Breaking the sound of silence

Kirkland-based writer, essayist and activist Meera Vijayann’s powerful maiden essay collection explores the costs of silence and the journey towards selfhood in Indian girlhood.

- NEHA KIRPAL

The book, which is written in the form of a memoir, revisits what it meant to come of age as a young girl in middle-class India in the 1990s. Through 11 autobiographical essays, the author takes us through various stages and incidents in her life, revealing several hidden textures of girlhood — first love, shame, guilt, body image struggles, family pressures, moral policing, confusion and societal expectations — that have shaped the lives of generations of Indian women.

Ms Vijayan belongs to the Tamil Nadar community, where speaking the truth about one’s family life is considered a great betrayal. “No one talked openly about domestic violence, sexual abuse, misogyny, loneliness or depression,” she recalls in the author's note. Unable to talk to anyone openly about things that bothered her, she began writing journals while in seventh grade to try and process the injustices of being a girl. Revisiting the journals, written between 1997 and 2008, inspired Ms Vijayann to begin writing the essays that form this book.