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Karno's Daughter
‘Buttermilk is never exercised about the Indian state. She seems to view it as some form of feral life, addled and unpredictable, that fortunately stays largely out of sight. Because when it does appear, it might attack. And who in their right mind gets angry at marauding wildlife?’ This is a biography of Buttermilk, a domestic worker in Kolkata. Her ordinary life is extraordinarily rich – and largely invisible, in plain sight. It straddles the city, the village, and the suburbs. Her life brims with stories of betrayal and devastation, but also with striking life lacks, unexpected aesthetics, and love in unlikely places. This story is a weave of many threads – her family across multiple generations, her city work, and her life as a rice farmer. We follow her across five decades as she forges a life in the city with creativity and grit, and one antenna permanently tuned to the land. We witness her tackle brutal pressure, and yet remain free of callus. With wit and spirit, Buttermilk lives an uproarious trapeze act, with no safety net from god or country.
- GenresNonfiction
193 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 25, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
October 21, 2019
| Book Review | Karno's Daughter.
~
It's such a shame that not many know about this brilliant book. When I finished reading it, my heart felt full and I immediately wanted to tell the entire world about how stunning this book is. I felt equal amounts of pain and pleasure while reading about Buttermilk's hardships and her little victories. Buttermilk's story might be similar to that of thousands of maids in our country, with no proper amenities and services provided by the government. Their everyday struggle of scrubbing the grimy floors and standing in the long lines to fill water from the public pump, my heart goes to out to all such Buttermilks in this country.
~
Buttermilk has been Rimli's maid for the past eight years. She lives in a slum in the suburbs of Kolkata and covers six houses everyday. She awakes at 4AM and goes back home at 6PM, sometimes even late in the night. But Buttermilk doesn't complain about the work. She gets paid enough to look after her husband, son and her daughter-in-law. Buttermilk is from a small village, few miles away from Kolkata and very often she travels to take care of her paddy fields in the village. She resolved a familial dispute about the land by standing firm against the goons, hired workers to help her grow paddy and harvest the grains. All this without skipping her work in the city.
~
What makes Buttermilk special, you ask? Her sheer will to get things done inspite of boulder like obstacles. Having been married to a man who is slow in thinking, Buttermilk immediately took reigns of the house and managed it. Her three children, two daughters who are married to good men and a drug addict son, were looked after by Buttermilk as she struggled to give them good lives. As she talks about her journey to the City, she recalls the moments that she had with her father, Karno. The father whom she loved dearly and whose death still tears her up. The life of Buttermilk is far from simple because she played the roles of both man and woman of the house.
~
What might seem simple to us takes five times the effort for people like her to get it done. Do you know that the Aadhaar card for example cannot scan all the fingers of maids? Their hands are so calloused due to the scrubbing and washing that they do that their fingerprints are no longer clean. This is not just her story. This is the plight of thousands of other women who leave their houses before dawn and return with a deep ache in their bones.
Along with her life in the City, Buttermilk explains in detail about the rice that she grows. It's informative and interesting to know what goes into making our staple food. She talks about floods and draught, the money and food that she lost. Her tears flow freely as she recounts her experience about the lost harvest. It's hard to be Buttermilk and not everyone can pick themselves up and keep walking. But there are women like her who do not give up. A must read.
~
Rating - 5/5.
~
It's such a shame that not many know about this brilliant book. When I finished reading it, my heart felt full and I immediately wanted to tell the entire world about how stunning this book is. I felt equal amounts of pain and pleasure while reading about Buttermilk's hardships and her little victories. Buttermilk's story might be similar to that of thousands of maids in our country, with no proper amenities and services provided by the government. Their everyday struggle of scrubbing the grimy floors and standing in the long lines to fill water from the public pump, my heart goes to out to all such Buttermilks in this country.
