One & a Half Wife
Meghna Pant
Westland
Like most authors, Meghna Pant shares something in common with her fictional protagonist. Like Amara Malhotra, Pant can relate to the feeling of displacement, first while living and working in New York for three years, then when returning home to Mumbai to be caught off-guard by its dizzying pace of development.
Amara's 16 years in America are mostly a whirlwind of adjustment in which she and her family encounter just about every speed hump on their journey to reach that hypnotic mirage dubbed "the American Dream". The Malhotras' strength to endure "for Ammu's sake" reaches its breaking point with the failure of her marriage to a respected millionaire. Humiliated and bereft of their family honour, they return to Shimla, where the seeds of Amara's rebellion against conservative Indian society finally take root.
By first novel standards, Pant's writing has its highs and lows. While perceptive in her portrayals of the vulnerability that arises from culture clash, her dependence on happy-ending clichés in the book's second half dispels the gravity essential in a solid plot. However, as its shop sales suggest, One & a Half Wife is still an exceedingly readable book.
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- A longer path to settlement with no indefinite settled status until a refugee has spent 20 years in Britain
- To encourage refugees to integrate the government will encourage them to out of the core protection route wherever possible.
- Under core protection there will be no automatic right to family reunion
- Refugees will have a reduced right to public funds
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A worker is categorised as skilled by the MOHRE based on nine levels given in the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO) issued by the International Labour Organisation.
A skilled worker would be someone at a professional level (levels 1 – 5) which includes managers, professionals, technicians and associate professionals, clerical support workers, and service and sales workers.
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Transmission: Single-speed automatic
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The years Ramadan fell in May
Museum of the Future in numbers
- 78 metres is the height of the museum
- 30,000 square metres is its total area
- 17,000 square metres is the length of the stainless steel facade
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- 7 floors in all, with one for administrative offices
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The specs
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Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
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Tips for taking the metro
- set out well ahead of time
- make sure you have at least Dh15 on you Nol card, as there could be big queues for top-up machines
- enter the right cabin. The train may be too busy to move between carriages once you're on
- don't carry too much luggage and tuck it under a seat to make room for fellow passengers
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Vidaamuyarchi
Director: Magizh Thirumeni
Stars: Ajith Kumar, Arjun Sarja, Trisha Krishnan, Regina Cassandra
Rating: 4/5
