Notes from the hinterland

Veteran journalist Mrinal Pande’s book is a mix of hard reportage and interpretative writing peppered with anecdotes. She chronicles small towns and villages hurtling towards the neon-lit expanse of a westernised economy. She traces the fast widening gap between the ‘shining India’ and the Bharat that stays in the shadows.

Divided into four sections – Mother Tongues and The Media, Women Today, Surviving the Odds and Musing and Profiles, the essays are a collection of articles/columns she wrote during the last four years for leading publications of the country. However, the essays throw still-fresh light on the real India.

The book brings together a wide ranging selection of essays, describing everything from the great language divide between Hindi and English to the anti-outsider movement in Mumbai. They dwell at great length on linguistic racism. Even though some of the essays may not interest general readers, Pande, who became the first woman editor of the multi-edition Hindi daily of the Hindustan Times Group in 2001, raises many pertinent questions.

In the essay titled ‘Is there life after vernacular journalism?’, Pande notes, “It is surprising that linguistic racism has never properly been debated in our urban feminist forums. Most Indian feminists who defend equality for women in all spheres continue to do so in English, which less than three per cent of the women understand…”

There is a connect between what happened at the recent Jaipur Literature Festival and what Pande had written about three years ago in ‘Writing in the age of best sellers’. “From Neemrana to Jaipur, Indian litfests seem less and less about literature and more and more about ‘worldly gains and razzmatazz’…,” she wrote.

  Another interesting read is the essay on the life and death of Hindi pulp fiction and how it has been replaced by soaps and programmes that borrow names straight out of the Meerut novels: Sansani, Jurm, Shhhh… Koi Hai.

Travelling to remote and inaccessible corners of the country, Pande brings us success stories and as well as sagas of struggle. Featured in the book are some remarkable women she met during her travels. Among them are Aaliya from Faridabad in Haryana that is highly female deficient, conservative and male-centric who trained to be a boxer; Razia Shabnam, the first woman Muslim boxer-turned-coach and international referee emerging from the slums of Kidderpur in Kolkata; and Gunja from Uttar Pradesh who escaped a forced marriage.

Equally inspiring is the story of Prabha Devi of Tehri, Uttarakhand who chose to become the village barber way back in 1995, after the sudden death of her husband as she wanted to keep hunger at bay for her three daughters and an old and blind father-in-law. According to Pande, Prabha Devi’s story challenges the stereotypical, if not sexist, picture most of us have of the Dalit widow in rural India…

More tragic is the story of Tulasa, a 14-year-old girl who was rescued from the dungeons of Kamathipura, Mumbai’s notorious red light area and who died a few months later. Reflecting on the poor quality of an hourlong television debate on legalising prostitution, Pande feels that we would do well to read ‘Prostitution and Trafficking in Nevada’ by Melissa Farley, who had advocated abolishing legalised prostitution.

Having spent three decades as editor in leading media groups, Pande plays agony aunt to none other than ex-Miss World and Bollywood queen Aishwarya Rai “who was married to a variety of holy trees and shrubs before tying the knot with a human being” (Abhishek Bachchan) as she was a Manglik. Aishwarya married Abhishek in April 2007.

Articulating her thoughts on the issue, Pande cites the doubts and despair faced by Shanta Apte and Meena Kumar, and writes: “…She has a big task of resisting pressures and someone else’s definition of what makes a nice life and mother…”

A hilarious profile that finds mention is that of the Mineral Water Baba of Faridabad, who can heal any ailment with a sealed bottle of mineral water. She analyses one of the big issues facing India’s villages and metropolises: its water-management systems.

Some of the other essays that are interesting include those on queens of melody Begum Akhtar and Gangubai Hangal. The book has a piece on country-made arms too. Towards the end of the book, in an essay titled ‘Babba’, Pande writes about the last days of her father-in law in Almora. This was BD Pande, an ICS officer who rose to become the country’s senior most civil servant and later served as governor of West Bengal and Punjab. But the author chooses not to mention him by name.

The compilation is fragmented yet a good study of the paradox called India.