In a society in which multicultural pieties have for so long replaced genuine thought, it is hardly surprising that very little real interest has been evinced in how important minorities actually live. The fate of many young women of Indian sub-continental origin has not excited the interest, much less the sympathy and outrage, that it ought to have done, at any rate among people who like to parade the breadth of their sympathies as martyrs parade their wounds.
The author of this very impressive and moving memoir was born of Punjabi Sikh parents in Derby. Although her mother spent more of her life in England than in India, she never learnt a single word of English: in itself a tragic self-enclosure.
The author’s parents arranged a marriage for her when she was 15 years old, and in order to escape it she ran away with the boyfriend she was not supposed to have.
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