: Mysuru Literature Festival 2021: Helping women realise desires and sensuality through Henna #IndiaNEWS #News Mysore/Mysuru: The West knows so little about South Asia. They have no idea how sophisticated

Mysuru Literature Festival 2021: Helping women realise desires and sensuality through Henna #IndiaNEWS #News
Mysore/Mysuru: The West knows so little about South Asia. They have no idea how sophisticated and how well developed South Asia was before the West developed. They think they came along and invented everything and have no idea about the rich heritage and ideas that they have gleaned from the East. All the research about the lives of women in Jaipur, their quest for creating an identity for themselves, the efforts of the royal family of Jaipur to empower women let Alka Joshi, the author of her popular debut novel ‘The Henna Artist,’ realise the development in South Asia which went unnoticed to the world.

Alka Joshi was a panellist of the virtual session ‘Rajput pinks and Naga greens: Multi-hued tales’ at the fifth edition of Mysuru Literature Festival hosted by Mysuru Literary Forum Charitable Trust and Mysuru Book Clubs-2015 last evening. Her debut novel has taken the literary world by storm and she was in conversation with Jayashree Jagannath.

Born in Jodhpur and settled in the US, Alka’s novel which took her 10 years to write, talks of Lakshmi the oppressed protagonist who uses her Henna drawing skills and knowledge of herbal remedies to connect with women who keep their desires under wraps. The novel, set around post-independence in 1955 uses Henna drawings, an integral part of Jaipur culture as a communication tool and as a mood enhancer to get across to several women and help them realise their own desires and sensuality. Alka said her research on the culture of Jaipur, the trends and traditions were based on her interactions with local people.

Along with Jayashree Jagannath, Avinuo Kire, writer and teacher from Kohima, Nagaland, was a co-moderator for this session. She has contributed to various literary journals, anthologies and has authored many short stories. She said that South Asia has a great literary tradition and the works of several writers need to be republished so that the world gets to know more about South Asian culture. Avinuo Kires short story collection ‘The power to forgive’ has had a deep impact on the literary world.

Her stories are mainly set in the contemporary time in Kohima. “I’m inspired by everyday reality and traditions, myths, folklore and spirituality which is an integral part of Naga culture,�? she said.

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