Unbound

Blurb

‘The capability of the individual matters. Not the gender. As a woman you need to have the confidence that your gender cannot hold you back.’

—Meena Ganesh, former CEO of TESCO Hindustan Service Centre

How does an item girl tackle sexual harassment at her work place? Why does a highly paid woman software engineer pay a dowry? Breast pumps and BlackBerry phones … do they go together? When a woman focuses on her career, does she lose out as a wife and a mother? Is there a female model of achievement as distinct from a male one?

These and other similar questions are explored in Unbound: Indian Women @ Work through a series of interviews conducted by the author with women from all walks of life and from different parts of the country. Icons like Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Chairman and Managing Director of Biocon Ltd, and Meena Ganesh, former CEO of TESCO Hindustan Service Centre, rub shoulders with Rachel the hair designer and Sumathi the call-centre employee who comes from a family of domestic helps. Women engineers discuss insidious gender discrimination and working mothers speak of the difficulties of balancing motherhood and work.

The stories in this book are of real women who spoke out candidly about their concerns—their families, their love lives and marriages, their victories and defeats. Together they provide a valuable guide to the brave new world of today’s women professionals.

Thoughts

Content

In an article she wrote in 2013, author and journalist Gita Aravamudan mentions this book’s genesis. After writing “Disappearing Daughters: the tragedy of female foeticide”, she wondered why women were so unwanted, despite being talented and able.

The reason, she found, was that they were perceived as economic burdens. She then had the idea of writing about women who generated wealth.

The result was Unbound: Indian Women @ Work, a book that presents a comprehensive overview of Indian working women who live in Tier-1 cities.

Aravamudan interviewed women between the ages of 25-50, one of the exceptions being a 97-year-old doctor. Most were middle-class women from the metros Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, and Chennai.

They included journalists, doctors, entrepreneurs, teachers, salesgirls, beauticians, software engineers, item girls, chefs, and actors—ordinary women with great grit and grace.

Some were well-known, such as Biocon Ltd chairman and managing director Kiran Mazumdar Shaw; former CEO of Tesco Hindustan Service Centre Meena Ganesh; Radhika Bordia, NDTV journalist; VJ Sophie; and talk show hostess Lolakutty.

The stories of these women give you different perspectives across various fields, classes, social structures, and industries. They also shed light on some lesser-known conflicts, archaic laws, and legal impediments working women face.

Regardless of their work or wages, women have to contend with many common issues, such as family support, domestic commitment, marriage, dowry, bearing and rearing children, safety at work, and discrimination.

This book shows how women are achievers and wage earners, despite these innumerable impediments. It reveals the positive changes at workplaces and in society as well as the areas where progress is lacking.

Aravamudan’s extensive research also brings forth what she calls a ‘feminine pattern of achievement’, wherein people consider their domestic responsibilities and professional commitment equally important.

Writing

Although I had heard of Aravamudan and read some of her articles, I was not familiar with her books. I ordered this book under the impression that it was part of a series about Indian women called Unbound.

I realized I was wrong when I was reading Unbound by Annie Zaidi, the book I thought was the first in the series.

I do not regret buying hard copies of either. I am always interested in reading about Indian women pursuing careers. After all, I am one of them.

As Aravamudan mentions in this book’s preface, the unbinding of middle-class Indian women happened gradually. It went rather unnoticed until its impact reached far and wide. As a woman journalist who experienced it, she was able to document its impact skilfully.

The book could have been much better in structure and language had it been edited well. However, I appreciate the effort that went into its research.

It provides you with a lot of information and snags your interest with real-life stories. The writing style is simple and easy to comprehend. Yet, it reads like a long article or descriptive thesis.

Although it is repetitive at places, I didn’t mind it so much because I read it over a long period starting from last year.

Because He Is...

Blurb:

'Papi says it is wrong of parents to presume that they know better, or know more than their child does. They may be biologically older than their child, but in their experience as parents, they're of the same age. So if I was his two-year-old daughter, he was my two-year-old father. And we were both learning and evolving together -- he as my father and me as his daughter.' All of us know Gulzar as a film-maker, screenplay and dialogue writer, lyricist par excellence, author and poet.

Because He Is... presents a facet of the icon that none of us are aware of -- as a father. In iridescent prose, his daughter, Meghna Gulzar, documents his life, revealing the man behind the legend: in every way a hands-on father, who prepared her for school without fail every day, braiding her hair and tying her shoelaces, and who despite his busy career in cinema, always made it a point to end his workday at 4 p.m. because her school ended at that time, and who wrote a book for her birthday every year till she was thirteen.

From her earliest memories of waking up in the morning to the strains of him playing the sitar to him writing the songs for her films now, Meghna presents an intimate portrait of a father who indulged her in every way and yet raised her to be independent and confident of the choices she made. She also records his phenomenal creative oeuvre, the many trials and tribulations of his personal and professional life, through all of which she remained a priority.

Beautifully designed and illustrated with never-before-seen photographs, Because He Is... offers an incredible insight into the bond between a father and a daughter.

Thoughts:

I was supposed to read Jiya Jale: The Stories of Songs by Gulzar to end 2021. I love all his films and the songs he has written. What he does with lyrics is pure magic but he is also a prolific writer, proficient in so many genres.

However, I was tempted to read Meghna’s book first. It did not disappoint.

It was wonderful seeing Gulzar and getting to know more about his life through her eyes. The bond between him and Meghna is strong and endearing, as is Gulzar’s parenting style.

Make no mistake, this is a daughter’s book about a father she adores. Her account is biased. There are many shortcomings in it but if you are a Gulzar fan like me, you forgive them.

