Flutter Bye-Bye

Stereotypes, right? Reading a book full of stock characters is as thrilling as trekking through a cardboard cutout jungle. The author’s idealism and vivid imagination do not make up for the horror-comics feel of passages like this one: "Torulata crawled out from under the debris and was struck by a shaft of lighting which arched her swollen belly off the ground. The baby shot through her birth passage and was flung over a barbed wire fence that cut through the cord, releasing the newborn." Nevertheless, the idea which animates the book is provocative: what would it be like if women joined forces to fight their oppressors, male and female? Some day, when Nambisan’s literary skills match her optimistic fervour, we may all stand up and say "Wow!"