Private Life of Mrs. Sharma (Kapur)

The Private Life of Mrs. Sharma 
Ratika Kapur, 2016
Bloomsbury USA
192 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781408873649


Summary
Renuka Sharma is a dutiful wife, mother, and daughter-in-law holding the fort in a modest rental in Delhi while her husband tries to rack up savings in Dubai.

Working as a receptionist and committed to finding a place for her family in the New Indian Dream of air-conditioned malls and high paid jobs at multi-national companies, life is going as planned until the day she strikes up a conversation with an uncommonly self-possessed stranger at a Metro station.

Because while Mrs. Sharma may espouse traditional values, India is changing all around her, and it wouldn't be the end of the world if she came out of her shell a little, would it?

With equal doses of humor and pathos, The Private Life of Mrs Sharma is a sharp-eyed examination of the clashing of tradition and modernity, from a dramatic new voice in Indian fiction. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Ratika Kapur's first novel, Overwinter, was longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize. Elle magazine's Indian edition included her in a Granta-inspired list of twenty writers under forty to look out for from South Asia. She lives in New Delhi with her husband and son. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
Renu, the mesmerizing narrator in Ratika Kapur's The Private Life of Mrs. Sharma, has a gift for self-deception. It is baffling, then funny, and then quite poignant to witness . . . . The story [The Private Life of Mrs. Sharma] tells is taut, focused; its wider setting, the new India, pops with life. But the real star of this show is Renu, the Mrs. Sharma of the book's title. She starts in one dimension, then gradually plumps into three.
New York Times - Jennifer Senior


[Mrs. Sharma's] words reveal a dignity more private and complex than society can perceive. The book is worthwhile, and quick to read--perfect for your train ride to work.
New York Times Book Review - Aditi Sriram


In Mrs. Sharma, Ms. Kapur has fashioned a memorably double-sided character for a novel that, like a gathering storm, changes before your eyes from soft light to enveloping darkness.
Sam Sacks - Wall Street Journal


One sign of a great novel is an ending that seems shocking when you read it but entirely inevitable when you look back over the events of the book . . . The Private Life of Mrs Sharma delivers this punch both emotionally and in terms of its plot. Tender and funny . . . [Kapur] is a gifted writer . . . The author’s language is vivid and brutally honest . . . a razor-sharp take on gender and economic inequalities.
Irish Times


Clever, wise . . . wonderfully funny . . . an easy pleasure to read . . . I will remember this book for years to come. The points it makes about motherhood, responsibility and self-deception are all so close to home . . . The feel of contemporary Indian life, caught between tradition and modernity, is brilliantly captured.
Newsday


In Ratika Kapur's compelling tale, narrator Renu is in need of fulfillment. While her husband tries to make it in Dubai, she remains in Delhi, feeling trapped and alone. Her escape: an affair with a magnetic stranger she meets on her commute.
US Weekly


This delightfully funny novel delivers a serious message about what happens when our responsibilities push us to the breaking point (Book of the Week).
People


If you're ready for ravishing glimpses into the secret passions of a contemporary yet traditional Indian wife, mother and medical worker who takes a lover, you'll adore The Private Life of Mrs Sharma
Elle


Mrs. Sharma's mounting omissions to her family will have you tearing through the pages of this provocative novel.
Marie Claire


The battle between then and now comes alive in Kapur's novel of life in an evolving India.... A beautiful, tragic, and highly recommended work by a writer previously long-listed for the Man Asia Literary Prize.
Booklist


(Starred review.) [Sharma's] fraught, often humorous and irreverent narration is a study in cognitive dissonance, in which she is constantly trying to reconcile the complex stimuli of Delhi with the image of herself as a simple woman from a good family.... Kapur proves that a gifted writer can still powerfully capture a complex voice from a singular place and time.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, consider our LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for The Private Life of Mrs. Sharma...then take off on your own:

1. What do you think of Renu Sharma? How sympathetic is she as a character? Does your attitude toward her change over the course of the novel? Why or why not?

2. Follow-up to Question 1: When we first meet her, Rena is full of boasts—about her son Bobby's good looks, her own desirability, her inner character. What do we come to learn about her boastfulness? Deep down, what is it really about?

3. Renu often refers to herself as "respectable." What does the following statement reveal about her?

I have a child and a respectable job, and a mother-in-law and father-in-law. I am not a schoolgirl, and even when I was a schoolgirl, when I was Miss Renuka Mishra, even then I actually never did the types of things that other girls of my age did.

4.  Renu tells us, "I agreed to go out with him [Veneet] and I don’t think that it was wrong.” What do you make of that declaration? Is she being honest—with us, with herself? Is there a hint of defensiveness about her avowal ... or perhaps of naivete ... maybe even of self-deception?

5. Follow-up to Question 4: Renu's decision to pursue a relationship with Veneet is at first innocent enough, but it's a slippery slope or, to use another cliche, a case in which one thing leads to another. Was the couple's slipping down that slope inevitable?

6. What does Renu's life reveal about the role of women in India? How would you describe their position in the social hierarchy? Is feminism in Renu's socioeconomic strata alive and well?

7. What does the fact that Renu's husband works in Dubai indicate about the Indian economy and what it takes to attain a middle-class life?

8. What does Renu mean when she says, “I sometimes think that the head and heart that God gave me don’t actually belong to me.”

9. Do you find the ending satisfying? Does Ratika Kapur have you on pins and needles as the book moves toward its denoument? Would you have preferred a different ending to the novel?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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