Sister of My Heart by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Having lost their fathers before they were born, Anju and Sudha came into this world on the same day, separated by a few hours, but bound together by sisterhood and an unquestioning love for each other. They are the protagonists and narrators of Sister of My Heart.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni introduces us to Anju and Sudha when they are six years old and growing up in an all-female household where their mothers and aunt strive to uphold the legacy of the Chatterjees, a respected zamindar family in Calcutta, through sheer grit and clever housekeeping.

Anju’s mother, known as Gouri Ma to the girls, is Bijoy’s widow. Bijoy was the only son of the Chatterjee family. Hence, Gouri shoulders the financial responsibilities, running the family bookstore with a tight rein.

Abha Pishi is Bijoy’s widowed elder sister who had moved back into the family home years before Anju’s birth. She is the primary storyteller to the girls, indulging their play and mischief. Sudha’s mother, Nalini Ma was married to Gopal, a distant cousin of Bijoy’s.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s writing is rich with metaphors of light, storms, and colour while leaning quite heavily on elements from the fantasy genre such as fairy tales, shooting stars, cursed gemstones and magic serpents. With such imagery and symbols, Sister of My Heart appears very much like a story narrated by girls starting from age 6 to young women in their 20s.

Sadly, despite her lyrical style, the author does little to ground this novel in the India of that time. While there are a few passing references to pop-culture, the protagonists never speak of anything weightier than the chudidars worn by the actresses of that time. There are almost no conversations about books, politics or even films, robbing us of a deeper understanding of the girls’ personalities. 

The author uses the lazy trope of casting the sisters as being temperamentally different from each other but also, completely in sync like Yin and Yang.  

“I am looking for falling stars. I need two of them, just at midnight, because I must make two wishes. One for myself and one for Anju… Not that Anju believes in falling stars. They are nothing more, she says, than burning meteors, and they have no power to help anyone, not even themselves.”

Sisterhood, as expected, is a major theme in the novel. Despite their individual problems, Anju and Sudha stand by each other. The same holds true for the older women in the Chatterjee household who present a united front to the world despite their internal differences.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni paints a canvas depicting India in the 70s and 80s when the lives and identities of most women were centred almost entirely around men. Anju is the only one who questions patriarchal ideas, and even her questioning is short-lived and quite perfunctory.

As a result, it is left to the plot to lay out the patriarchal norms that set different codes of conduct for men and women with the latter always catching the shorter end of the stick in the name of tradition, custom or honour. The female characters find themselves fighting the consequences of choices they never made.

While Sister of My Heart suffers from what can only be called an epidemic of weak and confused men, the protagonists, despite enjoying the advantage of sharing their thoughts with the reader, aren’t particularly inspiring either. Even Anju, who is the more independent-minded of the two sisters, comes across as self-involved, short-sighted and confused.

Then there is Sudha whose self-sacrificing ways were a bit too saccharine for my liking. She finally discovers some gumption towards the end of the story before slipping into her goody two shoes yet again.

The trouble with books like Sister of my Heart is that while they cast patriarchy as the villain, and men and some women as its abettors, their heroines still remained trapped within the patriarchal dichotomy of saint versus vamp. If only, they would take a step forward and frame their heroines as human beings—flawed and brave in the face of real conflicts with no easy answers.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for sisterhood but Anju and Sudha are more reminiscent of the most fragile of creepers, forever needing to attach themselves to some form of support instead of standing up for themselves.

All in all, Sister of my Heart is a quick read but with unmemorable characters and a plot with very little room for nuance and genuine conflict. Also, the author ties up a major plot twist in the last chapter that had reared its head in the middle of the novel with an explanation so obvious that it felt more like a compulsion than a revelation.