It is a well-written personal description of Gulzar’s life as a parent. It is full of entertaining anecdotes, rare photos, and published and unpublished poems. It is also a memoir of Meghna’s life.

Unbound

Blurb:

Unbound is a collection of some of the most significant writing by Indian women over the past two thousand years. Divided into eleven sections, it encompasses writing on various aspects of life: spirituality, love, marriage, children, food, work, social and individual identity, battles, myths and fables, travel, and death. While many of the pieces are commentaries on the struggle that women undergo to overcome obstacles—social and political—all of them showcase the remarkable creative ability of the writers.

Selected from hundreds of novels, memoirs, essays, short story collections and volumes of poetry that were either written in English or that have been translated into English, the pieces in this collection include the most distinctive and powerful voices from every era.

There are verses from the Therigatha, written by Buddhist nuns (circa 300 BCE), and writing by poet-saints like Andal, Avvaiyar, Lal Ded, Mirabai; modern classics by writers like Ajeet Cour, Amrita Pritam, Arundhati Roy, Attia Hosian, Bama, Bulbul Sharma, Irawati Karve, Ismat Chughtai, Kamala Das, Krishna Sobti, Mahasweta Devi, Manju Kapur, Mannu Bhandari, Mrinal Pande, Nayantara Sahgal, Pinki Virani, Qurratulain Hyder, Rashid Jahan, Romila Thapar, Sarojini Naidu, Saudamini Devi, Shivani; and powerful new voices from our time like Arundhathi Subramaniam, Nilanjana Roy, Nivedita Menon.

Profound, exhilarating, haunting, angry and meditative, Unbound is a collection that will shatter stereotypes about women's writing in India.

Thoughts:

‘Unbound: 2,000 Years of Indian Women’s Writing’ is a great compilation of writings of Indian women writers, some of whom are quite famous, some contemporary, and some neither (and hence were unknown to me).

The book is a small window into the vast volume of work of Indian women writers. In the excellent introduction to the collection, the editor Annie Zaidi says that the work was daunting and she worked under a severe space constraint. There are over a hundred individual pieces of writing (including fiction, non-fiction, and poetry) in all.

She has divided them into eleven categories. At the beginning of each category, she mentions whose works have been included and why. There is also a detailed list of the writers and translators at the end of the book. She admits that the choices were subjective and that the collection is not comprehensive.

Zaidi has researched far and wide, collected information, and given it a logical structure, with clear rationale. From whichever angle you look at it, her work is commendable. Researching, reading, categorizing, and selecting works for this anthology, spanning 2000 years and so many languages, must have been a mammoth task. 

Besides, even now, women’s writing is a topic of debate and controversy—many don’t recognize it as a category and some regard it with disdain.  

I admit that I did not like some parts of the book. The styles, times, themes, and genres are so varied that it is sometimes hard to understand the logic behind the inclusion of certain pieces. 

I put the book away many times but always returned to it. This is one of the reasons why it took me over ten months to complete it. Another reason is the small printing, which made reading quite difficult.

However, I am sure there is something for everyone in the book. It introduced me to so many writers and books. As an Indian woman, I could relate to some of the writings. Some of the short extracts are lovely. Some are inadequate and dissatisfying.

Either way, they can make you curious enough to find the books and read them in full. Overall, I enjoyed the book and recommend it wholeheartedly.

Odiyan

Blurb:

നമ്മുടെ കാഴ്ചയില്‍ നിന്നു മറഞ്ഞു പോകുന്ന നിരവധി സംസ്കാരങ്ങളുണ്ട് പക്ഷേ നാം അതു ശ്രദ്ധിക്കാറില്ല. കാണാറുമില്ല. പരുത്തിപ്പുള്ളി ഗ്രാമത്തില്‍ ഒരു പറത്തറയും അവിടെ പറയകുടുംബങ്ങളും. അവരെ ചുറ്റിപ്പറ്റി ദൈവികവും മാന്ത്രികവും നീചവും നിഗൂഢവുമായ ഒരുപാട് കഥകളുണ്ടായിരുന്നു.

[A rough translation: Although many cultures keep disappearing from our society, we don’t realize it or pay attention to them. The village of Paruthippulli, a Paraya thara (settlement) there, the families that live in that thara, and the many divine, magical, vile, and mysterious stories about them.]

Thoughts:

As the author P Kannankutty explains in this video, he does not know any odiyan. This book is based on hearsay accounts and imagination. 

Kannankutty says that odiyans, who are from the Paraya community, change into the shape of animals, such as cats, bulls, snakes, etc. The animal they turn into may have some imperfection, by which they can be recognized. For example, the bull they turn into may not have a tail.

They also perform odi, a form of black magic, but never for personal reasons. Instead, they use it to help others, largely to settle personal scores. However, according to Kannankutty, odiyans were not villainous or negative characters. They were a part of  society.

The book's story is set at a time when people lived in caste-based settlements or ‘tharas’. Although they are supposed to be valued for their role in society, the two odiyans in this book are sad, cursed characters because of their unique circumstances and the effect of changing times.

The other characters too do not have much joy in their respective lives. I prefer books with some sort of triumph or happiness for at least some of them, if not all. That being said, I liked this book despite its overwhelming sadness. 

I have heard many tales about odiyans from my mother and grandparents. So, the premise of this book was not new to me. I am also conversant with many customs, rituals, and ways of living mentioned in the book. 

Moreover, I could see shades of familiar faces in many of the characters. The descriptions of the land, the rituals, and the general milieu also reminded me of my ancestral home and its surroundings.