Kirjahaku

A breathtaking novel about a woman forging a life for herself on the railways, Railsong is the story of an individual coming of age amid the social and political upheavals of twentieth-century India

From the Man Asian Prize-shortlisted author Rahul Bhattacharya, a breathtaking novel about a woman forging a life for herself on the railways of 20th century India. In a country rapidly modernizing after Independence, Animesh Chitol bends his caste title into a quirky surname, moves his family to the brand-new township of Bhombalpur Railway Workshop, and throws in his lot with an optimism-filled future. Then tragedy strikes. Into the empty space left by his wife's passing grows Chitol's only daughter, the middle child, Charu. As India moves from steam to diesel locomotives, through a great strike and state repression, Charu flees to Bombay, alarmed by her narrow prospects. There she quests for the means to live on her own terms. Amidst the everyday discriminations of modern India, Charu forges her own destiny, becoming a railway woman and census enumerator who keeps her heart open-sometimes guilelessly-to her country's vast possibility. Sweeping, elegiac, and at times wonderfully comic, Railsong is one woman's coming of age and a beautifully complex love letter to the finely wrought world of the Indian railways and a country beset by religious and political upheaval.

'Magnificent' KAMILA SHAMSIE 'Majestic yet profoundly tender' MEGHA MAJUMDAR A breathtaking novel about a woman forging a life for herself on the railways, Railsong is the story of an individual coming of age amid the social and political upheavals of twentieth-century India. In a newly independent India charged with national vigour, Charu, the motherless daughter of a railway worker, pines for freedom from the shackles of her impoverishment and meagre prospects. As diesel engines replace steam and the calamitous churn of drought, famine and a great strike engulfs her town, Charu dares to imagine a different future for herself. She boards a train and flees westwards, leaving behind the oppressive domesticity of her childhood for the alluring modernity, and apparent opportunities, of Bombay. Unfazed by the everyday discriminations around her, she becomes an unlikely hero: a railway woman and census enumerator who keeps her heart open —sometimes guilelessly — to her nation’s vast possibility. Sweeping, elegiac and at times wonderfully comic, Railsong is a powerful portrait of grit, optimism and the force of character that enables one remarkable woman to live on her own terms in a country full of contradictions.