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Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh

India's Lonely Young Women and the Search for Intimacy and Independence

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Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh

Written by: Shivani Vakil Savant, Shrayana Bhattacharya
Narrated by: Shivani Vakil Savant
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About this listen

In this pathbreaking work, Shrayana Bhattacharya maps the economic and personal trajectories--the jobs, desires, prayers, love affairs and rivalries--of a diverse group of women. Divided by class but united in fandom, they remain steadfast in their search for intimacy, independence and fun. Embracing Hindi film idol Shah Rukh Khan allows them a small respite from an oppressive culture, a fillip to their fantasies of a friendlier masculinity in Indian men. Most struggle to find the freedom-or income-to follow their favourite actor.

Bobbing along in this stream of multiple lives for more than a decade-from Manju's boredom in 'rurban' Rampur and Gold's anger at having to compete with Western women for male attention in Delhi's nightclubs, to Zahira's break from domestic abuse in Ahmedabad-Bhattacharya gleans the details on what Indian women think about men, money, movies, beauty, helplessness, agency and love. A most unusual and compelling book on the female gaze, this is the story of how women have experienced post-liberalization India.

 Sociology
All stars
Most relevant
Interesting, insightful, informative.... Brilliantly flagging several issues of gender supported by facts and figures.

Excellent

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The book was excellent but narration was awful. Esp when she was doing the dialogue bits for thr rural women. really bad.

Grt book terrible narration

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the author uses the stories of women with the common thread of loving Shah Rukh beautifully. Its a very deep book on our society and i love how the stories throw light on the plight of women in India. its not charts or graphs but real stories.

the author could have cut short the part of her own personal struggles with love...apart from that just loved the book. the Audio reading was also very good.

Deep and insightful

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The problem with data in India is that the datasets are very small samples and they cannot represent the whole country especially when it comes to Personal qualities and emotions. The book does well to present the research via a new eye.

Gives a new point of view

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The insights and research in the book is eye-opening. For those who believe that things have changed a lot for women in India overbthe years, the stats comes as a shaker and at times shocker. The author has beautifully strung the stories of women across genres, regions, age groups with the common thread of their experience and liking for Shahrukh Khan. With the way she brings out the aspects women love about Shahrukh, it endeared the actor to me as a reader. The writing is engaging with a great sense of humor. A fascinating read!

Women and Bollywood connected beautifully

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