"Only tiny kindnesses, but the ones that counted, the million little mercies we take for granted, the mundane gestures that keep us, tentatively together."
The relationships which Tania has forgone in favor of career are composed of small, intimate moments which she misses at first. She doesn't notice how her isolation has cost her until she starts noticing how absent and void she feels inside. Although those little moments seem arbitrary, they really do contribute to the longevity of relationship.
"'Go on. . . go!' Tania said, exhilarated, raising her arms above her, scattering the sparrows from the trees, who fluttered through the grey snow and beyond it, singing their journey as they flew."
This scene of ecstatic freedom is a pretty juxtaposition to Tania's fate in the corporate world. She's a free spirit who enjoys thrill seeking, but she winds up working a corner office. Her true joy is in the union with nature, with nowhere to be.
"Ask most of my girlfriends, ranging in hue from tinted copper to Dravidian blue-black; between them they run business empires, save lives on operating tables, mould and develop young minds, trade in non-existent commodities with shouting barrow boys, kick ass across courtrooms and computer screens. In the outside world, they fly on home-grown wings. Then they reach their front doors and forget it all."
Syal is writing this book to shed light on how her fellow Asian women have embraced fulfilling careers and maintained healthy families, but they are trying to fill too many shoes. Subject to a culture which places women in the home, these women have attempted to fulfill all of those home duties and to succeed in careers as well. Shame appears to be the common motivator.
"You find someone, they love you, they hurt you, you forgive them, you carry on, because there's no question you'd give up on someone just because they've turned out to be human is there?"
In Indian culture, the marriage is contractual and permanent. Syal's characters are taught to push past the uncomfortable hurts which they're husbands inflict on them, but the women can't help but notice their own positions of secret pain. They will be criticized if they dare to speak up against their husbands because that's disloyal and dishonorable.
