May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons

May You Be the Mother
of a Hundred Sons

“A SPLENDID BOOK …

At times shocking, at times deeply moving, at times sheer fun. Bumiller’s ultimate concern is the powerlessness of Indian women.… She writes with such a distinctive and honest voice, it wins the reader’s sympathy from the minute she steps out of the plane in Delhi and breathes the air.… Lucid, well-informed, and intelligently sympathetic.”

The Washington Post Book World

“Powerful … Bumiller goes far beyond the simple, often erroneous stereotypes concocted by imperialists such as Rudyard Kipling. Instead of seeing India through the narrow eyes of a disapproving outsider, Bumiller drinks in all she sees with a reporters thirst.… She has woven a tapestry that is disturbing yet satisfying, capturing the paradoxes without passing judgement. It is a fascinating book.”

The Baltimore Evening Sun

“Elisabeth Bumiller is an extraordinarily engaging writer with a warm style. She has written a beautiful, insightful and important book.”

David Shipler
Pulitzer Prize-winning author of
Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits
in a Promised Land

“This is the rarest of achievements, a western writer who has actually discovered India. What E.M. Forster and Ruth Jhabvala have achieved as art, Elisabeth Bumiller has captured by plain reporting of the most complex civilizations on earth.”

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Former U.S. Ambassador to India

“An impassioned and compassionate report on the condition of modern Indian women.… Full of facts and figures, vivid pictures of places and people, and moving personal responses to them all. A rich and disturbing portrait of India nearly half a century after independence.”

The Kirkus Reviews

THIS BOOK WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE WITHOUT THE COUNTLESS
people who helped me, encouraged me, taught me about India and invited me into their lives. A few deserve a special mention here.

In New Delhi, the wonderful, chaotic, loving Bissells and members of their extended family—Bim, John, William, Monsoon, Mrs. Nanda, Padma and Nisha—made India the extraordinary place it was for me; they will remain lifelong friends. Renuka Singh, my soulmate and collaborator in the search for Surinder Kaur, devoted weeks to that project and others, and gave me valuable suggestions after reading my manuscript. She, too, will remain a friend for life. The phenomenal P. J. Anthony of
The New York Times
New Delhi bureau selflessly helped me when he could have been doing something else. To me, he seemed like a gift dropped from heaven. Mani Mann provided much laughter, good friendship and a beautiful sari, and Ritu Menon lent invaluable insight and advice. In New Delhi, I would also like to thank Mani Shankar and Suneet Aiyar, Suman and Manju Dubey, G. Parthasaraty, Rama Mohan Rao, Richard Weintraub, Nilova Roy, C. P. Sujaya, Ella Datta, R. L. Verma, Sanjoy Hazarika and all of the fine people at 35 A/1 Prithvi Raj Road, particularly Abdul Toheed, Chunni Lal and the late Mohinder Singh. I also owe a special debt of gratitude to yet another member of the extended Bissell family, Mallika Singh.

In Calcutta, I am extremely grateful to M. J. and Mallika Akbar, Shekhar and Pakhi Bhatia, Rajbir and Meena Singh, and Shanti Bhattacharya, who fed me, entertained me and most of all guided me through the maze of their city. I would also like to thank Carolyne Wright for her permission to reprint her translations of Nabaneeta Dev Sen’s poetry.

In Bombay, Vir and Malavika Sanghvi were like my home away from home. Both of them know how much they helped me, and how much their writing and thinking influenced me and this book. I also owe an enormous thank you to Bhawna Somaya, who is the person who made the chapter on film stars possible, and who became a good friend. I am grateful, too, to Vibhuti Patel for her time and energy in helping me to understand the workings of the Women’s Centre, and to Siddharth Bhatia for his assistance in reporting.

In Madras, I would like to thank Jaya Gokulamani, who poured her heart and talents into our work in Salem District, and who literally helped nurse me back to health during the long drive back from Belukkurichi. I am grateful, too, to Jaya Arunachalam of the Working Women’s Forum.

In Gujarat, I am appreciative to Ela Bhatt, Renana Jhabvala, Harish Khare, Anila Dholakia and all of the other people connected with the Self-Employed Women’s Association. At SEWA Rural in Jhagadia, Anil and Lata Desai, Gayatri Giri and the other staff members taught me about health care for India’s poor.

