BRASS NOTEBOOK : Memoir
Language: English Publication details: New Delhi Speaking Tiger 2020/01/01Edition: 1Description: 215ISBN:- 9789389958676
- 923.354 DEV/BR
Item type | Current library | Collection | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | |
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Lending | Ernakulam Public Library General Stacks | Non-fiction | 923.354 DEV/BR (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | Available | E195932 |
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923.3 VEN/AD ADVICE AND DISSENT : | 923.31 BUK PHILOSOPHICAL ARABESQUES | 923.3104783 POS/LE VLADIMIR ILYICH LENIN : Biography | 923.354 DEV/BR BRASS NOTEBOOK : | 923.4 ALL/ST STATESMAN AMONG JURISTS : A BIOGRAPHY OF DR. A;;ADO KRISHNASWAMI | 923.4 NAR GOD SAVE THE HON'BLE SUPREME COURT | 923.4 SAL JUSTICE AT HEART- LIFE JOURNEY OF JUSTICE V.R. KRISHNA IYER |
In this no-holds-barred memoir, renowned feminist economist and academician Devaki Jain recounts her own story and also that of an entire generation and a nation coming into its own.
She begins with her childhood in south India, a life of comfort and ease with a father who served as dewan in the Princely States of Mysore and Gwalior. But there were restrictions too, that come with growing up in an orthodox Tamil Brahmin family, as well as the rarely spoken about dangers of predatory male relatives. Ruskin College, Oxford, gave her her first taste of freedom in 1955, at the age of 22. Oxford brought her a degree in philosophy and economics—as well as hardship, as she washed dishes in a cafe to pay her fees. It was here, too, that she had her early encounters with the sensual life. With rare candour, she writes of her romantic liaisons in Oxford and Harvard, and falling in love with her ‘unsuitable boy’—her husband, Lakshmi Jain, whom she married against her beloved father’s wishes.
Devaki’s professional life saw her becoming deeply involved with the cause of ‘poor’ women—workers in the informal economy, for whom she strove to get a better deal. In the international arena, she joined cause with the concerns of the colonized nations of the south, as they fought to make their voices heard against the rich and powerful nations of the former colonizers. Her work brought her into contact with world leaders and thinkers, amongst them, Vinoba Bhave, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Henry Kissinger, Amartya Sen, Doris Lessing and Iris Murdoch, her tutor at St Anne’s College, Oxford, who became a lifelong friend.
In all these encounters and anecdotes, what shines through is Devaki Jain’s honesty in telling it like it was—with a message for women across generations, that one can experience the good, the bad and the ugly, and remain standing to tell the story.
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