Women Reborn

An exploration of the spiritual dimension in urban women’s lives What is spirituality and how does it manifest itself in the lives of urban middle-class women? Does acceptance of the spiritual path necessarily mean renunciation of the material woeld? Or is there an alternative mode of existence that allows one to develop a distinct selfhood even as one carries out the social-sexual responsibilities implicit in conventional family life? In a series of interviews with more than two hundred women living in the city of Delhi, Renuka Singh explores these and other issues. Using the oral, autobiographical mode of narrative, the author allows the respondents to speak for themselves, so that the reader may follow the path of their development as they experienced it. In the second section of the book, she provides alternative perspectives on the subject through interviews with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and a male student of his. A pioneering study of a hitherto neglected aspect of the female psyche, Women Reborn is an important addition to the growing literature about the modem Indian women.