Miss New India

By Bharati Mukherjee

Anjali Bose is “Miss New India.” Born into a traditional lower-middle-class family and living in a backwater town with an arranged marriage on the horizon, Anjali’s prospects don’t look great. But her ambition, charm and fluency in language do not go unnoticed by her charismatic and influential English teacher, Peter Champion (an expat American). And champion her Peter does, both to other powerful people who can help her along the way and to Anjali herself, stirring in her a desire to take charge of her own destiny.

So she sets off to Bangalore, India’s fastest growing major metropolis, and quickly falls in with an audacious and ambitious crowd of young people who have learned how to sound American by watching shows like Sex and the City and Seinfeld in order to get jobs as call centre service agents, which allow them to quickly out-earn their parents. And it is in this hightech city where Anjali—suddenly free from the traditional confines of class, caste, gender and more—is able to confront her past and reinvent herself. Of course, the seductive pull of modernity has a dark side, and it is those dangers that threaten Anjali’s transformation at every turn . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: May 24, 2011
• ISBN: 9781443405270

Bharati Mukherjee

Winner of a National Book Critic’s Circle Award, BHARATI MUKHERJEE is the author of eight novels, two story collections, and the coauthor of two books of nonfiction. She is a professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley.

Reviews for Miss New India

[autumnturner76 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A very interesting look at old vs. new India, highly recommend.

[matamgirl · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This was not what I was expecting when I picked it up and frankly if I had known what it was going to be like I would not have picked it up. It was interesting alright but so not my thing. Oh well.

[needmoreshelves · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Interesting premise, and I think the author is a good writer, but unfortunately I found the main character to be a bit shallow and irritating. I was much more interested in the secondary characters - they seemed more vital and full of life. Nice idea, but somewhat disappointing in execution.

[melaniehope · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Anjali Bose, a smart, rebellious 19-year-old who flees her provincial town after her father's attempt to arrange her marriage goes horribly wrong. With the help of her expat American teacher, Anjali finds her escape in Bangalore, the booming capital of call centers and electronic start-ups.There the brave country girl undergoes a crash course in urban life and the new vibrant world of outsourcing and call center careers. For the first time Anjali finds herself in charge of her own future. Although she views herself as a pioneer of sorts, she is still conflicted and wonders if she should have obeyed her parents in finding an appropriate husband to care for.This story is of a very modern day India. It is somewhat based on call-center employees and their dual identities (American at work; Indian at home.)The story sounded really interesting, but let me down. I was disappointed because I had a very hard time connecting with the character of Anjali. The book never really grabbed me. It seemed to be too unorganized for me and I speed read just to finish it faster.

[laurenbdavis · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Mukherjee navigates the world of "The New India" as seen through the eyes of Anjali, a girl from a small town who moves to bustling, bursting-with-possibility Bangalore --the international epicenter of the customer phone service industry -- in search of a new way of living. Anjali, assisted by an ex-pat American teacher, is on the run after being raped by the man her father had chosen to be her husband and certainly there are many more perils waiting for Anjali in Bangalore, including a run with in terrorists. Some of the finest scenes are those that take place in the crumbling mansion of "Mad Minnie." The decaying, ramshackle house (as well as its mistress) with beggars squatting in the ruined garden and photos of British troops with their feet atop slaughtered Indians, a fine and beautifully written metaphor for the clash of old and new, in all it's emotionally-churning complexities. One is reminded of Dickens' Miss Haversham. Mukherjee is exploring, in this somewhat fable-like novel, how the economic boom and resultant new possibilities affect the lives of young Indian women, whose lives will be far different than those of their mothers. The answer is not so simple as 'better' or 'worse' and Mukherjee allows for that complexity. Life, even in the "New India" is still messy and fraught with danger, but like Theodore Dreiser's "Sister Carrie," it's the potential that lures a provincial young woman into the wider world, and there is always a price to be paid for lost innocence.

