Hinduism & Daughters by Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar
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To celebrate the release of her book An Unlikely Goddess, Mohanalakshmi is here with an interesting and eye-opening guest post about:
Hinduism & Daughters
by Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar
People often confuse being a speaker of Hindi, which is one of the 16 official languages of India, with the religion, with being a Hindu, which is someone of the faith of Hinduism.
Hinduism is an ancient religion which is polytheistic, or believes in many Gods and is mostly practiced in India but also in Nepal and places with Indian influence like Bali or Singapore. There are male and female deities, like the goddess Sita, who the main character is named after, and like the Greek gods, there are many, many stories about their origins, lives on earth in human form, and the ways they can help people.
Many of the gods have allegorical positions or they stand for certain values. Sita, for example, is a paragon of womanly virtue. A parallel might be the Virgin Mary for Catholics; she is seen as above reproach and the perfect woman (the comparison ends there, no virgin birth for Sita).
I named my main character Sita because she is a âgood girlâ who struggles with how to come into her own, whether as an Indian, or an American teenager. Her struggle is one anyone who has ever tried to fit in can relate to.
I was the second daughter and itâs no secret that my family was eagerly expecting a boy since all of the 10 cousins were also girls. I wrote a short story, âTruthâ about unwanted daughters and the dangers of the âsex testâ in Asia (which allows women to know whether or not theyâre having a boy) in my collection Coloured and other Stories. Throughout India, China, and other parts of Asia, girls are often viewed as a burden because of the high price of dowries and marriage practices where they are given away to the other family. âA daughter is the wealth you give away,â a character says in the novel Toss of a Lemon by Padma Viswanathan. This is a mentality that is changing but is at the heart of sexism against women all over Asia. And certainly a key part of Sita, my protagonistâs, story.
About the Author
Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar
Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar is a writer who has lived in Qatar since 2005. She has a PhD from the University of Florida with a focus on gender and postcolonial theory. Her dissertation project was published as Haram in the Harem (Peter Lang, 2009) a literary analysis of the works of three Muslim women authors in India, Algeria, and Pakistan. She is the creator and co-editor of five books in the Qatar Narratives series, as well as the Qatari Voices anthology which features essays by Qataris on modern life in Doha (Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing, 2010). Her research has been published in numerous journals and anthologies.
She was the Associate Editor of Vox, a fashion and lifestyle magazine based in Doha and a winner of the She Writes We Love New Novelists competition. She has been a regular contributor for Variety Arabia, AudioFile Magazine, Explore Qatar, Woman Today, The Woman, Writers and Artists Yearbook, QatarClick, Expat Arrivals, Speak Without Interruption and Qatar Explorer. She hosted two seasons of the Cover to Cover book show on Qatar Foundation Radio.
Currently Mohana is working on a collection of essays related to her experiences as a female South Asian American living in the Arabian Gulf and a novel based in Qatar. She believes words can help us understand ourselves and others.
Contact: Website/Blog | Twitter | Facebook
An Unlikely Goddess
*Winner of the SheWrites New Novelist competition 2011*
Sita is the firstborn, but since she is a female child, her birth makes life difficult for her mother who is expected to produce a son. From the start, Sita finds herself in a culture hostile to her, but her irrepressible personality wonât be subdued. Born in India, she immigrates as a toddler to the U.S. with her parents after the birth of her much anticipated younger brother.
Sita shifts between the vastly different worlds of her WASP dominated school and her fatherâs insular traditional home. Her journey takes us beneath tales of successful middle class Indians who immigrated to the U.S. in the 1980s.
The gap between positive stereotypes of South Asian immigrants and the reality of Sitaâs family, who are struggling to stay above the poverty line is a relatively new theme for Indian literature in English.
Sitaâs struggles to be American and yet herself, take us deeper into understanding the dilemmas of first generation children, and how religion and culture define women.
Purchase Links: Amazon
Source: J.C. Martin, Fighter Writer
