Maa Lo...An Odia Girl Child's First Name

The story is that of a young girl child born in mid sixties India, in the backward state of Odisha in India, where society was still grappling with the post colonial remnants on the Indian psyche. Inebriated by a new sense of freedom, the middle class was urged to throw caution to the winds and revel in the moment. Yet, the not too far away brush with the Gandhian ideology and its efficacy resulted in an inherent disdain of exuberance of any sort. Restraint was the ideal order of the day but many a family was caught in the whirlpool of contradiction. Born into a family which celebrated life with a callous disregard for the future, Neera grew up with a permanent sense of fear. Large eyed, dusky and quiet, she learnt quickly to discern between prudent and impulsive action. An upbringing in the midst of Bollywood plethora, the diabolic thrust of dowry deaths, colour prejudices, the growing distances between generations, lack of geriatric care and an emerging new consciousness of thought in the middle class led her to make choices in life, apparently cold and clinical yet ameliorative in retrospect. The writer attempts to form it in the mode of a ‘coming of age’ novel.