Babyji

Anamika Sharma is an intelligent and fairly precocious sixteen-year old Brahmin high school student in Delhi in the 1980s. But, she still has some room to learn and grow, especially regarding relationships and how her actions effect others. Throughout the novel she pursues three affairs, one with India, an older divorcee, one with Rani, the household's servant, and one with Sheela, a classmate who all the boys adore. Through chaos theory, physics, and mathematics, she creates her own way of understanding the world and people around her. Although lovable and idealistic, Anamika can be strong headed and at times even cruel.

The novel is engaging and addresses many issues pervading India in the 1980s and even today, such as the caste show more system, colonization, Westernization, and sexism. However, I found the ending to be rather anti-climatic and somewhat disappointing. After all the ups and downs of the novel, it just seemed to end without much of a sense of closure. Despite this, Babyji was a delight.

Experiments in Reading show less

I am not super excited to read about teenagers discovering their sexuality, but at least Babyji has a *lot* of sexuality to discover. The part that struck me the most was the simultaneous utter amorality and obsession with right and wrong of the narrator - I suspect all teenagers are sociopaths when their hormones are on the upswing.

This is the story of Anamika a sixteen year girl studying in XII and very clearly too big for age. The book appalled & shocked me at the same time. I was like what have I picked but the book is a page turner and when I started reading further I realised that this book is not all about sleazy sex. It has a depth. The author is very clearly trying to map the confusion & curiosity of Anamika. A brief on the story…Anamika is like any normal teenager, the topper of her class, Head Perfect of her school which on one hand gives her an authority over her friends but on the other hand she is also a point of envy for others. Anamika unlike her pals is more interested in reading Kamasutra; yes you have read it right. In her adolescent curiosity show more she reads the book and is on a lookout to try her learning’s. Her parents….they are like normal middle class parents, both working and have high hopes from Anamika, they have given their a girl a free hand.   Anamika gets into a relationship with India (a lady whiom she meets in her school) and ‘Rani’ who is the new maid at Anamika's home. By relationship here I mean a lesbian relationship (no I am not munching words).   Her escapades don't end here. She tries establishing a relationship with Sheela (her school fren) and whether she manages to succeed there should be read.   The book gets complicated further with Anamika in 3 relationships simultaneously and then gets attracted to Vidur’s (her best fren) father who is Army, is that too much for you readers? It was for me too, but trust me I liked the book. And yes amongst all this chaos she rediscovers her mother who is lot more liberal than she thought her to be and is lot more supportive also.   The rest of the story is how she manages 3 relationships at the same time. In her innocence Anamika even goes out with India to Kasauli and terms it as her Honey Moon and this trip becomes the turning point of her life, she comes face to face with issues like drugs and also gets a pointer towards what her life can be….she gets an aim for her life in this trip… Now why I liked the book ** The book brings forth an important point that of sex education, which if not given properly might lead the curiosity and experiments which our young lady did. As I wrote previously, I was 1stly appalled but then slowly started understanding the psychology of the girl. She is in a stage where she wants to know about ‘SEX’ and she explores this side by getting into relationships with females. May be she does so because this way would be easier and she wouldn’t suspected by her parents. May be she does so because she feels that she is not doing anything wrong…I don’t know but may be she was in a stage where she was not sure what she wanted from life and she was exploring all avenues.   ** The author has blended Anamika’s knowledge of physics & her application of the same to her life. Take this for example, “If modern science accepted duality and measured uncertainties, what difference did it make whether I was Rock Hudson chasing beautiful boys or the village Brahmin in love with the shudra’s daughter? Science had told us this century that nothing was certain. The universe was chaotic and relative; these aspects measurable. There were few hard facts on which one could base a way of living one’s life.”  These lines capture the rebellious feel of the kid very well.   ** The book is set in the background of the Caste & reservation chaos i.e. the Mandal commission phase. The book captures the mindset of these kids and how they start differentiating amongst themselves on the basis of caste.   ** Sometimes our Morals would question the young girl but one thing is for sure the book is a page turner; the author involves us in the life of Babyji (Anamika), India, Rani and their families. On the one hand she shows Anamika’s dare devil ness in going ahead with these relationships and on the other hand she also depicts her restlessness through the ques she asks her parents or Vidur’s father Adit. Her questions have a depth and depict what goes on in the mind of a 16 year old.   Anamika is under pressure to perform as per her parent’s expectations; she wants to satisfy the women in her life, she has to reform Chakra Dev to save her Head Perfect title…and she has to decide the future course of her career. That’s too much on her plate? No not at all….that’s the beauty of the book…the girl is 16 going on 30 will surely impress you with her intelligence and way to handle things. May be she is more mature than her age but what the heck it makes for a good reading… Read it to understand a fresh teenager’s mind, a teenager who is quite different from her peers…. show less

