In 2004, she published her first novel, The Sari Shop, which explores her hometown and the class dynamics of India.

The Sari Shop was long listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2004.

The Sari Shop has been translated in several languages, among them: French ( Le vendeur de saris), Dutch (De Sariwinkel) and Serbian (Prodavnica sarija) and Italian.

It received critical appreciation from some quarters, at the same time creating controversy among the literary circles in New Delhi, since a part of this novel lampooned these very people.

[3][4][5] Though she is from a Sikh family, Bajwa wrote a controversial piece called "Dark Things Do Happen in Gurdwaras Sometimes", in The Telegraph, an Indian newspaper.