‘She was out shopping in some kind of diaphanous drapery when she was spotted by an olive-hued, savagely handsome sheikh, also out for a day’s shopping. Carried off in one swoop to his luxurious tent, she was made junior assistant to his fourth wife and lived her days in delirious happiness, except when she wondered if her classmates—Ritu in particular—ever thought of her, the jealous cats . . .’ Welcome to the dream world of Sharmila, twenty-something spinster. Ruthlessly wry and comically self-deprecating, this modern maiden entertains herself not with Bombay social dos but with florid fantasies of Rayhaan, family friend and mouth-watering Parsi-Punjabi hunk. Sharmila has secretly loved Ray ever since she was gawky, thirteen-year-old Mila and he was enamoured of her mother. Yet Ray disappeared, leaving Mila to endure a series of misfortunes with only an uncle for comfort. A sorry mixture of her father’s pouty mistress, her mother’s descent into madness and her tyrannical granny culminates in tragedy, and Mila can take no more. Her uncle persuades her to study abroad. Playing gamely along with her sexually experienced roommate and sexually impatient boyfriend, Mila just doesn’t fit into California. Back she goes, to nibble jalebis and wallow in the Sunday papers. She only has one dream left; how can she make it come true?
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