My Guru Poornima: What Books Taught Me About Being A Woman

When asked whether her debut coming-of-age novel Good Girl had anything of her, author Aria Aber was quick to quip “any work of fiction or art is autobiographical. I can give you an example of how I am every character in the book…” As readers, haven’t we too often felt those exact feels. Deeply. That resonance with female characters in books we’ve read -- their being, their angst, their voice, their desperations sometimes -- and then, also their freedom from visible or invisible shackles at others! The spectrum and intensity of emos may vary, but the echo is definitely resounding. 

Page 162 The Vegetarian reveals how In-hye “has never lived. Even as a child, as far back as she could remember, she had done nothing but endure.” The unsettling lyricism of Nobel Prize Winner Han Kang touches the reader’s core as her character, believing in her inherent goodness, is devoted “to doing things the right way” because all her success depended on it. 

The familiar aura of people pleasing and minimising of the self by her typically South Korean characters spreads wide, echoing subliminally in Elif Shafak’s ladies section in The Bastard of Istanbul which is marked by two types of women – the professionals and the wives. The reformist elite aka professionals, dressed in two-piece suits, who unlike their mothers were not confined to the house provided they shed their sexuality and femininity on the way there! And then the ladylike, innocent wives in pastel satin gowns who were looked down upon by the “professionals” as concubines. Classic cases of women’s world everywhere steeped in stereotypical patriarchy and constant validation seeking. 

Feel the feminist main character inspiration resonate beyond the pages

No different from the complex inner lives of the women in Kashmir laid bare in The Greatest Kashmiri Stories Ever Told where Ghulam Nabi Shakir talks about the Unquenched Thirst of his main character who is “so sad. Her husband’s indifference was poisoning her whole being. Her beauty, her youth, and the alluring accoutrements with which she decked herself before her husband, all seemed like a counterfeit note in her pocket, useless in any transaction.” Even in translation, it hits the spot so. 

The portrayal of the mental anguish women often go through, be it Kashmir or Korea, Turkey or Tehran – is unnerving in its stark sameness across centuries and continents. So much so that the reader viscerally experiences Homa’s enormous physical rage in The Lion Women of Tehran as Marjan Kamali details how “each follicle on my scalp singes, a hot liquid runs through my arms. My face burns; my teeth throb, my legs do not give out or feel weak -- they are tense and ready for combat. We learned about the fight-or-flight in school. Now I know that when push comes to shove – when I am literally shoved – every fiber of my being wants to fight.” 

It didn’t start out that way. As kids, the Shir Zan truly believed “someday, you and me – we’ll do great things. We’ll live life for ourselves. And we will help others. We are cubs now, maybe. But we will grow to be lionesses. Strong women who make things happen.” 

Changing gear a bit, if we as the discerning empath reader hold on to that upbeat thought, we realise that every change need not be a bloody revolution or an earth-shattering coup! Every life lesson need not come with the intensity of ear-splitting noise and blinding spotlights. Change can also come barefoot, silent, soft, gradual, internal, low-key yet profound. When Yeongju’s life fell apart, she strode past her disappointments to follow her dream -- Welcome To The Hyunam-Dong Bookshop.

All Hwang Bo-Reum’s protagonist ever wanted to do was curate books with depth and diversity. For that, she radically decided that her “bookshop would stop carrying bestsellers,” to further her deep-felt belief that the “publishing world wasn’t made up of only a few bestsellers, or big shot authors.” True to her roots as a bookworm, unaffected by the commercialism of it all she ultimately found peace in discovering stories that “only people who read can discover, stories in this world that only people who read can tell…” Surrounded by books, her only thought was: A day well spent is a life well lived! 

Come to think of it now, we have in a way come far from the days of kutno kota, beautifully explained by Chitra Banerji in The Hour of the Goddess, when women had to make large meals every day in extended families. “Usually, the elderly grandmother or widowed aunt was responsible for cutting the vegetables, while the younger women took on the more arduous task of cooking over the hot stove,” she outlined, going on to establish the ancient origins and significance of the bonti, that meant so much more than a protean cutting instrument for women of Bengal. 

Today, women all over the world stand at the cusp of rights, remuneration, independence, education, ambition, choices, freedoms on the one hand and yet, inequality, double standards, harassment, unpaid chores, misogynistic judgement on the other.  “The idea of having it all is at odds with the demands of male-dominated patriarchal societies where gender roles are rigid,” writes Nilanjana Bhowmick, exposing the Lies Our Mothers Told Us. So, women have become co-breadwinners but men are yet to become co-carers, she points out. 

As a macro generalization, yes that sounds all doom and gloom. Going micro though, isn’t it often about a subtle mindset shift really? A what you think you believe and what you believe you become moment of awakening for a whole lot of us? There’s power and determination within and inspo outside if we look at the right guidance. My Guru Poornima thread talks of the guru being not just someone who gives discourses, but one who “burns away your ignorance, holds a mirror to your ego, and takes you through both joy and discomfort until you meet your real self.” 

Be it hommies Ellie and Homa in 1950’s Iran or Kang’s rebellious vegetarian Yeong-hye or the profanity-spouting Zeliha who broke every golden rule of prudence for Istanbulite women or the “water wives” of drought-hit Maharashtra! 

“Everyone is my teacher. Some I seek. Some I subconsciously attract. Often, I learn simply by observing others. Some may be completely unaware that I’m learning from them, yet I bow deeply in gratitude.” 

Happy Guru Poornima dear book lover, may the inspiration you seek, seek you out! 

Views expressed by the author are their own.