Shirin let go of the glass cutting board at the sound of his words “you aren’t letting me live or my parents!”. She was shocked to hear him, after all the things she’d done for him, giving up a little more of herself than before. All the times I have endured hurtful things from his family, like the time when his sister in law had accused her of hitting her son when it was the other way around. How quietly, she’d bit her tongue and behaved as if the accusation hadn’t pricked. Or the time when his mother had ousted her due to her menstruation. Being raised in U.S. she wondered how these customs still hadn’t changed despite the fact that we lived in the age of millennium.

Enduring these experiences and countless others, I’ve lost myself trying to be pretentious. Ignorance isn’t bliss and will never be, at least according to me anyway. I’m not like my mother who buried her heart within her body. Of course, she’d been trained well with generations of mothers and grandmothers whose silences weighed down the air within their ancestral homes. I can’t quietly suffer and not say anything but, then what have I gained by speaking up?

Life changes you after marriage, for one it demands a new you. A you that suppresses the hurt, the pain, the longing to be yourself… sometimes, I don’t recognize my reflection in the mirror. Before marrying Jay she’d been anything but this sacrificial lamb. She recalled the days when she could be herself, and when life wasn’t as complicated. When Jay wasn’t this way… why’d life have to change after marriage? Couldn’t it be the same way it was?

As she cleaned up the kitchen floor abundant with the glass pieces, she cried and as she did, she pacified herself. I will not share my feelings, my emotions with him anymore. I’ll be a cold stone. If I feel pain, I’ll write in my diary and will think twice before venting out in front of him.

I’ll be what my mother was, rock solid in the face of the ever changing wind, never uttering a word against his family, never complaining and definitely never thinking of myself.

During the course of our lives, we sometimes meet people who we share our lives unknowingly with... we tend to never share scenes of our experiences with them but, they see it without being shown.

They're witnesses to our mundane lives stocked abundantly with happiness, sorrow, disappointment, anger, frustration and speechless other emotions. Individuals who view our lives up close and personal. Try as we may, we are however unable to hide the truth and yet we share a formal bond of not revealing with them.

Thrity Umrigar's book "The Space between us" is something about this distance felt yet unfelt. At first glance off the title, I thought it was a book regarding marital relations. But, think again! I’ve read a couple of her books now and genuinely feel her style of writing is very heart felt. It’s true, it’s deep and moreover it’s touching.

Set amidst the suburbs of Bombay, the plot revolves around a maid (Bhima), her employer (Sera Dubash) and their intricate lives. It’s their familiar relationship which may remind you of your own mother with her “bai.” It’s a peek inside their relation, their formalities, and their bond which will undoubtedly strike a chord. For ex: when she speaks of how they shared their tea, their posture always distinctly remindful of who was the authority… the maid sits always on the floor and the mistress on the couch. The attachment is clear yet there’s noticeably a difference – they don’t share a mutual level.

Without adding more to the story, I’d really recommend it as a good read. Another trait which hits home of the author’s is that the characters Bhima, & Sera Dubash were modeled after her life during childhood. Bhima was the name of the maid who worked at her home; although this story is fictional I’m not sure as to how true to the fact it’s been. Sera’s got truly Zorashtrian (Parsi) traits to her during her dialogues which is all the more entertaining to read.

I give it 5 stars! If you’d like to read an excerpt of this book, you can find it on Amazon.com and click on search inside this book feature. Let me know if you like the book and share my rating.