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SKETCHES
FROM MY PAST: Encounters
with India’s Oppressed
Mahadevi Varma
Translated by Neera Kuckreja Sohoni
Rs 250 Pb 1999
81-86706-06-2
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In this dramatically
powerful collection of real-life portraits of oppressed
women and other deprived members of Indian society,
Mahadevi Varma weaves her memoirs around other peoples’
lives rather than her own. Her intimate and affectionate
sketches of women, men and children she personally
knew, reveal her compassion for the desperate plight
of the disinherited poor in the India, as well as
her intense rage at those who exploit women and
the dispossessed. Whether it is Binda, the lonely
orphan girl victimised by her stepmother; Bhabi
the emotionally and physically abused child widow
barred from any contact with the outside world;
or Sabiya the poor sweeper woman deserted by her
husband shortly before the birth of their child,
the subjects of Mahadevi’s memoir convey for
universalist vision to resurrect the inner dignity
of ‘these wounded and mauled lives’.
Her compelling memoir transcends the borders of
culture and time. |
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MAHADEVI
VARMA
(1907-1987)
was a distinguished poet, writer and social
reformer who dominated the Hindi literary
world for much of the 20th century. She was
one of the founders of Chhayavad,
a school of Hindi poetry that broke from traditional
formalism and relied on symbolism to illuminate
the agony and ecstasy of the human heart.
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NEERA
KUCKREJA SOHONI
is an affiliated
scholar at the Institute for Research on Women
and Gender at Stanford University, and a member
of San Mateo County’s Advisory Council
on Women. She is the author of Women
Behind Bars, People in Action,
and The Burden
of Girlhood: A Global Enquiry into the Status
of Girls,
as well as a columnist for
India Currents. |
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