![]() ![]() Married off at 11 to a man in his thirties, Phoolan Mallah was a Dalit girl who suffered violence and sexual abuse at the hands of man after man. Recurring throughout the story is the motif of Phoolan Devi’s life, famed Indian dacoit and Geeta’s personal hero of sorts. In the course of the story, Shroff deftly makes it clear that while these women are strong, make choices, and have a clear sense of right and wrong, the matrix of their choices is always determined by men. ![]() This is not a friendship necessarily based on always liking each other – at more than one point in the story, the women argue whether what they are doing to one another is blackmail or extortion – but more often a result of recognising that the fabric of female experience is taut with tragedies small and big, and one another is all they have to lean on. The women together form a motley crew that you would want to be friends with – in a society where female joy is taboo, they create spaces to laugh, like cracking jokes about each other’s weight, and then gingerly retreating when they realise it has hit a tender spot. There are also other accomplices: Khushi, a Dom woman, from the sub-caste group tasked with handling dead bodies in Hindu society, who has found that the only way to survive this injustice of birth is to play the game her way, and twins Priya and Preity who parrot each other with ritualised ease. In demand though the services of a consultant murderer might be, it can be a consuming job: there are many loose ends to tie up, and the imperative to ensure that the door to return to normal everyday life never closes. But bad husbands are a somewhat ubiquitous species, and Geeta suddenly finds herself faced with more demands for husband-killing. There is a risk to her own life and business if she does not help, Geeta surmises, and the fact of his being a money-squandering, wife-beating alcoholic immensely helps the moral calculus. ![]() One day, Farah, who is a member of this group and runs her own sewing business, lures Geeta into helping her “remove her nose ring” (kill her husband). Part of a micro-loan collective that lends women money to support their small businesses, she pretends indifference to its other members, like Saloni, once Geeta’s closest friend – not just on the same team but “the same player” – but now estranged, who is the daughter-in-law of the village sarpanch. Geeta has found a way to sustain her fierce independence through her small jewellery-making operative of one. The lack of a husband condemns her to the life of a social outcast: she is at once a boogeyman, a bringer of misfortune, and as we find out, a subject of some envy. The setting is a nondescript village in Gujarat, where Geeta’s husband Ramesh abandoned her one ordinary Tuesday night five years ago, and she has been branded a “churel” ever since. The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff attempts to reimagine what carving out a life as a woman under the oppressive social regime of rural India could look like, and is a triumph in both its sensibility and handling of the story. She plucks out all her feathers, one by one.” It is such tremendous writing that you hate it for its clarity of truth. In her now-canonical essay “ The Crane Wife”, CJ Hauser writes: “To keep becoming a woman is so much self-erasing work. Caught on camera: BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi runs to avoid journalist’s question on wrestlers’ protest.Rush Hour podcast: Kisan Morcha calls for nationwide protests in support of wrestlers.For young readers: A new book of short stories stars the beloved comic character Little Shambhu. Caught in the middle of Manipur’s ethnic conflict, Meiteis who follow Christianity.Pro-BJP accounts lead trolling of CJI Chandrachud, researchers show.Crime fiction: A detective’s holiday is cut short when strange bloody handprints appear on the walls.How did the Indian langur end up in a prehistoric mural in Greece?.Cameo Super Kings: How CSK clinched a record-equalling fifth IPL title.Video: Watch this breakdancer’s amazing performance in sari and high heels.Thailand Open 2023: PV Sindhu knocked out in opening round Kiran George stuns world No 9 Shi Yu Qi.Constitution does not allow preferential treatment for religious majority: SC judge BV Nagarathna.Readers’ comments: ‘Most Kerala Hindus are already lost’. ![]()
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