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A Distant Mirage, is based upon some hard facts, and some true events.But, a dramatic license has been taken to make this a work of fiction. Thestory is bold, hard hitting, potent and yet very entertaining.The year is 2000, and the place is Delhi, India. USHA, a young girl inher twenties, marries MICKY, an NRI from London and goes for a never-to-be forgotten honeymoon holiday in Kulu Manali, North India.Three months later, her husband MICKY goes back to London with apromise that he would send all the required legal papers, immigrationdocuments and the visa as soon as he hits London.Several months into it, she is still waiting for those papers to arrive.She is tired of playing the 'waiting game'. She refuses to be likethousand of those girls who are anxiously waiting for those illusivepapers to arrive so that they would have an official permission to go andjoin their husbands wherever they happen to be in the world.Unlike those thousands of girls who are still waiting, USHA takes a boldstep. Three months later, she lands in London. She gets a tremendousshock - both emotional and cultural, when she discovers that the thingswere not just what she has been told in superlatives before the marriage.MICKY'S pigsty living conditions irritated her to no end. She alsotakes it in her stride, his relationship with an English woman - ROSI, adivorcee. SHE could also put up with MICKY'S foul temper and tantrums, but shecan not face the emotional and physical tortures and traumas. On each ofsuch occasions, MICKY would threaten her that he would, without anyhesitation, report her to the British Home Office for her illegal status andthe visa violations. The story develops many layers and moves forward on several moods -emotional intrigue, love and hate. Shades of wife bashing dominate mostof the time and is seen through the eyes of young RAJI, one of USHA'Sfriends who lives in the same house. One day, USHA meets a black young student, ANDY ROBERTS 20,who has taken up a casual job during the summer holidays. He is kind,caring and loving. They get to know each other. He takes an instantliking to her. He takes her out and devotes a lot of time towards herwell-being. That was the beginning of a new life for USHA. Is that what she hadlooked forward to while in India? A time comes when she has to decide whether to carry on living in thatburning hell created, she thinks, by fate and her husband or to leave thatfor a more peaceful, serene and loving life with ANDY ROBERTS in thelush valleys of Scotland? Will she opt for a new life against her beliefs and upbringing or staybehind with MICKY to die a silent death. While she is going through that emotional upheaval, she and Andy arediscovered by MICKY - a meeting perchance that brings the greatesttragedy in her life - a tragedy, drawn once again, from a true event notmany years ago in London. A DISTANT MIRAGE, is a simple, bold and well woven story and it hasa lot of beautiful moments.View the full article
