Bøger af Sonia Bahl

A FLIGHT FROM NEW DELHI TO NEW YORK. Two strangers, Seat 7A and Seat 7B, who have nothing in common. Absolutely nothing. Except they are both hoping the seat next to theirs remains empty. It doesn' t. Mid-flight turbulence and infant incontinence forces them to interact-- the cool Wall Street guy and the mom-with-the-drool-stained-sweater-and-ordinary-aspirations. Blistering wit, opposing views, and some unexpectedly poignant admissions keep them addictively engaged and hopelessly sleep deprived through the fifteen-hour journey. Touch down . . . and they leave the cabin without a backward glance, jumping right back into their dramatically different lives. Never to meet again. But somehow they continue to travel together-- interlocked forever through an inexplicable connectedness. Can one meeting change everything forever? The Japanese have a term for it: Ichi-go ichi-e. One time, one encounter, lasts a lifetime.

I learned that I am, despite my early years spent as a swaggering boy, at heart just a middle-class, hard-working, risk-averse, un-creative, strait-laced, routine-obsessed conformist. In case I forgot to mention it, I'm also prudish to the point of being puritanical. But at eight, Nira had only one over-powering wish-- to pee standing up like a boy. In fact, to be a boy. Join Nira as she steps into her brother's clothes and becomes the self-appointed Al Caponesque gang leader of the neighbourhood boys. Her oddball yet madly loving family shapes her personality and a poignant relationship with her brother's best friend shapes her life. She uses uninhibited candour to detail her coming-of-age journey from Calcutta to London, from tomboy to reluctant woman-in-progress always trying to fit in, but always failing. She's a laugh a minute and yet she breaks your heart with her subconscious, percussive yearning for the one person who is always too old, too far, too married to be hers.