What We Pass on to Our Daughters

What we pass on to our Daughters by @manisha_dy is a story about two women who are living entirely different lives but are sharing similar struggles and pains. The story portrays one protagonist who is timid and puts her family above all. On the contrast, we see another protagonist who questions, rebels, and stands against inequalities and discrimination faced by her. These two women’s lives come together, and that’s where the story begins to pick up the true meaning of the questions put forth to us.The scenario in the 1980s and now hasn’t changed much; same values, beliefs ,customs, and habits are passed down to the next generation. The book depicts a range of subjects and taboos that have persisted in Indian society, and my favorite part was how the lives of Indian girls at in-laws were shown.When it comes to the main characters, the story revolves around Vaidehi, and Maya's lives. Vaidehi is married to Vinod, a man who loves her but whose family mistreats her.Much like every other woman in the 1980s Vaidehi never complained about her in-laws' demeaning and rude behaviour since she was raised to be silent and accept things as they were. Maya, on the other hand, is a modern-day girl who is married to Manish and believes that there is no love between them.The parallel narratives feature raw human relationships and highlights the differences between a girl and a boy, as well as how they are treated differently. The plot delves deep into our thoughts, and the themes of gender bias, monogamy and the generation gap are well-written.What we pass onto our Daughters is a thought-provoking read. The book captivates us with its simple, straightforward narration on rights and wrongs, perspectives, marriages, relationships, societal conventions, women's position in married life and where they stand today.Highly recommended !

We suffer from injustices every day but each of us suffer in different ways which are personal and understandable only to us. There was a time when male supremacy wasn’t even a thing cause patriarchy came so naturally that the concept in itself seemed alien.Patriarchy is a system of belief that arises from the roots that the father or male member of the family is superior, in many ways more important than the others. There’s no definition to contain everything that it covers but more or less it’s the oppression of women involving many layers to it that is backed by societal norms, religious rules, tradition. It is so firm that however you loathe it, it is inevitable that you participate by one way or the other. With time and development, the brutality of oppression has come down but the subtle notions of patriarchy are still internalised in everyone of us. Beginning with how a woman should talk, her tone, choice of words, physical appearance, marriage to kids, everywhere we can easily spot seeds of misogyny embedded.In this book, we have two stories, one of an 80’s bride Vaidehi who finds it extremely difficult to traverse through as newly wed daughter in law and on the other side we have Meera, a woman of today’s generation who doesn’t fit into the societal structure, in the process of trying to break through them experiences friction with family members. The prominence that I found striking in the book is that it has brought about beautifully, the emotions of a mom who suffers in silence, bringing up a child with all the care and courage she could shower only to innately put her through the same to satisfy the crutches of soceity. Haven’t we, womenfolk felt this to be true at least at one point in our lives?Read this domestic fiction to get new perspectives on marriage, culture, freedom, patriarchy and societal norms.

Such a wonderful read. Loved and cherished each and every page. Few pages left me in tears. Especially when maya comes out with a lot of questions related to generation gap. It was soooo relatable . In fact maya felt like ‘me’-

This was one of my most awaited reads. I was so intrigued by the cover & the title. Even the dedication was so unique. And when I started reading it, I knew I have got my hands on a gem.I loved the way of storytelling. The writing was veracious, narration got a bit heavy at times but it was worth it. It is indeed a thought provoking read. It gives you new perspectives to look at things especially marriage.I loved how the author has talked about generations, relationships of all kinds, marriage, motherhood, parenting and our society with all the truthfulness. How few things are so deeply imbibed in our culture that it seems impossible to get rid of them. I liked the details that she went into.Being an Indian, being a girl and being a daughter it's kinda sad how I could relate to most parts of the book.The plot as well as the characters were strong. The ending of the story, made me go 'Woaaaaaah'.Shoving up the ideals of perfectionism, she wrote the characters with rawness of flawed humans. I loved all the characters but Manish has my heart. I'm left feeling sorry that our society is indeed full of Vaidehis and Mayas, and may be there's no in between. We have seen them, we have met them, we live with them and maybe we're one of them.Also, this book was sexy too ;)I don't just recommend it to everyone but I also request everyone to read it. You won't regret reading it. Pakka!