'The Many Lives of Syeda X' book review: The book helped me look at macros through a micro lens
How and when did this book come about?
The process begain in 2012, when I started working as an independent journalist, and was reporting on sexual violence. What was missing in my own reportage as well as other stories was that the information was episodic. There were no conversations about women from marginalised backgrounds. I had done a story on the Muzaffarnagar riots, where women had faced sexual violence. It was shocking that they had to go back and work in the farms of the accused even after filing cases against them. It is to understand the stories of these women that started the book.
How did you meet Syeda?
In order to understand the lives of marginalised women, I visited small and medium industrial units in and around Delhi. I met a number of women who were home-based workers. Syeda, a weaver from Banaras, had to leave her skilled work because her house was burned down in riots. She is one of the 35,000 migrants who move to Delhi each day to look for work and never go back.
What were the stories that emerged from meeting these home based-workers?
That these women made every object of use for a pittance. That includes notebooks, helmet parts, pressure cooker parts, door knobs, string lights, diyas, cycle wires. What struck me was that everything that we are using is not just being made by the cheap labour of these women, but they are getting paid ridiculous amounts like `1 for stuffing soft toys with fiber or `50 to clean a 23-kg bag of almonds.
Did being a journalist make transitioning into an author easier?
It was fulfilling. With the book, there was a scope of looking at things I was reporting on—labour, gender, caste or class—in silos, in an intersectional way.
You also write about the men who are oppressed by society. Tell us more.
They are threatened by the same patriarchy and religious dogma, revealing how gender expectations bind both sexes in a cycle of oppression.
Has the book changed you?
Though the book has not changed me, the fact that I have written it, helped me see the macro changes in India through a micro lens.