Review by Unmana Datta

The authors of Beautiful Country, Syeda Hameed and Gunjan Veda, worked in the Planning Commission and traveled across the country. This book contains tales from their travels and as the subtitle promises, shows us glimpses of the India we know so little about. If only the writing were more compelling and focused.

The writers write movingly of the “othering” of the north east by the rest of India and of the dangers of integrating indigenous people into the mainstream, like in Andaman and Nicobar. While the narrative flounders in parts, it flowers wonderfully when the writers share little details of their adventures, like a young Naga woman bringing them food. The meandering writing isn’t helped by the writers’ predilection for quoting Hindi verses that, nice as they [...]]]> Beautiful Country by Syeda Hameed and Gunjan Veda tells us ‘stories from another India’ although it could have used some ruthless editing.

Review by Unmana Datta

The authors of Beautiful Country, Syeda Hameed and Gunjan Veda, worked in the Planning Commission and traveled across the country. This book contains tales from their travels and as the subtitle promises, shows us glimpses of the India we know so little about. If only the writing were more compelling and focused.

The writers write movingly of the “othering” of the north east by the rest of India and of the dangers of integrating indigenous people into the mainstream, like in Andaman and Nicobar. While the narrative flounders in parts, it flowers wonderfully when the writers share little details of their adventures, like a young Naga woman bringing them food. The meandering writing isn’t helped by the writers’ predilection for quoting Hindi verses that, nice as they are, have at best a tenacious link to the narrative. It might also have helped to choose not to have so many Indian language words, or else to have them explained in footnotes instead of the frequent interruptions in parentheses.

The uneven narrative at times leaves the reader hanging. The writer mentions that a woman in Manipur advises her to meet Irom Sharmila. She then talks about meeting Sharmila in Delhi later, but makes no mention of trying to meet her on that visit.

There are also inconsistencies in the writers’ arguments. At one point, the writers bemoan the fading popularity of the sari and defend its practicality, “But how could one believe that the sari was impractical and hence a thing of the past? Syeda’s entire odyssey through India was performed comfortably in the traditional six yards of cloth.”

But just a few pages later, there’s this: “Climbing onto a huge loader truck is no easy task, especially when one is wearing a sari.”

The chapter scheme is a bit odd. Passages about Manipur and Nagaland, for example, are clubbed into the same chapter, even though they deal with completely different themes. Then there are unfortunate turns of phrase such as this: “An old man in a dhoti whose name was Bhogilal.”

But the stories themselves are very interesting, and I learned so much about my own country from them. With some careful and ruthless editing, this book would have been a page-turner in addition to the informative tome it is.

Publisher: Harper Collins

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Review By Anjana Basu

All the women media persons writing in this anthology have one thing in common. They were winners of the Chameli Devi Jain Award. Chameli Devi was an ordinary housewife from Delhi who got caught up in the freedom struggle, was arrested and sent to Lahore Jail because of her courage and independence. Her family partially funded the award that carries her name.

It is an award given to women who have distinguished themselves in the media field and the first award was given in 1982, when women were gradually beginning to make an impression in the media but still had to struggle to be noticed in the face of male domination. The arena for women then was still restricted to covering beauty pageants and flower shows.

Today [...]]]> Making News, Breaking News, Her Own Way is a collection of essays by award-winning female journalists, edited by Latika Padgaonkar and Shubha Singh.

Review By Anjana Basu

All the women media persons writing in this anthology have one thing in common. They were winners of the Chameli Devi Jain Award. Chameli Devi was an ordinary housewife from Delhi who got caught up in the freedom struggle, was arrested and sent to Lahore Jail because of her courage and independence. Her family partially funded the award that carries her name.

It is an award given to women who have distinguished themselves in the media field and the first award was given in 1982, when women were gradually beginning to make an impression in the media but still had to struggle to be noticed in the face of male domination. The arena for women then was still restricted to covering beauty pageants and flower shows.

Today the media world has changed. Television has seen women at the front in Kargil tackling harsh conditions to bring a story of suffering and gallantry to the world and, in so doing, display shining courage under fire. No field is forbidden, whether it is corruption, child labour or caste massacres and women have fought boldly for human rights using the many types of media at their disposal.

The book is a collection of essays written by the awardees. It is obviously not a coincidence that they represent India’s leading media persons. Names like Barkha Dutt, the late Homai Vyarawala, one of India’s first women photojournalists, Tavleen Singh and Madhu Kishwar to name a few. It chronicles the changing world of the media, from the days when journalists tapped out their stories on battered Olivetti typewriters and had to rely on the post office or the telegraph to get their coverage to the papers on time, to today when instant communication and on the spot reportage has shrunk the globe and changed audience response.

