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Rebirth is about the resilience and beauty of
the human spirit
Assam-born writer Jahnavi Barua, whose debut novel Rebirth is an intimate portrait of the passionate bond between a mother and her unborn child, sees her work as an account of resilience and beauty of the human spirit. "It is the story of a young woman, Kaberi, from a small town who finds herself alone in a big city, far away from home, in a marriage that is unexpectedly falling apart. This unforeseen happening forces Kaberi to look at, not only the future, but also the past, with new courage," the Bangalore- based author says. "On this new path, she endures many difficulties but also finds joy and in the end, herself. Rebirth is thus an account of the resilience and beauty of the human spirit," Jahnavi, who is a doctor by profession, says. Moving between Bangalore and Guwahati, the novel, published by Penguin, weaves together Kaberi's inner and outer worlds as she negotiates the treacherous waters of betrayal and loss --- an unfaithful husband, a troubled relationship with her parents and the death of a childhood friend. According to Jahnavi, the characters in Rebirth are completely fictitious and certainly not real. "I have not come across any of them at any point in my life," she says. The basic outline or arc of the story came to her over a period of time. "It was over a year, I think. However, I began to write it down only after it all came together in my mind, so I suppose, I did not write it as I went along but more in one continuous movement." Writing comes fairly easily to Jahnavi "fortunately, and entirely unexpectedly, although there are difficult days". Her first book Next Door, a collection of short stories, in 2008 won critical acclaim. In 2005, she won the Short Fiction contest hosted by Unisun Publishers and the British Council and followed it with a second prize in the Children’s Fiction category of the same prize the next year. In 2006, she was awarded a Charles Wallace Trust Fellowship to study Creative Writing in the UK. She plans to write another novel "although, in between, I keep going back to the occasional short story". Jahnavi feels Indian women are becoming more assertive and taking charge of their own destinies. "They are able to do
so, increasingly, because of the benefits of education and of being able
to earn their own living. Economic independence is driving this change
and allowing women to speak for themselves," she says. — PTI
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