Maya | Manjiri Gokhale Joshi | Kharidobechobooks

As an awkward adolescent growing up in a modest Delhi home, Maya yearns for an upper class lifestyle and an 'ideal marital relationship'. Throwing away a promising career, she is willing to go any lengths to further her husband's. She struggles to break free off the decidedly 'middle class' lifestyle of a grimy bus commute to support the family income, totting up restaurant bills and checking prices of consumer goods. According to Maya's notions of social division, upper class women do not work for other people, they only run companies they inherit or set up boutiques selling over-priced ware. They appear painted, unruffled at all times and breeze in with sleek, tiny clutch bags unlike the bulging, practical shoulder bags of the middle class working woman. Years later, as a socialite CEO's wife and art patron ensconced in her sprawling home, Maya truly believes she has achieved all that she ever wanted...until, life throws a rude shock.