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.

I was rather hesitant about beginning this book, as I have very complicated feelings about feminism and how it relates to colonialism, particularly how white feminism frequently enforces colonialism in the name of "freeing" brown and black women. On the other hand, the book's cover copy promised a story about how Leela's own journey would intertwine with Gandhi's argument for satyagraha and Indian independence.

I know—this sounds like a book that is All About Oppression, but rather than finding it depressing, I found it uplifting and hopeful. Leela reminds me a great deal of Rilla in Rilla of Ingleside in that both begin as rather privileged, flighty creatures, and soon must live up to political events outside their control. I started out wanting to shake Leela at times, and I ended up loving her.

What really made the book for me was how India-centric it is. Sheth doesn't do what many authors (usually white) do—bring in an enlightened white person who explains about freedom and feminism and whatnot, or focus on the white person who learns about colonialism and feels oh so bad about it! I love that Leela reads Gandhi and Narmad, famed Indian poet and thinker, that the book remembers people of color worldwide amazingly agitate for their own freedom without white heroes, that Sheth portrays the small town Leela lives in as a dynamic one. This is about Indian women struggling for themselves and Indian people fighting; the Raj is a distant presence, though a heavy and horrible one.

I didn't realize how angry I still was about last year's Romance of the Revolution panel at Wiscon until I read this, because the many revolutions against colonialism and imperialism matter to me. They are personal history.

Also, on a lighter note, Sheth consistently has tidbits about Indian food! The completely-uneducated-me felt that the details on Indian culture in that time period and area were good, but again, grain of salt. In conclusion, I was very happy with this find and will be looking for Sheth's backlist.

Comments

[oracne.livejournal.com]

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.livejournal.com]

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!

[slrose.livejournal.com]

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.livejournal.com]

you should xpost this to snr.

[oyceter]

Done!

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

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.livejournal.com]

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!!

[deepad]

I am so wary of reading books set in India, because I tend to obsess about each detail that doesn't match with my lived reality. And sometimes that nitpicking runs toward snobbishness. But thanks for the rec, I will try this one out.

If you are looking for more books that give a (imho) accurate description of day to day life, I'd highly recommend A Village By The Sea by Anita Desai. Quietly beautiful prose, non-judgemental affectionate ethnography, and characters you can feel for.

[oyceter]

Yes to the nitpicking! I am less certain of how well this will go with people familiar with India, since I have zero base knowledge, but the author has lived there?

Also, yay, rec!

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Getting caught up...this sounds neat! Thank you.