JOIN USEvery single country where feminist publishing began, began with the movement, it came out of the movement, it didn’t come out of the mainstream publishing environment,” shares Ritu Menon in the documentary film The Books We Made. Menon, along with Urvashi Butalia, founded India’s first publishing house – Kali for Women in 1983. It is the exciting journey of this publishing house that has been captured in the PSBT production by Anupama Chandra and Uma Tanuku. The film was recently screened Open Frame’16 film festival at India International Centre.
In a session after the screening, Butalia shared after the screening how they initially worked on a shoestring budget but never gave up. Butalia, who earlier used to work with Oxford University Press, left her job in order to set up a feminist publishing house. Both Menon and Butalia despite not making much money, kept the spirit of this publishing house alive. While Kali for Woman dissolved in 2003, it gave birth to two separate publishing houses by Menon and Butalia, Women Unlimited and Zubaan respectively.
Talking about the differences between a conventional and a feminist publishing house Butalia shared, “Feminist publishing forced me to think outside conventional way of approaching publishing. When a group of women from Rajasthan approached me with Sharir Ki Jaankari – About The Body, I was met with the problem of putting the names of 75 authors in the book. They wanted all the names on the book as they all had contributed. Such a thing would not be possible at a conventional publishing house.” Sharir Ki Jaankari remains one of the most influential Zubaan books.
The History of Doing by Radha Kumar is another book that has been documented in the film. This book received much criticism before it was published. “I wanted a book that could document the feminist history in India. I wanted it to be pictorial, and to show these pictures in a small conventional size would not be fair. So I decided upon a big unconventional size for this book. Everyone told us it will not sell, it does not fit any shelf and we should not go ahead with this book,” shared Butalia. This book, since its first year of publication in 1993, is still in publication.
The film also explores the story of other iconic Zubaan books like A Life Less Ordinary by Baby Halder, and The Search by Shaheen Akhtar. The film evokes nostalgia as it looks back at the books that influenced many people. It is weaved in with protest songs provided by NGO Jagori, which have been sung at many Indian feminist protests, rallies and gatherings.
“I grew up reading these books, and to know that ‘Kali for Women’ was not going to be there anymore was a huge loss,” said director Chandra.