Though dark and sombre, there is no sense of wallowing in misery, no hint of self-indulgent anguish in Deepti Naval’s Black Wind And Other Poems. There is, occasionally, the hope that surely there is a happier moment, a point when things could change.

Episodic tales, a recipe for successful marriages, stark verse and a chronicle of love…. Sherna Gandhy reflects on some new reads

In the days of upwardly mobile divorce rates, a book that aims to tell the truth about marriage should be the need of the hour. Shobhaa De’s Spouses (Penguin) relies not on any extensive research of Indian marriages, but on her experience of her own marriage of three decades, that of her parents, and of her wide circle of friends (anonymous, alas!) to tell us why modern day urban, upper class marriages work – or don’t.

Love marriages, arranged marriages, sex, mothers-in-law, pregnancy, money, clashing egos, hectic lifestyles, are all dealt with in a brisk, no-nonsense manner in chapters, which for some strange reason have Hindi film subtitles. Nothing De says is new but most of what she says makes sense. Unfortunately it’s sensibility rather than sense that governs most marriages. Give and take is the central plank of the advice De doles out, which is excellent advice but it’s the subtleties of how much give is too little and how much take is too much that can wreck a marriage.

De’s recipe for a successful marriage (encapsulated rather simplistically in bullet points at the end of each chapter) may be good, but as any amateur cook will tell you, following a soufflé recipe to the letter doesn’t always ensure a perfect soufflé.

Still, it’s a pretty good stab at chronicling the big and small things that couples war over in a world where sexual equations and lifestyles are usually in a state of flux.