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Mira Kamdar’s intriguing family history, chronicled with a kind of mystical reverence in Motiba’s Tattoos, ranges in scope from the private turmoil of a young girl, raised on the peninsula of Kathiawar, India, to the vast opportunities of that very girl’s sons and grandsons in the American West. Fate weaves an unpredictable path for the Kamdar family, beginning in the tiny village of Gokhlana, India, and traveling all the way to Rangoon (the capital of Burma), Bombay, and finally to places as distant as America, London, Southeast Asia, and East Africa.

Kamdar’s main focus is on the branch of her family that emigrated from India to Burma, back to India, and eventually to America. For the budding anthropologist or historian, this is a fascinating sketch of how events such as World War II, the exodus of Indians from Burma following World War II, and the opening of possibilities in the Western World shaped the prosperity of the Kamdar family. Despite all of this upheaval, there is the unifying theme of the Jain and Hindu religions, as well as the rich heritage of Indian language, food, holidays, and their emphasis on the importance of familial relationships. Kamdar withholds none of these delights, although she gives equal attention to the constant struggle to uphold the family name in India and abroad.

At first glance, the story seems to be presented as a novel, but in reality it is much more like a history book. The story of the Kamdar family is fascinating, but do not expect to be entertained by a fast-paced drama, replete with romance and intrigue. Rather, the reader will probably be pleasantly surprised by the similarities he will most likely find between the Kamdar family and his own.

One device that Kamdar uses is to organize the book according to geographical location. This generally agrees with the chronology of family events, but she tends to skip between generations quite a bit in her explanations of the various behaviors and personalities of the more notable family members. Because of this, the story can seem to meander at times. She also occasionally falls into unimaginative prose as in her description of “…the twisted limbs of the unmilled tree limbs.”

Ultimately, Motiba’s Tattoos succeeds in capturing the imagination, but never quite finds its identity as either a historical text or a family saga. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the book, and found it to be a quick and easy read too. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the culture of modern day India, but especially to anyone who has become intrigued by the rapidly emerging Indian-American culture.