Veena’s review of A Bollywood Affair by Sonali Dev
Contemporary Romance published by Kensington 28 Oct 14
It seems hard to believe that the practice of child marriages still exists, but I suppose it is plausible in some of the villages of India far from civilization where life goes on at a feudal pace. Mili is four years old when she’s married in a group ceremony. For twenty years she’s been living with her grandmother, preparing herself to be a suitable wife for her no-show husband. Fortunately some of these actions have involved an excellent education and now she’s on a scholarship in Michigan living on a shoestring budget. I realize this is a debut novel and I definitely want to encourage the author, but I feel as though the scripts of several Bollywood movies and/or television serials have been melded together in way that creates some level of continuity.
Virat Rathod has all but forgotten that incident in his childhood when his hated grandfather forced him to participate in a barbaric ceremony that proclaimed he was married. His mother repudiated the ceremony and took her sons and fled from the scene of the crime. He’s now happily married and expecting his first child when his past catches up with him and he finds out that his child marriage is still valid and his “wife” is flourishing at a university in Michigan.
Mili Rathod considers herself a rebel because she’s traded her traditional dress for jeans and managed to get herself to Michigan on a student visa. Yet she is still traditional in how she zealously guards the symbols of a marriage that occurred at the age of four and prepares herself to be the perfect wife for a husband who hasn’t shown up or looked for her in the past twenty years since the event. The story falls apart for me here. Child marriage is illegal in modern-day India and there are well publicized support groups that help fight the evils in Mili’s home state and yet she never once looks for a life beyond being a wife to a man she doesn’t know and yet purports to love.
Then there is Sam. He’s now a famous Bollywood producer, having worked his way up through modeling. I find him a very likable character. Despite his success and his struggles with his writer’s block, he’s completely loyal to his brother and thinks nothing of flying off to Michigan to confront the “bitch” who’s holding his brother’s happiness hostage. And then he meets an insecure woman living hand to mouth in the most dismal of conditions and he falls like nine-pins. Instead of getting her signature, he’s feeding her and driving her back and forth and adopting her ideas into his script.
There is a large part of the book dedicated to the marriage of Mili’s friend, which definitely reads like it’s been lifted from a Bollywood movie script. Personally I think this section is a large part of why I could not warm up to the story, feeling the lack of originality. The inevitable is bound to happen when two young people of opposite genders spend so much time in close proximity and yet Mili, for all her guilt, brushes Sam off, spouting love for her absentee husband.
India is changing. Perhaps twenty years ago the child marriage could have taken place in a small village. Even her grandmother could be old fashioned enough to believe that the marriage is real. Where I disconnect from the story is primarily Mili’s actions in continuing to believe and act like the marriage is real, despite her education and exposure and supposed modernity.
I think I feel more strongly than most because being a fellow Indian, I am torn between wanting to encourage a writer who’s publishing her first novel and presenting a story that best represents my birth country. If I have been more brutal than I should in my desire to present facts, then I definitely apologize.
Grade: C
Summary:
“Deeply-felt emotions that will keep readers turning the pages.” –Susan Elizabeth Phillips, New York Times bestselling author
Mili Rathod hasn’t seen her husband in twenty years—not since she was promised to him at the age of four. Yet marriage has allowed Mili a freedom rarely given to girls in her village. Her grandmother has even allowed her to leave India and study in America for eight months, all to make her the perfect modern wife. Which is exactly what Mili longs to be—if her husband would just come and claim her.
Bollywood’s favorite director, Samir Rathod, has come to Michigan to secure a divorce for his older brother. Persuading a naïve village girl to sign the papers should be easy for someone with Samir’s tabloid-famous charm. But Mili is neither a fool nor a gold-digger. Open-hearted yet complex, she’s trying to reconcile her independence with cherished traditions. And before he can stop himself, Samir is immersed in Mili’s life—cooking her dal and rotis, escorting her to her roommate’s elaborate Indian wedding, and wondering where his loyalties and happiness lie.
Heartfelt, witty, and thoroughly engaging, Sonali Dev’s debut is both a vivid exploration of modern India and a deeply honest story of love, in all its diversity.
