The Community and Its Expectations: A Review of “Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows”.
Through sharing erotic stories told in turns, gossiping, and creating a close-knit support group, the author creates a novel about Sikh women standing up against patriarchy.
When I came across this title, I was prepared to read about romance based on the lives of Punjabi women. I did not expect the murder mystery the book turned out to be, or the topics the story combs through. This is a story about Sikh widows in London leading a movement that teaches women to be confident and voice out their desires both in the bedroom and in their traditionally patriarchal temple.
Family is a small but important unit in society. Having a community makes life easier. We’ve heard the saying that in raising a child, “it takes a community” and this is what Bali Kaur Jaswal shows us in this book. The author brings so many families and shows how much importance Indians attach to the family unit, how they join their children to strengthen relationships and how they can form a place to belong even when they are far away from home in a country that looks down on them.
At the start of the book, we meet Nikki trying to get out of posting her sister’s profile at the temple. She doesn’t understand how her sister, Mindi, who grew up in Europe would want an arranged marriage. So, she tries to hold back on helping her. We’re given a little into the character’s life, and how opposed her mother was to her moving out and working in a pub. The author helps us to understand the values the community places on being together as a whole and how it considers moving out, breaking the unit, a form of rebellion and disobedience.
Another way we meet the values of the Sikh community is when she finally gets to the temple, has to fight the urge to smoke, and is harassed to cover her head with a scarf. Here we see that in ensuring its values are upheld, the community has created an unbalanced scale that has enabled men and fed the patriarchy and that is where Kulwainder innocently steps in when she fights to give the women a chance to learn.
No word perfectly describes the loss of a child so I’m not sure how to describe her. However, let’s get into the picture of her that the author paints us.
The book reveals the existence of two generations of these Indians; the initial immigrants which Nikki’s mum and Kulwainder fall into and their offsprings; Nikki and Maya- Kulwainder’s daughter.
When Kulwainder moved to Europe, she tried to blend in but that is difficult when you have to juggle your memory for the English version of words. Another way we see her struggle is when she washes her hands with lavender soap to reduce the smell of her food. She goes from feeling confident to shame when she has to interact with people. This changes when she moves to Southhall where she is free to speak to people and doesn’t have to substitute her words with their English versions. Here again, the importance of community is raised.
Kulwainder belongs to the immigrant generation that struggled through language and cultural bias to fight for a place for themselves and their offspring. They try to retain their root by going to visit home from time to time and upholding the culture through their dress, language and way of life.
Through Nikki, the author tells us about the next generation of children like Maya. A major part of them would rather act like Westerners and use English because the words come easier to them. This information is what makes Kulwainder confident that Maya never committed suicide against what her in-laws claimed.
The lives of these women (Nikki and Kulwainder) merge when Kulwainder initiates a literacy program for women and Nikki takes up the job. Nikki is what Maya would have looked like, Kulwainder sniffs at the “trouble” the girl will bring from her dressing and her confidence but Nikki is her only option so she lets the girl take the job.
When Nikki goes to the temple in Southhall London to help her conservative sister- Mindi, put up her flier with hopes of finding a husband, she sees a job advert for a teacher to Sikh widows creative writing. The job is different from the one she has bartending in a pub, but she is happy she would finally be doing something to provide financial assistance to her mother.
Kulwainder on the other hand has just lost her daughter, Maya, and she cannot prove that her daughter did not kill herself. She knows this because the suicide note uses Indian words to describe some things that Maya would rather not have used since the English words easily came to her. She cannot tell this to anyone because people are watching her and every step she takes is reported to people behind the death of Maya.
The class comes as a shock to Nikki and the women she is supposed to teach. The women are surprised that a “Gori” is their tutor and Nikki is surprised that the class is not a writing but a literary class.
The literacy class starts as was planned but changes course when the class finds an erotic novel in Nikki’s bag when she steps out. They start to tell about their own sexual experiences and that is when their story of rebellion starts. The stories open you up to the desires and experiences of the women.
From their stories, we learn that many of these women got married at a very young age to partners who were arranged by family. Almost all of them are widows and it is expected of them to no longer have sexual desires but from their stories, it is evident that they long for pleasure and relive the ones they had or imagined having.
It gives a voice to how women explore their desires in a society that tries to take that voice from them. Despite how much fun they had in the class and how rapidly it grew, they kept their stories and the true activities of the class hidden because of the nature of the community and the brothers it equipped to cage women.
The story explores themes like culture clash, murder and violence against women, and oppression of women.
The cultural clash between the traditional Sikh community and that of Westerners is sprinkled everywhere in the story. This is evident in the story of how Kulwainder used lavender soap to wash away the smell of mango pickle, the way the pub attendees looked at the women when they met at the Pub after the classes were suspended, and how the women could not believe that a gori was the instructor of the “creative writing” class.
Nikki and Mindi are like two opposite ends of a rope, while Mindi is traditional and strives to retain her Sikh background, Nikki is more forward and open to Western cultures.
An unforgettable incident the author uses to further portray this clash is the inscription on the signposts on Nikki’s bus ride to Southhall. On the ride, she notices that the signs begin to read in two languages.
“Through the windows of the connecting bus to the temple, the sight of more bilingual signs on shop fronts gave Nikki a slight headache and the sensation of being split in two parts. British. Indian.”
The author uses all the characters to portray that clash. However, it is Nikki who unites them all.
Nikki’s arrival in Southhall also helps to reopen old stories. It is Nikki who helps to solve the mystery of Maya’s murder by discovering that her husband- Jagdev is responsible. The murder of Sheena’s friend also comes to light and the eventual arrest of Jagdev all happen because of her.
This book is beautiful and is a 10/10 for so many reasons.
