Speedpost (book)
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Speedpost is a book published in 1999 by Shobha De. It marks a very substantial change in De's writing style, from that of a liberated young woman to that of a conservative matron with conservative and traditional Indian morals when it comes to her children.
The book is a series of letters to her six children, either grown, or nearly so. The subjects that she approaches through the medium of letters include: growing pains and adolescent anxieties about love, sex and friendship; religion and God; the challenge of being a responsible parent, death, remembrance and family traditions, the place of career, sex and of values in the lives of her children.
In stark contrast to her earlier works, this book shows De to be conservative, traditional and quite prudish in her values with regards to her children as opposed to her earlier works where she seems to actively promote a liberal and mechanical secularity among young adults.
The book can be taken as typical of the change of perspective often found among older adults as they transition from "wild youngster" into a "conservative respectability" where they harshly criticize the very values that they actively promoted during their earlier years, as Shobha De does here.
| Shobha Dé |
| Socialite Evenings • Starry Nights • Shooting From the Hip • Sultry Days • Sisters • Small Betrayals • Second Thoughts • Selective Memory • Speedpost • Surviving Men • Strange Obsession • Snapshots • Spouse: The Truth About Marriage • Uncertain Liaisons • The Sexes • Swabhimaan • Stardust |
