Climbing the Stairs; Taking the Long Way Up

This book was a nostalgia read, since I first read this in Middle School. I was really drawn to the idea of an Indian story that featured a female character that wasn't falling in love as her main plot, it was a difference to the last few entries. This story is about Vidya, a 15 year old living in World War II India, which was still a colony under the British Crown.

There was a lot of violence in India around that time, and as a consequence of one violent encounter, Vidya's father was left paralyzed and disabled. This meant that her nuclear family had to move in with her extended family and grandparents. This is quite different from Mumbai that Vidya was raised in, because she was given relative freedom to do what she desired.

Her extended family was quite divergent from the ideas she knew. Women and men lived in different parts of the house, and her main function in the family was to marry a nice boy of the same caste and good family. This is unfamiliar to Vidya, who dreamed of becoming a doctor and going to college. because of her ideas about women's rights and how people should live, her family did not treat her well, so she found salvation in her grandfather's library, literally climbing the stairs to get there.

This novel shows what it was like for a girl living in a world where traditions dictated your life, rather than you dictating your own life. It opened my eyes to what others have faced, and if you have a family that holds to the old traditions, please read this, as a way to see that you can be the person in charge of your life, no matter your gender, sexual orientation, religion, or race.