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A review by anusha_reads
China Room by Sunjeev Sahota
5.0
CHINA ROOM BY SUNJEEV SAHOTA
Two parallel narratives; one story is of a sixteen-year-old girl named Mehar, occurring in 1929 and another one, in 1990s, is about an unnamed boy who is a drug addict and the great grandson of Mehar. Of the two stories, I think Mehar’s story is more captivating and poignant. It talks about the misogyny prevalent in that era. The word misogyny applies to men but in this tale, it applies to the mother-in-law who has hatred towards her daughters-in-law. It reminds me of the book ‘Second sex by Simone De Beauvoir’ where she says that women were goalless, child producing machines. “What can a woman do, for whom the man is both a means and the only reason for living!” The woman takes his name, integrates into his class, his world, she belongs to his family and must prove her marital status. Because the ‘male dominance’ is etched into a woman’s brain, she continues with the tradition without thinking of changing it (to think one must be educated, but women were not allowed to attend schools). That is what results in the ‘mom-in-law’ mentality.
In Mehar’s story, the antagonist is the evil mother-in-law. She is vengeful towards her daughters-in-law because of her oppressive past. I think she tortures them because she suffered similarly when she was young.
Three girls, one of whom is Mehar, are married to three brothers. The saddest part is that they don’t know which one of them is their husband. They wear long veils and see only the floor and in the night one of them is sent to a dark room to sleep with her husband, only when the mother-in-law ‘Mai’ tells them to go, but unfortunately in the pitch darkness they are unable to see their husbands face. The sole objective of sending them to the dark room is for them to produce a son. Otherwise, most of the nights, all the three wives are cooped up in a small room called the China room, named after the Chinaware, the mother-in-law brings as her dowry.
As Mehar’s story unravels, it gets more complicated and chaotic or in other words engulfed in a quagmire.
Its distressing to read such a story. I am glad to have been born in this era. First, they have no say in whom they can/want to marry, then once they are married, they don’t know who their husbands are and then they have no freedom of speech, nor do they have the right to be with their husbands at their own will. Such tales tells us about the hardships the women of those era went through which the current generation is oblivious of!
It’s a beautifully written, engaging, and intriguing tale. I hope everybody reads this book!!
Two parallel narratives; one story is of a sixteen-year-old girl named Mehar, occurring in 1929 and another one, in 1990s, is about an unnamed boy who is a drug addict and the great grandson of Mehar. Of the two stories, I think Mehar’s story is more captivating and poignant. It talks about the misogyny prevalent in that era. The word misogyny applies to men but in this tale, it applies to the mother-in-law who has hatred towards her daughters-in-law. It reminds me of the book ‘Second sex by Simone De Beauvoir’ where she says that women were goalless, child producing machines. “What can a woman do, for whom the man is both a means and the only reason for living!” The woman takes his name, integrates into his class, his world, she belongs to his family and must prove her marital status. Because the ‘male dominance’ is etched into a woman’s brain, she continues with the tradition without thinking of changing it (to think one must be educated, but women were not allowed to attend schools). That is what results in the ‘mom-in-law’ mentality.
In Mehar’s story, the antagonist is the evil mother-in-law. She is vengeful towards her daughters-in-law because of her oppressive past. I think she tortures them because she suffered similarly when she was young.
Three girls, one of whom is Mehar, are married to three brothers. The saddest part is that they don’t know which one of them is their husband. They wear long veils and see only the floor and in the night one of them is sent to a dark room to sleep with her husband, only when the mother-in-law ‘Mai’ tells them to go, but unfortunately in the pitch darkness they are unable to see their husbands face. The sole objective of sending them to the dark room is for them to produce a son. Otherwise, most of the nights, all the three wives are cooped up in a small room called the China room, named after the Chinaware, the mother-in-law brings as her dowry.
As Mehar’s story unravels, it gets more complicated and chaotic or in other words engulfed in a quagmire.
Its distressing to read such a story. I am glad to have been born in this era. First, they have no say in whom they can/want to marry, then once they are married, they don’t know who their husbands are and then they have no freedom of speech, nor do they have the right to be with their husbands at their own will. Such tales tells us about the hardships the women of those era went through which the current generation is oblivious of!
It’s a beautifully written, engaging, and intriguing tale. I hope everybody reads this book!!