In Lucknow, I will always be grateful to our friend and teacher Dr. Surendra Singh, his wife, Reena, his mother and his remarkable daughters—Anu, Anju, Chotu, Rinki and Moon. Thanks, too, to Balraj Chauhan, who first led me to Dr. Singh. In Khajuron, I feel I can never repay the kindness and hospitality of Vindhya Devi, or Bhabhiji, and her late husband, Sheo Singh. I also owe many thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Shardul Singh, Amar Singh and Kitty Singh.

In Washington, I would especially like to thank my editors at
The Washington Post
—Ben Bradlee, Len Downie, Mary Hadar and Ellen Edwards—who thought it was a fine idea to send a Style reporter to India, and who cheered me on throughout my three and a half years there. Portions of this book were published in earlier versions in the
Post
, and I am grateful to the paper for allowing them to reappear here. I would also like to thank Kathy Sreedhar, whose help, expertise, friendship and tremendous enthusiasm kept me going, and whose work in India has been an inspiration for mine. I am indebted to Maura Moynihan for the priceless education she gave me about India, and for the laughter and friendship she brought into our home. Her mother, Elizabeth Moynihan, added to my education and set me on the right path that first week in Jhor. Marty Chen provided wisdom and advice, and Mahnaz Ispahani took time out from her own research to find material for me at the Library of Congress.

In New York, I am especially grateful to Peter Osnos, my editor at Random House, who has guided me and spurred me on since we started talking about this book in 1984, and also to my literary agent and friend, Amanda Urban, who was the one who thought I should write a book in the first place. Virginia Avery, my copy editor, did a superb job with the manuscript. Many thanks also to Ken Gellman for all his help at Random House. In Cincinnati, Barbara Ramusack provided fascinating material on Katherine Mayo, and my brother-in-law in San Diego, Dr. Michael Weisman, answered many questions about family planning. Ken Rice in Carmel did a beautiful job printing my photographs.

There are a few other friends I would like to thank as well. Many of them probably are not aware of their contributions, but it was in conversations with them about India and about women that I was guided to many of the thoughts and conclusions in this book. Geraldine Baum listened and encouraged, as she always has, but also offered insight into what it is like to be an American woman in the late 1980s. I am also thankful to Michele Slung, Susan and Howell Raines, Judy Gingold and David Freeman, Michael and Anne Mandelbaum, Daniel Yergin, Cristy West, Doris Reynolds, Dale Russakoff, Betsy and Victor Gotbaum, Mala and Tejbir Singh, Vikram and Tasneem Mehta, Sunil and Shalini Sethi, Amitav Ghosh, Raghu Rai, Vikram Seth, Elisabeth Bentley, the incomparable Harilal Dhingra, and especially Laura Richardson and Rone Tempest, our fellow travelers on a journey that ensured that we will always be part of one another’s lives. The last friend I would like to thank is Dhiren Bhagat, who will not be able to read this book. Dhiren died tragically in a senseless car accident in New Delhi in November 1988, and since then I have often thought about the times he used to drop by our house Indian-style, unannounced, always ready for a piece of cake and a good argument about the inconsistencies of feminism. It was Dhiren who forced me to think through many of my easy assumptions, and I know we would have had lovely quarrels over this book. I will miss those, as I miss him.

Finally I am indebted to my parents, Gunhild and John Rose and Ted and Ruth Ann Bumiller, who have given me their love and support, and whose sense of adventure brought them to India and allowed me to see the country through new eyes. My father, especially, taught me how to travel; his films, from
By Jeep Around the World
to
Eternal India
, have guided and influenced much of my work. I am also indebted to my inspirational grandmother, Elizabeth Bumiller, who at the age of eighty-eight came to visit her granddaughter one insufferably hot summer in India. I also owe much to my equally intrepid and remarkable in-laws, Joseph and Etta Weisman, and my sisters and stepbrothers—Trine, Karen and Jennifer Elken Bumiller, and Stephen, Michael and David Rose.

The last person I would like to thank is the most important. I think it is fair to say that this book could not have been written without my husband, Steve, who read the entire manuscript many times, believed in it when I did not, and whose support, patience and love were the source of my strength. This book is as much his as mine.

E
LISABETH
B
UMILLER
Tokyo
September 1989