Budhini

<p>On 6 December 1959 Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru went to Dhanbad district in Jharkhand to inaugurate the Panchet Dam across the Damodar river. A fifteen-year-old girl Budhini chosen by the Damodar Valley Corporation welcomed him with a garland and placed a tikka on his forehead. When these ceremonial gestures were interpreted as an act of matrimony the fifteen-year-old was ostracized by her village and let go from her job as a construction worker citing violation of Santal traditions. Budhini was outlawed for 'marrying outside her community'. <p/>Budhini Mejhan's is the tale of an uprooted life told here through the contemporary lens of Rupi Murmu a young journalist distantly related to her and determined to excavate her story. In this reimagined history Sarah Joseph evokes Budhini with vigour authority and panache conjuring up a robust and endearing feminine character and reminding us of the lives and stories that should never be forgotten. <p/>Translated by her daughter Sangeetha Sreenivasan a fiercely individualistic novelist herself Sarah Joseph's <i>Budhini</i> powerfully invokes the wider bio-politics of our relentless modernization and the dangers of being indifferent to ecological realities.</p>