Book Discussion: OF MOTHERS AND OTHER PERISHABLES with Radhika Oberoi and Andaleeb Wajid | 15 SEPTEMBER, 5 PM

Tune into this conversation between Radhika Oberoi and Andaleeb Wajid as they discuss Radhika's latest novel OF MOTHERS AND OTHER PERISHABLES. 

ABOUT THE BOOK

OF MOTHERS AND OTHER PERISHABLES is an exquisite articulation of grief. It is also the sharp-eyed tale of a city tethered to violence and bursting with nazms.

The morbidly funny voice of a dead woman echoes through the walls of her beloved storeroom, a compact space that contains her earthly belongings: cupboards full of silk sarees and baby clothes, albums of black-and-white photographs, a collection of vinyl records, a record player, old leather suitcases, an ebony-and-gold sewing machine. She reminisces about the past, and about the disease that causes her untimely death.
Her storeroom becomes a quaint Bioscope of her life in Delhi as a young woman in the 1970s and 80s, decades that bring her romance, marriage, motherhood.

The novel oscillates between the dead woman’s yearnings and the immediacy and excitement of a parallel narrative — her daughter’s. Nicknamed The Wailer (from the band Bob Marley and the Wailers), the dead woman’s daughter offers a sardonic glimpse into the world of advertising — the night before a presentation, temperamental colleagues, the buzz of writers and art directors at work. But the peculiar dynamics of The Wailer’s advertising firm alter drastically, when protests break out in the city of Delhi. Protesters swarm the streets, hollering against a new bill that persecutes the Muslim community. A Muslim art director is drawn to the pulsing heart of this movement. The Wailer, too, is inadvertently involved.

Both narratives — the deceased mother’s digressional memories, and The Wailer’s palpable reality — also tell of Toon, The Wailer’s younger sister, who is the CEO of a coffee startup. Their worlds converge to offer shards of the past, and navigate through a turbulent present. Personal and political histories collide in this haunting tale of many betrayals.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Radhika Oberoi is the author of STILLBORN SEASON (2018), a novel of multiple interlinked narratives, set amidst the anti-Sikh riots of 1984. She has also contributed essays and book reviews to a variety of publications in India and abroad, including The New York Times (India Ink), Forbes India, Nikkei Asia, The Wire, scroll.in, Business Standard, Indian Express, Outlook magazine, and the Mekong Review. Her short stories have appeared in The Indian Quarterly (IQ) magazine, Words and Women (an anthology of women’s writings published in the UK in 2014) and Otherwise Magazine. She has an MA in Creative Writing, Prose Fiction, from the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom.

Andaleeb Wajid is a hybrid author, having published more than 45 novels in the past 15 years. Andaleeb enjoys writing in a number of different genres such as young adult, romance, and horror. Her YA novel ASMARA'S SUMMER was adapted for screen to become Dil, Dosti, Dilemma on Amazon Prime and other works are in the process of being optioned or adapted. She has two Young Adult novels out in 2024 – SCARE WALK, a horror graphic novel illustrated by Upamanyu Bhattacharyya, published by Harper Collins, and EVERYTHING SUCKS, a YA romance published by Speaking Tiger. Her YA novel, THE HENNA START-UP has been shortlisted for the Neev Literature Festival Award 2024.

The details of the events are as follows: 

DATE- 15 SEPTEMBER, SUNDAY 

TIME- 5 PM