Publisher's Synopsis
In this powerful collection of real life portraits of the socially oppressed, Mahadevi Varma weaves her memoirs around other people's lives rather than her own. Her sketches reveal her compassion for the desperate plight of the disinherited poor in India, as well as her intense range at those who exploit women and the dispossessed. Whether it is Binda, the lonely orphan girl victimized by her step-mother; Bhabi the emotionally and physically abused child-widow barred from any contact with the outside world; or Sabiya the poor sweeper woman deserted by her husband shortly before the birth of their child, the subjects of Mahadevi's memoirs convey her universalist vision to resurrect the inner dignity of these "wounded and mauled lives".
