For the Love of a Man

In this autobiographical fiction, Amrita, stifled within the confines of her invisible cage, unfolds her life story. Being her father’s chattel, a self-sacrificing wife to the man of her parents’ choice, a caring mother to her children, in the process, Amrita loses her identity. To assuage the thirst of her parched soul, she gives in to the passionate advances of an unsuitable lover who entices her into a web of lies and deceit. Unable to bear the pressures of an incompatible marriage and a destructive attachment any longer, she breaks free and flees to the Himalayas. In those lofty reaches she finds a startlingly simple solution to her problems—she has to look inwards for the peace that evaded her; no one else could give her that. Released of the disappointment and humiliation that ‘love’ had spawned, her spirits soar like a bunch of helium balloons—wind-buoyed dancing specks of colour in vast open skies. Though the narrator-protagonist finds ‘neither sympathy nor understanding’ from the men in her life, with her excellent command over the English language and an innate sense of humour, the author ensures that Amrita finds compassion in the hearts of her readers.