Media women have come a long way and this book of essays provides valuable coverage spanning the changing time frames. What is perhaps a little disheartening is the fact that the essays are all responses to winning the award and outlines the work that each journalist did to be chosen. ‘When I was chosen for the award I was…’ or ‘To be frank a journalistic career was hardly in my dreams’ is the kind of phrase that appears time and time again, causing the reader to stumble a little in the flow of inspiration.

What I was expecting when I received the book was the actual story for which the award was finally given – though yes, the award is for a body of work and it might be difficult to pin it down to one piece. There are insights – Barkha Dutt talking about how she was inspired by her mother Prabha, or Pamela Philipose saying that, “Legwork and observation combined with powers of imagination” were crucial ingredients in a good newspaper story.  And a few actual stories like Ratna Bharali Talukdar’s on witch-hunting in Assam.

For a young woman journalist in the making the book is invaluable since it outlines many of the problems behind the scenes and since quite a few of the essays expand on the difficulties involved in breaking through the glass ceiling in the male dominated world. Rehana Halim’s piece for instance describes the birth of the women run paper Newsline in Pakistan, made possible because Zia ul Huq’s plane crashed at the right time. She says, “Had the General died a week earlier…Newsline would never have been born”. That would surely be a revelation for women journalists in India who do not have to crash through doubly insulated glass ceilings to make an impact.

With me, one essay strikes a chord, Nirupama Subramaniam’s. She writes, “I do not think of myself as a ‘woman journalist’. I am a journalist full stop.”  Journalist or media fan, in the end this collection is about the value of the Fourth Estate, the long hard journey to the 21^st century and the importance of reporting the complete story. 

Publishers: Tranquebar Press

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Review by Unmana Datta

Written originally in Assamese by Arupa Patangia Kalita and translated by Deepika Phukan, Felanee is the story of a woman who lives her life surrounded and affected by violent ethnic conflict.

Felanee is the nickname of the protagonist (no one apart from and since her husband calls her Malati, her given name). The name is telling: it literally means trash (“thrown away”, according to the back cover, but with my admittedly limited Assamese, I’d translate it as “something to be thrown away”).  It’s the moving story of a woman who loses her husband and her home in one round of ethnic conflict, lives her life and brings up her son with the shadow of violence always hanging over her head and, is threatened by loss all over again when the [...]]]> Felanee by Arupa Patangia Kalita, makes for some difficult reading – but contains a moving story at its heart.

Review by Unmana Datta

Written originally in Assamese by Arupa Patangia Kalita and translated by Deepika Phukan, Felanee is the story of a woman who lives her life surrounded and affected by violent ethnic conflict.

Felanee is the nickname of the protagonist (no one apart from and since her husband calls her Malati, her given name). The name is telling: it literally means trash (“thrown away”, according to the back cover, but with my admittedly limited Assamese, I’d translate it as “something to be thrown away”).  It’s the moving story of a woman who loses her husband and her home in one round of ethnic conflict, lives her life and brings up her son with the shadow of violence always hanging over her head and, is threatened by loss all over again when the ethnic conflict grows strong again and takes on new forms.

Like Sita’s Ramayana, this is a story of how war affects women. While the men (not all of them, though) are easily roused to jingoism, the women experience only too well the effect of unrest on their lives and livelihoods, and on the lives of their children.

What is jarring though is the translation and poor editing. The writing has a textbook quality to it (example: “The medium of instruction in the high school was Assamese. Most of the children were of Adivasi parentage.”) that detracts from any pleasure in the story, and at times it’s unintentionally obfuscatory. There are also egregious errors; at one point a woman is referred to as a man’s wife and, a couple of paragraphs down, as his mother.

The beginning of the novel is somewhat weird – the first chapter quickly passes through the lives of Felanee’s grandmother and mother, and then discards them as irrelevant to the story. We meet Felanee in Chapter Two, grown-up, married and mother to a seven-year-old, and we’re supposed to know the stories of her mother and her grandmother but have no idea of who she is, what she likes and wants and what moves her. Both these women were affected by violence, so this is probably a metaphor for violence erupting through the generations and claiming innocent victims: but it’s dealt with in such a perfunctory manner that it adds little to the story.

