MUSIC FOR MOHINI

A novel from, and of, modern India, deals with young Mohini's dreams of a husband -- as her English convent upbringing and the ideas of liberal professor father are not acceptable to her Brahmin traditioned grandmother. Marriage for love is discarded, matrimonial advertisements in the newspapers bring only shame, and it is through the snakecharmer, the bangle seller and the fortune teller that a match is made. Mohini leaves the city, where her voice on radio and records has brought her fame, for the country with Jayadev, the idealist, dreamer and modern thinker who has never completely broken his mother's ritualistic chains. In the Big House, Mohini finds more than a residence, for her mother-in-law teaches her a way of life, a responsibility and a pattern to which Mohini would gladly succumb -- if her husband were closer and if she could become pregnant. It takes her mother-in-law's selfish misstep to bring reality to Mohini's new life -- and what turns out to be a new world. An intimate feel for these culture conflicts in Hindu life, a small compass but sharp pointed montage of present day problems, give this a wide, human and tolerant touch, -- although the intense drama of The is missing.