‘My book is about gender equality’

New Delhi: Her biographical work on Nargis and Sunil Dutt brought into fore many details about the actor couple, and now author Kishwar Desai has chosen to address issues like unwanted girl child, gender prejudice and bias and men-women equality in her first fictional account."My book `Witness the Night` deals with many issues but of course, the main one is to treat men and women equally, to respect the rights of women, and to bring up girl children with love and care," says Desai. The story revolves around 14-year-old Durga, found all alone in a sprawling farm house tucked away in a corner of Punjab, the sole suspect in the mass murder of 13 members of her family. Simran, a whisky-swigging, chain-smoking unmarried social worker from Delhi, is Durga`s only hope. As Simran tries to explore every corner of Jalandhar and its people, from an enigmatic tutor Harpreet and his disfigured wife to the picture perfect high-society Arminder and her superintendent husband Ramnath, she delves deeper and deeper into a cruel world where even the ties of family are meaningless. It isn`t long before she realizes that nothing is quite as it seems. "Durga was inspired by the stories of so many young girls who have been through the experience of being an unwanted girl child, and by all those women who have suffered from gender prejudice and bias," Desai, wife of House of Lords member Meghnad Desai, told reporters. According to her, to tackle these issues there should be a proper collection of data focussing only on the state of women in India - and we should be able to have a carefully targeted policy of allowing them access to healthcare, education and so on. "We have a very piecemeal policy right now - and that is taking far too long to show results. Women are treated much worse than minorities are in certain parts of the country - and till the sex ratio is stable we should try to ensure there is a complete protection of the human rights of girl children and women," she says. Fiction writing comes easier to Desai, whose next is a sequel to "Witness the Night" which is being turned into a book series, with Simran at the centre of it. "It`s much easier to write fiction, than non-fiction. In non-fiction you have to be very careful about not being subjective, not getting emotional and letting the story unfold only as it has been told to you - or according to the facts. "In fiction, though it may be inspired by facts or certain events, you have much more freedom. You can get into the heads of characters and enjoy the sheer liberty of self-expression! So your characters are free to say anything, go anywhere, do anything - there are no boundaries! I find writing fiction much easier," she says. PTI