....
And
when you’re already in Hell, what have you got to lose, right? I have so much
at stake...so much that kept me from giving everything to my first love all
those years earlier when we were teenagers. Is it time, maybe, to step onto the
other side...?”
Dilemmas,
drama, secrets, disclosure...all paving the way for what these women hope will
be their destination of fulfilment and belonging, of becoming their own person
all while the support of a good man keeps them steady.
Is
that too much to ask? Can Simmi, Leila, and Lara get their wish? Find out when
you check their stories!
From
Mauritius with love,
Zee
Zee
Monodee – Love, Life, Relationships....in a melting pot of cultures....
Zee
is an author who grew up on a fence - on one side there was modernity and the
global world, on the other there was culture and traditions. Putting up with
the culture for half of her life, one day she decided she'd stand tall on her
wall and dip toes every now and then into both sides of her non-conventional
upbringing.
From
this resolution spanned a world of adaptation and learning to live on said
wall. The realization also came that many other young women of the world were
on their own fence.
This
particular position became her favorite when she decided to pursue her lifelong
dream of writing - her heroines all sit 'on a fence', whether cultural or
societal, in today's world or in times past, and face dilemmas about life and
love.
Hailing
from the multicultural island of Mauritius, Zee is a degree holder in
Communications Science. She is married, mum to a tween son, & stepmum to a
teenage lad.
You
can also connect with her at the following places – she’d love to hear from you
and friending up!
