Beyond the Courtyard: A Sequel to Unveiling India

Nineteen years ago, Anees Jung embarked on a journey that resulted in the best-selling book Unveiling India, a poignant and revealing look at the women of India. In this sequel, she returns to investigate what, if anything, has altered for their daughters. Have the dramatic changes in the social scene in the wake of liberalization, cable TV and a general opening up of society made any fundamental difference to their lives? Do they possess the resilience of their mothers, or is this a generation hovering uncertainly between two worlds–unwilling to be fettered by tradition and yet lacking the courage to break free? As before, she finds stories of suffering and fortitude, despair and hope: a young Rajput woman in Kutch defies the veil–and her husband’s command–to take up a job; Ameena in Hyderabad, rescued from an ageing Arab Sheikh in 1992 when barely twelve, is finally married off to another man more than twice her age; young mothers in Punjab are forced to kill their unborn daughters; a young prostitute in Mumbai fights drug addiction and hate, determined to live with dignity. Journeying across forgotten landscapes, both human and geographic, Anees Jung paints yet another unforgettable and, at times, harrowing portrait of women in India at the dawn of the new millennium.