Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Friday Review | Cinema Plus | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

Combative? Urvashi Butalia

“Aw! I am growing old, I am no longer that combative,” says the lady who mixes feminism and her writings to bring a devil-may-care attitude to her persuasive best.

Urvashi is a bundle of energy as she discusses posters of the women’s movement in India.

“Actually, I wanted to put together a book on the women’s movement in the world. At that moment, a friend Sumati Ramaswamy came up with the idea of doing the Indian part,” says Urvashi about the posters that relate how the women’s movement is deeply entrenched in the country. From a time where she interviewed and documented Partition survivors’ tales into a gut-wrenching The Other Side of Silence to a time where she is cajoling, persuading women’s organisations into parting or sharing the posters for her show, Urvashi Butalia has come a long way. She says: “Yes. One cannot let go of one’s past. That was one way of chronicling history this is another way of looking at what’s happening around you. The response to this exhibition of posters has been varied. It varies due to the way we are organising it. In Jaipur, Rajasthan the whole event turned into a party as the four women brought by Aruna Roy started singing a folk number then the 300 people who had come joined in.” Urvashi is working on another book about a eunuch Mona that deals with identities and sexuality, and it is slated to be ready by December. Urvashi wears another hat — that of a publisher who pushes the envelope when it comes to women’s issues. “We need to bring out so many books but now it is a tough time for small publishers like us. But hopefully we will survive,” she says.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

---

---