The Purple Line

The year is 1982, the place Madras. Mrinalini – sixteen something and swinging – moons about the school lab, studying poetry instead of chemistry. And then one day, when she cuts open her first frog in zoology class and sees the ovaries floating in the water like wings, she decides to become a gynaecologist. Two decades later, within the intimate world of her consultation room, she unearths the stories of six unlikely women whose lives are intertwined without them knowing it: the burqa-clad Zubeida who finds solace in front of the neighbour’s television and the sari-clad Megha who cannot rest until she has a boy; Tulsi, the budding artist who stands upside down after sex and Anjolie, the fading artist whose splendour lingers wherever she goes; Pooja, the-sixteen-year-old who fell in love and got into trouble and Leela, the twenty-one-year-old who has never fallen because you would have to run with all your heart to fall. As they labour and love, captivate and collide, Mrinalini’s own life takes on a deeper significance. Sensuous, heartbreaking and hilarious, The Purple Line is above all an audacious exploration of womanhood.