Small Acts Of Freedom

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Author : Gurmehar Kaur

Place : India

Publisher : Penguin Random House Books

Published : February 2018

Pages : 234

Price : Rs299

ISBN :0143442317

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gurmehar Kaur is an Indian student activist and author. She is
currently studying English Literature at Lady Shri Ram College for
Women, Delhi University.
Kaur was born to Rajvinder Kaur and Captain Mandeep Singh in
Jalandhar. She completed her education at Harvest International
School, Ludhiana. Her father, Mandeep Singh, was one of the
seven Indian army personnel martyred at 1:15am IST after
a Rashtriya Rifle camp was attacked by terrorists in Jammu and
Kashmir on 6 August 1999.
Now she is an ambassador for Postcards for Peace, a UK based
charitable organization that helps eliminate any form of
discrimination. Gurmehar Kaur came to news as she was a part of
the ‘Save DU campaign’ following the February 2017 clashes at
Ramjas College between members of the All India Students
Federation (AISF) and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi
Parishad (ABVP) when JNU students Umar Khalid and Shehla
Rashid Shora were invited for a campus seminar. Earlier, she was
in news due to a video she released.
In October 2017, Time Magazine used the phrase "free speech
warrior" in expressing their opinion of Kaur and included her in
their "10 Next Generation Leaders" list for 2017. She has
authored a book, a memoir, called Small Acts of Freedom which
was published in January 2018 by Penguin Random House. She
was also a speaker at the Harvard US India Initiative held in New
Delhi in 2018 .

Controversies That Held Gurmehar :

Gurmehar Kaur has been in news since the time her campaign
against ABVP on Facebook saying "not afraid" went viral. The
issue got bigger with each passing day till a point she has been
tagged "anti-national" by many and "pure example of the
courageous Indian youngster" for many.

What was Gurmehar's campaign about?

It all started from the attack on students and teachers at Delhi
University's Ramjas College by members of the Akhil Bharatiya
Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). Gurmehar Kaur, a student of DU's Lady
Shri Ram college and daughter of martyr Captain Mandeep Singh,
posted a photo on Facebook. The photo had her holding a placard
that read, "I am a student from Delhi University. I am not afraid of
ABVP. I am not alone. Every student of India is with me". The post
went viral and received more than 3,500 shares.

Even in the book , Gurmehar starts off with an introduction to how

these events unfolded into a massive political outbreak , she talks
about how in 2017 , a few friends asked her if she wanted to join
them for a protest at Ramjas , Delhi University , to which she said
no to , as she wasn't aware of the details and intricacies of the
same , she wishes , that if only she had said to the peaceful
seminar on ' Cultures of Protest' , Things would have been
different she adds .

Later she talks about on the very same day at late evening , her
whatsapp messages were flooded with harrowing pictures of
violence , she remembers how it wasnt the media but by her own
friends who had attended the Ramjas Seminar .

She talks about , how the students who had been peacefully
protesting to condemn campus violence involving the Akhil
Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) were roughed up .

she remembers being baffled up with anger and resentment and

regret , that she could not sit quietly with all these feelings
bottled up inside her.

How could she resist ? how does one resist ?

This was a beginning , one that was going to change her life , she
picked a pen and a placard , and wrote with anger , "I am a
student from Delhi university , I am not afraid Of ABVP , I am not
alone . Every student of India is with me" #StudentsagainstABVP

she talks about how this incident changed her life forever. How
she realized things were never going to be the same after this .
In the next few pages , Gurmehar writes about , how suddenly she
was everywhere in the media , some against her , some with her ,
some calling her a true hero and some calling her anti-national !

She beautifully describes how a 19 year old must have felt at that
very point but she leaves us hanging and wondering , suddenly
her writing take turn into a sad tale of loss , losing her father but
also finding herself.

In the next few lines , we suddenly notice Kaur , Questioning the

events that took place after her post went viral and in the next
few lines , she concludes onto Why she decided to write her first
ever book , "Small Acts Of Freedom".

