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Overview
A hip chick from Newport Beach, California, who's just turned thirty, discovered she's the incarnation of the Hindu goddess Kali,and happens to be unemployed and still livingwith her parents. Saving the world, though,may prove to be a curry-scented breezecompared to dealing with her extendedIndian family. In their eyes she isn't just theblack sheep -- she's low-grade mutton.
To make matters worse, despite frequent andtherapeutic bouts of shopping and Starbucks,and the mentoring of a Taco Bell-loving,Coca Cola-guzzling swami, Maya hastrouble just surviving, thanks to the attentionsof a Kali-hating fanatic and a matchmaking aunthell-bent on finding her a nice Indian boy. Maya hasno interest in boys. She wants a man and she may have found one.
He's tall, dark, and gorgeous ... and completely uninterested in her.
In the name of all that's holy and fashionable ...what on Earth is a goddess to do?
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780061978906 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins |
| Publication date: | 10/06/2009 |
| Sold by: | HARPERCOLLINS |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 320 |
| File size: | 537 KB |
About the Author
Sonia Singh lives in Orange County, California, with her cat Kali Mata. When not writing books, she dances in front of the mirror in imitation of a belly-baring Bollywood babe.
Read an Excerpt
Goddess for HireChapter One
I never believed in dharma, karma, reincarnation, orany of that spiritual crap, which caused sort of a problemgrowing up because my parents are devout Hindus.Dharma, by the way, means life purpose in Sanskrit. Bythe time my thirtieth birthday rolled around, I stillhadn't found my dharma, which caused my parentssome worry, [read: anxiety, loss of sleep, despair, handwringing,tears, dizzy spells and a constant mumbling ofnasty things about me in Hindi under their breath].
My birthday fell on the second Saturday of January,and as I zipped down Pacific Coast Highway in my canaryyellow Hummer H2, I thought about upgrading toa bigger car.
Newport Beach, where we live, is a nice-lookingbeach city. Streets are wide, cars are expensive, bodiesare beautiful, and neighborhoods are well tended. AFrench Colonial...style roof is not allowed when the zoninglaws call for Spanish. For your coffee-drinking pleasurethere is a Starbucks on every corner.
I like living in a place where the air is clean and neighborshide their trash in discreet garbage cans made toblend in with the shrubbery. I am, however, tired of theimpression that blond, blue-eyed families are the sole inhabitantsof Newport Beach. This isn't Sweden for God'ssake.
Indian people like to bitch about the big bad Britishruling India for two hundred years. Big deal. Try growingup in Orange County. Most of my cousins sport bluecontact lenses and dye their hair ash-blond. How's thatfor colonial impact?
For the record, I do not dye my dark tresses. I do,however, highlight.
I'd spent the afternoon enjoying a manicure and pedicureat the Bella Salon and Spa, followed byshopping atSouth Coast Plaza. My birthday happened to fall on aSaturday, but even if it hadn't, my plan would have beenthe same, one of the benefits to being unemployed.
Eight shopping bags later I was back in my SUV slurpingon a Mocha Frappuccino. I'm not into meditation,and I don't do yoga. I don't blast sitar music in my car either.I prefer Madonna. I turned up the volume and feltmy spirits rise.
As if it hadn't been bad enough rolling out of bed thismorning knowing it was the start of my third decade, thenight before my aunt Gayatri, a gynecologist, had comeover to the house lugging an enormous chart of the femalereproductive system.
By the time she was done I knew more about my vulva than I ever wanted to, and that I was fast on myway to acquiring the shriveled ovaries of a crone. Basicallymy dear aunt was hinting I'd better find a man andreproduce then and there. Well duh! She couldn't havebeen less subtle if she'd hit me over the head with thepink plastic vagina she kept in the car.
In traditional Indian culture, a woman is supposed toget married and have children — strictly in that order — bythe time she's twenty-five. My female cousins and I,having been born and raised in America, have it considerablyharder, not easier. We're all supposed to get married,have children, and be either a doctor, lawyer, orengineer, all by the time we're twenty-five.
My female cousins all found proper careers, marriedproper Indian boys, had proper Indian weddings, andproperly lavish wedding receptions. If I ever get married,I definitely will not have some decrepit Hindu priestmuttering in Sanskrit while pouring clarified butter overa fire, as I struggle not to inhale great quantities ofsmoke, praying frantically that my sari doesn't unravel,fall off, or burst into flames.
Now instead of spending my birthday with peoplewhose company I enjoyed, I was on my way home tohave dinner with my family. The last thing I wanted todo was eat Indian food and discuss recent advances inmedical science. Hobnobbing with doctors wasn't myidea of fun. If it were, I'd be crashing AMA conferencesacross the state.
My mom's a pediatrician in private practice, my dad, a renowned urologist, and I mean the man gets absolutelygiddy over bladder infections. My younger brother,Samir, is in his final year at Stanford Medical School. Infact, of all the ninety-seven adult members of the Mehraclan spread throughout the United States, ninety-six aredoctors, the sole exception being yours truly.
Thereby proving, that contrary to popular belief Indiaproduces far more doctors than snake charmers. I wouldput engineers at a close second and, okay, maybe snakecharmers at third.
Thereby also proving, that if life were a vegetarian Indianbuffet, I'd be one, big, steaming plate of haggis.
I thought fleetingly of avoiding the dinner tonight, butwith my mom it wasn't a request, it was an order. God,just because I live at home and spend their money, myparents think they can tell me what to do.
Maybe it was the fact I was consuming a beverage, conversingon my cell phone, and steering my behemoth ofa car, but I failed to notice the dark blue Mercedes S600parked on the curb in front of our Mediterranean-stylehouse. I pulled into the three-car garage, left the bags inthe back for later, and stepped inside.
"Maya!" I was nearly knocked over as my aunt barreledinto me. Now I'm not that tall, about five-three.Aunt Dimple, a dermatologist, barely comes up to mychin. In a detail that greatly puzzled me as a child, AuntDimple did not have a single dimple on her face. "Happybirthday! I can't wait to tell you my surprise!" As I stared down at her, I felt a sick malignant tumor of dread takeform in my stomach.
"Tell her the news, Dimpy," my dad smiled.
The Queen of Retin-A, who cleared up my adolescentoutbreak of acne, and was responsible for the glowingcomplexion I possess today, now stood in front of me,and I wanted nothing more than for the Earth to openup and swallow her plump, perky form.
It's hard to find an Indian family without an auntDimple. Aunt Dimples have one hobby and one hobbyonly.
Matchmaking.
At that moment, pink plastic vagina or not, I'd havegiven anything for my aunt Gayatri.
Goddess for Hire. Copyright © by Sonia Singh. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.