Mahashwetha

Rating: 4/5















Title: Mahashwetha
Author: Sudha Murthy
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 160
Publisher: Penguin India
ISBN-13: 9780143103295

After reading ‘Dollar Bahu’, I browsed for other books by Sudha Murthy and bought ‘Mahashweta’. While ‘Dollar Bahu’ is a light read, this one on the other hand, is more introspective.

Anupama is happily married to her doctor husband Anand when she finds out that she suffers from leukoderma. Her husband works abroad and in the meanwhile she is forced to leave Anand’s home and return to her own in the village. When her husband doesn’t reply to her several mails, she is left hopeless, lonely and marred for life. The crisis and evasion she faces from people and how she overcomes them all is the gist of the story.

The book was originally written in Kannada but as the case with all Mrs. Murthy’s books, it was later published in English and all major Indian languages.

The plight of the Indian woman is just as described in this book. And I couldn’t agree more. Even when we say that we live in a modern and equal world today, women still have to face the many atrocities in the name of culture, religion etc. Will there ever be an equal place for women, I wonder. But the conviction with which Mrs. Murthy has ended the story is what I like. Marriage is not a necessity but a choice, which even a woman can make. She can survive without it, without depending on and living as independently as any other man.

Beautifully written and totally recommended.