3 Review(s)

‘Sometimes I feel I have known this country for years, often it turns so very strange. The ground that I walk upon has witnessed the spilling of blood of countless innocent men and women—spots where dreams wilted into nightmares.’ ~ It is hard to define the identity and bodily autonomy of a woman, more so in the face of war. The knowledge of crime and abuse often plays only in the background of our lives, but for the countless women who have witnessed the full capabilities of mankind, the world remains a hostile place. For author Garima Srivastava, what was to be a two-year posting in a foreign land, slowly turned into a journey of discovery—of the self and the other. Chronicling her thoughts about family, the homeland, womanhood, Simone de Beauvoir, and the everlasting remnants of a war that ravaged Europe, she leaves us with thoughts and questions to ask of our own. Weaving in stories she has lived through and those that have been painstakingly entrusted to her, the journal takes us to a world both familiar and unknown. Translated from the 2017 Hindi publication of the journal Deh Hi Desh, the book guides us through Europe in a way that most shy away from, one that shows.