UNBROKEN BY INDRANI MUKERJEA

BOOK NAME:  UNBROKEN

AUTHOR NAME: INDRANI MUKERJEA

GENRE:  MEMOIR

PUBLISHER: HARPERCOLLINS INDIA

BOOK BUY LINK : https://www.amazon.in/Unbroken-Indrani-Mukerjea-ebook/dp/B0CD3P54WN

BOOK COVER IMAGE:

BOOK REVIEW:

It's 2015 - my early 20s era and I was intrigued by the incessant "flash news" about a big shot murder case that runs across all the channels. The reports claimed that Indrani Mukerjea had been arrested for allegedly kidnapping, strangulating and burning her daughter with the help of her ex-husband and driver, who later confessed to the above. Indrani spends six years in jail and is later bailed out due to a lack of corroborative evidence against her. She later writes a memoir about her traumatic childhood, her "struggles" in jail, how she was wronged by everyone she loved and that she is not guilty.

First of all, I thought this book would have something meaningful from the author's POV that is opposite of what the media is portraying. But this book turned out mediocre to me. 

The author opens up about being raped by her stepfather when she was a teenager and having to give birth to his child, Sheena Bora. However, she later gives up her infant, Sheena and her newborn, Mikhail, in adoption to her parents, whom she later introduces to the world as her siblings and moves out for her higher education. If the benefit of the doubt is given to her and her claims of suffering a traumatic childhood are true, then that's truly heart-wrenching. I could agree with a few things that she has written, like how she was judged for being ambitious after marriage and how people only badmouthed her and not the men accused in this case because she had a streak of broken marriages before. I was glad she chose to speak about the heinous crimes committed against under-trial prisoners by the police, and they were shocking.

Having said that, as a doctor, I could find a lot of inaccuracies in her medical history. She says she was denied an abortion at 14 weeks of pregnancy by her doctor because it was too late. But, any doctor in India would know that the old MTP act was applicable only to married women then because we were still a regressive nation. So, her doctor wouldn't have done it even if she wanted to, and even otherwise, according to the MTP Act of 1971, termination of pregnancy is allowed until 20 weeks of gestation with the opinion of two doctors (now amended to 24 weeks for rape survivors). There are so many more that wouldn't fit this page, so let's move on from here. 

The struggles portrayed after she moved out and during her jail term were laughable, and they seemed like a luxury. All her teenage struggles were having to party alone with her friend Vidhya without any male company unlike other girls, how she could pay fifty thousand rupees in a single sitting for the entire lodging, breakfast and tuition for the three years of her course, how she got to work at Diner's club to acquire a two-year complimentary membership and could finally party without having to spend much. She writes she had to put up with restaurant-bought Briyanis, sandwiches and dosas as home-cooked meals were cut off in Khat police station, and she had to use buckets and mugs instead of flush and jet sprays. The struggle, though! I finally understand the book's title, "Unbroken," suggesting that she isn't broke like the rest of us.

The author was so hellbent on proving how everyone wronged her and that she was smart, beautiful, successful, independent and kind, and everyone envied her. Guilty or not, there was no mention of the pain of losing her child anywhere in the book. She feels she is alive out there, and someone is implicating her even after she agrees that a body whose DNA matched hers was retrieved (which was later claimed to be false). There was no mention of her relationship with Sheena after she last saw her as a four-year-old. But proceeds on to clarify that they were always amicable. All she says about Sheena later is how she was into drugs and bunking college and alleges that she verbally abused her as if that would justify being murdered. Why character assassinate someone who is dead, and the world thinks you killed her? She had something terrible to say about everyone but herself. 

Sheena Bora, her daughter  - was into cocaine and bunking college and verbally abused her along with her boyfriend, Rahul. (She also adds Sheena wanted to kill herself later because she couldn't get out of the relationship with Rahul.)

Rahul - irresponsible and drug addict 

Mikhael, her son - a drug addict with anger issues

Peter, her ex-husband - cheated on her with his ex-wife, manipulative  and money fraud ( though in the first half, she is all praise for him)

Siddharth, Mikhael's father - not loving her enough

Sanjeev, her ex-husband - patriarch and controlling 

Her mother - not standing up for her against her father

her father - of allegedly raping her (though this could be true, I am not judging this) 

Vidhie, her daughter whom she loves more than her life - becomes an alcoholic and wanderer in her story immediately after Vidhie believes her to be a murderer (before that, she was described with utmost love)

The author also very conveniently avoids talking about the fateful day (the day Sheena Bora was allegedly murdered) by quoting legal implications while also writing an entire book revolving around it. Very clever, I must say. One thing I gained through this book was to get a glimpse into the lives of super-rich individuals and the privileges they enjoy even in prison. No matter how much they try, we can never relate to their lives even though they think their struggles are the same as the middle-class citizens. 

While navigating through the pages of this book, I was constantly reminded of The Yellowface by R. F. Kuang, where the anti-protagonist, June, is caught in a situation because she steals her dead friend's unfinished manuscript and passes it off as her own. In the climax, she talks about how she can write a book about it with twisted facts and "her" truths and how people will come to empathise with her. This 400-page long book felt the same to me while also glorifying narcissistic behaviour. I don't conclude that she is guilty or innocent, but only that this book did not help much in proving her either way. We might never get to know the truth, but I am now invested in reading other books about this case to know the different POVs.

MY REVIEW: 2/5 ( one star because this book had the power to intrigue me into reading it and one for the probable ghostwriter crying somewhere in the corner).

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