The Vague Womans Handbook

They are bad with directions; they never know when the credit card bill is due. They have perfected the art of turning over a new leaf tomorrow. Meet the vague women in this delightful first novel that doesn't star a woman looking for the right man - because she's already found him! At twenty-two Sharmila Chatterjee has just married her sweetheart of a few years Abhimanyu Paper Backhra a somewhat eccentric if handsome twenty-three-and-a-half year old with obscure academic interests and a small fellowship that never arrives on time. They start a household in a tiny rented flat learning to fend for themselves in the big bad and snotty world of south Delhi with penny-pinching landlords some romance and a lot of anxiety. At fifty-two Indira Sen is not sure just how she meandered to where she finds herself now. A senior government officer and single mother she lives with her daughter and three opinionated old people in a rambling house drives a battered car and has a history of credit-card induced shopaholism. The Vague Woman's Handbook is a story told with equal parts of humour hysteria and tenderness about the sparkling friendship between two women as they hurtle through life and its mini-crises while trading secrets in the art of survival.