Even the dread and violence that fills the next few chapters is less powerful that it would have been in the hands of a more skilled writer (or translator: it’s hard to say which). Another thing that detracts from the novel is the lack of any exposition for readers who might not be familiar with the ethnic violence, or even the different ethnicities in Assam, and who might find it difficult to guess their ethnicities from their names or the description of their apparel.

If you can look past all these details, this is a beautiful story, both an intimate look at the life of a woman who struggles to make a life for herself and her son, as well as a critical look at violence in a state that has been ravaged by it. But towards the beginning of the novel I was tempted several times to give up, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Publishers: Zubaan Books

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Review by Maitreyee Chowdhury

Ganesha on the Dashboard is an uncommon but likely name for a book which deals with “scientific temper” and how Indians are somewhat deficient in the same, outside the realms of the classroom and professional world. Our approach to most things is largely fatalistic and the common man is resigned to his destiny. The invisible hand of Karma hangs over us like the sword of Damocles, rendering us a little reactive.

Ganesha on the dashboard, the title, succinctly sums up how we put blind faith in the Almighty, unmindful of the simple precautions we ought to take. For instance, we take great pains in consulting a purohit and identifying the muhurat while purchasing a vehicle, so that  it gives us hassle-free service but shy away from wearing the seat-belts unless [...]]]> Ganesha on the dashboard successfully takes apart the many superstitions and myths that we Indians happily subscribe to.

Review by Maitreyee Chowdhury

Ganesha on the Dashboard is an uncommon but likely name for a book which deals with “scientific temper” and how Indians are somewhat deficient in the same, outside the realms of the classroom and professional world. Our approach to most things is largely fatalistic and the common man is resigned to his destiny. The invisible hand of Karma hangs over us like the sword of Damocles, rendering us a little reactive.

Ganesha on the dashboard, the title, succinctly sums up how we put blind faith in the Almighty, unmindful of the simple precautions we ought to take. For instance, we take great pains in consulting a purohit and identifying the muhurat while purchasing a vehicle, so that  it gives us hassle-free service but shy away from wearing the seat-belts unless compelled by law. No amount of statistics proving why wearing helmets are useful can convince us that wearing helmets could save our lives. Interestingly, less than 20 percent of Indian motorcyclists wear helmets when not under legal compulsion.

The authors V. Raghunathan and M.A. Eswaran are undoubtedly erudite and have gained considerable credibility from their other successful book, Games Indians Play. The intent here is to critically examine some commonly held beliefs and ideas in India, where superstition and blind faith reigns supreme. This is contrasted with very real and illustrious examples like the incident of Neils Bohr, who refused to comply his teachers with the traditional method of understanding physics in measuring the height of a skyscraper and tells them instead, ‘I just don’t like people telling me how to think’.

Some 450 years ago, Francis Bacon was very apt when he observed that “the root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.” This book does precisely that. One case at a time, it tries to dispel myths and show the reader, the misses “also.” Vaastu, the rain God, roadside places of worship are among the many ideas and practices that the book attempts to debunk and does convincingly, at most times. Does Science have an answer to everything, is a challenge which is oft put up by the superstitious-minded. Well, no, but at least Science makes an attempt.

The language is lucid, thus making it an easy read. The ideas are rather complex and some chapters may require more than one reading to comprehend the line of argument. For instance, the chapter on Astronomy vs. Astrology is one which derives its premise by leveraging mathematical concepts like Probability, Permutation and Combination.

The only area the book falls short on is delivering to a clear target audience. For someone who is a casual reader of Science and scientific ideas, the book does get a bit dense at times. For someone who is already steeped in Science and has a natural inclination towards the subject, it may seem rather simplistic. What is commendable about the book is its size. Almost nowhere does it get didactic and retains its brevity throughout. It was never going to be easy to argue against age-old beliefs and challenge ideas which are sacred to us. As a primer, this book does wonders and certainly creates an avid sense of interest, to read up further on any of the designated topics.

The appendices in the end are noteworthy because the authors are able to capture millions of years of development of major scientific ideas in a tabular form restricted to a few pages.

Not a book that your grandmother or even your mother might agree with or even those who believe that there are things in this universe that are beyond a scientific explanation, or maybe for many of those Indians who still relish an unexamined life that allows them the adrenalin rush of not wearing a helmet while cycling downhill!

Publishers: Penguin Books

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By Anjana Basu

This is a story which strengthens the belief that truth is stranger than fiction. Browsing the New York library archives ‘on the prowl’ for a subject to write about, biographer Deborah Baker stumbled upon a file containing the papers of Maryam Jameelah. The sight of a lone Muslim name in those conservative American stacks piqued her interest. She rummaged through the papers and came upon the intriguing story of Margaret Marcus, an intellectual misfit born to Jewish parents in New York State.

