Butterflies and Barbed Wires

This is the story of butterflies caught in barbed wires; beautiful, fragile yet strong, the women in this novel are fighting their wars in the best way they can. For Maya and Shehzaadi, mother and daughter tragically separated during the ’79 riots in Hyderabad, it is a question of forgetting and trying to remember an elusive past. For Maya, who moves back to the city from Bangalore where she has grown up, it is a painful quest for her identity. For Shehzaadi it is a struggle to deal with old memories and the loss of her entire world one fateful Sunday morning.

Varsha, Maya’s best friend, attempts to tackle a separation from an indifferent husband, determined to leave love out of the picture and take hold of life in fast-paced Mumbai. Zena and Amita, Shehzaadi’s friends live with their own ghosts; a broken marriage and a loveless one, a daughter grown up away from her mother, the importance of holding up a façade of being happy. Butterflies and Barbed Wires tells of women from two different generations grappling with a life and a society that is rapidly changing.