~
Buttermilk has been Rimli's maid for the past eight years. She lives in a slum in the suburbs of Kolkata and covers six houses everyday. She awakes at 4AM and goes back home at 6PM, sometimes even late in the night. But Buttermilk doesn't complain about the work. She gets paid enough to look after her husband, son and her daughter-in-law. Buttermilk is from a small village, few miles away from Kolkata and very often she travels to take care of her paddy fields in the village. She resolved a familial dispute about the land by standing firm against the goons, hired workers to help her grow paddy and harvest the grains. All this without skipping her work in the city.
~
What makes Buttermilk special, you ask? Her sheer will to get things done inspite of boulder like obstacles. Having been married to a man who is slow in thinking, Buttermilk immediately took reigns of the house and managed it. Her three children, two daughters who are married to good men and a drug addict son, were looked after by Buttermilk as she struggled to give them good lives. As she talks about her journey to the City, she recalls the moments that she had with her father, Karno. The father whom she loved dearly and whose death still tears her up. The life of Buttermilk is far from simple because she played the roles of both man and woman of the house.
~
What might seem simple to us takes five times the effort for people like her to get it done. Do you know that the Aadhaar card for example cannot scan all the fingers of maids? Their hands are so calloused due to the scrubbing and washing that they do that their fingerprints are no longer clean. This is not just her story. This is the plight of thousands of other women who leave their houses before dawn and return with a deep ache in their bones.
Along with her life in the City, Buttermilk explains in detail about the rice that she grows. It's informative and interesting to know what goes into making our staple food. She talks about floods and draught, the money and food that she lost. Her tears flow freely as she recounts her experience about the lost harvest. It's hard to be Buttermilk and not everyone can pick themselves up and keep walking. But there are women like her who do not give up. A must read.
~
Rating - 5/5.
February 10, 2021
Delighted that this random pick from a bookstore turned out to be a fascinating read.
If a comparison is what you're after - The Help meets The Lives of Others.
Class divide novels don't always have to be bleak. While Karno's Daughter isn't exactly about the class divide, it does not invite any pity or slide into sentimentalism. There is empathy and no annoying sympathy. It does not exoticize. In its elegant, matter-of-fact prose it records the life of poor people (especially women) in India with confidence, wit and humour.
The eponymous daughter is a vivacious, high-spirited and enterprising domestic help worker in Kolkata from rural Bengal who has been working more than twelve hours a day from the age of six. All her waking life is devoted to physical labor, often backbreaking than not. But that does not deter her from being a cheerful, intelligent and practical matriarch. She is not idolized as some model mother figure either - she has her flaws and exercises her power wherever she can.
Her life story is narrated by one of her employers - a middle-aged writer - in third person with only the occasional input. In a few chapters, her first-person narration is italicized, but it didn't make any difference because the third-person narration conveyed her feelings and situation with equal ease. It is a short novel - 150 pages and can be finished in a single day, if not in a single sitting. It is very engaging and its portrayal of the daughter's life is very affecting. It has a lot of information to offer on rural Bengal life, its seasons and traditions, agriculture, food, and rice in particular. Much like the urban narrator, I knew nothing about the different varieties of rice or the process of its cultivation. A domestic worker in the city, she also owns a small patch of land in her village where she cultivates rice. She runs into a lot of legal and family problems in the city and her village. But she solves them all with sheer determination and finesse. She is full of hustle (jugaad would be a better term) and lets nothing stop her - not her illiteracy in an indifferent government office, not patriarchy in her village. With what little the world has given her, she tries to carve out a space for herself and live a successful life. Her pecuniary cleverness is indicative of the exemplary Indian mindset, especially while dealing with the government or receiving benefits. There was one particular chapter when she accidentally buys a sweet for sixty rupees and is immediately guilty that she is eating it all alone without sharing it with her family. This was a brilliant scene and her feelings evoked so many things - a striking innocence and simplicity, the typical mindset of a poor parent, the degree to which patriarchy is entrenched in the minds of women who are taught to always put others before themselves. It reminded me of my mother who would bring home every little cake or chocolate given in her office to share with us.
