Everything Here Belongs To You by Saborna RoyChowdhury
Everything Here Belongs to You (116,000 words)) is an intimate story of love, betrayal and redemption set against a backdrop of cultural and political history. Fans of Jhumpa Lahiri, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and Monica Ali should appreciate Parul’s and Mohini’s story, its intimacy and its epic reach.
Parul and Mohini—two teenage girls destined to different lives, but friends–grow up in the same Hindu household in Kolkata, India. Parul, a Muslim, is the household maid, while Mohini is her employer’s daughter. Mohini’s father (Baba) is a famous weight-lifter who runs his own weight-lifting camp. Mohini’s life is cushioned by a proper education, bank balance, big house and middle-class position. On the other hand, Parul battles poverty and an uncertain future. Parul’s father comes to collect her wage every month and his other demands on her never seem to end. To live in this household, Parul must give up her faith and live like a Hindu girl.
One day she meets Rahim, a radical Muslim whose theology serves his rage and his need to control others. Desperate to make for herself a life beyond that of a maid who is not allowed to marry or have children, she pleads with Rahim to teach her the Islamic way. Rahim uses her desperation, naivety and physical attraction towards him to manipulate her.
After 9/11, an American boy, Michael, travels to Mohini/ Parul’s house for yoga/meditation training and counseling from Baba. Michael is a highly talented weight-lifter. However, having lost his father in the Afghanistan war, he is overcome with grief and close to giving up his career in weightlifting. Baba thinks of Michael as a protégé and is convinced that he can help him heal and that one day he may even help Michael win an Olympic medal.
Rahim urges Parul to do the American boy harm, claiming this is her only path to salvation. To make matters worse, Parul discovers she is pregnant with Rahim’s child. Rahim refuses to give the child a name unless Parul presses forward with the mission he has given her. Meanwhile, Mohini falls in love with the American. This romance plunges Parul into further turmoil: If she harms the American boy, she will betray Mohini, a sister to her. If she does not harm the American boy, her baby will not have a father. What will Parul choose—her childhood friend Mohini or her unborn child growing stronger in her belly each day—announcing its presence through small feather-like kicks?