Lesser Lives : Stories of Domestic Servants in India

‘Exemplary … [Lesser Lives] will become a landmark in opening new debates on contemporary social issues’ Ravish Kumar 'A wonderful selection ... These stories give a voice to the desires, longings and emotions of a marginalized section of the society’ Rana Safvi For generations, domestic servants in India have been subjected to neglect, apathy and cruelty. Though they are known nowadays as the domestic ‘help’, ‘aid’ or ‘staff’, often merely to meet the requirements of political correctness, their condition remains unchanged for the most part as the country’s privileged classes have failed to truly address one of the most pervasive inequalities in their households. In Lesser Lives, Nitin Sinha and Prabhat Kumar collect short fiction from the Hindi heartland that turns the gaze onto these continuing disparities. The eleven stories in the book, including Munshi Premchand’s ‘Maidservant’, Mahadevi Verma’s ‘Rama’, Saadat Hasan Manto’s ‘Blouse’, Amarkant’s ‘Bahadur’ and Shekhar Joshi’s ‘Dajyu’, offer both timeless classics and little-known literary gems, some of which have never been published in translation before. Altogether, this thoughtful collection brings into sharp focus the sobering realities of class and inequality in Indian homes and encourages a new engagement with one of the most pressing issues of our times.