The Henna Artist

The Henna Artist is a novel by Alka Joshi, a native of India who moved to America with her family at the age of nine. After a successful career running her own advertising agency, Joshi broke into fiction writing in her sixties. The author based the central character in her debut novel on her mother, who never got to choose her own path in life but was determined that her children should have that option. The Henna Artist was published in March 2020 and became a New York Times bestseller. The novel was featured as a Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick and is currently being developed as a Miramax television series. All page references in this study guide refer to the 2020 Kindle edition of the book.

The Henna Artist is set in northern India in 1955. The timing is significant since India had become an independent country less than a decade earlier. The nation’s struggle to achieve its own identity is mirrored in the struggle of the novel’s characters to define their own course in life. The action takes place in three locations: the rural village of Ajar, the sophisticated city of Jaipur, and the mountain paradise of Shimla. As the two main characters move through these settings, the author depicts their psychological transformation from provincial traditionalism through urban materialism to personal identity.

The narrative starts from a third-person perspective as it tells the story of a rural orphan named Radha who goes in search of her runaway sister, Lakshmi. The book then shifts to first-person narration as Lakshmi tells the story of her life and her determination to choose a path for herself. She has abandoned her abusive husband and escaped to the city of Jaipur, where she becomes a henna artist whose skills are in demand with the rich and powerful.

Lakshmi’s sister’s arrival turns her world upside down. As Lakshmi and Radha confront choices that have life-altering consequences, the novel explores the themes of Indian female subservience, the culture clash between East and West, and the importance of personal choice in living a fulfilling life.

Plot Summary

At the beginning of the novel, 13-year-old Radha is being verbally abused by the gossipmongers of her village, who call her the Bad Luck Girl. Both her parents have recently died, and her sister, Lakshmi, ran away from her husband 13 years earlier. Resolving to find her only surviving kin, Radha enlists the help of Lakshmi’s husband, Hari, in locating her.

While Radha begins her search, Lakshmi is doing very well as a sought-after henna artist in the royal city of Jaipur. In addition to her henna art, Lakshmi is a skilled healer who helps her clients with their aches and pains. She is equally adept at preparing contraceptive herbs that she sells to her friend Samir so that his many mistresses can avoid pregnancy.

Lakshmi’s well-ordered life is interrupted by the arrival of her husband and the little sister she never knew she had. Her husband goes to live in the slums after she gives him money, but Radha is another matter. Lakshmi takes her in, but the girl is impulsive and stubborn and eventually enters into a disastrous affair with Samir’s son. Lakshmi’s ongoing relationship with Samir and her sister’s affair with his son draw the wrath of Samir’s wife, who starts a gossip campaign to drive the henna artist out of business. To further complicate matters, Radha is pregnant and wants to keep her baby.

At the mountain retreat of Shimla, where Radha goes to deliver her child, both sisters find a fresh start. Radha allows Lakshmi’s childless friend Kanta to adopt her baby while Lakshmi finds a new use for her skills as a healer at the Western hospital in town.