The Pocket Guide to Being an Indian Girl [Paperback]

Know how to brown your onions; never, ever go blonde; and always expect your mother to think the worst of you.

With rules like these Susham Dillon desperately tries to make some sense of her life and to stop making a fool of herself. Born and bred in Dudley, she stumbles from one social slip to another confounding social expectations of what it means to be a good Indian girl. College is a disaster, not least because of her annoying bottle blonde cousin Sammy (who is she trying to kid?), while the dashing Arjun complicates matters further. Her homelife is a living nightmare with her sister Kully’s wedding festivities fast approaching.

Her younger sister Kiz is a Bhangra Chick convinced of her imminent stardom in Bollywood, and don’t even mention her brother (rule number 4: never forget you are a lesser human being than your brother.)

In this hugely entertaining guide to life, Susham lays out the rules that make an Indian girl more than just a prospect for another arranged marriage. Struggling with family politics and her own sense of right and wrong, she is a typical teenager – confused, rebellious and going through an identity crisis.

Only one thing is for sure – don’t call her Sushi, she’s not a piece of raw fish!

The Pocket Guide to Being an Indian Girl, B.K. Mahal’s first novel, was written to fill the gap. In narrating the life of a second generation Indian teenager, B.K. Mahal forces us to reckon with our own stereotypes of "otherness". In her own words, she is "sick of victim literature", which focuses only on culture clash, rebellion and identity confusion. Nor does she wish to act as a spokesperson for her generation: she speaks from the margins of her community rather than for it.

B.K. Mahal drew from her own family background when writing The Pocket Guide. Her own father suffered a mental illness five years ago, and the experiences of her family coping with this illness profoundly influenced the book. Through the character of Susham’s father, whose life of hard work has not reaped the rewards of his more affluent counterparts, B.K. Mahal depicts the poorer Indian underclass that is so under-represented in both mainstream and Asian media.

B.K. Mahal was born in Derby, where she still lives with her family. After studying English Literature and Media at the De Montfort University in Leicester, she began work on The Pocket Guide to Being an Indian Girl. She is works as a primary teacher. She is currently writing a sequel.