[gypsysmom_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book received a really good review in the Globe and Mail. A friend of mine who is originally from India was bemoaning the fact that all books written about India show a negative image of the people. I sent her the Globe and Mail review and she read the book and really liked it. So I thought I should read it as well.Anjali Bose lives in Gauripur, a backward town in the northern part of India. She has recently graduated from highschool and she is now taking college classes in management. In highschool she had an American teacher, Peter Champion, who was very impressed with her language ability in English. Peter suggests that Anjali should go to Bangalore to find work in the call centres that proliferate there to service the North American market. However, Anjali's parents think she should get married and settle down. Her father puts the word out in the Bengali community that he is looking for a husband. Anjali is torn between these two visions of the future and she is certainly not opposed to marrying if her father can find the right man. She understands the problem of arranging a good match since her older sister married a man who appeared to be a great match but now she is divorced and a single mother.After a disastrous meeting with a prospective bridegroom Anjali does decide to go to Bangalore. The city is vibrant and bustling and intimidating to Anjali. Peter Champion gave her two names of residents who could help her. One is an old woman who rents out rooms in her Raj era mansion. Anjali is able to get a room there -- there are lots of empty rooms but few of them are habitable. The mansion is almost a character in the book. The description of the house and surrounding grounds gives a Gothic feel to the book. The other name Anjali has been given is of a woman who owns a school that prepares young people to work at the call centres. With these two contacts Anjali should have had it made but life seldom turns out as it should.Many North Americans have probably had the experience of calling customer service for a company only to realize they are talking to someone in India. I never really thought about that industry other than being frustrated if the person at the other end of the line had difficulty servind me. This book certainly opens that whole industry up to scrutiny.I quite frankly got rather tired of Anjali and her vacillations about work, men, living arrangements etc. And it almost seemed like the author did too. The ending seemed to come very quickly and didn't resolve many of the issues raised. I was disappointed but maybe my expectations were raised too high by the Globe and Mail.

[maggie_rum · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Eh. It's not much of a story, which is perfectly fine. Mental stories are excellent. But this one fell sort of short. I've read a lot of Indian literature, and this one just kind of resounded with a big "meh." I may reccommend it. I may not. I'm sort of just not sure what to think of it.

[rfujita-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Was very excited to win this book in the Library give away and I started it right away.The book wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be, descriptions of India were good but not the best I've read. The story was anti-climatic and I didn't care much for the characters, they didn't have enough passion for their own lives.I liked the women characters in her other books much better.

[karenlisa_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Miss New India By Bharati Mukherjee Fictional heroine Anjalie Bose is a middle class girl, living with her parents in a small apartment in a small town in India. Her mentor, an American teacher named Peter Champion sees possibility in Anjalie that noone else can see. Her father is desperately trying to match her with an appropriate husband, basing his decision on class, family background, future work prospects and most certainly not love! After a brutally failed attempt Anjalie, calling herself Angie, runs away to Bangalore. Even though this will destroy her parents, she knows that with her English language skills and the support of Peter she must at least try to succeed to a higher level position outside of her small town. Pretty, smart, English speaking girls have very good opportunity of work in the growing, ever changing cities with call centers, hosting companies from around the world. The family dynamics of her parents desperately holding onto tradition and Angie's burning desire to see the world lead her on an adventure to change her life. Enjoyable, easy read, very detailed world of the west invading Indian culture and a young adult finding true destiny.

[jcelrod_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I really wanted to like this book more than I did because I've read and enjoyed other novels by Mukherjee but I just couldn't get into this one. I found Anjali/Angie to be insipid and silly and the other characters felt more like caricatures than believable characters . I couldn't understand how Anjali came to be viewed as being an exceptional student by her teacher and I found myself irritated by her seeming inability to function in a large city. It took me a long time to get through this book and, while it did pique my interest more towards the end, I was generally disappointed.

[mcelhra · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Nineteen year old Anjali Bose lives with her lower middle class family in a small village in India. Her father's dream is to arrange a marriage for her with a suitable boy but Anjali has bigger dreams than that. With the help of her English teacher, Anjali moves to Bangalore with the hopes of becoming a customer support specialist at a call center. She quickly learns that big-city life is not as easy and carefree as she thought it would be.Anjali was a hard character to like. She floats through her life depending on her "award winning smile" to get her though tough situations. For some reason, the other characters are captivated by her and misread her vapidness as depth. I never quite understood why. Some of Anjali's decisions were just downright stupid and instead of sympathizing with her, I wanted to shake her.I enjoyed reading about how India today is quite modern in some ways, yet still very traditional in others. I wish this book would have a had a glossary because the author uses quite a few words from different languages that I didn't know.From what I understand, the author's previous books have gotten very good reviews. I look forward to reading one of her older books. This particular book was just okay.

