A daughter from the past - A Scandalous Secret

The title, A Scandalous Secret, is misleading as it has a whiff of sensationalism. The scandal and the secret might be the leitmotiv of the book but that's not all there is to Jaishree Misra's novel. Briefly, the story is about 18-year-old Sonya Shaw's quest to know why her biological mother, Neha Chaturvedi, had abandoned her when she was a baby. Sonya was adopted by the most loving parents a child could ask for, but there is a simmering anger within her against the woman who had donated her to a foster home. Born and brought up in Britain, Sonya decides to travel to India to accost Neha, now the gracious wife of one of Delhi's influential socialites.
Through the lives of Sonya, Neha and their respective families and friends, Misra creates two diverse worlds: provincial England and aspirational Delhi. Misra's depiction of the simple Shaw family, the glamorous Chaturvedi couple, the student fraternities of different generations, the gregarious, enterprising Mrs Mahajan who lets out a room to foreigners ('home-stay' is the new buzzword), and a host of peripheral characters, is warm, intimate and peppered with satire. Refreshingly, she describes a contemporary India minus the stereotypes. So, though the taxi drivers of Delhi might still be a manic lot, its international airport is the new, slick one. Agra might still be a tout-infested nightmare but Marari Beach, a few miles north of Cochin, is a tourists' paradise. Sonya and her friend Estella come to India, armed with a Lonely Planet guidebook, so they don't face any of the cliched problems.
Against these different worlds, complex relationships evolve. Sonya's search for the truth is initially spurred on by pure, unadulterated anger. How this antagonism towards Neha gives way to sympathy is a tour de force on the part of the writer. How Neha's husband comes to terms with her past is another track that is skillfully handled The insecurity that Sonya's foster parents feel when she traces her biological mother is heart-warmingly described. Friendship plays a significant role in this book, preventing it from becoming a maudlin, weepy story.
The story grows organically, dictated by the characters that people it. It's a page-turner because you want to know how the different characters will solve the dilemmas of their lives. Barring the few proof-reading errors, the odd factual one (the Taj Mahal is referred to as a palace), and the rather melodramatic strap-line on the cover ("The truth will tear them apart"), A Scandalous Secret is more than what the cover promises.