Book Launch of Nautanki Sala And Other Stories at Oxford Bookstore in Kolkata
Kolkata, 18th Oct: Mouha Chinnapa the author of Nautanki Sala and Other Stories made her debut launch on 17th October at Oxford bookstore at Kolkata.
A Former communications and brand consultant Mohua Chinappa encountered a tribal Khasi woman who owned a tea stall, a journalist from the Northeast seeking to fit in in the big city, and an unassuming college student who couldn’t anticipate the ‘consequence’ of her brutish retort to men. The author’s first collection is based on women and men she met during the 1980s and 2000s. The lives of people are a memorial to the cultural-economic revolution of these decades and an endeavor to empower the hesitant feminist. The author has written heartfelt stories about of partition, war, love, unspoken sentiments, acid attacks, and wrong decision. Many reviews show relatability since she highlights actual issues women face.
Nautanki Sala And Other Stories launch had invited poriment guests, namely, Jael Silliman, Author, Scholar, and Women’s Right Activist, Ruma Chakraborty, Artist, Writer, Senior English Faculty, Madhubanti Roy Chowdhury, Founder of Participatory Publishing Praxis-an alternative,publishing initiative, Author and the event was moderated by Oindrilla Dutt Founder, Open Doors. Jael Silliman, in the event, said, “Mohua Chinappa, in deft strokes explores the courage, desire, vulnerability, sensuality and grief that women, across social strata and geographies in India, navigate in fifteen compelling short stories. An evocative read.”
Oindrilla Dutt, while moderating the event said,” Mohua Chinappa’s pen is unwavering and relentless in holding up a mirror to the marginalization, deprivation, oppression, lack of opportunities and equality that women are made to tolerate, even today, irrespective of caste, creed or status. The short stories in Nautanki Saala are about their struggle for dignity and survival, only sometimes successful. A compelling
read.”
Madhubanti Roy Chowdhury, reviewed the book by saying “Mohua Chinappa wields the medium of the short story with the unerring precision of a surgeon’s scalpel and the lingering poignancy of a lover’s gaze to find her way into the secret heart of each woman in her stories — into the worlds they inhabit, the lives they live, and the words they speak. But, perhaps, even more into those they choose to leave untravelled, unlived, and unspoken. Her characters seem to invite us into a space of rare narrative sorority forged in far-flung locales across the Indian landscape, and along cultural and generational fissures, yet strung together in a continuum of stories, speaking in unison in their many tongues.”
Ruma Chakraborty said, “A book that fascinates from the word go with its catchy heading, doesn’t disappoint the reader as they delve within to discover Mohua Chinappa’s deft handling of emotions that are laid bare with a keen sense of observation and swift penstrokes of delineation. A must read book.”