My novel TAXI has won the Sushila Devi Award for women’s fiction, 2024.
Here’s the formal notice I received from the Director of the Bhopal Literature and Art Festival, Raghav Chandra, IAS Secretary GOI (Retd):
Dear Manjula,
Congratulations and Greetings from the Bhopal Literature and Art Festival!
I’m happy to declare that you have been selected as the winner of the Sushila Devi Award for Fiction written by a woman author, for the year 2024 (for a book published in 2023) by a distinguished jury headed by Dr Malashri Lal, and included Prof GJV Prasad and Sukrita Paul Kumar.
The Award (instituted by the Sri Ratanlal Foundation) carries a cash prize and a citation.
Past winners have been: Namita Gokhale, Shubhangi Swaroop, Avni Doshi, Anukrti Upadhyay, Anuradha Roy and Janice Pariat.
I’m quoting the citation from all the jury members:
The award for 2024 goes to ‘Taxi’ by Manjula Padmanabhan. Hachette India, 2023.
Citation:
'In her novel ‘Taxi’, Manjula Padmanabhan weaves an unusual story of a woman taxi driver, US educated, independent minded and a breaker of stereotypes. She finds herself in a tangled situation when asked to dress like a male chauffeur for a wealthy client. This is Padmanabhan’s plot twist for highlighting issues of cross dressing, gendered public spaces, and assumptions about women. Maddy Sen‘s interior monologues, dry humour and racy conversations keep the reader turning the pages of this gripping novel and several contemporary social problems roll out over the bumpy roads that Maddy’s taxi travels. An eloquent witness to life in the city, this novel shows brutality as well as tenderness, indifference as well as care.'
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Needless to say, I am thrilled and grateful.
I got this news one week ago but have been sitting on it quietly, sharing only with my family, my publisher and a couple of friends, while I adjust to this new reality. Alas! I can no longer whine about being unloved by the Indian literary establishment! This is only the second award I have ever received and it’s the first one from an Indian source.
My family’s reaction: LOUD GROANS: Yikes! Does that mean we have to read it now?
Congrats. Was there any doubt about your abilities as a writer. I never thought so
Shabash.Obviously well deserved. Good on Malashri, the only judge with whom I'm acquainted . Hope this opens the eyes and brains of other juries