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Indian anthor touches sensitive spot

AFP, NEW DELHI
Tuesday, May 03, 2005, Page 16

The woman dubbed India's Jackie Collins for pioneering the genre of "bonkbuster" novels in the sexually puritanical nation has now written a how-to manual for successful marriage.

Shobaa De's book Spouse: The Truth About Marriage may have come just in the nick of time.

Divorce is becoming increasingly common in urban India, and that could be why the book is flying off store shelves. In the first two months since release, it has sold an unheard of -- for India -- 27,000 copies, a number that takes many authors writing in English in India years, if ever, to hit.

De, wed to Dilip De, a wealthy Bombay shipping tycoon, acknowledges her views may surprise fans who have read her bodice-rippers about Bombay's high society.

But the writer, who at 57 still has the looks that made her a knockout as a catwalk model, says these are people who don't know her.

"I've been known to trivialize many things, but for me marriage and motherhood are non-negotiable," she said in an interview.

In fact, some of De's nostrums seem tame for a woman who scandalized India in the late 1980s and 1990s with steamy fiction featuring Bollywood starlets bedding directors, adultery and sexual obsession.

"There's no such thing as a perfect marriage. You've got to work at it," the twice-wed mother of four children and two stepchildren said.

She makes no bones about the institution of marriage -- she's for it and believes it is "under threat," not only in middle-class India but around the world as people ask, "Who needs it?"

She answers that question with a quote from Hindu sacred scriptures that say that the goal of marriage is "firm and lifelong companionship," a union able to "withstand various vicissitudes in life."

The former Bollywood gossip magazine editor, who says she has "pretty well done it all," divorced her first husband after a short union that produced two children, and went on to marry De, a widower also with two children. They had two more children.

De, who has sold more English-language books in the country than any other Indian, says one of her favorite hobbies is observing marriage "with an interest that's almost unnatural, watching the body language" to see whether couples are happy together.

Her breezily written book contains much advice that would apply to wedlock anywhere. But she also walks readers through minefields specific to many Indian marriages, such as how to live in joint families and manage "Ma-in-law."

De comes down hard on dowry payments, illegal in India but still widely practiced.

"Dowry? Are you nuts! The minute that ghastly word is referred to, and demands made -- cancel the wedding," she writes.

But she says arranged marriages, which still make up the vast majority of unions in India, are not such a bad idea. Some urban young who vowed never to contemplate arranged marriages are coming round to the idea that "Ma may know best" after not finding the dating game much fun, she said.

"They're now turning to their mothers and saying, `If you come across the right man, let me know.'"

De's latest avatar as surrogate mother is well-timed with India's middle-class going through a social transformation in which such pressures as two-career families are leading to more divorces, says V.K. Karthika, De's longtime editor at Penguin.

While there are no recent national statistics, lawyers say divorce has been rising sharply, especially among young urban Indians who find it tough to ride out the tribulations of married life, unlike their parents. Also, India's new breed of MBA-educated women are no longer prepared to be docile wives.

"People have less patience with each other; they also have higher expectations," said Priya Hingorani, a leading New Delhi divorce lawyer whose practice has soared.

De's editor attributed the book's success to the fact that middle-class "India can recognize themselves" in it.

De has gone beyond chronicling the sexual frolics of Bombay's idle rich to "become a commentator on life and society," Karthika said.

De churns out her books and columns in furious longhand, writing amid the bustle of her family penthouse and is recognized as one of India's most hardworking authors.

Having published 11 books, she has built a bank of readers who loyally vault her to the top of Indian bestseller charts, but remains virtually unknown overseas, unlike other Indian literary exports, such as Vikram Seth and Arundhati Roy. But her "Hinglish" style of writing, which she liberally salts with Hindi words, makes it hard for her books to travel, Karthika said.

De said she is not unhappy about her relative anonymity abroad: "I have my own constituency."

De's book tackles "One-night Stands" -- saying they often end in tears -- and how to "Sex Up" married life, topics highlighting how fast morality is changing in urban India.

Indian women are "in the process of becoming more proactive -- they don't have to sell out," she said.

She offers comfort to young women in what she calls India's marriage-obsessed society who are "brainwashed that without a husband they are incomplete," telling them, "You can marry the right man at the right time."

But for the commitment-phobic, De says, "Don't knock [marriage] till you've tried it."

Her acid test for successful marriage?

"If the good memories outnumber the bad ones, it's fair to declare the marriage a success."
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