The Secrets Between Us by Thrity Umrigar

The Secrets Between Us by Thrity Umrigar
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A gem of a book – a poignant and heart-rending story of two strong-willed and proud women, buffeted by the inequities thrown at them by society and the adversities they face consequently. Despite their grinding poverty, cast aside by family and friends, homeless, friendless, physically weak and tormented by diseases, they are still spiritually undefeated and seek comfort in small delights and in the friendship with one another.
There are some very telling descriptions in the book. Here is a glimpse of life in the slums

everyday sounds of misery that circle the basti like satellites: crazed-with-worry mothers loudly berating their idle, unemployed sons; the screams of women protecting their last rupee from their violent, hashish-addicted husbands; the high-pitched squealing of dogs being kicked and maimed by bored children; the vile, steady stream of curses muttered by mothers-in-law towards women their sons have married; the loud demands of slumlords threatening eviction and moneylenders threatening injury.

On poverty

everyone in this city is chasing his or her fortune and to get at it, they will stand on and crush the heads of their own mothers. There is only one unforgivable sin in this city, and that is the sin of poverty. Everything else is taken in stride – corruption at the highest and lowest levels, disloyalty, betrayal.
There is only one true evil. And that is being poor. With money, a sinner can be worshipped as a saint. A murderer can be elected chief minister. A rapist can become a respectable family man. And the owner of a brothel can be a Principal.

The apt title of the book

It isn’t the words we speak that make us who we are. Or even the deeds we do. It is the secrets buried in our hearts…People think that the ocean is made up of waves and things that float on the top. But they forget – the ocean is also what lies at the bottom, all the broken things stuck in the sand. That, too, is the ocean.

On seeing the minuscule amount of ashes left after a cremation, the protagonist observes

It is hard enough to accept that this is what the physical body amounts to. But what about a person’s anger? What about her voice? Her laughter? Her arrogance? Her irreverence? Her humour, her ego, her honour, her character? Do these fingerprints of an individual life simply evaporate and disappear with the last exhale?...

City dwellers on seeing the open countryside for the first time

It is the green that confuses them, shocks them, that makes bubbles of delighted laughter spurt involuntarily from their mouths. It is its lushness, its promiscuity, like a woman sitting with her lags splayed, that makes their city blink in astonishment, as they contrast the browns and blacks of their lives with this lavish fertile green.

A wonderful book!

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