[mojomomma_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Anjali Bose is caught between the allure of modern India and the traditional roles her parents expect her to fulfill. After being raped by a potential husband, she decides to run away to Bangalore and take advantage of her English skills to find herself a job. With the help of her American ex-pat English teacher, she makes some contacts in Bangalore. And at this point, the book takes an unexpected turn. Anjali, or Angie as she refers to herself, has her head turned by easy money and smooth-talking men. She relies on her looks, not her skills. I was really rooting for Anjali/Angie to overcome the obstacles, but she just gets stuck deeper and deeper in a strange plot twists. Her Muslim friend turns out to be a terrorist. Really? And of course, she implicates Anjali in an attempted attack on Heathrow. By the Epilogue, Anjali/Angie finally gets her stuff in a pile and goes back to her home town and her old school to talk about her success. I tried to like this because I usually like novels about women in different cultures, but this one left me shaking my head and feeling like I'd wasted my time.

[cbl_tn · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In some ways, this book is an extended illustration of Thomas Friedman's flat world. Its main character, Anjali/Angie, is a young girl from a provincial Indian city who dreams of making it big in a Bangalore call center. She hopes that her aptitude for English will land her a position as a customer service agent for one of the many American firms that outsource these jobs to India.I was fascinated by the setting, but not by the characters. I didn't see in Anjali/Angie what the other characters see in her. All of her concerns beyond the basic food/shelter/safety seem superficial. She shows little evidence of an interesting inner life. She seems self-absorbed, aloof, and amoral. She's supposed to be her mentor's most promising student, yet she appears pretty average to me. She does seem to have above average luck, though. Somehow, among the millions of people in India, she keeps meeting people with wealth and influence who are willing to spend it on her behalf. One character explains to her that she is a mirror, and others see themselves in her. The more I think about this, the creepier it gets. I can imagine Anjali/Angie using this quality to manipulate people in the future. She's not a person I would trust.Readers who have read other books by the author will recognize some familiar characters. Tara Chatterjee doesn't appear in this book, but some of her relatives do, and they mention her several times. I'd like to try at least the first of the Tara Chatterjee books. I think I might identify more with a character closer to my age.This review is based on an advance reading copy provided by the publisher through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.

[clara53_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"Obstacles are stepping stones", says the main character of the book, a 20-year-old Anjali Bose, half way through the novel that depicts less than a year of her life, but what a year: in rebellion to an improper selection for an arranged marriage, and having shockingly suffered as a result, she embarks on a journey to maturity, away from a small provincial hometown and off to Bangalore where, despite the unbelievable promise of good fortune to energetic and capable young people (most of them working in call centers), "you can't just float around... like a kite - someone will cut the string"... Throughout the novel, Anjali struggles with her vanity as opposed sincere desire to make it on her own. We learn a lot about the inside doings of the call centers, the perceptive view of America on behalf of this new generation of unconventional Indian youth, as well as the ugly side of India (at times, shockingly so - even I, married to an Indian, couldn't believe some of the things presented as a reality). Anjali's father's character, a typical Bengali male of his generation, is described very aptly by the author and certainly rings a bell - I could recognize the traits. On the other hand, a death of a young talented boy (a computer nerd in Angali's hometown) seemed rather downplayed. While some secondary characters are rather predictable, the story line weaves in such a way that one cannot foretell the next chapter, which, in my view, is always an accomplishment for the writer.

[susanbooks · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Flat prose, repetitive descriptions, and one-dimensional characters make this book so bad that I'm going to take a look at my other Mukherjee novels. I thought I had liked them, but if she's capable of this, maybe my judgment was off.

[emperatrix_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I had high hopes for this novel, but I just couldn't get into it. I found the narrative dull and stilted, and found Anjali's musings somewhat unnatural. As a narrator, I found Anjali/Angie uninteresting. The novel just failed to engage me.

