My husband bought me a copy of Paalangal (Bridges: translation in English, not sure if the author translated this herself) this time from India. Paalangal is a novel spanning three generations of women, some of whom lived in pre-independence India, written by one of my favourite Tamil authors, Sivasankari. So, this book seemed like a good way to get an insight into women of that period. It is strange that while so much has been written about the independence movement and the main events of those years leading up to independence, I have not found much that describes the attitudes and daily goings on of the ordinary people of those times. Especially people from southern India. Somehow I think a lot of the more human aspects of pre-independence history is being lost as that generation is slowly vanishing. I am trying to fill in the blanks in my mind about that part of India's history. Hope to discover more books in the process.
Besides, my Tamil reading skills, such as it was, has taken a nose dive. It's time to attempt a revival. It is so bad currently that I have managed to complete all of 47 pages (in 6 months!) of a most engrossing 2400 page Ponniyin Selvan (the son of Ponni) by the famous Tamil novelist, Kalki.
So does anyone out there know of any more books that talk about people in that time period in India, written by someone who was actually around at that time? Preferably in Tamil, English, Hindi or on the off chance, Sanskrit.
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