'Miss New India' blends old and new lifestyles

By Carol Memmott, USA TODAY

In Miss New India, the award-winning Indian-American author Bharati Mukherjee strips away the Bollywood-esque romanticism of India to tell a touching story of a small-town girl who longs to control her destiny.

• 

  AP/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  Like young women in every age and culture, Anjali Bose hopes to find happiness, romance and a career.

AP/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Like young women in every age and culture, Anjali Bose hopes to find happiness, romance and a career.

Anjali Bose is the teenager whose heart and hopes are much bigger than the traditional expectations of her parents. She's reluctant to embrace the mind-numbing future she fears she'll face if she agrees to an arranged marriage, but she allows her parents to search for a prospective husband anyway. After dozens of young men are rejected, her parents choose a future husband but with disastrous results.

With financial and emotional support from the American ex-pat who has taught her to speak English, Anjali flees to metropolitan Bangalore before the marriage takes place. Like young women in every age and culture, she hopes to find happiness, romance and a career.

Bangalore is exciting and frightening to Anjali, but she's soon enamored with the 21st century lifestyle. Like the thousands of other young people who flock to this modern city, she longs for a job as a call center service agent where she can make money to support herself and fulfill her dreams.

But like many young girls longing for the freedoms enjoyed by their American counterparts, Anjali (who now wants to be called Angie) is too trusting of her new friends. She's pulled into a web of conspiracy and violence she's unprepared to handle.

Mukherjee, who interviewed numerous call center workers for this novel, elegantly entwines the notions of modern India, with all its technological promises and possibilities, with the country's embedded customs surrounding women's roles.

Miss New India
By Bharati Mukherjee
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 326 pp., $25

The result is a portrait both charming and relevant.

For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

We've updated the Conversation Guidelines. Changes include a brief review of the moderation process and an explanation on how to use the "Report Abuse" button. Read more.

Source: http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/usatoday-LifeTopStories/~3/J-Fb3xugMEg/2011-05-20-Miss-New-India_n.htm

Jules Asner Carla Gugino T.A.T.u. Sarah Michelle Gellar Catherine Bell