It is sometimes heartbreaking to read about starvation and the condition of life in slums and rural areas. It is enraging that so many have to share the very few resources (given that overpopulation has been our biggest problem and the most direct cause of poverty, I just don't understand why there has been no major attempt to address it like China did).
I would highly recommend this novel for its authentic, unsentimental portrayal of the lives of domestic workers - a subject so rare in literature and a subject so easily ignored in real life.
If a comparison is what you're after - The Help meets The Lives of Others.
Class divide novels don't always have to be bleak. While Karno's Daughter isn't exactly about the class divide, it does not invite any pity or slide into sentimentalism. There is empathy and no annoying sympathy. It does not exoticize. In its elegant, matter-of-fact prose it records the life of poor people (especially women) in India with confidence, wit and humour.
The eponymous daughter is a vivacious, high-spirited and enterprising domestic help worker in Kolkata from rural Bengal who has been working more than twelve hours a day from the age of six. All her waking life is devoted to physical labor, often backbreaking than not. But that does not deter her from being a cheerful, intelligent and practical matriarch. She is not idolized as some model mother figure either - she has her flaws and exercises her power wherever she can.
Her life story is narrated by one of her employers - a middle-aged writer - in third person with only the occasional input. In a few chapters, her first-person narration is italicized, but it didn't make any difference because the third-person narration conveyed her feelings and situation with equal ease. It is a short novel - 150 pages and can be finished in a single day, if not in a single sitting. It is very engaging and its portrayal of the daughter's life is very affecting. It has a lot of information to offer on rural Bengal life, its seasons and traditions, agriculture, food, and rice in particular. Much like the urban narrator, I knew nothing about the different varieties of rice or the process of its cultivation. A domestic worker in the city, she also owns a small patch of land in her village where she cultivates rice. She runs into a lot of legal and family problems in the city and her village. But she solves them all with sheer determination and finesse. She is full of hustle (jugaad would be a better term) and lets nothing stop her - not her illiteracy in an indifferent government office, not patriarchy in her village. With what little the world has given her, she tries to carve out a space for herself and live a successful life. Her pecuniary cleverness is indicative of the exemplary Indian mindset, especially while dealing with the government or receiving benefits. There was one particular chapter when she accidentally buys a sweet for sixty rupees and is immediately guilty that she is eating it all alone without sharing it with her family. This was a brilliant scene and her feelings evoked so many things - a striking innocence and simplicity, the typical mindset of a poor parent, the degree to which patriarchy is entrenched in the minds of women who are taught to always put others before themselves. It reminded me of my mother who would bring home every little cake or chocolate given in her office to share with us.
It is sometimes heartbreaking to read about starvation and the condition of life in slums and rural areas. It is enraging that so many have to share the very few resources (given that overpopulation has been our biggest problem and the most direct cause of poverty, I just don't understand why there has been no major attempt to address it like China did).
I would highly recommend this novel for its authentic, unsentimental portrayal of the lives of domestic workers - a subject so rare in literature and a subject so easily ignored in real life.
March 18, 2019
Honest rating: 4.5 stars
What a book! Loved reading this so much!
Full review soon.
What a book! Loved reading this so much!
Full review soon.
March 16, 2021
Here's another reason you should always go to the little second-hand bookstore and wander around. This book was a hidden gem that we just happened to come across in a nice little bookstore and I am very glad we decided to pick it up and give it a read!
This is the biography of the eponymous Karno's Daughter, the maid who works for the narrator and ostensibly the author. When I first came across this book, I wondered if it would be exploitative. Not satisfied with extracting labour from the servant, did an upper-class woman also use their story to make a name for themselves? But reading this book made all those thoughts disappear. Rimli Sengupta has been so painstakingly honest that you can't help but appreciate her. She has also clearly put the spotlight on the servant, named Buttermilk here.
