Sheth, Kashmira - Keeping Corner
Leela is a twelve-year-old in Gujarat, India in 1918. She's obsessed with pretty bangles and saris and excited about her anu, the ceremony to send her off to live with her husband. But then, her husband dies, and Leela will be a widow forever, as brahman women are not allowed to remarry.
I was rather hesitant about beginning this book, as I have very complicated feelings about feminism and how it relates to colonialism, particularly how white feminism frequently enforces colonialism in the name of "freeing" brown and black women. On the other hand, the book's cover copy promised a story about how Leela's own journey would intertwine with Gandhi's argument for satyagraha and Indian independence.
I know-this sounds like a book that is All About Oppression, but rather than finding it depressing, I found it uplifting and hopeful. Leela reminds me a great deal of Rilla in Rilla of Ingleside in that both begin as rather privileged, flighty creatures, and soon must live up to political events outside their control. I started out wanting to shake Leela at times, and I ended up loving her.
What really made the book for me was how India-centric it is. Sheth doesn't do what many authors (usually white) do-bring in an enlightened white person who explains about freedom and feminism and whatnot, or focus on the white person who learns about colonialism and feels oh so bad about it! I love that Leela reads Gandhi and Narmad, famed Indian poet and thinker, that the book remembers people of color worldwide amazingly agitate for their own freedom without white heroes, that Sheth portrays the small town Leela lives in as a dynamic one. This is about Indian women struggling for themselves and Indian people fighting; the Raj is a distant presence, though a heavy and horrible one.
I didn't realize how angry I still was about last year's Romance of the Revolution panel at Wiscon until I read this, because the many revolutions against colonialism and imperialism matter to me. They are personal history.
Also, on a lighter note, Sheth consistently has tidbits about Indian food! The completely-uneducated-me felt that the details on Indian culture in that time period and area were good, but again, grain of salt. In conclusion, I was very happy with this find and will be looking for Sheth's backlist.
I was rather hesitant about beginning this book, as I have very complicated feelings about feminism and how it relates to colonialism, particularly how white feminism frequently enforces colonialism in the name of "freeing" brown and black women. On the other hand, the book's cover copy promised a story about how Leela's own journey would intertwine with Gandhi's argument for satyagraha and Indian independence.
I know-this sounds like a book that is All About Oppression, but rather than finding it depressing, I found it uplifting and hopeful. Leela reminds me a great deal of Rilla in Rilla of Ingleside in that both begin as rather privileged, flighty creatures, and soon must live up to political events outside their control. I started out wanting to shake Leela at times, and I ended up loving her.
What really made the book for me was how India-centric it is. Sheth doesn't do what many authors (usually white) do-bring in an enlightened white person who explains about freedom and feminism and whatnot, or focus on the white person who learns about colonialism and feels oh so bad about it! I love that Leela reads Gandhi and Narmad, famed Indian poet and thinker, that the book remembers people of color worldwide amazingly agitate for their own freedom without white heroes, that Sheth portrays the small town Leela lives in as a dynamic one. This is about Indian women struggling for themselves and Indian people fighting; the Raj is a distant presence, though a heavy and horrible one.
I didn't realize how angry I still was about last year's Romance of the Revolution panel at Wiscon until I read this, because the many revolutions against colonialism and imperialism matter to me. They are personal history.
Also, on a lighter note, Sheth consistently has tidbits about Indian food! The completely-uneducated-me felt that the details on Indian culture in that time period and area were good, but again, grain of salt. In conclusion, I was very happy with this find and will be looking for Sheth's backlist.