ABOUT
Books, backpacks and….a baby?!
My life is utter serenity. My life is complete chaos. I crawled as a baby in Hyderabad, cycled to school as a child in Ahmedabad, fenced with law as a student in Gandhinagar, and practiced in Delhi as a lawyer. I married a fellow suit and we slung backpacks around the world together. Moments of reading were stolen jealously and relished with cups of tea meant to go cold. All in all, I was getting along just fine when one day, an inconsiderate bolt of lightning struck me and left me with a divine epiphany: my novel would never write itself!
Almost immediately after, the world upended itself with a terrifying pandemic and my world upended itself with a beautiful baby. After an year of dandling the infant, dealing with covid, sweating out yoga postures and clacking away at my trusty and ancient Mac, “The One-Way Ships” was born. It was followed by the story of Chandrika, which I’ve yet to name….
Which brings us to now. The intrepid band at Om Books have taken the financially precarious task of bringing this dubious debutante to you, and hopefully you, good reader, are taking an imprudent step into my world! I’m overjoyed to have you here. Have a good visit.
Love,
Uma
BOOKS
The One Way Ships
Asha was a child like any other. Cherished by her doting father, she grew up poor but happy in the shaded embrace of the Shimla hills during the British Raj. He kept her isolated from the dynamics between the locals and the goras who had claimed the city for their own, until one day, his passing left Asha alone. As her childhood fell away overnight, Asha realized that there were some questions she would now need to answer for herself…
Set in pre independence India, this story is inspired from the real-life accounts of a generation of lost, unsung victims of the colonial machinery- the “baby ayahs”, who played an indispensable role in the households of the Raj as doting mother-surrogates, but too often found that they themselves were dispensable. The One-Way Ships follows Asha’s unusual life as she struggles with questions about the meaning of home & the perils and rewards of self-determination and finds herself not only getting back on her feet but also saving someone she could never imagined needed saving.
Chandrika
Chandrika’s past is a tumultuous sea of memories. The college years at Lady Sunderbai. Shaheen, ever resourceful, ever beautiful. Deepti, fiercely loyal, stubbornly straightforward. The drudgery of education and the adrenaline of the girl’s football team. A fierce rival. And, of course, Raghav.
But it had all come burning down in a whirlwind of flames. The flames that had scorched themselves into Chandrika’s mind, had incinerated her ability to ever return to those days of her youth in remembrance…
Fifteen years later, Chandrika always seems to be on the run. From herself. From the past. From looking too close or probing too deep. Only now life seems to have outrun her too. Her marriage dissolved, she finds herself adrift until an unexpected pilgrimage calls her back to India and sets her on a collision course with the past she had suppressed and the friends she had let go. Will she find closure, and herself?
