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Tag Archives: women

A Calendar Too Crowded

02 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by monikamanchanda in Causes to Champion, Feminism, review

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

a calendar too crowded, book, book review, causes to champion, Feminism, Sagarika Chakraborty, womans day, women, womens issues

My state right now and a book review too… I MUST begin this post by profusely apologizing to Sags and Harish… Sags because she is such a good friend and whose book I loved that I should have posted this review eons ago and Harish because damn, I think this is the record number of follow ups he would have done for a review with anyone I think… Unless Swaram hasnt still posted it 😉 But guys truly my state these days is just as the title of the book in a different manner that’s it… (but what I am upto is a topic of different post altogether and hopefully after this post, I will try to be regular :P)

a-calendar-too-crowded

Now Coming to the book itself, it was a book I was really looking forward too and not just because its been written by a very very dear friend but also because its on a topic very dear to my heart (surprise surprise? I can see the regular readers of my blog, smiling wide enough on this)

For those who don’t know what the book is about, here is the excerpt

Sagarika Chakraborty is a lawyer and student at ISB. Her début book is “a collection of stories and poems woven around the theme of womanhood”. Throughout the year there are a few dozen days set apart for women and issues surrounding gender. As is usual, we hear a lot about these issues on the special days and then go back to routine stories for the rest of the year.

In her introduction Sags goes ahead to explain the intent behind choosing the unique concept for the stories in the book

“The attempt is to delve deeper and analyse whether it is merely enough to rely on statistics and be complacent in the knowledge that the numbers indicate a better society in the making, or whether there is an urgent need to look beneath the covers and realise that despite all such dedicated days, there are 300 odd days when there is nothing special that life has to offer. Where each day is still an unending drudgery and where womanhood is cursed and trampled upon.”

I love the way the stories have been threaded in, the unique approach of picking up dates and how very true it is that its not just dates that matter, its all year through that we have to suffer, does a woman’s day make a difference to me if I see my maid coming home beaten blue by her drunk husband a day after 8th March? Does it hold any significance at that point of time? Standing for woman and improving there plight is a task that has to be done every single day through the year, through the life and that is what the book attempts by bringing to front the numerous stories

that touch you deep inside somewhere.

When I started reading the book, I was heart broken and the eyes were wet, the feelings becoming numb as I moved forward and somewhere in the middle of the book I realised that these are not the stories she wrote, these are the stories so unfortunately we see all around us 😦 Yes I know there are a lot of people which will say… “oh well the book is too depressing”, “naa you women aren’t so deprived these days” to those people I just have one answer… if the ostrich ducks her head, the problems don’t go away. Just look around yourself, the women in your life, the one that cleans your utensils? the one you have hired as a nanny to take care of your child? May be a distant (and god forbid a close one) who has gone through a divorce and had to listen to taunts from all and sundry, a woman who doesnt want a child or god help her if as a couple they can’t have a child… These are the stories of woman around us that touch you deep inside. Yes its depressing, yes its heartbreaking and that is exactly why its important to read it. To be aware, to be shaken out of our comfort zone and to be able to do something.

The book stands up and questions many things that will trouble us and its amazing to note how the author has gone under the skin of many many women so effortlessly.Another thing which I loved about the book is the how lucid the language is in the book, its hard to believe that its her first book.

The thing that may be could been improved in the book? The names, the names, the names… None of the characters in her books have names and when I started reading it, I found it very disturbing, we are used to of relating to people my name, then why leave such an important thing aside? May be she wanted to shake us out of our comfort zone while reading the book? But yes initially it did disturb me but slowly as I read more, I think it kind of stopped making a difference.

Final Word : A must read book for people in this generation, people who think that the problems of womanhood existed only in the era gone or these problems exist only in remote villages. It opens your eyes wide and clear. And yeah my fav three would be – Naked, Can you Hear me ma?, An equal friendship.. Do share which are yours?

Author : Sagarika Chakraborty

Publisher : Niyogi Books

Rating : 3.5/5

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com. Participate now to get free books!

PS: do u like the new look of the blog?

