Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao: Review

Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao: Review

Sumit PaulUpdated: Wednesday, May 29, 2019, 05:09 AM IST
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Title: Girls Burn Brighter

Author: Shobha Rao

Publisher: Fleet

Pages: 367

Price: Rs 399

‘Only when a woman decides to display her mettle and audacious gumption, the society gets to know of her intent.’
-Simone De Beauvoir in The Second Sex

The novel by Shobha Rao is a saga of female bonding. It’s an account of two girls Poornima and Savitha and their indomitable spirit.

The book has a psychological streak, nay blitzkrieg, which shines and blazes through their association and interminable obstacles they were subject to. The novel also speaks of the resilience women are intrinsically endowed with. On this count, they are far stronger than men.

Before that, it’s imperative to understand the dynamics of feminism and its true import: Feminism is to break the social stereotypes that were imposed on women by a patriarchal society. Feminism is an idea and an idea needs an equally broad outlook to blossom. Feminism believes not in screaming but in silently following what it thinks to be laudatory and inherently respectful to a woman.

Poornima and Savitha’s feminism is of the aforementioned kind. It doesn’t scream from the rooftop but believes that actions speak louder than words.

Mary Wollstonecraft’s Intrepid Feminism or Embedded Dissent can be seen in its incandescent best in the struggles and Sisyphean endeavours are undertaken by two physically frail but mentally tough females. Their never-say-die attitude is a salutation to feminine steeliness.

We, the society, will always be wallowing in the idea of ‘a weaker sex’. But what’s a weakness of persona? In reality, it’s the man who’s weak. Woman always bounces back and finds her way to the goal just like Poornima and Savitha.
They are not mere characters or objects. They are symbols and emblems of the stuff women are made of. They can be destroyed, but can never be defeated.

The authoress Shobha has woven a narrative around the hardships of two female protagonists and their umbilical bond. Her novel can be categorised in the modern genre of ‘ferreting it out’ in a mosaic of human relationships and their longevity.
The unconquered female ambition beats against the strictures of poverty and patriarchal societies. The man-made idioms of superiority and inferiority get detonated in Shobha’s creative attempt.

On the flip side, the book is a tad boring for those who look for a flux of plots in a novel. At times, this novel seems to be meandering and drifting from its core. Its serpentine course occasionally makes it a ho-hum description. In other words, the narrative could have been shortened for a greater impact and effectiveness. The ‘sharpness of objective’ is somewhere palpably missing in Rao’s otherwise tolerably good novel.

Yet, the readers, looking for gender equality and strength of a woman, will find it after their hearts because it echoes a universal sentiment that women are nature’s powerhouses. They indeed are. There can’t be two views about it.

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