Is it the Same for You?

“The day they found my brother with a blood stain,

I found one on my kurta too,

but no one noticed mine.”

Is it the Same for You? Is written by Neha Singh and illustrated by Priya Sebastian. The story centers around the life of a girl and the challenges that she goes through in her everyday life. The book has a theme of war and puberty. 

Two months ago, Sujata gave me the book, asked me to read it and share what I think about the book. When I read the book for the first time I did not understand it. There were some sentences that I read multiple times to make sense of it. For me, reading it was quite disturbing; to know what the girl/women have to go through. Along with the physical and mental changes that they go through, they are also affected by the war/violence in society. The way I connected to the book was I remembered about an incident that happened with me in the bus of frisking and when asked he said ‘oh sorry I didn’t do it on purpose’. But with the girl in the story it was much more, it was more than frisking. It was touching her and done everyday, on the behest of checking. 

In discussion with others it emerged that the book could have many entry points; through the perspective of gender, culture, war, family and adolescent issues. Also there were some things that I did not know about, like why the boy also was wearing a scarf. It was only after discussion that I understood why he wore it. 

Various aspects of the daily life of a region under military and terrorist occupation is described. Each page has a few lines of text on one side and an illustration on the other side. With few words spread out across the pages at different places, the reader needs to make their own connections from one page to the next. The text is simple to read but has a deeper meaning with multiple layers within it. The quality of language is layered and one can imagine the narrator having a reserved personality.

The way the book is structured is that there are many things that are happening around her, as well as internally with her feelings. The unrest on each page is explored through different body parts and aspects of adolescence like those scars, smells, erosion.

A feature I found striking in the story, was the complete absence of any male figure except for a mention of her brother and cousin. There is no mention of her father at all. 

The illustrations are done with charcoal and pastels. The choice of colours are dark with hints of bright shades, which are linked to positive emotions of the girl. Otherwise the whole setting of the story is gloomy. There is variation in both the illustration and the text. The text and illustrations do not correspond with each other, which makes the reader connect the both together.

The book ends with a question that is directly addressed to the reader. For me the and was a Yes and a No. What would it be for you?