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The Private Life of Mrs Sharma by Ratika Kapur

Ratika Kapur is an Indian author living in New Delhi with her husband and son. Not surprising, then, that her novel The Private Life of Mrs Sharma is about a married woman with a son living in New Delhi. We meet Mrs Sharma getting on the metro when one man cuts her off and another scolds him to let Mrs Sharma go first. There is something striking about this man, who is younger than her thirty-eight. You may think there is a domineering husband at home who has squashed Mrs Sharma’s spirit, but no, her husband is working in Dubai and has not been home for almost two years. In actuality, he’s handsome, hardworking, and they couldn’t keep their hands off each other before he left. A metaphor, the washing machine, courses through the book, a symbol of sexual activity, for the Sharmas would turn the washing machine on to cover their lovemaking. But for now, Mrs Sharma lives with her in in-laws and son, Bobby, who grows more moody by the day, wearing headphones and laying there with a sad face.

Part of the beauty of the book is the unfolding of Mrs. Sharma’s personality. She does not have a bad relationship with her in-laws, husband, or employer. She comments on what the respectable thing to do is, and you believe her. Until she joins the man from the metro for coffee, or some such, and your feelers start tingling. She learns he works in a hotel and is looking for an apartment to buy, but because he doesn’t ask her questions, she never reveals her husband and son. It’s a lie of omission, but Mrs Sharma is tired of worrying about everyone. Because people don’t say what’s wrong, she’s constantly looking for gestures or words to interpret and then solve their problems. Is she overbearing? Yes, but we also know her son won’t eat unless she’s home to eat with him, and he’s fifteen. She’s trying to stop thinking about the needs of others for two seconds when she meets metro man.

But then the man from the metro invites her to his workplace to show off the hotel, and she thinks about stealing an item from a guest’s room. Where did this come from? Then, her in-laws leave for Canada because their daughter is going to give birth, and we learn of another problem. The sister-in-law wanted to go to school, refusing to get married because then she couldn’t continue her education. Mrs Sharma convinced her sister-in-law it would work out, but it doesn’t, which may not be surprising given Indian culture, and Mrs Sharma feels no guilt for her poor advice. And you never forgot this novel is set in India; the diction, the place names, the culture and customs, all are obviously not western culture, and I loved those engrossing details.

Kapur’s novel is more sexual than I’m used to with Indian authors. Mrs Sharma and her husband talk about masturbation over the phone. She read in a magazine at a doctor’s office that touching yourself is normal and healthy, so she believes in it. Really, she’s quite modern, other than pushing her son to study so he can get a respectable job, like “businessman.” Also, she thinks about the sex with her husband that she misses, and whether he’s faithful, unlike his coworkers who visit a prostitute together. The sexual openness makes Kapur’s book an intriguing read, one that was quite different from most Indian novels I’ve read, in which a fat-shamed daughter is forced to be married off and every man in the book is a vile dictator type, perhaps abusive, frequently an alcoholic or a teetotaler but nothing that looks rational, and the mom supports all this because it’s what is done. I’m sad that that summary is pretty much every Indian novel I’ve read except this one.

I read this book with Biscuit, and we both agreed that we had no clue how it would end. Mrs Sharma counts the days until her husband returns, but will she have a respectable son and her morals intact when he gets there? Will he? Although this sounds like a simple affair-type novel, The Private Life of Mrs Sharma reminded me at times of Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train, a tense novel I love.

#9 OF THE #20BOOKSOFSUMMER 2023 CHALLENGE

16 comments

  1. This sounds interesting – I like the idea of the sort of character study element you identify here, although usually I find novels about whether someone’s going to have an affair very tedious.

    If I can recommend a novel by an Indian author completely different from most of what gets a wide circulation internationally, read Night Theatre by Vikram Paralkar! It’s a very weird novel, but fascinating, with a surgeon as the main character who is presented with a completely unexpected problem. It even has some horror-like elements! (It might have a different title in the US – I vaguely remember reading that at the time).

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    • Ooooh, I found the Paralkar. It’s called Night Theater in the U.S., too. I really appreciate the recommendation. There is a sad little part of my heart that was concerned that I was a prejudiced person who didn’t want to read books by Indian authors, but I’m realizing that perhaps a lot of Indian women write a certain kind of book that sells well in the U.S. I’m not sure.

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      • I think that sometimes one book from a particular country gets tonnes of hype and then international publishers specifically seek that type of thing out. Which is all very well, but if you don’t like that particular type of book, it makes it hard to find other stuff from the country. I find the same thing with Scandi noir – I don’t really like it, but it’s difficult to find anything else published in the Nordic countries that’s translated into English.

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        • That is an excellent point, Lou, and one that I am quick to forget. I have this bizarre assumption that whatever comes to me is what is available. However, someone out there is choosing what is made available to me and elevating it above all others.

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  2. […] The Private Life of Mrs Sharma by Ratika Kapur looks like a novel about the decision to have an affair, but it’s set in modern India with a real savviness about work, money, dreams, and physical desires. Oftentimes, when I’m reading an Indian novel, I get the sense that I’m reading something from 100 years ago. Not the case here, nor was this really a book about an affair. Mrs Sharma isn’t what she seems at first, but who is she? Sadly, only one reader made it to this review! Perhaps folks will circle back around to it. […]

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  3. The one Indian author I look out for is Arundhati Roy, who is about as far from Mrs Sharma as you can get. As for Mrs Sharma (and Mr) two years apart is a long time to be physically faithful is all I’m going to say.

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    • Thanks to my philosophy class, I’m currently doing mental gymnastics about the different meanings of “physically faithful” that people come up with and if we can get any closer to a truth. Some folks think of it light a light switch; either you’re physically faithful or you’re not. Then there’s jump-humping, so there is evidence I am not the only one playing out thought experiments on the subject.

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  5. Ohhh I love the sounds of this one! I’ve read Indian novels that (thankfully) don’t fit into the mold you described, but I definitely have never read one this sexual, so that’s a hopeful development! I can see why this book would be suspenseful. Sounds naughty!

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  7. You’re right about that description of so many Indian novels. That’s actually part of what I liked about The Bandit Queens, though that author is American.

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