I traveled to India and Singapore last fall. Before I left, I decided to attempt street photography for the first time. I wanted to capture images of how women and girls, halfway around the world, lived their lives. Here are some of those photos.
I remember the first Desi lit book I read – it was Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier. From then on I went to read books like The Namesake and Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri and Arranged Marriage by Chitra Divakaruni Banerjee.
Recently, I read The Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda which has been on my list to read for a while. I loved the book. It touched on many various and deep topics such as female infanticide, adoption, and cultural clashes. Despite that, the book felt like a very easy thanks to Gowda’s simple writing style. I also loved that part of the book was based in the Bay Area.
I would definitely recommend people to read The Secret Daughter. I finished it over the course of a few days because I was really drawn to the characters and the story line. It got a bit emotional at certain points, at which I had to stop reading while on the train unless I wanted to be that awkward person on BART (no thanks).
Have you read The Secret Daughter? What did you think? What are you currently reading?
In following up with my book review on Half the Sky, I wanted to share the preview for an upcoming documentary entitled It’s a Girl! I’ve seen the trailer making the rounds on Facebook, but I am posting it here in case anyone hasn’t seen it yet. It’s a harrowing look “gendercide”, the term that has been coined for the preference of a male child versus a female child. Approximately 200 million girls in the world are missing because of gendercide in countries like India and China.
Here is the trailer:
Upon doing research for this blog post I stumbled upon the fact that today, January 24t, is National Girl Child Day.
What are your thoughts on the trailer? I’d love to hear them in the comments!
Shots of Happiness 