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“To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow” —Maya Angelou
My mother, Pravinaben Patel was a highly gifted and courageous lady with tremendous sense of humour and great will power. She was dignified, hardworking, compassionate, helpful person who found something good in every human being.. Her life guided me to see a spark in every ‘ordinary’ human being that I met.
She assumed the role of renegade predecessor in our extended family due to her quest for independence and enchanted the younger generation with her free spirited adventures. She cultivated our interest in music, literature, art and craft, language learning and most important to respect all religions, cultures and lifestyles. She played major role in shaping my daughter’s sense of ethics.
She always stood by young couples ostracized by the community for their inter-caste and inter-religious ‘love marriage’ and came forward in providing moral and material support exhibiting great personal courage. Her demand for personal growth remained unfulfilled due to early marriage and motherhood, but she built so many people who aspired to achieve their dreams. She celebrated educational achievements of women.
Titolo originale
Prof. Vibhuti Patel's Obituary to Mrs. Pravinaben Natubhai Patel SPARROW Newsletter 32 March 2015
“To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow” —Maya Angelou
My mother, Pravinaben Patel was a highly gifted and courageous lady with tremendous sense of humour and great will power. She was dignified, hardworking, compassionate, helpful person who found something good in every human being.. Her life guided me to see a spark in every ‘ordinary’ human being that I met.
She assumed the role of renegade predecessor in our extended family due to her quest for independence and enchanted the younger generation with her free spirited adventures. She cultivated our interest in music, literature, art and craft, language learning and most important to respect all religions, cultures and lifestyles. She played major role in shaping my daughter’s sense of ethics.
She always stood by young couples ostracized by the community for their inter-caste and inter-religious ‘love marriage’ and came forward in providing moral and material support exhibiting great personal courage. Her demand for personal growth remained unfulfilled due to early marriage and motherhood, but she built so many people who aspired to achieve their dreams. She celebrated educational achievements of women.
“To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow” —Maya Angelou
My mother, Pravinaben Patel was a highly gifted and courageous lady with tremendous sense of humour and great will power. She was dignified, hardworking, compassionate, helpful person who found something good in every human being.. Her life guided me to see a spark in every ‘ordinary’ human being that I met.
She assumed the role of renegade predecessor in our extended family due to her quest for independence and enchanted the younger generation with her free spirited adventures. She cultivated our interest in music, literature, art and craft, language learning and most important to respect all religions, cultures and lifestyles. She played major role in shaping my daughter’s sense of ethics.
She always stood by young couples ostracized by the community for their inter-caste and inter-religious ‘love marriage’ and came forward in providing moral and material support exhibiting great personal courage. Her demand for personal growth remained unfulfilled due to early marriage and motherhood, but she built so many people who aspired to achieve their dreams. She celebrated educational achievements of women.
SPARROW
SOUND & PICTURE
ARCHIVES FOR
RESEARCH
ON
WOMEN
Publication Number 83
Published by
Sound & Picture Archives for
Research on Women.
‘The Nest, B-101/201/301, Patel Apartment,
Maratha Colony Road, Dahisar (E),
Mumbai: 400068
Phone: 022 2828 0895, 2896 5019
E mail: sparrow1988@gmail.com
Website: www.sparrowonline.org
CONTENTS
tors Note
Reviews: Monsoon Diary: A Memoir ith Recipes By Shaba Narayan
Soma
Tika Tine Thar /Eators: Vila Mehra and Vatika Nanda
Editor:
CS Lakshmi
Publication Co-ordination:
Pooja Pandey ‘Homage: Sumati Tikekar, Dr Shobha Abhyankar, Rajam Krishnan,
‘Malati Jhaveri, Sitara Devi, Veenapani Chawla, Nayantara,
Padmaja Phatak, Zarin Daruwala Sharma, Jasodhara Bagchi,
eae Sarita Padaki, Umadevi Nadgonde, Mrinalini Mukherjee,
“Meera Kosambi, Krishna Kale, jyakanthan, Usha Shrish Trivedi,
DrJyotiben rived, Priyanka Daal, Suchirs Bhattacharys,
‘Arana Stang Soha shops Nota Chandy, Dr Mahan Sarde
eBloya
“CStakaboni & Vibhuti Patel
‘Mouj Prakashan Griha,
Khatau Wadi, Goregaonkar Lane, Girgaum,
‘Mumbai - 400 004
Phone: 022 2387 1050
Gators Note]
Silver Jubilee year is over but the the joy and sense of satisfaction we got from the activities and celebrations have lingered
‘on along with a strong determination to continue our work with the same vigour and passion. ‘The Silver Jubilee events
brought the SPARROW team together in many creative ways and we discovered many more things each one of us is capable
cof. The coming years will be faced with this knowledge about ourselves and our capabilities. One thing we are sure, as we asserted in
‘one of the events, is that sparrows may become extinct in a crowded city like Mumbai; but this SPARROW is here to stay.
