Who is this Indian women?
Where is her root?
Is it from rig veda or it is from sangam literature.
In rig veda there were 24 women poets . Ganapathi sastri said the number is only 12.
However, there is no doubt accepting swami vivekananda’s speech of Chicago,
Which proudly mentioned the women rishies of rig veda period.
In south India, the oldest sangam literature of tamil , we have 26 women poets .
This two faces are too little to compare due to cultural identity.
Hence I always have the doubt of the single face of the Indian women
Bharatha naari .. ideal indian woman .. six yard saree with matching blouse,
Long hair with fragrance flower, gold or pearl ornaments bangles, anklets,
Mangal sudra , red colourful sendoor in the forehead, what else..?
Deeply looking into this identities will take us to hindu women identity.
so iam leaving this INDIAN WOMEN IDENTITY IS WHAT?
TO U ALL and iam here to share my view of indian languages modern literature
especially women writers poem and the potrait of women in their poems.
History has many instances where women have broken the stereotypical notions of womanhood and taken to writing. Women poet saints like Sakhubai and Janabai in Marathi literature, Andal in Tamil, Mirabai in Rajasthan, Akka Mahadevi in Karnataka were legends in their lifetime. Later, writers like Mahadevi Verma in Hindi struck a forceful tone for the liberation of women in their writings. Lalithambika Antarjanam from Kerala and Ashapoorna Devi in Bengal broke caste barriers and exposed the entrenched patriarchy in these societies.
The words in indian languages show the male domination .
In south indian languages we don’t have masculine gender for widow, prostitute .
women writers cannot write or show their feelings directly. its not allowed by the language
scholars and society also. periyar E V Ramasamy nayackar’s dravidian movement is very
important to fight for the equal rights for the women in the society. gandhi isam, marxisam,
dalitisam , and all the movements idealogy affected womens thinking and writtings.
All these idealogies are become dump in practical life of women.
we all know about rajni tilak, Founder of the Centre for Dalit Alternative Media (CADAM)
and the Naional Dalit Women’s Foundation,
she married a CPI-ML activist despite knowing that comrades privileged their class struggle over caste, which they said was a superficial issue. They both decided to work together. But after marriage her husband didn’t like her independence of thought and her activism came to a halt,”
Like this there were innumerable real life incidents which were affected the women and that
real life experiences coming out very sharply in women’s writings.
The western idea of feminist movement and the african black women rights idealogy
took major role in women’s writings in the 85 – 90 onwards.
women should not do this, women should not write this, women must be like this..
etc etc of all dos and don’ts broken with the real experience and the women writers
used words as their axe to cut all the pushes around them.
Women started writing about labor rooms, kitchens, birth, menstruation, pots and pans and brooms and dusters and marched proudly challenging the mainstream patriarchy.
Motherhood is cherished by men and the pain of delivery is called the next birth or punar jenmam
to the mother. but the real experience of the delivery is written by a.vennilaa, tamil poet
my loud cry from the labor room
not only due to my delivery pain
but for my naked body too.
such experience was never be realised or written before. once the women started writting their
own experience it is very much realistic and something different to the society also.
One label that is easily attributed to women’s work is that they ‘only speak about women’ and are often perceived as ‘feminist’ and hence disrupting the established family structure and peace at home.
The most unacceptable women writers are those who are questioning every aspect of social order. The pillars of the community – marriage, motherhood, control of sexuality and traditions must be preserved for the interests of preserving the culture. Many sexist remarks are flung towards women who have ventured to write about women’s sexuality and their bodies.
when the tamil poet kutty revathy’s poem MY BREAST and the same title is given to her collection
of poems , it was seriously creticised by the critics and the male dominated society. Most writers and critics are male, and women found it very hard to establish their writtings . in some cases they really require the
god fathers.
Readers and critics treat similar literature from men and women writers differently. When Malayali writer Madhavi Kutty , in english she wrote in the name of kamla das wrote on lesbianism, she was severely criticized; when a male writer wrote on the same topic, he was applauded.
The hardest challenges for most women writers come from within their families and often from themselves too! Family compulsions, to be a ‘good’ daughter, mother, wife, etc. have locked her into the ‘good girl syndrome’ that the majority of women writers suffer from.
