Smells, Skins, and Spices Indian Spice Shops as Gendered Diasporic Spaces in the Novels of Indian Women Writers of the Diaspora.

An essay is presented on the use of Indian Spice Shops in novels of Indian women writers including "The Mistress of Spices," by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, "Smell," by Radhika Jha and "One Hundred Shades of White," by Preethi Nair. It says that the protagonists of the books are involved with the spice shops which cater to cultural and culinary demands of Indian diasporic communities. It adds that the shops serve as transcultural strategies and interrogation backdrops and spatial instigators.