It was a momentous time in India — the period between 1900 and the early 1930s — the nationalist movement had become a mass movement; the British colonial power doled out representative institutions; and proponents of India's two major religions, Hinduism and Islam, had become competitors in newly created political institutions. Memoirs of an Indian Woman, vividly portrays the life and attitudes of a Bengali woman living through the first three decades of the century. Shudha Mazumdar, a woman with a great talent for observation and an eye for both the amusing and the absurd, offers an engaging look at Indian family life, the role of women in India, and the potential of Indian women for social change.