Pavarti smiles. "You're right, sister. I'm not a woman at all." She tears a small piece of the newspaper that the custard apples are piled onto and holds it up. "I am like this paper. People can write on me, spit on me, tear me up, it makes no difference. One strong gust of wind and -" she releases the scrap of paper - "bas, I'm gone. And no one will even know that I was here."
A lonely, reciprocal feeling rises within Bhima. Harsh as Pavarti's words are, they join hands with her own thoughts. What had the older woman called them? Discarded people. Pavarti has simply given words to the melody that Bhima has hummed for a long time.

Earlier this year, I read Ursula K Le Guin's final instalment of her Earthsea series, which was published years after the previous books in the quartet. While I did enjoy revisiting those characters and that world I couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn't necessary and I had some reservations that I would feel the same way about this book. The Space Between Us is such a wonderful novel - it completely stole my heart when I read it last year. I thought the ending was perfect, that it resolved Bhima's story in an honest and satisfactory way, and I didn't think that anything could be added without taking away the impact that the first book had.

Umrigar convinced me that this sequel was necessary. I loved The Secrets Between Us almost as much as its predecessor.

After reading the first chapter, I was still a little bit wary, not quite knowing what direction Umrigar was going to take with this book, but when she introduced Parvarti's perspective in the second chapter, I was sold. Parvarti did momentarily feature in The Space Between Us but we knew nothing about her - she was just a woman that Bhima saw at the marketplace, an object of pity as she sold her measly assortment of cauliflowers, and that was all she was. This novel tells her story and gives her a voice, and she's utterly brilliant.

My favourite thing about both of these books is that they're all about women. Their relationships, the scars and traumas that they carry, their hopes and dreams are all treated with the nuance and complexity that they deserve. It portrays female relationships in all of its forms, be it maternal, platonic, or romantic, and it shows the importance and joy of these bonds without ever cheapening or sugarcoating them.

In an afterword, Umrigar wrote that the first book was about literal poverty, the lack of financial security, education - things that are literal and visible, whereas this book is about inner poverty. The Secrets Between Us looks at isolation, people who have no one in their lives to rely on or turn to when they need it most, and it has devastating consequences. Umrigar particularly focuses on the ways in which society turns a blind eye to elderly women and those who are physically 'unappealing'. Pavarti has a growth in her neck, which those around her deem as an affliction of evil and they are repulsed by her. There is a crushing scene where a young man, in exchange for water, asks her to let him touch her lump for 'good luck', and you can taste her humiliation and bitterness as she closes her eyes and allows him to do this. It looks at how women are pushed to the margins of society when they are deemed useless or no longer relevant to men, and the stigma that surrounds women who are alone in the world, without husbands or children to take care of them. There are so many wonderful depictions of relationships in this book, but I especially loved the friendship that develops between Bhima and Parvati. It feels so real and organic, handled with so much care by Umrigar, and love throbs from the page.

I want everyone to read both of these books. Yes, they both broke me, but my heart also feels so full from just having read them.