India, Nov. 7 -- The relationship between private experience and social position is the central concern of Moms by Shivani Sibal. Set within Delhi's affluent circles, the novel follows Radhika Khanna, whose life is organised around marriage, motherhood, friendships and the demands of maintaining a particular social identity. Her world is materially comfortable. The novel's interest lies partly in the contradiction between the life she appears to have and the life she experiences. Radhika's life is defined by a set of expectations that are particular to her class. Her relationships are shaped by the opinions of other women, the expectations of her family and the need to maintain a recognisable position within her circle. The title, Moms, is relevant in this context. Motherhood transforms into a social identity, one through which women are observed, often compared and judged. In Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (1979), Pierre Bourdieu points out that class shapes perceptions of what people consider important, and how they judge themselves and others. It also influences an individual's understanding of the world. Bourdieu's idea of distinction becomes useful while reading Moms. The concerns of the novel's characters acquire meaning within a group that shares particular standards of behaviour and success. Their anxieties are connected to the preservation of status and their concerns are continually reinforced by the group. While the characters experience their problems as part of an ongoing struggle, the reader is unable to forget that these problems belong to a world of considerable material security. The chapter, The World Is What It Is, whose title recalls Patrick French's biography of VS Naipaul, suggests a relationship between personal perception and the acceptance of existing conditions. The phrase can be read against the novel's enclosed social setting. Still, when characters attach considerable importance to concerns that remain confined to their circle, their behaviour can acquire an unintended comic quality. Whether this effect constitutes a deliberate critique is unclear. The first part of the novel is organised around Radhika and her social world. The second, explicitly titled After Radhika, shifts the focus to Manik and to the consequences of Radhika's death. The two parts can be read as different perspectives on the same closed social system. In After Radhika, the character's life must now be understood through its effects on others, through recollection and memory. The opening gives Manik a distinct narrative presence as the reader learns of his routines, memories and his response to the changed circumstances of the household. Radhika's significance is reconstructed and the domestic world that appeared as the setting for her anxieties must now be understood through its disruption and reorganisation. Moms is, in fact, a story about unequal relationships. Radhika's absence affects the family and social relationships around it. The two parts make it clear that no single character possesses a complete account of a family. At the same time, it raises questions about whether the novel's wider social setting is fleshed out with the same complexity as its key characters. The ability to leave a relationship, seek professional help, rely on family support or delegate domestic responsibilities changes the practical consequences of personal distress. A novel that concentrates on emotional experience while leaving these differences unexamined risks making a particular class experience stand in for a general human condition. This raises a larger question about the representation of elite suffering. In 'I am trying, you know': Reading Power, Politics, and the Body in Sad Girl Literature (2025), Emily Fuller and Alyson Miller examine the tension between political awareness and the self-absorption of characters whose personal lives remain shaped by unequal social relations. They draw attention to the difference between a character's awareness of a problem and the narrative's ability to examine the structures producing it. This is particularly relevant to Moms, where the reader is privy to the interiority of the characters but experiences some difficulty in sympathising with them....