<p><strong style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1); color: rgba(15, 17, 17, 1)">About the Book</strong></p><p><strong style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1); color: rgba(15, 17, 17, 1)">A MAID IN THE CITY, A RICE FARMER IN HER VILLAGE, RACONTEUR, SURVIVOR-KARNO'S DAUGHTER IS THE LIFE STORY OF A REMARKABLE WOMAN.</strong></p><p><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1); color: rgba(15, 17, 17, 1)">This is a biography of Buttermilk, the author's maid in Calcutta. She wishes to remain anonymous; Buttermilk is one of her nicknames.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1); color: rgba(15, 17, 17, 1)">Her life straddles the city, the village and the suburbs. It brims with stories of betrayal and devastation, but also with unexpected aesthetics and love in unlikely places.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1); color: rgba(15, 17, 17, 1)">This story is a weave of many threads: her family across multiple generations, her city work and her struggle as a rice farmer. We follow her across five decades as she forges a life with creativity and grit, and one antenna permanently tuned to the land. We witness her tackle brutal pressure and yet remain free of callus.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1); color: rgba(15, 17, 17, 1)">With wit and spirit, Buttermilk lives an uproarious trapeze act, without a safety net from god or country. But for how long?</span></p><p></p><p><strong style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1); color: rgba(15, 17, 17, 1)">About the Author</strong></p><p><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1); color: rgba(15, 17, 17, 1)">Rimli Sengupta came to writing after a half-life in computer science academia. She has written two books in&nbsp;</span><em style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1); color: rgba(15, 17, 17, 1)">Bengali, E-janala</em><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1); color: rgba(15, 17, 17, 1)">&nbsp;(2009) and&nbsp;</span><em style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1); color: rgba(15, 17, 17, 1)">Rimil-36</em><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1); color: rgba(15, 17, 17, 1)">&nbsp;(2011), and a work of translation from Bengali,&nbsp;</span><em style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1); color: rgba(15, 17, 17, 1)">Indonesia: Travels with Tagore</em><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1); color: rgba(15, 17, 17, 1)">&nbsp;(2017). Her short fiction has appeared in Civil Lines and the Indian Quarterly. She is the author of&nbsp;</span><em style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1); color: rgba(15, 17, 17, 1)">Karno's Daughter: The Lives of an Indian Maid</em><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1); color: rgba(15, 17, 17, 1)">&nbsp;(Context, 2018) and&nbsp;</span><em style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1); color: rgba(15, 17, 17, 1)">A Lost People's Archive: A Novel</em><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1); color: rgba(15, 17, 17, 1)">&nbsp;(Aleph, 2023).</span></p>