The Passionate Feminist Writings!

People say books are our best friends. Well, to me not just books but the pen can also come to your rescue when life is blue and loneliness hovers around or may be when life is extremely good going and ‘sharing is happiness’ becomes the order of the day.

With the emergence of Women Studies and with the feminist message spreading across the globe, sisterhood has really become powerful.

The vibrant cover pages of the books written by women portray the darker side of womanhood as one flips the pages. But what is inspiring is that these women not just overcame the troubles life had showered upon them, but they have done their bit in arousing the conscience and consciousness of their fellow sisters.

After reading Nivedita Menon’s Seeing like a Feminist, I called up a he friend from JNU admiring Menon’s work. To my surprise, he ended up saying, ‘ Menon is a radical feminist. She believes in the slogan- PERSONAL IS POLITICAL.’

I was taken aback. Anyone who reads her red paperback would be touched with the facts she had provided with. And you study at a top Indian university, reluctant to admire a feminist?

And as every coin has a reverse side, this episode too had a positive side. Six months later I saw one of my friends carrying a copy of Menon’s work and she happily claimed that it was her partner’s gift to her on her birthday!

Whenever I get bankrupt, may be the online shopping site FLIPKART gets a little richer. At one such shopping day, I picked up three books all of a sudden. Speedpost because I haven’t read any of Shobha De’s work, Warrior in a Pink Sari because I saw Sampat Pal in a Bigg Boss season and Lean In- Women, Work and the Will to Lead because FLIPKART had published their list of weekend picks and this book by Sheryl Sandberg, COO of FACEBOOK attracted me!

Speedpost is very private, a bundle of private letters by Shobha De to her own children. The beauty of the book lays in its boldness. The boldness of a mother to confess about her life infront of her children and her ability to teach her kids the basic humane etiquettes, which sadly is missing in our new generations. These can be as simple as being indebted to the servants, taking care of pets as family members, taking people as they are irrespective of their physical and racial appearances, doing something special for the veterans in family and being aware of the ill effects of substance abuse!

May be Sampat Pal doesn’t claim her to be a feminist. But Warrior in a Pink Sari is a vivid symbol of Indian feminism. To be a feminist, you don’t have to give up on your sari- her journey ensures this for sure!

She pens down her life in a raw manner. The founder of the Gulabi Gang not just speaks against the husbands who beat their wives up, but Sampat Pal has been a threat to the goons who grab the villagers’ land and to the policemen who refuse to file reports on violence upon a Dalit. The best part was to know that in order to keep her husband and their kids away from the daily disturbances at home due to her meetings with the village women who came to seek her advice; she took a very bold step. She rented a house a little away from her home with a Gang member, Jay Prakash. She was true to herself and her husband trusted her. The society will never anyway keep shut the gossips to fly.

Lean In- Women, Work and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg is all about the question of double burden and the dilemmas of a woman as a wife and a worker. She writes that if women can contribute half to home economics and men can do half of the housework, then there can be a reduction to the current accelerating rate of divorces. It was interesting to know that apart from maternity leave, FACEBOOK blesses its male employees with paternity leave as well!

They are not writers but Olympic medalists Saina Nehwal and M.C.Mary Kom in their autobiographies Playing to Win and Unbreakable respectively, brought into light how tough sports actually are. There was a time when I would speak about some random sportsperson emphasizing more on their sports quota. But after reading these books and after looking close into the life of a close friend, who is a top state Table Tennis player, I feel guilty not looking into their daily compulsion to perform in unpredictable sports. More interesting is to know that how Saina Nehwal’s father and M.C.Mary Kom’s husband left no stone unturned to make these Indian women prosper not just in their own lives but in the entire world.

A few other books- The Second Sex  by Simone de Beauvoir, The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank and The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan can be a good read in all times to come. Besides, Lajja by Taslima Nasrin, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy and I am Malala by Malala Yousufzai are thought-provoking and can be a fruitful investment into a feminist’s library!

Currently I am reading Kaberi Kochari Rajkonwar’s Assamese novel or may be her autobiography (she refuses to claim the either genre), Issa-Anissa Swotteo Kisu Kotha. She wrote about the difficulties faced by the women cadres and about the gruesome effects of the jungle upon the health of the cadres. But as I am about to reach the end of this thick book, I wonder if the entire hatred and bloodshed on either side was actually worth it!

What I find best about the women writers and feminist writings is that they don’t just write about their lives, childhood, education, achievements, marriage and kids but also their passion to do their bit for the betterment of society. Such writings can indeed inspire, empower and enrich!