The Mahabharata! OK, so it's more about men than women, and the authorship is not attributed to a woman, but it does have some very cool female and gender-switching characters, it is fantasy, and I would be surprised if none of it was written or dictated by women, though that's something we'll never know for sure.
More normal recs:
Love, Stars, and All That, by Kirin Narayan. Not fantasy. A romantic comedy about an Indian grad student and virgin in America whose horoscope claims she'll find her true love this year; deals with cross-cultural issues, but not in a depressing way.
A lot of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's books are borderline/mainstream fantasy, plus she has two YA fantasies but those are with a boy protagonist. Her books do often deal with cultural conflicts, but not usually (in my opinion) in a depressing way. Try The Mistress of Spices.
She's not a fiction writer, but I think you would love the evocative Indian food writer Madhur Jaffrey. She has a new memoir out, which I haven't read yet but I'm sure it's excellent, like everything she writes.
Indian authors
More normal recs:
Love, Stars, and All That, by Kirin Narayan. Not fantasy. A romantic comedy about an Indian grad student and virgin in America whose horoscope claims she'll find her true love this year; deals with cross-cultural issues, but not in a depressing way.
A lot of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's books are borderline/mainstream fantasy, plus she has two YA fantasies but those are with a boy protagonist. Her books do often deal with cultural conflicts, but not usually (in my opinion) in a depressing way. Try The Mistress of Spices.
She's not a fiction writer, but I think you would love the evocative Indian food writer Madhur Jaffrey. She has a new memoir out, which I haven't read yet but I'm sure it's excellent, like everything she writes.