A lively, sexy, and thought-provoking East-Meets-West story about community, friendship, and women's lives at all ages -- a spicy and alluring mix of Together Tea and Calendar Girls
Every woman has a secret life . . .
Nikki, a modern young Punjabi, lives in cosmopolitan London, where she tends bar at the local pub. The daughter of Indian immigrants, she's spent most of her twenty-odd years distancing herself from the traditional Sikh community of her childhood, preferring a more independent (that is, Western) life. When her father's death leaves the family financially strapped, Nikki, a law school dropout, impulsively takes a job teaching a ''creative writing'' course at the community center in the beating heart of London's close-knit Punjabi community.
The proper Sikh widows who show up are expecting to learn English, not short-story writing. When one of the widows finds a book of sexy stories in English and shares it with the class, Nikki realizes that beneath their white dupattas, her students have a wealth of fantasies and memories. Eager to liberate these modest women, she teaches them how to express their untold stories, unleashing creativity of the most unexpected -- and exciting -- kind.
As more women are drawn to the class, Nikki warns her students to keep their work secret from the Brotherhood, a group of highly conservative young men who have appointed themselves the communitys ''moral police.'' But when the widows' gossip offer shocking insights into the death of a young wife -- a modern woman like Nikki -- and some of the class erotica is shared among friends, it sparks a scandal that threatens them all.