Failure to Make Round Rotis

No, no. Newspaper ads aren’t reliable.

No, no. Love marriages end in divorce.

So go the opening lines of a poem in Mehak Goyal’s debut collection of poems, aptly titled ‘Failure to Make Round Rotis’. These are poems on rebellion, resilience and relationships. In quirky, informal and highly distilled free verse, the poems dredge out the reflections of a young woman towards life and cock a snook at chauvinistic attitudes. The poems on childhood are a pleasant-poignant mix that draws out a girl’s insecurities. The lone battle against a bully or the overrun cupboard suggesting relatives in the house are all relatable Gen Z markers. Goyal explores the fleeting nature of relationships, the tightening embrace of conformity vis-a-vis arranged matches and homemaking, and finds anodynic comfort in reading and writing.

Sex trafficking is the second largest organised crime in the world, with the average age of a child trafficked into the commercial sex trade being between nine and 13 years. ‘I Kick and I Fly’ by Ruchira Gupta aims to inspire and create greater awareness around sex trafficking, bodily autonomy and the fight to education, and remind readers that courage is contagious and change is possible. It tells the story of Heera, 14, living in the outskirts of one of Bihar’s red light districts. Her father plans to sell her into the sex trade to pay off the family’s debts. When she is expelled from school, she knows her days are numbered. But a chance encounter with a woman’s rights advocate changes her life. The author is an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker and the book has been endorsed by Gloria Steinem.

As a child, Janhavi Samant would hear many tales — some funny, some heroic, some tragic and some downright disgusting. As an author, she loves to tell stories. While her last book was ‘Faaltugiri and Other Flashbacks’, where she narrated stories from her childhood, this one is a collection of 25 rib-tickling tales. So, there is the story of a girl who disliked farts so much that she decided to leave home; a boy who knew no fear… or so he thought. Find out why the rooster crows every morning or why the sun took a break from rising one day. Or what happened when the moon called Lord Ganesha fat. Giraffes who had short necks, rhinos with a mean temper, the lazy boy who had to be told every single thing — there’s a prank and a chuckle for every mood here.