Skip to main content

She: Ekla Cholo Re


Book Review

info@hoffen.in
Identity quest is one of the classical themes in literature.  However, gender identity quest is relatively new.  It is also one of the most painful quests, perhaps, because not belonging to either of the most natural genders can be an excruciating experience psychologically.  The agony is aggravated by the attitudes of the ignorant and insensitive general society towards transgender people. 

The authors of the book under review approach the theme in the simplest manner possible: by presenting a trans-woman and her problems.  Kusum was born a male who was very uncomfortable with that gender.  It’s only the body that is masculine.  The spirit is feminine.  The father is unable to accept that reality.  Hence the offspring is abandoned.  But (s)he is happy to get the support of a friend who eventually becomes a surgeon and will perform the sex-changing surgery.  The love between Kusum and her doctor-friend was not merely friendship.  The emotions had something sexual about them.  The doctor is able to sustain his passion for his friend who is now a woman though not capable of reproduction.  The doctor’s father is a thoroughly practical man who tells his son how he would be ruining his life and career if he marries such a woman. 

The relationship is broken.  Kusum carries the scar in her heart.  Eventually another doctor, a psychologist whom she admires, will extend his friendship to her.  How does she respond to this new friendship?

The book can’t be called a novel.  It is a novella at best.  The whole book is just 58 pages out of which only 40 pages are devoted to the story itself.  If you are an experienced reader you can read it in about half an hour.  The narrative is extremely simple and straightforward.  The intention of the authors seems to be to highlight the problem of transgender people and evoke empathy in the reader. 

But the claim on the cover that it is “a story meant to motivate all and sundry irrespective of their circumstances” is not misplaced.  The “ekla cholo re” motif, borrowed from Rabindranath Tagore, recurs reminding the reader about the basic loneliness that all of us have to go through irrespective of our gender identity or any other identity.  The going gets tough at times whoever we may be.  When the going is really tough and you need the support of people, people are quite sure to abandon you.  Then we must acquire the courage to ekla cholo, go alone.


I’m grateful to Santosh Avvannavar, one of the authors, for inviting me to review the book. 

Comments

  1. I've reviewed it as well...a decent endeavour towards a controversial issue, trans-gender...:-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The issue deserves better understanding and the authors have made an effort in that direction.

      Delete
  2. It's good initiative for making awareness in society and evoking empathy towards the transgenders with a motivational tone.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The narrative looks very interesting and it has been covered in a novella span that makes it all the more tempting. Shall pick this one, i think...

    ReplyDelete
  4. As long as the book is written nicely, I don't mind giving it a read even though it is a novella. The book deals with an issue which is relevant socially and such books usually gather few readers. That is a pity, isn't. Good effort from your side for spreading the word.
    I am happy to be here after so long. When I disappeared from blogosphere, you were tending to a fracture, I remember. I hope you are healthy and healed now. And I see that you have been blogging consistently. Kudos to you!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm fine, thanks for remembering my fracture :) And glad you are back.

      Delete
  5. The narrative, as given by your review, appears interesting. Actually, I find the title very compelling. When I started reading the post, I thought 'She' is about a woman and her struggles, about how 'she' fights it out alone. But turned out it is different. By the way, have you read Blue Boy by Rakesh Satyal?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I haven't read Blue Boy. In fact, transgender-related themes and works don't interest me at all. I read this book merely because it was sent to me with a request for review.

      Perhaps, this book under review is no comparison with Blue Boy.

      Delete
    2. I cannot compare the book without having read it. But I would suggest you read Blue Boy. It is different. It would be nice to have your views on it.

      Delete
  6. the entire theme looks so compelling. I will suggest Rituparno Ghosh Strred Chitrangada, the crowning wish. The song "Ekla cholo re" is my favorite and has pulled me through some times. Jodi tor daak shune keu na chole tahole ekla cholo re..."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, Datta Ghosh, "Jodi..." the book has quoted a few lines of that song including this one. Since the English translation is given, I could understand it :) though I was familiar with the phrase "Ekla cholo re".

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

The Second Crucifixion

  ‘The Second Crucifixion’ is the title of the last chapter of Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins’s magnum opus Freedom at Midnight . The sub-heading is: ‘New Delhi, 30 January 1948’. Seventy-three years ago, on that day, a great soul was shot dead by a man who was driven by the darkness of hatred. Gandhi has just completed his usual prayer session. He had recited a prayer from the Gita:                         For certain is death for the born                         and certain is birth for the dead;                         Therefore over the inevitable                         Thou shalt not grieve . At that time Narayan Apte and Vishnu Karkare were moving to Retiring Room Number 6 at the Old Delhi railway station. They walked like thieves not wishing to be noticed by anyone. The early morning’s winter fog of Delhi gave them the required wrap. They found Nathuram Godse already awake in the retiring room. The three of them sat together and finalised the plot against Gand

The Final Farewell

Book Review “ Death ends life, not a relationship ,” as Mitch Albom put it. That is why, we have so many rituals associated with death. Minakshi Dewan’s book, The Final Farewell [HarperCollins, 2023], is a well-researched book about those rituals. The book starts with an elaborate description of the Sikh rituals associated with death and cremation, before moving on to Islam, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and finally Hinduism. After that, it’s all about the various traditions and related details of Hindu final rites. A few chapters are dedicated to the problems of widows in India, gender discrimination in the last rites, and the problem of unclaimed dead bodies. There is a chapter titled ‘Grieving Widows in Hindi Cinema’ too. Death and its rituals form an unusual theme for a book. Frankly, I don’t find the topic stimulating in any way. Obviously, I didn’t buy this book. It came to me as quite many other books do – for reasons of their own. I read the book finally, having shelv

Vultures and Religion

When vultures become extinct, why should a religion face a threat? “When the vultures died off, they stopped eating the bodies of Zoroastrians…” I was amused as I went on reading the book The Final Farewell by Minakshi Dewan. The book is about how the dead are dealt with by people of different religious persuasions. Dead people are quite useless, unless you love euphemism. Or, as they say, dead people tell no tales. In the end, we are all just stories made by people like the religious woman who wrote the epitaph for her atheist husband: “Here lies an atheist, all dressed up and no place to go.” Zoroastrianism is a religion which converts death into a sordid tale by throwing the corpses of its believers to vultures. Death makes one impure, according to that religion. Well, I always thought, and still do, that life makes one impure. I have the support of Lord Buddha on that. Life is dukkha , said the Enlightened. That is, suffering, dissatisfaction and unease. Death is liberation

Cats and Love

No less a psychologist than Freud said that the “time spent with cats is never wasted.” I find time to spend with cats precisely for that reason. They are not easy to love, particularly if they are the country variety which are not quite tameable, and mine are those. What makes my love affair with my cats special is precisely their unwillingness to befriend me. They’d rather be in their own company. “In ancient time, cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this,” Terry Pratchett says. My cats haven’t, I’m sure. Pratchett knew what he was speaking about because he loved cats which appear frequently in his works. Pratchett’s cats love independence, very unlike dogs. Dogs come when you call them; cats take a message and get back to you as and when they please. I don’t have dogs. But my brother’s dogs visit us – Maggie and me – every evening. We give them something to eat and they love that. They spend time with us after eating. My cats just go away without even a look af