Madira is a beautiful word that comes our way from the Sanskrit language and stands for all that is pleasant and as sweet as honey, but it refers to the bitter truth of intoxicating liquor and the havoc it plays with human lives and more so with the lives of women caught in the mesh of the patriarchal social structures. This is the concern of ‘Madira’, a mint-fresh book narrating anonymously the untold stories of women and alcohol, put together by tricity-based author-translator and activist Roopam Singh.
Event Context
The queen of tragedy
Before exploring the stories it presents, let us look at the story of a great woman who was known and admired by all and often referred to as the “Tragedy Queen” of the Indian cinema.
Team Analysis
Yes, you are right, the reference is to none other than Meena Kumari (born Mahjabeen Bano; 1933–1972) one of the most sought-after actors that Mumbai screen ever produced besides being a rare poet who wrote from a sad heart of the loneliness of the moon, the sky and the human body and soul.
Born to a poverty-stricken couple, Ali Bax and Iqbal Begum, in ‘Bombay Meri Jaan’ and forced to act at the age of four to become the family’s breadwinner while she yearned to go to school and play with friends. She did so with finesse, confiding her wishes and loss only to her poems rendered in Urdu and the tumblers of wine that she turned to for love.
Match Outlook
Yet, in her 38 years, she was only to find sorrow from those she turned to. In spite of it all she reigned as a performer acting in over 90 films and won four of the coveted Filmfare awards as the Best Actor. At the peak of her career, she portrayed the role of a lonely alcoholic woman in ‘Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam’, produced by Guru Dutt, another lonely soul) in 1962.
She was to die a lonely death of liver cirrhosis with no one to claim her body or pay the hospital bill. It was ironic that Pakeezah (pure one), her last film, released after her death was a super success leaving many rich!
From darkness to light
After brooding over a true story of life lost and stardom won that still sits heavily on many hearts, one returns to chapters of hope in the book in hand with the word ‘Madira’ staring out from the cover. The book published by ‘The Narrators Performing Arts Society’, founded by Nisha Luthra, is a rare and dedicated effort not just to tell the stories of women’s alcohol addiction but also how they were able to come out of the dark phase of escape and live meaningful lives.
The editor says in the foreword: “This anthology of short stories aims to capture the complexities of addiction and recovery, without promoting any particular approach to curing individuals from alcohol or supporting any organisation…Indirectly, we aim at exposing the taboo surrounding alcoholism in women in India”. Interestingly, these stories based on real case studies have been fictionalised and one comes across women from different backgrounds united in their amazing efforts to return to a transformed life free from alcohol. One comes across a princess who is lonely at heart, a singer yearning to return to her song and an elite schoolgirl who rises above her woes and many others. The writers include well-known names like Lippy Parida, Astri Ghosh, Sumant Batra, Ari Gautier and Aradhika Sharma. The anthology is also marked by excellent editing. One ends the narrative by quiquoting from the foreword by Dr Anirudh Kala, psychiatrist: “While patriarchal societies make much of female camaraderie and allow men to have their fun after a day’s hard work, they expect women to stay sober.”
The data reveal that for every one woman who drinks, there are 17 men who drink. However, one wishes freedom from dependence on both women and men.
