Pragathi news reader biography books
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Pragati Rai is a prominent writer and literary figure who has authored three novels—all focusing on the role of women in society and critiquing patriarchal norms. Her most recent book, ‘Thangra,’ released only a few months ago, also discusses the complexity of feminine realities, with the added inclusion of racial elements. Along with writing, Rai also advocates feminist perspectives in public spheres.
Rai is an enthusiastic reader. In this interview with the Post’s Kshitiz Pratap Shah, she shares her thoughts on reading and the importance of literary representation.
When did you uppstart reading? Tell us about your first read.
I read my first novel when I was around nine or ten years old. Prakash Kovid’s novels were pretty popular back then, especially in my village in Khotang. Books were the only way to learn about the outside world. Kovid’s ‘Arko Janma’ was the first book that stuck with me. It talked about a failed love and the characters’ wish to right the wrongs
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This is the most exciting day for me at Pragati since we relaunched the site over a year ago. Today we launch this group blog that you are now reading, called Pragati Express. It has an awesome team of writers, even if I say so myself. (Even if I wasn’t writing on it, and had nothing to do with it, I would want to read it every day.)
There are old-school bloggers like Nitin Pai, Yazad Jal and me. Pragati staff writers will also blog here, as will various policy experts from the Takshashila Institution. The list of writers that you see on the panel alongside will grow with time.
But first, let me address these question: Why a blog? Who reads blogs these days?
I was a prolific blogger with India Uncut back in the day, and wrote more than 8000 posts between 2004 and 2009, averaging five posts a day for quite a while. I slacked off after that, and now use it mainly to archive pieces of mine published elsewhere. I rationalised my laziness by arguing that the Age of Blogging was
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Pragati Rai: Her Own Writer
As a child, Pragati Rai was called fattyauri, someone who would not stop talking. “I did not like that when a daughter was born in family, they would say, ‘Oh great, a bottle of whisky is born,’” she says to me when we meet in her home in Thecho. “I knew from very early on that these things didn’t sit right with me, that I had to speak about them somehow.”
Born in 1977, Pragati grew up in Khotang along with a younger sister and four brothers. Although she is widely known for her first novel, Lekhak Ki Swasni (The Writer’s Wife, 2014), Pragati burst into the Nepali literary scene with a slim collection of powerful poems called Badi Bigyapti (Baadi Press Release, 2009), written after she had witnessed naked Badi women protest outside Singha Durbar demanding their right to citizenship in 2007. In the titular poem, Pragati writes:
My name is naked
My people are naked
Where I stand, there
the ground is seen as naked, today
I have been m