Book Talk with independent Indian journalist Neha Dixit! The Many Lives of Syeda X: The Story of an Unknown Indian
Save the date! On Monday April 6th, you are invited to meet with Neha Dixit, an independent Indian journalist and author based in New Delhi.
From 2:30-4:00 PM in the Rachel Carson College Red Room, join the Sociology Department together with the Center for South Asian Studies, Center for Labor and Community, and Sikh and Punjabi Studies, who will hear about Neha’s new book The Many Lives of Syeda X: The Story of an Unknown Indian (Footnote, 2025). The book would be of interest to urban studies and labor studies scholars, students and staff as well as, of course, those interested in South Asia and the Global South more generally.
Join the Sociology Department together with the Center for South Asian Studies, Center for Labor and Community, and Sikh and Punjabi Studies, in the Rachel Carson College Red Room, who will meet with Neha Dixit, an independent Indian journalist and author based in New Delhi . We’ll hear about her new book The Many Lives of Syeda X: The Story of an Unknown Indian (Footnote, 2025).
About The Many Lives of Syeda X: The Story of an Unknown Indian
What does the life of an ordinary working-class Indian look and feel like? In this book, the award-winning journalist Neha Dixit traces the story of one such faceless Indian woman, from the early 1990s to the present day. What emerges is a picture of a life lived under constant corrosive tension. Syeda X, a weaver left Benares for Delhi with her alcoholic husband and three small children in the aftermath of riots triggered by the demolition of the Babri Masjid. In Delhi, she settled into the life of a poor migrant, juggling multiple jobs a day — from trimming the loose threads of jeans to cooking namkeen, and from shelling almonds to making tea strainers. Syeda has done over 50 types of unskilled work in three decades, earning paltry sums in the process. And if she ever took leave, to nurse an illness or to attend a school PTA meeting, her job would be lost to another faceless migrant fighting to take her place.
Researched for close to a decade, in this book, we meet an unforgettable cast of characters: from a rickshaw driver in Chandni Chowk who ends up tragically dead in a terrorist blast to a slumlord, who grew ‘too big’ for his own good, and is shot by rival landlords. From a doctor who gets arrested for pre-natal sex determination to a gow rakshak whose daughter elopes with Syeda’s son. From corrupt policemen who delight in beating young Muslim men to a cheerful band of home-based working women who look out for each other.
In the end, things come to a grotesque full circle for Syeda. Her life is upturned for the umpteenth time as the Delhi riots of 2020 caused another cataclysmic displacement. But displacement, tragedy and hardship are something she is used to — being poor and Muslim and a woman. Written with deep insight, The Many Lives of Syeda X is a portal to a messy world hidden away from elite Indians. It is the story of untold millions and a searing account of urban life in New India.
Get Your Copy
Published in 2024 by Juggernaut Books in South Asia, in 2025 by Footnote, an imprint of Bonner Book UK worldwide excluding North America. The Many Lives of Syeda X: The Story of an Unknown Indian can be purchased from Footnote.
About Neha Dixit
Neha Dixit is an independent journalist and author based in New Delhi. She has covered politics, gender, and social justice for two decades. Most of her work is investigative, narrative and long-form. She reports for Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, Caravan, The Wire and other notable publications.
She has investigated and exposed a wide range of human rights violations including extrajudicial killings by police, hate crimes, human trafficking involving Sangh organisations, clinical trials on the marginalised by big pharma and sectarian majoritarian violence in South Asia. She has also written political profiles and looked at intersections of labour under majoritarian governments.
She has won over a dozen international and national journalism awards including the International Press Freedom Award 2019 from the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Chameli Devi Jain Award for Outstanding Woman Journalist 2017, Lorenzo Natali Prize for Journalism from the European Commission, 2011 among others. She has contributed to many non-fiction anthologies.
‘The Many Lives of Syeda X’ published her debut non-fiction book. It looks at the last 30 years of India through the eyes of a working-class, migrant Muslim woman in Delhi who becomes a part of the cheap female labour economy and takes up over 50 jobs in three decades without once getting paid a minimum wage. Researched for close to a decade, it is a portal to a messy world hidden away from elite Indians. It is the story of untold millions and a searing account of urban life in New India.
The book was selected as the book of the year 2024 by The Hindu and Deccan Herald. Neha won the Ramnath Goenka Sahitya Samman award and Kalinga Literary best debut award for this book. The book also received an Honorable Mention by the CG Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing in 2026.
Honourable Mention by CG Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing, 2026
Faced with a record number of high-quality submissions and a remarkable shortlist, the Jury would like to recognise another very close contender for the prize. An Honourable Mention goes to The Many Lives of Syeda X by Neha Dixit (Footnote Press, India), an examination of the life of an ordinary, working-class Muslim woman in modern India. Syeda’s story is told through her 50 different jobs across 30 years of constant corrosive tension. Her many challenges illustrate the universality of the human rights abuses that much of the world’s population face in their daily lives.