A Heart Divided-Anjuli Rajprasad

Book: A Heart Divided
Author: Anjuli Rajprasad
Publisher: Om Books International

What happens when you move to a new country and your life turns upside down?

Neeti is a driven and self-made woman who finds purpose and fulfilment in her work in Mumbai. When she marries Mihir, the love of her life who plans to pursue a PhD in the US, she is confronted with the biggest dilemma: should she listen to her heart or her head? The heart wins and Neeti moves to the US, leaving her career, family, and friends behind to be with Mihir. But her real challenge begins when she finds herself on a dependent visa, with no work life to speak of. Anjuli Rajprasad’s lucid prose narrates this tale of a twenty-first-century woman dealing with the stigma of being ‘dependent’ on a spouse and discovering her identity beyond a professional one.

Anjuli’s book is a wonderful story of how resilience and grit can help you sustain, even in the harshest of conditions. The book explores how the immigration policies can impact the morale and the life of the toughest of people. The storytelling in the book is engaging and keeps you turning the pages as Neeti faces the obstacles in her lives and overcomes them. What I liked about the book was that it explores the theme of immigration and its impact on the spouses, specially when it comes to choosing their own lives and careers. The idea of weaving this into a romantic story is quite interesting. The book is quite well researched and while reading, you realise that the author has actually spent time focusing on the core idea of the story, and that is of the immigration. The book moves at a comfortable pace and there are no points where the book gets boring or too slow. The importance of independence has been stressed quite enough and the value of choice has been explored really well.

The character of Neeti has been sketched in detail. The author has developed the arc of her character and due time has been given to set the tone of her character. The part in Mumbai is sufficiently detailed for us to understand the importance of independence for her. As the story progresses, you realise how her story is affected by the circumstances around her. Another aspect of the character I liked was that she has created a variety of other characters that support the story to the hilt as well as highlight the core thought of the book.

Overall, this is a good story that explores the intricacies of immigration through the eyes of love. The book scores a 4.63/5 for me.

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