As February comes to a close, one is reminded of last month’s lengthy celebration of love in all its myriad forms, centered around Valentine’s Day. Our cultural conversations about love have always focused primarily on heterosexual couples; We celebrate such pairings as the most legitimate and valid manifestation of love’s chimeric affect yet. It seems that displays of romantic affection and marital bliss in relationships that serve a heteronormative gaze legitimize love and require loud celebrations with roses, chocolates and heart eyes.
The Wrong Way Home by Shunali Khullar Shroff, published by Bloomsbury India, offers readers a refreshing change from the tired tropes of traditional romance novels. Shroff’s latest book is funny, sensitive and honest. The narrative focuses on the experiences of recently divorced Nayantara, a PR professional who struggles with heartbreak, social exclusion and insecurity after the breakdown of her marriage to filmmaker Jay Sarabhai.
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Nayantara must pick up the remnants of the past as her ex-husband flaunts his marriage to a new, much younger woman, making Nayantara an object of ridicule and pity in Mumbai’s elite social circles. Although we first meet Nayantara as she struggles to keep her agency afloat, her time in PR has taught her that image is everything. As she chooses between appearance and personal satisfaction, we see her struggle at work and deal with hiccups along the way. In the end, however, Nayantara is a changed woman who goes through an impressive character arc and finally gets her priorities straight.
Decentering men and romantic relationships
The current Vogue articlewhose title is: “Is It Embarrassing to Have a Boyfriend Now?” has received mixed reviews from women online. While most women agree that decentering men and relationships is crucial to women finally being recognized as full human beings, some critics view the opinion piece as a personal attack. There’s no denying that despite the mixed response, the article struck a chord (and nerve) by disparaging romantic relationships and challenging male-oriented women who have always sought validation and fulfillment through mating.
In Shroff’s book, the protagonist’s friends are Nayantara, Anjali and Sagari, always male-oriented women. Anjali, who derives her confidence from the fact that she is married to Kabir, with whom she feels she is completely “in tune”. In fact, Nayantara, who starts off as a masculine-oriented woman in the story herself, is always envious of how effortlessly magical Anjali and Kabir make their relationship look. Anjali, who gave up her personality and career to raise children with Kabir, cannot imagine life outside of his life. For her, marriage is the crowning achievement of a woman’s life and she tries to reinforce this opinion again and again to her single friend Nayantara, with whom she seems to be in constant competition.
While Anjali is too blinded by love to look beyond it, Sagari, Nayantara’s celebrity boyfriend and PR client, cares far too much about appearances to leave a loveless marriage.
While Anjali is too blinded by love to look beyond it, Sagari, Nayantara’s celebrity boyfriend and PR client, cares far too much about optics to give up on a loveless marriage. Sagari comes from a humble background, marries rich and is forced into the Mumbai social scene, which initially ridicules her but later rules her. After once being scrutinized by high society, Sagari fears social exclusion and remains in an unhappy marriage purely for PR reasons.
Nayantara, who manages the public life of people in the city’s elite cliques and also lives in these social environments, is naturally influenced by her colleagues. After her divorce from Jay, a man who belittled her and trivialized her work even though she had launched his career through her efforts, she is treated as a social outcast. After being conveniently cast out when she lost her authority, Nayantara is desperate to regain prominence, even if it means settling for crumbs.
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For Nayantara, appearances are more important than real connection. Her previous desperation is a telltale sign of her male orientation throughout most of the narrative. The realization comes to her after she repeats patterns of mistakes and injures herself. But the Nayantara in the final chapters of the book is a far cry from the insecure woman we meet at the beginning. Shroff’s decision to focus on Nayantara’s transformation rather than predictably pairing her up with a man at the end is a breath of fresh air in a culture where a happy ending always means the woman ends up finding a romantic partner.
The Wrong Way Home explores the very real experiences of being single and refuses to reduce it to a sad, pitiful or temporary state. Nayantara’s experience of being single is not always encouraging and fulfilling; In a society obsessed with marriage and couples, it takes a long time to unlearn the shame and insecurity surrounding being single. Sometimes she feels jealousy, frustration and despair. She struggles with extremely low self-esteem, body image issues, and constant self-pity. But ultimately, being single becomes liberating for Nayantara, allowing her agency, choice and scope for self-love.
Nayantara: the disillusioned boss
As she suffers the fallout from her divorce, Nayantara vows to rebuild her PR career, not for personal satisfaction, but to prove to her ex and his world that she can be successful. Much to the disappointment of Nayantara’s mother Kalpana Swarup, an ecofeminist activist who works with locals in Landour, Vikram, a nonprofit founder who gives up his life in San Francisco to start a school in Landour, Rishi, Nayantara’s best friend, and even some of her own employees, Nayantara takes on shady clients: a corrupt politician here, a shady arms dealer there. To grow her business, Nayantara accepts client organizations with questionable ethics and makes flawed PR decisions that reduce queer political activism to photo ops for her flashy clients and exploit the poor to make her client look like a savior.
With her penchant for misfortune, her impulsive actions, her lack of foresight and her often annoying self-pity, she comes across as an entitled, self-centered and yet extremely real protagonist.
Nayantara makes hasty decisions, which often lands her in serious trouble when her PR efforts backfire and the image she is trying to build for her clients is severely denigrated. Nayantara has several major flaws that make her less likeable but definitely more likable. With her penchant for misfortune, her impulsive actions, her lack of foresight and her often annoying self-pity, she comes across as an entitled, self-centered and yet extremely real protagonist.
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At the end of the story, Nayantara is redeemed: she lets go of shady clients and values ethics. Her initial obsession with the fast and hustle culture of Mumbai gives way to a calm and mature acceptance and appreciation of her roots as she begins to spend more time with her mother in the hills of Mussoorie and anchors herself in the slowness, silence and simplicity of the natural world.
What it means to love yourself
The greatest strength of “The Wrong Way Home” is that the narrative never makes Nayantara’s transformation seem perfect. Even though she puts her mental health and self-esteem first, she still has a hard time setting boundaries because she’s constantly people-pleasing. She finds it difficult to cut off toxic friends like the male-centered Anjali and regulate feelings like jealousy and insecurity. But this imperfect transformation makes Nayantara seem all too real. She never pretends: her voice is open, honest and raw. She takes baby steps and eventually begins to fall in love with herself.
Derek Walcott in his poem “Love after love” assures the reader: “You will love the stranger you were again.” In the closing lines, Walcott urges the reader to “remove the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, and peel your own image from the mirror.” Sit down. Enjoy your life.’ In The Wrong Way Home, Nayantara follows Walcott’s lead, although it takes time, a lot of learning, and even more unlearning to love yourself again.
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At a time when our media, culture and literature largely portray singleness as an aberration and denigrate and ridicule women who are single by choice as incomplete creatures, Shunali Shroff’s The Wrong Way Home seems extremely relevant and shows readers that another world is possible, where women can exist freely on their own terms, unhindered by patriarchal social obligations and norms.
Ananya Ray completed her Masters in English from Jadavpur University in Kolkata, India. As a published poet, intersectional activist, and academic author, she has a keen interest in gender, politics, and postcolonialism.