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A Life Apart: An Autobiography

by Prabha Khaitan , Ira Pande (Translator)

2.87 of 5 stars 2.87 · rating details · 15 ratings · 4 reviews

One of Hindi's best known writers, Prabha Khaitan spent much of her life as the second woman in a long-term relationship with a married man. Born in a conservative Marwari family, she defied tradition and family expectations, insisting on living life as a single woman, setting up her own business and earning the respect of her peers and colleagues in the corporate world. D ...more

Paperback , 277 pages

Published 2013 by Zubaan (first published January 1st 2012)

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Feb 14, 2014 Mahi Pant rated it 3 of 5 stars

Dr. Prabha Khaitan was a Hindi novelist. She was a much acclaimed Hindi writer and won many prestigious awards in Hindi literature. Yet, she was seen as a rebel and lived a life on her own terms and never earning the approval from the traditional Indian / Marwari society. This is a translation of her autobiography in English from Hindi.

Dr. Prabha Khaitan was an extremely accomplished woman with many achievements - she was a successful entrepreneur and a creative writer. However, her autobiograp Dr. Prabha Khaitan was a Hindi novelist. She was a much acclaimed Hindi writer and won many prestigious awards in Hindi literature. Yet, she was seen as a rebel and lived a life on her own terms and never earning the approval from the traditional Indian / Marwari society. This is a translation of her autobiography in English from Hindi.

Dr. Prabha Khaitan was an extremely accomplished woman with many achievements - she was a successful entrepreneur and a creative writer. However, her autobiography, seems to be preoccupied with her relationship with Dr. Saraf who was already a married man. She reasons that it was a relationship that started out as love and then later this relationship becomes a bone of contention in her life and it just keeps draining her emotionally. She doesn't strike as a weak woman, contrarily, she is proud and a woman who confidentially handles many difficult business situations with flawless ease and yet she falters in her personal life. She does enter into taunt battles and verbal fights with Dr. Saraf, somehow the relationship remains an unresolved part of her life. She was a very learned figure with a doctorate in Philosophy, yet she does not explore and co-relate the abuse she suffered as a child and a home presided by a windowed mother in a traditional Indian set up to her helpless situations with Dr. Saraf. She mentions in the book that slowly the love for Dr. Saraf does drain her out but she never stops fearing him or the thought of what his absence will do to her. She somewhere is able to emancipate herself yet is unable to exit from the hopelessness of the triangle she embroils herself in. She correctly comprehends the flaw of patriarchal societies - the woman must depend on the largeness of the man. Yet, she doesn't really dare Dr. Saraf to show his large heart or issue ultimatums. Infact, she suffers through his pettiness and sometimes cranky behavior. To be fair, she does give a description of her attempt to resorts to play and tries to get off on the sly. Somewhere, in her psyche, loneliness resulting from subtle social boycott and the conflict of wanting out and yet staying in acts as the fuel for her ambitious pursuits and their subsequent successes.

She does come across as a person with lot of presence and a woman who wants to give the society the gift of her mind and who believes in her intellectual capabilities. Descriptions of her personal state of mind and loneliness leading to insomnia is sad.

Some tid-bits of her life in Kolkata can be of interest to anyone wanting to chronicle life in Kolkata in 60s. She generally gives a very god description of Kolkata / Bengal politics in 60s. The national and international business outlook towards women entrepreneurs. Her encounters with the other women in the Indian and International society and how differently they treat her is interesting.

The book adopts a reflective tone where the author questions all of her choices and yet takes no action to reverse anything. She accepts everything, even the new developments in life as consequence of previous decisions and decides to suffer through it all in her personal life. To be fair to her, she does confess her one attempt but even there she appears as someone However, what makes her an exceptional woman in my eyes is the fact that she does not adopt this fatalism in her professional life and comes across as an honest voice in narration of her story. All in all - a her life that set her apart from others - not bad at all. ...more

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Feb 06, 2013 Ruchika rated it 2 of 5 stars

Actual rating 2.5

This book started of beautifully. The language was simple, lucid and the author's voice really stood out. Not for a second did it feel like the translated text lost it's voice. That is an admirable feat for a book.

But then, somewhere along the way, some 75 pages in, it seemed to focus almost entirely on the relationship between the protagonist and her love. While the relationship certainly was a major factor in Prabha Khaitan's life and played a pivotal role in charting the cour Actual rating 2.5

This book started of beautifully. The language was simple, lucid and the author's voice really stood out. Not for a second did it feel like the translated text lost it's voice. That is an admirable feat for a book.

But then, somewhere along the way, some 75 pages in, it seemed to focus almost entirely on the relationship between the protagonist and her love. While the relationship certainly was a major factor in Prabha Khaitan's life and played a pivotal role in charting the course of her life, I felt cheated that all her other accomplishments and her trials were skimmed over as if none of them deserved anything more than a passing mention.

She was an acclaimed writer and a very successful businesswoman and yet, the problems she must have encountered in setting up a fitness centre were barely even mentioned. Not much was said about her frustrations and challenges in setting up a leather factory. Nothing was mentioned of how she picked up writing and what propelled her to write what she did. Her childhood and the crucial moments of her childhood have also been touched upon ever so briefly.

The blurb on the back of the cover mentions providing a description of the marwari clan in Calcutta but even her own family's responses to her actions, her successes etc have little mention. The book reiterates that the clan is conservative and that she faced challenges and frustrations, but not one of them has been depicted clearly. We're expected to take her word for it and that just robs the book of so much.

On reading the book, one thing was very clear to me that Prabha Khaitan was an admirable woman and led a stunningly progressive life. She dared to not only dream big, but she really did achieve it all.She was a fiercely independent, strong and successful woman and that is probably why the book disappointed me as much as it did. I wanted to undertsand her, to figure out her life but instead of being given a wholesome depiction, I was forced to magnify only her personal life.

I loved her frank description of the relationship's pros and cons without any excuses being made and it was refreshing to read something where there were no recriminations, blame or excuses being doled out. The book is rare in that it is glaringly honest.

But, what comes across constantly in the book is her need for societal acceptance, her pain, humiliation and her anguish at the shortcomings of her relationship. And by the end of it, the book reads less like a translated autobiography and more like a detailed description of her fundamental relationship and a last ditch attempt to explain her side of the story.

Some of the timelines of the story are also skewered and confused me in making more chronological sense of the events.

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Aug 14, 2013 Pushpa added it

left me wondering if living as a second woman is worth it...

on page4 she writes"I sat down on a step and wept at my humiliation at the hands of Dr Saraf. He had never really understood my dedication to my business, and it was true that we hadn't come here on a business trip or holiday. What did I mean to him, I wondered? Lover, mistress or half a wife? I had spent twenty years of my life with this man but still had no adequate word to describe our relationship"

She is intelligent, successful and ...more

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Jun 14, 2013 Nisha Bharti added it

felt jolted ..

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