Buttermilk's story paints an unflattering picture of India as it is currently. The various social and economic factors that have wreaked havoc in her life still exist and continue to destroy so many lives. There are some facts that the narrator quotes towards the end about domestic workers that just makes you feel sad. There doesn't seem to much light at the end of the tunnel for these folks right now. Their exploitation is probably going to continue on for some more generations to come.
We also have a glimpse into the life of a farmer. The whole process from how the seeds of paddy are germinated and sown to how the rice is finally packaged for the city-folks is gone over in great detail. It is alarming to know how easily this whole process can go awry at any stage. There are so many essentially unpredictable factors here. I kept thinking that there must be some way for things to be easier. But someone as intrepid as Buttermilk would probably have found it if there were. It opens your eyes to the hardships of farmers even more and pushes you to think more about what you can do to help make their lives easier.
By also taking a look at her own privilege Rimli Sengupta makes you take a long hard look at yourself. She tries to use that privilege to give a voice and respect to Buttermilk inspiring us to try and do the same. I haven't had a maid in my adult life. But as I was reading this, I wondered about all the childhood maids I'd had, and the women I still see working in other people's houses. They all probably have similarly complex stories. This is perhaps the most important impact of this book. Hearing their story would humanize them so much more and hopefully allow us to treat them much better.
Even today, even among folks from the city-bred younger generation, maids are treated as second-class citizens. Reading this book could potentially change that. I really hope this book is much more widely read!
This is the biography of the eponymous Karno's Daughter, the maid who works for the narrator and ostensibly the author. When I first came across this book, I wondered if it would be exploitative. Not satisfied with extracting labour from the servant, did an upper-class woman also use their story to make a name for themselves? But reading this book made all those thoughts disappear. Rimli Sengupta has been so painstakingly honest that you can't help but appreciate her. She has also clearly put the spotlight on the servant, named Buttermilk here.
Buttermilk's story paints an unflattering picture of India as it is currently. The various social and economic factors that have wreaked havoc in her life still exist and continue to destroy so many lives. There are some facts that the narrator quotes towards the end about domestic workers that just makes you feel sad. There doesn't seem to much light at the end of the tunnel for these folks right now. Their exploitation is probably going to continue on for some more generations to come.
We also have a glimpse into the life of a farmer. The whole process from how the seeds of paddy are germinated and sown to how the rice is finally packaged for the city-folks is gone over in great detail. It is alarming to know how easily this whole process can go awry at any stage. There are so many essentially unpredictable factors here. I kept thinking that there must be some way for things to be easier. But someone as intrepid as Buttermilk would probably have found it if there were. It opens your eyes to the hardships of farmers even more and pushes you to think more about what you can do to help make their lives easier.
By also taking a look at her own privilege Rimli Sengupta makes you take a long hard look at yourself. She tries to use that privilege to give a voice and respect to Buttermilk inspiring us to try and do the same. I haven't had a maid in my adult life. But as I was reading this, I wondered about all the childhood maids I'd had, and the women I still see working in other people's houses. They all probably have similarly complex stories. This is perhaps the most important impact of this book. Hearing their story would humanize them so much more and hopefully allow us to treat them much better.
Even today, even among folks from the city-bred younger generation, maids are treated as second-class citizens. Reading this book could potentially change that. I really hope this book is much more widely read!
April 10, 2020
The prologue of the book goes like this
~~I’m writing about you, you know.’
‘Write, go ahead, write.’
‘You won’t be able to read it, though.’
‘I won’t, but someone will.’ A brief pause.'God will, for sure.’~~
I was completely carried away by this, flipping through the pages , after reading two or three chapters, I just wondered why didn't this book get it's due attention and appreciation.
🏡
Buttermilk's day starts at 5 30 am and ends at 7 pm. She commutes in crowded and suffocated local train from Subhashgram, a sub urban region located at city outskirts to Kolkata and works in six houses as a maid. One of those houses is our author Rumili's with whom she shares sisterly bond with. If she takes a day or two days off from work, those houses gets bathed in dust.
