The Hindi-Bindi Club

For decades they have remained close, sharing treasured recipes, honored customs, and the challenges of women shaped by ancient ways yet living modern lives. They are the Hindi-Bindi Club, a nickname given by their American daughters to the mothers who left India to start anew—daughters now grown and facing struggles of their own.

For Kiran, Preity, and Rani, adulthood bears the indelible stamp of their upbringing, from the ways they tweak their mothers’ cooking to suit their Western lifestyles to the ways they reject their mothers’ most fervent beliefs. Now, bearing the disappointments and successes of their chosen paths, these daughters are drawn inexorably home.

Kiran, divorced, will seek a new beginning—this time requesting the aid of an ancient tradition she once dismissed. Preity will confront an old heartbreak—and a hidden shame. And Rani will face her demons as an artist and a wife. All will question whether they have the courage of the Hindi-Bindi Club, to hold on to their dreams—or to create new ones.

An elegant tapestry of East and West, peppered with food and ceremony, wisdom and sensuality, this luminous novel breathes new life into timeless themes.

Three families of Indian-American women find themselves dealing with whole new world that blends the traditions of the past with high-tech, fast-paced, modern American life, until the estranged daughter of one of the women returns to request that a marriage be arranged for her, forcing them all to deal with the experience of living between cultures. Original. 60,000 first printing.

Monica Pradhan's parents immigrated to the United States from Mumbai, India, in the 1960s. She was born in Pittsburgh, PA, and grew up outside Washington, DC. and now lives in Minnesota and Toronto with her husband.