The book club discussion held at E 14/9 Vasant Vihar addressed the issue of women angry at the maltreatment they received at the hands of their husbands as depicted in Parini Shroff’s The Bandit Queens.
Sandhya Sinha who made the presentation said that the story is set in the village of Kohra where the women remove their nose ring if the husband dies and wear red garments on their daughter’s wedding.
Farah , Geeta, Preity …… are constantly beaten by their husbands who do what they please. And in the case of Geeta, the husband has vanished, left home and disappeared. The wife is desolate and confused. And people think that Geeta has got rid of her husband, by killing him.
Even as Geeta embarks on an affair with Karem, the local store- owner, the women plot on getting rid of their husbands as Geeta has apparently done. Farah asks Geeta to help her in this venture.
She does. And Farah comes that evening and once inside the house she pushes her scarf down to her shoulders and twirls : ” Grieving widow is a good look for me, don’t you think? ” She shimmied in a dance, singing an impromptu song ” I got no nose ring, I got no rose ring”
Her spirits were high. But Geeta begins to get worried. Such over – confidence might make them careless and get them caught. After all, the police were not fools.
“We’re screwed, ” Geeta says. As the author notes : She let her hands catch her head, one hand pressed against each temple. With everyone else thinking of her as a murderer for so long, she too had forgotten that she wasnt. There was no way theyd get away with this: two village women were no match for actual authorities with resources.
In this vein the story continues. The discussion was lively as usual. Dr Gautam Vohra opened it with the critical observation that the value systems and the way the women behaved, one got the impression that we were dealing with members of the middle class and not “simple” village women.
Gitanjali Aiyar who seconded the viewpoint said that the author had nevertheless written a very readable story. Parini Shroff is a practicing attorney and lives in the US. In fact The Bandit Queens is her debut novel.
Roswith Joshi, Alok Jain, Kavita Charanji, Pam and Raman Kapur and others drew attention to some of the other characters in the book and the general consensus was that Parin Shroff should write another novel soon so that the book club members and others could enjoy another good story.