Known as ‘Peggy’, the girl had no use for teen fashions or preoccupations like dating – instead she was obsessed from an early age with spirituality. “Even if there is a God, what sense did it make for Him to restrict His truth to a single [...]]]> Deborah Baker’s The Convert, tells a strange tale of a woman who exchanged her Jewish-American identity for an Islamic life of exile.

By Anjana Basu

This is a story which strengthens the belief that truth is stranger than fiction. Browsing the New York library archives ‘on the prowl’ for a subject to write about, biographer Deborah Baker stumbled upon a file containing the papers of Maryam Jameelah. The sight of a lone Muslim name in those conservative American stacks piqued her interest. She rummaged through the papers and came upon the intriguing story of Margaret Marcus, an intellectual misfit born to Jewish parents in New York State.

Known as ‘Peggy’, the girl had no use for teen fashions or preoccupations like dating – instead she was obsessed from an early age with spirituality. “Even if there is a God, what sense did it make for Him to restrict His truth to a single people?” she wrote in a letter when she was eleven. Increasingly disenchanted with her own faith, Jameelah turned towards Islam. The Arabs and their philosophy fascinated her and she sought to escape from mindless American materialism in their austere beliefs; so much so that she dropped out of college to delve into Islamic philosophy.

Jameelah’s preoccupations worried her parents who took her to psychiatrists with the result that the girl was diagnosed as schizophrenic and admitted to a sanatorium. When released, her essays on Islam were published in various magazines and brought her to the notice of Abul Ala Mawdudi, an important religious thinker who dedicated his life to the creation of pan-Islamic state in Pakistan. Impressed by the fact that Jameelah had gone beyond her Jewish-American roots to reach certain conclusions on Islam, Mawdudi invited Jameelah to come and live with him and his family as his daughter.

On reaching Pakistan, Jameelah wrote to her parents, “I feel I have finally arrived at a place I can call home.” But the story that Baker pieces together through her research takes a strange turn when Jameelah is suddenly consigned to a Pagal Khana in Pakistan by Mawdudi. It seems in fact to confirm that Jameelah was the disturbed soul that American psychiatrists termed her.

Baker is both fascinated and irritated by her subject as she tries to get to the root of why a woman would spurn her conservative American background and set out for Pakistan determined to spend her life in the shelter of a burkha. Was she a disturbed individual or a kind of guiding spirit?

The story takes an even stranger turn when we reach Baker’s afterword and discover that Jameelah’s letters which form a great part of the book, have been “rewritten and greatly condensed“. It is as if Baker chose to set aside the objectivity of biography fascinated by the possibilities of the subject – which she herself qualified as ‘fundamentally a work of non-fiction’. Readers therefore can be forgiven for sitting back and wondering how much of Baker’s narrative to take on trust, the more so since Baker seems unable to reach any kind of conclusion regarding the fascinating subject that she herself hunted down in the New York library archives.

Maryam Jameelah is still alive and living in Pakistan – despite her brush with the Pakistani madhouse she married there, raised a family and became a philosopher to reckon with. Authorities on political Islam like Vali Nasr have said that she was ‘broadly responsible for cementing the global cultural divide between Islam and the West.’ At the end of the book Baker sets out to meet her in Lahore – though as she herself confessed to a Calcutta audience – the meeting did not result in any kind of closure. For Baker, Jameelah’s life, fascinating though it may be, raises more questions than answers.

Publishers: Penguin India

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Review by Aparna V. Singh

With the recent elections in Myanmar attracting worldwide attention, the time is ripe for a biography of Aung San Suu Kyi, on whose shoulders rest so many expectations and hopes, both within and outside her country.

But, how does a biography look when its subject has been under house arrest for 15 of the last 21 years? When she has spoken very little of herself and that too in rare interviews permitted by the military junta?

That is the challenge Bengtsson faces and undaunted, he has attempted working around it by making this a broader story rather than that of just ‘The Lady’, as many in her country call her. This is the story of Myanmar (or Burma – its old name by which Bentsson [...]]]> Swedish author Jesper Bengtsson’s Aung San Suu Kyi: A Biography is a very readable account of the Iron Butterfly – and her country, Myanmar. 

Review by Aparna V. Singh

With the recent elections in Myanmar attracting worldwide attention, the time is ripe for a biography of Aung San Suu Kyi, on whose shoulders rest so many expectations and hopes, both within and outside her country.

