I’ve always been a fan of soap operas and
family sagas. My mother and I butted heads on more topics than we agreed
on...but Dynasty, Dallas, and Eastenders time was sacred; our very own cease fire moment. Later
on, I ‘graduated’ to the ongoing The Bold
and The Beautiful while she drifted into the numerous Zee TV and Star
Network Bollywood-type Indian soapies; shows that she still tries to rope me
into every time I spend the day at her place.
But what is it that lured both of us to
these worlds of ongoing dramas and petty domestic intrigues?
I guess, along the way, we started to
identify with the families in the storylines; they became an extension of us,
people we feel we ‘know’ and identify with. Their family becomes your family,
and you start to live for their tribulations, trials, and triumphs, as if they
were your own.
Is it any surprise, then, that when I
started writing, I invented my very own soapie-style family? They were the
Hemants. Well-to-do upper middle class, Indian origin folks from Mauritius.
Cardiac surgeon dad too busy with his glorious career to be much of a presence
at home...leaving the field wide open for his tradition-stickler and convention-manic
homemaker wife to run the roost. Said roost comprised of 3 daughters – Lara,
Neha, Diya – born over a 10-year period while the family lived in England.
Then, when the eldest, Lara, was sixteen, they all returned to Mauritius...and
that’s where the true backstory of each girl starts, because Mauritius is the
place that proves a cesspit of outdated mores and customs that throws them all
into prisons of societal and cultural conformity that will define how each girl
will turn out.
Each book in this saga-style trilogy can
be read alone, but it is, at the heart of it, a saga...so you’ll find echoes of
each sister’s conflict in the other’s story, and there is a family conflict arc
that spans over the 3 books. My very own soapie. Rest assured, though, that it
all comes to a conclusion in the last book; I wrapped up that generation’s
issues and conflicts. Not with a pretty bow, I like to think, but in way that
echoes reality and the true interaction that happens in families and
sisterhood.
Here’s an excerpt where you get to meet
all three Hemant sisters – it’s taken from the start of The Other Side, the first
book, which is also Lara’s story.
A piercing wail sliced through the air,
similar to the mind-numbing bombing sirens one heard on the BBC newsreels during
live broadcasts from places like Baghdad and Sarajevo. The roar of a kitten
thinking it was a fierce lion came on the coattails of the screech, and she
could also make out sounds of loud sobbing.
The kitchen door flew open, the sole of
the little kid who’d kicked it in still in the air. Lara travelled her gaze
over the mini-man with the Mohawk, before sliding to the side onto the
pigtailed little girl with tear-stained cheeks. A huge stretch of dull grey
stood behind the children. Oh no, this couldn’t
be….
Her mother tore out of her seat to march
toward the door. “For God’s sake, Neha. What have you done to this poor baby to
get him to scream like so?”
I thought
she gave birth two months ago. Her younger sister seemed ready to burst. When,
and how, had she put on so much weight?
Their mother deftly ripped the swaddled
lump from Neha’s arms. With a jerky rocking motion, she got the baby to stop
screaming.
“This is how you do it, Neha. I would
believe you’d know by now.”
Neha bit her lip, before she nodded.
She still
allows herself to be bossed around. Hard for Lara to view her twenty-four-year-old
sibling as an independent woman, which Neha should be, seeing as how she’d
already been married for seven years and had popped out three kids.
And did she imagine this, or did her
sister give her a false, forced smile?
“Lara. We weren’t expecting you before
Monday,” Neha said.
“It was a surprise,” she replied.
Another forced smile. What was wrong with
her?
A loud kick resounded from the kitchen
door. Lara leaned to the side to catch sight of the little boy practicing
karate chops on the wood panel. “That’s Kunal, innit?”
She turned to the still-sobbing girl.
“And you must be Suzanne.”
Terrors, the lot of them. She shivered
when she imagined this could’ve been her fate. There’d been talks of an
arranged match between her and their neighbour, Rahul, who’d ended up as Neha’s
husband.
“And why is she crying now?” Auntie Ruby
asked. “Anyone would think you terrorize the poor child, Neha.”
Neha lowered her eyelids, and a faint
blush crept over her cheeks. “I can’t get her to stop,” she said in a low
voice. “Since her father left for Madagascar this morning, she hasn’t let up.”
Feeling sorry for her sister at the
defeat in the tone, Lara had an idea. “Wait. I know exactly what will cheer her
up.”
She dashed out to the car, where she
pulled out the large shopping bag full of gifts she had brought with her. And
with her head stuck inside the potpourri-scented vehicle, she took a deep
breath and gathered her thoughts. Hopefully, Neha’s arrival with the children
would prove to be distraction enough for the aunties, and they’d leave Lara
alone. Fat chance, but she could hope. Hope
is what idiots live on, as the French saying went.
