BOOKS > By the Sabarmati

In my first novel THE WALLED CITY, Mani was an important character. She used to cook for the family, and had the additional duty of looking after me. I was the only child of working parents.

Mani kept me amused by telling me stories. Some she invented. Some were folk tales and some ghost stories. I always looked forward to the time when I would be left alone with her. She was uneducated, homeless and a widow. But she had a sense of humour, was very intelligent, and had the rare facility to play with words.

As an adult, I was always searching for Mani in the women I met, in the street, around my house, or in the slums of Ahmedabad where I introduced Art for Development in 1975, where I worked with girls and women and used the innate, unbridled sense of colour and design to create awareness about social issues. It was also a means of catharsis. And I also wanted to preserve their traditional cultural traits.

The visual aspects slowly took the form of stories, which I wrote for my book By The Sabarmati. In this process I met many creative young girls and women.

Some of my stories were born out of this experience, as I also documented the work of the women I worked with. This is seen at its best in the story titled Waiting for Shibraj. In this way, I came closer to many women, and they confided in me parts of their private lives. Between laughter and tears, I made footnotes of their personal problems, which enabled me to help them better.

By the Sabarmati is dedicated to those who shared their stories with me. These are stories of  people we meet in our everyday life. Their voices have stayed within me for a long time, so, the book has been dedicated to those who have been close to me, since I lost Mani.