Busted Models

by Meher Manda

If the history of any country is best understood by listening to those a country has overlooked, then Indian women bear the loudest testimonies to their nation’s suffering. Busted Models is an essential limb of a larger work in progress, one that seeks to question how the woman has grown to be a country’s most revered and reviled figure. Through lyrical verse, narrative introspection, and detailed reporting, the collection of poems slowly bear their anger after a lot of pacifying, their truth after a lot of whitewashing, their voice after a lot of silencing. Busted Models is a snippet into the names who have raised our bodies from nothing, charged and inspired our futures, failed our hopes, but who continue to ignite many revolutions.

Amy Lawless, author of Broadax said of the book.

“In Busted Models, Meher Manda juxtaposes the experience of Indian women in their various states of perfect, abundant, and contradictory imperfection thus displaying the complexity and depth of these lives. These narrative and lyric poems underscore that women’s experiences vary, and ‘to be wild is to be temporary.’ Amid these noble objectives, Manda highlights the tangled nature of collecting stories when she asks: ‘What parts of my life will I have to murder into memory to be a celebrated book?’ This book is intersectional and subversive, angry and decisive, timely and timeless, godly and profane, worldly and domestic. I love this unabashed book.”

Unknown Binding

Published September 1, 2019