Friday, May 13, 2022

The Candid Life of Meena Dave by Namrata Patel

 

"Advice to a young person from an old person:

1. Bravery isn't in big battles; it is in small acts.

2. Once you are over the age of 30 you can no longer blame the past or your parents for the way you are. Fix yourself, it's within your control.

3. There is always money in the banana stand. Sam has told me this is from a television program. What I infer from it is that subtext is often more telling than text.

                          -Note left by Neha Patel, from the novel

This was another Amazon First Reads selection and very different from what I have read lately. I enjoyed it and will rate it a 4.

Meena Dave is a young woman who looks East Indian but doesn't really know her background since she was adopted as an infant by American parents. After the traumatic deaths of her adoptive parents, Meena survives lonely days in foster care, puts herself through college, becomes a photojournalist and travels the world. She has no roots and few meaningful social connections. It is almost like she is running from herself.

When Meena surprisingly inherits an apartment in an exclusive area of Boston, she has a window into East Indian culture and her own identity. The historic building is called the Engineer's House because it was founded by East Indian students at MIT generations ago and the apartments exclusively passed down to their progeny. Even as Meena fully intends to sell the apartment left to her by Neha Patel as soon as she can, she starts finding ambiguous notes around the apartment and getting to know her neighbors, three nosy Indian aunties and an attractive and helpful guy, Sam. Meena tries very hard to distance herself from them all but, as one might expect and even hope for, she does not succeed. 

I learned a good bit of Indian culture along with Meena, especially the foods. I knew of Chai tea but not much else. This was one of the things I enjoyed about the novel along with references to places in Boston which I fondly remembered plus a little romance. But it was the gradual revealing of family secrets that kept me turning pages!

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