But, how does a biography look when its subject has been under house arrest for 15 of the last 21 years? When she has spoken very little of herself and that too in rare interviews permitted by the military junta?

That is the challenge Bengtsson faces and undaunted, he has attempted working around it by making this a broader story rather than that of just ‘The Lady’, as many in her country call her. This is the story of Myanmar (or Burma – its old name by which Bentsson insists on calling it throughout the book) in the 20^th and early 21^st centuries. While Suu Kyi has a starring role in it, this is not a biography dominated purely by its subject.

Bengtsson manages one interview with her, wrangled with much difficulty in the period after her last release in 2010. This brief meeting is of course hardly of any value as far as information is concerned, but it does serve to bolster the author in his conviction that her grace and charisma are not a product of party or media hype.

When the subject is a Nobel prize winner and one who has been invested with an almost saintly halo, it is easy to fall into the trap of hagiography. It is to Bengtsson’s credit that he does his best to view Suu Kyi objectively and does in fact talk to some of her detractors who accuse her of being arrogant, or stubborn – or even obsessive about her father.

What is perhaps lacking is real insight into how Suu Kyi the homemaker and academic decided to take the plunge and join Myanmar’s turbulent democracy movement. While some of her friends from college and from her days in the UK have been interviewed, it somehow doesn’t add up to a picture of the woman behind the famous woman. It probably didn’t help Bengtsson that the one person who knew her best, her husband Michael Aris, has been dead for more than ten years now.

Given the paucity of sources and previously published work, Bengtsson has done a fine job of bringing to us Aung San Suu Kyi – the illustrious heritage that shapes her, her early life and education, the ordinariness of her life as a young homemaker and the extraordinary leader – and symbol of resistance she eventually becomes.

This is a good book for anyone interested in a very crisp and readable account of the events that have led Myanmar to where it is today. For a more definitive account that captures the woman behind the symbol, we may need to wait a few years – when Myanmar is less tumultuous and Suu Kyi has the liberty and leisure to dwell on herself.

Publishers: Amaryllis

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Review by Rashi Goel

To term Namita Gokhale’s The Habit of Love a collection of short stories would be unfair, almost belittling to this author of remarkable excellence and profundity. It is in truth a mirror reflecting the lives of thirteen women or maybe thirteen mirrors reflecting the life of a woman.

I’ve never been one to believe that an author can be entirely distinguished from his or her main characters. As a first time reader of her work, I believe that there’s a little bit of Gokhale in each one of these stories. From Madhu Sinha to Qandahari, from Vatsala Vidyarthi to Kunti, women across time have had something in common; in fact a lot in common. Namita Gokhale brings out these characteristics with utmost understanding, empathy and most of [...]]]> Namita Gokhale’s The Habit Of Love transcends time and explores the different facets of women – and the intricacies of their loves.

Review by Rashi Goel

To term Namita Gokhale’s The Habit of Love a collection of short stories would be unfair, almost belittling to this author of remarkable excellence and profundity. It is in truth a mirror reflecting the lives of thirteen women or maybe thirteen mirrors reflecting the life of a woman.

I’ve never been one to believe that an author can be entirely distinguished from his or her main characters. As a first time reader of her work, I believe that there’s a little bit of Gokhale in each one of these stories. From Madhu Sinha to Qandahari, from Vatsala Vidyarthi to Kunti, women across time have had something in common; in fact a lot in common. Namita Gokhale brings out these characteristics with utmost understanding, empathy and most of all élan – for there’s a little bit of her protagonists in each one of us.

The common thread that weaves skilfully through each and every strand of this almost 200 page book is in fact the habit of love – empty, yet all encompassing, hopeless, yet full of hope. Gokhale has an inimitable way with words, in how she effortlessly talks about a modern day woman’s needs and desires on one hand and with almost equal ease speaks of love and the sense of duty of the historical woman on the other.

The book’s characters reveal a unique masochistic quality of women whether it’s with respect to their husbands, lovers or sons. The theme of death is an undercurrent in a few stories; however it is always lined with hope. I can confidently say that Gokhale has mastered the art of writing about death for a mass audience for she portrays it with immense beauty and wisdom. Having survived cancer at the age of thirty-five and the death of her husband a few years later, Gokhale clearly favours ‘Death’ as an intriguing topic.

