The Last Suttee

The Last Suttee

by Madhu Bazaz Wangu
The Last Suttee

The Last Suttee

by Madhu Bazaz Wangu

Paperback

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Overview

"You must come at once if you want to stop the suttee from happening again..." This phone message summons Kumud Kuthiyala back to Neela Nagar, the blue town of her youth, and the shackled life she thought she had left behind forever...

As a nine-year-old, Kumud witnessed the brutal and horrifying suttee ritual when her beloved aunt immolated herself on the burning pyre of her dead husband. Years later, Kumud summoned the courage to escape the isolated and primitive town of her youth to start a new life in Ambayu, a metropolitan city. She began as office help at Save Girls Soul Orphanage Center and progressed to become its director. At SGSO Center, she becomes a warrior for women's education and equal rights. She teaches young women to protect themselves from outmoded practices and rituals that victimize women.

Then a phone call informs Kumud that the suttee of a sixteen-year-old is inevitable. She has vowed that she will never let it happen again. Still haunted by her aunt's suttee, she leaves everything behind, including her love, Shekhar Roy, to end the barbaric custom that scarred her for life, and to save the young bride from committing suttee.

As Kumud travels back to the town of her youth, long-buried memories resurface and force her to remember the life from which she fled. The town that greets her is full of contradictions. It has electricity and clean water, and a new school is open to low castes, yet superstition and prejudice abound. How can she convince the town that their centuries-old tradition is cruel and barbaric, that a widowed young woman deserves the right to live? Can she change the minds of the townspeople and the Five Elders before it's too late?

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781974362462
Publisher: CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date: 08/28/2017
Pages: 360
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Madhu B. Wangu is an author and the founder of Mindful Writers Groups. She has a doctorate in the phenomenology of Religion from the University of Pittsburgh (1988) and a post-doctoral Fellowship from Harvard University (1989-1991). For fifteen years she taught Hindu and Buddhist art history at various universities.

Madhu Wangu has written books about goddesses. Images of Indian Goddesses: Myths, Meanings and Models, (Abhinav Publications, New Delhi, 2003) discusses the meaning of goddess myths and symbols. A Goddess is Born, (Spark Publishers, 2002) details the social, political, and cultural meanings of the Kashmiri goddess, Khir Bhavani. She has also written two extensively illustrated books for young adults, Hinduism (Facts on File, Inc., New York, 1991) and Buddhism (Facts on File, Inc., New York, 1993).

Based on decades of the practice of mindfulness meditation Dr. Wangu developed Writing Meditation Practice. In 2010, she founded the Mindful Writers Group. In 2011 her first CD, "Meditations for Mindful Writers: Body, Heart, Mind" was burned. A second Mindful Writers Group started in 2016, and second CD, "Meditations for Mindful Writers: Sensations, Feelings, Thoughts" was released in 2017. Her meditations inspire, help remove blocks, improve focus and increase creative flow. A must for novice as well as professional writers.

Madhu Wangu, an award-winning author released her debut collection, Chance Meetings: Stories About Cross-Cultural Karmic Collisions and Compassion in 2015. Her novel, An Immigrant Wife: Her Spiritual Journey was published in 2016. Her forthcoming novel, The Last Suttee, will be available in August 2017.

She lives in Wexford, Pennsylvania, USA with her husband Manoj, a retired robotics engineer. They have two daughters-an avionics engineer and a pediatrician. Madhu and Manoj are blessed with three grandchildren.
Visit her website at www.madhubazazwangu.com
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