Difficult Daughters by Manju Kapur
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I met Ms Kapur a couple of years ago, I asked her whether she considered herself a feminist. She paused and looked dreamily at the horizon before replying, "I'd love to be described as one even if I don't come across as one on the face of it."


Reading Difficult Daughters made me realise how true that was. Though she doesn't really come across as a feminist in your face in the book, it is through charcters like Harish, Swarna Lata, Shakuntala and even Virmati herself, that Ms Kapur directly questions the rights of a woman and the way the society perceives a co-wife.

Why is it always so, that a second wife of an already married man is the seductress, the witch, the vamp? Is the man entirely free of blame? What if it is the man seducing the woman? Why is it that the man, his dignity, his position in life remains completely untarnished, while a woman is subjected to all kinds of insults, abuses and hostility?


These are the questions nobody seems to answer no matter how feminist they consider themselves and these are the questions that this book seems to subtly ask you as a reader.

For this alone, even if the fact that the writing is extremely powerful, that you can touch, smell and see things merely through words, I'd highly recommend this book to all those who are not averse to feminism and gender equality!

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