What are you reading now?

A Woman Like Her by Sanam Maher:

The book tells the story of Qandeel Baloch and the events leading to her honor killing at the hands of her brother. Baloch, born Fauzia Azeem gained notoriety as Pakistan’s first social media celebrity. An unabashed provocateur, she chased money and fame with a reckless zeal. The international media dubbed her the ‘Kim Kardashian of Pakistan’. The book is a quick read though the writing feels disjointed. The narrative skips around and often dwells too long on peripheral characters. In hindsight I would have skipped the book for an informative long form article instead.

The most disconcerting aspect of reading this book was seeing my own conditioning laid bare. I have shed most of my cultural hang ups over the years, however the reluctance to flout convention remains deeply ingrained. I found myself split into two, a judgmental observer and a reluctant admirer. One part of me cringed at her foolhardiness — Facebook photos in lingerie; YouTube videos of herself writhing to suggestive songs — wondering why she would incur the wrath of the patriarchy? Didn’t she know that in the feudal frontiers of Pakistan her fate was sealed? Another part realizing that she probably did and chose her life despite it. Who's to say that a defiant gasp of freedom, though brief, is not worth more than decades of stifling conformity? Qandeel was a stage name that Fauzia chose for herself. She burned quick and bright, and with her death forced a conversation that led to the first tangible reform of the honor killing laws in Pakistan.

 

Read recently - A Burning: Megha Majumdar

A burning is the story of Jivan, a young girl from the slums of Kolkata striving to carve out a middle class existence for her family. Overnight, her life is transformed from that of an obscure clothing salesperson to enemy of the state, all because of a Facebook message she posts in the emotionally charged aftermath of a terrorist attack in the city. Her fate is entangled with the aspirations of Lucky, a talented hijra who dreams of stardom, and PT Sir, a self-serving physical education teacher who isn’t averse to trading his conscience for political ascendancy.

Trapped in a nexus of communal politics, corruption and moral opportunism, Jivan’s is a hopeless tale. My first reaction upon finishing the book was disbelief. This doesn’t happen, does it? We’re not that far gone, are we? Perhaps not all the way, not yet. However one is reminded of enough disturbing real life parallels to allow implausibility to be of solace. These days the Indian union seems particularly vulnerable to outspoken 20 somethings. Who knew 75 years into independence our greatest threats would be our young women who refuse to be silenced. Democracies do not die in grand apocalyptic implosions, but brick by brick as their foundations are hollowed out from underneath them. We gasp at every unthinkable transgression — murmuring, surely they can’t, they won’t — while the landscape alters unrecognizably under our feet.

 

The Moment of Lift by Melinda French Gates.

The tagline says "How Empowering Women Changes the World" but the book is about that and more. The easy to read prose is divided into separate topics and chapters that can be read in any order or skipped.

She talks about her childhood, school and college years, growing up in a Catholic family and deciding on her first job. The way she described taking the decision to be a SAHM and Bill's reaction when she told him her decision -- it was so similar to regular people taking such big life decisions. Her group of friends from the kids' schools and their bonding is like that of regular moms.

The thing I liked about the book was that it didn't go deep into any one topic. An especially heartwarming incident described in the book is how she came up with a form of "paid family and medical leave" as a manager thirty years ago when the concept didn't exist at Microsoft. The employee was a male whose brother living in another city had AIDS.

Reading the book showed me how well-organized philanthropy is not a lazy job the very rich take up to feel better about themselves. It takes lot of research, planning, efficient execution and constant adapting.

Another main takeaway from the book for me was that even she had to define equality in her marriage and work really hard for it. After the kids were older, she wanted to start being more visible and a co-author in their foundation's Annual Letter.

Here's an article about the Annual Letter authorship thing:
Melinda’s long journey away from Bill Gates’ shadow

When Melinda French Gates asked her husband, Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) co-founder Bill Gates, to let her co-author the 2013 annual letter about their foundation, the conversation blew up into a fight.

"It got hot," Melinda wrote in her 2019 book, "The Moment of Lift." "Bill said the process we had for the Annual Letter had been working well for the foundation for years, and he didn't see why it should change."

Ultimately, Bill agreed for her to write a separate piece about contraceptives, while he penned the main letter about the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s work. In the next year’s letter, Melinda wrote about one of three myths that “block progress for the poor,” while Bill handled the other two.

Come 2015, they both signed the letter.​

She puts it tactfully: "He's had to learn how to be an equal, and I've had to learn how to step up and be an equal," but one can very well imagine her constant struggle to maintain some form of equality in the marriage.

The best part of the book was the many references to India, their work in India and the creative ways in which they solved problems unique to the rural and poor parts of India. I read the book when India's second wave of Covid was getting noticed. The hope in the book was bitter-sweet compared to the despair in the news.

Highly recommend. https://www.amazon.com/Moment-Lift-Empowering-Women-Changes/dp/1250313570