The book tries to describe the life of a working woman fighting social/psychological odds in TamilNadu around the same time the book was written - circa 1980. The book starts by describing the irritable behaviour of the protoganist - Swapna, then explain the reason for such behaviour by making her recount her past to her husband - Thyagu "that she was sexually exploited by two men"; she confides with a colleague Ramanathan, who irks her when he breaks her trust and reports a shabby incident she was part of to her husband without her knowledge. Deranged that she is not able to put her past behind, she decides to address them; being the definition of nice/caring/polite husband Thyagu accepts her wish to take revenge on men who cheated her. Side note: If technical definition of losing virginity is used to denote only the act of penetration in coitus and fore-play is unaccounted for then Swapna married Thyagu as a virgin. (Why did I put this here? cause I read somelines twice or thrice; because I felt the emotional baggage of protoganist was not propotionate; then I convinced myself that era must be taken into account)
As the story comes to end, writer realizes he is not having any more hold on Ramanathan character to express netrual views and so introduces intrusive Padmaja to state some bold social messages like "I can sleep with anyone am comfortable with and marry the one who could provide best life, and the lover I might have to leave should be proud and happy that I got good life" which I and protoganist felt to be bitchy; while Padmaja managed to convince Swapna otherwise, Balakumaran miserabily failed to convince me...
Writer explains the state of mind to be new normal, but such behaviour is not acceptable even from western cultural aspect, there too boyfriends won't walk away because girlfriend gets a rich man! From Tamil cultural aspect its absurd, while love and love making before marriage is common among population, leaving the man to marry another is not... there are tale narrating women losing touch with reality and goes into slow death mode if a man cheats on her, to my knowledge moving on is very new to us... remember reading somthing like 'her breast swell in pain and her family misunderstood it, luckily he came back for her and she went with him to live for him' < ofcourse in Tamil, just the lack of time and enthu to type in Tamil made me translate.
What, Why, How parts are well defined and dealt, but final the additional stuffing of social message was less than desirable. Balakumaran was gentle enough to describe the desirable traits of man and woman in relationship and I felt compelled to compare my personal relationship. The book manages to capture that time period and now I can imagine what sort of environment my dad and mom worked in. To have same employer forever till retirement! I don't know how many is even thinking such stuff these globalized days