Meet Tara. She is a divorced, kindergarten schoolteacher who lives in California with her teenage son and Hungarian boyfriend. Well, She belongs to a rich heritage of Bengali Brahmins. She was once married to an IIT graduate turned millionaire entrepreneur, Bish.

In ‘Desirable Daughters’, Bharati Mukerjee contrasts the life of Tara to the lives of her two older sisters. One is ‘settled’ in Bombay and another a famous television personality in New Jersey. She also contrasts the Indian community in California to the one in Jackson Height, New Jersey.

Tara’s life is a reflection of the lives of people like us who have emigrated from our homeland, decades ago. It brings to light our joys side by side with the tribulations of a life in an alien land. It mirrors the conflicts we all face almost on a daily basis - to break away or to belong, to stay or to go. Of course there are the dilemmas faced by Indians raising children in the United States. There are also the daily trifles such as choosing the best time to call India. Like many of us here, Tara must hide some skeletons in the closet. Some of these are hers, but the biggest belongs to her oldest sister. And like us, she clings on to the past through people, memories, visits or calls. Tara’s impression of present day India is based on long calls she makes to her sister and from the fragments she picks up from visits to Bombay. We try to break away from tradition when does not suit us. Ironically we do want to belong somewhere, walking the fine line between old Indian traditions and the new ‘liberated’ American lifestyle.

Now, back to the plot of the book. The story starts dramatically, describing an event involving Tara’s illustrious grandmother. Next Bharati introduces us to Tara who is the narrator of this book. Tara is face to face with a young man who claims he was born out of wedlock to her eldest sister.

In an attempt to solve the puzzle involving her mysterious guest, Tara exchanges letters with a man from her sister’s past. I was enamored by the quality of prose in both these letters. If you have ever have to write a tactful letter, you could use these as examples. Unfortunately, the story takes a turn for the worse from this point on.

There is a subplot with Tara’s son, which is very predictable. Finally, the plot gets very cheesy from the middle to the last few chapters, taking ‘Masala’ overtones. In these places, Bharati seems to have been in a hurry to get this part of the book done. She brings in the Bombay underworld into the story, which I felt, was over the top.

Bharati portrays Tara as a brave survivor, a caring and considerate mother, constantly trying to approach a problem in the best possible way after weighing all possible consequences. Tara is articulate and fiercely loyal to her family. I wish I could say Tara is bright.

There is a point in the book where Tara is visiting her sister in New Jersey. Here she realizes that her ex-husband and her son are in danger. All she does is call and leave a message for them. Then she goes back to partying and shopping with her sister. (An intelligent person would have raised more hell in this situation.) Then there is a dramatic turn of events, which, just did not fit well with the rest of the intellectual content of this book. This would have been a better book without this unnecessary sensationalism.

Luckily the main plot does not take the meat of the book. There is enough enjoyable material in this book, especially some humorous parts where Tara’s son cannot comprehend the subjects of his mother’s long telephone conversations to India. Bharati also beautifully captures the snobbery in the Indian community.

I did enjoy the third part of the book. In the final chapters of the book, we get a bird’s eye view into the Bengali lifestyle. Bharati traces the Tara’s family ancestry from the early part of the twentieth century. Tara’s grandmother with her iron will is almost a subject of myth. Then she goes on to describe Tara’s parents their views on religion and philosophy.

Bharati also shows us the brave, freethinking mindset of some Bengali Leaders, which was well ahead of its time. In Bengal, the extremist views of Subash Chandra Bose made him a greater freedom fighter than the Mahatma. The radical Brahmo Samaj broke all conventions of traditional Indian marriage in an attempt to get rid of unacceptable practices like dowry and child marriage. There was Swami Vivekananda who proclaimed that a person is an atheist if he did not believe in himself. Tagore and Ramakrishna are among the numerous other great contributors to emerge from this highly literate state. How could one forget the influence of Mother Teresa to Bengal? Despite the disappointing unfolding of the plot, I found this book informative and interesting. Overall this book gets a marginal ‘Thumbs Up’.

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