[jbd1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An interesting and often amusing take on the coming-of-age story, this one set in the brave new world of modern India. While the main character seemed a bit "along for the ride" some of the time, I enjoyed the book.

[eenerd · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great read about life in modern India and the difficulties faced by the youth, caught in between the traditional Indian point of view of their parents, and the global/Western youth culture of finding success and making your mark on the world. Anjali "Angie" Bose is bright, attractive, and has great English--the only thing standing between her and success is the narrowness of her hometown and her parents expectation that she marry and settle down to a traditional life as wife and mother. Angie nearly succumbs to her parents wishes until she is attacked by the man her father has chosen for her. At that moment she decides to take her future into her own hands and runs away to the bright lights of Bangalore, with money borrowed from her ex-pat American friend, mentor and professor. Once in Bangalore Angie's story really begins, and all the highs and lows of one starting from scratch in a world far removed from everything she's ever known. Super book.

[lukes_171461 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

“Miss New India” contains the story of Anjali (Angie) Bose, who grows from sheltered nineteen-year-old in a backwater India town into a sadder but wiser young woman with growing skills and ambition. It embraces a much larger canvas, though, nothing less than the dizzyingly rapid modernization of the second most populous nation on Earth. Angie Bose’s journey opens this transformation before our eyes, cutting a clear slice for us and laying it on a slide for our microscopes.Growing up quietly, steeped in traditional middle-class (and middle-caste) Indian virtues, Anjali, from the northeastern Indian state of Bihar, learns good, accentless American English, and shows a spark of intelligence. She gets an associate degree in business and hopes the husband her father finds for her can be intelligent, good-looking, and kindly. Unfortunately her betrothed young man mistreats her badly – criminally - in their one brief meeting, and she escapes to modern, bustling, 21st-century Bangalore. Things don’t go very much better for her in the big city, though: at rock bottom she ends up in a holding cell in a Bangalore jail, facing every manner of threat and menace. What a creation is Miss Anjali Bose! Pretty, innocent, lucky, unlucky, endlessly engaging, unforgettable. Author Bharati Mukherjee draws such a realistic girl; she’s nineteen going on thirteen, it seems, for much of the book. I kept waiting for her to grow up a little, get some perspective, make a mature choice for a change! Then I would cast my mind back to her origins, and the scant weeks since her emergence from her sheltered existence, and I reflect that she’s perfect. She has the exact worries, hopes, and reactions that such a girl would in real life. Congratulations and laurel wreaths to Ms. Mukherjee on her perfect creation.Through this endearing and frustrating heroine, the author shows us the wrenching changes now contorting India and changing its face. In graphic detail: the closed, insular town with its backward-looking mores, the mod big-city aspirations, and the mod-big-city criminality. The flooding of India with apparently limitless new rupees (lakhs and crores of them!) brings with it every new convenience and technology, and unfortunately every new kind of venality, too. Some plot elements seem, on surface, over-contrived – Angie’s falling in with a vastly wealthy family, the spurious international terrorist roommate, her serendipitous relationship with the entrepreneur Girish, the looting of the crumbling Raj-era estate – but these chances and drawbacks represent the new chances that India is taking with itself. May she ride a hot streak to glory!It’s been quite a while since I met a character as charming and demanding of our attention as Angie Bose. I trust she will make thousands more readers as besotted with her as I am. Watch for this publication in May, and don’t let it go by. It will clearly be worth your attention for its great virtues: its unblinking look into modern India, and its main achievement, the quirky, delicious heroine.

[akreese · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Anjali is a girl caught between two worlds: the old culture of traditional India of arranged marriages; and the progressive India of women who are educated, employed and chose their romantic partners. Anjali is from a rural area, but on the advice of her teacher she decides to leave her family and look for opportunities in the city.The author brings to light the difficulties facing girls who want to break free from traditional roles in order to have a say in their future. The culture that Anjali lives in is so far different from anything I have known that it was shocking when I realized what was at stake for her if she left her family. Her family honor is so important to all of the members of her family that she is at risk of being disowned and declared dead to them. I don’t think that we have anything equivalent in our society when it comes to that sense of family honor being besmirched. It was eye-opening to see possible challenges that even affluent girls could face in India when it comes to asserting their independence.As for the characters, I found that I could understand Anjali’s actions, but I really didn’t like her. She was very naive, and even when she starts to understand how things work in the city she is still clueless about the motives of those around her, and is easily taken advantage of. This seems consistent with her character coming from a rural area, but the drawback is that I she was hard to empathize with and really was an annoying girl.While Miss New India did let me get a closer look at what hardships a rural Indian girl might face in the big city, none of the characters endeared themselves to me. Anjali has a couple of romantic interests in the story and yet I never felt like she had a real relationship with any of them. She likes one man in particular, and after a few short conversations she decides she is willing to have a romantic relationship with him. I think it disturbed me more because it was more like a business deal in that the man had a good job and could help further her career. It seemed shallow and cold to me, but I don’t know if that’s what the author intended, or if this is just one of those cultural differences to which I couldn’t relate.

