A young journalist, Nainika Chandra chronicles the stories of three women, Susanthi Bodra, a young girl, whose father is considered dead and mother has gone missing. A child, Nelli who runs away from her abusive employers but meets a worse fate, and Nelli’s mother Gowravva who goes out in search for her daughter. The story traverses through the forest hamlets of Jharkhand, Orissa, and Karnataka.
At a time when we are bombarded by urban novels and soppy love stories, Nirmala Govindarajan’s Hunger’s Daughters is a welcome respite, as the book, which has a feel of the soil, so to speak, is inspired by real-life stories. Nirmala, a freelance art and culture journalist, has documented the lives of young girls in Jharkhand and Orissa, and the people’s lives there inspired her to write Hunger’s Daughters . Nirmala has sculpted the nuances of rural life through compelling characters and detailed descriptions of the landscapes.
What makes the novel is the lyrical quality rendered by the songs particular to each region. The novel is replete with beautiful poetry. When we read about rural India in the news the reporting leaves one feeling helpless, but Nirmala presents their lives with respect. Choosing fiction to write about real life stories is unique as well. “There was freedom in telling the story in fiction format,” says Nirmala, who has authored another novel The Community Catalyst .
“I identify quite a bit with the character of Nainika,” says Nirmala, “The first time I went to Bochagora , we were waiting at the village school. We went down the road, and there we went into four hutments within a hutment. I met Sushanthi, I have changed the name in the book, and the day I met her was when her mother had left her.”
Nirmala recalls she penned the novel over cups and cups of tea at Koshy’s. “When I sat down to write, the story came out as a stream of consciousness. And that’s how the book happened. I had written some stories and they came to me.”
Characterisation is undoubtedly Nirmala’s forte. She explains that this is because she engaged with the lives of the people she has written about. “Sushanthi was a real person who I built on. When I was in the third standard, I moved from Chennai to Bengaluru. I stayed in Jayanagar and opposite to where I stayed a lady had a maid who was a young girl and she used to torture her. The maid inspired the character of Nelli,” concludes Nirmala.
