Blue Jasmine
By Kashmira Sheth
Hyperion, 2004

Review by Poornima Apte
From Kahani February 2005

If you have ever wondered what it is like to immigrate to a new country and culture, you will love Blue Jasmine (Hyperion, 2004).

Just before she turns 13, Seema Trivedi makes the most important journey of her life—she is uprooted from her life in Gujarat, India, and moves to Iowa with her parents and her younger sister, Mela. Having spent most of her childhood with an extended family that included her grandparents, aunts and uncles, Seema is understandably upset. “Pappa, Mommy, Mela, and I, broke off from our family the way a lump of ice breaks off from a whole snow cone,” she says. When Seema moves, she also leaves behind Mukta, a poor friend who lives in a one-room hut close to the city market.

In Iowa City, Iowa, Seema finds life too still and quiet at first, and her broken accented English makes her shy to speak up in class. Despite her initial struggles, she makes friends and does well in school until a new girl, Carrie, moves in. Carrie makes life miserable for Seema teasing her endlessly about her mannerisms, her “smelly” Indian food, and her accent. Once Seema picks up dandelions and wears them in her hair only to have Carrie tease her about it. Later, Seema learns from a close family friend that dandelions are considered weeds in America, and that nobody wears flowers in one’s hair here.

Carrie’s mean attitude toward Seema is soon tempered and through Carrie, Seema realizes that she herself had been mean to Mukta back home, calling her “stinky” on more than one occasion. Such insights in the book bring out the the humanity of people beautifully.

Blue Jasmine is the debut novel from author Kashmira Sheth who based it on her own experiences when she moved alone from India to Iowa as a teenager. The book won the Paul Zindel First Novel Award for 2004. The award is given every year to books that portray the cultural and ethnic diversity of the United States.

Toward the end of the story, when Seema returns to India for a brief visit, she comes to understand that she has changed and so has the rest of her family. Equally important, she realizes that it is okay to love two sets of people on two continents.

“Like an airplane attached to two shimmering wings, I was attached to two precious homes,” Seema says at the end of the book. After reading Blue Jasmine you will understand the beauty of that simple statement.