SPARROW Publications

HISTORY OF A JOINT FAMILY

This book talks about the ancestors and the way of life of a Brahmin joint family that lived in Vaigalathur, in Thanjavur, from late nineteenth century onwards. Details of the status of women in this joint family, their attitudes and the way they conducted the family reads like a story in this history. Not that there were no quarrels or controversies, depressions, pent up emotions and yearnings. But the life described here, like food, is a combination of sweet, bitter, astringent, sour and pungent tastes. Written from the point of view of Visalakshi Ammal and published in 1935, this history is about how Visalakshi and her siblings lose their mother at a young age and then lose their father also, and are brought up in the joint family and about how their lives took shape amidst different family members who conducted their lives in different ways.

The book is available in English and Tamil

The Tamil version is available on Amazon
Oor Aikkiya Kutumpac Carittiram Family History (Tamil Edition)
Author: V.S. Visalakshiammal
Translated by: C S Lakshmi and Malathi Ramanathan
Website: books.kalachuvadu.com
Buy on Amazon: amazon.in/dp/B0D9BRQRNG?
Get the e-book: amazon.in/kudumba-sarithiram
The English version is available on Amazon Amazon-English-Version

My Life Story: Sister R S Subhalakshmi Ammal

Sister R S Subhalakshmi Ammal (1886-1969) was an educationist and a social reformer. She was born in 1886 into an orthodox family and became a child widow. Her family stood against orthodoxy and educated her. With her family by her side, Sister Subhalakshmi not only got educated but she started the Sarada Ashram, or Sarada Illam, later known as Vidhawashram or Widows' Home, and created teachers and doctors to serve the society from there. Not stopping at that, she set up many schools like Sarada Vidyalaya and Vidya Mandir and also set up schools for underprivileged children. She was active in Women's Indian Association and All India Women's Conference. She performed as a nominated member of the Madras State Legislative Council from 1952 to 1956. She was given the Kaiser-i-Hind Silver medal in 1920. In 1958 she was honoured with Padma Shri. This life story is told by such a rare human being, with many life stories of other women linked with hers. When you read these stories along with that of Sister's life experiences, one cannot get over the feeling that one is watching an epic drama being performed before one. This life story has not been reduced to the story of a rare woman who was a child widow and who took up great efforts to reform her own community and the society but has expanded to become the social history of women. It becomes a map to see the past and since unless we look back, we cannot go forward, this life story becomes relevant in today's context also.

The Tamil version En Suya Saridhai and the English version My Life Story: Sister R S Subhalakshmi Ammal are out. Both Tamil and English are available on Amazon and other platforms.

En Suya Saridhai (Tamil Edition)
My Life Story: Sister R S Subhalakshmi Ammal
Translated by: Malathi Ramanathan & C S Lakshmi
Website: swasambooks.com
Buy on Amazon [Tamil]: amazon.in/Sister-SubhalakshmiE/dp/B0GF1J6V3Z
Buy on Amazon [Eng]: amazon.in/Subhalakshmi-Translator-Malathi-Ramanathan-Lakshmi/dp/B0GF1K4Z1P

IF THE ROOF LEAKS, LET IT LEAK... Poems and Stories of Women in Hindi, Punjabi, Sindhi, Maithily, Santhali and Dogri 2014

IF THE ROOF LEAKS, LET IT LEAK... is the fourth of five volumes planned, with 87 writers from 23 languages of India.

The fourth volume contains selected works and interviews of writers from Hindi, Punjabi, Sindhi, Maithily, Santhali and Dogri.

HINDI writers include: Anamika, Mrinal Pande, Maithreyi Pushpa and Neelesh Ranghuvanshi. PUNJABI writers include: Sukhwant Kaur Mann, Simrat Gagan, Nirupama Dutt, Manjit Tiwana and Deepinder. SINDHI writers include: Indira Shabnam and Popati Hiranandani. SANTHALI and MAITHILY writers include: Nirmala Putul and Shefalika Verma. DOGRI writers include: Shakuntala Sharma, Kanta Jamwal.

The book is edited by the well-known poet Menka Shivdasani. Three of her poems will also be included in this collection along with an interview of hers. Bharati Kapadia has done the drawings as in the other three volumes.

A Random Harvest

A book of Diary sketches / Drawings / Collages / Watercolours of Women Painters. It is a random collection from the works women painters who supported the Art Raffle organised by SPARROW in 2010. The works were inspired by or were reflections of two poems SPARROW gave them which in our view, exemplified joy and sorrow and in a sense highlighted women’s life and experiences that SPARROW, as a women’s archives, has been documenting over the years.

Making Faces: Painted Posters for Films

A book of hand painted film posters

In the early years of Indian cinema the posters were hand painted. With the advent of digital technology hand painted posters have almost become extinct. SPARROW has a good collection of hand painted posters. A well-known painter, V Jeevananthan, whose father was a painter of posters from 1954 and who himself has painted several

SWEEPING THE FRONT YARD…

This is the third of five volumes planned, with 87 writers from 23 languages of India. Two of them, Hot is the Moon and Being Carried Far Away were published earlier. This volume contains selected works of writers from Malyalam, Urdu, Telugu and English, along with interviews of the writers. The editor of the series is Dr C S Lakshmi.