🏡
Besides swabbing floors, washing dishes, eating leftovers, collecting discarded things from owners ,she has an other side of her life in which she is the mistress supervising her five 'bighas' of land in village. She single handedly manages everything right from planting saplings, threshing off paddy and loading rice into silos, thanks to her demented husband and drug addicted son. She tutors Rumili about harvest seasons & calenders and process of yielding when she comes to work. She teases coyly at city people that they don't even have an idea of which type of rice variety they are eating !
🏡
Rumili gets exclaimed at her vast knowledge ranging from recycle value of a dead laptop to the special knot that keeps a threshold rice bundle from falling apart. She never loses her ornate optimistic thin smile on her face overplaying all troubles , swathed around her. Come what may ! Any issue , either it is her land issue in village or repeated dejection she had faced in municipal tax office with silly reasons, or denial of LPG reimbursement by authorities. When asked her about those ,she just says with heaved chest and undeterred confidence "I can’t read or write, so I have to depend on others. And if you depend, you’re going to get swindled. Otherwise, am I less than anyone?"
🏡
Rumili Sen Gupta has defly conceived the illiterate and rural lifestyle of people living in India. She depicts well known fact that we dont get a mouthful of rice without farmers shedding their blood and sweat for a whole complete crop season. Farmers never lose hope despite repeated loses incurred, because agriculture is not merely an occupation to them, it's a way of living. They know how to calculate weather but sometimes it may fail who knows sky has the whole arsenal, if it shows slight lenience in downpour it leads to floods snapping out entire yield and if in case, it hesitates to drop a trickle, draught would be the final resort.
God has unfortunately written script on their crackled forehead akin to their withered lands longing for rains.
🏡
Buttermilk despite having a flush ancestral agricultural family backdrop straddles between village, sub-urb and city working as maid with callused hands & knees and worn out finger tips. At some point of time though having sheer wit and courage , Buttermilk gives a sliver of suicidal thought (which she drops later ) and says washing tattered underwear in an unknown household is better than withstanding tumultuous quakes that agriculture gives in. As long as people like Buttermilk continue to hold their lands and keep feeding millions of mouths, no one would ever taste hunger.
~~I’m writing about you, you know.’
‘Write, go ahead, write.’
‘You won’t be able to read it, though.’
‘I won’t, but someone will.’ A brief pause.'God will, for sure.’~~
I was completely carried away by this, flipping through the pages , after reading two or three chapters, I just wondered why didn't this book get it's due attention and appreciation.
🏡
Buttermilk's day starts at 5 30 am and ends at 7 pm. She commutes in crowded and suffocated local train from Subhashgram, a sub urban region located at city outskirts to Kolkata and works in six houses as a maid. One of those houses is our author Rumili's with whom she shares sisterly bond with. If she takes a day or two days off from work, those houses gets bathed in dust.
🏡
Besides swabbing floors, washing dishes, eating leftovers, collecting discarded things from owners ,she has an other side of her life in which she is the mistress supervising her five 'bighas' of land in village. She single handedly manages everything right from planting saplings, threshing off paddy and loading rice into silos, thanks to her demented husband and drug addicted son. She tutors Rumili about harvest seasons & calenders and process of yielding when she comes to work. She teases coyly at city people that they don't even have an idea of which type of rice variety they are eating !
🏡
Rumili gets exclaimed at her vast knowledge ranging from recycle value of a dead laptop to the special knot that keeps a threshold rice bundle from falling apart. She never loses her ornate optimistic thin smile on her face overplaying all troubles , swathed around her. Come what may ! Any issue , either it is her land issue in village or repeated dejection she had faced in municipal tax office with silly reasons, or denial of LPG reimbursement by authorities. When asked her about those ,she just says with heaved chest and undeterred confidence "I can’t read or write, so I have to depend on others. And if you depend, you’re going to get swindled. Otherwise, am I less than anyone?"
