Contents Preface / xiii Introduction / xvii I WOMEN WRITING IN INDIA Nabaneeta Dev Sen Women Writing in India at the Turn of the Century / 3 Krishna Sobti Discovering Hashmat / 19 II GROWING UP AS A WOMAN WRITER Sarah Aboobacker Growing Up as a Woman Writer / 29 Abburi Chaya Devi Provoked Into Writing / 36 Mridula Garg My World, My Writing / 43 Mallika Amar Sheikh The Meaning of One's Being / 48 Padma Sachdev Being a W7riter / 52 viii Contents Jeelani Bano How Did a Woman Get Hold of a Pen ? / 58 Rajee Seth From Being to Becoming / 69 Pratibha Ray Sky is Not the Limit / 77 Indira Goswami My Journey as a Writer / 85 Meena Kakodkar Grandmother's Storeroom / 94 Neelum Saran Gour Grandfather, Are You Listening? / 99 III DIFFERENT FRAMES Chitra Mudgal The Ball / 113 Himanshi Shelat Tonight / 127 Esther David Nanki Chirai / 135 Sivashankari Septic / 143 Neelum Saran Gour Under the Bodhi Tree / 150 Sarah Aboobacker The Birth / 160 Alka Saraogi 'Yeh Rehguzar Na Hoti' : Were It Not For This / 167 Shashi Deshpande 'Hear Me, Sanjay...' / 176 Contents ix Abburi Chaya Devi That's Culture / 185 Surjit Sarna The Distance to Lahore / 191 Indira Goswami The Journey / 201 Meena Kakodkar Release from Bondage / 211 Volga Confluence / 221 Vijaya Rajadhyaksha Just One Night / 231 Joya Mitra Sprout of Darkness / 253 Bama Annachi / 261 IV SONGS OF THE BIRD OF FIRE Joya Mitra The Songs of the Bird of Fire / 269 To My Sister / 270 Lakshmi Kannan Ask for the Moon / 272 Mandarapu Hymavathy Beware of ... / 275 The Penthouse / 277 J. Bhagyalakshmi The Giver / 279 Ring Master / 280 Frames / 281 X Contents Ranjita Nayak Discovery / 282 Blue Bird / 284 Anamika A Swayamwar of Crows / 286 The Door / 288 Women / 289 All By Herself / 291 Anupama Basumatary Through a Rain-Soaked Night / 293 Moored to a Silvery Night / 295 The Laboratory / 297 Prabhjot Stones of Kuneitra / 298 Shakuntala and Dushyant / 301 Doomed / 303 Savithri Rajeevan She / 305 The Mirror / 307 Sanskritirani Desai As Soon as I Finish Writing a Poem / 309 Our Sky / 311 Keeps Beating the Drum / 313 Metamorphosis / 314 Mamta Sagar Talking About Dharma/Adharma / 315 Rain / 317 Dreams / 319 The Bedsheet / 321 Sharda Krishna Bread and Poetry / 322 Padma Sachdev Time Saves Me / 324 Contents xi Sunita Jain Water / 325 Generation / 326 V HISTORIES, POSITIONS, REDEFINITIONS Neerja Mattoo Transforming Gaze : Some Kashmiri Women Poets / 331 B. Chandrika In Search of Infinity : Parallel Strands in Women's Fiction in Malayalam / 343 Mridula Garg Women as Society in Literature / 354 Jasbir Jain From Experience to Aesthetics : The Dialectics of Language and Representation / 361 Prabha Ganorkar A Language of My Own : Language, Self and Representation / 370 Lipipuspa Nayak The Feminist Interrogation : Three Oriya Texts / 377 Lakshmi Kannan The Rangoli Woman / 388 Priya Sarukkai Chabria The Centrality of Wander / 398 C Vijayasree Bodily Issues : Reflections on Women's Poetry in Telugu / 408 Tutun Mukherjee Writing 'Age' : Senility and Gender / 421 Rathi Menon Malayalam Women's Writing in the 20th Century / 441 xii Contents Neerja Mattoo Turn of the Century Women's* Writing in Kashmir / 459 Rachel Bari Dalit Feminist Experiences Subversion of the High Theory of Feminism / 471 Jancy James Empowering Vengefully ... / 480 Dhanwant Kaur Sukhwant Kaur Mann : Preserving Cultural Memory Through Fiction / 494 Jasbir Jain Feminist Writing and the Question of Readership / 504 Contributors / 520.