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Unsung lullabies
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P.R. Lakshman’s novel highlights the issue of female foeticide
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The Author Support for the girl child
Princess Reineeta Lakshman. Her name is intriguing and conjures up images of erstwhile royalty. But P.R. Lakshman sets the record straight. “It’s my first name. My dad’s name is Prince.”
Naming his son Prince was merely her Gandhian grandfather “having his way” in 1947 in Fiji, then dominated by “white people”. So maybe, it was just natural for her father to name her “Princess.”
This Fiji-Indian has come out with her first novel, “The Girl Child” — an account of the brutal practice of female foeticide widespread in India, especially in Punjab.
Lakshman left Fiji when she was 18. A stint in accountancy and naturopathy in New Zealand and Australia followed. Her marriage to an Indian brought her to Punjab.
“During my stay in Punjab, I saw, met and spoke to a lot of women of my age. Many of them were pressurised to give birth to a boy,” Lakshman recounts.
The “submissiveness” of the women definitely “angered” her. But the book took a while to come.
The trigger was an incident in Auckland. “It was this Indian family in Auckland whom I had met, where the daughter-in-law was pressurised for a boy after she gave birth to six girls,” says Lakshman.
“When I realised it was not merely in India, but million of miles away in educated, Westernised Indian homes where such practises were prevalent that I decided to open my laptop and write,” she says.
The pent-up anger of the past, an unexpected brush with reality in Auckland and “The Girl Child” was born. Lakshman’s protagonist Priyanka Patel is quite like her. A Fiji-Indian, working in New Zealand, married to a Punjabi who comes to India.
“The book is slightly autobiographical. I believe it’s better to write about what you know. There are resemblances with Priya, but personally I did not undergo what she goes through in Punjab,” she explains.
It was shocking for an outsider like Lakshman to encounter the reality of foeticide in Punjab, but her novel too had her New Zealand readers in shock.
“It was an eye opener for them to know the sinful practice of female foeticide is still happening in India, a country now in the big league,” Lakshman says. But in India, where the issue is no more an eye-opener, the author hopes it will work at a different level. “As the character in the novel Sanjana believes, every woman has a choice. They can make a conscious decision about their safety.”
The book published by the author though could have fared better with tighter editing.
P. ANIMA
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Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
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Kochi
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Visakhapatnam
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