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3.81 AVERAGE
3.81 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
sad
slow-paced
dark
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
chilling narrative nonfiction - as the author explores the death of two teenage girls in a small village in Uttar Pradesh, we follow the investigation. any of the potential explanations for their deaths is tragic.
dark
informative
sad
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Misogyny, Suicide, Murder
Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Police brutality, Alcohol, Sexual harassment
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Miscarriage, Pregnancy
This isn't true crime in the traditional who done it sense, but instead, an examination of a community. The writing reminds me more of a long form news report rather than a cohesive book, but I did learn and think about a lot.
challenging
dark
informative
sad
medium-paced
I doubt if there is anybody in the country, who has not heard of the incident in Badaun where two teenage cousins were found hanging from a tree in village in Uttar Pradesh. Normally, the Indian media ignores what happens in the villages, but something about this case caught the attention of the media and the case blew up. Not too many facts were available- we knew that the cousins went out late at night to relive themselves in the field, when they didn't return a manhunt was launched and their bodies were found in a mango orchard. Everything else beyond that was pure speculation. There were many theories floating around- rape and murder, honour killings, suicide. Despite media scruitiny and political involvement, the investigations were not conducted properly, and by the time the CBI gave its verdict, people had moved on and few even knew the conclusion (even the title of the Wikipedia page is inaccurate and reflective of the first theory).
Sonia Faleiro visited the village a year after the incident, and over the next few years and through multiple interviews, she reconstructed not just the incident, but also the life of the people in the village, especially the women, both before and after the tragedy. In this brilliant work of narrative non-fiction, the author brings out the many contradictions in attitudes. At the heart of the tragedy were the two cousins- at 16 and 14, they were on the cusp of marriage, yet the law treats them as children. Not having a toilet at home simultaneously left the young women vulnerable to sexual predators and gave them the freedom to exercise autonomy. They lived under a strict code where the honour of the family rests in the vagina of the women, but even here there was a hierarchy- to be raped was more honourable than to have indulged in pre-marital sex. The family wanted "justice", yet when asked what they would have done if they had found the cousins before the hanging, the patriarch replied that they would have killed the women to restore family honour!
I expected the book to be a very difficult one to read, but the author writes with such empathy that instead of being triggered by the gruesomeness of the crime, we start focussing on the systemic issues that led to the crime. She uses the incident to draw attention to a society which denies all agency to women, where women accept that are locked up for their own "safety", where women aren't allowed to use mobile phones because it may lead to romantic entanglements. It is a world where women believe that suicide is preferable to bringing dishonour on the family.
There are other books that deal with the same issue, but by adopting the narrative non-fiction style, this book drives the point home in a way that a data-driven book would never be able to do. You can literally witness the scenes unspooling before your eyes like a movie, yet you know it has all been reconstructed through eyewitness accounts. The book uses the incident to draw focused attention not just to the status of women in the country, but also to caste dynamics, politics and the state of the legal- judicial system. It is a hard book to read but an essential one.
Sonia Faleiro visited the village a year after the incident, and over the next few years and through multiple interviews, she reconstructed not just the incident, but also the life of the people in the village, especially the women, both before and after the tragedy. In this brilliant work of narrative non-fiction, the author brings out the many contradictions in attitudes. At the heart of the tragedy were the two cousins- at 16 and 14, they were on the cusp of marriage, yet the law treats them as children. Not having a toilet at home simultaneously left the young women vulnerable to sexual predators and gave them the freedom to exercise autonomy. They lived under a strict code where the honour of the family rests in the vagina of the women, but even here there was a hierarchy- to be raped was more honourable than to have indulged in pre-marital sex. The family wanted "justice", yet when asked what they would have done if they had found the cousins before the hanging, the patriarch replied that they would have killed the women to restore family honour!
I expected the book to be a very difficult one to read, but the author writes with such empathy that instead of being triggered by the gruesomeness of the crime, we start focussing on the systemic issues that led to the crime. She uses the incident to draw attention to a society which denies all agency to women, where women accept that are locked up for their own "safety", where women aren't allowed to use mobile phones because it may lead to romantic entanglements. It is a world where women believe that suicide is preferable to bringing dishonour on the family.
There are other books that deal with the same issue, but by adopting the narrative non-fiction style, this book drives the point home in a way that a data-driven book would never be able to do. You can literally witness the scenes unspooling before your eyes like a movie, yet you know it has all been reconstructed through eyewitness accounts. The book uses the incident to draw focused attention not just to the status of women in the country, but also to caste dynamics, politics and the state of the legal- judicial system. It is a hard book to read but an essential one.
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
Nonfiction investigative journalism story about 2 girls deaths and just the general status of females in India and the risk they are at for sex crimes. Devastating, heartbreaking, and eye opening.
The writing in this book is sometimes weirdly simplistic, but it serves the purpose: to tell a complicated story that illuminate the circumscribed and oppressive lives of girls in rural India, how poverty and caste complicate those issues. It's a tragic story, competently told, that will hopefully add to the cry for improvement in women's lives in India.
challenging
sad