Fiction
Notion Press
September 6, 2017
Paperback
166
Bleeding Queens is the debut novel written in Hindi by novelist Palak Kundra. She is from Amritsar and is vocal about women issues.
Going about Hindi literature, we haven’t seen so many big achievements by the authors in the contemporary period because their literature is not up to the mark as it once used to be during the golden era of writing. Mark it; I am talking only about the authors who have been flashing their literary teeth so keenly on social platforms and different book review channels. I am deliberately excluding all those who are sincere practitioners of literature in Hindi language and there are certainly some of these kinds even in this digital writing era! Not quite there, but I am going to talk about a book today – Bleeding Queens. A contemporary Hindi novel which has been written by Palak Kundra, an author from Amritsar, Punjab.
This 150paged novel has not very much to offer to the readers but it does serve the purpose of the theme very well – rape, crime against women. The novel is written in a modern Hindi lexicon and you will seldom find the rhetorical charm that the classic authors writing in Hindi used to create long ago. But that has been the compulsion of the modern writers, hasn’t it? Because the spoken Hindi has become so much affected by the external effects of modern language usage that we cannot expect the authors to write in the proper Hindi and if they do so, we will be the ones to complain – what the hell have you done? Do you even imagine that readers will seldom understand what you mean?
A story of crime and punishment and then a story of falling to the ground and raising oneself to fight the darkness back – Diljit is our lady hero in the novel who takes it to battle against the rapists who have molested not only her body but battered her soul as well. Aided by Rohit, her lover and Karanveer, her brother, Diljit takes the revenge of herself and also her father who has been murdered by these four criminals in cold blood. Yes, the plot is very fair and simple and straight-a-story but the theme and the innovative way of a bold and courageous narrative who defies all the democratic laws of a country is something you will like because that will also reflect your frustration levels against the rapists and criminals and goons and perverts who keep doing the same again and again even after the evert-tightening noose of the laws against such acts. How long will a woman suffer? Diljit takes the law in her hand and lets the world see what can be done with a rapist and all those who does self-blind their eyes even if they see such happenings!
Not a masala – not a typical Hindi desi novel; Bleeding Queens is a novel with an agenda and the agenda is perfectly rendered into a fiction! Bravo to Palak and I hope she will further strengthen her plotting skills and her writing will raise the bars with time. You can read the novel and let yourself feel what it feels like when a raped woman cannot mingle with the society… very good work for a debut purpose!
