Bubble Wrap

When twelve-year-old Krishna marries Shyam Singh of Rokhagadh, her grandmother gives her a box filled with jewellery, telling her to sell it in times of trouble, but otherwise to hide it from her parents and in-laws. Krishna's marital home is very different from the house she grew up in - she is not allowed to go to school, but has a female tutor coming home to teach her once a week. She soon learns that her father-in-law, a drunkard and a lecher, who is not above carrying on with a maidservant, is deeply in debt and expects her father to help him out. 

 

Krishna's fifteen-year-old widowed cousin, Gudiya, accompanies her to Rokhagadh, but is ill-treated by Krishna's in-laws, culminating in her rape by Krishna's father-in-law, on Diwali night. When Krishna's father learns of this, he wants to take both girls away immediately, but dies soon after, in a mysterious "accident" and Gudiya finds herself pregnant. 

 

The Singhs are willing to help her, provided it is a male child. If she is carrying a female child, she will have to abort. Krishna's and Gudiya's responses to the death of the former’s father; their refusal to knuckle under to the Singhs; their decision to fight for their survival against impossible odds and to stand by each other forms the crux of Bubble Wrap. 

 

The  book is a moving story of two minor teenage girls and their struggle against a society that sees them merely as objects of sexual gratification. Set in Rajasthan, it vividly depicts the life of a family that upholds feudal traditions that transgress against human dignity, as it brings to life a small town, where modernity remains a façade and has little bearing on day to day life.

 

Agent: Anuj

Edit: Sharvani