Book review: Sideways on a Scooter

I have to confess: I don’t recall the last time I read a fiction story. While there are fiction books that I’ve enjoyed over the years, I yearn for the true story of a person or place. Every once in a while, I get my hands on a non-fiction book with such strong characters that my mind is wrapped up in their lives and I dream about them at night.

In Sideways on a Scooter: Life and Love in India, author Miranda Kennedy spent five years based in Delhi covering India and the surrounding region for National Public Radio. Her experience with daily life—from getting an apartment as a single woman to the proper way of riding scooters—gave her an insight into modern and traditional India, and how many aspects of women’s lives remain unchanged by the economic transformation of the country.

It’s through her friendship with six women that Kennedy learned the most about the complex culture for contemporary Indian women, from poor to privileged. Her intimate portraits of these women, along with her vivid descriptions of everyday life in Delhi, is what caused me to dream about the book more than once during the time I was reading it.

While Sideways on a Scooter contained illuminating facts about jobs, population and marriage practices, the stories of these women mixed with that of the author, makes it a rich read well beyond the standard memoir.

Sideways on a Scooter is now available on Amazon in both hardcover and Kindle versions.