Erotic Stories for Punjab Widows

by Balli Kaur Jaswal

This story takes place in London.  A young Sikh woman who dropped out of law school, to her parent's great disappointment is approached by her sister for help finding a man for an arranged marriage.  The main character, Nikki, objects to her sister's decision as she considers herself an independent woman.  She is supporting herself by working at a bar, living above the bar.

One day when she reluctantly goes to post an advert about her sister on a bulletin board at the Sikh temple she sees an ad looking for someone to teach some sikh widows how to write.  She goes to the person on the ad and is offered the job.  However, she doesn't realize that the person who prepared the ad didn't word it correctly--- she actually wanted someone to teach the women to read and write in English.

However the women seem to have more interest in socializing and get into telling somewhat saucy stories/fantasies.  One woman is intent on learning to write and eventually leaves in disgust.  Nikki tries to befriend the woman but the story about herself that the woman tells Nikki is contradicted by another woman in the group.  Nikki doesn't seem to mind the direction the class is going in but she doesn't want the woman who hired her to find out.  They then move on to recording the women's stories and transcribing them into Punjabi.  The transcriber shares a few of the stories with a relative and soon copies are spreading throughout the neighbourhood.

Nikki meets a Sikh man and then enter a relationship.  She is troubled that he often gets calls and has to leave.  He tells her it is work issues but she eventually learns he is married.  She is furious when she finds this out. The truth about what is really going on in the classes is discovered and the class gets cancelled.  Nikki decides to invite the women to her workplace to hold their class. 

Nikki learns that there are some secrets in this community, a young woman died in the past and no one wants to talk about it.  She eventually finds out what really happened and actually finds proof that the woman did not kill herself but was murdered by her husband.  Bringing this information into the open endangers Nikki and she is assaulted in her apartment and it is set on fire.  She survives and the guilty man is arrested.  Her lover informs her that he has divorced his wife.


The book was okay, I found it a bit ponderous even with the lightly pornographic stories included in the book.