was born 1964 in the town of Rourkela in the
eastern state of Orissa. Her father,
who worked as a mechanical engineer and designed trains, was
transferred every two or three years, so that she had a mobile
childhood. She grew up in a household
where English was the primary language spoken, and where her extended family
was fond of telling stories about its own members. She has always
loved writing, and sold her first short story for Rs. 75 when she
was 18. She earned a bachelor's degree in English from the University
of Madras, and studied journalism in Sophia College, Bombay. She
worked as a copywriter for advertising agencies in Bombay, Bangalore
and Madras, and wrote stories for children's magazines. She married in
1984, had a son in 1987, and moved to Calgary in 1991.
Anita Rau Badami lives in Vancouver with her family.
Photo courtesy Seshu Badrinath / Pipal Productions
Bibi-ji or Sharanjeet Kaur, is the beautiful ambitious wife of Papa-ji a wealthy Sikh businessman in Vancouver. She has grown accustomed to using her beauty and her wealth to get her way in everything. Leela Bhat, first her tenant and later her closest friend, is a woman much like Bibi-ji -- driven by dreams of success but, unlike Bibi-ji, frustrated in her ambitions.
Nimmo, a gentle fearful woman trapped by the nightmares of her past is Bibi-ji's niece. She lives a modest middle-class life in Delhi, certain that disaster lies around the corner of every single day. In 1935, sixteen-year old Sharanjeet Kaur achieves her heart's desire by stealing the future that might have been her sister's. In 1947 during the unimaginable violence of Partition, the reinvented Bibi-ji, wife of a wealthy Sikh immigrant in far-away Vancouver, discovers that nothing in life comes without its repercussions. What had seemed a small crime all those years ago returns to haunt her. When she finally finds her long-lost niece Nimmo in Delhi after nearly a quarter of a century of searching, Bibi-ji is ecstatic. She persuades Nimmo to let her bring up her older son Pappu in Vancouver. By spending money on the boy, Bibi-ji believes that she can absolve herself of guilt. But fate and the politics of the Punjab intervene again.
In June 1984 the quarrel between the Khalistani separatists and the Indian government reaches a head. Indira Gandhi sends the army into the sacred Golden Temple in Amritsar profoundly shocking Sikhs all over the world and pushing some of them over the edge to violence. One of the people inspired to violence is Pappu, now a turbulent young man torn between his life in the west and his history which lies in India. Bibi-ji is troubled by his involvement in the politics of another country but cannot bring herself to stop him. Five months later, in Delhi, the Indian prime-minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards. In the aftermath, a wave of violence against Sikhs is unleashed. Nimmo and her family are destroyed. Engulfed by sorrow and a corrosive, indiscriminate rage against all Hindus, Bibi-ji cuts off her long friendship with Leela Bhat. Her unease over Pappu's involvement in anti-India activities turns to tacit support. Through him she hears rumours of an impending crime, but so implacable is her anger that she refuses to warn anyone about it. As a result she is indirectly responsible for one more tragedy.
