Neha Dixit is an independent journalist based in New
Delhi. She has covered politics, gender and social justice
for seventeen years. Most of her work is investigative,
narrative and long-form. She has reported for Al Jazeera,
The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Caravan, The
Wire, and other notable publications. She has won over
a dozen international and national journalism awards,
including the One Young World Journalist of the Year
Award 2020, the International Press Freedom Award 2019
from the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Chameli
Devi Jain Award for Outstanding Woman Journalist 2017,
the Kurt Schork Award in International Journalism 2014,
the Lorenzo Natali Prize for Journalism 2011 from the
European Commission, among others.
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What does the life of an ordinary working-class Indian look and feel like? In this outstanding book, the award- winning journalist Neha Dixit traces the story of one such faceless Indian woman, from the early 1990s to the day. What emerges is a picture of a life lived under constant corrosive tension. Syeda X left Banaras for Delhi with her young family in the aftermath of riots triggered the demolition of the Babri Masjid. In Delhi, she settled into the life of a poor migrant, juggling multiple jobs a – from trimming the loose threads of jeans to cooking namkeen, and from shelling almonds to making tea strainers.
Syeda has done over fifty different types of work, earning paltry sums in the process. And if she ever took a day off, her job would be lost to another faceless migrant. Researched for close to a decade, in this book, we meet an unforgettable cast of characters: a rickshaw driver in Chandni Chowk who ends up tragically dead in a terrorist blast; a doctor who gets arrested for pre-natal sex determination; a gau rakshak whose sister elopes with Syeda’s son; and policemen who delight in beating young Muslim men.
In the end, things comes to a grotesque full circle for Syeda. Her life is upturned for the umpteenth time during the Delhi riots of 2020. But displacement, tragedy and hardships are the things she is used to – being poor and Muslim and a woman. Written with empathy and deep insight, this book is a portal to a harsh world hidden away from elite Indians. It is the story of untold millions and a searing account of urban life in New India.
