Shabnam mausi
Manabi bandyopadhyay son!
Making Her-story: Review of A Gift of Goddess Lakshmi, Manobi Bandyopadhyay’s memoir
The biography of an Indian transgender is an essential read though understandably, not an easy one.
This is even more so when it is candid. A lot of what we fear does actually play out in this book. A Gift of Goddess Lakshmi, the biography of Manobi Bandyopadhyay, as told to journalist Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey should be read for this very reason.
Somnath manabi bandyopadhyay
The author’s note, an emotional appeal to the readers, sets the tone for the rest of the book. Born on September 23,1964 as Somnath Bandyopadhyay, Manobi’s childhood was loaded with premonitions of her lifelong struggle with identity.
Well-wishers referring to the family’s increasing prosperity and commenting, at her birth, that “This is a boy Lakshmi!” was an early instance. From being raped by her cousin in class V to being physically assaulted by boys at school, her adolescence was anything but easy.
After she moved from her hometown Naihati’s