[bale_5 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Miss New India is a novel whose intent seems clear – the dissolution of traditional India via a social revolution steeped in the “benefits” of materialism. It is the new India, a feminine universe, whoring herself out to the westernized world; namely the USA. In this regard, India is young and naive, like the protagonist, Anjali. India has not yet matured from her experience. It is adolescent growth in progress - the outcome yet unknown. Like Anjali, it is still being invented. India’s purpose is innocent – ambition – to better the quality of life. The problem, as in every society, is how to grow without losing one’s identity. The young are quick to throw away the old ways, while the older generations tenaciously hang on to them. Somewhere in between there lies the threat of violence.When the above is taken into consideration, the author’s sense of purpose and integrity is admirable. However, as I read Miss New India, I felt impatient. Poems seemed dropped in haphazardly, as if forced intellectualization. The plot was over-loaded and void of passion, an innate component of any social change. Despite everything that occurred throughout the novel, it lacked impact. As much as I wanted to embrace this book, it drowned in its insipid characterization of an empowered female and was laden with overwrought details. The foundation was well prepared; the story-line fell short of its goal.

[shelleyraec · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Stifled by tradition and expectation, nineteen year old Anjali accepts the help of an unconventional professor to escape an arranged marriage and her small town of Gauripaur in rural India. She dreams of a new life in Bangalore, perhaps with a successful career or a Bollywood style romance but the reality is not what she expects. Boarding in a crumbling mansion, Angali’s megawatt smile and passable American English do not provide the advantages she has hoped. Painfully naive, she falls victim to her ruthless housemates as her illusions shatter around her.Set in contemporary Indian society, Miss New India is an interesting insight into the changing culture of the country with it’s increased share of the global market due to Western outsourcing. Customer Support Agencies (ie. call centers) train their employees to speak ‘accentless’ English and embrace an American/English identity inflating it’s value against the traditional Indian culture. For many of those raised in marginal castes or regions the new employment opportunities (and high pay) offered are an irresistible lure and for women like Mukherjee’s character, Anjali, a way to escape family expectations and earn independence.I’m really not sure if Anjali’s character and her experiences are intended to act as a warning, or encouragement for the young women of India searching for a career. The consequence of Anjali’s fleeing from her home, after rejecting an arranged marriage, is her father’s suicide/death and permanent estrangement from her mother and sister. Almost immediately after her arrival in Bangalore, Anjali is out of her depth and simply sinks further into trouble, mostly as a result of her own naivety. It is her female housemates, women who purport to work in the call center industry, that betray her and she is rescued repeatedly by men who have standing in Indian society. Initially I was sympathetic to Anjali’s situation and her determination to make her own way but I felt she was quickly revealed to be quite weak and I lost interest in her struggle.I also felt the plot was overcrowded with issues, Anjali becomes involved in rape, a Muslim terrorist plan, riots, a ring of thieves and prostitutes. I thought the impact of the call centers on Indian society and individual identity was an interesting enough theme to carry the novel without all the extra complications.The language is good, though I thought it a bit dense at times. Mukherjee integrates a lot of information about Indian culture that I found interesting, like the myriad of spoken dialects and class structure, but it does tend to clutter the story. Initially the pace is a little quiet but becomes frenzied as events and characters trips over each other in the last third of the story.There is a lot to like and learn from this novel yet I really found it slow going. Miss New India is a novel that leaves me in a quandary of indecision, so I think it’s best to leave any definitive recommendation out.