The Hindi-Bindi Club (40 page)

Select Bibliography

O
ver the four years I spent writing and researching
The Hindi-Bindi Club,
I consulted hundreds of sources. I wish to acknowledge the following authors and their exceptional works that I found particularly helpful:

Blaise, Clark, and Bharati Mukherjee.
Days and Nights in Calcutta.
New York: Doubleday & Company, 1977.

Bumiller, Elisabeth.
May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons: A Journey Among the Women of India.
New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 1990.

Butalia, Urvashi.
The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India.
Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000.

Chopra, Deepak.
Sacred Verses, Healing Sounds: The Bhagavad Gita, Hymns of the Rig Veda.
San Rafael, CA: New World Library/Amber-Allen Publishing, 1994.

Daniélou, Alain.
Music and the Power of Sound.
Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions International, 1995.

DasGupta, Sayantani, and Shamita Das Dasgupta.
The Demon Slayers and Other Stories: Bengali Folk Tales.
New York: Interlink Publishing Group, 1995.

Dutta, Krishna.
Calcutta, A Cultural and Literary History.
New Delhi: Roli Books, 2003.

Haeri, Shahla.
No Shame for the Sun: Lives of Professional Pakistani Women.
Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2002.

Mehta, Ved.
The Ledge Between the Streams.
New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1984.

Menon, Ritu, and Kamla Bhasin.
Borders & Boundaries: Women in India’s Partition.
New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998.

Mitter, Sara S.
Dharma’s Daughters, Contemporary Indian Women and Hindu Culture.
New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1995.

Nagaswami, Vijay.
Courtship & Marriage: A Guide for Indian Couples.
New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 2002.

Nevile, Pran.
Lahore: A Sentimental Journey.
New Delhi: HarperCollins Publishers India, 1997.

Roy, Manisha.
Bengali Women.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Salim, Ahmad.
Lahore 1947.
New Delhi: India Research Press, 2001.

About the Author

Monica Pradhan’s parents emigrated to the United States from Mumbai, India, in the 1960s. She was born in Pittsburgh, grew up in the Washington, D.C., area, and now lives in Minneapolis and Toronto with her husband.

Monica has a B.S. in managerial law and public policy from Syracuse University and an M.B.A. in finance from the University of Cincinnati. Prior to writing full-time, she worked in investments and management consulting. She was thrilled to trade frequent flying and power suits for the two-second commute and pajamas of a novelist, her lifelong dream.

Dear Reader,

My father fostered my love of books when I was growing up. Like Kiran’s father, mine did not have a privileged childhood in Mumbai but studied extremely hard from an early age, eventually earning a full scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania.

My father always told me that when he was growing up, certain foods and all books were considered luxuries, and he always wanted me to have them, would never deny me those two things. This was his definition of “living the dream”—his dream that he wanted to gift me. So throughout my life, I have been indulged to my heart’s content with food and books. My blessings, that my dad gave me, are what I want most to pass along to others…

In my research for
The Hindi-Bindi Club,
I came across an on-line newspaper article about Aseema
(www.aseema.org),
a non-governmental education center for street children in Mumbai. They were seeking children’s-book donations to build a library. I e-mailed them. Over the Internet, I was able to buy and ship children’s books to the other side of the world. For the first time, these children had access to interesting and beautifully illustrated books. Thus began a beautiful friendship with this remarkable organization. Their focus is education and nutrition.

Now, in addition to Aseema, I’m adopting a second charity, a fabulous organization called Room to Read
(www.roomtoread.org)
in San Francisco. They partner with local communities in the developing world to establish schools and libraries. It costs $2,000 to create a children’s library in an existing school, $8,000 to construct a stand-alone library, and $11,000-18,000 to build a school. I would like to fund all of these, and a portion of royalties from sales of
The Hindi-Bindi Club
will go toward this goal.

I would have loved to keep working on this novel for another year or ten, but two years after going to contract, my editor and agent pried the manuscript out of my hands. My mom wanted more recipes, but I kept reminding her (and myself!): This is a novel, not a cookbook. I did promise to make it up to her, and anyone else with a hankering for more Indian recipes, on my web site:
www.hindi-bindi.com.

I do hope you’ll visit. There is a kinship among readers. When we read the same book, we travel to the same world. Though I am here living my life, and you are there living yours, we now share a community. And though our experiences may differ, we know the same people: Kiran, Preity, Rani, Meenal, Saroj, and Uma. I would love to hear what you think about them. And if your book club plans to read
The Hindi-Bindi Club,
I would be honored to phone in and join your gathering via speakerphone. Please feel free to email me at: Hindi-Bindi
@
pobox.com

From my heart,

Monica Pradhan

THE HINDI
-
BINDI CLUB

A Bantam Book / May 2007

Published by Bantam Dell

A Division of Random House, Inc.

New York, New York

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved

Copyright © 2007 by Monica Pradhan

Map by Jeffrey L. Ward

Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pradhan, Monica.

The Hindi-Bindi Club / Monica Pradhan.

p. cm.

1. East Indian American women—Fiction. 2. East Indian Americans—Social life and customs—Fiction. 3. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 4. Conflict of generations—Fiction. 5. Intergenerational relations—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3563.C384425H56 2007

813'.54—dc22                                                      2006034959

www.bantamdell.com

eISBN: 978-0-553-90372-0

v3.0