Reading Response: Climbing the Stairs By: Padma Venkatraman

In the book, Climbing the Stairs By: Padma Venkatraman has many aspects that create interest in the book to read. The main character of this book is a girl named Vidya. She wanted to go to college, but in that time World War II was going on where the British wanted to take over India. This problem made Vidya’s life full of problems. One of the reasons is because her father, who was a modern thinker, got beaten by the British police. The result of this misfortune Vidya’s father experienced affected Vidya because she and her brother were forced to live with her grandfather and their traditional family, since her father’s brain got damaged from the attack. While living in her grandfather’s house, she has to experience an environment, she never had experienced. Like, women had to live apart from men in the house and girls were meant to be married as soon as possible. The theme of this book is that treating each other equally won’t result a bad ending or choice.

            Additionally, the theme of the book, treating each other equally won’t result a bad ending or choice, is the theme of this book for many reasons. One of the reasons is because in the book they described how Vidya’s parents raised both her and her brother equally and that’s why Vidya didn’t feel like her parents loved her brother more because he is a boy. Another reason that was the theme of the book because Vidya’s parents also teaches them that women and men are equal and that the caste system is unfair. I also agree with one of the evidence the author put to portray the theme, which was about the caste system because an caste system was unfair to people before since it never helped anyone back then or now, in the present. Also the author showed evidence of how lowly people’s thoughts were with the difference of being a man and a women, like in the book the author described that how men would live above stairs, women would live below downstairs in Vidya’s grandfather’s house. That showed how judgmental the characters’ were in Vidya’s grandfather’s house, and how were not treated equally.

            Furthermore, the main character, Vidya and I have traits that are common. One trait we both have in common is that we are both caring. I think Vidya is caring because when her father got attacked, and her mom was worried, and she cared for her mom by not making her feel tensed anymore and also made her feel better, when she was also worried too. Another trait we have in common is that we are both curious. I think Vidya is curious because she really wanted to know about the war that was going on, and kept on asking questions to her friend, Kitta until up to the point she got to know about that the people once helped from her country (the British), later cheated on them.

In Conclusion, the theme really portrays this book, with giving a reader’s something to learn from it. The theme actually makes me realize how wrong I was of how would I used to think that treating each other’s equally didn’t really matter, but it actually does because if you don’t treat others equally it often doesn’t lead up to an good ending. The character, Vidya and I have many character traits in common that gets me to relate with the main character and understand her more better.