Uttama Kirit Patel takes on society's skewed conventions against women in her debut novel Shape of an Apostrophe

The Hindu

11-07-2025

Writers of fiction are used to being asked a particular kind of niggling question: was the book inspired by your life or anyone you know? The answer is not always straightforward.
For Uttama Kirit Patel, debut author of Shape of an Apostrophe (published by Serpent's Tail), it comes in many forms. Her novel begins with an apology letter she wrote to the biological child she decided not to have in favour of adoption. 'I wanted to adopt since I was 16. When the time came to act on that want, I was overwhelmed with guilt. The guilt was not truly mine, but of how I was supposed to want a biological child. I was a bit angry: why should I be feeling guilty for making what is considered an unconventional choice?'
The novel follows Lina, who lives in a villa in Dubai with her husband Ishaan and her in-laws. The opulence around her is at odds with the turbulence she is weighed down with. She never wanted to have children, but now finds herself pregnant. Still grieving the recent death of her father, Lina's predicament becomes more complicated when she discovers a family secret on a trip to Mumbai.
'The idea was to write a story that challenged the presumption that all women want to be mothers or want to mother in a specific way, because I think that narrative is limited and misses the nuance of maternal desire and intentional parenthood. I wanted to challenge myself and write a character that was the opposite of me because I have always wanted to be a mother. There are so many women I know who are consumed with guilt when they make that choice not to have a child,' says Patel.
Home turf debates
The title came to her on a visit to the Haji Ali Dargah, the famous Sufi shrine off the Mumbai coast, that features in the novel. 'I saw a little girl sitting by the water. She looked to me like the shape of an apostrophe and that image stayed in my brain. When I was writing this story, the memory of that girl kept returning to me, almost like a pleasant haunting. An apostrophe stands in the place of letters that have disappeared, symbolising what is not there, what is unsaid, untold or yet to be told,' she says.
Patel, who grew up in the UAE, and has lived in 12 cities, set the novel in Dubai, a place with no reproductive autonomy, to explore the severe gendered restrictions that are placed even within seemingly progressive families. 'But it isn't about the UAE anymore because reproductive rights are being restricted everywhere,' she says.
Even as the novel's characters navigate skewed conventions of the new and old world order, the probing, often moving novel lays bare the fault lines of the domestic sphere. 'It is an extraordinary space, as it reflects wider societal shortcomings so starkly and is a place rife with opportunity to change gendered dynamics. The micro inequities that exist are largely going unnoticed by men and quietly tolerated by women as part of everyday life's annoyances. What is expected of women is compliance. There are so many patterns we can prevent from getting inherited,' she says. Moreover, Patel observes, the home can be a safe space while also being the place where we are the most dishonest.
Stories within stories
Class dynamics too are intricately layered into the story. Fiercely rebellious and aware of her privileges, Lina is confronted with her own prejudices when she encounters her long-time domestic worker's daughter, Shobha, in Mumbai. 'While they are indispensable to employers, particularly in critical moments, they rarely get credit or respect. The emotions, complexities, failures that we allow in ourselves are not allowed in people who work in domestic spaces. Even an employer with the best of intentions expects gratitude and servitude. It really gets to me,' says Patel.
The novel, with chapters that shift between multiple characters, employs a precise, concise language that is both absorbing and laden with mini-stories within stories. It took Patel seven years to write, a majority of which she was working as a marketing strategist. 'To get to the depth of the story took complete absorption. I wrote every Saturday. I start out writing by hand, then structure it on index cards, then write scenes on a computer. Then I go for a swim where new ideas will come and then I rework it all. After a few drafts and a few years, I took eight weeks off and went to New Zealand and disconnected from technology and wrote,' she says.
Finishing the novel was liberating. Patel lost her father before she began writing it, and the grief she felt bled into the story. 'There was no other way to live than to have that grief beside me. Every character in the novel has their own grief in some shape and form. There is power in it. It's a living thing. It has a place and purpose. I can be immensely happy and immediately immensely sad. I wanted that duality in the book because they can co-exist,' she says.
The writer is an author and freelance journalist based in Delhi.