Page 61 - June2018

Book review

Ajeet Cour’s AutoBiogrAphy drAws Cour managed to find a suitable
out vArious hues of her own life place to call her own and it’s best to
quote her on ‘how’ this happened.
‘Indira Gandhi had asked me to com-
In the crowd of autobiographies, Ajeet Cour’s Weaving Water pile a directory of Indian women
is a refreshing change as it brings out all the colours of the in April 1975, for a women’s confer-
author’s life. The book delves on how the author survived an ence in Mexico. During that period,
I met Gandhi several times, and one
obstacle-ridden life journey, writes Humra QuraisHi morning she invited me for break-
fast. She asked me what I did, and I
f you are under the assump- points in her life. Her words have told her about my writing and also
tion that it is just your life such an impact that one is com- about the school for girls from the
which has been overbur- pelled to sit back and reflect on slums that used to run in a DDA flat
dened with far too many how hard it gets for a divorced in Saket, which Daarji had bought
turns and twists then it is woman to survive in a society for Candy. Gandhi told me to visit a
I about time you pick up a copy like ours. vocational school in Nizamuddin
of the recently launched autobiog- It is also a survivor’s story. She and see how they ran it. I became
raphy of Ajeet Cour. ‘Weaving Water’ learnt to face each one of those very interested in starting a similar
(Speaking Tiger) where this novelist hurdles and sorrows with not just school. Gandhi wrote to Jagmohan,
has weaved in the varying patterns a strong conviction but with an who was the vice — chairman of
to her life. undying determination. The reasons DDA at that time (1975), and asked
Written in the most uncompli- behind Ajeet Cour’s survival could him to allot a plot of land in the Siri
cated of ways, its one of those auto- be several but during my interac- Fort area, which was then a jungle…’
biographies which bare the utmost. tions with her what struck me the After I completed reading Ajeet
In the Indian scenario, this comes as most was her very personality. If Cour’s autobiography, I kept sitting
a refreshing change. In the last few she wasn’t equipped with grit and and introspecting how only a few
years, I have read autobiographies of determination she couldn’t have had amongst us manage to fight. To
several personalities who insist on the nerves to take the decision to quote Ajeet Cour on this, “Pain and
harping only on the positives of their walk out of an abusive marriage and loneliness hold in them the ultimate
professional lives and shy away from manage to live life at her own terms. truth of what life is. Regrettably,
mentioning any of the personal It was only after a while that Ajeet the essence of either of the two is
lows. But, Ajeet Cour, has written not easily amenable to being
details about her abusive marriage, shared with others. Every individual
her fallout with her own family, ‘Weaving has to endure his or her own pain,
Water- an
the struggles she faced as a single autobiography’ and loneliness, in a way pertinent
mother trying to raise two girls and by: Ajeet Cour to him or her alone. The only dif-
then the loss of the younger daugh- (trAnslAted from the ference lies in how each one of us
ter, Candy. PunjAbi by mAsoomA carried our cross while manoeu-
What is interesting in the book Ali And meenu vring the pathways of our moral
minoChA)
is the starkness with which she Publisher - speaking tiger existence.”
has narrated each one of the turning 359 pp; 499 She deftly describes her own
struggles in these hitting words-‘In
actuality I was perched like a muti-
lated falcon on the highest, leafless
branch of an old, denuded tree hu-
miliated, intensely ashamed by the
wounds I bore, trying desperately to
keep them under cover, traumatized
by the terrifying quiet, the over-
whelming emptiness, the muted
solitude, when unbeknownst me,
my story found voice, my thoughts
urged articulation.’

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61 Book Review.indd 3 06/06/18 12:10 PM