Climbing the Stairs
By Padma Venkatraman
G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2008

Review by Sandhya Nankani
From Kahani Fall 2008



In British-occupied India of 1941, girls didn’t have many options. Fifteen-year-old Vidya is an exception. Her father, a progressive-minded freedom fighter, supports her dreams of going to college. When tragedy strikes her family, however, Vidya and her family move into an orthodox household where Vidya’s only solace is her grandfather’s forbidden library. In Climbing the Stairs (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2008), Padma Venkatraman gives us an absorbing historical novel about one young woman’s self-discovery amidst a whirlwind of social and political turmoil.