Darjeeling: Emotions Find A New Realm

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Set in the mountainous tea plantations of Darjeeling and in the New York City, Darjeeling is a picturesque novel of emotions. Bharti Kirchner's third novel tells the story of two sisters-Aloka and Sujata-long separated by their love for Pranab, a young revolutionary.

This sweeping family saga is a first class fiction about forbidden love and family honor. The novel deals with the love knots. Pranab loves Sujata, the awkward, prickly, younger sister but, out of obligation, marries Aloka, the gracious, beautiful, older sister.

However the true emotions gets revealed soon, and the couple sets out to New York whereas Sujata starts her life in Canada. After ten years the couple on the verge of break up and Sujata as a chronic spinster returns to Darjeeling to celebrate their grandmother's birthday. The trip forces the trio to wrestle with their bitterness and anger and to try to heal old wounds.

Although filled with the rich foods, smells, and social confines of another culture, Darjeeling is really about the universally human emotions of jealousy, rivalry, love, and honor. The novel has close tone with Chitra Divakaruni Banerjee's Sister Of My Heart where the female characters get separated by the love of men. However there is a radiant prose and deep understanding of the human heart in Kirchner's novel.

Bharti Kirchner's idea of powerful women is explicitly shown in this novel. The protagonists are strong independent women who forge their own choices and find their own places in the scheme of things. They don't see themselves as victims of circumstances. They also choose a mate for whom feminism is not a taboo. Kirchner shows that even the women in earlier generations like the grandmother in the novel can be a feminist because she's in her own decisions.

There was a long debate about the novel being autobiographic after its publication. Kirchner tells about it in an exclusive interview "Once at a book-signing, I met a couple who had already read Darjeeling. They told me that when they saw me walking to the podium to read, they started a bet. The husband was sure I was Aloka and the wife insisted on my being Sujata. When I told them I was neither, they kept saying, but your story is so real."

Yes, Kirchner's characters are so real that we can find them amidst us. Darjeeling will remain as a testimonial for her talent.