User:Ksonrexa/sandbox/CKS v1.1

= Body of Writing =

Creative World
Chandrakiran Sonrexa has not written fiction. She has carved out slices of life from the lower and middle class strata of North Indian society. It is life lived, experienced and endured by innumerable people - men, women, children, and recreated by her sensitive genius. It is not a life seen through rose-tinted glasses; it is not a life ensconced in luxuries. Neither is it one throbbing with sensual thrills, nor does it pulsate with the sophisticated beats of elite sensibilities.

It is life in the raw, bare to the soul. Her writing partakes the deprivations of the dispossessed of the society. It mourns the miseries of the downtrodden, the suffering of the hapless creatures groaning under the crushing weight of the cruel discrimination of class and caste, of religion and convention.

The sharpness with which Chandrakiran's eye penetrates the multiple layers of societal hypocrisy is amazing. Effortlessly her gaze explores the complex world of Indian middle class of the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s, straddled with its traditions and customs, holding on to its values both true and false. Pinning its hopes and dreams on an upward mobility, trying to break out of the confines of rotten conventions that chained it down.

Craft & Style
Chandrakiran wields the pen like a surgeon's scalpel cutting open the flesh only to bring healing and health.

When she enters the grim, dark, twilight regions of the poor and downtrodden, the untouchables of our society, she internalizes their pain and suffering. It is never her voice we hear, it is always their silent shrieks that resonate in our inner most being. This is the beauty of her brush-strokes, the power of her pen which remain invisible, unobtrusive throughout. No stylistic flourishes, no ornamental bling of contrived turn of phrases. Her style, if we can call it one, consists of the language of life- spontaneous, unpremeditated, utterly natural. Its facile fluency carries us unguarded into the deepest realms of human experience within her chosen milieu.

Indeed, like Jane Austin, she etched in depth the realities of life on her very own "inch of ivory". Never stepping out of her chosen segment of society, hence never a false note in her literary symphony. The readers may not have a firsthand experience of this world, this society but the authenticity of her delineations make them live and breathe in it. The characters populating this world are imbued with every nuance of human emotions. 'Aqueela', a story penned by Chandrakiran when she was only 19 yrs, stuns us with the profundity of understanding the protagonist Aqueela. Torn between the yearning for her child on the one hand, and the guilt and shame of having failed her husband, and unbearable gratefulness for his unconditional love on the other hand - Aqueela's dilemma comes so palpably alive that it leaves the reader numb. Such living breathing characters jostle for our attention everywhere in Chandrakiran's literary cosmos.

Contribution to society
Her literary contribution is a vast body of writing which comprises hundreds of stories, several novels, poems, radio plays, children's books and dramas, etc. It can be safely said that her world of creative fiction is as, if not more, real as life itself. Many social problems which became political issues in the course of time were highlighted by this visionary writer long ago. Her autobiography 'Pinjre ki Maina', which w​on high acclaim, records the trials and tribulations with which her life was replete. Yet her passion, her dedication, her unyielding devotion to her muse kept the flame aglow.

Her literary brilliance shines through her stories which depict the social mores of the times. She wrote about the prevalent Purdah system in her story "Mard"; farcical modernism of high society in "Birthday " and "Kiraye ki Maa"; a prostitutes daughter seeking legitimacy in genteel society in "Aur Sapna Toot Gaya" and a hard look on the ill effects of communalism after partition in "Chote Kameen, Bade Kameen", "Ye Darinde" and "Dard". Notably Chandrakiran Sonrexa wrote the world’s first story on family planning written in 1939 "Grahasti ka Sukh".

Chandrakiran Sonrexa empowered Indian womanhood with a vision and sense of moral liberty; unfettered freedom of an uninhibited mind and graceful personality. Some of her stories gave expression to the hardships faced by lower middle class Muslim women because of Purdah system and Polygamy. Many stories talked about the ill effects of a fractured society caused by the prevalent caste system and communalism. The central theme of much of her writing was education of the girl child. She highlighted the importance of family planning in 1939, when nobody was talking about it. Doordarshan asked her to write a teleplay on terrorism in Punjab, titled "Gumrah" which aired in 1989-90. She was a torch bearer of the progressive, liberal, forward-looking India that believes in taking everyone along into a glorious future.

During her long literary career spanning from 1931, when patriarchal thinking heavily restricted women, till her death in 2009, when India has become an emerging global power and actively negotiates its traditional values with globalization, she chronicled the life and struggles of Indian middle class women.