hopscotch

Ambika Shaligram Food and all the closest adjectives that make up the culinary world grab you in Manreet Sodhi Someshwar's Girls and the City . It tosses you around, lets you simmer a bit, and sets you out on a plate to chew and ruminate.  There's Reshma Talwar, who loves her Butter Chicken, but in her heart she's afraid of being called the gori moti bhains , a scar from her teenage years. JJ or Juhi Jha, on the other hand, easily tucks into large quantities of food, stays back late in office because the company picks up food tab if you stay back beyond the prescribed hours for work reasons. She knows hunger and intimately so, scrounging off pots for the last grain of rice or trying to hide a roti in her salwar , away from the males in the family who dig in their meals for second and third helping.  And, then there is Leela Lakshmi, who has lot on her plate. An abusive father, an abusive relationship, from which she has tenaciously build a happy life for her daughter, Nani