Inside the Mirror

Starred review from January 22, 2024
In Kapur’s stunning debut novel, twin sisters Jaya and Kamlesh Malhotra dare to pursue their creative ambitions in 1950s Bombay (present-day Mumbai) despite the threat of ruining their family’s reputation and their chances of securing good marriages. Their father, a former government servant who’s currently managing a glass factory on the city’s periphery, has carefully crafted their futures: Jaya is set to become a doctor and Kamlesh a teacher. However, Jaya puts more energy into her extracurricular sketchwork than her pre-med studies, while Kamlesh’s Bharatanatyam class fuels her interest in dance. Prior to Jaya’s first drawing exhibition, she makes the outrageous—for an unmarried woman—decision to leave home and move in with her mentor, while Kamlesh dances onstage and stars in a film despite knowing the Punjabi community will disapprove (“If you were a girl onstage, in public, if you gave others a view of your body—your being—you were dishonorable. Shameless. That’s how others saw you. A whore,” Kapur writes). Kapur perfectly conveys the twins’ attempts to find their purpose while defying the expectations of a turbulent post-partition Indian society. This is a beautiful exploration of the hardships endured by women artists. Agent: Julie Stevenson, Massie & McQuilkin.

February 15, 2024
In post-independence Bombay, twin sisters struggle to meet their parents' expectations and pursue their artistic passions. Jaya and Kamlesh Malhotra are both following dual tracks, Jaya studying medicine while exploring her interest in painting and Kamlesh studying teaching and dance. Their parents are eager for them to be educated but see their creative hobbies as interests to be indulged only until they are married. But India is changing rapidly in the mid-1950s, and Jaya begins spending time alone with Kirti Dasgupta, a man she's met at medical school, threatening her reputation. At the same time, she becomes engaged with Bombay's flourishing and male-dominated modern art world. Her desire to pursue her artistic practice puts her on a collision course with her parents, and her decision to move in with another single woman causes a rift with Kamlesh, who despite her anger at Jaya is pursuing her own dreams of acting on the stage and screen. Interwoven with stories of the Malhotra family's struggles against British rule and the violence of partition, which forced them to flee Punjab for Bombay, the novel interrogates the midcentury clash of modernity and tradition as the Malhotras grapple with both. The narrative can obscure the family's history, which is introduced throughout the book, but the lack of clarity doesn't take away from the rich legacy of rebellion Jaya and Kamlesh inherit or, in their way, advance. An engaging examination of female independence and familial devotion.

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March 1, 2024
Kapur's debut, winner of the AWP Prize for the Novel, explores the tension between tradition and modernity in post-Partition Bombay. Jaya is a medical student who wants to be a painter. Her twin sister, Kamlesh, is studying to be a teacher, but is also a passionate student of the ancient Bharata Natyam dance. Their family supports these interests only as hobbies; pursuing them too seriously would negatively affect the family's reputation in their Punjabi community and the twins' chances to marry well. As Jaya becomes immersed in India's burgeoning modern art movement and in her clandestine relationship with a Bengali medical student, she chafes against her family's expectations. But when Jaya leaves home to live with her mentor, an unmarried female artist, she leaves behind her twin sister, who must serve as Jaya's intermediary while secretly pursuing her own ambitions. Journalist and critic Kapur's vivid descriptions of Jaya's paintings and Kamlesh's dancing bring them to life on the page. Recommend to fans of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's Independence and Alka Joshi's The Henna Artist.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.