A Breath of Fresh Air (review)

A Breath of Fresh Air is a crisply plotted story of a modern Indian woman who was exposed to poisonous gas when her philandering army-officer husband forgot to pick her up at the train station on the night of the Bhopal disaster. Anjali breaks deep cultural taboos by divorcing her husband. She remarries a kind math professor and has a child with him, but her child is born with serious physical defects. When her first husband and his new wife are posted in her town, Anjali discovers that she has borne a son damaged by the aftereffects of Bhopal. Her anger is revived, and she is forced to relive her past while her son's health is rapidly deteriorating. The book is an emotional and accessible page-turner. The protagonist describes, with great sensitivity, her evolution from a shallow, materialistic girl to a thoughtful and assertive woman. The quality of the writing leaves it somewhat short of transcendent, but it tells a powerful story.