Opening Chapters

  This is the first of the reviews I have done on the shortlisted books for the Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction for the year 2017. The shortlist was announced on April 3rd, 2017. For more reviews, subscribe! Every day, there seems to be more reports coming out about the various injustices done to a woman – or rather someone who is not a man. There are the girls brutally defiled and violated on the streets in public. The child who has been repeatedly raped by her male relatives. The grandmother who was murdered in cold blood because she refused to fund her grandson’s various activities. And don’t you wish, if only things were different, if only you could do something about them. That is the premise of The Power by Naomi Alderman. Alderman’s latest has been gathering colourful reviews and has been shortlisted for the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction 2017. This is the first of the six shortlisted books I have read, and I decided to pen down my th...

First of all, I would like to clarify that I abhor the idea of International Women’s Day. I hate the commercialism that is mainly associated with it. Discounts on spa packages; buy one nail polish, get another free; companies utilize this day to buy the women in their office chocolates and flowers when instead they could promote equality and provide better rights for their female employees, like perhaps better maternity leave options. But a lot of good comes from it, the main thing being dialogue.  The Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) held the Women In Leadership Symposium at Abu Dhabi, UAE on 8 th and 9 th March 2016. I was lucky enough to be able to attend it for two sessions. It is definitely the most inspiring SPE event I have been to. And one thing I am definitely sure of: our stories are not unique. Everything I heard from the women is the same thing I have heard from my mother who works in the oil and gas industry as well.  For example, one of the...