With the handle in her grip, she traipsed
back to the kitchen. Once inside, she rummaged into the bag and pulled out a
wide, flat case which she handed to her niece. “This is for you.”
The sobs stopped, and the little girl
gingerly reached out for the offering. She blinked once she closed her hands on
the box then let out a screech loud enough to burst an adult’s eardrum.
“It’s got all the Disney princesses in
there, even Mulan! Thank you, Auntie Lara.”
Lara had to smile at the unbridled
enthusiasm. Out of the corner of her eye, the little boy stealthily approached.
Reaching into the bag again, she extracted a large plastic carton of X-Men
action figures. “And this is yours.”
His eyes grew wide, and he jumped up and
down. Lara didn’t know at what point he wrapped his bony arms around her neck.
In his eagerness, he nearly snapped her neck in two as he pulled her to his
level. Then, just as abruptly, he released her and plopped himself down on the
rug in front of the dining room door, where Suzanne was tearing out the
contents of her gift.
Finally, Lara handed a flat package with
a baby blanket inside to her sister. “This for the baby.”
“His name is Rishi,” Neha said in a
clipped voice.
“For Rishi, then.”
Another squeal ripped through the kitchen
as the back door slammed open. Lara glanced up only long enough to brace
herself for the energy bolt heading straight for her.
“I can’t believe you’re here already!”
her youngest sister, Diya, shouted as she hugged Lara and made them both hop
like bunnies on steroids.
Lara reeled to get her balance back when
the girl released her. How could such a petite woman who could pass for a
life-size doll pack so much energy and zest into her tiny body? She would swear
she grew drained simply from listening to the teenager talk a mile a minute.
“Oooh, is this the goodie bag?” Diya
asked. “Please, please, please tell me you got the CD I asked you for. I wasn’t
sure you got my last email—”
“I got it,” she said simply to make the
girl shut up.
“And the Body Shop basket? And the Boots
hand cream? Oh, and tell me you made the Boxing Day sales and got me those
killer sandals from NEXT—”
“Yes, yes, and yes.” She pulled out the
Enigma The Screen Behind The Mirror
album from the bag. “Here you go. The rest is coming by cargo.”
“Oooh, you’re the best!” Diya grabbed the
CD before she hugged Lara again. “Okay, gotta be off. Everyone will kill to be
in my shoes when they see I got this.”
“And where do you think you are going,
young lady?” their mother asked.
“Meeting with some friends at KFC. Be
back for dinner, or else ask Daddy to come pick me up when he gets home from
work. Oooh, look what Suzanne got. No, sweetie, wait. That’s not how you apply
blusher.”
Neha gasped. “You got her makeup?”
“It’s kid-friendly. I double-checked
after the salesgirl at the Disney shop assured me it was safe.”
“She’s six years old. Much too young for
all this.”
“Oh, don’t be such a ninny, Neha. I
started wearing makeup when I was her age, and I’m none the worse for wear, am
I?” Diya asked with a roll of her dark eyes.
“That’s what has me worried,” Neha said
under her breath, but loud enough for Lara to hear. “And I can’t believe you
got Kunal dolls.”
“They’re action figures, sis,” Diya said
as she breezed past them on the way to the door. “Take a chill pill, will you?
Tata, ye all!”
The quiet in Diya’s wake felt strangely
anticlimactic, as if all the air in the room had been sucked out. Neha kept her
reproachful glare on Lara, who, to escape the malevolent scrutiny—after all,
what was her sister’s problem?—turned toward their mother and the aunties. Bad
move.
“We better get you settled. Not yet one
hour since your return and you three are already back to bickering like
children.”
“We aren’t bickering—” both Lara and Neha
said at the same time.
“Are, too,” their mother said with
finality in her tone.
Quite something, innit? Lara wants to be
anywhere but here, in Mauritius, but she has no other choice as she is running
away from the specter of her ex-husband’s remarriage and pregnant new wife.
Diya has created her very own little bubble where nothing can get to hyperactive
her, while Neha.... She comes across as rude and holier-than-thou, doesn’t she?
But then, too, how would you treat the woman you believe your husband, whom you
adore, has always loved?
From Mauritius with love,
Check out my Hemant Family saga in the Island Girls Trilogy now available at
Decadent Publishing and all major retailers!
Here’s where you can find the books:
The Other Side
Light My World
Winds of Change
#zeemonodee, #decadentpub, #islandgirls
