A part of her world

Sreemoyee Piu Kundu’s Meera Patel is every Indian woman, says the author at the Bangalore launch of Sita’s Curse

May 27, 2014 06:56 pm | Updated 06:56 pm IST - Bangalore:

A sudden hush falls across the room as the video begins to play. A series of sepia tinted images interspersed with a sudden splash of colour unwinds.

A woman emerges—not young, not old but beautiful. Her anklet shod feet leaves behind wet foot prints on sodden sand. She goes back home—a sordid chawl overlooking crowded Maximum city and goes ahead with her regular routine. She lights a lamp, showers, dries herself and dresses, slips on bangles, affixes a bindi to her forehead, lines her eyes with kohl, paints her nails and lips, reads the newspaper, cooks and cleans, buys vegetables, eats mangoes and chilli pakodas. And suddenly the scene changes—the homemaker is replaced by a sensual woman who explores her sexuality, pleasures her body, keeps her secrets before finally panning to an image of her sleeping, the book that is being released ( Sita’s Curse ) balanced on her knees while these words flash across the screen, “Desire has no language, only signs.”

Sreemoyee Piu Kundu, the author of this novel which was launched in the city recently started by stating that the protagonist of the book (and the trailer), Meera was conceptualized from the memory of a woman she saw every day on her way to work many years ago.

“I was a journalist in Mumbai many years ago and would pass a particular chawl in Byculla where I would see this woman every day. She was an Apsara-like beauty dressed in a crushed cotton sari with the most melancholy eyes I had ever seen, the colour of rain. Sometimes I would see her looking at the sky, sometimes she would be hanging out clothes to dry or feeding chillis to her parrot. It was the first time I was so strongly attracted to a woman and I believe she noticed me too. We had this unspoken dialogue—Meera and I and I would constantly conjecture about her life.”

Then the 2005 floods happened—the city was swamped and mayhem reigned. “I was a victim of the floods too,” says Sreemoyee, who developed leptospirosis after wading home in filthy water. “It was sometime before I returned to work and when I did, I looked for her. But I never saw her again. This book is my tribute to a woman who is trapped in my memory. I am only a vessel to this story.”

But this story is a lot more than the story of Meera. It raises questions on a variety of issues including the hypocrisy of a society, abusive marriages, the sexual politics within homes, the power wielded by self-styled god men in India.

Designer Prasad Bidapa, who introduced the author, read from the prologue of the book which was followed by another reading and discussion by director and actor Prakash Belawadi.

“This book is in the voice of a woman saying what it wants to,” Prasad said. “It is progress of sorts and I am glad that we live in a country that allows this story to be told. Here is to more erotica coming out of the closet.”

Prakash talked about the sexual pardah that exists in a society. “India is a strange mix of the sophisticated and the prudish. We need to go beyond this posturing and masquerading.”

For Sreemoyee, however, the book’s greatest victory is the protagonist of the story. “Meera is every Indian woman. The book is her story, making it clear that she no longer needs to be ashamed about her desire. The world needs to stop being divided into sexual halves, we should grant a woman her sexual needs, even in a marriage, respecting that she has equal rights to sexual fulfilment and that we should stop overlooking centuries of abuse and neglect in the name of religion and sex. I hope that when you put down the book, Meera has become a part of you.”

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