Indira Bai

Indira Bai (1899) tells the moving story of a child widow who stands up to a corrupt religious orthodoxy and remarries a liberal-minded, educated man. The narrative documents the wide-ranging changes caused in the encounter between the Kannada social ethos and the modern West. This riveting novel not only holds a mirror to the social history of its times, but also a lamp to the emerging new, secular self in a modern, national culture.