Sometimes books that are old have to be reviewed because they need to be re-read and contextualised. Two such books are in
this SNL. One is Shoba Narayan’s Monsoon Diary and the other is Krishnabai Narayan Surve's Mastaranchi Savli. Monsoon Diary
to the “memoirs and recipes” theme that has become popular in the last decade and we fet that it has to be seen for what itis.
‘Mastaranchi Savit is the kind of book that needs to be written about every now and then lest people forget women such as Krishnabai
‘Surve. There are also reviews of other more recent books.
‘The Silver Jubilee year events were many and we have shared with you the details of all of them. The one event that made the year
really one that showed us silver linings amidst dark clouds was the Prince Claus Fund award event in Amsterdam and in Mumbai.
‘This SNL carries details of both the events.
Violence against women and censorship issues have always been issues we have been concerned about. This issue has an article
‘on this issue,
Death is inevitable and no one is immortal; so in this SNI. too we have stories of women who have made our life worth living and.
‘who have now become history.
Do write to us and do visit our website and also join us on our Facebook page.Book Review
Monsoon Diary: A Memoir with Recipes
By Shoba Narayan
SHOBA NARAYAN
Monseon Diary
Book details:
Monsoon Diary:
A Memoir with Recipes
‘Author: Shoba Narayan
Publisher: Penguin India, 2004
(Pages: 223) (Price:Rs. 299)
hoba Narayan is a freelance journalist who, according
Swe her website (shobanarayan.com), writes about food,
travel, fashion, art, and culture. Monsoon Diary was her
first book, originally published by Random House in 2003
and written while she was living in the United States. As
such, like the first works of many diasporic South Asians,
it dwells on her childhood and her coming-to-America
story. (Her second book is Return to India: An Immigrant
Memoir (Jasmine Publishing, 2012), its title evoking
Santha Rama Rau’s Home to India (1945).
Shoba’s writing is fluent and engaging, directed
primarily towards a non-Indian audience, it seems,
given her lengthy descriptions of foods that need little
introduction in India, such as ghee, rasam, idlis, and pav-
bhaji (although she eats the pav-bhaji on a stall in Camden
‘Town, London). The first half of this episodic “memoir
with recipes” is set in the author's “TamBram” (Tamil
Brahmin) childhood; the second half, in the United States,
where she pursued her post-secondary education and
settled for some time after her marriage. In each of the
chapters, the narrative is loosely focussed on a particular
subject or episode in her life, and followed by one recipe,
occasionally two or three. Monsoon Diary closes with the
author's early married life, a year or so after her wedding,
when the author is frantically preparing authentic Indian
dishes to please her new husband, who doesn’t care for
her experimentation with fusion cooking
‘The title, although evocative, is rather misleading in
that it has little or no connection with the monsoon,
which is discussed in only one chapter. (Monsoon Diary is
reminiscent of Indian American director Mira Nair’s film
‘Monsoon Wedding which was released in 2001, a couple of
years prior to publication.)
Like many young women, Shoba comes into conflict
with her parents over the restrictions she faces after
coming of age, and insists on going to the United States
for further studies, despite her parents’ opposition. She
(ory
agrees to complete her bachelor’s degree in Women’s
Christian College but secretly applies to the all-women’s
‘Mount Holyoke College in the U.S. as a Foreign Fellow.
When her parents learn of her admission on a full
scholarship for a year, they are terrified to let her go, for
fear that she will marry outside of her caste and religion.
According to her narrative, an uncle suggests a solution
to the deadlock: if she can cook the family a vegetarian
feast that they all like, she can go to America. Needless to
say, she is successful in producing “tasty, authentic Indian
fare?” although she has “never cooked a full meal for
anyone (p.106). Pethaps this story is true, but it seemed
to this reader to be rather far-fetched.
Although Shoba writes as a strong, self-motivated
young woman, Monsoon Diary is neither a feminist
memoir nor a postcolonial one. its not clear exactly when
she leaves for the U.S., but apparently it is only at Mount
Holyoke that she first hears about feminism. Similarly, her
description of her “East-West” encounter characterises
India and America in rather stereotypically orientalist
terms (“India's fatalism” vs. America’s “flux” (p.124)) and,
at least at this stage in her life, her understanding of the
global is limited to the international foods she tastes at
Mount Holyoke. After her post-graduate studies in the
US. end without her receiving a degree, she returns to
India and after some time, without further discussion of
her professional career, agrees to a traditional arranged
marriage, albeit one arranged by caring and enlightened
parents. As she sets out to prove to her new husband—
and to herself—that she can cook, she writes, “I took to
the challenge with the fervour of a graduate student. I
missed the goals and achievements that marked student
life and transferred all my energies into cooking. Cooking
well became my goal, and when I succeeded, it was an
achievement. At least for me” (p.194).
