• Complain

Ranjani Rao - Rewriting My Happily Ever After--A Memoir of Divorce and Discovery

Here you can read online Ranjani Rao - Rewriting My Happily Ever After--A Memoir of Divorce and Discovery full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 2021, publisher: Ranjani Rao, genre: Non-fiction. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

Ranjani Rao Rewriting My Happily Ever After--A Memoir of Divorce and Discovery
  • Book:
    Rewriting My Happily Ever After--A Memoir of Divorce and Discovery
  • Author:
  • Publisher:
    Ranjani Rao
  • Genre:
  • Year:
    2021
  • Rating:
    5 / 5
  • Favourites:
    Add to favourites
  • Your mark:
    • 100
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

Rewriting My Happily Ever After--A Memoir of Divorce and Discovery: summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "Rewriting My Happily Ever After--A Memoir of Divorce and Discovery" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

Rewriting My Happily Ever After is a brave, intimate look at reclaiming life after divorce. Ranjani Rao dives deep into her struggles, vulnerabilities, strengths, and triumphs as a newly single mother, offering a powerful manual for women who are transitioning into a new life. A must-read for anyone who seeks to understand the aftermath of separation and divorce.

~ Veena Rao, Author of Purple Lotus

Once I leave my husbands house, am I still a wife?

What happens when the fairy tale marriage falls apart?

Ranjani flies out of Mumbai as a young, starry-eyed bride anticipating an American-style Bollywood-version of her very own happily-ever-after. By thirty, she has a Ph.D., a green card and a daughter. The marriage is rocky but Ranjani is secure in being somebodys daughter, sister, wife, mother.

When the family returns to India, her family situation deteriorates further. When she finally walks out after sixteen years of marriage, Ranjani has to answer the dreaded questions:

  • What will people say?
  • What about my child?
  • How will I live alone?
  • Despite her education, work history and experience of living abroad, Ranjani has no idea what lies on the road ahead for her, for her daughter and for their place in society.

    While renting a house, paying the bills and figuring out her new life, Ranjani has to overcome private fears, public scrutiny and unexpected loss as she embraces her identity as a single parent.

    Rewriting My Happily Ever After is an evocative, honest account of the aftermath of divorce in an unsupportive culture. This uplifting memoir of grace and courage shows how to build resilience and find happiness by being true to yourself.

    If you are..

  • Considering
  • Going through or
  • are finding your way after a divorce in a culture that is not supportive...
  • This book is for you.

    It is possible to walk the path you have been assigned with gratitude and forgiveness, courage and grace, humility and confidence, without falling apart.

    Read this book and rewrite your happily ever after.

    Ranjani Rao: author's other books


    Who wrote Rewriting My Happily Ever After--A Memoir of Divorce and Discovery? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.

    Rewriting My Happily Ever After--A Memoir of Divorce and Discovery — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

    Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Rewriting My Happily Ever After--A Memoir of Divorce and Discovery" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

    Light

    Font size:

    Reset

    Interval:

    Bookmark:

    Make

    Rewriting My Happily Ever After


    A Memoir of Divorce and Discovery

    Picture 1

    Dr. Ranjani Rao

    Rewriting My Happily Ever After Dr. Ranjani Rao 2021


    All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.


    Dr. Ranjani Rao asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work .


    Rewriting My Happily Ever After is a work of nonfiction. Some names and identifying details have been changed. The chapter Incorporating Rituals first appeared as an essay titled The Gentle Art of Lighting A Lamp in Leaping Clear (September 2020).


    E-ISBN - 978-1-7340631-8-9
    P-ISBN - 978-1-7340631-9-6


    Book cover design by Angelia Gan.


    Book layout by Subramanian Ganga Devi.


    For information, contact the author at
    www.ranjanirao.com


    Published by Story Artisan Press
    www.storyartisan.com


    C onnect with me by signing up for my newsletter at www.ranjanirao.com for latest updates, offers and for a biweekly dose of inspiration for Rewriting Your Happily Ever After!

    To Amma and Dada

    You must understand the whole of life, not just one part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, why you must sing, dance and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life.

    ~J. Krishnamurti

    Preface

    T elling the story of my divorce, of breaking the bonds of a long marriage that produced one child, is not easy.

    Divorce is not unusual. The statistics, although evolving, are unequivocal. Ive read that in the United States between forty and fifty percent of marriages end in divorce.

    In India, the numbers are not so clear, partly because of poor record keeping but mostly because no one wants to talk about divorce, much less track it. Whether we measure it or refuse to admit it, the fact remains that divorce is becoming increasingly common. It is as much a part of our life as birth and death.

    After sixteen years of marriage, I walked out of the home I shared with my husband with no idea what lay aheadfor me, my daughter, and our place in society. When I abandoned the script for my life that had been written for me, I was forced to forge a new path paved only with my own decisions.

