For the women by the women

While the city has seen a couple of book clubs spring up in the last one year, this is one with a difference. Meet the Women’s Book Club. The group conducts an informal meeting every 10 days to discuss art, literature and women authors. 

Part of an initiative by Bombay Underground, an art collective that prints art and culture zines, the club hosts weekly meetings at the organisation’s Bandra library — The Underground Bookhouse. Aqui Thami, who came up with the concept says that she first thought of the idea of a women’s book club simply because the women in her acquaintance didn’t read enough women’s literature. 

“I’ve been a part of our Bandra library for a while and something I noticed when people would come to borrow books is that few would pick up books written by women. So, I suggested some books to a few women and they loved them. That gave me the idea of turning it into an art project,” explains Aqui.

Aqui Thami (Photo: Shripad Naik)

Each club meeting sees the group of gathered women discussing a particular piece of literature written by a woman and at the end of the session, these women will create an artwork inspired by the piece. Having started out in May, the meets will continue till the end of August, with 10 books being read in all. The artwork will be collected by August 20, so that there is plenty of time to compile the zine, for their September showing.

“The artwork could be anything — an essay critiquing the piece, a painting, a photo story — anything inspired by the book,” says Aqui. At the end of the project, in September, Aqui plans to have a compilation of these works in the form of an independent zine and have it displayed.

However, it is not just the end goal that has the bookworm excited. She is equally immersed in each club meeting and discussion. “With each book, the discussion goes in a certain direction and it’s beautiful to witness. Often, though the talk starts out with the book, it becomes more personal, since the participants can relate to what is being described in the book,” she gushes, adding that several women have also come and confided in her about their lives and upheavals.

One such moment that stand out in Aqui’s mind is when a woman coming from a Muslim family spoke about how she could relate to Persepolis, since even in India, she can’t wear a dress she really likes because she’s not allowed. 

Another was a discussion on masturbation in Alice Walker’s The Colour Purple. “Shug, one of the characters in the novel tells the protagonist of the novel what it is like to masturbate, and Celie, the protagonist feels proud of the fact that she is able to bring herself pleasure. At this point, a lot of women expressed how they had never really thought about this aspect before. Even though each discussion starts out on a relatively formal note, everyone soon opens up and many time, we even go out after the discussion and just hang out. It is really amazing to witness the way women open up about their lives through the writings of other women,” smiles Aqui.