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The narrator of The Age of Shiva is Meera, a young woman from a well-to-do family who has married below her. She is talking to her son Ashvin, skipping back and forth between the present time and prior events. Along with Meera’s personal odyssey is the story of India’s struggle after independence. The novel opens on the eve of India’s 5th anniversary as a republic. Partition has caused families to flee what has become Pakistan. Many families relocated to Delhi with very different degrees of success. Gandhi wished for a secular society, but the Hindu and Muslim forces and traditions were simply too strong. Even today religious rioting and kill is frequent. 

This duality is reflected in the two families. Meera’s family, despite its forced relocation, has regained its prosperity. It is a very modern family in which her father insists that people are innocent and forbids most of the traditional religious or daily activities which would place one into a subservient position. Even servants are to be treated with respect. Her spouse Dev’s family has fallen from a middle class position and now struggles to keep its head above water. Caste consciousness is very real and Dev’s mother is religiously conservative to the point of keeping a fast at Karva Chauth and touching the feet of her husband. 

The interweaving of culture, history and personal story are both fasinating and reletively seamless.