Unheard Voices

‘‘ A collection of heart-rending stories that reaffirm one'''s faith in humanity and in the resilience of the human spirit.'''—First City '''Then there are the rare few like Harsh Mander who do much more than bear witness. They find flowers of creativity on the desolate plains of sheer, bitter survival.''''''Simultaneously hopeful and distressing.''''''Harsh'''s career in the IAS is a stark illustration of how a beureaucrat can be both fiercely creative and yet crushingly constrained.'''—The Hindu, New Delhi '''Sensitively written, unlike the usual sob stories, these instances do not focus on general category details that have been endlessly splashed about by the media. Instead the emphasis is on the personal struggle of the individual.'''—Indian Express, Chennai '''Mander, believed that these needed to be retold, so that we never forgot about them, and adds the tales of others who'''ve remained voiceless so many years after independence. He met most of the people whose lives and struggles he commits to paper, and tells their stories boldly but unforgettably.'''—Man'''s World '''An expression of a deeply-held belief-that every person counts. It'''s a rare individual who can sopithily summarise his credo, and mean it. The man who says he does not make writing his goal continues to touch people'''s lives with direct words.'''—India Today, New Delhi '''An extraordinarily lucid document, speaks to our conscience and makes us think. Each one of the twenty stories is a tale of courage.''' '''He writes in prose made bare by the raw experience of his protagonists-it is unfrilled, businesslike, as if it has something of greater import to tell than merely a story.'''—The Pioneer, New Delhi