Chup Re! But, Gita Desai Is Not Here To Shut Up

Chup Re

In patriarchal cultures, women have been shushed, shamed, and silenced for generations and, sadly, living in the 21 ^st century, in the most outspoken country in the world, doesn’t grant a girl immunity from being told to “ Shut up and keep your head docilely down. ” Or in the words of our feisty narrator Gita, in Sonia Patel’s novel, Gita Desai is Not Here to Shut Up” or, in the local Gujarati vernacular, to Chup Re .

Patel’s Young Adult novel deals with the traumatic consequences of this cultural muzzling of young girls, especially when it is applied thoughtlessly, in the centuries-old tradition of suppressing a child’s natural instincts and sexual curiosity and replacing them with a deep-rooted and misguided sense of shame. It’s about the stifling of honest and essential communication about sexuality within a family until the consequences of repression implode over their brittle façade and force a serious reckoning.

A Gujarati-American girl

It’s also a coming of sexual age novel for a first-generation Gujarati-American girl raised by her stern immigrant parents, who fit neatly into the cliched cultural stereotype of the Gujarati Indian community in the U.S. They are hardworking ( work- is -always -busy- so – no- time- for -smiles type of parents) , super-conservative motel owners who own a Donutburg (whatever that is). Her mom’s most cherished ambition for Gita is to marry her off to an eligible Gujarati boy, as soon as she’s out of high school.

But Gita wants no part of a fate that would involve her being kept “barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen making dal-bhaat-shaak-rotli” for her Gujarati ‘catch’ of a husband. Her biggest source of female emotional support and sustenance is Pinki Aunty, her father’s sister, who, along with her husband Neil Uncle, comes to live with the family when Gita is eight. Pinki Aunty’s abrupt departure a few years later is a hush-hush affair, and Gita is chided with a Chup Re every time she tries to ask her parents why her aunt disappeared from Gita’s life. This theme interlaces with events in the novel in a patchy, Freudian way, hinting unsubtly at deep childhood trauma, which now impacts Gita’s relationship with her body and with men.

A Stanford University coming-of-age

The novel opens with 18-year-old Gita moving into her Stanford dorm room with help from her parents and older brother Sai – her best friend and biggest cheerleader.

Sai helps Gita win the battle to further her education rather than be married off to a ‘ good gujju’ boy for the rest of her life.

We experience her mother overwhelming Gita with homemade Gujarati snacks ( Methi Khakhra, Chevdo, Burfi ) during the move-in, then segue straight into an equally overwhelming Chapter 1. It kicks off with a titillating description of Gita getting her “ visual cherry popped ,” as she surreptitiously observes her hallmate, Jane, having sex with her boyfriend. Gita experiences her “Yoni tingling” during the incident when the boyfriend turns his head and winks at her.

Discovering freshman sex

The book launches into Gita’s journey into freshman sex at Stanford, where she wrestles with her conscience, her obsessive need to be a super achiever, Desi style, and with baffling shadowy scepters from her past, buried in her childhood memory. She becomes fast friends with her hallmates, Jane and Marisol, both of whom Gita feels, are stunningly gorgeous and self-assured. She wonders why these beauties want to be friends with dowdy, boring Gita, but slowly an understanding blossoms:  they have similar, disabling insecurities lurking beneath their varnished surfaces. Gita plunges headlong into partying with her new trio of sinners and begins to have serial, sexual encounters with strangers.

All this lustiness could have led to just another suppressed Desi girl finding sexual liberation story, but Patel introduces thought-provoking nuance – how does past trauma and personal insecurity about one’s attractiveness influence a woman’s ability to say NO to a sexual encounter?

Patel weaves these questions skillfully into the story, letting Gita discover the truth eventually through her own bravery.

Storytelling through first-gen eyes

Gita is relatable because she is a rational thinker who dwells on her runaway emotions and mental roadblocks as she tries to get to the bottom of them. Patel’s narrative is sensitive and insightful, but at times, the emotional hyperbole tends to overwhelm the narrative – Patel frames Gita’s thoughts with an excess of exclamation marks – which makes her seem much younger than she is; but sometimes it is spot on, as when Gita stumbles home after an encounter with a frat boy and agonizes over convincing herself it was not an ‘ almost-rape.’

There are moments when the plot fades and becomes less convincing. The story reveals that Gita’s mom was physically abused by her father as a child. So it’s odd, given this context, that a mother would be keen to push her daughter into marriage instead of encouraging her to get an education and stand on her own feet. There is a cliched quality to the parents and Pinki Aunty, which detracts from the narrative’s authenticity. The eventual villain of the piece is all too predictable and two-dimensional, a character painted without depth.

However, overall Gita Desai Is Not Here To Shut Up offers a meaningful and entertaining addition to Young Adult fiction, dealing with the issue of young female sexuality, trauma, and consent, specifically through a first-generation Indian immigrant lens.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sonia Patel’s break-out novel, Rani Patel in Full Effect , was a finalist for the Morris Award, a YALSA and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2016, and received four-starred reviews. Her subsequent YA novels Jaya and Rasa and Bloody Seoul both received the In the Margins Book Award and very strong praise. As a child and adolescent psychiatrist trained at Stanford University and the University of Hawaii, Patel has spent over twenty years providing psychotherapy to children and their families.

Sep 10, 2024 | ISBN 9780593463185 | Young Adult

The post Chup Re! But, Gita Desai Is Not Here To Shut Up appeared first on India Currents .