Her memoir Small Acts of Freedom  is a deeply personal work of

nonfiction by that tells the story of three generations of strong
single women in her own family

She then speaks about how this story is not about her , and how
her own story does not start with herself and therefore this book
is not about a 3 day long controversy but about 3 different
generations , 3 different women , who fought their own battles ,
Kaur's grandmother ( Nani ) , Kaur's Mother and kaur , herself .

Not only that the book turns out to be a memoir of the events and
emotions that led to the incident and her courage to break
through , inherited through her two women .

Telling the tale of three passionate women (her grandmother,

her mother and herself) who have faced the world on their own
terms, the book’s unusual narrative structure criss-crosses
elegantly between past and present, spanning 70 years from
1947 to 2017.

Small Acts of Freedom suddenly becomes a story of courage,

strength and love in three different generations . About the
book, Gurmehar has quoted, “This book is not so much about
me as much as the sensibilities that I have inherited from my
mother and grandmother. They have both managed to bring up
children single-handedly . This book is about three women in a
family and their courage." and kaur sticks to what she says ,
kaur beautifully portrays three different time lines from a childs
point of view and very innocently puts her heart right out there
, She added, "This book is also to give the angle of war a more
emotional note, because there are not many books to chronicle
the war in first hand narratives." which in the beginning is the
first idea that comes to anyones mind who knows the Ramjas
controversy , kaur surprises everyone by not writing about the
incident , as everyone expected her to , she baffles the entire
audience by stepping back into her , 2 year old self and travel
through time , like a little kid running , racing , alone but along
the winds.

The prose is simple, the chapters small. The narrative jumps from
one character to another, following no linear chronology. It is an
interesting style. There are the expected tear-wiping bits, which
deal with the death of her father, and, then, the void he leaves
behind. It is written without melodrama, stripped of flourish. Yet,
its starkness hits you: He comes back sleeping in a wooden box,
with a bandage on his chest—on the same spot where I used to
lean my tiny head against and sleep, listening to the rhythm of his
heartbeat. Kaur uses the curiosity of a child to reach the soft
spots of the audience and very silently , cut through their thick
skin and touch their emotions , in a way , that even the coldest
heart , will feel for little GulGul .
Kaur writes about growing up fatherless but without talking about
it , Like on the first day in school when everyone was
accompanied by their parents, she only had her mother. But, she
moves on to other aspects of living. Like the chocolates her
grandmother produced from behind the wall hanging. She writes
of the life of both mother and grandmother, widowed early, and
having to raise daughters single handedly. But, not alone. For she
writes about the warmth of the extended family that cocooned
her from the harshness of the real world.
 I wouldn’t say it’s a story of hope but more so a story of longing
and loss, of finding strength to move forward. There’s no one
incident that is more moving than another. Tears stinging your
eyes and blurred words are a constant while reading this book;
even though we know of the tragedy when we start reading, it is
in the writing that the impact lies. Through recollections across
generations, Gurmehar weaves the stories so loosely yet so intact
that you literally start feeling each and every emotion Kaur must
have felt during the written events . Each instance is a snippet of
this larger canvas and follows an unusual but effective flow. It’s as
though three parallel stories are moving forward together, and
yet they remain incomplete without each other. We’ve probably
read of the loss of adults in some form or the other, but reading of
loss from a child’s perspective remains the core of this story,
tugging at heartstrings and echoing within you in a primal way.
There are some bits where it becomes a little pretentious. Like
when she writes about the moment of epiphany she had at age
six. "That day I learnt one of the most important lessons of my
life: my father’s weapons may have been guns and ammunition,
but my weapon had to be peace. Always."

