Women empowerment is the talk of the 21st century but is the world completely accepting of women and their opinions?
We have come across bold stories of the woman breaking the glass cliff but rarely come to the woman facing difficulties in pregnancies, mentally preparing themselves to go through pregnancies, miscarriages, and infertility.
Challenging these thoughts, author Mala Mahesh has written a book called ‘Padma’ which focuses on two wilful women, separated by the chasm of time, negotiating their feminine identities and struggling against patriarchy.
The book signing for her first literary fiction book ‘Padma’ was held at Someplace Else, Jio Drive, Mumbai, on June 1, 2022.
The event witnessed the author’s friends, family, book bloggers, and media professionals. The event commenced with a brief introduction about the author and her journey by her daughter, who couldn’t be only happy but proud of her mother’s journey. After the introduction, the author talked about the book and the research behind writing it.
The chief guest and the renowned singer Shankar Mahadevan with the author unveiled the book cover. The supremely talented singer talked about women’s role in our society. HE said, “We have goddesses we worship, and we refer to them as ‘MAA,’ and at the same instance, they are the ones who have to face so many issues on an everyday basis.” He also said he was awed that the author has addressed this topic. Later, he sang one of his most heart-touching songs – MAA from the movie Taare Zameen Par which was a treat to the ears and soul.
After the melodious song, the event proceeded with the audience asking questions about the book. When book blogger Vidhya Thakkar asked about the author’s experience of writing two characters going through similar situations in different timelines, she answered, ” Padma’s character goes through a period while discussing with the editor. We came up with a way to structure the two timelines, what their characters look like, and their traits.” It was a tricky task to end it in a way that made sense.
