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The Woman Who Wore A Hat
In a house with an octagonal drawing room, a group of men gather night after night to talk, drink, and circle around their emptiness. The air is thick with boredom, guilt, and the ghosts of the past. Into this closed, suffocating world walks a young woman wearing a hat garlanded with flowers. She says she wants to make an animated film, that she has lost her memory, that she is looking for capital—and perhaps for herself. Through her, Kamal Desai creates a powerful portrait of women who refuse to be confined by expectations—as wives, daughters, and mothers—and reach for something beyond endurance, towards self-definition.
First published in Marathi in 1975, The Woman Who Wore a Hat is a landmark of Indian feminist fiction. In its quiet yet piercing way, it dismantles the boundaries between the masculine and feminine, sanity and rebellion, belonging and exile, memory and selfhood. With wit, lyricism, and sharp psychological insight, Desai traces a woman’s insistence on choosing her own meaning in a world that seeks to name and contain her.
Shanta Gokhale’s elegant translation brings this daring, introspective novel to a new generation of readers—one that continues to ask what it means for a woman to be free.
First published in Marathi in 1975, The Woman Who Wore a Hat is a landmark of Indian feminist fiction. In its quiet yet piercing way, it dismantles the boundaries between the masculine and feminine, sanity and rebellion, belonging and exile, memory and selfhood. With wit, lyricism, and sharp psychological insight, Desai traces a woman’s insistence on choosing her own meaning in a world that seeks to name and contain her.
Shanta Gokhale’s elegant translation brings this daring, introspective novel to a new generation of readers—one that continues to ask what it means for a woman to be free.
125 pages, Paperback
Published December 12, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 16, 2026
I am loving this rennaissance of translations that we’re currently in. It gives me access to such a wealth of literature from every corner of this country. Many of these translators are themselves, accomplished English writers. Being Indian myself, I can see the way the the language is crafted around Indian beliefs, proverbs, superstitions, social structures and life practices. Even if I don’t read or speak the language, the connections are dimly visible to me. Just like you wouldn’t have to explain too hard to any Indian person, the relevance of a nimboo-mirchi (even if they were not from a part of the country that performs this practice).
Translations also throw up bits of wisdom that Indians usually navigate as matter of course but which, in a Western book would be deliberated on in words, labelled, highlighted and debated. Here’s an example from this book:
Hat Ghalnari Bai or The Woman Who Wore A Hat is a slim volume which I managed to finish in the course of an evening. I was not familiar with the author but Shanta Gokhale’s name pulled me in. The blurb calls it a landmark of Indian feminist fiction. I marvel at how Indian feminism is quieter, less linear, more amorphous in its inquiry into gender than Western (usually white) feminism is.
A mysterious woman shows up in the lives of several ordinary men, entrenched in their regular Indian middle class lives. She is an anomaly of womanhood as well as Indianness because she comes with no past, no connections and hence absolute freedom. She is fearless and reticent, a combination that English narratives cannot quite grasp as bravery is always associated with fierceness. But this is a woman who is merely moving through life, with no harnessing from the past, no tugging pull from the future, merely with curiosity and calm acceptance.
It bothers me that most coming-of-age stories of women feature massive trauma. And many female-oriented narratives are about survival and rising above bad things. Nothing about the unnamed behatted woman touches trauma. She is rejected, adopted, violated, claimed, romanced, fought over, propositioned and she continues on her mysterious path regardless, without the slightest heroics.
Translations also throw up bits of wisdom that Indians usually navigate as matter of course but which, in a Western book would be deliberated on in words, labelled, highlighted and debated. Here’s an example from this book:
For a moment, the chatterbox must have felt embarassed. Then she began yelling again, to rid herself of shame.
Hat Ghalnari Bai or The Woman Who Wore A Hat is a slim volume which I managed to finish in the course of an evening. I was not familiar with the author but Shanta Gokhale’s name pulled me in. The blurb calls it a landmark of Indian feminist fiction. I marvel at how Indian feminism is quieter, less linear, more amorphous in its inquiry into gender than Western (usually white) feminism is.
A mysterious woman shows up in the lives of several ordinary men, entrenched in their regular Indian middle class lives. She is an anomaly of womanhood as well as Indianness because she comes with no past, no connections and hence absolute freedom. She is fearless and reticent, a combination that English narratives cannot quite grasp as bravery is always associated with fierceness. But this is a woman who is merely moving through life, with no harnessing from the past, no tugging pull from the future, merely with curiosity and calm acceptance.
It bothers me that most coming-of-age stories of women feature massive trauma. And many female-oriented narratives are about survival and rising above bad things. Nothing about the unnamed behatted woman touches trauma. She is rejected, adopted, violated, claimed, romanced, fought over, propositioned and she continues on her mysterious path regardless, without the slightest heroics.
March 31, 2026
The Woman who Wore a Hat by Kamal Desai, tr from Marathi by Shanta Gokhale begins with this line - “The drawing room is like a monstrous prehistoric octopede. People fear to go in.” And in this drawing room in Rajani Mehta’s house, he and his friends - Prabhakar, Hari, Ram and Tatyaba meet almost every day. They mull over their past, pour their fears out and secretly envy each other. Into their soporific existence, walks a strange woman who wears a hat decorated with flowers. She doesn't remember her name or anything about her past but is on an extraordinary mission - to make a fantasy movie and build a Disneyland in Maharashtra for which she needs capital.
Intrigued by how a person can remember nothing of her past and be defined only by present and future, these men spring into action - some abhor her very presence while some support her project and go the extra mile to ensure her safety. But what's a woman without an identity of being someone’s daughter, sister, wife or mother? Isn't such a woman’s existence a bane? Why are a bunch of men who are taunted by their own past hellbent on uncovering this woman's past and completing the jigsaw puzzle of her life story? And can a woman's talent and ambition overpower the simple truth that she is after all a bag of flesh who is meant to satisfy a man’s pleasure and fancies?
Published in 1975 as Hat Ghalnari Bai, the novella assumes a quiet, but powerful feminist tone.Though the narrative meanders in the first half, there’s a lot conveyed in a surreal/symbolic manner. The translation has a certain sophistication to it without making us feel that the original has been glossed over to suit the western palette.
Says the woman with the hat to the men - “My going will keep eating into you. My staying will also consume you. My existence is going to suffocate you. You will never know what to do with me.” And this is pretty much the feeling we readers are left with at the end of this atmospheric novella.
A copy of the book was provided by the publishers in return for an honest review
Intrigued by how a person can remember nothing of her past and be defined only by present and future, these men spring into action - some abhor her very presence while some support her project and go the extra mile to ensure her safety. But what's a woman without an identity of being someone’s daughter, sister, wife or mother? Isn't such a woman’s existence a bane? Why are a bunch of men who are taunted by their own past hellbent on uncovering this woman's past and completing the jigsaw puzzle of her life story? And can a woman's talent and ambition overpower the simple truth that she is after all a bag of flesh who is meant to satisfy a man’s pleasure and fancies?
Published in 1975 as Hat Ghalnari Bai, the novella assumes a quiet, but powerful feminist tone.Though the narrative meanders in the first half, there’s a lot conveyed in a surreal/symbolic manner. The translation has a certain sophistication to it without making us feel that the original has been glossed over to suit the western palette.
Says the woman with the hat to the men - “My going will keep eating into you. My staying will also consume you. My existence is going to suffocate you. You will never know what to do with me.” And this is pretty much the feeling we readers are left with at the end of this atmospheric novella.
A copy of the book was provided by the publishers in return for an honest review
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews