Mother Pious Lady

Mother Pious Lady: Making Sense of Everyday India

by Santosh Desai| 380 Pages | Genre: Short Essays| Publisher: Harper Collins India | Year: 2010 | My Rating: 8/10

This book, a collection of essays from Desai’s column ‘City City Bang Bang’in The Times of India is all about the quirks and essence of the Indian middle class. India having a heterogenous society with deeprooted parallel cultures across its regions and religions have common binding factors too in our peculiar tastes and ‘sab chalta hai’ (everything works..) attitude.

The name of the book comes from a typical matrimonial ad in the english dailies, “Status match for a very pretty, very fair, Brahmin girl. Decent marriage. Father Govt servant, Mother Pious Lady…”, is a witty take on Indian society who’s obsessed with fair skin (Unilever’s Fair & Lovely sells like hot cake around the Country fuelling dreams of the middle class and filling coffers of the company), and arranged marriages offer such an insight into the psyche of Indian society and social structures.

I laughed throughout the book as I could relate to the stories being a part of both the pre and post economic liberalisation of the Indian Middle class. A must read if you enjoy humor and want to learn about the real India beyond glossy mags and bollywood.

This fantastically witty and hilariously delightful book is my “Read of the Week”.