What drew me to her writing style further is that it is resplendent with metaphors and unusually crafted analogies. Consider this: “Our pheromones, our ganglia and our neurons wave out to each other”. Or this one, “Like three helium balloons bobbing disconsolately against a low ceiling, tangled rather than tied together by our floating strings.” Not very picturesque and yet hard hitting, makes Gokhale’s descriptive narrative style an inspiration for those wanting to be published authors someday.

My favourite stories (there are more than a couple that I absolutely loved) in this book are ‘Chronicles of Exile’ and ‘Kunti’. What moved me most was the present day aura that is portrayed even for women from an era long gone by. And yet the dignity with which they lived their lives is a learning women of today would really benefit from. For Qandahari it was a contractual obligation of sorts to stick by the blind king Dhritarashtra and for the king, his honour and power. For Kunti it was her intense love for her son Arjun that made her beg Karna for his life in the battlefield and for Karna perhaps his unrequited love for his mother that made him oblige.

All in all, an amazing book replete with the complexities and fragilities of a woman’s heart and mind. The Habit of Love has sown in me the seed of longing, not just for more of Namita Gokhale’s works but also for more in this genre.

Publishers: Penguin Books

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By Unmana Datta

The cover of Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers has this quote from Ramachandra Guha: “The best book about contemporary India, the best work of non-fiction I have read in the past twenty-five years.”

The force of that statement depends, of course, on what else Guha has read in the last twenty-five years; nevertheless, that statement both impressed me and made me wary.

I also admit, I decided to read this book after reading Jai Arjun Singh’s review, but his glowing recommendation, topped by the laudatory quotes from Guha and Amartya Sen on the back cover, made me apprehensive. It would be difficult, I thought, for a book to live up to that kind of hype.

I was wrong. The book is both a well-written novel (with characters, plot, intrigue and suspense) [...]]]> Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Katherine Boo offers an incisive look into the underbelly of Mumbai in Behind The Beautiful Forevers.

By Unmana Datta

The cover of Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers has this quote from Ramachandra Guha: “The best book about contemporary India, the best work of non-fiction I have read in the past twenty-five years.”

The force of that statement depends, of course, on what else Guha has read in the last twenty-five years; nevertheless, that statement both impressed me and made me wary.

I also admit, I decided to read this book after reading Jai Arjun Singh’s review, but his glowing recommendation, topped by the laudatory quotes from Guha and Amartya Sen on the back cover, made me apprehensive. It would be difficult, I thought, for a book to live up to that kind of hype.

I was wrong. The book is both a well-written novel (with characters, plot, intrigue and suspense) and a brilliant piece of investigative journalism. It was fascinating, and even as a reader of primarily, novels (the few non-fiction books I read seem to languish on my desk, unread or partly-read, for months), I found it difficult to put down.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers is an exploration of Annawadi, the slum near the Mumbai airport. It is a factual account, names unchanged, and it delves into a few interesting characters whose lives intermingle; Abdul, the (probably) teenage sorter of garbage, Asha, the teacher who aspired to be slumlord and politician, Asha’s college-going daughter Manju, who had more wholesome ambitions, Fatima, who is tired of being ridiculed for her disability and, by a rash act to gain attention and power, unleashes turmoil into her neighbour’s lives.

Another character in this book, and a powerful one, is corruption. Boo writes about how corruption both ensures the kind of inequality that guarantees few slum-dwellers would ever be able to move out of poverty, and also grants them small ways to make life liveable. “Corruption,” explains Boo, “was one of the genuine opportunities that remained.”

Every person with the power to influence the lives of these slum-dwellers seems corrupt: the politicians, who are like caricatures from Bollywood movies until you remember these are real people, including Asha, Annawadi’s home-grown small-time flunky to the local corporator. The cops and the special executive officer of the state interested not in justice but in extortion. Even so-called social workers and NGOs seem only to exist to defraud donors of funds and the slum-dwellers of aid.

The slum-dwellers live in pathetic conditions. Annawadi lies next to a sewage lake and every monsoon wreaks havoc. Young children scavenge the street for garbage that they can then sell to the likes of Abdul, who himself lives surrounded by garbage.

The book offers no easy answers. There is no hope then, that Annawadi might become a healthy, happy place. The only hope lies in individuals; in Abdul’s willingness to do his duty, in the honesty of boys like Sunil and Sonu inspite of their devastating childhoods.

