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In So Many Words: Women's Life
Experiences from Western and Eastern India. edited by Aparna Basu
and Malavika Karlekar [available with Routledge, New Delhi, 2008]
This volume marks a new trend in understanding
women's varied experie nces of life: individual introductions situate the
narrator in a context - and then her voice takes over, with no
intervention from the editors. Carefully chosen photographs gleaned from
personal collections provide an important visual context to the many
worlds that the women inhabited.
The mélange includes memoirs, published articles,
'portraits from memory', a collection of essays, and an oral interview.
In all, the Self is the focus. The writings of Sailabala, Li Gotami and
Shakuntala go beyond a recounting of their lives and deal with spiritual
and travel experiences. Three of the essays are excerpts from published
autobiographies - Sarala Devi Chaudhurani's Jeevaner Jharapata
(Life's Fallen Leaves), Kalpana Dutt's Reminiscences and
Sailabala Das's A Look Before and After.
Vidyagauri Neelkanth's writings are essays, with a
selection of amazingly candid letters exchanged with her husband.
Anasuya Sarabhai's is an interview with niece Gira and Monica's a
selection from an unpublished memoir. Li Gotami,
whose original name was Rutty Petit,
travelled to Manasarovar, and a few of the
magazine articles on this amazing journey have been reproduced here.
The personal narrative - be it an autobiography, a
letter or a diary - has come to be recognised as an acceptable source of
information in history and the social sciences. The readings of personal
narratives included here help in painting various images of lives that
we can only know at second hand.
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