Keeping Corner » (Reprint)

Ba slipped the gold bangles from my wrists. The gold ones were plain so I didn’t mind taking them off, but I loved wearing my milk-glass bangles and the lakkh bracelets.

"A widow can't wear bangles,” she said. "They are signs of a woman's good fortune. When your husband dies it's over."

"What if my good fortune comes back?"

“It doesn’t.”

Pretty as a peacock, twelve-year-old Leela had been spoiled all her life. She doesn't care for school and barely marks the growing unrest between the British colonists and her own countrymen. Why should she? Her future has been planned since her engagement at two and marriage at nine.

Leela's whole life changes, though, when her husband dies. She's now expected to behave like a proper widow: shaving her head and trading her jewel-toned saris for rough, earth-colored ones. Leela is considered unlucky now, and will have to stay confined to her house for a year—keep corner—in preparation for a life of mourning for a boy she barely knew.

When her schoolteacher hears of her fate, she offers Leela lessons at home. For the first time, despite her confinement, Leela opens her eyes to the changing world around her. India is suffering from a severe drought, and farmers are unable to pay taxes to the British. She learns about a new leader of the people, a man named Gandhi, who starts a political movement and practices satyagraha—non-violent protest against the colonists as well as the caste system. The quiet strength ofsatyagraha may liberate her country. Could she use the same path to liberate herself?

Children's Literature

In 1918, in India, twelve-year-old Leela's world revolves entirely around the trinkets and saris she wants to buy, as well as the impending anu ceremony that will move her into the home of her in-laws, whose son Ramanlal she was wed to at the age of nine. She sees Ramanlal in brief, passing encounters and feels drawn to him in a touchingly naive, mildly flirtatious pre-adolescent way. As for the larger world of British India in which Mahatma Gandhi is fighting oppressive taxation and where the term "satyagrah" is beginning to gain currency, Leela could not care less. Then young Ramanlal dies of a snakebite, and suddenly Leela is a widow. She is subject to all of the social sanctions that pertain to widows in traditional Hindu society. Her glass bangles must be broken; her head must be shaved. She must wear a widow's drab sari instead of a wife's colorful fabrics and jewelry. She must stay in the house for an entire year, "keeping corner." Kashmira Sheth (Blue Jasmine and Koyal Dark, Mango Sweet) really hits her stride with this touching novel about a child widow coming to terms with herself, her society, and the history that is being made around her. Secondary characters support the protagonist's story while adding historical verisimilitude. Among them are the brother who rails against the outmoded customs, and the teacher Saviben who brings hope in the form of education. Leela's thinking evolves throughout the book, increasingly reflecting the turbulent political and social change taking place around her. In the end, the step she takes is poignant in its shyly emerging confidence. The book's close is one of promise, not fulfillment, and it is all the more effective forthat. The writing is simple and well-paced, and much of the imagery is delightfully tricked out in the regional specifics of Gujarat cotton, fluffier than a fool's thought and ripe with bad omens, simultaneously convey meaning and culture with a light touch. Only the repeated use of parenthetical comma phrases for translation jars. A writer this skilled can surely find a subtler way to weave the necessary Gujarati words into the story. Bapuji's capitulation toward the end feels a little too easy. Still, Sheth's historical India and the characters who occupy it are convincing and multi-layered. The author braids intricacies of caste, region, and religion into the narrative in a way that reveals an intimate familiarity with the issues. This novel is an admirable addition to the emerging body of YA literature that reflects South Asian perspectives. It is well worth reading and rereading. Reviewer: Uma Krishnaswami