Books from India

Remy Wadia returns to Bombay from his home in America after learning that his elderly mother has fallen seriously ill. Estranged from his parents for years, he arrives with complicated feelings about his childhood, his family’s secrets, and the emotional distance that has defined their relationship. His mother survives, but the visit forces Remy to confront painful memories and reconsider the stories he has told himself about his past. As he reconnects with his family and the city he once called home, he begins uncovering truths that challenge his understanding of his parents and himself. Set against the vibrant, contradictory landscape of contemporary Mumbai, The Museum of Failures explores immigration, cultural identity, parental love, and the possibility of forgiveness. Through Remy’s journey, Umrigar asks whether understanding the people who have hurt us can help us make peace with the past and find a way forward.

Madras, India, 1974. Seventeen-year-old Savi has grown up in St Ursula’s convent, where orphaned girls are expected to become nuns or domestic servants. Intelligent and gifted with languages, she dreams of a different future. When she becomes a governess for the wealthy Nandiyar family, she encounters a world of privilege and possibility—and falls in love with Ananda, a young apprentice sculptor. But a night of horrific violence forces them to flee India and begin new lives under different identities. Four decades later, Savi has reinvented herself as Missy, a successful driving school owner in Chicago and a respected member of the South Asian community. A devoted mother to her two daughters, Mansi and Shilpa, she appears to have achieved the American dream. However, when a charming young doctor named Varun enters their lives, secrets from her past threaten to unravel everything she has built. Spanning continents and generations, Missy explores migration, reinvention, family loyalty, and the lasting consequences of the choices people make to survive.

The Magnificent Ruins follows Lila De, an Indian American book editor whose career is gaining momentum when she learns that she has inherited her family’s sprawling ancestral home in Kolkata. Having been estranged from her relatives for sixteen years, Lila returns to India to confront a past she deliberately left behind. Her arrival unsettles the extended family members who still occupy the house, many of whom resent her unexpected inheritance. As old relationships resurface and family secrets begin to emerge, Lila finds herself caught between the life she has built in the United States and the complicated history connecting her to Kolkata. Roy explores inheritance in both its material and emotional forms, examining how family loyalties, unresolved grievances, and cultural expectations influence the search for belonging. The novel considers whether confronting the past can help individuals understand the people they have become.

London, 1941. As German bombers descend on the city, two women find themselves caught in a different struggle: the fight for Indian independence from British rule. Ruby, a lonely air raid warden, becomes involved with the India Forum, a group campaigning for India’s freedom. She has her own reasons for joining the movement, but her growing attraction to Satyajit, a charismatic and potentially dangerous freedom fighter, forces her to question her loyalties. Meanwhile, Kitty, an Indian lawyer who has left her family in Bombay to build a life in Britain with the man she loves, risks everything to help Indian men challenge wartime conscription. As their lives intersect, political tensions, personal betrayals, and the threat of violence push both women towards decisions that could change their futures forever. Set against the Blitz and India’s independence movement, A Thread of Light uncovers a lesser-known chapter of British wartime history. Through its intertwined stories of love, sacrifice, and resistance, the novel explores the complicated relationship between colonial power and freedom, asking what people are willing to risk for their beliefs and the people they love.

Set in a near-future Kolkata devastated by extreme heat and environmental crisis, A Guardian and a Thief follows two families whose lives become entangled through desperation and difficult moral choices. Ma, a mother determined to secure a future for her young daughter and elderly father, is preparing to leave India for the United States. Her plans are threatened when a young thief steals the documents her family needs to emigrate. The thief, meanwhile, is struggling to feed his own child in a city where poverty and climate catastrophe have made survival increasingly difficult. As their stories unfold over a single week, Majumdar explores the boundaries between right and wrong when people are pushed to desperate extremes. The novel examines inequality, parenthood, migration, and the moral compromises people make when protecting their families becomes a matter of survival.

Spanning generations and continents, The Strangling Fig explores the lasting impact of grief, family secrets, and inherited trauma on the lives of women in one Muslim family. Hyderabad, 1946: Ashraf is a young girl when her father is murdered on the eve of the Partition of British India. His death transforms her relationship with her mother, leaving Ashraf emotionally isolated and searching for the affection she can no longer find at home. As she grows older, the wounds of her childhood shape her choices in love, marriage, and motherhood, influencing her relationship with her own daughter. California, 2002: Sixteen-year-old Seher feels abandoned by her mother and struggles to find a place for herself. When she begins seeing the ghost of her grandmother, Ashraf, she finds the guidance and emotional connection she has been missing. But as Seher becomes increasingly dependent on this supernatural presence, she discovers that the bond offers comfort at a troubling cost. Moving between India and the United States, Musa weaves together the experiences of women separated by generations but connected by family history and unresolved pain. Blending family drama with elements of magical realism, the novel examines how loss and emotional wounds can be passed from mother to daughter—and whether understanding the past can help break the cycle.

In the hidden world of India’s professional begging networks, human suffering has become a business. Pothivelu Pandaram is a respected, religious man who has built his prosperity on an appalling trade: he buys and breeds people with physical disabilities, then places them outside temples to beg for money. Among those he exploits are Mangandi Samy, a profoundly disabled man whose haunting songs express a longing for divine love, and others whose lives have been reduced to commodities. Pandaram treats them as possessions rather than human beings, convinced that his success and social standing justify his actions. But when an unexpected transaction disrupts his carefully controlled world, the moral foundations of his existence begin to crumble. Combining dark humour, grotesque realism, and spiritual inquiry, Jeyamohan confronts readers with uncomfortable questions about compassion, exploitation, and human dignity. Rather than offering easy answers, The Abyss challenges us to examine the cruelty people can inflict on one another—and the possibility of liberation even in the most degrading circumstances.

Seventy-five-year-old Chitra is a Bengali widow who has spent much of her life caring for her family and maintaining a beloved home in Kolkata. Now, with her children grown and living their own lives, she looks forward to enjoying her independence and travelling the world. But her plans collapse when she suffers a stroke while visiting her younger son in the United States. After her son also experiences a medical emergency, Chitra finds herself in Tranquil Town, an assisted-living facility in Columbus, Ohio, surrounded by strangers and unfamiliar customs. Determined to return to India, she refuses to accept her new circumstances and relentlessly pressures her sons to take her home. Yet beneath her stubbornness lies a deeper struggle with displacement, ageing, and the loss of control over her own life. With warmth, humour, and emotional insight, Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay explores the complexities of intergenerational relationships, cultural differences, and the meaning of home. Chitra’s story challenges familiar expectations about ageing and family duty, offering a compassionate portrait of a woman determined to live on her own terms.