Book review: ‘What’s a Lemon Squeezer Doing in My Vagina’ is a harrowing tale of infertility treatment in India

“Every time I felt reduced. My faculties, experiences, actions, reduced, to a single all-hanging, all-determining question mark. Are you pregnant? If not, why not?” Rohini S Rajagopal’s What’s a Lemon Squeezer Doing in My Vagina (2021) captures the trials and tribulations of a married couple Rohini and Ranjeet and their five-year long struggle in an infertility clinic. It is a fictional depiction of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) that is driven by industrial production and consumer gratification. Rohini is an apt example of what a woman goes through, not just personally but also socially and medically in the harrowing journey of infertility treatment especially in the context of India where the roots of patriarchy are deeply entrenched and ensure their presence through various institutions such as family, kinship, marriage etc. As the title implies, her memoir has used words and anecdotes that make the reader uncomfortable, and take them to uncharted territories that many married couples who struggle with birth control aren’t familiar with. It’s not just Rohini’s self-deprecating humour that makes one root for her, it’s also her no-holds-barred descriptions that make one want to hold her hand as her losses mount and her dedication to the condition falters. Rohini describes her experience of not being able to conceive by stating how she felt as if, “I had been caught in the act of wrongdoing, as if I had to answer the same dishonourable deed? It was the staunch belief in my own shame. The shame I felt towards myself, my body and my reproductive system, which required a lengthy, convoluted and artificial intervention to have something as seemingly simple and ubiquitous as a baby.” Despite ART’s ostensible interference in the ontology of biological conception and parenting, we consider Rajagopal’s narrative to be a literary work that allows us to speculate on how biomedical practitioners and prospective parents strategically use the technology. While nursing hope, Rohini learned to keep track of her ovulation, endometrial thickness, embryo progress, and other parameters. In her memoir, she extensively uses medical terms like hysterosalpingogram (HSG)2 as they are crucial to the understanding of In vitro fertilisation (IVF) or Intrauterine Insemination (IUI). Through Rohini and Ranjith, the memoir attempts to illustrate how medicine, biology, and genetics have all advanced in recent years, making parenthood/motherhood even more permissible. It is no more a natural state, but rather a “project baby” that necessitates constant effort and optimization in today’s world. The author describes that IUI served as a sort of eye-opener to the path ahead while discussing the mechanisation of the entire process. She emphasises how crucial it is to let go of inhibitions, sense of modesty, and fears quickly when it comes to the most crucial aspect of fertility treatment. “…lying on your back, knees bent, legs wide open, while probes, catheters and lemon squeezers are thrust inside your vagina by professionals whose day job this is. What you need is the stance of a warrior, not the long-suffering bearing of a patient.” The ‘lemon squeezer’ in the title and the text alludes to the appearance of the speculum used to perform IVF. Her experiences with infertility treatment demonstrate that clinicians are incapable of addressing the social and cultural roots of their patients’ suffering due to the nature of their jobs. ARTs, therefore, reveal the perpetual battle for autonomy and the quest to derive meaning throughout the process. While people make urgent attempts to achieve motherhood/fatherhood and maintain control over the process of conception, there is also a need for something transcendental to legitimise the path chosen. The urge to exhaust all possible avenues for childbearing compels one to continuously question where the line should be drawn between what is ethically acceptable and what may still be deemed “natural” or “God’s will.” However, with ARTs, new alternatives appear often, necessitating a re-evaluation of previously rejected options. What is natural and what is acceptable are constantly re-signified in this interplay between control and what is transcendental. The text attempts to demonstrate that cultural structures frequently negotiate a woman’s option, and in these cases, when motherhood must inevitably conform to biological definition, what genuine choices do infertile women have. Thus, the memoir deconstructs the concept of motherhood and de-stigmatises female fertility while also delving into the various facets of infertility. However, it does not claim to oppose medical research, as it is medical science that ultimately provides them with happiness. The text proves to be an essential read as it advocates for setting up a set of laws to curb misuse of ART in India. Published by Penguin Random House India, What’s a Lemon Squeezer Doing in My Vagina is available on online and offline stores for Rs 399. Soumya Kashyap is a research scholar and Priyanka Tripathi is an associate professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Patna (India). They can be reached at soumyakashyap1994@gmail.com/ priyankatripathi@iitp.ac.in Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.