Ahmedabad-based Malav Parekh, father to a three-year-old girl, picks up Like A Girl to read to his daughter. This is what he has to say...
Illustrations from the book Like A Girl featuring badminton aces PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal. Illustration/Tanya Eden
I hate Harry Potter books. I shouldn't, but I hate them. I don't deny Harry Potter is one of the best works of fiction of my time, but I couldn't help but wonder if Potter would have made a better hero had he been a girl. I am sure Voldemort would have disapproved of being defeated by a little girl even more. But that's not Harry Potter's fault. It is JK Rowling's, and of innumerable such authors who, despite their incredible skill with words and storytelling, can't work their way around gender stereotypes while narrating stories of girls as heroes.
From books to films, you tend to see women portrayed as weak, emotional wrecks, who need men to save them. Be it Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Snow White, or even Wonder Woman, a super being who needed a man to see the wisdom in saving humanity. She just couldn't be both powerful and wise on her own. Right? While there are a few works of fiction that portray girls or even women as a strong central lead character, needless to say, the world of fiction is disproportionately male-centric.
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The cover of book; illustration of boxing champion Mary Kom, whose story also features in the book. Mary Kom Illustration/Tara Anand
Why can't girls in fiction be adventurers and heroes without defining contributions from men? How hard can it be to imagine a girl, instead of a boy, dream of catching a star, or chase kites, or delivers the ring to the pits of hell of Mordor? It's fiction, for God's sake! Especially, when the women can do nearly all of the above in real, non-fiction world. The mind boggles.
When I asked this question on social media a few months ago, in response I got a nearly unanimous Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls. I am not sure that it was a testament for how good the book was, or if I should be depressed that on asking for substitutes to escapades of all the Jacks, Johnys, Peters and Roberts in nursery rhymes and children stories, I am being recommended to read Marie Curie.
Like A Girl, the Indian version of Rebel Girls, is an important collection of stories about real Indian women, who defied odds to do incredible deeds. The selection of women was exceptionally well thought out. I am glad contemporary sports personalities such as Mary Kom, Sania Mirza, Mithali Raj, Deepa Karmakar, Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu were included in this book.
The stories were short and included anecdotes from these women's childhood. It worked on most occasions. But, what stood out for me was that in these extremely concise, under 1,000 words, stories of the lives of women warriors, leaders, reformists and cultural icons, there was always a reference, right at the beginning, of who their husbands were.
What do husbands have to do with how bravely a woman fought, or how well she ruled, or her contribution to arts, social reforms, or scaling the Mt bl**dy Everest? While reading the stories to my daughter, I chose to leave out bits like who these women were married to as it made no difference to me, to her or to the narration of the story. In cases of stories of women warriors like Sultan Razia and Rani Lakshmibai, all instances of violence and death were clubbed under "bad". My daughter can revisit them as they were when she is old enough. I also added some embellishments, appealing to my daughter's love for fantasy.
Like A Girl has been written by Aparna Jain and is published by Westland
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