It is hard to define the identity and bodily autonomy of a woman, more so in the face of war. The knowledge of crime and abuse often plays only in the background of our lives, but for the countless women who have witnessed the full capabilities of mankind, the world remains a hostile place. For author Garima Srivastava, what was to be a two-year posting in a foreign land, slowly turned into a journey of discovery of the self and the other. Chronicling her thoughts about family, the homeland, womanhood, Simone de Beauvoir, and the everlasting remnants of a war that ravaged Europe, she leaves us with thoughts and questions to ask of our own. Weaving in stories she has lived through and those that have been painstakingly entrusted to her, the journal takes us to a world both familiar and unknown. Translated from the 2017 Hindi publication of the journal Deh Hi Desh, the book guides us through Europe in a way that most shy away from, one that shows us how ultimately, women never stop living through a war.
Professor at Centre of Indian Languages, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, as well as a feminist activist, Ms. Garima Srivastava is a renowned literary figure.
Journal writing is an exclusive experience, unique, almost monologic. I had never thought that these pages would see the light of day as a book, yet somehow, chronicling has turned into a habit and the wonder is that the pages even began to fill up with the accounts of quite a number of my friends and acquaintances. 'Ami hridayer katha bolite byakul, shudhailo na keho' (I am keen to croon my feelings, but nobody wants to listen). Keenness often wilts in the absence of an audience. My family is sick of my usual tales of misery. Undeterred, I have been collecting stories here too, in Zagreb. Nadine Gordimer has termed writing a sort of suffering that demands absolute seclusion combined with self-introspection. How we delude ourselves! 'Tomar katha hetha keho to bole ne kore shudhu micche kolahal (Nobody talks about you here, just make a lot of noise). We must travel great distances to gather material for writing.
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