🏡
Rumili Sen Gupta has defly conceived the illiterate and rural lifestyle of people living in India. She depicts well known fact that we dont get a mouthful of rice without farmers shedding their blood and sweat for a whole complete crop season. Farmers never lose hope despite repeated loses incurred, because agriculture is not merely an occupation to them, it's a way of living. They know how to calculate weather but sometimes it may fail who knows sky has the whole arsenal, if it shows slight lenience in downpour it leads to floods snapping out entire yield and if in case, it hesitates to drop a trickle, draught would be the final resort.
God has unfortunately written script on their crackled forehead akin to their withered lands longing for rains.
🏡
Buttermilk despite having a flush ancestral agricultural family backdrop straddles between village, sub-urb and city working as maid with callused hands & knees and worn out finger tips. At some point of time though having sheer wit and courage , Buttermilk gives a sliver of suicidal thought (which she drops later ) and says washing tattered underwear in an unknown household is better than withstanding tumultuous quakes that agriculture gives in. As long as people like Buttermilk continue to hold their lands and keep feeding millions of mouths, no one would ever taste hunger.
March 1, 2020
A small book and unfortunately less popular then it deserves to be.
A biography about a domestic maid in calcutta, yes the Didis and aunties and bais without whom most of our privileged lives would come to a grinding halt. The maid called 'buttermilk'( the reason for this odd name is revealed much later in the book) starts from the villages of sundarbans to the slums in calcutta. The book in its less than 200 pages touches upon every issue plaguing the rural and urban poor right from erratic monsoons to caste to gender to hurdles in getting basic documents done in govt offices. While it calls itself to be a biography it doesnt feel like one, with one reviewer calling it a 'narrative non fiction'. There are places in the book where the narrator identifies her own privilege and in doing so makes us realize it as well. For example she compared buttermilk's monthly salary to a little less than a meal for 2 in a good restaurant. Or how we know nothing about the rice which we buy, how it is grown and it's various varieties and the fact which most struck me was how a domestic maid, seemingly illiterate has the entire crop cycle based on seasons and its accompanying problems as well as the solutions to them etched in her mind... Knowledge is not just limited to books you see.
Pick it up to know a more about the world outside our comfortable urban life dependent on these invisible maids whom we do not spare a second glance, pick it up for it's beautiful writing and pace, pick it up because this book deserves to be read.
A biography about a domestic maid in calcutta, yes the Didis and aunties and bais without whom most of our privileged lives would come to a grinding halt. The maid called 'buttermilk'( the reason for this odd name is revealed much later in the book) starts from the villages of sundarbans to the slums in calcutta. The book in its less than 200 pages touches upon every issue plaguing the rural and urban poor right from erratic monsoons to caste to gender to hurdles in getting basic documents done in govt offices. While it calls itself to be a biography it doesnt feel like one, with one reviewer calling it a 'narrative non fiction'. There are places in the book where the narrator identifies her own privilege and in doing so makes us realize it as well. For example she compared buttermilk's monthly salary to a little less than a meal for 2 in a good restaurant. Or how we know nothing about the rice which we buy, how it is grown and it's various varieties and the fact which most struck me was how a domestic maid, seemingly illiterate has the entire crop cycle based on seasons and its accompanying problems as well as the solutions to them etched in her mind... Knowledge is not just limited to books you see.
Pick it up to know a more about the world outside our comfortable urban life dependent on these invisible maids whom we do not spare a second glance, pick it up for it's beautiful writing and pace, pick it up because this book deserves to be read.
October 1, 2021
Karno’s Daughter- The lives of an Indian maid by Rimli Sengupta
An underrated book . A magnum opus of the ignored and the submissive.
Only this book is much more.
The story of the wonderful Buttermilk - her name hidden but her personality speaks volumes.
Her story zigzagged with worries like dominoes falling one after another , through it her undying optimism .
We celebrate so many people who achieve success and fame - scientists , actors , well earning and well settled.
