Venette Cook

I’m just home from my first journey in northern India. A place of beauty, peace, and conquest. We learned from and met women (and men) in villages saying “Ram, ram” to each other just as in the book. We passed through rice, wheat, and lentil fields surrounding small villages, wondering about village life and choices for a better future. We also met women who are reclaiming their lives with service to each other after acid attacks. This book offered travelogue, humor, perspective, and an inside peek at village life. We also heard about the original Bandit Queen as we rode through the sandstone canyons of Uttar Pradesh. What a life she led! I appreciated so much that women in the book said Gandhi-ji preaches non-violence and that’s fine for him, but self-protection is a way to stop violence.