Dark Fire

A truly funny and perceptive story of a young woman's fight with diets, marriage, sex and IndiaIt is the late 1970s and Manjula Padmanabhan is in her mid-twenties trying to find her way in the world. Life in Bombay is proving tricky: there are the visits to Dr Prasad's diet clinic where 'the body beautiful' comes in the form of photographs of gloomy nudes; lunch at her brother's house where snacks are thrown across the room and caught by the dog and there are the intriguing Dutch visitors . . . As relationships become ever more chaotic, Manjula begins to think that the West is really her spiritual home. She sets off with her boyfriend Prashant to the suburbs of New York where the American dream appears on a plate: daytime TV, mountains of food and visits to the New York City Morgue. But this is just the beginning of the author's journey as she travels to Europe where, it seems, her quest for contentment might have ended.With a playwright's playful ear for dialogue and incisive wit Manjula Padmanabhan has written her story - a tale that will touch any young woman who has ever wondered where and when she might begin to fit in.