Marrying Anita

A Quest for Love in the New India

August 1, 2008

By Anita Jain (Bloomsbury USA)

Fed up with the New York dating scene, journalist Anita Jain heads back to the motherland (New Delhi, India) to find herself a man in one year. While the premise sounds like the synopsis of the latest Desi chick lit paperback, Jain doesn't shy away from telling us the grittier details of her real life, which include hash-filled conversations with urbane Delhi-ites to bloody (sometimes literally) moments from her past relationships. Jain espouses candidly on her desire for partnership and tries to analyze why this want marks women as regressive in the West. The strength of the book lies in her detailed interactions with Delhi's young generation of techies, rock stars, club girls and ex-pats. The book's suspenseful set up fizzles out soon enough, as it turns out that dating in Delhi is just as confusing - if not more - than in New York. Marrying Anita sheds light on the "New India" of Jain's subtitle and shows us the uncensored life of an independent, single woman living in India. - Neelanjana Banerjee

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