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.
Character Analysis
Nikki Grewal
Nikki Grewal, the protagonist of the story, is a British woman of Indian Sikh descent. As the novel opens, Nikki is struggling with The Challenges of a Hybrid Identity. Though she takes pride in being, as she views it, modern and liberated, she also senses a lack of cohesiveness and meaning in her life. She has recently quit her law studies and is working in a pub, but that job is not, as she explains, her “calling” (6). That would be “a job where she could make a difference, stimulate her mind, be challenged, valued and rewarded” (6). While still young at 22, Nikki’s behavior and attitude is often immature, closer to that of a rebellious teenager than a young adult. She seems much younger, for example, than her sister Mindi, who at 25 has already decided on a career in nursing and is in search of a “suitable boy” with whom to settle down. Nikki is somewhat estranged from her family, and she fears that her argument with her father over quitting law school contributed to the heart attack that killed him. While she has done activism work for feminist causes, she is unable to find even a volunteer position in women’s organizations. Instead, she applies for the teaching position that shapes her character arc, a job “she could actually enjoy and take pride in” (19) and which she describes to Jason as making “a feminist foray” (173) into the lives of her female students.
Nikki romanticizes her role in the classroom and at times becomes patronizing, demonstrating Inter-Generational Tension Among Immigrants and its potential to harm older generations as well. For example, Nikki initially believes the women to be oppressed and in need of someone like herself to orchestrate change in their lives. While the class and the book of erotica the students find in Nikki’s bag are important catalysts, though, the widows in the English class prove to be powerful and impassioned women capable of initiating their own change. The women did not, as Nikki initially thought, all “end up the same – weary and shuffling their feet” (63). Rather, they have their own voices, which they discover and learn to exercise by telling their own erotic stories.
Nikki is a dynamic character, a complex woman who evolves over the course of the narrative. Her outward rebelliousness stems in part from her insecurity. However, it is also a response to the restrictions of the patriarchal society of the Sikh-dominated neighborhood of Southall. The motif of smoking and cigarettes helps to demonstrate this aspect of her personality—she has snuck cigarettes since she was a teenager and even uses a “quick odour-neutralizing routine” (88) to avoid getting caught by her parents, the elders, and the Brothers. Nikki is also the only member of her family to stray from their comfortable, middle-class existence into disparate elements of London life like the gritty Shepherd’s Bush, where she works and lives above the pub, and the diasporic Sikh neighborhood of Southall, dominated physically and culturally by the gurdwara.
Nikki’s character growth involves her learning more about the oppression, including forced arranged marriages and honor killings, faced by many women in her childhood community. It also involves her realizing that her stereotypes about older, traditional women are as unfair as the stereotypes about young, modern women such as Maya and herself. Her growth, in turn, helps demonstrate how many traditions and stereotypes alike work together as tools to oppress all Sikh women. Nikki’s return to law school in the end brings together all she has learned, marking her new maturity and sense of purpose.
Kulwinder Kaur
Kaur (meaning “princess” or “lioness”) is a name given to all Sikh women, just as Singh (“lion”) is a name given to all Sikh men; the guide therefore refers to this character and to Tarampal Kaur by their first name. The narrative initially presents Kulwinder as a judgmental and conservative older woman who keenly feels the Inter-Generational Tension Among Immigrants. Kulwinder views Nikki at first as one of “these British-born Indian girls who hollered publicly about women’s rights [and] were such a self-indulgent lot” (30). Nikki is a “haughty girl who might as well be a gori [white girl] with her jeans and her halting Punjabi” (31). Kulwinder insists that Nikki speak in Punjabi during her interview as an English teacher and constantly belittles Nikki in front of her students for allowing them to make too much noise.
