Girl in White Cotton : Unsettling tale of Mother-daughter duo.

I often wonder what it would be like for daughters to take care of mothers who were not quite there for them.  How do they feel about their mothers not playing the mom society wants them to? How do they react when they come to know that their mother is in trouble and needs them? 

I have read quite a number of books with the theme of the complex mother-daughter relationship this year, Actress by Anne Enright, Queenie by debut British author Candice Carty Williams and Red at the bone by Jacqleen Woodson to name a few. While Actress was about a writer whose mother was an actress in Ireland in 50s and 60s, in Queenie we learnt about the issues she faced when the protagonist's mother abandoned her for her boyfriend, and finally Red at the bone where we meet Iris, a teenage mother who believed there was more to life than being a mother. 

While all the books are quite different from each other showing us the different aspects of motherhood, I had a feeling that Actress will come close to what Girl in White cotton is. But then that feeling evaporated the moment I read the first line of the latter. 

I WOULD BE LYING IF I said my mother’s misery has never given me pleasure. I suffered at her hands as a child, and any pain she subsequently endured appeared to me to be a kind of redemption – a rebalancing of the universe, where the rational order of cause and effect aligned. 

I knew this book would be nothing like I have read before. I knew it would be something I was looking for. I knew I would be haunted by it, months after reading it. This one is after all longlisted for the Bookers after all. But then that feeling evaporated too. 

Antara was six when her mother left her husband's house along with her and went to a Baba's Ashram. She gives up on the life that was offered to her and slips into loose white cotton clothes. Hence the title ! Since the novel is set in Pune, we can easily guess who the Baba is! 

Her mother's name is Tara and we learn that Antara was actually named Un- Tara, the opposite of Tara. Tara was a rebel who used to smoke with tourists when she was a teenager in 70s, she once tried to pierce her nose and flunked school. Her parents married her to Antara's dad at 18 where she learned she was neither fit for marriage nor motherhood. 

The novel moves from flashbacks to the present time until the end. There are of course glimpse of pretty prosses and lyrical writing and then there is a story also, which saves the book from becoming the kinds where writers show us their impeccable language skils but fail to tell us the story. 

When Tara is somewhat tired of being a rebel, she comes to stay with her parents who help her bringing up Antara. Antara's father gets married soon and move to USA and doesn't keep in touch much. 

Tara is a rebel and hurt and doesn't shy away from inflicting pain upon her daughter. For instance, there is a scene where she called her daughter, ' Little fat bitch', in response Antara calls her whore. She laughs and repeats those words again. You would want to know why does she behave like that? But soon you realize, there is no answer to that. Not everyone can be fit into society's definition of wife, daughter, or woman. These women might make you uncomfortable but then you need to accept them. 

But then as the opening line suggests, the universe has its own way of dealing with things. Tara loses her memory and now lives with Antara and Dileep in their house. 

Dileep is an NRI who works in Pune and we never get to know what makes her fall for Antara, an artist. Their marriage has issues that all marriages have. He opens his house and arms for Tara without asking much. 

Avni Doshi was born in USA and now lives with her husband in Dubai. This is her debut novel. It is always good to read women writers who write the kind of books where we ourselves and our daily life. I liked how she depicted Pune city and the places where youngsters hang out. 

Debut women authors have been surprising us quite a bit with their work in the past. Last year's JCB prize winner, Madhuri Vijay stunned us with her brilliant book The Fairfield. Amrita Mahale, whose book was longlisted continues to win hearts with her ' Mumbai Book', Milk Teeth. And now, of course, the list gets longer with Avni Doshi's Girl in White Cotton. 

Read it for the beginning and read it for the end. 

The most likable thing about this novel is that there are no male characters in it. It's all women. Women deciding to leave their houses along with two young daughters to live on their own, to have a breast implement surgery, and to have a baby via science without any partner. 

I have been saying this for long that there is more to Japanese contemporary literature than Haruki Murakami. Before, Breasts and eggs, I read the International booker shortlisted The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, a dystopian novel set in an island where things go instinct one by one. And before that, I read Sayuka Murata's convenient store woman, which was all about a young woman searching her identity and wondering if it's okay if you don't want things that are considered 'normal'. 

I have also read Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto and Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami. Both books helped me peek into Japanese culture and what it means to be a woman there.  Now coming to Breasts and Eggs by Meiko Kawakami, translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd, the book is divided into two parts, in part one, Natsuku's sister Makiko, who is a single mother decides to go for a boob job. Now, this came as shock to Naatsuku considering the fact that Makiko's financial condition once made her contemplate applying for welfare allowance. Makiko's teenage daughter is not talking to her because of this decision. The part ends abruptly without telling us what happened in the end. The parts in which the mother-daughter duo lives in a dingy apartment with limited finance have been depicted well. There is so much of poverty but the author makes sure we become part of Makoki's and Natsuku's journey without feeling sorry for them. 

And then comes the second part. Here we see Natsuki with her book out. Her collection of short stories is a best seller and she is making a decent leaving by writing columns for different publications. She doesn't have a partner but she doesn't feel her life is incomplete. But as the novel progresses, we see her craving a child. 

But here's a thing. She can't have sex. She tried with her boyfriend in her early twenties and did not like it , hence concluding that it was something she could totally live without. Thankfully, in 2016, when she was 38, she had the option of artificial insemination. She frequents a website where she meets some people who were born by this process. They all are searching for their true identity ( biological father) wondering why they were even born. They ask themselves questions that probably nobody has answers to. Like ' Why are we even born ', ' Do people see their babies as humans or something they made? 

Natsuki ponders hard on these point but then she sees her editor's baby and her conviction to have a child of her own grew even stronger. 

The novel talks about womanhood, motherhood, and Autonomy in contemporary Japan. In a fast pace country, where the number of young people and babies is declining at an alarming rate, women have taken charge of their own lives and bodies. 

Natsuku is not your average woman but this world will be a better place if we have more like her. At times, you will find the novel unsettling but once you are done, your mind will raise an important question like, do we women really need men their lives ?