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There are others who rationalise that writers are writers. Men or women doesn't really matter, so long as they sit and write. But even as the debate goes on, let me write about some of those women writers and poets whose words and the very verse stood out this year. No language barriers nor boundaries come in the way when you interact with writers and poets of this subcontinent. In fact, at the SAARC writers’ meet, as conversation flowed with the well-known Bangladeshi novelists, Selina Hossein and Nasreen Jahan, it was not the political upheavals that were the focus but very mundane matters. At one of the book launches in New Delhi, one was pleasantly surprised to see the former foreign secretary of India, Jagat Mehta, accompanied by his son Ajay S. Mehta. Again, as the conversation flowed, Ajay spoke of his mother Rama Mehta, the well-known foreign service officer-turned-writer. He spoke emotionally of his mother’s writings, her great sensitivity and the times she’d lived in: born in 1923, she was one of those first few women to be appointed to the Indian Foreign Service but had later resigned from it. Taking up writing, she 'd authored one volume after another: The Western Educated Hindu Woman, The Hindu Divorced Woman, From Purdah to Modernity and also Inside the Haveli. In all probability, she'd have written many more volumes had she lived longer, she died prematurely at 54. In fact, lately I’ve been reading her book Inside the Haveli (Penguin), which is largely autobiographical. In fact, Anita Desai aptly describes it in these words: I remember the surprised delight with which I first came upon Rama Mehta's novel and encountered the freshness of her prose, the simplicity and tenderness of her evocation of an ancient and traditional way of life, and the understanding she brought to it." This entire year books and more books have been hitting the stands. Not just by the well established names but even others who are making a mark. The Chennai-based writer- dancer Tulsi Badrinath’s volume Meeting Lives carries in its fold emotions and more of them… can’t really fit it into any fixed slot, for it unfolds varying aspects. And architect-turned-writer Usha Ananda Krishna’s Fallout (Tranquebar) hovers around love. And with that in the foreground or background, there’s so much to bare…And what I found amazing that this trained architect gave it all up to become a full-time writer. And, then, there couldn’t have been starker emotions and their darker imprints than those found in Mridula Koshy’s collection of short stories If It Is Sweet. There is something absolutely different about her style. Each one of her stories stands out, flowing out with stark intensity. And after reading the latest collection of verse Set Free by the young Oriya writer Sunanda Pradhan, one is still not able to overcome the sheer impact of her words. Before meeting her very recently at the release of this volume at the India International Centre, I was under the impression that she’d be an ageing poet (simply because her verse carried forth so much, hit out at the realities of the day), but she turned out to be young ,in her early 30s… Intense-looking Sunanda stood out for the sheer prowess of her sensitivity. Though she has several collections to her credit, this is her first collection of poems in English translation and about which Keki N. Daruwala has this to comment: “Sunanda Pradhan’s poems thrive on solitude and the sea. At her best, her poems almost seem to become one with the elements, and water and wind and catch fire.” And some of those other books published this year which carry so much in their fold and leave an impact are: Justine Hardy’ s In the Valley of Mist (Rider), Arundhati Roy’s Listening To Grasshoppers – Field Notes on Democracy (Penguin). And as one reads one volume after another, some thoughts do nag: can women writers and poets (from our country as well as from the other SAARC countries) put pressure on governments to lessen war cries and the big divides doing the rounds? Can there be an effective voice of the writers? Can there be a revival of the Progressive Writers’ movement? Can there be a strong band of writers to harness and halt the hysteria erupting from vested interests? Can the writer keep at bay intruding forces and with that, lessen the havoc-cum-pain that the apolitical creature has to face, in this subcontinent?
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No, I’m no Lady Rip Van Winkle. It’s not that coming out of some sort of hibernation, I’m into this offloading mood. In fact, each time a book lands or makes its presence felt, it nudges me hard enough for me to quip that, at least, on this one front, we seem to be striding ahead. Books are coming out as never before. And the number of women taking to writing could well stretch beyond those rigid parameters. Bringing in offshoots and a whole array of queries: Do women writers focus on a different set of issues? Do women writers carry that baggage of emotions? Do women sense things differently and and so on...