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You are here: Home / Blog / Why the hero of my YA dystopian novel had to be an angry young Indian girl

Why the hero of my YA dystopian novel had to be an angry young Indian girl

April 9, 2015 By achuka Leave a Comment

guardiansmall

Some enlightening background from the author of The Many Lives of Ruby Iyer by Laxmi Hariharan, reviewed by ACHUKA here…

[W]hen 17 months ago a young photojournalist was raped in the heart of Mumbai in broad daylight, it made me furious. Technology had birthed Facebook and Twitter in the time I had been away from Mumbai, but meanwhile the city seemed to have only become more unsafe for girls.

I had this vision of a larger than life, magnificent, vigilante figure. A teenage girl who would simply follow her instincts, someone who would hit out first and think later. Who would teach those leering men a lesson.

Thus Ruby Iyer was born. I was helpless as a teenager coming of age in that metropolis. Ruby Iyer is not. She is not constrained by the every day reality of Indian society, where walking down the street in a pair of jeans will invite unwanted attention. And where if you did stand up to your tormentors, you would probably pay the price.

I am subconsciously influenced by that most towering of personas who has ruled Bollywood over most of my adult life – the Angry Young Man avatar of Amitabh Bachchan, one of the most influential actors of Indian cinema and popular culture. But this is 2015 and a 24-year-old Jennifer Lawrence has just closed the last year as the highest-grossing actor in Hollywood, thanks in part to playing Katniss Everdeen. The time is now for the Angry Young (Indian) Girl to claim centre-stage.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2015/apr/03/ya-dystopian-novel-india-south-asia-laxmi-hariharan

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Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: Bombay, dystopian, hero, heroine, India, Mumbai, YA

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