Ladies Coupe
(Anita Nair)
Anita Nair?s Ladies Coupé is the story of Akhila, an orthodox South Indian woman who has let go her youth and life to give her family a future. The story helps you understand the life style and attitude typical of a closely-knit Indian family. Akhila is tired of the monotonous life at work and home. She decides to go away for sometime to be all by herself and discover a life she can lead of her own. The novel is set in the Ladies Coupé of a train that travels through South India. Each woman in the coupé shares her experiences, which are very different, interesting and shocking. They are all women who wanted to be independent and at some point of time lost their identity / respect to the whims and crazes of men in their lives. As she listens to their stories, she wonders how she has let her family members rule and ruins her life and she had been watching it helplessly. She realizes that she no longer cares for anybody in the world than herself. Had she been more outspoken and not waited for her family to suggest her to marry and have a family of her own, she could have avoided loneliness from choking her. She painfully recalls how she rejected a proposal from a person whom she wanted to marry. This is characteristic of a middle class woman who ties the dumbbells of societal & familial scorn to her neck! Everything is fine about the novel, but the manner in which Akhila has a one-night strand in an alien place with a stranger gives a severe jolt to the respect and dignity of the woman.
A man in a woman?s life is not for lust alone. It is to learn, enjoy and live together that an individual needs a partner in life. If Akhila decides to have a man in her life to make it complete, she could have gone about it in a more respectable style than playing around with her desire. This book is worth a read and vividly captures lives of Indian women.
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