Purple Lotus by Veena Rao

 Ratings:⭐⭐⭐⭐

'Like the purple lotus, rarest of rare, you shall rise from muddy waters to rule the world'

 The plot revolves around  our female protagonist Tara. When Tara was a little girl her parents left her to her grandparents’ house with a schizophrenic uncle and moved to Dubai with their newly born son for a better life. Tara as a little girl craved for parental love and struggled with her feelings. She always felt lonely and wished to live with her parents in Dubai. 

Later in her life when she grew up she faces constant societal pressure, being 28 not married and not even beautiful. In a hurry her parents  marries her with a man in US.While the guy abandons her for three years right after marriage but soon as she lands in US , Tara faces domestic abuses, neglect, ignored. Little did she know her husband was having affair with someone else.

  What shocked me was in such abusive relationship, her parents asked her to compromise and stay with the husband, as women are supposed to do that.  A man can live  with no fear while the  wife gets disowned by the society. She feared to take decision and come out of her abusive life in an unknown country. Didn’t know where to go , or what to do. It is how Tara got her inner strength, fought back and lived the way she wanted to live and not how others wanted her to do.  What daring she did was marry her  childhood love who belongs to different religion without caring about the medieval societal norms.

Why I loved it

What I loved about the book is the overwhelming usage of simple english making the reading appealing, while portraying the old fashion mind-set of the Indian society.. It has beautifully portrayed the cultural differences and Tara’s lonely years in US , which destroyed her  self-worthiness.. This cultural reference reminds me of  Jhumpa Lahiri's style, were  she  explores expatriate  Indian in America, I felt happy when Tara met her Russian friend and took a step to come out of the abusive relationship. The insight of Tara’s disturb life, domestic abuse and coming out and facing the situation and settling back to new life was flawlessly explored by the author, making the book feel so real. The ending was perfect, you cannot have anything better than this.

Thank You Net galley for the  ARC.