So, I don’t know about you, but I am always up for a good read. Want a recommendation? I got one for ya! Recently I read a work of art in literature by one of my favorite authors, and I wanted to take some time to tell you about it.
Chitra Banerjee Divakurni published ‘Before We Visit the Goddess’ in April of 2016. It is a powerful novel from the award-winning author of Palace of Illusions, Sister of My Heart and Arranged Marriage: Stories. The novel weaves the tale of three generations of transcontinental Indian mothers and daughters who discover that their greatest source of strength is one another. They are a family torn apart and brought back together through the bonds of family, regardless of the hurdles they face.
The three women’s stories are musical like explosions of love, loss, and forgiveness that astound you with the poetic ease of the writing style.
The website www.goodreads.com has given the book 3.75 stars. I give it 4 stars out of 4, because it is in my top 10 of must read books.
Sabitri is the daughter of a poor and rural family, who desires an education but makes a mistake in love, in her one opportunity to obtain that education. Sabitri’s daughter Bela is impacted by her mother’s misstep, which later leads to struggles in Bela’s marriage. These challenges imprint Bela’s daughter Tara with lessons about loyalty, love and believing in yourself. The novel also has a beautiful emphasis on female empowerment and education.
I am a Houston, Texas native, which is where Bela and Tara live, and I found it noteworthy that the author’s accuracy of the description as it relates to highways, and a famous restaurant Niko Niko’s was spot on.
The inter blending of the Indian and American culture via the epigraphs from Manusmriti and Jean Thompson at the beginning of the novel were beautiful touches due to the novel straddling both India and America.
Above all, the most moving piece of the novel for me was the letter that Bela asked her mother Sabitri to write to Tara about her educational decisions. It appears at the beginning and end of the novel. A belief in fate and God could be provided as an explanation for the way, and timing of which, Bela actually receives this letter.
The below was a life lesson in the form of poetry, in my opinion. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is a talented artist of words so keenly connected to our Indian culture. The relevance of the below paragraph’s final sentence can be tied into a proverb of a good woman Sabitri’s mother shared with her, which was too backward for Sabitri. The proverb said ‘Good daughters are fortunate lamps brightening the family’s name. Wicked daughter’s are firebrands, blackening the family’s name.’
‘One day, in the kitchen at the back of the store, I held in my hand a new recipe I had perfected, the sweet I would go on to name after my dead mother. I took a bite of the conch-shaped dessert, the palest most elegant mango color. The smooth, creamy flavor of fruit and milk, sugar and saffron mingled and melted on my tongue. Satisfaction overwhelmed me. This was something I had achieved by myself, without having to depend on anyone. No one could take it away. That’s what I want for you, my Tara, my Bela. That’s what it really means to be a fortunate lamp.’
May all woman be fortunate lamps, but only by Sabitri’s definition of it.
