Sandra Harris Writes

  LOVE ON THE BOX. BY SANDRA HARRIS. Oh. My. God. I'm down a right rabbit hole now and no mistake. And, this time, it's not an Internet rabbit hole but a Netflix one. Let me explain. I watched Love Island UK as usual this summer, as I have done for the last few years. This summer in particular, it helped take my mind off the unbearable heat that seemed to go on forever. I was genuinely scared at one point that it was never going to rain again; here in Ireland, two months without rain is unthinkable and has literally never happened before. If it happens again, and keeps happening, I don't see how we all can survive it. I'm not even a climate alarmist, by the way, truly I'm not. It's just you've no idea how much Ireland and rain go together, like bacon and eggs, like Cagney & Lacey, like spice-bag and a few cans of Guinness. To have two months without rain as an Irish person was like living through the end of days. Anyway, where was I? O...

  A SUITABLE GIRL. (2017) A NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY FILM DIRECTED BY SARITA KHURANA AND SMRITI MUNDHRA. REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. © I found this Netflix documentary on arranged marriages in modern-day India to be absolutely fascinating, even though there were definitely bits that made me angry and bits that shocked me. My kids and I watched it over Sunday evening dinner with our eyes bugging out at times, it must be said, at the occasionally disturbing content. It follows three young women living in Mumbai and Delhi as they negotiate the tricky world of finding a husband in India in the technological age. Some elements of the process have changed with time; other things remain the same. The women are all in their twenties, likeable, attractive and described as educated, financially stable and middle class. There’s a lot of pressure put on Indian women to get married once they reach a certain point in their lives. Usually, once they finish university or college, they’re fair game...