From the age of fourteen, I was aware my parents expected me to\nhave an arranged marriage, a big Bollywood wedding. There was just\none hitch: nobody asked me. For Sushi Das, growing up in 1970s\nLondon was a culturally messed-up time. Feminists were telling\nwomen they could be whatever they wanted, skinheads were yelling at\ndark-skinned foreigners to go home and The Boomtown Rats were\nsinging about Lookin after Number 1. While Sushi was fabricating\nintricate lies and plotting harebrained schemes to get to the pub\nand meet undesirable elements boys her parents were on the hunt for\na respectable Indian doctor for her to marry. But how do you turn\nyour back on centuries of tradition without trashing your familys\nhonour? How do you break free of your parents stranglehold without\ncasting off their embrace? And how do you explain to your strict\ndad why theres a boy smoking in his living room and another one\nlurking in his garden? Breaking free meant migrating to the other\nside of the world, only to find that life in Australia had\nunexpected consequences. This is an intelligent, often hilarious\nmemoir and a fascinating look at one of the oldest traditions of\nEastern culture, which aims to join two families in economic\nprosperity, but whose reality is not always so blissful.

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