May You Be The Mother Of A Hundred Sons

Elisabeth Bumiller left the Washington Post as a reporter to follow her husband in India. During the four years she stayed there in the '80s, the romantic image she had of India crumbled completely. The chronicle she has assembled about women in India after meeting and interviewing wealthy sophisticated Indians, movie stars in Bollywood, intellectuals in Kolkata, villagers in the northern plains and health workers in the south, after reading numerous reports and articles and after viewing many films is very rich and thought-provoking. Bumiller's writing is not a detached one. She rightly takes side with the women of India who, though guaranteed equality of rights by the Indian constitution, are powerless in many aspects of their lives due to religious and cultural factors. She writes about bride burning; the preference for baby boys in all sections of the population; female infanticide (poor mothers putting their baby girls to "sleep" to free them from a sure and certain harsh life); arranged marriages and the lives of women in the villages of India; and she couldn't miss Bollywood actresses and their role as women. I loved May You be the Mother of a Hundred Sons. I cannot hesitate to recommend it to all those concerned with the status of women in India and throughout the world.