January’s Book of the Month column comes with a tiny twist. Our very own Mili the brain and heart behind this space is buried under a mountain of work right now. Deadlines: 1, Social life: 0. So I’m stepping in to hold the fort this month… but don’t worry, she still made that gorgeous featured image because priorities are priorities 😌
And hi, it’s Dr. Monidipa Dutta here for this edition sliding into your feed with stories that don’t just sit quietly on a shelf… they breathe, ache, remember, rebel, and question everything we’ve been taught to accept.
This month’s selection feels less like a reading list and more like a conversation across time. Across cities. Across generations of women who tried to be “good,” tried to be “strong,” tried to be “silent”… and what it cost them.
We’re travelling from the layered lanes of Bangalore chasing a mystery, to the suffocating quiet of middle-class marriages, to immigrant lives stretched between continents, to old Bombay neighbourhoods where memory clings to every wall. Some stories whisper. Some rage. Some simply sit with you in uncomfortable truth. All of them stay.
The Bangalore Detectives Club by Harini Nagendra
This one is for the readers who love their mystery with atmosphere. Set in 1920s Bangalore, the story follows an unlikely woman sleuth navigating colonial society, social rules, and a murder that refuses to stay buried.
What makes it shine isn’t just the crime; it’s the world-building. The city feels alive: gardens, clubs, households, social hierarchies. The protagonist’s intelligence and quiet defiance make her deeply likable, and the twists come at just the right pace to keep you hooked without overwhelming you.
It’s the kind of book you start for “one chapter” and suddenly it’s 2 a.m. and you’re solving crimes in your head.
What We Pass on to Our Daughters by Manisha Yadav
This one hurts softly… and then deeply.
Through Vaidehi and her daughter Maya, we see two generations of women negotiating patriarchy in different forms. Vaidehi survives an openly oppressive marriage and hopes education and awareness will protect her daughter. But Maya’s world, though more modern, hides control behind politeness, emotional manipulation, and social image.
The most powerful part? There’s no perfect feminist here. Both women love each other, fail each other, and misunderstand each other. It’s painfully real. The novel asks: Even when women try to break cycles, what still seeps through?
That Long Silence by Shashi Deshpande
Quiet on the surface. Devastating underneath.
Jaya’s life pauses when her husband’s professional crisis forces them into a smaller flat and a smaller life. In that stillness, her suppressed thoughts rise about marriage, ambition, resentment, motherhood, and the parts of herself she buried to be “acceptable.”
This isn’t plot-driven it’s emotionally excavating. Deshpande masterfully shows how women internalize silence as virtue. Jaya’s struggle isn’t dramatic rebellion; it’s the terrifying act of being honest with herself.
It’s introspective, mature, and lingers long after the last page.
Arranged Marriage by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
A collection, but it reads like a shared emotional universe.
These stories center Indian women navigating migration, marriage, loneliness, and identity in unfamiliar lands. Some are trapped, some awaken, some break, some rebuild.
Divakaruni captures that fragile in-between space not fully belonging to India anymore, but never fully at home abroad either. Independence appears, but never without cost.
Each story feels intimate, like someone quietly telling you the truth they never said out loud.
Bombay Balchao by Jane Borges
This one is a love letter to old Bombay; messy, musical, gossipy, tragic, funny Bombay.
Set in a tight-knit Catholic neighborhood, the novel follows interconnected lives shaped by faith, family pressure, romance, secrets, and survival. There’s bootlegging widows, complicated love triangles, rebellious daughters, lonely men all woven together with nostalgia and realism.
The charm lies in how ordinary lives are treated as epic. History isn’t in monuments here; it’s in kitchens, church compounds, street corners, and whispered scandals.
You don’t just read this book, you live in that lane for a while.
If January had a theme, it would be this: what we carry, what we swallow, and what we finally dare to say out loud.
These stories remind us that patriarchy doesn’t always shout — sometimes it sighs, adjusts, compromises, and calls it love. Sometimes rebellion is loud. Sometimes it’s just a woman thinking a thought she was never supposed to think.
If even one of these books made you pause mid-page… or stare at the ceiling after finishing a chapter… then they did their job.