The Higher Education of Geetika Mehendiratta

by Anuradha Marwah-Roy

Born to an academic, middle-class family in a small town of indeterminate character, Geetika Mehendiratta struggles to understand her own private world of intellectual intensity and uncontainable sexuality which is being subsumed in the dusty world of Desertvadi.

205 pages, Paperback

Published October 16, 1993

Reviews

[Deotima Sarkar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Geetika Mehendiratta's tale starts in the heat and buzz of Desertvadi, a town that reeks of chalk dust, ambition, and small-town vanity. She's the "promising" kind of girl who is always called that, brought up by loving but vigilant parents who hope to see her in the civil services. Geetika, however, has a less fixed idea in mind, freedom, say, or the excitement of being noticed outside of her report cards.
Her travels to Delhi for post-graduation shatters that secure shell. Jana University is another world, replete with quick wit, blurred ethics, and the incessant buzz of politics, poetry, and privilege. Here, Geetika experiences rebellion in moderation: she cuts her hair, quarrels in class, falls in love, and learns that ideas can both liberate or destroy with equal facility.
Among Andy, the boy who symbolizes her past, and Ratish, the man from a world she can never be a part of, Geetika comes to understand that love is another kind of education, one that challenges her much more than any examination. Her experiences, both with hypocrisy, loneliness, and her own contradictions, deconstruct the illusions she brought with her from Desertvadi.
By the time she finishes, Geetika's "higher education" has nothing to do with degrees or titles, but with learning to stand on her own, without apology.
The author narrates her tale in a still irony that is almost filmic, each scene straightforward, unadorned, and pulsing with observation. What starts as a campus novel evolves into something bigger: a coming-of-age story about a young woman's strained dance around modern India, and with herself.
It's the sort of book that makes you remember, it isn't always about leaving home when you grow up, but finding out who you are when the world no longer applauds.
How a book published in 1993 is relevant even today!

[Sonali Sharma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Initially I wasn't sure about picking up this one, thinking it is being republished and was written more than 3 decades back. But damn, Geetika's story hit me way harder than I thought it would. There's something about being stuck in a small town that just suffocates you, and the author nailed that feeling perfectly. Watching her go from Desertvadi to the big city and seeing how she changes - it's messy and real and kind of painful to watch sometimes. I kept thinking about my own moments of feeling trapped and desperate to get out, you know? Her academic brilliance mixed with this sexual curiosity and restlessness felt so genuine, not like the sanitized versions we usually get.

The thing that got me was how the book doesn't judge Geetika for wanting things. She's hungry - for experiences, for love, for a different life - and she's not sorry about it. When her fancy boyfriend offers her this conventional setup and she's torn between security and her own expanding dreams, I was literally yelling at the pages. Because we've all been there, right?

That moment when you realize you can't go back to who you used to be, even when the safe choice is right there. The ending wrecked me a bit because it doesn't give you easy answers. She's just figuring it out as she goes, making mistakes, wanting too much maybe, but at least she's living.

[inoirita · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone who absolutely adores campus fiction, reading The Higher Education of Geetika Mehendiratta by Anuradha Marwah Roy was perhaps the closest to home experience as an Indian woman on Indian soil. A subgenre that has found it fashionably suitable to only include female characters for the purpose of fulfilling a man’s agency. One of the biggest criticisms of this genre is that it fails quite heavy-handedly to include women, a tangible misstep considering that women’s access to education is a vital movement of its own.Roy is compassionate as she writes this bildungsroman; her protagonist, Geetika Mehendiratta, goes through a gradual transition as she moves to the big city and adopts her role as a learner, a research scholar, and finally an educator. Thrust upon her, some willingly and some not so much, are the positions of a daughter, a colleague, a wife, and a mother. Geetika attempts to persevere in order to not end up on a circular journey like most of her peers, and the road to liberation is tumultuous for a woman of her humble background. Through an array of female characters, Roy brings before her readers burning questions of the educated mind—which interrogates the customs of the patriarchy, of religious tension, and of caste and social disorder.Published back in 1993 and still not followed by enough successors, The Higher Education of Geetika Mehendiratta is an important work that deserves wider recognition. Pick this up, read it, and talk about it.

[Purva • readwithpurva · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Higher Education of Geetika Mehendiratta by Anuradha Marwah takes us into the life of Geetika, a small-town girl from Desertvadi who dreams of something bigger. She feels trapped in her hometown and finds her escape in books, ambitions, and eventually a chance to experience life in the big city of Lutyenabad.

What I liked most is how real Geetika feels. The writing is sharp and witty, and the contrast between Desertvadi and Lutyenabad is described so well that you can feel the difference in Geetika’s world. It’s bold, funny at times, and also very honest about what it means to grow up and want more.

Some parts do feel a little dated, since the book was first published in the 90s, but it still hits hard because the emotions and struggles are the same even today.

If you enjoy coming-of-age stories about identity, choices, and the hunger to live fully, this one is worth reading.

[Enakshi J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Higher Education of Geetika Mehendriatta feels like a time capsule that still breathes with urgency. What stood out to me most was the writing—it’s sharp, funny, and unflinchingly honest. The author doesn’t romanticize Geetika’s journey; instead, she allows the contradictions of her desires, ambitions, and vulnerabilities to unfold naturally. The plot, though framed within the classic campus and coming-of-age mould, expands into something much larger: a story about identity, liberation, and the price of choice.

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