Gurmehar Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, May 19

Delhi University girl Gurmehar Kaur has a story to tell and this time not by way of a series of flashcards or blog, but in the form of a book.Penguin Random House India will publish her book “Small Acts of Freedom” in January 2018, an announcement about which she made on social media today.Jalandhar-based Gurmehar (19) was in news recently for her campaign during the Ramjas College violence incident.In the link that she has shared on her Facebook page and Twitter, it is mentioned, “It is not the story you think it is. It is a personal work of non-fiction that tells the story of three generations of strong single women in the family.”“It’s a tale of three passionate women (her grandmother, her mother and herself) who have faced the world on their own terms. The book’s unusual narrative structure criss-crosses elegantly between the past and present, spanning 70 years from 1947 to 2017.From grandmother who came to India from Lahore after Partition to the whirlwind romance between her parents, from her father’s state funeral to her harrowing experiences since her days of student activism, Kaur’s book is about the fierceness of love, the power of family, and the little acts that beget big revolutions, say the publishers.Gurmehar has written, “I was eight when I read a whole book for the first time. It was Enid Blyton’s “Mr Pink-Whistles Gets a Laugh” and I fell in love with reading. So smitten I was with this new found world of stories that I started looking for stories around me hoping that maybe one day I would have my own to tell. It began with of little diaries with notes and essays and poems with silly rhyme schemes scribbled in them.”“Gurmehar is that rare creature that cannot be boxed into a single definition. With this book, she unravels every notion that anyone might have about her: the martyr’s daughter, the student activist, the online campaigner, the peace protester. She’s all of that, yes, but she’s so much more. And she’s got a heck of a story to tell. We cannot wait to publish her,” said Manasi Subramaniam, Senior Commissioning Editor, Penguin Random House India.“We are delighted to share Gurmehar’s unique and special voice with the world,” said Meru Gokhale, Editor-in-Chief, Literary Publishing, Penguin Random House India.