Kusum Choppra

The guys who wrote the Ved Purans must have been a real misogynist lot. Hey, wait a minute; didn't the Brahmins do all that transcription, Centuries after their actual creation and oral traditions? Hmmm Brahmins?         It figures. Some say, after the release of the soul in cremation, It goes to Pitralok.  This enables a forefather to move to his next birth. Hey!   No instant rebirth? Anyways, so grandson releases grandfather, and so on. Now what about the women? Does grandma also need a grandson? Does it have to be her son’s son or Beti‘s son will do? Or a grand beti will do?   Is there any mention? After all in our times when one son is common, What happens to Daadima,   Naanima and   Mausima?  Everyone doesn’t have a son. Some don't have kids at all.    If no grandkids, toh? Agar bete ki Beti hai, toh? Agar Beti ka beta hai toh? Uske Dada ka kya hoga? If only one ch...

A Review by Kusum Choppra The title of Murli Melwani’s collection of short stories should have been “Against Many Skies.”       More than half the stories crisscross  India and her myriad cultures; the rest follow the ancestral trading trails beyond India’s borders trod by the hoary ancestors of a unique community, the Sindhis. I was so impressed by the perspectives the stories present that I could not   help but make brief comparisons of today’s   reality with the   layers of   literary pastry, appealling to different sensibilities, across numerous boundaries into the hearts of many readers. “ A Bar Girl.” A   touching story   woven around the life styles that both Amar Badlani and Rak have  chosen, that prevent them from stopping and evaluating their lives or asking where there are heading. For me the significant event was  Amar heading for Rak’s village, where it came home to ...

"Whistling or hissing, inviting by winking, soliciting or beckoning, writing songs with suggestive words or tunes, using amorous words, grasping and squeezing the wrist, caressing, placing a foot on the toes, touching the breasts, embracing and clinging, knocking down or forcing to lie down, assaulting while lying down , etc....."  
LIsten folks, this is not a list of the Do Nots under any modern Sexual Harassment of Women Act of our times.  SURPRISE! SURPRISE! 
 It was found by Pro. Bina Agarwal while researching India's matrilineal Garo tribe in the North East, part of an ancient oral code of "moral laws" followed by the Garos for generations.  Any of the actions mentioned were punishable if reported to the village chief. 
In our times, which is that Chief to whom women can go to report with any assurance that needful/justice would be done?