MY BOOKS
TABOO (DECEMBER 2019) Shortlisted for Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize & longlisted for Atta Galatta Bangalore Literature Festival Book Prize 2020Erendira, the protagonist of this heart-rending tale of exploitation and the imagination of freedom is symbolic of the under-aged trafficking networks and its resilient survivors across India. In Taboo, metred into rhythm in her inimitable style, Nirmala plunges into the context of disturbing crime, trafficking and unfreedom. Flying high in the Himalayan ranges, weaving a trail through Coimbatore, Ooty, Chandigarh, Khandala and the shipping town of Alang, diving down to the southern-most tip of India and onwards to Sri Lanka, Erendira, through many languages and cultures unearths the forbidden identity of a sex worker on a footpath. Finally you emerge questioning the intent of our society and political organizations to stop this and the utter disregard for such questions in our democracy.
HUNGER'S DAUGHTERS
(DECEMBER 2018)
She lives in a forest hamlet in Orissa. With a father presumed dead and a mother gone missing, Susanthi Bodra is compelled to become a breadwinner at the age of twelve. Eight-year-old Nelli runs away from her mistress’s home, but is kidnapped and sold into a brothel in Nagpur. Two decades have passed, and she is yet to return to her hamlet Kithapur. Gowravva, her mother, is on the hunt to find her precious daughter. From the home of the Lesser Known Goddess to the chilli fields of a mother who has long lost her daughter; from the plush residence of a powerful minister to a vedic ashram, Nainika Chandra, a journalist and the narrator in Hunger’s Daughters, brings together the stories of young breadwinners from the forest hamlets of Jharkhand, Orissa and Karnataka. The book binds the unexplored shades of poverty and power, with an underlying story of love.
THE BATATA FARMERS OF KHED
APRIL 2023
Wandering through the hamlets of the verdant Sahyadri ranges, journalist Roopa Raag finds herself in the company of potato farmers who watch the wet skies day after night in anticipation of sunshine. Meeting the indigenous people of the villages in the clusters of Khed, Satgaon Pathar and Wafgaon in the potato intense belt of Maharashtra, Roopa rides the highs and lows of the “batata” cultivating cycle, and the wavering fortunes of farmers in this rain-dependent region. With the Covid pandemic raging, the journalist ultimately returns to her hometown Bangalore in the knowledge that members of a German-funded non-governmental organisation are playing guiding angels to the potato growers of this belt… And hope rings loud and clear with uncertainties far and near…
THE COMMUNITY CATALYST
(OCTOBER 2016)
This is the true story of a young man from a small village in Rajasthan who joins the Indian Administrative Services, and is posted in Karnataka State. He achieves exemplary results in each of his different official postings, while also inspiring and motivating the people whom he serves to create self-help groups and NGOs that can transform their villages and towns, for the betterment of all. A skilled weaver of narrative, Nirmala Govindarajan blends time and space, people and places, memories and conversations, to tell the story of an extraordinary individual, and his outstanding and selfless service to the people of this nation. From the groundnut fields of Rajasthan to the mountains of the Himalaya, from the bustling metropolis of Bangalore to the palm-fringed beaches of the Konkan coast, her skilled narrative travels backwards and forwards in time to paint the picture of a life well and fully lived.
