Review: Girls Who Said Nothing & Everything

 [Review of a book of essays by Meera Vijayann on growing up as a young woman from a small town in India]

‘Girls Who Said Nothing and Everything’ is a collection of eleven autobiographical essays on growing up as a young woman in India.

“In the Tamil Nadar community”, the author Meera Vijayann writes, “speaking the truth about your family is a great betrayal. You are raised to feel indebted to your parents.” The eldest of four daughters, the author was born in a small town in Tamil Nadu to parents who wanted “the best” for their children, but didn’t really know what “the best” really was. While fstill in school, the author maintained a journal as a way to process her feelings, and it was while revisiting these journals decades later that she thought about compiling them into the essays that made up this book. The author, however does not consider these essays to be betrayal, and instead sees them as “a refusal to continue the oppressive culture of silence that I was raised in.”

The book begins with an incident where the young Meera is inadvertently held responsible for a classroom accident she did not intend to cause. After bearing the punishment in silence for a few days, Meera confides in her mother, who takes it up with the school authorities. While her mother stood up for her, and displayed righteous anger at how she was wrongfully blamed, this was not what Meera wanted. In her words, “I didn’t want her to stand up for me but to say something sweet and motherly.” She is almost angry with herself for confiding in her mother. Meera’s relationship with her mother continues to follow the same pattern. Her mother, who was forced to sacrifice her dreams at the altar of marriage wanted a different life for her daughters. Yet, she wanted her daughters to fulfil their dreams within the constraints imposed by a patriarchal society.

The book follows a chronological sequence, but more than that each successive essay marks different constraints the author has to overcome before she can achieve the personal, social and financial freedom she craves. She deals with issues which were relevant three decades back, and unfortunately continue to be relevant even today. She talks about casteism, classism and nepotism- the many ways in which society conspires to break down the spirit of ambitious young people. She speaks a lot about financial independence, and of how parents fail to prepare their children for the outside world by excluding them from conversations involving money.

Her essays expose the hypocrisy of society which looks away when young girls are sexually abused by older men, but are quick blame women for “tempting” the men with whom they are in a consensual relationship. All the institutions which are supposed to protect women, the author soon realises, do so only if the women grant blind obedience. She speaks about the power of role models, and of how hearing Barkha Dutt say “Oh girls, you’ll do great” served as a talisman for her. As she says, “All week, I couldn’t stop thinking about those words. I wish my parents had said something that kind and simple.”

While the author bemoans the fact that her parents didn’t provide the emotional support she needed while growing up, she also grows to recognise the fact that they themselves were victims of generational trauma. It was eventually her parents who took a loan to send her to UK to study so she could have the life that was denied to them.

‘Girls Who Said Nothing & Everything’ documents the coming of age of a woman who has to challenge social expectations and create opportunities for herself in a land where “every living thing but a girl has freedom.” It is a testament to fact that generational trauma can be overcome, and healing is possible. It is also the story of female solidarity, and of how women can uplift other women.

Read this book if you are interested in reading a personal memoir which also serves as a social commentary on how family, community, educational opportunities and caste come together to stunt the growth of young women.

[AN: I received a review copy of the book through the Blogchatter Book Review Program. You can buy the book on Amazon or wherever books are sold. The views are my own.]

The Inspirational Story of Daktarin Jamini Sen

 [Book Review first published in YouthKiAwaaz]

“In 1912, when most women in British India were still denied formal medical education, an Indian woman entered the global medical establishment. Jamini Sen became the first woman Fellow of the Royal Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, and then gradually disappeared from India’s public memory.”

When I read these lines, I immediately knew that I wanted to know more about Daktarin Jamini Sen. Most of us know the names of the three pioneering women doctors from India- Anandibai Joshi (the first Indian woman to quality as a doctor), Rukhmabai Raut (the first Indian woman to practice Western medicine in India) and Kadambini Ganguly (the first woman to qualify as a doctor in India)- the names and stories of the women doctors who followed them are largely forgotten. Yet, each of them would have had to overcome immense obstacles in the course of getting qualified and then while actually practicing medicine. What made this particular story even more intriguing was the fact that Jamini Sen was not just the first Indian woman to become a Fellow of the RFPSG, but the first woman regardless of nationality!

Nothing, however, prepared me for the inspirational story of Daktarin Jamini Sen!

The story begins in a village in what is now Bangaldesh. A young mother of two daughters is left destitute after her father-in-law passed away. While her husband is still alive, the villagers want her to forget about him since he ‘left the faith’ after joining the Brahmo Samaj movement. The lady, however has a mind of her own, and follows her husband to the city after first laying down the condition that she will remain true to the religious faith she grew up with. Both the daughters were given an education, and the younger of the two qualified as a doctor.

Then, instead of practicing medicine from the safety of her home, Daktarin Jamini Sen relocated to Katmandu to take up the position of the physician to the royal family. She was more than just a medical doctor- she became a confidant to the members of the royal family, and she worked closely with the local administration to introduce public health measures. Many of these sanitation and cleanliness measures were incorporated as a part of religious ritual, and as far as she was concerned, it didn’t matter who took credit as long as health standards improved.

When she returned to India following political turmoil, she decided to go abroad to acquire further qualifications, after which she joined the Indian Women’s Medical Service and served in many remote outposts of British India. In many of these postings, she was responsible for setting up or modernising the local hospital, and she commanded much respect from the people she treated.

The book does not, however, only deal with Daktarin Jamini Sen’s professional triumphs. It goes into the effort she had to put into maintaining her “virtue”, of the discrimination she faced from both men and women, of the baseless gossip that followed her wherever she went, and of how the system tried to browbeat her. The book also describes her spiritual experiences, and tries to understand some of the choices she made. There is also a diversion into how the saree drape evolved and of the particular style adopted by Daktarin Jamini Sen.

The book is written by the great-grand niece of Jamini Sen, and draws upon oral family lore. However, it is also the product of meticulous research and the writer gives precise citations wherever possible.

I would recommend the book to anyone who is curious to hear the stories of the female pioneers who helped pave the way for greater gender parity. It would also be of interest to people who are interested in learning about the Brahmo community in Calcutta and about the politics within the Royal Family of Nepal.

I received a review copy from Penguin India, and this review reflects my unbiased opinion.