Date:08/01/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/01/08/stories/2006010814310300.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Book on Subbulakshmi from her daughter's perspective

Staff Reporter

"This will make heard the silences surrounding women's lives"

ACROSS GENERATIONS: Mythili Sivaraman, vice-president, All-India Democratic Women's Association, hands over the first copy of her book to Sudha Sundararaman, general secretary, AIDWA, in the city on Saturday. — Photo: V. Ganesan

CHENNAI: In the early twentieth century, a young Tamil Brahmin mother left home to come to Chennai and educate her daughter. The diary of two years that Subbulakshmi wrote by a lamp in Triplicane, other jottings and fragments of her correspondence have been recast in the light of her daughter's notes on her life by her granddaughter, Mythili Sivaraman, who is the vice president of the All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA).

Preeti Gill of Zubaan Publishers that brought out the `Fragments of a Life: A Family Archive' said the book was important for its attempt "to make heard the silences that surround the lives of women." Ms. Sivaraman handed over the first copy of the book to Sudha Sundararaman, general secretary, AIDWA, here on Saturday evening.

Bold writing

Ms. Sivaraman expressed great wonder about her grandmother's appetite for reading, the eclectic list of titles she borrowed and the graciousness of the librarian who helped her. She also spoke of her involvement with the politics of her time and the absence of references to this in her diary.

Ms. Sivaraman has written boldly, unafraid of hurting conventional sensibilities, working with material that a historian cannot, N. Ram, editor-in-chief of The Hindu said.

Uma Chakravarti, professor of history, said the fragility of the material was symbolic of the tenuous nature of the existence of its author who could not be what she wanted. "What is the worth of a history that cannot reflect these existences?" she asked.

Padmini Swaminathan of the Madras Institute of Development Studies said the book drew attention to several potential areas of inter-disciplinary research. The many deaths of young working men that consequently swelled the number of the child widows was a theme, she suggested.