Difficult Daughters: A Novel Review

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(More customer reviews)Suggested by the Bengali women in my local book club, this was a fascinating (at times frustrating) but mostly educational (for me) novel about the incredibly intense social and familial structures of Northwest India during Partition. Our story-teller is the daughter of Virmati who, as a young woman, is drawn more to the intellectual pursuits of life rather than the political ones some of her schoolmates are drawn to. Virmati has been given the chance to study (though rather reluctantly) by her parents and travels to Lahore to do so. She is a woman ahead of her time and is not keen to be relegated to the kitchen and the bedroom like wives of the time are, and her wish to never marry is somewhat disgraceful to her family. After returning home she begins to fall in love with (and he with her) an educated man who is a family neighbor (The Professor), in large part because he openly values her intelligence and encourages her constant pursuit of knowledge. He is tormented by his love for her because he is already married - but finally is pushed by a friend to make her his second wife. She is torn about the decision, but to live with the man she loves (and one who treats her as an intellectual equal) is more important than anything. This marriage results in a complete and total abandonment of Virmati by her family something that wounds her terribly. We discover that Virmati's daughter, as she seeks out those who can tell her about her mother, has also been a difficult daughter in her own way. This book was both wonderful and terribly sad....anyone, man or woman, who rails against convention to do what they believe is right for them in their hearts, is bound to be damaged in the process.

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Set around the time of Partition and written with absorbing intelligence and sympathy, Difficult Daughters is the story of a woman torn between family duty, the desire for education, and illicit love. Virmati, a young woman born in Amritsar into an austere and high-minded household, falls in love with a neighbour, the Professor--a man who is already married. That the Professor eventually marries Virmati, installs her in his home (alongside his furious first wife) and helps her towards further studies in Lahore, is small consolation to her scandalised family. Or even to Virmati, who finds that the battle for her own independence has created irrevocable lines of partition and pain around her.Difficult Daughters was short-listed for the Crossword Book Award in India.

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