Author: Thrity Umrigar
Publisher: HarperCollins
Year: 2006
Language: English
Pages: 321
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8172236395
Description
A powerful and captivating novel that vividly portrays contemporary India through the lives of two remarkable women, bound by friendship and loss, yet separated by blood and class.
Sera Dubash is a middle-class Parsi housewife whose opulent surroundings hide years of disappointment and shame. A widow, she spends her time and energy fretting over her daughter, Dinaz, an educated professional, and her son-in-law, Viraf. Bhima, a stoic illiterate hardened by a life of despair and loss, has worked in the Dubash household for more than 20 years, cleaning furniture she is forbidden to sit on, washing glasses form which she is not allowed to drink. Cursed by fate, she sacrifices all for her, beautiful, headstrong granddaughter, Maya, a university student whose education-paid for by Sera-will enable them to escape the slums.
Yet a crisis will test the ties that have united Sera and Bhima-the pain, loneliness, love and hope-and force them to reconcile their true loyalties, Poignant and compelling, evocative and unforgettable, The Space Between Us is an intimate portrait of a distant yet familiar world.