Sunday, April 12, 2009

Malgudi Coffee Shop

Extract:

Dressed in a sunshine yellow and burgundy langa davane, the traditional costume of young south Indian girls, Gouri glides gracefully around the Green Hotel coffee shop. Poised and confident, she is one of 11 young women trained to run the Malgudi coffee shop at the Green Hotel, Mysore. The Hotel is the brainchild of Dame Hilary Blume, founder of the Charities Advisory Trust in London. But Gouri's mother could hardly have dreamed that her daughter would enter such a place

To see this full story with its related links on the guardian.co.uk site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/apr/06/dalit-girls-waitress-caste-taboo