Past

In these chapters we learn more about what Antara’s life was like in the ashram. She details how she was basically neglected by Tara when Baba decided he wanted her as his wife. She eventually clung to Kali Mata as her mother figure but that still wasn’t good. Antara explains the physical and mental abuse that she experienced in the ashram. She would be hit constantly by her mother even in her sleep and she barely ate. Later, when Babe decides to take a new wife Tara chooses to leave the ashram and take Antara with her. Unfortunately, they have no place to go as Tara burned her bridges with her parents and absolutely squandered her marriage, so the pair are forced to live in the streets. They sleep outside of the club and beg for money in the daytime. Antara’s father pays the club to keep them fed, but other than that no one intervenes in the situation. Eventually though, Antara’s dad comes to pick them up and the pair can finally live in Tara’s grandparents house.

At her grandparent’s house, Antara learns to navigate relationships with other people. The first one we see is with Vandana the maid. She spends a lot of time with Vandana as her mother is in a deep depression (presumably from not being with Baba anymore) and her grandparents don’t really keep up with her. One day, Antara tries to go home with Vandana which she does not agree to. After being told no, though, Antara tries to pull rank which causes Vandana to slap her and the maid to not return to the house. Antara also starts to reconnect with her father. One week she goes to her fathers and even though it’s supposed to be a time she learns about him, she ends up spending the majority of the time watching his new wife and all of the maids around the house. By the time she leaves his house she has decided to forget about him which works perfectly as he’s about to spend three years (which turn into six) in America.

When she returns from her fathers, Antara is almost promptly shipped off to boarding school. There’s no reason given and she doesn’t even know why herself, but she incurs even more trauma at the school. It’s a Catholic boarding school with very stringent rules that Antara can’t really follow. She’s punished frequently for not knowing how to properly wrap her books, not knowing how to read, and for drawing in the books. She becomes emaciated as the food is terrible and she seems to be surviving off her friendship with one girl. Eventually, Antara starts having problems with using the restroom, something that was common in the ashram. At first, she asks her friend to accompany her to the bathroom but she says no so Antara decides to wet her bed which gets her punished. She then starts to pee on the floor in the night where the girls are sleeping but once the nuns noticed they decide to start monitoring the gym. With this, Antara decides to start holding her pee which leads to an infection and her parents being called. When they see how she looks, Tara decides that she is coming home with them.

After returning home, Antara begins to attend another school. Things aren’t better than the boarding school, but they aren’t worse. She eventually starts learning how to read and is encouraged in her studies. Antara also begins some disordered eating habits- she eats a lot and gains a lot of weight. In this section we also learn that Baba dies which affects Tara as one could expect.

Here, though, is where we meet Reza Pine. He’s a waiter at some restaurant Kali Mata, Tara, and Antara go to and on his first encounter with them he lingers at their table. Eventually as the women keep coming back he strikes up a relationship with Tara. They go on vacations together and Tara seems pretty happy. One thing I thought was interesting was that it seems Reza wasn’t hesitant to flirt with Antara and she’s always included in their activities together which only deepens this emulation between Tara and Antara. Reza is an artist, a disgraced one, since his first gallery was a mixed medium exploiting a woman being attacked whose place he eventually took shelter in and marries the daughter. Reza eventually leaves Tara behind in an effort to capture the changing climate of the world after 9/11. Antara attributes this to being the downfall of her mother.

Present

As her mother’s condition worsens, Antara tells Dilip that it might be a good idea to have Tara stay at theirs for a little bit. He thinks it’s a bad idea because he knows they drive each other crazy, but Antara is insistent. Tara comes over and things seem fine until she brings up Antara’s drawings. She is repulsed by them and hates that Antara is continuously drawing this face over and over. Antara insists that isn’t a specific person she knows, just a face she saw once and has been drawing since. Later, Dilip and Antara awaken to the smell of burning in the house and they find that Tara has ripped up Antara’s drawings and is now burning them in a trash can. After this incident, they decide that Tara cannot live there anymore.

• this was the first book to make me shed tears

Somehow, Dilip makes this Antara’s fault and he is utterly pissed at her. They have dinner with friends and he doesn’t even look at her and when they go to bed he doesn’t speak to her. It was mentioned earlier that he despises upheaval but to react like this is so unforgiving.

Things I Liked:

• getting some context on Antara’s background even though it was extremely unpleasant
• “I disown so I can never be disowned”

Things I Disliked:

• Dilip. I have finally found a reason as to why I do not like Dilip and it is because he is not a good husband. Instead of comforting Antara after her mother destroys her life’s work he chastises her for continuing to do it when she knows it upsets Tara and scolds her for lying about who was truly in the picture.