The Many Versions of Mrs Sharma

She is Mrs Sharma, shy, reticent, a homemaker. Steeped in tradition, she prioritises everyone's needs over her own, the quintessential kitchen queen who is mostly taken for granted. Forever mapping the complex architecture of human relationships, she seldom speaks. But on her 70th birthday, she dips freely into the super sanctuary of her memories, allowing us access to the borewells of secrets she carries within. Her story is no anodyne account of the drudgery of her daily life, it has much heft to it. It is the story of a young girl who marries with dreams in her eyes, all those fragrant queenly vibes, imagining robes of lustrous silks and a lover by her side. After a honeyed honeymoon and that brief drunk-on-love glorious state, her world changes. Torpor settles in quickly, in fact, a deep sense of ennui. Once a vivacious, chirpy girl, she begins to understand that behind the beautiful brocades of the bride, there lies the dirty petticoat of politics. As life settles in, she sees the chasm between her dreams and reality widening and yet suffers her many humiliations with dignity, finding joy in raising her four children. Usually quiet as the evening sky, she speaks for once, her soul, long suppressed, finally finding utterance. So here is Mrs Sharma - part wife, part lover, part mother, part daughter and so much more. Discover her many layers, know her veneer beneath veneer.