Few days back, when I came across the thought that women have the ability to capture multi-focused ideas in their writing better than men, I took it to be yet another stereotype that is just an outcome of generalised notions about women and men. But, to my surprise, when I came across the book Listening Now… by Anjana Appachana, I least expected that I would in a way agree with this idea.
Anjana Appachana clearly has the ability to draw interesting stories from the uniteresting corners of everyday life. And for millions of ordinary women, everyday life is indeed uninteresting for just being glued on to the mundanities of performing their womanly and household duties. So, you wonder what interesting stories that Anjana could probably tell about everyday life of women, to keep her audience hooked.
Well, then! As you move on gradually gripped by the flow of the narration and swallowed by the enormity of everyday life, you realise that Anajana has not contemplated stories but has tried to take a peek into women’s minds to read their thoughts and desires. Those unmet needs that lay entrapped in the crevices of mind, thickly insulated from the outside world, and in the process giving shapes to those suppressed voices through her beautifully picked words.
Although the story is a simple love story, it proves to be rich and complex and is told in perspectives of six different women. And these women narrate their own stories along with it and let out their suppressed desires, wishes, disappointment and their distant dreams that are totally unrelated to their lives in reality.
The narrative style is unique and piquant. Anajana has interwoven the essence of poignance with the stories of six women through out the story. This is a story that shuts the man’s world entirely out from women’s world. In her six complex stories, the men are generally viewed as insesntive people towards women’s pains and lives. Although it might sound like an “yet-another-generalisation-of-a-typical-feminist-woman” to many chauvinist and non-chauvinist men and also to many conventional women, in reality, it is not very far from the truth. The sensitivity with which Anajana handles the story is commendable and definitely leaves an impact.
Another important flavour of the story is the bonding of three women. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the book is richly textured and multilayered with too many stories that exude different flavours and intricacies of women’s lives. Be it the poignant friendship between the three women: Padma, Madhu and Anu or be it the ability of women to relate to each other like how Shantacca instantly finds out when she was narrating Padma’s story to Madhu and Anu, that those women were not crying for Padma, but in a way for their own stories. Or be it the hypocrisy of Indian fathers who hide behind the mothers to enforce conventional rules on their daughters making mothers as villains in the end. These rich stories also unveil the balatant truths about male chauvinism among fathers, husbands and brothers and how they affect and alter the lives of women. And then you realise, deep within you, that a major share of women’s tragedies and miseries in their lives are brought upon only by the men.
And in an effort to bring out the insenstive roles of men in women’s lives, Anajana, never tries to patronise and generalise women as “good and naïve”. Women in her stories are complex and varied as well. They come in different shapes and colours. They are strong, weak, caring, loving, conventional, liberative, villainous, catankerous and contemplating.
And each and every woman in the book leaves a mark on the reader as you come to the end of stories. Prabha, the rebellious daughter of Anu; or Sita, the woman who carries bitter secrets that she had known about her family since her childhood; or Prema, the naïve wife who lives through her suffering in silence and goes in search of the truth knocking at Rukmini’s door, each woman in the book is familiar and the book is filled with these women’s stories. Their tears, laughters, joy, silence, secret desires and their understanding of the male dominated world.
Listnening Now is a perfect treat for people who possess an insatiable hunger for stories. The stories that have never been told before, and the thoughts that have never been articulated! You find these poingnant stories part of many women you see in your lives. Yet you chose not to lend you ears. You never bothered to care.
But this book takes you through an ordinary world that has never before been explored with such finesse and intricacy. You don’t have a choice but to listen. Listen now… Your perspectives about life will never be the same again.
Anjana Appachana clearly has the ability to draw interesting stories from the uniteresting corners of everyday life. And for millions of ordinary women, everyday life is indeed uninteresting for just being glued on to the mundanities of performing their womanly and household duties. So, you wonder what interesting stories that Anjana could probably tell about everyday life of women, to keep her audience hooked.
Well, then! As you move on gradually gripped by the flow of the narration and swallowed by the enormity of everyday life, you realise that Anajana has not contemplated stories but has tried to take a peek into women’s minds to read their thoughts and desires. Those unmet needs that lay entrapped in the crevices of mind, thickly insulated from the outside world, and in the process giving shapes to those suppressed voices through her beautifully picked words.
Although the story is a simple love story, it proves to be rich and complex and is told in perspectives of six different women. And these women narrate their own stories along with it and let out their suppressed desires, wishes, disappointment and their distant dreams that are totally unrelated to their lives in reality.
The narrative style is unique and piquant. Anajana has interwoven the essence of poignance with the stories of six women through out the story. This is a story that shuts the man’s world entirely out from women’s world. In her six complex stories, the men are generally viewed as insesntive people towards women’s pains and lives. Although it might sound like an “yet-another-generalisation-of-a-typical-feminist-woman” to many chauvinist and non-chauvinist men and also to many conventional women, in reality, it is not very far from the truth. The sensitivity with which Anajana handles the story is commendable and definitely leaves an impact.
Another important flavour of the story is the bonding of three women. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the book is richly textured and multilayered with too many stories that exude different flavours and intricacies of women’s lives. Be it the poignant friendship between the three women: Padma, Madhu and Anu or be it the ability of women to relate to each other like how Shantacca instantly finds out when she was narrating Padma’s story to Madhu and Anu, that those women were not crying for Padma, but in a way for their own stories. Or be it the hypocrisy of Indian fathers who hide behind the mothers to enforce conventional rules on their daughters making mothers as villains in the end. These rich stories also unveil the balatant truths about male chauvinism among fathers, husbands and brothers and how they affect and alter the lives of women. And then you realise, deep within you, that a major share of women’s tragedies and miseries in their lives are brought upon only by the men.
And in an effort to bring out the insenstive roles of men in women’s lives, Anajana, never tries to patronise and generalise women as “good and naïve”. Women in her stories are complex and varied as well. They come in different shapes and colours. They are strong, weak, caring, loving, conventional, liberative, villainous, catankerous and contemplating.
And each and every woman in the book leaves a mark on the reader as you come to the end of stories. Prabha, the rebellious daughter of Anu; or Sita, the woman who carries bitter secrets that she had known about her family since her childhood; or Prema, the naïve wife who lives through her suffering in silence and goes in search of the truth knocking at Rukmini’s door, each woman in the book is familiar and the book is filled with these women’s stories. Their tears, laughters, joy, silence, secret desires and their understanding of the male dominated world.
Listnening Now is a perfect treat for people who possess an insatiable hunger for stories. The stories that have never been told before, and the thoughts that have never been articulated! You find these poingnant stories part of many women you see in your lives. Yet you chose not to lend you ears. You never bothered to care.
But this book takes you through an ordinary world that has never before been explored with such finesse and intricacy. You don’t have a choice but to listen. Listen now… Your perspectives about life will never be the same again.
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