Inside the Mirror

Bombay in the 1950s is the setting for the story of Jaya Malhotra, who is studying medicine because her father says so. He champions women's education, yet he takes it for granted that he may decide what his daughters will become. Jaya is a gifted painter, drawn to the city's lively new modern art movement, and she wants her work to capture both the pain and the remarkable vitality of a nation emerging from the devastation of British rule.

Her twin sister, Kamlesh, is a devoted student of Bharata Natyam dance. She goes along with their father's decision that she will teach school, but in secret she keeps chasing the forbidden dream of dancing on stage and in films.

Trouble begins when Jaya leaves the family home to live with a woman mentor. As a rare woman in the male world of art, she pays a heavy price. Her departure threatens the family's standing and ruins her reputation, and it also costs her the vital bond she shared with Kamlesh.

Parul Kapur's novel, which won the AWP Prize for the Novel, unfolds in the aftermath of colonialism, as an impoverished India tries to remake itself as a modern state. Jaya's story takes in art, history, political revolt, love, and the ambition of women to claim power of their own.