The writers in this volume were chosen by language experts who support and help SPARROW in its various projects. Tamil poet Sukumaran gave us a list of names of Malayalam writers from which we chose the names of writers, and the dialogues with the writers in Malayalam were conducted by Renjini Lisa Varghese, Mini Sukumar, Anitha Thampi and V M Girija. The literary texts and the transcriptions were ably translated by J Devika and Gouridasan Nair from Tiruvananthapuram and Divakaran Periyam in Mumbai.

The book is edited by Sampurna Chattarji, well-known writer and poet. Three of her poems are published as a Postscript. Menka Shivdasani, with her team in The Source, did the design. The layout has been done by Pradeep Mhatre and Amol Khade. Bharati Kapadia has done the drawings as in the other two volumes.

BEING CARRIED FAR AWAY

BEING CARRIED Far away is the second in a series of 5 volumes to be published with the writings of 87 writers from 23 languages and excerpts from interviews with them. Each volume will contain translated works of poets and short-story writers from five languages. Bharati Kapadia, well known painter and a friend of SPARROW, has done the cover and all the drawings. BEING CARRIED Far away contains translated works from five languages: Assamese, Bengali, Garo, Manipuri and Mizo

ASSAMESE writers include: Nirupama Borgohain, Phul Goswami and Purabi Bormudai. BENGALI writers include Bani Basu, Krishna Basu, Mallika Sengupta, Nabaneeta Dev Sen and Suchitra Bhattacharya. GARO writers include Fridina K Marak, Twinkle Marak, Brucellish K Sangma. MANIPURI writers includeArambam Ongbi Memchoubi, Bimabati Thiyam Ongbi, Moirangthem Borkanya, Nee Devi and Laishram Ongbi Sanjenbam Bhanumati Devi. MIZO writers include Malsawmi Jacob, Mona Zote, Zaithangpuii Vuangtu and Buangi Sailo.

HOT IS THE MOON

HOT IS THE MOON is the first in a series of 5 volumes to be published with the writings of 87 writers from 23 languages and excerpts from interviews with them. Each volume will contain translated works of poets and short-story writers from four to five languages. Bharati Kapadia, well known painter and a friend of SPARROW, has done the cover and all the drawings. HOT IS THE MOON contains translated works from four languages: Kannada, Tamil, Konkani, Tulu

KANNADA writers include: Banu Mustaq, Kanaka Ha Ma, Mithra Venkatraj Tulasi Venugopal, Vaidehi. TAMIL writers include: Bama, Kutti Revathi Salma Malathy Maitri, Vaasanthi. KONKANI writers include: Hema Naik and Jayanti Naik. TULU writers include: M Janaki Brahmavara and Suneetha Shetty.

Feminisms as Experience Thought and Narratives

Neera Desai has undertaken a quest to understand the women’s movement and the women actively involved in the movement in this book. It is a journey that takes us through more than three decades of struggle to raise and understand women’s issues. The voices that emerge from these narratives are not a chorus in unison. They are voices that agree and disagree and they define and delineate in different languages of experience. But their core concern is similar and genuine. There is also nothing conclusive about what is spoken in these narratives. They are open-ended narratives. As one of them states, one can have the right questions but not always all the answers. There is the possibility that the right questions will, in future, lead us to a variety of right answers.

The World of Maya

Maya Kamath was a trained painter who later took to drawing cartoons. Her cartoons were not only witty but also extremely thought provoking and gender-sensitive. She worked on her cartoons almost until her last moments. She made sure that her last cartoon for Asian Age was ready before she died. This book contains some 1000 of cartoons and also some illustrations and drawings of Maya Kamath with a long introduction by Deepa Kamath, her daughter. Her cartoons cover a wide range of themes from family to international politics.

Allan Her Infinite Variety by Roshan G. Shahani

Allan P.Gimi (1904-1997) lived a long life and lived it fully and on her terms. She was a teacher and a mother of two daughters and a son. At a time when many women preferred to be housewives, Allan chose to study and enter college and then become a teacher. Married to Jamshed Mistri who used to be her teacher, Allan filled her life with teaching, literature, music and travel to distant lands. This book by her daughter not only opens up the interior spaces of a Parsi woman but also sets her in the context of her times, times when some women dared to create a space for themselves both at home and outside.

From The Land of a Thousand Hills by Veena Poonacha

Ponamma (1866-1943), Subamma (1890-1940) and Neelamma (1921-1991) are three generations of women hailing from Kodagu or Coorg known as the land of a thousand hills. Writing their life stories is Veena Poonacha, the fourth generation woman. She paints their portraits drawing from many sources, including ballads, folk songs, proverbs, family genealogies, family stories, personal letters and photographs. Set against the background of the cultural and social history of Coorg, with ballads which sing of women as slayers of tigers and equals of men and captors of enemies of the land, the portraits of these three women emerge in firm tones, deep colours clear lines.

Paaniwali Bai by Rohini Gawankar

The public in general knows Mrinal Gore as Paaniwali Bai (as it was her activism that brought water to Goregaon, Mumbai.) But she has dealt with other problems of the common people also like price rise, housing problems etc. The impact of her work has been felt from Mahila Mandal to Parliament. The common people have trust and faith in her for she has created in them the feeling that she will be there for them no matter what obstacles come her way. This book has covered the journey of her life from her childhood to present times.