Written Nov 2000
 
Recently I attended a book signing by Pramila Jayapal, author of "Pilgrimage,"
 at the Howard University Bookstore.

 In this book she writes about her experiences in India as well as the issues
 of progress and development. 

 Pramila Jayapal was born in Madras in a well to do family. Her father was
 an executive with an international oil firm in Rajasthan. She left India
 when she was five and grew up largely in Indonesia and Singapore before
 coming to the U.S when she was 16. In her own words, "both my mother
 and father had established their ties to the west even while growing up
 in India. They moved in an up and coming social circle of Indians and
 foreigners, an energetic, party loving group." Moreover, she herself
 grew up in the company of the children of wealthy diplomats and oil
 company executives and "went about rejecting my Indian roots for the more
 glamorous western life." While she returned frequently on family vacations,
 as she grew older India became "Positively unappealing, repressive, backward,
 and lacking in creativity," and she started dreaming of going to the U.S.

 In the U.S she quickly adapted to the culture, forming an American identity
 for herself, succeeding in her career in investment banking. yet she felt
 her life was incomplete, and wanted to understand herself better, both as
 a woman and as an Indian. Soon she left her private sector job and traveled
 for several months through parts of West Africa and India with her
 husband Alan. After returning to the US she began working for a Seattle-based
 international health organisation whose mission was to improve the health
 of disadvantaged people throughout the world, especially women and children,
 by providing small loans to health projects and women's savings and credit 
 groups. But soon she felt that the development work community was isolated
 from the communities they were trying to develop, and that they had much to 
 learn from these populations than to teach them.

 So after years of trying to distance herself from her country, she decided to
 spend two years in India and immerse herself in learning. This book is the
 result of those two years. In a brutally honest account of her experiences,
 she writes about both her positive and negative experiences. She also
 writes about the many Indians who are working on developmental projects
 trying hard to make a difference in very difficult circumstances. She writes
 about how she gained a new perspective and understanding of herself
 and the world. She also writes about how she improved her
 understanding of the world, from a strictly analytical and logical approach 
 built from her western education to a more imaginative and spiritual process.
 She devotes special and personal attention to the issues facing women
 in India and her changed perspective of Indian women-- from helpless victims
 to strong, heroic characters-- among women from all walks of life.

 Sankar