Publisher: Penguin Books

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Review by Uma Mahadevan-Dasgupta

In late 2011, Vijayalakshmi, the wife of Kannada film star Darshan, filed a police complaint accusing him of domestic violence. The immediate response of the Kannada Film Producers’ Association (KFPA) was to issue an embargo preventing an actress, Nikita Thukral, from working in the Kannada film industry, alleging that she had caused ‘marital disharmony’ in Darshan’s family. Widespread condemnation soon forced the KFPA to withdraw the embargo. Darshan was arrested and, despite the protests of his fans, spent close to a month in custody. In March 2012, a felicitation was organised to celebrate Darshan’s work. Being out of town, Darshan sent Vijayalakshmi to represent him. Marital harmony, it seems, has been restored.

This story contains within it many achievements of the women’s movement in India. That Vijayalakshmi could [...]]]> With striking images, Our Pictures, Our Words presents a visual history of the women’s movement in India while highlighting its importance today.

Review by Uma Mahadevan-Dasgupta

In late 2011, Vijayalakshmi, the wife of Kannada film star Darshan, filed a police complaint accusing him of domestic violence. The immediate response of the Kannada Film Producers’ Association (KFPA) was to issue an embargo preventing an actress, Nikita Thukral, from working in the Kannada film industry, alleging that she had caused ‘marital disharmony’ in Darshan’s family.

Widespread condemnation soon forced the KFPA to withdraw the embargo. Darshan was arrested and, despite the protests of his fans, spent close to a month in custody. In March 2012, a felicitation was organised to celebrate Darshan’s work. Being out of town, Darshan sent Vijayalakshmi to represent him. Marital harmony, it seems, has been restored.

This story contains within it many achievements of the women’s movement in India. That Vijayalakshmi could register her complaint at the police station despite Darshan’s celebrity status. That the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act was passed in 2005. That public outrage lifted the embargo against Thukral. That Darshan was not granted bail for a month. Every one of these is due to the contemporary women’s movement.

But the way in which Darshan emerged from custody, seemingly more popular, also symbolises the strength of the patriarchy. In 1971, when female literacy in India was less than 22%, a Committee on the Status of Women in India (CSWI) was set up to study the position of Indian women. Its report “Towards Equality” (1974) showed the way for a new consciousness of and struggle for women’s rights.

Four decades later, Our Pictures, Our Words, (whose title harks back to the 1971 feminist classic Our Bodies, Ourselves), presents a visual archive of this struggle, arranged around the themes of body politics, community politics, societal politics, and politics of access. Insightful commentary is provided by veteran activists Laxmi Murthy and Rajashri Dasgupta.

Four things strike me about the book. First, how much ground has been covered ever since the great project of the contemporary women’s movement in India began in the early 1970s. Individual judgements fought for and obtained, laws amended, new legislation introduced, policy formulated – and the everyday lives of women changed in real, substantial ways.

Almost at the same time, the second thing: how much remains to be done. There is anger in the Saheli photograph of an anti-dowry demonstration in Delhi where women carry Hindi and English placards: “Boycott the Family that Burns the Bride”. But even in 2010, NCRB statistics show close to 8400 dowry deaths in India, roughly one every hour.

The third thing: how long it has taken to reach even this point. Every millimetre of every timeline drawn in this book has been slowly, painfully won. Every new entry on the timeline leaps across lonely years of determined struggle. Often the fight has begun with one woman’s plea for justice. The Supreme Court judgement in the Mathura rape case was one of the earliest rallying moments for the women’s movement in India. Mathura was raped in 1972; the rape law was amended in 1983. But even in 2012, the degrading two-finger rape ‘test’ has not been abolished.

Finally: for those who participated in these struggles, traversing this terrain has been a life-changing adventure. If the book is a visual journey, the images collected here are small, powerful treasures. Whether it is Sheba Chachchi, Karen Haydock, or nameless women drawing their own lives, these images are filled with creative energies. A fist held up, a face shrouded in darkness, wisps of words.“Tum ladki ho.” “Dukh tumhe kya todega / tum dukh ko tod do.” “Not victim. Survivor.”

For me, reading this book is a personal journey. Looking at the timelines, looking at the inside cover with its incredibly lovely Jagori poster “Dream”, I find myself in these pages. We are all here, along with Mathura, Rameeza Bi, Maya Tyagi, Shahbano, Bhanwari Devi, Manorama Devi, and all those who stood with them in sisterhood and took their stories forward. They shout slogans, hold hands, wipe tired brows, draw each other forward in the struggle. They laugh deep belly-laughs of solidarity. Behenaa, they say. Sometimes they scream. Sometimes they are goddesses, holding the world in their hands. Sometimes those hands are empty. Sometimes the voices fall silent.