By 2003, when Monsoon Diary was published,
cookbooks had long been including personal narratives
with their recipes, with several by U.S.-based Madhur
Jaffrey prominent among the Indian ones. However, in the
past decade or so, the “memoir with recipes” has become
popular and lucrative for publishers, and has even been
given a name: the Foodoir. Monsoon Diary fits neatly into
this genre.
—Josna Rege
Worcester State University
Congratulations!
‘The Maharashtra Foundation award function 2014
was held on 10" January 2015. Pushpa Bhave received
the Jeevan Gaurav Puraskar. SPARROW congratulates
Pusha Bhave for receiving the award.
WE ARE PROUD OF YOU
PUSHPA JI!Book Review
Tinka Tinka Tihar
Editors: Vimlaa Mehra and Vatika Nanda
(Pages: 135) (Price: Rs 595)
Inow know
Death is better than life.
In life, none drew me close
All who are sitting beside my corpse.
In life, none talked to me.
(‘Inow know’ by Aarti)
his is from a poem by a prisoner in Tihar jail. Vimlaa
‘Mehra, the former Director General, Prisons and Vartika
Nanda, a journalist, with the help of Neeta, the jailor, have
compiled poems of four women inmates of Tihar jail: Rama
Chauhan, Seema Raghuvanshi, Ria Sharma and Aarti, which
have been translated by Mondira Moitra.
A brief profile of each woman leads us to their poems and
photographs. We learn about their family background and
present relationship with them; we are not told about their
crimes; we have to suspend our judgement.
‘To read the poems, we have to “free” them, to physically cut
through the pages; the book is “modelled after Tihar, designed
to keep things in’. The poems may not have the polish and
sophistication and subtlety of more “literary” poetry but they
are eloquent nonetheless. They express the pain, grief and
struggles of women who have found themselves in captivity,
their lives turned topsy-turvy because of a single incident.
Besides the pain of incarceration, there are other tragedies
they have to bear—abandonmentby their families, separation
from their little children.
Many of the poems are, unsurprisingly, about lack of
freedom, loneliness, struggle, hopelessness and death. Yet
there are poems with lines like: Together let us laugh/ Join
our hearts/ Relive, recreate/ ‘The moments gone by (“Beautiful
World” by Ria Sharma) and Come when the sky is overcast/
‘The scent of the raindrops caress/Make us blush. (“Meeting”
by Rama Chauhan) and You beckon me on moonlit nights/
Your thoughts crowd my being every moment/ The wait,
0.3
the longing is for you only/ It seems like the thorns to the
flowers/ All look towards those moments of joy in life. (“Your
thoughts” by Seema Raghuvanshi)
‘The women were also given cameras to capture the
world inside the prison with their photographs which give
us an insight into their daily life. There is an interesting
juxtaposition of their raw, colour photographs with the more
sophisticated black-and-white portraits by Shovan Gandhi, a
professional photographer.
Vartika Nanda writes, “This book is the beginning of an
effort to understand the thoughts of women who are behind
bars... These poems have the strength to say—TI was, I am, I
will be...” The book is a good endeavour reminding us that
the voices of women behind bars, too, must be heard.
—Priya D'Souza
Mastaranchi Savli
‘Author: Krishnabai Narayan
Mixiterachi Savi (in the Shadow of the Master
the memoirs of Krishnabai Surve, wife of the
celebrated Marathi poet Narayan Surve, gives you a glimpse
into the life of a feisty woman who stood by Surve through
thick and thin and who was his muse.
Narayan Surve, a foundling, born around 1926, was
raised by a mill-worker of Girangaon, Mumbai. Having
known the working class life closely, Narayan was drawn to
progressive thought and communism early on. He studied
only up to the fourth grade but he became known as an
effective party worker and public speaker among the mill-
workers while he was still very young and they began to
address him as “Master’, a common term of address for
a teacher. Krishnabai Talekar, a Maratha girl of fourteen-
fifteen from the same Mangaldas Chawl at Curry Road
where Surve lived, was drawn to this activist Master.
Krishnabai and Narayan shared a lot between them.
Krishnabai too had lost both her parents when she was
very small and the grandmother under whose watchful eye
she had grown up had died suddenly, leaving an illiterate