As Kulwinder’s narrative unfolds, however, the recent death of her daughter, Maya, comes to light—apparently by suicide. Kulwinder’s shaky relationship with Maya has left her with residual grief and anger, and Kulwinder takes both out on Nikki, who is similar to Maya in many ways. As the novel progresses, it becomes clear that Kulwinder is smart and brave, a woman willing to fight to protect other women, even as her fellow board members offer little support. She is sure that the truth about her daughter’s death is being suppressed, and even risks her life trying to get the authorities to investigate. She recognizes immediately that Nikki’s initial approach the English class students is patronizing. She also understands, unlike Nikki or her own daughter, how dangerous modern and rebellious behavior can be: “Didn’t they realize that they were only looking for trouble with that crass and demanding attitude?” (30).
Kulwinder initially has no idea that the English language class has turned into an erotic story hour, but she too eventually experiences Erotic Storytelling as Female Empowerment. The horrific death of their daughter caused a rift between Kulwinder and her husband that the erotic stories help heal. This transformation, in turn, fuels her courage when she finds her office not only been vandalized but also defiled. Realizing that Nikki’s life is in danger, she rushes into danger to save Nikki’s life. This rescue in the end is a kind of redemption for Kulwinder. Although she was not able to save her own daughter, she is able to save Nikki.
Kulwinder ultimately claims a leadership role alongside the men in the new building, and she continues to grow the services available to women in the temple. She has the erotic stories published, ensuring (to use the term of the postcolonial critic Gayatri Spivak) that the subaltern can speak (Colonial Discourse and Post-colonial Theory: A Reader, P. Williams and L. Chrisman, Columbia UP, 1994, pp. 66-111). Like Nikki, Kulwinder is a dynamic character who struggles with and finally overcomes The Challenges of a Hybrid Identity.
Tarampal Kaur
Tarampal Kaur is one of the widows who signs up for Nikki's English class. Unlike several of the other women who enroll due to pressure from Kulwinder or for a chance to socialize, Tarampal seems genuinely interested in improving her English writing skills. Although dressed in white like the other older widows, she is much younger. Nikki notices “there was hardly a wrinkle on her face” (46), suggesting Tarampal is likely in her early forties. As the other women begin to narrate erotic stories in class, Tarampal doggedly works on her penmanship and speaking skills, even as “[e]verybody grumbled at her for holding back the rest of the class” (73). Tarampal is bossy and opinionated, quick to criticize Nikki's lack of teaching skills and the class in general. She takes the general attitude that “English is such a stupid language” (73). Like Kulwinder, Tarampal has suffered humiliation and rejection as an immigrant and now, as a result, rejects British norms in return. As Tarampal remarks to the privileged, middle-class Nikki, “why haven't I picked up English? Because of the English. […] They haven't made their country or their customs friendly to me” (74).
However, Tarampal’s suffering due to prejudice cannot explain or excuse her unethical behavior within her own community. She has continued her husband’s practice as a prayer agent since his death, albeit using the secrets that people reveal to her to extort them. She also engages in an affair with Maya’s former husband and accepts his cover story that Maya died by suicide. Within her patriarchal society, Tarampal perpetuates abuses against fellow women in order to gain limited power and security for herself. She tattles on the other women to Kulwinder, complaining that they “fool around” (109) rather than work hard like herself. In part, Tarampal is trying to regain Kulwinder’s friendship, which dissolved with the death of Maya, which occurred while Maya and her husband were living in Tarampal’s house; Maya’s husband was a friend of Tarampal’s family.
In the novel’s afterward, Jaswal describes how difficult it was to write this character: Tarampal’s “actions are so duplicitous and abhorrent but she’s also very wounded” (394). Jaswal further explains how she had to “consider the combination of cultural pressures, trauma and shrewdness that created a woman who would be complicit in silencing of other women like that” (394). In the end, the fiction Tarampal created of her life unravels, and she becomes the gossip of others in the temple.
Jason Bharma
Jason is Nikki’s handsome and mysterious love interest. He introduces himself to Nikki as American as well as Punjabi and Sikh (“obviously”) (90). They meet while both sneaking a cigarette outside the temple even though smoking is strictly forbidden in the Sikh religion, especially on temple grounds. This meeting draws on the motif of smoking and cigarettes, establishing the sense that he is a rebel and an outsider of sorts, just like Nikki. Because Jason is American, he seems different from other Sikh men in London, more like the kind of man that Nikki’s sister would wish to marry—and like one Nikki would categorically reject. Nikki’s British friend, Olive, thinks that Jason is cute and smart. While not a religious man, Jason was visiting the temple on the day Nikki met him to gives thanks for his mother’s improving health.
