Pankaja

Vasanth Kannabiran, a well-known women's rights activist, grew up in the 1950s listening to her grandmothers and aunts tell true stories about wives, widows and women cast out by society. The tales seemed unconnected, but they stayed with her, and over time they added up to a pattern: how women actually lived in the early twentieth century. Pankaja, her first novel, grew out of that pattern. The book follows Pankaja, an upper-caste Hindu woman, and the women around her, whose lives are all bound by marriage and the duty expected of a wife. Her mother, Rajamma, is judged harshly by society once she is widowed. Her sister Pattamma is widowed young, branded a bad omen and kept away from social gatherings. Kannamma, from a Brahmin family, leaves an unhappy marriage to live with a low-caste mridangam player, and her family disowns her while the whole community condemns her. Their stories cross and part as each woman fights for the right to run her own life. Kannabiran looks closely at family life without flinching, and her novel has a lot to say about marriage, widowhood and sexuality. It lifts the lid on how a casteist, patriarchal society really worked, and it does so with wisdom and emotional insight.