climbing the stairs by padma venkatraman

Can she find the strength to overcome the adverse circumstances she finds herself in, and become the independent woman she wants to be? It is beginning to feel like all of Vidya’s hopes and dreams are going be swallowed up by loss and tradition. Now with the possibility of never seeing Kitta again, it is doubly difficult. It is a difficult burden for a 15 year old to live with. Throughout everything, Vidya has never told anyone the circumstances of her father’s beating by the British, though she feels completely responsible.

The Japanese, he explains to her, are coming closer and closer and would like the victory of taking India, “…the Jewel in the British Crown.” (pg 171) But when Vidya’s brother, Kitta, announces that he is joining the voluntary British India Army, despite their father’s non-violent beliefs, the war really hits home. A bomb shelter is built in the house, sirens wail and air raid drills begin at night and rationing starts. And it is there she meets Raman, another unwelcome person in the house.Īs if the move to Madras weren’t enough, after the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, the war also begins to affect the family's daily lives. The only relief Vidya gets from her new life is escape through the books she discovers in her grandfather’s library. Vidya’s aunt and her cousin Malati treat her with pure resentment and contempt, constantly reminding Vidya that her beloved father is now little more than an ‘idiot’ and no one will want to marry her because of that. And it is clear from the start that they are not welcomed. The family is forced to move to Madras, to live with her father’s more traditional family. Vidya’s father survives, but he is now severely brain damaged, a shell of his former self. Running after her, her father stops to help a woman who has been beaten by a British policeman who then brutally beats him too. They quickly get separated as she swept into the crowd. While riding in the car with her father, they are forced to stop when they encounter a Freedom Fighter demonstration and Vidya jumps out of the car to join them. Vidya seems to have everything until one rash act brings it all to an end. And she is exceedingly proud when she discovers that her father, a doctor, is using his medical skills helping the injured victims of Ghandi’s non-violent Freedom Fighters, as they demonstrate against British colonialism and for an independent India. Though she was born into India’s upper Brahman caste, her parents are very liberal she is able to attend a private girls’ school and she can dream about the possibility of going to college, a rare privilege for Indian women, who are expected to marry relatively young.

It is 1941 and 15 year old Vidya is a lucky girl.

Climbing the stairs by padma venkatraman