“A Good Indian Girl” - Mansi Shah

🌶️ Firstly, let me say that, although it was tagged as such on Goodreads, I wouldn’t describe AGIG as “coming of age,” since the protagonist, Jyoti Shah, is in her 40s. Secondly, do not read this on an empty stomach. Jyoti is a chef in Italy. There is an abundance of food content.

🌶️ Jyoti is in Florence decamped at her best friend’s home trying to recover from a personal life implosion of epic proportions (especially by desi standards).

🌶️ To many kids who were born in the US to parents that emigrated from India in the ‘60s, the part of this quote that really hits has less to do with us, and more to do with our parents. It’s precisely how our parents preserved a version of Indian culture frozen at the moment they left India and instilled that culture in us. 

Therefore, we were likely raised far more conservatively than our cousins in India. For example, many of us grew up with (mandatory) classical art training yet have decidedly non-artistic professions (doctor/lawyer/engineer) insisted upon by our  parents. Quite the contradiction.

🌶️ I appreciated that AGIG tries to give voice to those childfree by choice or circumstance. But Shah does occasionally lapse into an abacus-like accounting of all the pros of being child-free, and the cons of having kids, thus reducing a nuanced conversation to simplistic black and white terms. But overall, it was refreshing to read a positive treatment of a childfree lifestyle.

🌶️ While enjoyable, AGIG played a bit to stereotypes.  “Love Marriage” by Monica Ali is a more elevated treatment of similar stories; especially the mother-daughter angle and the parental expectations piece.