In this riveting collection of stories, women in India grapple with the absence of choices when it comes to their own life. Untangling the webs, they realize the goddess bestowed on them with one hand while barricading their skies with the other by people who think they own rights to her life.
Part ONE of the books tells the story of women screaming for choices to the portal of their freedom in different voices. Sudha, a 70 year old is slowly divulging the long held secrets of her heart and body to her husband, five decades after their marriage but her courage has been imprisoned by time- that has already failed her. Tejo and Namita- two women a decade apart, one raised in the village of Gopalganj and the other in the high rise of Delhi, come to terms with the price they have to pay for their freedom in a country that worships arranged marriages. Amrita's letters to her dead father narrate her descent into madness, intensified with the orthodox rules of conformity for a daughter-in-law. Just when a 30 year old Suchi thought she had come to terms with her mother's accidental death, her grandfather's failing memory catches up with her in time to turn the tables of a lie told in childhood.
Part TWO of the book tells the story of an uncommon friendship and love and the nation and nationality in between. Sapna and Shahid's chance encounter in the school library changes the course of their hearts where their friendship traverses the seas of caste, hidden trauma of abuse with the country reminding each to realize the definition of the 'other'.
A CHOICE FOR US is an attempt to sensitively capture the raw emotions of these women whose desires lie locked in hearts buried under the sands of gender and power.