Amitava Kumar about his mother

In Indian Express "When I was a child, hanging in our family’s drawing room was a black and white studio photograph. It showed my young mother with her BA degree in Hindi literature from Patna Women’s College. On a small table next to her, the photographer had placed Ma’s gold medal. My mother was the daughter of a policeman; two of her brothers were in the prison bureaucracy. She didn’t grow up in a literary milieu but she wanted to be a writer and a Hindi scholar; I believe she never overcame the bitterness of having her dreams thwarted by marriage and motherhood. As a result, rightly or wrongly, I felt that by writing books I was living her dream. "