Off the Beaten Track - The Story of My Unconventional Life
By (Author) Saeeda Bano
By (author) Shahana Raza
Penguin Random House India
Penguin
27th April 2022
17th May 2022
India
Professional and Scholarly
Non Fiction
Biography and non-fiction prose
Gender studies: women and girls
891.439871
Hardback
280
Width 130mm, Height 220mm, Spine 40mm
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 Bhopalthe only Indian state to be ruled by women for four successive generationsher determination, independence, and frankness provide a unique and crucial disruption in Indias understanding of the past. Translated from Urdu by Banos granddaughter, Off the Beaten Track is a frank and brave memoir about the remarkable life of a single woman in mid-twentieth-century India.
Saeeda Bano (1914-2001) was the first woman radio newscaster in India. Shahana Raza is Saeeda Bano's granddaughter. She has a master's in film and video production and has worked in television, radio, and other print media. She currently lives in Dubai.