OUTLAW: INDIA'S BANDIT QUEEN AND ME by Roy Moxham

Format:Hardback
Publisher: Rider
Published: 3/6/2010

India has seen any number of truly remarkable women over the years - Rani of Jhansi, Indira Gandhi, Kiran Ahluwalia - just to name a few, but none have been so fiercely loved or hated as Phoolan Devi, India's Bandit Queen.

Phoolan was born into the lower mallah (boatman) caste, in the small village in Uttar Pradesh, India.   When Phoolan was ten years old, her cousin, Mayadin, became the head of the family.  Mayadin arranged to have her married to a man 20  years her senior and who was already married.  Phoolan, as the younger wife, was relegated to household labour. It all became too much for the 11-year old when her husband sexually molested her even though she had not yet  reached puberty  and she ran back to her village.  Sadly, because she left her husband, she was forever treated as a social outcast and even her family was forced to reject her.

A few years down the road Phoolan became embroiled in a conflict with some richer relatives over family land.  The relatives arranged for her to be kidnapped by dacoits  that lived in the local ravines around the village. The gang was led by one Babu Singh who raped Phoolan, but he in turn was shot by his deputy, Vikram Mallah who then became Phoolan's lover.  Together, Vikram and Phoolan participated in the gang's activities, which consisted of looting high-caste (Thakur) villages and kidnapping  landowners for ransom. 

Sadly, the Vikram, Phoolan partnership was not to last.  Vikram was shot dead by a Thakur member of the gang (who wanted Phoolan for himself) .  They (the Thakurs) locked Phoolan away in a place called "Behmai"  where she was gang-raped mercilessly.  After three weeks, she managed to escape and gathered together a gang of Mallahs (men from her own caste) that she led with Man Singh, a member of Vikram's former gang.

In 1981, seventeen months after her escape from Behmai where she was raped, Phoolan and Man Singh returned to the village, to take her revenge. The Thakurs in the village were preparing for a wedding.  When Phoolan's gang failed to find all the kidnappers/molesters even after an exhaustive search, they lined up twnety-two Thakur men in the village and shot them.  Sadly, most of the men shot and killed were not involved in her kidnapping or rape. Later, Phoolan Devi claimed that she herself didn't kill anybody in Behmai – all the killings were carried out by her gang members.   

After the killings the police launched a huge manhunt using helicopters and thousands of men, but Phoolan Devi' evaded capture by hiding out in the ravines. Finally Prime Minister Indira Gandhi  authorised the Madhya Pradesh government to negotiate a surrender deal.  In February of 1983, with most of her gang dead and her health failing, Phoolan surrendered.

Phoolan Devi at her surrender with her lover, Man Singh

The agreed terms were that her family be given a plot of land; that she not be hanged; her gang must have prison quarters that were separated from the rest and that all charges must be dropped once they had served eight years in prison. Sadly, the Indian government reneged on all deals. Instead of eight years, Phoolan served eleven years and would have languished in prison longer had a mass movement by the coalition of socialists and "Untouchables" in Uttar Pradesh in 1994  not forced her release. 

It is while Phoolan was serving prison time that Roy Moxham, first contacted the Lady Bandit.

In his own words:

“In June 1992, I did a very strange thing. I wrote to a bandit in an Indian jail,”

After reading an article in the British newspapers about Phoolan Devi and her troubled past, Roy Moxham ( a book and paper conservator living in the UK) was moved to write to her. Initially he just wanted to lend her a listening ear, but as he got to know Phoolan better he was also compelled to send her a little money, dole out advice, and given that Phoolan spoke no English, write to influential people on her behalf...you could say he was to Phoolan, both, a kindly friend and an agent.  As the years went by he and Phoolan got even closer and she referred to him as her brother.

Phoolan Devi with Roy Moxham, Holi 1994

Whenever Moxham made his annual visit to India he would stay at her house in Delhi. Sharing such close space with Poonam and her family allowed Moxham to see and share a side of Phoolan that most of us had never seen.  He tells us how she was loathe to hire househelp and loved to cook and clean the floors herself.  Also, she was passionately fond of kids and spent any number of hours looking after her sisters' children, but that same family also tried to use her - wanting a share of her new-found wealth and prosperity.  He also shows us what life was like for her when she joined politics, how she almost embraced Buddhism and how, as she got wealthier, she simply gave stuff away to people.  She barely tolerated the security that was given to her and as the years went by she used fewer and fewer bodyguards.  Moxham is sure that had she had more security she would not have lost her life prematurely.

When Moxham was asked why he wrote this memoir, "Outlaw: India's Bandit Queen and Me",  he claimed it was to set to the record straight on Phoolan.  According to him, people's impressions of Phoolan have been  shaped mainly by Shekhar Kapur's movie "The Bandit Queen" (based on the book by Mala Sen).  Now while the movie is sympathetic to Phoolan, there are scenes in the movie that she vehemently protested.  One was the depiction of the brutal rape scene and the other was how Kapur had the actress that plays Phoolan,  paraded naked around the village well. Phoolan thought  it was cruel and insensitive to depict her that way. She made Moxham write to Channel 4 several times to stop the movie from being released in the UK, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. Moxham, the true friend that he is, supported her dislike of the movie and could never bring himself to watch it, until he set out to write the memoir, that is.

Another reason Moxham wanted to write this book is because it's the only account of the former MP's life after her release from jail in 1994. The book is based on extensive correspondence between the two, even though Devi did not know English. The correspondence led to an unlikely friendship that lasted till the time Phoolan Devi was assassinated in 2001.

What can I say about Moxham's writing?  Well, it's basic to say the very least, but this is an entertaining read and you can tell, right from the get-go that his interest in Phoolan's welfare is kindly and honest.  When he's not visiting her in India he is travelling the country, usually little towns and villages in the North and his descriptions of these little towns made for welcome reading.   More importantly, reading about Phoolan's life drives us to ask:  would she have become a bandit had she not been an uneducated woman, in a backward village with so few choices?  I think the answer is NO!!!  She was spirited, charismatic, but poor and uneducated.  To make matters worse she was born into the wrong caste and in the wrong gender.  All these factors conspired to make her who she became.  Her story is truly one worth reading.

 

Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India by William Dalrymple

Format: Hardback, 304 pages, 234x153mm

Published: October 2009

Bloomsbury UK

"Nine Lives" is a collection of short esoteric stories by eminent travel writer William Dalrymple that explores how India's religious traditions are being affected by modernity. As a result, it is not about the Sai Babas, the Maharishis or the sants from the mainstream religions of India, or even about modern TV God Men like Sri Sri Ravi Shankar from the global spirituality empire called the "Art of Living", but about the tantriks and the sufis, godmen and saints from the fringes of religion and various cults or even the little village devis and devatas...for it is these people and their traditions which face a threat from modernization.

This wonderful book opens with "The Nun's Tale", a sensitive portrayal of a Jain nun....of why and how she became a nun, the rigors involved in living as a nun (or a monk) and some very interesting revelations on some of the practices of Jain nuns and monks that I was not aware of.  Prasannamataji, the nun in question, is young, educated and attractive.  She comes from a wealthy family but gives it all up for a life of asceticism. Jainism attaches supreme importance to "detachment" and every Jain, man or woman, but especially nun and monk, aspires to become completely detached from  life.  Unfortunately for  Prasannamataji she develops a keen affection for a fellow nun. Her friend falls sick and eventually dies (Jains are not allowed to seek allopathic treatment), and Prassanamataji ends up not just breaking a rule and falling in love (for lack of a better term), but also mourning the loss of her beloved and wanting to take her own life. Incidentally, the practice of fasting unto death "sallekhana" is widely embraced in Jainism.  Unlike with Buddhism, there is not a whole lot out there that describes for us the lives of Jain aesethics and I sincerely believe Dalrymple has opened the doors to many aspects of Jain living that were hitherto unknown. Fascinating...this first tale left me breathless, quite literally!

"The Dancer of Kannur", takes a peak into the lives of Theyyam dancers ( divinely possessed dancers) in Kerala. What is so fascinating about the account is that Theyyam dancers, being Dalits (untouchables) , are usually reviled by Brahmins on a regular basis and yet, when the Theyyam season comes around the Brahmins are prepared to touch the feet of the Dalit whom they believe is now possessed by a God. So also, in "The Daughters of Yellamma" we have the devadasis (women who are dedicated to a temple as children) but who are inevitably cast off after attaining puberty. Not a whole lot of options are open to them at this point except to prostitute themselves. Devadasis are supposed to be the incarnation of the goddess Yellama and such is the draw of Indians to religion that even though most of them (the davadasis) now come from the "untouchable" caste and most are prostitutes, Hindu families will seek their blessings on auspicious occasions like a wedding, the birth of a child and so on.


One of my favourite stories in the collection has to do with a Buddhist monk from Tibet who was temporarily released from his vows of non-violence to take up arms in defence of the Dalai Lama whom he then accompanied in his flight from Tibet to Dharamshala in India in the 1950's. He then spends the rest of his life atoning for the violence by hand printing the finest prayer flags in India.   I thought I knew everything there is to know about Tibetan Buddhism but I was so wrong...I had no clue they were able to take up a call to arms if their religion demanded it!