Marriage and family , the very strong institute in our culture. some feminist are dead against the marriage structure life. periyar EVR the famous rationalist thinker always insist that marriage is an agreement between a man and a woman. as long as both the parties are happy in their
agreement they can stay together, marriage is thats all.. . Iam very much respecting Periyar but I feel periyar also not able to realise the women’s status in the society, a woman inside the marriage is sometime better than a woman outside the marriage structure.
Marathi poet kavita mahajan poem Hunger is very sharp in this operation.
Yes Iam your slave master,
I want all these bonds
I voluntarily accept
the feeling of lost freedom
My chain is in your hand
you are exhibiting me flaunting me
and I too allow myself to be exhibited
Don’t ever speak of freeing me master
even out of extreme love for me…
outside there are innumerable chains, innumerable cages
innumerable whips, countless hands with stale food
waiting, master
let me be your slave..
kavita mahajan’s another poem Modest explains how women treat the other single women
who lived without the partner.
In women’s writings the use of Mythology is the best in indian literature. we know india is
famous for innumerable god and goddess, epics, folk stories of small gods etc.
In order to bridge the gap between urban and rural consciousness, between the past and the present, this trend which is very much visible in the post-modernist poetry scene . Mythic thoughts, in fact, are attempts to mediate the gaps between continuity and change, thereby authenticating the idea of ‘total poetry’.
Punjabi poet vanita’s poem “IAM NOT SHAKUNTALA” is the best example for this.
“if rings sanctify marriages
I refuse to play shakuntala
O Dushyant!
If one dares forget me flesh and bone
I just won’t let a ring revive
And kindle memories
If you need a ring to recall me,
Forget me for good, O Dushyant!
I’ll deliver Bharat
And for this delivery
I won’t go
Either to dismembered Marich Rishi
Or even to Kanva Pita!
It has a value-structure. It is a rediscovery of the past for the present, and an adaptation for the future.
The same poem motherhood is cherished.
This shakuntala is against dushyant not against her child Bharat.\
she is telling ,
But Bharat I definitely will deliver
And for him I’ll not trace out a ring
From a fish’s belly
To this I’ll prefer offering him
A fish home ocean father
And the mother earth.
using similar mythological situations, a broader dimension is given to the present-day chaotic condition in which humanity is living today. .
kamala das poem ‘ the dark one’ .. she wrote,
‘your body is my prison, krishna
i cannot see beyond it.” u can applied this lines with feminist point of view and also spiritual point of
view.
One individual’s experience just shift towards the larger reality
And become part of world women’s realisation .
Jyotsna milan’s hindi poem ‘being her back’ she wrote,
Half way down the road
She turned and looked back
There was no road no field
Neither the town nor those houses
Nor those people
No trance of anything
From where she began
As if someone
Behind her
Had carefully been erasing
The life she lived!
after reading this poem i have remembered the following lines of ‘Song of an African Women’:
I have only one request.
I do not ask for money
Although I have need of it,
I do not ask for meat . . .
I have only one request,
And all I ask is
That you remove
The road block
From my path.
women’s writing doesn’ t have
Any country, language or religious identity.
In kerala the suicide rate is very high compare to other states. at the same time
the percentage of educated people also high. why this problem in the society?
many families the husband is gone to mostly arab countries and leaving his
wife and children at kerala. this will be there in UP, bihar , tamil nadu and other states
also. the phychological problem of the women is not noticed by the society.
hence i wrote this poem
Dubai Husband
Are you searching the pearl
In the oil well of the ocean
Dear dubai husband
Are you disappointed?
Iam not your arab desert
To live with the summer rain
Which comes once in two years.
this issue of women is not new. women faces this loneliness long long back onwards. but
they cannot write or speak openly this.
Politics
——–
Kamala Das poem “an Introduction” is a polyphonic text.the opening statement ,
I don’t know politics’ has an ambiguous tone that comes from a woman’s marginalised position in society. The society does not expect a woman to deal in politics, she is only the victim of politics so that the names of those in power hold no content for her.
This may sounds odd to us. Sonia Gandhi, menaka Gandhi, priyanka, kanimozhi, mayawathi mamthaaji ,sushmaaji the long list of present politics
Personalities are in the power game. But just because they were all in the power seat Can we assure that all women in India got their rights and freedom ?
