They have absolutely no idea about what I am capable of. What my inner strengths are. I have immense power within myself. I might look weaker physically than the boys, but mentally and emotionally, I am way ahead of them.

But something changed, and she was compelled to think. Not about the menu, but about herself. She was 29. But when she glanced at her face on the flipside of the plate she just washed, she seemed 40. Tired, beyond her years.

For dinner, she and Akash cooked or made something light together, or ordered food from outside. With having Maa around, she had to now cook up the full meal spread just like an ideal bahu.

He, instead, proposed that they adopt a child, and supported his wife. This did not really go well with his parents, and he was chided for being 'tied to his wife’s apron string' and not making a wise decision.

Arundhati Roy's The Ministry of Utmost Happiness gets under your skin and stuns the reader with its honest portrayal of the brutality of real life events, even if in the form of fiction.