Book Review 
Title of the Book:  Lalita and Other Short Stories: The Unseen Women Of India 
Author's Name:      Aarti Punjabi
Available on:       Amazon,Storytel,Barnes&Nobles, Kobo
 

First of all, I feel very grateful to be able to feature the multi-talented Aarti Punjabi today & also feel fortunate to be able to publish the review of her debut book: Lalita and Other Short Stories: The Unseen Women of India on my blog. She is a visiting faculty member for Business Communication at the prestigious SPJIMR (S. P. Jain Institute of Management and Research) and NMIMS(Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies). She is an author, a renowned storyteller, a voice-over artist & has earned numerous accolades in her creative journey. I had the privilege of meeting her in person at one of the community events, and what touched me was Aarti’s humility, her heartfelt laughter & there was never a dull moment with her! We bonded over coffee, conversations & of course piping hot Samosas! I personally wish her all the best for the book & can not wait for her next release!

So, now let us know more about the book & I hope you enjoy the Q & A session with the Author!

About the Author: Aarti Punjabi is a Mumbai-based writer, storyteller, blogger, and voice-over artist. She is the creator and voice behind Kahani Humari Tumhari, a podcast where she narrates Hindi stories that echo with emotion.

Her storytelling journey spans live performances at open mics, online platforms, and international storytelling festivals. She writes short stories, essays, poems, and spoken word pieces in Hindi and English, weaving together themes of identity, resilience, and the quiet strength of everyday lives. Aarti is a yoga practitioner, and when she’s not reading or writing, she spends her time singing, chanting Sanskrit shlokas, and catching up with friends over a cuppa.

Her debut book, Lalita and Other Short Stories: The Unseen Women of India, is a poignant collection about the lives of women across India’s socio-economic spectrum, revealing their struggles, silence, and unspoken strength.

Narration: The story is like a visual treat for the readers and is lucidly narrated, keeping the readers hooked till the very last page. The characters are built up very strongly and have their own uniqueness intact.

Book Cover & Title: The moment I picked up the book, I just fell in love with the book cover! It is so beautiful & seems to have a soul of its own, compelling book lovers to give it a read.

Content:

The book, a collection of short stories, in fact, takes you into the unseen layers of womanhood. The protagonists of the stories touch the heart of their readers through their very real characterisation. The book kind of draws you into the world of women of India that seem to blur in the background, but is the very essence of life itself. This collection of ten stories depicts the resilience of women from different aspects of life. Each story is a characterisation of the feminine voice that finds it hard to express & is often suppressed by patriarchy. The stories are raw, unfiltered & showcase the struggles of women & their very existence in today’s world. While turning the pages, I am sure the readers will take a moment to find the presence of such relatable characters in some form or the other. Filled with emotions, the book is an empathetic endeavor to portray the challenges & wins of women from various socio-economic zones in India. Through compelling narratives, it captures the realities of marginalization and gender-based oppression while celebrating the quiet power of womanhood.

The Author has done a phenomenal job of connecting with her readers through each story. Be it about a young girl from the village or the modern diva of the metros, the author vividly captures the echoes of their lives. The book showcases the keen observation skills of the author& her art of turning each character relatable proves that Aarti is definitely a master storyteller! It is a must-read for every fiction lover as it is fascinating & equally compelling. Of all the chapters, the story of Lalita, a young widow who is denied all kinds of pleasures of life, touched my heart and is my favorite!

My rendezvous with the Author

Q1- How would you let yourself be known to the world?

Ans: A dreamer who lives in reality.

Q2-How did writing happen?

Ans: The earliest memory I have is of writing poems as a teenager. I wrote sporadically for years– a poem, an essay, flash fiction – but it’s only during the pandemic that I started writing every day. I participated in a writing challenge, and since then, I have continued writing. Some days, it may only be a post on Instagram or a short poem, but I write.

Q3-Prose or Poetry? Why

Ans: Prose. It gives me space to ramble and go about a circuitous route, and the stories reveal themselves. Poetry requires discipline.

Q4-Tell us about your book and the journey with it.

Ans: I wanted to publish a book, and one day, I decided to go through some blog posts and stories that I had written over the years. I found that many stories had women protagonists. This became the starting point. I chose 10 stories and thought that I was ready to publish. Then began the painful process of editing and proofreading. I spent days rewriting some parts and editing, and when I revisited them after a few days, I would start the same process all over again! Finally, I put an end date and refused to edit or rewrite after that. It was painful, exhausting, and draining -at the same time, it was energizing and exciting!

Q5-What is your Mantra to remain creative?

Ans: Read. Walk, sing, listen to stories, sit on a bench at the promenade, and watch the world go by.

Q6- Who is your favourite author? Also, tell us your top 3 favourite books.

Ans: This is a tough one.

I like Nirmal Verma, Shivani, Amrita Pritam, Shakespeare( Dramas), Amit Chaudhari, Jhumpa Lahiri, and many more.

The top 3 keep changing. Currently- An Elderly Lady is Upto no Good by Helen Turnsten, Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, Nirmal Verma ki kahaniyan, Pinjar

Q7- We know that you are a trained voice-over artist. Please tell us more about it.

I enjoy reading aloud and did a few readings on audio platforms during the pandemic. On a lark, I applied for a voice-over contest by Kommune and Netflix, and was chosen as one of the winners. The winning cohort was trained by 2 experienced artists in Mumbai, and it opened a new world for me. I freelance and have done voice-over for advertisements, documentaries, plays, etc

Q-8 – How do you manage time to juggle between managing home, career, writing & podcasts?

Ans: I do one thing at a time and allocate time for everything. Time blocking helps. There are days/ weeks when one task takes priority over others, but by and large, doing a little bit of everything every day/ every week keeps me on track.

Q-9- Has any special moment in your creative life impacted you deeply?

Ans: When I was invited to tell stories at an International Storytelling Festival, I plucked up the courage to recognize and call myself a writer and a storyteller. Since then, I have been working on my storytelling skills and developing frameworks to make it relevant in corporate and business settings..

Q10- Tell us about how you ventured into teaching & how passionate you are about it.

Ans: I pursued a Master’s in English when my children were growing up, and I did well. That inspired me, so I enrolled for an MPhil program, and that is the time I started getting teaching opportunities in college, and I realised that this is something that I really enjoy! It’s not that I was new to teaching, I had taught in a school before I got married for a couple of years, so it was really heartening and something which brought a lot of joy to me because I love interacting with people. Business communication is the program that I started teaching first, and realised that I really enjoyed it and it actually aligns well with what I do and what I enjoy, which is Storytelling. The course that I teach and is close to my heart is oral communication so there we talk about how to give effective business presentations, framework for persuasion, for being an assertive speaker we work on audience analysis we work on how to give individual speeches so the whole program is extremely interesting and it aligns well I think with what I enjoy- Voice, Storytelling. All of it, I think, has somehow found a place, or maybe it has come out from the kind of courses that I teach! So primarily I teach overall and written communication to MBA students who would go and work in a corporate and I do the same program but of course some of the courses a little different for students who already own a family managed business as their challenges are different so how do you communicate in a setting where you have no authority? So, how to persuade people. One thing that I really enjoy is the discussion with students. I won’t say that I teach, I would say I facilitate discussions with my students, and it’s a great learning environment for all of us. I have learnt A lot because of the kind of work that I do.

• Social Media Links: You can connect with Aarti on Instagram

I personally recommend this book to my readers. It is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the true essence of womanhood in India.

Link for the Book: Lalita & Other Stories

Love,

Chinmayee