The Books that have Influenced my Life

1.  A Thousand Splendid Sons by Khaled Hosseini – The life of Mariam in the book is so tragic that I can never ever forget the ordeal she went through. Yet she fights all the evil forces personified in her husband and in the society around and finally sacrifices her life for her husband’s second wife, who is another victim in the entire scenario. There are millions of women who face a life such as this or even worse and it constantly troubles me, especially when we in the academic circles are so much into theorizing and evolving models that are supposed to solve problems for people.  Being an economist and a feminist I am often in a state of angst as the philosophy of the two  tend to vie with each other to a large extent. The sociological and the economic underpinnings of the economic agent are crucial in any setting and this is exactly what Economics tends to ignore (especially the classical and the neo classical schools of economic thought). However all is not so bleak, for there are meeting grounds for the two disciplines that looks at the reality of the millions of Mariams around. The meeting ground has to be recognized and evolved by researchers and thinkers. The process in on but needs to be developed and applied in policies much more.

2.      The above takes me to the next book that has truly impressed me and it is a book that I keep reading off and on viz. Beyond the Economic Man edited by Marianne A. Ferber and Julie A Nelson. This is a collection of papers written by various authors on Feminist Theory and Economics. In fact it is an investigation into what really is wrong with my discipline Viz. Economics. Many of the papers in the book look at the interweaving of gender into the epistemology of economics or a critique of the lack thereof. It examines the androcentricism within the discipline and the invisibility of women in economic theories. In fact what I honestly must state is that all the variables we tend to hold constant or are apt to ignore in economic models, do have an extremely significant role to play in reality. The book helps in highlighting the ‘sound of silence’.

3.      Another book that has always been my favorite is To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper lee. This is a book I read when I was a child and it made a deep impression on me. It taught me various little things that have fallen in place as I faced life. In fact the concept of don’t shoot the mocking bird taught to the children in the book has impressed me so much for it was at that time that I learned the song “When the sun in the morning peeps over the hill, and kisses the roses round my window sill, then my heart fills with gladness when I hear the trill, of the birds in the treetops on Mockin’ Bird Hill” From my mother. The mocking bird never harms plants or fruits, all it does is sing and make music! It also signifies the vulnerable in society who are often victimized by a rude callous world. The characters Boo Radley – the recluse, Jem Finch an innocent child who is forced to face the tough reality with injustice around, and Tom Robinson the black man accused of raping a white girl all represent the vulnerable mocking bird. Tom Robinson is denied justice and is convicted of raping Mayella Ewell by an all white jury!! In this world justice is rarely obtained – a hard lesson I have learned from this text.

~~ By Crystal David John

This was published in the Indian Express (EDEX) on 19/11/2012