Book description
The body was the only truth she knew. It was the body alone that was
left, even as she went beyond the body.' Journeys form the leitmotif of
these astonishing new stories by Ambai. Sometimes culminating in an
unconventional love affair, some are extraordinary tales of loyalty and
integrity; others touch on the almost fantastic, absurd aspect of
Mumbai. Yet others explore the notion of a wholesome self, and its
tragic absence at times. These stories are illuminated by vivid and
unusual characters: from an eccentric, penurious singer-couple who adopt
an ape as their son, to a male prostitute, who is battered by bimbos for
not giving 'full' satisfaction. Crucially, some of the stories, like the
title one, engage uninhibitedly with a woman's relationship to her body.
For Ambai, feminist par excellence, the sensual body, experienced as a
natural landscape changing with age, is at the same time, the only
vehicle of life and tool for mapping the external world.
