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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY4b13Kn848]
The Story of Felanee is based on real life events. It is a story of courage, of survival, of ethnic conflict and violence that tears people and communities apart in the most brutal, savage way.
Set in Assam, which has seen two major agitations that have crippled the economy, this is a story that will shock the reader by its sheer passion, and its brutal honesty. The callousness and utter disregard for human life, the ugly play for power, for electoral gain, the sham and petty hypocrisies, the bloody horror of ethnic violence all lie exposed in this powerful novel written by one of Assam’s leading fiction writers.
The story revolves around the experiences of one woman: Felanee. Her name means ‘thrown away’—so called because as her mother lay dying in the burning riot-torn village, Felanee was thrown into a swamp and left to die. But against all odds, Felanee—and thousands like her—survived.
Like the reeds that grow in such profusion along the bank of Assam’s rivers, the rootless inhabitants of the refugee camps and makeshift shanties, whose stories form the core of Felanee, are swept along by the wind and thrown onto new hostile terrain but they cling on with tenacity to take root again and again.
Buy Felanee at http://www.zubaanbooks.com/shopping_cart.asp
Sharing – awfully late, but better than never! – write up (by Pushpa Achanta – thanks Pushpa!) of the event we held in Bangalore back in September as part of our ‘Cultures of Peace’ series.
http://worldpulse.com/node/44781
Shilpa Phadke, Annie Zaidi, Meera Jatav, Pramada Menon
We’ll be blogging up some of the forthcoming events over the next month or two… Pune… Ahmedabad… here we come!
“The world knows the Padmashree awardee, Urvashi Butalia, as an Indian, feminist, historian, co-founder of Kali for Women, and publisher, Zubaan Books. But on NJP, Urvashi introduces herself as, “I am a publisher, writer – in that order, and a feminist. Feminism is something I live so it pervades everything I do.”
“Getting into publishing was completely by accident,” says Urvashi. While doing her MA, she decided no more teaching Shakespeare and Milton. Meeting a friend in her French class landed her the first job at the Oxford University Press.
With NJP, Urvashi shares the intricacies and challenges of her business, and a little more of the non-publishing side of Urvashi.”
Read more…..
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvvQ3kJ5y8g&feature=related]
Growing up, there weren’t too many female cartoon icons. The evil witch was always evil, so was the evil stepmother, and Cinderella, frankly, was just too much of a Goody Two-Shoe. Everyone, from Snow White to Rapunzel to Red Riding Hood was a damsel in distress, and who could blame them, considering the patriarchal set-up they were born into. Then, there was Penelope, who drove a chic pink car and sported a sexy pink blouse with leggings, a scarf around her head that hugged her neck and was kept in place by a pair of glasses that always hung on her forehead. “Hayalp” she would say in a thick Southern accent each time “The Hooded Claw,” kidnapped her, which was at least three or four times each episode. Only the audience knew that The Hooded Claw was actually her legal guardian who was attempting to murder Penelope in order to get her inheritance.
Penelope had style. She was suave, she was rarely ever frazzled, even if she was tied to a railway track, silent-movie style, or to a torpedo headed for China. Her ‘seven-dwarfves’ like protectors would come to her rescue, more often than not, she’d end up rescuing them.
Was Penelope Pitsop a ‘Damsel Undistressed?’
Leave us a comment. We’d love to know what you feel. And let us know who’s your favourite feminist-leaning cartoon character.
Most stimulating comment will receive a Zubaan Poster Women T-shirt.
Those of you who weren’t able to make it to Bangalore for our fantastic panel discussion, “Writing the Feminist Future” featuring Shilpa Phadke, Annie Zaidi, Meera Devi, Pramada Menon, Nisha Susan, moderated by Anita Roy, here’s a little video that should give you a feel of what it was like to be in that beautiful, radical space called Jaaga.
One of the friends in this video decided to blog her own thoughts after watching it.
Here is a brief extract:
Most of us (in India) cannot or won’t express our feeling too openly, because we live in fear of being rejected, of being judged, of being branded as social outcast. We are kind and compassionate, even to those who hurt us, we pretend to forget and forgive, we keep a smile and move on, and we lead a double-faced life.My friend posts a FB status that says “I’M A HANDFUL – unfortunately most women WON’T re-post this. I’m strong willed, independent, a bit outspoken, and I tell it like it is. I make mistakes, I am sometimes out of control and at times hard to handle but I love and give with all my heart. If you can’t handle me at my worst then you sure don’t deserve me at my best. If you are a HANDFUL, re-post! I dare you..I’ll be looking for the ladies who re-post”I asked her “Are you a good Indian girl?’ and she replies “not a chance..not even trying.” And I am set thinking if the above status makes you very un-Indian?
She is enveloped in loneliness. The lush greenery and the overpowering stench of death are all around her. Mrs Rukmini Bezboruah belongs to the elite class in the provincial town of Parbarpuri. She is the wife of the District Collector, lives in a spacious bungalow on a hill, she is a well -educated part-time college lecturer, she has loving in-laws…yet, she has a strong sense of being incomplete…of not being…happy.
Set in the turbulence of an insurgency and protest-ridden Assam, the book gives Rukmini a ringside view of the abduction and killings by the extremists. Her husband Siddharth is seldom home and is constantly busy with the burgeoning workload at the administrative level. Rukmini’s desire to have a child is met with a barrenness of passion in bed. A chance meeting with a tyre salesman, Manoj Mohanty, their blooming friendship and an inevitable moment of physical tenderness bring colour and joy to Rukmini’s life for the first time in almost a decade. But the horrors to which she was but a mute viewer quickly seep into her life as Siddharth and Manoj both get pulled into the web of the terrorist violence.
The author Mitra Phukan has skillfully weaved into the story’s fabric both joy and sadness to tug powerfully at the readers’ heartstrings. The plot is well crafted and the language is simple and smooth flowing. The author takes us through Rukmini’s life at a measured pace which allows the reader to fully understand her state of mind and at some level even connect to her.
The book has the power to capture you in the first five pages and the sensitivity with which the tale is told makes The Collector’s Wife quite unputdownable!
Click here to purchase this book for only Rs 263.
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