For most guests a wedding is a happy event, where the focus is on the two people who are promising to love, honour and obey for the rest of their lives. Not so for Anju. Born in Bombay but living in New York, each family wedding Anju returns home for highlights the fact that she is still single at 33 and leads to a fresh new round of "find the husband" by her family. Returning to Bombay this time for her cousin Nina's wedding (who by getting married at 22 has "jumped the line") Anju intends to stay for just a two week holiday with her parents before getting back to the job she loves. However, after rejecting a mono-browed suitor from the wedding, Anju's mother decides that the final time has come: she must find her daughter a husband, and find him now. Scouting for eligible bachelors in all the right places (for example professional matchmakers and the matrimonial pages of The Times of India) Anju's mother needs her to be the perfect bride, even if it means lying about her age, her interests and her personality. Anju herself is torn between the life she loves in New York and the parents she loves in Bombay and does not know how to find a man who will fit in somewhere between the two. For Matrimonial Purposes is a real twist on the usual stories of a girl searching for love, focusing on the very real dilemma of how to please yourself and acknowledge the hopes and dreams of your parents at the same time. Told with humour and insight, Kavita Daswani's For Matrimonial Purposes is an unusual, absorbing, page-turner, that shows there are no easy answers in life and love. Kavita Daswani was born in Hong Kong, to parents who had immigrated from India. She left school before taking her A-levels and began working as a freelance journalist. She lived in Paris and London before returning to Hong Kong, where she became fashion editor of the South China Morning Post. She was also a fashion contributor to CNN International and CNBC Asia. She now lives just outside Los Angeles, with her husband and Infant son.

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