Book Reviews

Boats on Land (2012) 

 by Janice Pariat

Janice Pariat has painted lively sketches of the North East terrain; its people, the food, their rich and mystical folklore, the historical and political upheaval and the remnants of what was, to what is, across various time periods.

I’ve always been appreciative of endings that leave the reader with something more than when they began reading, and every ending to each story did just that; it left me feeling disturbed, pensive, warm and often moved to tears.

It's hard to pick a favourite one; the criteria for which, are the ones that made me stop in my tracks, close the book to catch a breath, let out an aching sigh or a pang of emotion I can't quite articulate and 'Secret Corridors' easily sits at number 1, alongside 'Boats on Land', followed by 'Laitlum', 'Pilgrimage', 'Dream of the golden Mahseer' and '19/87'

'Secret Corridors' artfully traces the beginnings of young love between two adolescent girls, with descriptive imagery of school life in the hills; the sights, sounds, smells, camaraderie and group think. Marked with distinctive characters; representative of the ones we're all familiar with and can easily conjure up from our past and yet this story stands out on its own. I was briefly transported back to my own school memories with a yearning, for a high school romance that never happened.

-Apphia R. D'souza

Written on 7th October 2021

Unbound (2015) 

 by Annie Zaidi

I’ve been reading Annie Zaidi’s anthology of 2000 years of women’s writing in her book, ‘Unbound’. It delves into nuanced themes of Love, Marriage, Identity, Children and Work, to name a few. I couldn’t help but experience a range of feelings; from anger to pain, loss and solidarity with these carefully handpicked accounts, that opened a window into the intimate and unique world through these women’s eyes, as they were experienced in different periods of time. It made me reflect what this meant to me and the possibilities of what could’ve been, had those stories been placed in today’s context or if I were transported back in time.

What stood out to me were the themes of sexuality, desire, pleasure and infidelity; themes that are actively side-lined because women are seen through a one dimensional lens; either glorified or vilified according to societal expectations of what a woman ought to be, but never the acknowledgement that we can be an uncomfortable mix of everything in between and more.

As a woman in urban India, reading this book in 2021, I still grapple with the conflict of simply experiencing the freedom of space, both within my body and in public spaces. To express my sexuality guilt-free, to reclaim spaces that were seemingly and supposedly presented as “equal” to me as a child but gradually and starkly changed as I stepped into womanhood is something that limits my potential to experience all that is possible, and what is possible depends on a number of complex factors. That makes me wonder what being ‘unbound’ means for women across intersections of socio-economic backgrounds and a hope that when we eventually and finally manage to reclaim public space, will it also subsequently unspool something for us, within ourselves?

-Apphia R. D'souza

Written on 21st October 2020