Gita Aravamudan is an award-winning author and journalist from Bengaluru. She started her journalistic career at Hindustan Times, New Delhi, at a time when there were very few women in journalism. She has also worked with and written for the Indian Express, India Today, Sunday, Filmfare, Femina, the Illustrated Weekly of India, the Week, Society, The Hindu, the Times of India, Deccan Herald, Sunday Mid-day and a number of other national and regional publications. Her books include non-fiction (Disappearing Daughters: The Tragedy of Female Foeticide, Unbound: Indian Women @Work and Voices in My Blood) as well as the fiction narratives The Healing and, more recently, Colour of Gold.How does an item girl tackle sexual harassment at her workplace? Why does a highly paid female software engineer pay dowry? Breast pumps and BlackBerry phones-do they go together? When a woman focuses on her career, does she lose out as a wife and a mother? Is there a female model of achievement distinct from a male one? These and other similar questions are explored in Unbound: Indian Women @ Work through a series of interviews conducted by the author with women from all walks of life and from different parts of the country. Icons such as Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, chairman and managing director of Biocon Ltd, and Meena Ganesh, former CEO of Tesco Hindustan Service Centre, rub shoulders with Rachel the hair designer and Sumathi the call-centre employee who comes from a family of domestic helps. Female engineers discuss insidious gender discrimination and working mothers speak of the difficulties of balancing motherhood and work. The stories in this book are of real women who spoke out candidly about their concerns, their families, their love lives and marriages, their victories and defeats. Together they provide a valuable guide to the brave new world of today's women professionals.
