Rajasree Variyar was nine when she was introduced to the issue of female infanticide. “My parents were watching the evening news, and I caught a segment about a case of female infanticide in Bengaluru, where I was born,” Variyar remembers.
India has one of the highest female foeticide incidents in the world. That news story planted a seed in Variyar’s mind. She would one day write a novel about the age-old practice of killing a girl child in India.
Variyar’s dream came to fruition last month, after she released her debut novel titled, The Daughters of Madurai.
“Growing up in Australia, with my Indian heritage, I was always aware of the differences in the way men and women were regarded, and have always been passionate about women and children’s rights,” she tells Indian Link.
“What I’m passionate about drives my writing! I wanted to explore the whys of something as heinous as the killing of baby girls, something that is still occurring so close to where my own family are from and still live. The more I looked into it, the more I got to know about the lives of the individuals impacted by it, and that’s what I wanted to tell a story about.”
The book
The Daughters of Madurai is set in two timelines – 1990s India and present-day Australia. The family mystery revolves around a mother’s love transcending the most brutal cultural and societal practices.
“Janani’s story is set in 1994 in Tamil Nadu’s Madurai town. She is a young mother pregnant with her fourth child – another girl. Having already lost two daughters to female infanticide at her mother-in-law’s hands, Janani is determined not to lose this one.”
But in order to save her unborn daughter, she must be prepared to lose everything she knows. “Nila’s story is set in 2018 Sydney,” the author explains. “Nila’s mother has always kept her past from her, and now Nila has a secret herself that she is afraid to share. When news that Nila’s grandfather is dying reaches Sydney, the family decides to travel to Madurai to bid him farewell.”
The trip leads Nila into the mysterious depths of her mother’s past.
Ultimately, Variyar says, “The book is for every little girl who’s been told she’s not enough because she’s female, and every little girl who hasn’t made it.”
The journey
Interestingly, Variyar spent some time in Madurai (Dec 2014-Jan 2015) as part of her research on female infanticide before writing The Daughters of Madurai.
“I came across the Women’s Emancipation and Development Trust, based in Chellampatti in Madurai. The co-founder, Dharma Neethi, offered to host me for a week.”
Variyar would shadow the employees and volunteers, and visit communities supported by the organisation. “The women and girls that I met on my trip were very much the inspiration for Janani and other characters in the novel,” she adds. “Given the history of infanticide in the region, it felt very authentic to set the novel in Madurai – but also, Madurai is a fascinating and beautiful city with an incredible wealth of history, and I wanted to bring just a small part of this to readers who are unfamiliar with it.”
Variyar’s roots are from the neighbouring state of Kerala – her mum is from Tirur and her dad from Ayyappankavu.
The issue of female infanticide hits close to home for another significant reason.
“I have a beautiful daughter of my own, who is now four months old. The news of her being born filled me with excitement. It is such a tragedy that for so many women, this experience is the polar opposite,” says Variyar.
The author, now 36, currently lives in London, having moved there in 2015. She grew up in Sydney, where she arrived with her family as a six-month-old.
She took a Masters’ degree in creative writing from the University of East Anglia in 2020, and her work has been shortlisted in various writing awards.
Currently juggling her day-time career in insurance and her creative writing, Variyar is on the road to writing her next novel. “It is going to be another exploration of the fascinating differences between traditional and modern societal norms and attitudes, with a big dose of family mystery, complex characters and rich setting!”
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