Her Story So Far: Tales of the Girl Child in India

Her Story So Far showcases the most sensitive short fiction on the subject of the girl child by some of India’s finest writers—Phakirmohan Senapathy, Ashapurna Devi, Kamala Das, Indira Goswami, Amrita Pritam, Mrinal Pande, Pratibha Ray, Mahasweta Devi, Ambai, Ismat Chughtai and others. Compiled and edited by Monica Das, these stories cut across social, economic, and regional divides to reveal what life is like for a girl growing up in India. And they raise a crucial question: will our society ever rise above its innate hypocrisies and change the way it regards its women? Deceptively simple in their telling, the stories in this collection are about complex issues—exploitation, physical and emotional; gender and class prejudices, so deeply entrenched even in educated minds that they make monsters of men; and the years of negative conditioning that have compelled women to continually question their self-worth. Yet, the characters who bear out these adversities in each of the tales told here pulsate with life, exhibiting remarkable grit—a little girl asks why she is worshipped on Ashtami when her very presence irritates her mother; a spirited teenager rebels against strict rules that govern her every action and thought; a seven-year-old inspires her grandmother to indulge in the forbidden act of sitting on a swing; and a young woman wishes for her unborn child all of life’s little blessings that she herself missed out on. To read these stories is to feel pain, bewilderment, outrage, compassion and a sudden surge of hope at finding love and tenderness where one least expects it.