Of People and Places

I met Rajeshwari ( name changed) when I was assisting in the documentation of a project run by an NGO in some of the garment factories of Bengaluru. Shy, dignified,she told me her story of how she was buoyed up in her struggles with her oppressive family by the strong sisterhood that exists among them because of their involvement in the project. Run like a community mobilization project that sensitizes garment workers about sexual health, gender inequality, domestic violence and alcohol abuse - there is an air of empowerment in all the stories I hear from the women, but with a strain of the old oppression. Mulling over it and my experiences through the whole documentation - I wrote this short story - it contains all the women that I met there and other women that I have observed outside of this experience :) Let me know what you think! At the seams Chandrika gazed out the window of the car, her thoughts far away. The view was monotonous, one of Bangalore’s newly...

Part 3 of the conversation with Abhishek Dubey - One that is close to my heart. About the struggle in artists and writers to be true to oneself and to the society we live in. Have you been writing since childhood? Not much. It was in college that I began to write in earnest. We wrote together for Jazba and read a lot. When you start creating something together, it influences you to do personal work too. I started to write by connecting my experiences to the things that I had read about. Finding your voice, finding your own point of view is very slow, but extremely rewarding. It began to be a good practice. As you continue to write, some elements in your writing style begin to improve. Your understanding changes, matures and leads to new insights. I discovered Gorakh Pandey’s “ Bhojpuri ke nau geet ” and thought that they were splendid. His style of poetry influenced me. He was a people’s poet. And he was writing in    my mother tongue – t...