{"product_id":"railsong","title":"Railsong","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"Magnificent . . . I would follow Miss Chitol to the ends of the earth.\" -Kamila Shamsie\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Profoundly tender [and] vigorously alive to the currents of national change\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e.\"\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e -Megha Majumdar\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA breathtaking novel about a woman forging a life for herself on the railways, \u003ci\u003eRailsong \u003c\/i\u003eis the heartwarming story of an individual coming of age amid the social and political upheavals of twentieth-century India. \u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn a newly independent India charged with national vigour, Charu, the motherless daughter of a railway worker, pines for freedom from the shackles of her impoverishment and meagre prospects. As diesel engines replace steam and the calamitous churn of drought, famine, and a great strike engulfs her town, Charu dares to imagine a different future for herself. She boards a train and flees westwards, leaving behind the oppressive domesticity of her childhood for the alluring modernity, and apparent opportunities, of Bombay. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eUnfazed by the everyday discriminations around her she becomes an unlikely hero: a railway woman and census enumerator who keeps her heart open-sometimes guilelessly-to her nation's vast possibility. Sweeping, elegiac, and at times wonderfully comic, \u003ci\u003eRailsong \u003c\/i\u003eis a powerful portrait of grit, optimism, and the force of character that enables one remarkable woman to live on her own terms in a country full of contradictions.","brand":"Rahul Bhattacharya","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":47288951079148,"sku":"9781639736225","price":29.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0684\/1791\/3068\/files\/9781639736225.jpg?v=1770582532","url":"https:\/\/intl.allstora.com\/products\/railsong","provider":"Allstora","version":"1.0","type":"link"}