Each story in this anthology testifies to women’s many concerns, whether with a way of life, or with being caught inside the four walls of the home, or in a relationship with someone other than the husband, or being caught at the intersection of many forces within a situation of political violence and armed conflict. In one way or another the woman’s body becomes a site upon which many battles take place: for control, for power, for progeny, but there is seldom a resolution in which the women remain a mere victim, or more acted upon the acting. Whether she is in the palaces of the gods, or caught in the body of snake, or speaking through the spirit of the countryside which witnessed her rape, the woman’s voice is unique, singular and in each story, different. While this gives substance to the cliché that India is a country where many and varied realities exist simultaneously, it gives the lie to the cliché that all women speak with a sameness and a commonality of experience.
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