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They will tear me apart

18 Thursday Sep 2008

Posted by monikamanchanda in Uncategorized

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

society, women

After readingthis post at Life and Times of an Indian Home Maker I was reminded of a similar conversation I had with my maid sometime back…

Now my child’s nanny M lives with us from Monday morning to Sunday morning… goes home to see her husband and mil on sunday morning and comes back on Monday… Before going into what happened… let me give u a brief background about her… She is all of 22 yrs old and has two daughters who are 9 and 6 yrs old… both of them live with her mother in her village in West Bengal… She got married when she was 12 and had her first girl when she was 13…. her elder was born in the starting of 8th month and was 1.2kgs only god knows how she survived as there were no incubators etc… Her general health is pretty bad… her husband has ran away twice with other females and come back after some 6 months and he continuously threatens her of marrying someone else and is good for nothing when it comes to work… he actuallys attempts to sell fish but he needs some 3 assistants for a small fish cart to cut fish etc and hence makes no money out it…..

Now when I think of all this I always used to wonder that why is M still living with him… why doesn’t she leave him and just move on after all then all the money that she gets from me she will have to finance her daughters eduction which she is very particular about atleast till now… and then I got her prespective one day when she didn’t turn up on Monday morning and I was wild on her as I had to take an off from office too….. this is what happened………

Monday morning about 9:30 am i am waiting for her and her husband calls up and says that M is not well and she will come to work late… pissed off I ask him what happened and why cant she talk and he replies he has come outside and the cell is with him and some stupid excuse like that…. I wait and wait and wait and finally she turns up at about 7pm in the evening… I was raging with anger and just burst on her that what happened and then she says I was not well and went to the hospital… I say ok and get on with work….

Couple of days later, she tells me didi u know that day why I didnt come… and she told me the whole story…

M: Mere pati ne mujhko baht maara
ME: shcoked… kyon?
M: usko paisa chahiye tha and maine kaha ki main didi ko kahke bank main jamma kar diya hai, do mahine baad bachi ki fees dene hain
ME: haan to kya bola woh
M: mujhe ek thapad maara usne and kaha ki jaake didi se paise leke aa
ME: maine mana kar diya tou mujhe bahut maara gardan and all pe nishan padh gayee and mujhe ghar se bahar nikaal diya
M: main 10 min tak wait kiya usse bulaya but woh bahut gandi gandi galli de raha tha tou maine soocha ki aapke yahan aa jaati hoon and wapas nahin jaaongi, phir main thodi door tak gayee the tou woh peche se aake mujhe bol ki apne aashik ke paas jaa rahi hai and mujhe baalon se khich ke wapas ghar le gaya… phir main behosh ho gayee and isliye kaam pe nahin aa saki


for 2 mins I couldnt speak at all then I composed myself and told her

ME: meera tou uski bekaar ki maar kyon sahti hai…. tu usko chod de and aapna chahe se paisa kama waise bhi voh tere ko kya deta hai… ya phir agar voh ek maare tou 2 maar
M: didi aise kaise chood doon… aur usse kuch bhi kahti hoon tou voh dhamki deta hai ki doosri shaadi kar lega…. mere sirf betiyan hain na and main operation bhi kar liya hai taaki aur bacha na ho…..
ME: acha kiya do bache se jyaada kaise sambhalegiand waise bhi agar usne doosri shaadi karni hai tou voh kar li lega… tu suse rook thode na sakti hai and kyon rookna chahti hai kyon maar khaati hai tou… kis kaam hai voh
M: didi main sirf apni betiyon ke liye maar khaati hoon… gaaon main agar yeh mujhe chood ke chala gaya tou meri ko log khaa jaayenge… woh na padh payengi and na hi kabhi shaadi hogi… meri aaj ki halat se bhi buri ho jaayegi…….. and duniya mujhe bhi kha jaayegi…..

After this I just couldnt say anything to her… I kept mum and since them I am thinking what can I do about it…I have asked her if she wants to bring her daughters here and I will put them in some school here but then i don t know how to work out the logistics…

After reading IHM’s post I realized that may be this is a common problem at that level and somehow we need to deal with it… but HOW AND WHEN????????

PS: for those who dont understand hindi too much please forgive me I couldnt have done this post in any other language… the translation would result in loosing a lot…..

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10 Wednesday Sep 2008

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How women work

13 Wednesday Aug 2008

Posted by monikamanchanda in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

women

Stumbled upon this link while browsing… found it extremely amusing, having a page on how women work at the site which is basically about stuff working… though the write up is pretty interesting…. dont know how to react to it. Check it out and let me know ur reactions

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Me, Myself and me

bundle of contradictions, a working independent woman, a mom, a wife, a daughter, a friend, a traveler and ya a blogger :)

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