My poem criticized this women empowerement in politics!
,We want we want
Women rights we want
We want we want
Equal rights we want
We want we want
33% we want
to say all these we want
minimum qualifications
for the entrance exam
1)widow of the national neta
2)daughter of the leader
jana gana mana
bharatha mathaakki jay
India has world’s largest number of professionally qualified women.
* India has largest population of working women in the world.
* India has more number of doctors, surgeons, scientists, professors than the United States
but indian woman cannot enter into the holy places.
In western assam, Barpeta distirct has a vaisnavite satra imposed ban on entry to former prime minister indira gandhi, writer amrita pritam,
nabaneeta deb sen . In kerala Lord Ayyappa temple in sabarimala, right from 10 years till 50 years women are not allowed entry into the
temple. why? the reason was to presereve the ‘purity’ of the worship place becasue traditionally menstruating women considered ‘unlclean’.
in tamil language this is called ” theeddu” from this word theedu , the word theendamai arrived.
theendaamai means untouchablility.
I have remember one more incident regarding this issue. when the former prime minister Indira Gandhi fixed her appointment to meet kanchi sankarachaari. he agreed and he met her not in the usual place but the backyard that also nearer to the well.
because as per hindu sastra , kanchi sankaraachari cannot meet the widow directly. water should be there inbetween..
something like this nonsense excuses were given.
this issue is very cleverly given by poet kanimozhi.
Northern india due to ice cold
the pujaari can wear full coat-suit with shoes
if u cannot able to go to thirupathi
no problem
go to Tnagar temple and do the pooja
its difficult for u to follow 45 days fasting
that too no problem
do fasting only for 3 days
that will do for ayyappaa
hare rama temple
we have english man as priest
at indonesia temple
u can go inside with chappals
for lord ganesha
u can offer chicken briyaani
now we have law
that all caste people can go to the temple
but allover the world
our lord shiva
never allow women
on those days..
(its not exact translation, iam just summarised)
now Iam raising this question.
women > purity > worship place ..this issue is a women problem OR the social problem?
women organisations are fighting against this issue and women writers are writing this issue
So the male dominated society is still treat this issue as women issue.
I remember writer ambai’s comment on this.
Recently we have invited writer C S Lakshmi , we called her AMBAI in our intellectual forum meeting. she said some interesting facts on this issue. her short stories book a A KITCHEN IN THE
CORNER OF THE HOUSE was introduced by her writer male friend. he said in this book,
four short stories written on women issue and rest are experimental testing stories.
Ambai remarked Testing whom? if the women writes her issue it is labelled as women’s issue
but if the man writes the same issue it will become a social issue .
why the society is not ready to take this as genral, why they put this rubber stamp that these all are
women issues, women problems.
one reason for this is, the religious faith. if we started to find the roots of this custom, it will
attack the roots of many religions, many holy writtings and sastraas. we, women wrtiers also
partly responsible for this. we write about this problems only but we never think of the
roots of the problems,
we never asked who said this?
where it is written?
who gave this authority to some brains to reject my rights?
before ending my speech i would like to read one of my poem.
Locks and keys
——————-
I have lost my keys
The century old keys
Searching everywhere
Which key
For which lock?
No body asked
No body told
No body checked
Still
We used to walk
Thousands of years
With the punch of keys
Always in the waist.
Now it is scary
To walk with my waist
Without the keys.
I don’t remember
Who gave it?
I never tried
To open the locks
With any of my keys
Trying to recollect
The history of keys
My mother
Mothers mother
Mothers mothers mother
Grand grand mothers
All their keys
Together joined
With the keys
I got from my inlaws
Big and small
All the keys
One after one
Decorating my
Costly silver key chain
Oh no I have lost
Lost the key of my generation
Tell me
What shall I give to my daughter?
Tell me
Which key
I will handover to my daugher in law?
Somewhat
They should discover
Not the keys I have lost
But the way to
Break all the locks.
thank you all.
(seminar on 17/4/2011 at DAV college by Sakitya Sangithi, Marathi )
I
National highway
My dear daughter
Hey Raam..
