Tune in for narratives critical to our times. Listen, ask and seek answers.
Malashri Lal
Malashri Lal recently retired from her academic and administrative positions at the University of Delhi’s English department. She is a member of the English Advisory Board of the Sahitya Akademi and Bharatiya Jnanpith’s advisory committee. Her specialisation is in literature, women, and gender studies. Her books include In Search of Sita: Revisiting Mythology, Tagore and the Feminine: A Journey Through Translations and Finding Radha: The Quest for Love. Lal has been a Senior Consultant to the Ministry of Culture, UGC nominee on Committees and a member of international book award juries.
Session
The Brass Notebook
Devaki Jain in conversation with Malashri Lal
Devaki Jain, one of the foremost economists in India, looks back at the trajectory of feminism through a candid memoir in which her personal story interweaves with the development agenda of a new nation. At the age of 87, Jain has published The Brass Notebook, deliberately invoking Doris Lessing’s classic, The Golden Notebook. The brass stands perhaps for the ordinary lives of women in India amongst whom Jain found her vocation. Growing up in an orthodox Tamil Brahmin family, discovering her freedom at Oxford University and moving on to an illustrious career in India and abroad, it’s a story of change, perception and empathy. Jain’s professional life became devoted to the cause of women-workers in the informal economy. Her work brought her in contact with world leaders, amongst them, Gloria Steinem, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Vinoba Bhave and Amartya Sen. In a free ranging conversation with Malashri Lal, she speaks of her ideals and her experiences along with the women’s empowerment agenda of her generation.