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.
