Sheth, Kashmira - Keeping Corner

[oyceter]

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

Comments

[oracne]

Ooh, that sounds good!

Also, 1918! It's...almost...research!

[oyceter]

I like it a lot! I mean, it is YA so the language is simpler, but it makes me want to research the period a lot more.

[bossymarmalade]

Thank you so much for this review! This book sounds like something I'd want to get for my mum to read, and probably snag it off her bookshelf once she's done. *g*

[oyceter]

Yay! Successful book recs!

[shana]

Indian food! That reminds me of 'The Cooking of India' -- written by Santha Rama Rau that Time-Life books put out in (after checking) 1969.

I never tried to cook anything from it, but the narrative bits about India were compelling to my teenage self.

I'll have to check and see if we still have it, or if that was one of the cookbooks lost in the infestation.

[oyceter]

OMG the food! It made me so hungry!

[delux_vivens]

you should xpost this to snr.

[oyceter]

Done!

[rachelmanija]

You make this book sound much more interesting than I thought it was when I saw it in a bookshop. Especially with the food. I didn't realize it had food.

Indian women fighting for their rights in some sense or another predates colonialism in India, as you probably know, and has a very extensive history in which white people have mostly not been involved at all, except for more recent finger-pointing from the sidelines. Women's issues are frequently integrally interrelated with caste and class issues, as it sounds like this books gets into as well. Though women's stories and involvement in the Independence Movement have been largely downplayed in most of the Indian history books I've read, which is a shame.

[oyceter]

I know! I sort of picked it up on a whim because I am still trying to make 50 books by POC by IBARW, and it had food! The descriptions aren't as long and luscious as I would like, but there are a lot of them, and there's some talk of food prep too!

I really need to read up on Indian women and Indian women's issues! All my impressions are stupid ones like Phineas Fogg thinking "sati" is barbaric, and well... I roll my eyes at the attempt to use "feminism" as a means to justify why POC cultures are barbaric. And now I need to read Narmad and Gandhi.

But yeah, I'd be very interested to see what you thought of this... parts are sort of depressing because it's about restrictions on Leela and other widows and about the Raj, but I found it very empowering, because the focus wasn't on the oppression but on the movements and revolutions (both national and personal) against it.

Here via snr

[spiralsheep]

I dunno whether you're looking for more older South Asian feminists/social justice campaigners to read up on but here are a few of my personal favourites:

http://spiralsheep.livejournal.com/202413.html

http://spiralsheep.livejournal.com/194270.html

:-)

Re: Here via snr

[oyceter]

Recs! Thank you!!