Burnt Sugar is an absorbing novel with many twists.  For a discussion group there is much to explore and debate. We are introduced initially to a child deprived of a childhood searching for what she missed. As an adult too, her relationships are unraveling - between a mother and daughter, husband and wife, grandparents, friends and lovers.

The novel describes Antara's life, we follow her in childhood, as an adult, through marriage, and motherhood. Her earliest memories are of her rebellious mother Tara, who was so involved in her own journey she virtually abandoned her daughter leaving others (like Kali Mata) to care for her at the Ashram. Moving forward to Antara’s adult life her mother is advancing into Alzheimer’s. Antara feels the burden of obligation but also resentment towards her mother. Eventually getting her to move into her home knowing Tara can no longer live independently.

Though Antara is admirably supported by a caring husband who seems to be completely smitten by her, she seems confused by his devotion and takes him for granted.

Her inexplicable affair with Reza, a former lover of her mother, and a man who does not appeal to her, seems random. Yet when you weigh in how she suffered abandonment by her father, her mother’s exploits, her grandparent’s silent disapproval, much of what she does seems driven by events not of her making.

Antara is fixated on what went wrong in her childhood. It causes her to evolve into a madness that echoes her mother’s life.  It makes one wonder if all daughters are born in the image of their mothers?

This novel is well written - vivid. One feels the pain, sees the poverty, smells the garlic, and fears the mobs in scenes of sectarian Hindu Muslim riots.

Nazi Morad