Secret Daughter

Secret Daughter (2010) is the debut novel of Canadian-Indian author Shilpi Somaya Gowda. Spanning twenty years, it follows two families who are mysteriously connected by an adopted daughter. A New York Times Bestseller, the novel has been translated into more than thirty languages and has sold more than a million copies. Godwa formed the idea for Secret Daughter while volunteering at an Indian orphanage as an undergraduate. Secret Daughter received much critical praise for its nuanced and realistic portrayal of Indian culture.



Its themes include reconciliation, self-discovery and identity formation, motherhood, and social inequality. Due to its many rich themes, Secret Daughter remains highly popular with book clubs.

Set in 1985, the first scene is of a baby being born in an impoverished Indian village. The mother, Kavita, doesn’t agree to kill the baby, as her husband, Jasu, did to their first female child the previous year; the couple is so poor that Jasu views these as mercy killings. Were the child a male, it would make economic sense to keep the child in the family. But right now, they’re so poor that raising a female would be the equivalent of financial suicide.

Against her husband’s wishes, Kavita takes Asha (originally named Usha, which means “moon”) to an orphanage; she walks for several days to accomplish this. Kavita hates to give up her daughter but does so to save her life. She places a silver bracelet on Usha’s ankle, hoping that one day she will come and find her. The loss of her daughter haunts her throughout the narrative.

Krishnan Thakkar (who often goes by Kris) belongs to a hugely wealthy family in Bombay (now Mumbai). His good fortune has enabled him to become a doctor; he currently practices in San Francisco as a neuroscientist. As a resident, he meets a fellow doctor Somer. They fall in love and Somer considers her life perfect until she discovers that she is infertile.

Kris’s mother tells him about an adoption agency in Mumbai, suggesting he and Somer look into adopting an Indian orphan. Somer has no interest in India. She dislikes the food and how families don’t respect privacy, not to mention the general ineptitude of state-run agencies. But Kris persuades her to give India a try, and as soon as Somer sees the beautiful one-year-old Asha, Somer agrees to adopt Asha from a shoddily built orphanage. (The agency accidentally misspelled her name, Usha).

Kris and Somer feel an emotional pull toward Asha soon as they see her picture in an adoption photo album. She has gold-inflected eyes that make Somer feel that she is the solution to all of her personal problems. Only in her mid-30s, Somer was diagnosed with an unusual case of early menopause, leading the couple to adopt; changes in her own body also explain (in part) Somer’s volatile behavior toward her new daughter.

Meanwhile, Kavita finally has a baby boy, Vijay, in India. Jasu is overjoyed; Kavita is too, but she still wonders about her lost Usha. The family moves from its small village to Mumbai with the hopes of providing more opportunities for Vijay.

Somer proves to be a needy and culturally insensitive mother. She is unable to forgive imagined insults and incapable of recognizing her role in certain conflicts. Asha, in turn, represents a culture clash between Indian and American values: she is loud and brash like an American but retains a non-ironic and loyal point of view, hallmarks of Indian culture.

Kavita and Jasu struggle through daily life in a Mumbai slum. Vijay isn’t proving to be the most brilliant pupil, and even if he were, social mobility isn’t easy for one starting so low on the social strata.

As she grows up, a rift grows between Asha and her adoptive parents. As Asha wants to learn more about her heritage, Krishnan is supportive, but Somer is not; lacking a common heritage with the two of them and unwilling to learn more than what is absolutely necessary of Indian culture, Somer feels isolated from Asha and Krishnan. In turns, Asha feels that she wasn’t accepted in India because of her gender and now isn’t accepted in America because of her ethnicity.

In college, Asha majors in journalism. She wins a prestigious fellowship and travels to Bombay-Mumbai for a year. She is beyond grateful for the fellowship because growing up in a majority white environment, she has habitually felt disconnected from her heritage, even when she’s found herself acting totally American.

She’s amazed by the gender and wealth gaps in Mumbai. Her grandmother (Kris’s mother) is full of lively stories that feed Asha’s need to know more about her past. But her wealthy circles are at great odds with the Mumbai slums Asha reports on as a student-journalist for The Times of India.

Somer and Kris get divorced. Surprisingly, Somer feels better about herself,  re-dedicating herself to self-improvement. As Asha continues reporting in Mumbai, she begins to understand that her biological parents had no choice but to give her up. It wasn’t anything personal; in fact, it could well be that they loved her very much.

Asha’s adoptive grandfather dies, and she grows much closer to her adoptive family. The novel ends shortly after a conversation with Kris where she agrees that the family one makes is more important than the family you’re born into.