The powerful images in the 230 pages of this book contain within them all these narratives of rage, suffering and painful empowerment, all the stories of our mothers, our sisters and ourselves, as well as the struggles that our children will have to face.

Which is why this visual archive is such a valuable project. We must gather and preserve these memories, and pass them on for others to draw energy and meaning from them. I hope my children will read the book when they are old enough, and I hope they will continue the struggle for a better world.

Publishers: Zubaan Books

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Review by Anne John

A Calendar Too Crowded has an interesting and unique theme. It is a collection of short stories and poems around notable days of the calendar that are dedicated to women or women’s issues. Thus we have a poem on gender selection for the Anti-Selective-Abortion Day which falls on October 25th, a story about oppression against widows for the International Widows Day on February 2nd and so on.

The characters in each story are nameless because according to the author, “No name would justify a voice which represents millions.” The stories touch upon the lives of women from various walks of life, regardless of economic or social disparity. This highlights the fact, that all women, regardless of money, education, upbringing or looks are connected with one another, by the [...]]]> Sagarika Chakraborty’s A Calendar Too Crowded has its ups and downs; nevertheless it stands by womanhood and speaks out unflinchingly.

Review by Anne John

A Calendar Too Crowded has an interesting and unique theme. It is a collection of short stories and poems around notable days of the calendar that are dedicated to women or women’s issues. Thus we have a poem on gender selection for the Anti-Selective-Abortion Day which falls on October 25th, a story about oppression against widows for the International Widows Day on February 2^nd and so on.

The characters in each story are nameless because according to the author, “No name would justify a voice which represents millions.” The stories touch upon the lives of women from various walks of life, regardless of economic or social disparity. This highlights the fact, that all women, regardless of money, education, upbringing or looks are connected with one another, by the common problems that they have to face every day.

This aspect is beautifully depicted in the story for World Breast-Feeding Day (August 1^st), where a blue collar labourer and a white collar worker, both worry about being able to provide enough nourishment to their respective babies, while juggling work. While each might have different reasons to go back to work and differing support systems (or lack thereof), the story still manages to bring out the angst of every new mother at the end of her maternity leave.

Most of the stories ring true, because as women, most of us would have had similar experiences or atleast heard about such incidents. For instance, reading the June story for Anti-Eve-Teasing/Molestation Day, ‘Naked’, gives one a sense of déjà vu, as it is strikingly similar to the controversy surrounding the recent Kolkata rape victim and people’s reactions to it.

But not all stories portray women as victims. The November story for Anti-Dowry Day, ‘Living by the Double-Edged Sword’ shows us both sides of the coin of a woman’s relationship with her marital home, with its belief that, “Mothers-in-law can never be mothers. Daughters-in-law can never be daughters.”

On the other hand, I felt that the September story, ‘Knowledge Beyond The Printed Letters’, showcases a woman who is the epitome of the humble-calm-composed-ever-loving-all-satisfying-over-achieving-homemaker-and-career-woman-all-rounder superwoman stereotype! The protagonist in this story, looks after the needs of her husband, kids, in-laws with great attention to detail, yet is not ‘just a boring housewife’. She has several accomplishments to her name, but never boasts or even talks about it unless forced to. And after a long and an eventful day, she ensures that she is a dutiful wife, mother and bahu as, “…She packed his bags, ensuring that he had all that was essential for a comfortable trip, checked on her children and lovingly doted on her mother-in-law…”It made me want to roll my eyes!

Additionally I could not totally grasp the ‘An Equal Friendship’ story, which unfolds as a letter from Panchali to Krishna. Although I am aware of the broad story of the Mahabharata, I am not too familiar with the nitty-gritty of it. Therefore when Panchali compares the events of her own life to the state of women’s equality today, I could not completely comprehend though I did get the basic essence of the story.

The book uses simple and easily readable language that is at times, quite thought provoking, as in, “She asked me whether I have ever wondered why a prostitute is ashamed of what she does all her life, but the society is never ashamed of what it has done to her?” Having said that, Sagarika’s prose reads better than her poetry. The verses almost appear like lines of prose that have been forced to rhyme!

A Calendar Too Crowded is a good attempt for a debut novel. Despite having a few flaws, it indeed seems to be a promising start.

Publishers: Niyogi books

If you’re planning to purchase Sagarika Chakraborty’s, A Calendar Too Crowded, do consider buying it through this Women’s Web affiliate link at Flipkart. We get a small share of the proceeds – every little bit will help us continue bringing you the content you like!