It’s a speedy read. The language is simple and straightforward

and the writing comes from the heart. Kaur has been told that she
advocates a message of peace that is facile, but the messages of
love in the book are so profound that they could only come from a
child. The child doesn’t speak in a voice suitable for her age,
though — GulGul says or feels what Kaur imagines she would
have said or felt. “I can sense my blood boiling… my mother has
betrayed me,” little GulGul says oddly, when she’s all of five. The
epilogue is poignant, save an avoidable saccharine letter from
Kaur to her father. Why underline what has already been spelt
out?
 When I completed this book , I remember being overloaded with
so many unknown emotions , that I literally walked out of my
room , to reach for some fresh air , I couldn't comprehend
everything , I had just read , I could feel it , but to vent it out like
kaur did ? I don't know how it was possible , this was my very first
time , reading a memoir of such kind , one that jumps back and
forth and is somehow binded together , I feel sorrow and hollow
inside my bones and soul , Kaur's small acts of freedom , makes
you want to sit down , in the coziest of your house corners , or in
a cafe and read through the whole book in one go , without
stopping , without breaking the flow of a little kid , who is trying to
tell a story in the most unique way possible with possibly all the
emotions she knows of , all the memories she could collect and
remember , You just want to know , everything that happened be
it , the childs anger , love , sorrow , fights , pain , anything the
child has to offer you want to take it , No wonder , Kaur calls her
first book , 'Baby G '.

But more than Kaur its the other women of the family, the ever so
strong mother of Gulgul and Bani, I couldn’t help but stay in awe
of the woman who raised two strong women. She taught them an
ideology that can change the nation and the impact of war in a
child’s mind. It’s never about who goes by, it’s about who stays
and let no one change its place. Gurmehar grew up with a father,
the one she had in her mother, and the memories which she
never let go of.
What insight did the book offer to me ?
This book made me realize how judgments can change lives,
judgments which are made without knowing the story of the
person, judgments which make life-altering situations. Gurmehar
Kaur has been brave and she always will be because that’s what
she has inherited. She’s a daughter of a martyr, but over that,
she’s a daughter of a warrior mother.

Why ' Small Acts of Freedom' ?

Ever since the book , Small Acts of Freedom came out, the
question I've been asking myself most often is why Did kaur
chose that title. There is no one answer to this and neither does
kaur has addressed this question maybe she has an answer ,
maybe like me even she is still thinking about it, and every time I
think about it, my mind finds a new reason, a new meaning to the
title of kaur's book and that in itself is an act of discovery
I think kaur related to the word 'small'. After all, she was a small
feisty thing trying to turn ripples into waves in the massive,
terrifying ocean that is Indian politics and activism and by the
articles that I have read I think she liked the word freedom; and
why wouldn't it be it's the first thing that comes to anyone's mind
when someone says India. This might be because of the NCERT
books we all grew up cramming, where history and political
science courses talk only about the freedom struggle from grade
six to twelve, or maybe it's just in the air; in the hearts of the
people and in our minds.
Kaur also grew up surrounded by women, as strange as it sounds
and as impossible as it may seem . I think it's the environment
that shaped Kaur as a person, as an activist and as a writer, and
while I was researching about Kaur's early life over a cup of chai ,
I realized , Gurmehar, grew up in a world seeing women take up
authoritative roles- her mother, her grandmother, the teachers in
her life an all-girls convent and now even in college she got into
Lady Shri Ram College for Women. No wonder she is the way she
is. I spent the whole night thinking about how true it was, but
what really piqued my curiosity was how these women who
seemed so comfortable in the roles kaur saw them in, how did
they reach that point in their lives, what were their battles? What
were their small acts of freedom?
Patriarchy is not exclusive to India, but it is very prominent, which
is also why it is an act of rebellion, an act of defiance, a
resistance, when a woman performs even the simple act of
walking out of the house in a pair of skinny jeans to take over the
world. And sometimes, skinny jeans or not, simply choosing to be
at home, having the power to shape your world, how you wish for
it to be is that act of rebellion. The smallest yet most important
act of freedom is being able to make your own choices, good or
bad, popular or unpopular, it is about having that agency over
yourself. Freedom is walking into a hair salon and coloring your
hair pink or green, even when everyone around you disapproves
because they are still caught up in their web of prejudice Freedom
is choosing who you want to marry or choosing to have someone
else make that choice for you. There is freedom in saying no and
there is freedom in saying yes and there us freedom in saying
nothing at all, whatever one wants. The millennial in me will say
freedom is doing whatever the hell you want to do and sometimes
it can mean standing up for what you grew up believing in, peace
and non-violence, even if it means contrasting and challenging
the narrative set by the most powerful in the country. Just another
small act of freedom , Maybe that's why Kaur chose , Small Acts
of freedom .