Jason puts Nikki at ease, and they seem to have much in common. They have shared interest in movies and books, and they both appreciate The Challenges of a Hybrid Identity. Both have struggled with fitting into a conservative community and the pressures put on young adults to succeed. Jason does not judge Nikki for her erotic story-writing class, and he even adds to the repertoire by telling her a story of his own.
However, Jason has a secret, stepping away from dates several times due to mysterious phone calls. Jason clearly keeps Nikki separate from some parts of his life. He eventually admits that he has been lying by omission. Jason is a divorced man still finalizing the separation from his former wife’s life and family. Although he tries to tell Nikki several times, he never manages to do so in person; when he does confess, it’s via a letter explaining his situation. Jason admits his cowardice for choosing to hide the truth from Nikki, which he knows has caused her pain. His grand gesture of finding a Beatrix Potter book, though, finally breaks down the walls that Nikki has built to protect herself, and she decides to start over in her relationship with him. By the novel’s resolution, the two are a couple, both of them having found themselves and their place within their community.
Mindi Grewal
Mindi is the slightly older and much more grounded and mature sister of the protagonist Nikki. Studying to become a nurse, Mindi has remained at home and, at the start of the novel, is eager to find a husband—a “suitable boy.” Mindi’s request that her sister post her matrimonial ad on the temple bulletin board leads to the inciting incident of the story, as next to the marriage flyers, Nikki finds the job ad for an English teacher.
Nikki describes her sister and the matrimonial ad as an “East-West Mix” (1). Mindi had always been the more “traditional” of the two sisters, watching Internet videos “on how to roll perfectly round rotis” (2) or flatbread. Nonetheless, Nikki is shocked that her sister wants to advertise for a husband and would even be open to the old tradition of arranged marriage. Nikki is against the idea of advertising for a husband. She is protective of her sister, whom she feels is “too good for any of these men” (16), that is, the men who advertise for wives.
Mindi does not feel that she is missing out on travel or other life adventures, and she tells her sister in response that she is “embracing our culture” (3). Mindi is sure of her identity in a way that Nikki is not. Mindi is also wise to her sister’s fanciful ideas and sensitive to the nuances of their Sikh community, warning Nikki to be careful about how she handles her class: “It sounds like a class for beginning storytellers but if you think you're going to change their lives by tapping into their personal experiences” (36). Later the same evening, Mindi calls her younger sister out again: “‘This is what you do,’ Mindi said. ‘You follow your so-called passions and don’t consider the consequences for other people’” (39). This accusation shows that Mindi is much more perceptive than her sister in this context. Nikki counters that her sister is materialistic, but Mindi angrily and astutely responds that her materialism will allow her to take care of their mother and the family finances. Nikki’s immaturity and impulsiveness is balanced by Mindi’s maturity and responsibility for the family and tradition. On some level, Nikki has always admired the confidence of her sister. When their mother stopped dressing them alike as children, it was Nikki, not Mindi, who was secretly saddened.
Despite Mindi’s confidence, accepting a more traditional role puts pressure on Mindi beyond household finances. For example, knowing that her darker skin will hurt her chances of finding a husband, Mindi buys skin lightening cream. In the end, though, she chooses someone who found her ad on the matrimonial board, someone whom Nikki naturally finds too conservative. While Mindi accepts Nikki’s life choices, and even encourages her sister to give Jason a second chance, she continues to educate her sister until the end of the novel: “You still don’t get it, Nikki. This whole arranged marriage thing is about choices. I know you see it as the opposite of that but you’re wrong. I am making my own decision but I want to include my family in that decision as well” (365). In short, the traditional Mindi might is a foil to the modern Nikki, acting as a more mature older sister who guides Nikki toward finding her own blend of Indian and British identity.
