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The Tiger Ladies: A Memoir of Kashmir | 
 enlarge | Author: Sudha Koul
Publisher: Beacon Press
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
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Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 307148
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 218
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.6 x 5.9 x 0.9
ISBN: 0807059188
Dewey Decimal Number: 954.6
UPC: 046442059183
EAN: 9780807059180
ASIN: 0807059188
Publication Date: May 14, 2002
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
For those who associate Kashmir with the violence that has claimed tens of thousands of lives, Koul's lovely elegiac memoir The Tiger Ladies shows that the isolated vale in the Himalayas was a heaven before it became a hell...Koul succeeds through sensuous detail in summoning the vanished Kashmir, the one of rainbow days and clear mountains and Hindus living peacefully with Muslims.
?Bryan Walsh, Time Magazine (Asian edition)
The first memoir about a woman's experience in Kashmir, one of the most volatile and alluring places on the globe
The Tiger Ladies presents Kashmir through the lives of four generations of women. Skillfully interweaving the story of her family with the story of the gods and goddesses, myths and history of this rich and unique society, Sudha Koul reveals how the women of her region have attained their extraordinary power and place in their culture?and what a fascinating culture it is.
Like Indira Gandhi and her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, Koul is a Kashmiri Brahmin, traditionally the highest caste of Hindus. The Hindus, though a tiny minority of Kashmir's population, lived in great harmony with Muslims, leading intertwined lives in the same cultural fabric. Kashmiris were isolated in their valley and enjoyed a culture so dissimilar to any other in India that they were largely unaffected by what was happening in the world around them. The 1947 partition of India and the rise of fundamentalism has turned Kashmir, once called "Paradise on Earth" by Moghul emperor Jehangir, into a religious and political inferno.
Koul grew up immersed in the colorful legends and rituals of Kashmiri life, now imperiled for Hindus and Muslims. Her story is that of a lost Eden, full of the textures, tastes, and magical tales of a distant, at times contradictory world. She looks forward to an arranged marriage while completing her graduate education, even as she becomes a magistrate; and, in the end, Koul's marriage proves both loving and enduring.
As she makes clear in this memoir, it was not her Muslim neighbors who tore her valley apart but "outside" political forces and religious ideologies, reflecting the tragic developments that have marked so much of the world's unrest in recent decades.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
 A Window Into A Time Gone Forever November 19, 2008
When the author of this novel was a little girl, she had one horizon: to learn the domestic duties of a Hindu girl growing up in Kashmir, to have a suitable marriage arranged for her, and then to produce children for her family. Through the course of her life, changes in the broader world--especially India--led her to college and then to a career. It was only later, in the course of her work life, that she surprised herself and relieved her despairing parents by finding a suitable husband.
That is the sketch of the story's structure, but of course everything is in the details: the houses they lived in, the places her family went on vacation, relations with her (mostly Moslem) neighbors; the transition from a feudal culture to the rudiments of democracy. Later, the almost dreamlike peace and natural beauty of her homeland became transformed by the beginnings of sectarian hatred--fostered by non-Kashmiris--and the resultant suspicion between formerly good neighbors. Her story is not just one of cultural change but also of conflict and suffering, but this book is by no means a tragedy. She and her husband eventually moved to the United States and raised their chidren here. Their lives have been good, by almost any measure...yet, she never has completely left her original love for her birth land. This is a touching and informative book, one that you will find intriguing and touching.
 A child's beautiful memories March 6, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Most of this book is thoroughly engrossing. It is a memory, pure and simple. No attempt to analyze or rationalize, just a statement of life as it was, full of detail, painting the picture of an idyllic life with no fear of the future, not questioning any facet of existence, as a child views the world. As an insight into life in Kashmir at a certain period of time, it was a lovely portal, and certainly lends poignancy to all that appears in the news as to the wars that rage in the region.The beauty and richness of her culture and the family warmth that were hers shine through every page.
If the book had ended with her life in Kashmir, it would have been a beautiful book, but it continues on to detail a stereotypical immigrant existence in America. The author appears as a particularly impotent mother and representative of her culture. And in one very ironic paragraph, she refers to cultures that have been wiped out (native Americans) so that she might now occupy their place, but declares this a natural cycle, while at the same time lamenting the loss of her culture as an irretrievable tragedy. The childishness lingering into adulthood is not as appealing a read.
Overall, though, the loss of momentum at the end does not change the fact that it is a wonderfully vivid and captivating memoir and probably is a testimony to a lost way of life.
 Interesting nuances of life in Kashmir July 16, 2004
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
A good read for second generation Kashmiri Americans. The details were of interest, since of course its a world that Kashmiri-Americans of second generation will not get a chance to see. It's the kind of book I'd like to read with a Kashmiri close at hand to find out if the details are authentic (and not catered to the audience), and the experience universal. A unique find, though, since it's unclear how many books can tackle life in Himalayan valleys from the inside. Validates that Kashmiri pandits deserve and need to contribute to their own body of literature, write their own histories rather than relinquish that right to historians.
Koul writer of the Kashmir Soul May 10, 2003
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
A beautifully written book of the Kashmir valley before the invasion of the Mujahadin and other Muslim terrorist actions from outside the peaceful valley of peaceful coexistence amongst the Kashmiri Hindus and Kashmiri Muslims. Ms. Koul, a former Indian majistrate with a Masters in Political Science from India writes a book for her children to learn of the beautiful life in Kashmir where young soon to be bethrothed women view Pashmina wool embroidered shawl samples dating back 100 years. The samples are easily viewed and ordered from the Kashmiri Muslim merchant who then continues the Pashmina relationship with the daughter or granddaughter's trousseau.
Ms. Koul effectly evokes a resplendant memoir without the heavy hand of serious political analysis which tends to be dry and flacid. A life too beautiful, too luscious, too happy, too comfortable to notice the cloak of darkness that would envelope paradise.
After attending her reading and purchasing Tiger Ladies, I am excited to add it to my collection of important soul books: The Red Tent, Woman Warrier, Autobiography of a Yogi and Facing Two Ways. Kashmir may be a memory of what once existed in a valley of Lotus eaters yet Ms. Koul's book concludes with a simile in the complacency of life in the US where life too is too comfortable, too beautiful, and perhaps too happy for Americans. (Incidentally written before 9.11.2001.) Which perhaps helps us to realize that there is yet another cloak of darkness enveloping us called American corporate imperialism ...product invasion via Hollywood, gasoline consumption, mass consumerism of junk products, junk food, junk tv, junk religion, junk politicians and the reaction against it by the Mujahadins of the Muslim world. Now in paperback form, this book is a respite from the propaganda on evening news in America.
Haunting and beautiful memoir May 10, 2003
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
A lovely and bittersweet memoir of Koul's life in paradise, the Kashmir region of India. It's a tale of a lost way of life in a region that has been sundered by strife, conflict, and ultimately war between India and Pakistan, Hindus and Muslims.
Of especial interest is the reverence in which women of the region were held - in a country in which women are often no more than chattel. The Tiger Ladies is a book rich in sensual detail, a book people can enjoy on many levels: as travel literature, as a cultural study, for the descriptions of the food - and most of all as a loving and haunting memoir of a time and place that no longer exist.
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