ISBN: 9780993031519

Paperback: 106 pages
Publisher: Smallberry Press (15 May 2015)
Language: English
Product Dimensions: 13.3 x 0.7 x 20.3 cm

Violence against women in their own homes is an epidemic in India; it is hidden from neighbours, rarely reported to police stations, and left out of national statistics and the media. If it were a criminal offence to emotionally and physically abuse a woman, then we have all shared a neighbourhood with criminals for years, without acknowledging them. This violence is not restricted to women: it also extends to their children. What kind of lives do they go on to live? How do they become so captive to this routine that they accept it to be a fact of life? Whilst the phrase ‘Domestic Violence’ is readily dismissed in India, this book creates a new perspective of looking at this phenomenon by naming it House Arrest. We humans are filled with powerful paradoxes, one of which is suppression and resilience. Even in times when our individualities, bodies, beliefs or human rights are suppressed, we carry a surging resilience within us. It is this resilience, called in the Indian nonviolent tradition as Satyagraha: Disobedience. Through the intimate lens of poetry, House Arrest & Disobedience exposes the daily realities of the survivors of this violence and the lives of people who continue to live under its decree.