Secret Daughter, Shilpi Somaya Gowda

Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda

 

(Tansley Reads Rating: 80% -- winner for year)

Ice Breaker: Where did your name come from? Is the name you usually use the one that you were given at birth?

Discussion Questions

1. After more than a year, Secret Daughter is still at or near the top of bestseller lists. Why do you think this book is a best-seller? Would you have read it if it were not on the Tansley Reads list?

2. Kavita makes a difficult decision about her daughter. What other options did she have? What would have been the likely repercussions of making a different choice?

3. Like many before and since, both families in the novel leave their home for the promise of a better life—the Merchants leave their village for Bombay, and Krishnan leaves India for America—and this act of migration creates longing for home and feelings of displacement. Do you think the characters would have made different choices if they knew what the consequences would be?

4. The novel explores the issue of how gender affects one's role in society, both in India and North America. Sarla Thakkar believes, "you can't always see the power women hold, but it is there . . . " What kind of power do women wield in a society like the India we see here? How does the de-valuation of girl babies affect that? Are there similarities or differences in North America?

5. Asha grows up with a deep curiosity about her biological family and cultural background in India. Could her parents have done anything to lessen the sense of feeling incomplete Asha had as an adolescent? What does Asha learn by going to India, and could she have learned it without going there?

6. Sarla assigns to Asha a role in her grandfather’s funeral that would traditionally have fallen to the eldest son. What in their relationship led to this?

7. Both Somer and Kavita have powerful experiences and emotions around pregnancy, childbirth and mothering. What are the differences in how they experience motherhood, and are there any similarities?

8. Both marriages portrayed in the novel, despite different circumstances and origins, face significant challenges. How did Kavita and Jasu's marriage recover from the dramatic conflict they faced at the beginning? What caused the estrangement between Krishnan and Somer, and how did each spouse contribute to it? Do you believe one marriage is fundamentally stronger than the other?


9. Did your view of Jasu's character change from the beginning as the story progressed, and why?

10. Do you believe Asha was better off being taken to the orphanage as a baby than she would have been with her birth parents?

a. How much of our lives are destined for us, and how much is within our power to change?

b. Reflecting on your own life, what have been the turning points that have been made for you, and those made by you?

11. What did you think of the ending? Did you find it satisfying?