Please leave a comment, any opinions on the book, website, culture, author or anything. All comments are appreciated 😊 Don’t worry, Monica will read it 😉
A novel with recipes
Please leave a comment, any opinions on the book, website, culture, author or anything. All comments are appreciated 😊 Don’t worry, Monica will read it 😉
Hi Monica,
I am a 17 year old girl who just read your book and I loved it. I am a books-reader (I read a lot of books). Most of the books I’ve read I liked, a lot, but your book just spoke to me, it moved me in such a way, and I loved it. I am not Indian, or American, nut from a small country in Africa. Still, I recognize myself in the characters, because I move around a lot, and I see and live different cultures, without knowing so well my own. I got your book from my school’s library and I don’t want to give it back. Thank you a lot for this wonderful book that is, in French, “un chef-d’oeuvre.”
Hi Monica,
Loved your book. Thanks for wonderful story and the recipes. Though I haved lived in India all my life, I could still relate to all your characters and their emotions. A very heart-warming story indeed.
Monica, I was very impressed with the book. It was a book that my mom, mother-in-law, cousins and I all could relate to in different ways. I have spent the last 14 years in the US but continue to be “bi-cultural” and want to raise my children similarly. Thanks for the great novel.
I bought the ‘Hindi-Bindi Club’ in 2007. Yes, I love buying books that I sometimes read almost a decade later… what can I say!!
I’m reading the book right now and I absolutely love it. I love it so much I feel guilty leaving it on my book shelves for so long!
Can’t wait to read the next one! 🙂
I love how your book addresses the pull between multiculturalism and tradition. When Kiran’s father sarcastically asks about including traditions of Jewish, Muslim, Jain, etc. in her and John’s wedding, I laughed out loud. My Sri Lankan husband and I had a ceremony with Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist pieces – the 5 religions that are central to the lives of us through our families and friends.
To be honest I alternated between laughing and crying through the entire book. As I read it during a 12 hour flight, I’m sure the passengers around me must have thought I was losing it.
Looking forward to trying some of the recipes.
I just finished reading ‘The Hindi-Bindi Club’ like a minute ago and I loved it so much. It grabbed me as soon as I picked it off the shelf. This book has personal significance for me, as it does to all those others who have commented. But briefly my story: I’m a 22-year-old New Zealander (western culture) and my boyfriend/fiance is Indian/Punjabi, and my name is Monica too!!! I have learnt more about Indian culture, and it has reinforced things I already knew. I’m sure I will read it again and it will have different meaning for me as we go onto the next life stages, marriage, family, and when I get to go to India!!
If I marry into an Indian family (and it will most probably happen), I’ve got some idea about the customs of Indian culture my beloved man is not capable of telling. I have been searching for book like this for couple of years. Thank you.
Dear Monica,
I just finished reading your book. I cried all the way through. It touched on so many difficult aspects of my life before I had my awakening: the mother-daughter bond or lack-thereof, the inablity to forgive, “good” and “bad” girls and the costs to each, the petty jealousies, the awful harshness of certain fathers towards their daughters. Throughout I felt a kinship as you wrote of a natural feminism – is there any other way? – and the right of all sexes to be heard and counted; the elderly and the respect and love we all deserve, no matter our age. I felt the presence of God, as one after another of the book’s characters discards their previously-prized manacles once worn so un/comfortably. And…oh, how I love the recipes! Thank you so much!
Holly
Hi, Monica,
unfortunately, my log-in for the hindi-bindi-forum is no longer active. I wondered if your second novel is already in the market, as I am eagerly awaiting it.
All the best from Munich,
Dorothée
Dear Monica
What an absolutely delightful, beautiful book. I did not want it to end, because it would feel like I was leaving my family and friends. I am third generation South African Indian – my roots are Surat and always have been proud of my Indian heritage. I visited India three years ago and felt so at home that I automatically spoke to the cabbies and shop assistants in my broken Hindi/Urdu. You’ve made me yearn for the extended family with all its trials and tribulations. I have an 18-year-old daughter who is as independent and westernised as your Kiran/Priety and Rani – and we have the same loving, yet challenging relationship as your mums expeirence. My dream, just like Meenal’s, is to see my daughter as an “Indain Bride.” Please write again – I did not want this book to end. You have made me want to visit Lahore – yet Pakistan has never been on my list. Shukria aur Ghuda Hafez.