    I did not know anyone else in my inner circle who was divorced. There was no role model for me to emulate, no road map of how to tread on this new path. For the three years that followed my departure, I was lonely, scared, and full of doubts.

    Was I the first to feel this way? Was I the only one who had experienced the grief and struggle that accompanies the dissolution of a long marriage? Though I asked these questions, I knew that I was neither the first nor the only one to experience divorce. Why then did I feel so lost?

    I grew up in Mumbai and was raised in a family that valued education. I was bold, outspoken, and believed in gender equality. I completed my PhD on a scholarship, held a job for my entire adult life, and had lived abroad. Yet I stayed in my unhappy marriage for many years. Why?

    For the same reasons that many Indian women do.

    I did not have answers to the dreaded questions: What will people say? What will the parents say? What about the child(ren)? How will I manage alone?

    I wrote this book to describe my process to figure out the answers to these questions as a way to help women who, like me, may find themselves hesitating on the brink of a decision about their marriage. To my surprise, through the catharsis and clarity that arises from writing, I found closure.

    Throughout the book, I describe the tools and practices that shaped my life at a time when I was raw with hurt and disappointedboth at the world and myself.

    Your story may be different, your route to getting to the point where you picked up this book may be more treacherous or less, but if you ever felt the need to know that you are not alone, this book is for you.

    I fully believe that you too will be able to figure things out, find help from unexpected people, and most importantly, discover a reservoir of strength from the one source that you may not have consideredwithin yourself.

    It is possible to walk the path we have been assigned with gratitude and forgiveness, courage and grace, humility and confidence, without falling apart.

    I invite you to read this book and rewrite your happily ever after. Always remember this:

    It is never too late - in fiction or in life - to revise ~ Nancy Thayer

    Prologue

    We know what we are but know not what we may be
    ~ William Shakespeare

    T he flyer on the notice board outside the gym caught my eye, not just for the pale blue background with its striking orange text, but for the title:

    So, youre thinking about divorce? Had someone overheard my thoughts and created this poster?

    The title was intriguing, specific about the subject but vague about the product. Was it a book? Or a seminar? Although eager to get back to the office after my lunchtime aerobics class, I stopped to read further.

    It was a six-week workshop beginning the following week for people unsure about whether they wanted a divorce, and it was covered by our employee assistance program. When I returned to my desk that afternoon, I called and registered.

    I was the ideal candidate. The workshop title perfectly reflected my ambivalence about divorce. On the surface, we were a successful Indian couple living in the San Francisco Bay areadual income, one kid.

    We had managed to stay married for over a decade, although it had been a long time since either of us could call it a happy marriage. It wasnt even peaceful, but it was what we had.

    We had both accepted the unwritten rule of arranged marriage: love, if it arrived at all, would bloom with time.

    Wasnt a decade long enough to wait for love to bloom? I wondered on the drive back home. Especially on days like this when I returned from work, dreading the hours I had to spend with a husband who was more of an annoying roommate than supportive spouse, yet looking forward to spending time with our small child whom we both loved.

    Once you have a baby, everything will be fine.

    I had heard that refrain enough times from relatives, friends, and strangers who believed that the purpose of marriage was procreation and that the objective of a childs life was to hold on to each parent and keep them together through a combination of guilt, love, duty, and fear.

    Was a child enough of a glue to hold us together? She had arrived after much struggle and intervention, on both medical and spiritual fronts.

    After we became parents, almost eight years after becoming husband and wife, things were differentfor a while. We entered into a prolonged period of ceasefire during which we parked our frustrations behind the mountain of attention needed by our newborn daughter. Yet as she grew from infancy to toddlerhood and into a happy preschooler, my doubts continued to increase.

    Shouldnt there be more to a marriage? A clarity of purpose? A unity of vision? Team spirit? Common goals? A mutual love of things and each other? We didnt seem to have any of these. In the three short weeks between our first meeting and weddingtypical of such weddings between an expat Indian boy and an India-based girlhad I missed a memo about how to make an arranged marriage work?

    I hoped the workshop would help me clarify my thoughts about what I wanted from a marriage, if not an outright divorce.

    ***

    At 6 p.m. on the f ollowing Wednesday, I joined a motley group of people in a small clinic in downtown Palo Alto. Eight people sat in chairs arranged in a circletwo couples, three women, and Linda, the facilitator, a middle-aged woman with short silver hair and bright red lipstick.

    Next page
    Light

    Font size:

    Reset

    Interval:

    Bookmark:

    Make

    Similar books «Rewriting My Happily Ever After--A Memoir of Divorce and Discovery»

    Look at similar books to Rewriting My Happily Ever After--A Memoir of Divorce and Discovery. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.


    Reviews about «Rewriting My Happily Ever After--A Memoir of Divorce and Discovery»

    Discussion, reviews of the book Rewriting My Happily Ever After--A Memoir of Divorce and Discovery and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.