A Life Apart: An Autobiography

One of Hindi’s best known writers, Prabha Khaitan spent much of her life as the ‘second’ woman in a long-term relationship with a married man. Born in a conservative Marwari family, she defied tradition and family expectations, insisting on living life as a single woman, setting up her own business and earning the respect of her peers and colleagues in the corporate world. Despite her yearning to be loved and cherished by the man to whom she gave her life, Prabha Khaitan lived life on her own terms.

With a frankness that is rare in the world of Hindi autobiographical writing by women, Prabha Khaitan here speaks of her feelings, her sense of discomfort and unease at not being the ‘legitimate’ woman, about what she gained and lost from a relationship that was generally frowned upon by society and how she fought to become her own woman. In doing so, she reflects on marriage, relationships, intimacy and distance, the professional and the personal, and the ways in which women are caught within these often conflicting forces.

“Prabha Khaitan’s story of her life and times is possibly one of the most honest books I have ever read. Sometimes it cuts too close to the bone for middle class comfort, unsettling the safety net and entitlements of complacency and convenience. All her life, she swam upstream, defying convention, defying prejudice, questioning choices.” — Namita Gokhale

“One of the most arresting things about feminist writer and poet Prabha Khaitan’s autobiography is its naked narrative and almost poetic vulnerability. Simply written, the narrative flows languorously.”– Prerna Kalbag, The Hindustan Times