Penguin Random House India Off the Beaten Track - The Story of My Unconventional Life

Saeeda Bano was the first woman in India to work as a radio newsreader, and she is still known as the doyenne of Urdu broadcasting. Over her unconventional and courageous life, Bano walked out of a suffocating marriage, witnessed the violence of Partition, lost her son for a night in a refugee camp, ate toast with Nehru, and fell in love with a married man who would, in the course of their twenty-five year-relationship, become the Mayor of Delhi. Though she was born into privilege in Bhopal&;the only Indian state to be ruled by women for four successive generations&;her determination, independence, and frankness provide a unique and crucial disruption in India&;s understanding of the past. Translated from Urdu by Bano&;s granddaughter, Off the Beaten Track is a frank and brave memoir about the remarkable life of a single woman in mid-twentieth-century India. Autorid: Saeeda Bano, Shahana Raza