What about those struggling to grow in the lower rungs of the societal tree ? Without whom the basic home is in a mess..
Dishes left unclean , houses unswept .
She’s not just a house maid - she’s an organised farm hand , she’s a mother and most importantly she’s a strategiser and breadwinner of the family.
Married off at an early age and trained in the ways of house work , she’s clever and insanely bright even without an education . The scent of streetsmartness.
The right way to thresh a crop . To move away from the slums . To create peace between families .
She does everything
But gets acknowledged for nothing .
She’s never had a day off . This lady .
Of course our current worries amount to nothing in front of this stalwart women.
Chip away at her weathered personality and you find a naive girl vying for her father’s love . Not a second to think about worries but the fast pace of moving just like the local trains . You don’t miss the station ..
Rimli Sengupta writes a well rounded novel - tugging at our hearts with something we see yet unsee - the plight of domestic and migrant workers.
Always taken for granted .
Leave with pay ?
Pension ?
Travel insurance ?
They cannot afford unions they can only afford to feed the open mouths of children waiting for buttermilk.
An underrated book . A magnum opus of the ignored and the submissive.
Only this book is much more.
The story of the wonderful Buttermilk - her name hidden but her personality speaks volumes.
Her story zigzagged with worries like dominoes falling one after another , through it her undying optimism .
We celebrate so many people who achieve success and fame - scientists , actors , well earning and well settled.
What about those struggling to grow in the lower rungs of the societal tree ? Without whom the basic home is in a mess..
Dishes left unclean , houses unswept .
She’s not just a house maid - she’s an organised farm hand , she’s a mother and most importantly she’s a strategiser and breadwinner of the family.
Married off at an early age and trained in the ways of house work , she’s clever and insanely bright even without an education . The scent of streetsmartness.
The right way to thresh a crop . To move away from the slums . To create peace between families .
She does everything
But gets acknowledged for nothing .
She’s never had a day off . This lady .
Of course our current worries amount to nothing in front of this stalwart women.
Chip away at her weathered personality and you find a naive girl vying for her father’s love . Not a second to think about worries but the fast pace of moving just like the local trains . You don’t miss the station ..
Rimli Sengupta writes a well rounded novel - tugging at our hearts with something we see yet unsee - the plight of domestic and migrant workers.
Always taken for granted .
Leave with pay ?
Pension ?
Travel insurance ?
They cannot afford unions they can only afford to feed the open mouths of children waiting for buttermilk.
September 16, 2021
A very interesting read, the book recounts the struggles of an Indian maid. Amidst her work and personal struggles, she finds little things to be happy about. She is optimistic in spite of her troubles and would go to any lengths to keep her family safe and happy.
July 23, 2020
Full review on the blog:
https://tsbookclub.wordpress.com/2020...
https://tsbookclub.wordpress.com/2020...
November 2, 2018
Karno’s Daughter by Rimli Sengupta is a biographical account of an Indian maid, starting from her early years; her struggle, multiple working shifts, any and every possible opportunity to sustain a living for herself and her family.
The sub title of the book “The lives of an Indian Maid” is so appropriate as you can see through the multiple stages of her lives and she truly does live so many lives and so incredibly!
A daughter, a wife, a mother and a working woman indeed💪🏻
This is more than just a book.. It’s a tribute to our Indian maids.
I absolutely love reading non fiction and when it’s beautifully written and impactful like this, it gives me nothing but pleasure to pass on the recommendation here❤️
Highly recommend this one!
The sub title of the book “The lives of an Indian Maid” is so appropriate as you can see through the multiple stages of her lives and she truly does live so many lives and so incredibly!
A daughter, a wife, a mother and a working woman indeed💪🏻
This is more than just a book.. It’s a tribute to our Indian maids.
I absolutely love reading non fiction and when it’s beautifully written and impactful like this, it gives me nothing but pleasure to pass on the recommendation here❤️
Highly recommend this one!
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews