Looking Back at the Pioneering Feminist Publishing House of Yore!
Kapilas Bhuyan
In the recently concluded 5th Indian Documentary Film Festival Bhubaneswar (IDFFB) one of the showcased films was ‘The Books We Made’ (Hindi-English/68-minute/2016) by Anupama Chandra and Umadevi Tanuku that documents the way the alternative publishing house ‘Kali for Women’ by Urvashi Butalia and Ritu Menon started in a small way in 1984 and continued until they split in 2003.
The film resonates an inspiring tone as these two very well – educated women putting aside their personal wellbeing, decided to cofound the first feminist publishing house in India. It narrates in the course of the film their joy and pain of surviving in two non – lucrative professions – writing for small, discerning readers, publishing, translating and promoting literary works from different places barely known outside its own linguistic region in the country.
The film, produced by PSBT in 2016, looks back on three decades of publishing with a focus on feminist literature, politics, friendship and survival against all odds. The situations for women in India back in 1980s had not been the same as of now. Since young generation women have become more or less as capable as their men counterparts, the menace of dowry has been conspicuously reduced, yet still persists as a social evil. In the 1980s it was really nerve breaking against which a united voice was the need of the hour, and ‘Kali for Women’ published the visual documentation upon the march of the women against it.
‘Kali for Women’ had also published very important books like ‘Talaash’ by Sheena Akhtar and ‘Life Less Ordinary’ by Baby Halder. Those books narrate the bone chilling experiences of women in India.
Many kudos to the directors-duo Anupama Chandra and Uma Tanuku for deciding to make this documentary film on the lone efforts by ‘Kali for Women’ for giving voice to the Indian women in a forlorn time. Whereas Anupama is a film editor, director and teacher, Umadevi Tanuku is a line-producer and filmmaker. They both are graduates from Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune in film editing and film direction, respectively.
(The writer is a Senior Journalist and National Award-winning Filmmaker. Views are personal.)
