Human Rights in India

The book in your hands is, quite literally, a quiet story. Its moorings are in today, tomorrow, and yesterday too; a story that repeats itself over the ages, as if it were on a cosmic loop. It is a story about suffering, possibly the oldest of all human conditions. We have here, in the pages to follow, a terrified young lady lost in school, having just taken a frightening decision to change the course of her life precisely because her's is a story so quiet that no one heard it. This is a stark tale told simply. It eschews all that's unnecessary, which includes words, because some communication needs no bolstering with language. The old stories are the ones we recognize immediately because we recognize them instinctively. Words cannot tell us anything more. We know the story. And yet the story changes in the telling: an expression of surprise, for instance, can be seen in a raised eyebrow, or widened eyes, or an 'o' shaped mouth; these are all, ultimately, depictions of the same thing. This book conveys the old story told by so many before this - through horror, and asks you instead to feel for the people who inhabit its pages.