Lashes of Lightning

About the Book

Bijli Kandyal is an Indian Himalayan girl who has just returned home from gathering flowers to celebrate the last day of a spring festival. But after she arrives, she is horrified to find her polygamist father beating her mother. When she attempts to defend her mother, Bijli is beaten as well. The following day after she discloses the situation to a relative, Bijli and her mother are rescued by a family member and the girl is eventually taken to San Francisco by her maternal uncle, Gunanand, a radical, atheist engineer. While she is attending the University of California at Berkeley, Bijli’s uncle is killed by a drunk driver while crossing the street. One day when she finds some of his writings detailing social injustices, she decides to share them with her girlfriends, Maya, an African American undergraduate student majoring in South Asian studies and Indira, a Caucasian woman majoring in anthropology. As Gunanand’s stories are slowly unveiled, Bijli sets out on a vengeful journey that takes her back to her village to confront past wrongs. In this intriguing novella, an Indian Himalayan girl who escapes an abusive childhood to live in California eventually returns to her village to seek revenge.

About the Author

Anoop Chandola is an Indian American linguist-anthropologist (a U.S. citizen). He was born in an Uttarakhand Himalayan Brahmin family of India and inherited priestly profession. Though his father broke his ancestral polygamous tradition the family suffered the aftereffects of polygamy. He was educated at the universities of Allahabad and Lucknow. His last two degrees in linguistics include an M.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He has taught Indian literature, culture, and religion at several universities in India and the U.S.A., including Sardar Patel University, the M.S. University of Baroda, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Washington at Seattle, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He retired from the University of Arizona as Professor Emeritus of East Asian Studies. He has been a member of numerous professional associations, including the American Anthropological Association, the Association for Asian Studies, the Linguistic Society of America, and the Linguistic Society of India. Chandola has published numerous papers and sixteen books including four novels. His scholarly research covers linguistics, music, religion, and literature, including extensive interdisciplinary and theoretical analysis. He lives with his wife Sudha in Tucson and Kent, near Seattle. More details about him are available on Wikipedia. He can be contacted by his email: anoopchandola@gmail.com