The one thing I like about this book is that it does not shy away from sexual scenes. Not that it is full of them, but certainly they are where they should be, and perhaps more. With that said, after about half way, everything that seems entertaining and engaging turns a bit annoying. Perhaps we are meant to be annoyed with the 15-year-old studious girl who has too many female lovers, an older married man chasing her a la Humbert Humbert, a best friend who is infatuated with her, no wait, infatuated with one of her three female lovers... And it goes on and on. There are things the narrative does very well, like fitting everything in with the Indian caste system and its workings, with the desire of chasing an education dream abroad, with show more the usual stuff that happens in high schools everywhere in the world. But sometimes the events, the love affairs, the Casanova behavior seem way too incredulous. I thought of it as "OK, it's more like a fantasy a high school boy/girl would have..." but by the time the married man (who happens to be her best friend's father) started hitting on her, I was a bit tired. And the ending? Well, there is no ending. There is a big build-up to this party where all involved love interests and every other problematic person in Anamika's life will meet, aaaand... they do... aaaand it just ends. Which makes me think perhaps there is a sequel. But I am not sure if I will have the patience or energy to read it (I imagine it will be the adventures of Anamika in Amereeeeka, a liberal arts college, of course, what else? May I suggest Smith?) show less

I found the main character's sexual feelings and acts rather refreshing. Usually, in Indian literature, the characters find it hard to break the mold of the socially conservative Indian culture. Babyji breaks that mold, and instead of focusing on how to figure out sex and love, the book focuses more on Babyji's internal struggle to figure out what she wants out of life.

I expected to like this book, and I really wanted to -- Indian food, quantum mechanics, and babydykes, what's not to like? I started this book, about a lesbian high-schooler in Delhi, with high hopes. However, I found it flat and disappointing. Sixteen-year-old Anamika was a very realistically portrayed smart teenager: self-centered, convinced she was the first person ever to discover passion, and full of grandiose theories about how the world works. Despite or because of this, she really wasn't very sympathetic, and the ending was rushed and unsatisfying.

Babyji tells the story of Anamika, a student living and studying in Delhi. The distinctly Indian novel relates her experiences of growing up and encountering the typical issues that almost all teenagers around the world encounter eventually: rebelling against her parents, discovering what love and sex are, having her first alcoholic drink, blushing in high-school sex-ed, and trying to decide what to do in life. The angst, the passion, the confusion, the hormones. But Babyji is a coming-of-age story with a twist. Anamika's search of self leads her from sexual conquest to another, until she has seduced and is sleeping with not only a classmate from school but also an older, divorced mother as well as the family servant - all show more women.

Anamika's character is both frustrating and endearing, shifting between childish and mature. Babyji is a good read for any teenager or young person, as the themes are familiar regardless of where you come from. Naturally, the LGBT community jumped at a novel that embraces same-sex love in a non-Western setting. Among the novel's merits are winning the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction and the American Library Association's Stonewall Book Award for Fiction 2006, allegedly the oldest award for LGBT books.

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