HOW HOMELESS BIRD CAME ABOUT

   A few of years ago I read an article on the front page of the "New York Times", (March 29, 1998), about the Indian city of Vrindavan, the city of thousands of white-saried widows. As you know from reading HOMELESS BIRD, often in India, especially in rural areas, after a woman is married, she severs ties with her own family and goes to live with her husband's family. If her husband dies, the husband's family sometimes abandons the widows because they are one more mouth to feed. The widows survive in Vrindavan by chanting four hours a day in the temples. In return they are fed by the monks. 
   One of the widows mentioned in the article had been widowed at thirteen. She stayed in my mind but I didn't want to write a story of a widow who spends the rest of her days chanting in a temple. Then, In July of 1998, I saw an exhibition at The Asia Society in New York City of quilts embroidered by Indian women. The quilts showed scenes of real life: eating, preparing food, sleeping, planting crops, driving carts, gathering fruit, etc. That gave me the idea for Koly's triumph over abandonment and poverty.
  I don't know how it is for other writers but for me, two things have to come together for a story to make me want to write it. It's as if you couldn't trust just one thing, but you needed the second thing; as if someone were looking over your shoulder and saying, "Now will you believe me." When I saw the exhibition of quilts I began to write HOMELESS BIRD.

SOME FACTS ABOUT INDIA

THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS

   There are many well-educated young women in India, but HOMELESS BIRD is the story of a young girl from a rural village. While there are laws in India saying that girls must be educated, the laws are often not obeyed. The Human Development survey of 1993-94 of the UNESCO Asia & Pacific Regional Bureau for Education indicated that only 30.2% of girls (ages 5-9) and 44.6% of girls (ages 10-14) in rural India were attending any education program. According to a study done for the Indian census in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India (where HOMELESS BIRD takes place), the literacy rates for girls is less than 30%. However the government is making a strong effort to increase education for women and the literacy rates are on their way up.

FOOD CUSTOMS

   Koly and her family are Brahmins. They are vegetarian and therefore you will not find in HOMELESS BIRD, any incidents of their eating meat.

DOWRIES

   The May, 15, 2003, issue of "The New York Times" describes how, though the government has outlawed Dowries, the custom in India of demanding dowries is very much alive. The dowries are often disguised by the families as "gifts to the newlyweds." A survey of 10,000 people in 18 Indian states showed "an across-the-board increase in dowry demand." The article tells the story of a young bride whose family had given a substantial dowry to the prospective husband. When more was demanded of the bride, she called the police and reported her prospective husband's family. Women all over India who have had to pay dowries called and wrote to her congratulating her on her courage.

THE CASTE SYSTEM

   Hindus have a system of social stratification. There are many, many casts but an article in the June 2003 issue of the "National Geographic" describes the main casts: Brahmans (the priests and teachers), Kshatriyas (soldiers and warriors), Vaisyas (merchants and traders), Sudras (laborers) and the Achuta, or the "Untouchable" cast who perform tasks such as working with leather, coming in contact with blood, handling funerals etc. which many Indians believe makes that cast impure. India is making valiant efforts to eliminate discrimination against the "Untouchable" cast. Places are kept for them in universities and in civil service and governmental posts. The article, however, describes how difficult life is for the 160 million "Untouchables." In the rural villages they are often not allowed to drink from the same well as other Indians, nor can they live within the village or go to the village schools. Those who attempt to take their rightful place in the village have been beaten, killed and their homes destroyed.

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD CITATION FOR HOMELESS BIRD

   Married at thirteen to a dying child she has never met, Koly's life begins a seemingly inexorable downward spiral into poverty and isolation. Abandoned in a city of temples and white sari-clad widows, the young girl discovers opportunities and savage crimes, those who would help her and those who would exploit her. It is a story told clearly and without extravagance, somber in the way in which it confronts the difficulties of Koly's life, and yet radiant with hope.

TAGORE'S POEM

Many are the human speeches I've heard migrating
  in flocks, flying on invisible tracks
from obscure pasts to distant inchoate futures.
  And within myself I've heard
                    day and night
  in the company of countless birds
a homeless bird speeding through light and dark
  from one unknown shore to yet another.
On cosmic wings a refrain echoes through space:
'Not here, no, but somewhere, somewhere else!'
 

I often receive emails asking if I will write a sequel to HOMELESS BIRD. I have no plans to do that. I feel Koly and Raji are happy and busy with their garden and children. I am sure Koly is still embroidering beautiful saris.