कठगुलाब

by Mridula Garg

English
236


About the Book

Four women. One man, Five stories that interweave, overlap, cross over and come together as the characters speak their lives to the reader – and to each other. Five characters in search of themselves in different contexts, from different backgrounds, trying to connect across a chasm of loneliness and disappointment.

Mridula Garg’s original Hindi novel, Kathgulab, available in English for the first time, seethes with disquiet. No permanent solutions, no abiding relationship, just the seeking self. Hailed as a work of extraordinary power and vigour when it was published, Country of Goodbyes is unrelenting in its probing, astringent in its delineation of women trying to break free. Unusual and gripping.

About the Author

Mridula Garg has published 16 books, including novels, story collections, plays and essays. She has won many awards, including the Hammett-Hellman award given by Human Right Watch for courageous writing, in 2001.

Contents

 




SMITA

1



MARIANNE

50



NARMADA

101



ASEEMA

142



VIPIN

187




Sample Pages

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Mridula Garg is an Indian writer who writes in Hindi and English languages. She has published over 30 books in Hindi – novels, short story collections, plays and collections of essays – including several translated into English. She is a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award.

She published her debut novel, Uske Hisse Ki Dhoop, in 1975. She was arrested for obscenity after her novel Chittacobra was published in 1979, in a case that extended for two years but did not result in prison. Several of her works have feminist themes, and she told The Hindu in 2010, "My writing is not feminist. One of the metaphors of womanhood is guilt, be it in sexual matters, in working woman or non-working. My women felt no guilt ever. It ruffled feathers. We have the cerebral part and the womb, which encompasses and empowers you but at the same time also tightens you. My kind of feminism is that each woman can be different."

She has been a columnist, writing on environment, women issues, child servitude and literature. She wrote a fortnightly column, Parivar in Ravivar magazine from Kolkata for five years between 1985-1990 and another column Kataksh (Satire) in India Today (Hindi) for 7 years, between 2003 and 2010. Her novels and stories have been translated into a number of Indian and foreign languages like German, Czech, Japanese and English.

She was a research associate at the Center for South Asian Studies in the University of California-Berkeley, USA in April 1990. She has been invited to speak on Hindi literature and criticism, and discrimination against women, at universities and conferences in erstwhile Yugoslavia (1988), the USA (1990 and 1991), and was a delegate to Interlit-3, Germany(1993). She was invited to and Japan (2003), Italy (2011), Denmark and Russia (2012). She traveled widely and lectured and read from her works there.

Reviews

[Roslyn Khongsai]

🙏

[Kumar Harsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

कुछ किताब्ने ऐसी होती हैं की जब आप उन्हें खत्म करते हैं तो मन बस शांत सा लगता है, न ख़ुशी न गम, बस शांत. ऐसा की जैसे जीवन की कोई शाश्वत सत्य जो आपको पता थी, उस सत्य का लघु-साक्षात्कार हो गया हो. ये पुस्तक वैसे तो विभिन्न चरित्रों द्वारा स्त्री-जीवन के संघर्षों के बारे में कहता है पर साथ-ही-साथ जीवन कई पहलुओं को परोक्ष-प्रत्यक्ष रूप से दर्शाते हुए, समझाते हुए चलता है. विभिन्न चरित्रों से विभिन्न परिस्थितियाँ, लेकिन बात कुछ एक सी ही निकल कर आती है. महज ट्रेंड बनते हुए फेमिनिम्स के दौड़ में ये ऐसी पुस्तक है जो स्त्री की तमाम कमजोरियों और उन पर प्रताड़नाओं को दिखाते हुए भी अंत में हमारे मन-मस्तिष्क में स्त्री की अद्वितीय महान प्रकृति को स्थापित कर देती है. स्त्री के सृजक होने के वजह से उसकी महत्ता कितनी असीम, कितनी अविवाद्य है.
'कठगुलाब' शीर्षक क्यूँ है इस पुस्तक का, ये समझ पाना भी अपने आप में एक सुखद अनुभूति है.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

States that it's a novel, but it also feels like 5 separate interconnected short stories. Excellent explorations of different women's lives--Smita's life in India is quite similar to Narmada's, though. Even Vipin's story explores a woman's life, that woman being Neerja. Some of the abusers are so well-written and truthful, especially Jarvis. And I loved that Smita, Marianne, and Aseema were all in the "don't forgive" camp.
At the end, though...I don't think Vipin wanted Smita. I think he wanted Assema.