Kali's Daughter - Raghav Chandra

Fiction

Read It!

This is the first novel I've seen from Raghav Chandra. I'm still on the fence on if I would like to see another one from him. 

The novel opens on an obviously sucessful woman looking back at an old photograph. She somehow cracked the Civil service exam in highschool and was accepted in to the Indian Foreign Service. The photo is from a training camp that all sucessful Civil Service candidates attend. 

We go back in time to learn about a deep dive into the main character's caste and background, including changing of name to avoid caste and certain caste assumptions. This was interesting to me because I never understood why people didn't try this more often - changing their name. I won't go into the details, but the author clearly outlines why it isn't all that effective. Most of the novel is her time at the training camp and the politics and relationship dynamics that result in a study of caste. The main character has earned her way in, not utilizing quotas for backward castes, and finds that her hard work and brilliance do not erase other's perceptions. 

As someone who has never had the experience of having a caste and has stayed away from the discussion altogether being married to an Indian, it was an uncomfortable book to read. It's very difficult to prevent ones self from making trite and unnecessary mental comments on something I know nothing about. Coming from a society that doesn't practice caste, the concept of one not having the same inherent value as another is difficult for me to understand and accept. In the end, the main character is wildly sucessful, well traveled, and comfortable financially. It doesn't go much into the outcome for her or her family, but very much delves into the idea of quota, names, caste, adn people's assumptions upon hearing names. I'm sure it would hit differently if an Indian were reading it, and different yet if it were an Indian who has faced similar struggles. Always good to expose yourself to experiences different from the ones you're comfortable with.

~Becky~