Another notable story is "The Idol Maker", Srijet is the thirty-fifth of a line of sculptors going back to the Chola bronze makers who sees creating gods as one of the holiest callings in India, but unfortunately the line may just end with Srijet as his son has no intention of becoming a sculptor like his dad, instead, he has plans to study computer engineering.

And my review would not be complete if I did not mention,  Manisha whose astonishing journey from a middle-class life in Calcutta  to unexpected fulfillment living as a Tantric in an isolated, skull-filled cremation ground is told in a story with the beguiling title, "The Lady Twilight".

Whilst reading these fascinating stories, I was once again reminded just how very diverse India is. From these nine lives you realize there is a variety of Indias but that they are all seamlessly and beautifully connected. You also realize, albeit a little sadly, that ancient religious traditions are dying out as India marches towards global dominance.  I am very grateful to Dalrymple for providing us a keyhole into the lives of these people who, if the current trend continues, might not be around too much longer.

"Nine Lives", unlike most travelogues which tend to focus on the author and what "he" is doing, focuses exclusively on these nine subjects,their lives and spiritual quests. Dalrymple has successfully managed to place himself in the background. The interest and the inquiring mind is very much there, but he is skillfully unobtrusive, allowing his subjects to tell their story in their own words.  It is precisely that quality which makes this book such an enjoyable and unforgettable read.


Note:  William Dalrymple is going on tour with the "real life" characters of his latest book. This is truly a unique way of showcasing the India Dalrymple's come to discover over the past twenty-five years.  If you can catch a reading, I'm sure it will be money and effort well spent!

My Temporary Son: An Orphan's Journey by Timeri N. Murari

• Published by: Penguin Books India

• Published when: September 2005 ,248pp

• Genre: Non Fiction/Memoir

*Author's Website

*My Temporary Son by Timeri N. Murari





Little did Indian (Madras-based) writer Timeri N. Murari know just how much his life was about to change when his social worker wife, Maureen, brought to their home for a few days, a little lad from the orphanage she volunteered at while he (the little orphan) recuperated from surgery.

Bheema, as the baby orphan was named, was born with a condition called "vesicle extrophy" which is where the bladder is positioned outside the body, also, the baby had no discernible sex organs. The village couple he was born to were uneducated,superstitious and poor and when they couldn't detect if their baby was male or female they feared his malformation might bring bad luck upon their house, so without ever holding her son, the mother gave it up to the local orphanage where Bhima spent most of his days in an iron-barred cot, seldom touched or spoken to and occasionally banging his head against the bars of his crib (cage) when the pain of his affliction got too much to bear.

Luckily for Bheema, when Maureen went to visit the orphanage with a group of American expat ladies, she was drawn to his big,bright eyes which were filled with pain and made it her mission to get him surgical help and then to put him up for adoption abroad.

After the first big surgery she (Maureen) realized the orphanage couldn't possibly give him all the attention and medical supervision he was in need of, so she brought him to her home, where quite unintentionally and unexpectedly he became this childless elderly couple's "temporary son".

Murari has written a beautiful and poignant memoir of the time Bhima spent with them. He (Murari) was going on 60 when Bhima arrived at their home and had never been comfortable with children, but Bhima drilled a hole into this author's heart and let his sunshiny self in, much to the surprise of everybody, especially Murari who definitely didn't expect to be wrapped around a little child's finger .

Murari infuses each of the 248 pages with his love for Bhima and his pride in everything Bhima did. Each milestone is spoken of lovingly and from the heart. And, at the end, when the time comes for Bhima to go to his official adoptive parents, the heartbreak Murari experiences is so real and heartfelt it will jump off the page touching you too.

As he tells us Bhima's story the writer meanders wonderfully into a little family history, philosophy, scientific musings, self-introspection, the social history and culture of Madras, the adoption process in India, all of which makes for very interesting reading. Infact, the book closes with atleast 20 pages of official information on the adoption process in India.

Bhima, as with many Indian kids, was adopted by a European family which made me think a little about international adoption and why it is favored in the west - North America and Europe. Why do people like Madonna and Angelina Jolie prefer to adopt kids from Africa and Asia instead of opting to adopt domestically? And what is the effect on these kids as they grow up with white parents..do they wonder about and miss their birth culture? It had me wondering too, what happens when an adoption goes wrong, as in, when the adoption agency doesn't reveal to you certain significant details (concerning health maybe) about the child. What recourse does the adoptive parent have? As you can see, this book made me think about adoption and the wonderful people that do it to give an orphan a better home.

I would recommend this book.