Alka Joshi has returned us to the India of her first book, The Henna Artist. Kind, gentle and patient, Lakshmi Shastri, who decorated the rich and royal of Jaipur as a young woman, is now married and living in the city of Shimla. Some may even consider that she is a master manipulator!
Except for her own hands, Lakshmi has given up her henna artistry to work alongside her husband Jay Kumar at the Lady Bradley Hospital. She also developed an herb garden for use in the care of her husband’s patients. The young man, Malik, that she befriended in her early years in Jaipur has continued with her. He introduces us to the setting in the Prologue. Lakshmi first knew him when he was about eight years old. Still as charming and mischievous as he was then, he has since graduated from a boys school and remains a close part of Lakshmi’s life. He knows her as Auntie-Boss, which describes their relationship. Between them, they carry all the intriguing secrets of those rich and royals that remain in Jaipur.
Lakshmi sends Malik to Jaipur to learn all facets of the building trade jointly owned and run by the Singh/Sharma families. These families only suspect, and some also know, the secrets of their past and present lives. Singh/Sharma’s most recent and spectacular building project is the Royal Jewel Cinema, financed by the palace and the Maharani Latika. Lakshmi returns briefly to Jaipur to sort out the strands of intrigue that Malik has unraveled.
As an aside, a favourite character of mine, Madho Singh, has nothing to do with secrets and intrigue. An Alexadrine parakeet, he is just annoying and talkative. He had belonged to the Dowager Maharanji and was gifted to Malik when he left for school. Was it because the esteemed Madho Singh liked Malik or was the Dowager Maharani getting rid of an annoyance? He is quite a fun character in both books.
In The Secret Keeper of Jaipur, Alka Joshi has not merely given us a repeat of the same cast of characters. Nimmi enters the picture in the first chapter. Nimmi, a young widowed woman with two children, is from a tribe of hill people. She has left her tribe to come to Shimla to work. Working in the Shimla Mall, selling flowers and herbs, she meets Lakshmi and Malik. She is unaware of having met Lakshmi earlier. Her relationship with Lakshmi is awkward, but Malik charms both Nimmi and her children, Chullu and Rheka. When he leaves to work in Shimla, it increases the rift that she has with Lakshmi. In the pause of Malik’s absence, Nimmi’s concerns about her brother are magnified when one of his sheep, carrying gold underneath its wool, is discovered and brought into Shimla Mall. She leaves Shimla with her children to find her brother in the hills. It this episode that brings Nimmi closer to Lakshmi. Should she return to her tribe and give up Malik and her independence? She knows nothing of the intrigue of Jaipur, she just wants Malik back in her life.
Alka Joshi has carefully and beautifully given her readers the colourful, intricate and fragrant world of India. Reintroducing her characters has answered a frequently asked question ‘What happens to them all after we close the book?’ Happily, the author is presently researching the third in this trilogy.
“A born politician. That’s what you are, Mrs. Kumar. If you’d been born into our family, you’d be in Parliament by now, my dear.”
~ Alka Joshi, The Dowager Maharanji Queen,
The Secret Keeper of Jaipur by Alka Joshi
Title: The Secret Keeper of Jaipur
Author: Alka Joshi
Copyright: 2021
Publisher: MIRA Books (Published by arrangement with Harlequin S.A.)
Type: Novel
Format: Soft cover
ISBN-13: 978-0-7783-1145-4
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