PANKAJA

DeScriPtion

When well-known women's rights activist Vasanth Kannabiran was growing

up in the 1950s, grandmothers and aunts shared many real-life stories

about 'wives, widows and whores' with her. These seemingly disconnected

anecdotes haunted Kannabiran, eventually revealing the pattern of women's

lived realities in the early twentieth century and inspiring her to write Pankaja,

her debut novel.

In Pankaja, Kannabiran paints a vivid portrait of what it meant to be an

upper-caste Hindu woman in India at the time. Pankaja's life and the lives of

her women friends and family members are all shaped by the institution of

marriage; limited by the norm of wifely duty. Pankaja's mother Rajamma faces

undue criticism from society after she is widowed. Pankaja's sister Pattamma,

who is widowed at a young age is branded a bad omen and shunned at social

occasions. When Kannamma, who belongs to a Brahmin family, ends her

unhappy marriage and goes to live with a low-caste mridangam player, her

family disowns her and the entire community condemns her. The individual

stories of these women converge and diverge as they claim the right to their

own lives.

Pankaja places family life under the microscope, presenting us with a vision

of unflinching honesty. Laced with insights about marriage, widowhood and

sexuality, it peels back history to reveal the inner workings of a casteist,

patriarchal society. Wise and emotionally astute, this novel is an engrossing

and moving read.