A thrilling ride
THE WEEK|September 06, 2020
Book Review
ANJULY MATHAI
A thrilling ride

THE HENNA ARTIST

Author: Alka Joshi Published by MIRA

Price 1310 Pages 368

Reading The Henna Artist is like travelling in a car that is going at just the right speed. At times, author Alka Joshi stops to point out sights and scenes on the way. At other times, she revs up the story and you find yourself on a thrilling ride to an unknown destination. And that is the best part. Just when you think you know where you are headed, Joshi takes a turn that leaves you completely in the lurch. And you are left thinking: “Wow, I did not see that coming.”

The book is about a fiercely independent and ambitious Brahmin woman, Lakshmi, who runs away from her village, husband and parents, to an entrancing life in 1950s Jaipur as a henna artist to a posse of high-society ladies. She paints her way into their innermost secrets, making herself indispensable to them. Everything is going well until, years later, her husband comes looking for her, along with a sister whose existence she was unaware of.

This story is from the September 06, 2020 edition of THE WEEK.

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This story is from the September 06, 2020 edition of THE WEEK.

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