Kolkata, West Bengal,17th October: Mouha Chinnapa the author of Nautanki Sala And Other Stories
has made her debut launch on 17th October at Oxford bookstore at Kolkata. A Former communications
and brand consultant Mohua Chinappa encountered a tribal Khasi woman who owned a tea stall, a
journalist from the Northeast seeking to fit in in the big city, and an unassuming college student who
couldn’t anticipate the ‘consequence’ of her brutish retort to men. The author’s first collection is based on
women and men she met during the 1980s and 2000s. The lives of people are a memorial to the
cultural-economic revolution of these decades and an endeavour to empower the hesitant feminist. The
author has written heartfelt stories about of partition, war, love, unspoken sentiments, acid attacks, and
wrong decision.Many reviews show relatability since she highlights actual issues women face.
Nautanki Sala And Other Stories launch had invited poriment guests,namely, Jael Silliman,Author,
Scholar, Women’s Right Activist, Ruma Chakraborty, Artist, Writer, Senior English Faculty,Madhubanti
Roy Chowdhury, Founder of Participatory Publishing Praxis-an alternative,publishing initiative, Author and
the event was moderated by Oindrilla Dutt Founder, Open Doors.
Jael Silliman, in the event, said, “Mohua Chinappa, in deft strokes explores the courage, desire,
vulnerability, sensuality and grief that women, across social strata and geographies in India, navigate in
fifteen compelling short stories. An evocative read.”
Oindrilla Dutt, while moderating the event said,”Mohua Chinappa’s pen is unwavering and relentless in
holding up a mirror to the marginalisation, deprivation, oppression, lack of opportunities and equality that
women are made to tolerate, even today, irrespective of caste, creed or status.The short stories in
Nautanki Saala are about their struggle for dignity and survival, only sometimes successful. A compelling
read.”
Madhubanti Roy Chowdhury,reviewed the book by saying “Mohua Chinappa wields the medium of the
short story with the unerring precision of a surgeon’s scalpel and the lingering poignancy of a lover’s gaze
to find her way into the secret heart of each woman in her stories — into the worlds they inhabit, the lives
they live, and the words they speak. But, perhaps, even more into those they choose to leave untravelled,
unlived and unspoken. Her characters seem to invite us into a space of rare narrative sorority forged in
far-flung locales across the Indian landscape, and along cultural and generational fissures, yet strung
together in a continuum of stories, speaking in unison in their many tongues.”
Ruma Chakraborty said, “A book that fascinates from the word go with its catchy heading, doesn’t
disappoint the reader as they delve within to discover Mohua Chinappa’s deft handling of emotions that
are laid bare with a keen sense of observation and swift penstrokes of delineation. A must read book.”
