Review: Independence

Independence by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hooter: The distinct journey of 3 sisters in partition bound Bengal as they deal with life under the macro conditions of Independence.

Based in a small village Ranipur, three sisters have to deal with so many different challenges as the country looks to gain independence. Inter faith marriages, personal ambitions competing with societal misogyny and selflessness and its true value in a selfish society are few human aspects captured around a broader macro environment of the tensions of partition specifically around religious lines. There are a lot of aspects that Chitra tries to cover in this book and whilst it is difficult to delve deep into so many threads, Chitra tries to keep each of the threads engaging enough - leveraging the classic round robin protagonist based chapter approach to keep all the threads moving ahead. Again - with historical fiction being my Achilles heel, this book probably scores higher for the same reason. Chitra spends time on relationships between the various characters which adds to the depth of us understanding each character rather than an essay on each one's background but the situations that make them is the focus.

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