49 pages • 1 hour read
Balli Kaur JaswalErotic Stories for Punjabi Widows
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 19-22Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 19 Summary
Tarampal has fled her home, and gossip about her abounds at the temple. Kulwinder sees the importance of the erotic stories, and rather than trying to suppress them, works toward copying and circulating them. Though the young man at the copy center has joined the Brothers and refuses to make copies for her, Kulwinder remains undeterred. The women’s world has opened beyond the borders of Southall. They can now travel outside the constraints of the community while still returning home.
Chapter 20 Summary
Mindi explains that her approach to marriage is not to yield her identity to her family, but rather to involve her family in her major life decisions. She has chosen the man she wants to marry. Observing that Ranjit is still learning to accept the more modern aspects of Nikki’s family, Nikki asks why her sister does not choose someone who already shares these views. Mindi reminds her sister that being open-minded is more important. Nikki soon after receives a letter from Jason explaining his reasons for hiding the truth about his marital situation. He wanted to protect his family from threats, but he also admits the selfishness and cowardice of lying to Nikki, giving in to the emotional extorting of his former in-laws.
Chapter 21 Summary
Nikki goes to see the French movie that she and Jason had planned to watch. Distracted by a rude tourist, she opts instead to visit the bookstore she and Jason had visited together. There, she learns that Jason had ordered the Beatrix Potter book she wanted to buy years ago in India—the very same copy, in fact, with the tea stain on the cover.
Chapter 22 Summary
Kulwinder moves into the new temple building with the other directors. There, she continues to fight for funding for women’s programs such as domestic violence legal aid and all-female gyms. Nikki has returned to law school and is specializing in social justice. She has also started afresh with Jason. Maya’s case goes to trial. The women find a publisher to print their collection of stories under the title Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows; its proceeds will fund projects for women’s empowerment.
Chapters 19-22 Analysis
The tone of the story lightens considerably from the previous section, but remains more serious than at its start. Nikki’s initial derision of the “East-West Mix” has transformed into an appreciation for her own mixed heritage and values, marking her new status in regards to The Challenges of a Hybrid Identity. By re-integrating with the more traditional elements of her Sikh community Nikki has become grounded and focused.
The novel, ultimately a tale of female empowerment in the face of domestic and communal violence, also hints at how the empowerment that the erotic stories offer will continue to have a ripple effect. The Brothers remain a dark force in the community, but in the context of Erotic Storytelling as Female Empowerment, they are a force that solidarity and confidence can overcome. Through the erotic stories, Nikki has learned that the widows in white are powerful individuals as well as human women with desires. That awareness has helped Nikki find her own meaningful work.
Finally, the juxtaposition of the sisters further provides resolution within the theme of Inter-Generational Tension Among Immigrants. The novel comes to a resolution that plots a middle ground between the modern and rebellious Nikki and the conventional yet independent Mindi. Both sisters also find “suitable boys” (4), suggesting how strong families grow through allowing individuals to pursue their own paths.
With the murder mystery solved, the novel returns to the format of updated, postcolonial domestic realism. It engages in the postmodern side of some postcolonial fiction, for example, with its embedded stories and ironic self-awareness (e.g., by giving the text in the novel the title of the novel itself). The final chapter functions as the denouement, in which the threads of the story are brought together, and major issues are resolved.
