KU UG SEM-III texts

KAKATIYA UNIVERSITY

UG SEMESTER-III- ENGLISH TEXTS

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UNIT1: GENDER EQUALITY

 

Achieving gender equality in India: what works, andwhat doesn’t Smriti Sharma, United Nations University

 

Discrimination against women and girls is a pervasive and long-running phenomenon that characterises Indian society at every level.

India’s progress towards gender equality, measured by its position on rankings such as the Gender Development Index has been disappointing, despite fairly rapid rates of economic growth.

In the past decade, while Indian GDP has grown by around 6%, there has been a large decline in female labour force participation from 34% to 27%. The male-female wage gap has been stagnant at 50% (a recent survey finds a 27% gender pay gap in white-collar jobs).

Crimes against women show an upward trend, in particular brutal crimes such as rapes, dowry deaths, and honour killings. These trends are disturbing as a natural prediction would be that with growth comes education and prosperity, and a possible decline in adherence to traditional institutions and socially prescribed gender roles that hold women back.

A preference for sons

Cultural institutions in India, particularly those of patrilineality (inheritance through male descendants) and patrilocality (married couples living with or near the husband’s parents), play a central role in perpetuating gender inequality and ideas about gender-appropriate behaviour.

A culturally ingrained parental preference for sons - emanating from their importance as caregivers for parents in old age - is linked to poorer consequences for daughters.

The dowry system, involving a cash or in-kind payment from the bride’s family to the groom’s at the time of marriage, is another institution that disempowers women. The incidence of dowry payment, which is often a substantial part of a household’s income, has been steadily rising over time across all regions and socioeconomic classes.

This often results in dowry-related violence against women by their husbands and in-laws if the dowry is considered insufficient or as a way to demand more payments.

These practices create incentives for parents not to have girl children or to invest less in girls’ health and education. Such parental preferences are reflected in increasingly masculine sex ratios in India. In 2011, there were 919 girls under age six per 1000 boys, despite sex determination being outlawed in India.

This reinforces the inferior status of Indian women and puts them at risk of violence in their marital households. According to the National Family and Health Survey of 2005-06, 37% of married women have been victims of physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their spouse.

Affirmative action

There is clearly a need for policy initiatives to empower women as gender disparities in India persist even against the backdrop of economic growth.

Current literature provides pointers from policy changes that have worked so far. One unique policy experiment in village-level governance that mandated one-third representation for women in positions of local leadership has shown promising results.

Evaluations of this affirmative action policy have found that in villages led by women, the preferences of female residents are better represented, and women are more confident in reporting crimes that earlier they may have considered too stigmatising to bring to attention.

Female leaders also serve as role models and raise educational and career aspirations for adolescent girls and their parents.

Behavioural studies find that while in the short run there is backlash by men as traditional gender roles are being challenged, the negative stereotype eventually disappears. This underscores the importance of sustained affirmative action as a way to reduce gender bias.

Another policy change aimed at equalising land inheritance rights between sons and daughters has been met with a more mixed response. While on the one hand, it led to an increase in educational attainment and age at marriage for daughters, on the other hand, it increased spousal conflict leading to more domestic violence.

Improvements in labour market prospects also have the potential to empower women. An influential randomisation study found that job recruiter visits to villages to provide information to young women led to positive effects on their labour market participation and enrolment in professional training.

This also led to an increase in age at marriage and childbearing, a drop in desired number of children, and an increase in school enrolment of younger girls not exposed to the programme.

Recent initiatives on training and recruiting young women from rural areas for factory-based jobs in cities provide economic independence and social autonomy that they were unaccustomed to in their parental homes.

Getting to parity

For India to maintain its position as a global growth leader, more concerted efforts at local and national levels, and by the private sector are needed to bring women to parity with men.

While increasing representation of women in the public spheres is important and can potentially be attained through some form of affirmative action, an attitudinal shift is essential for women to be considered as equal within their homes and in broader society.

Educating Indian children from an early age about the importance of gender equality could be a meaningful start in that direction.

This is the first of a series of articles in partnership with UNU-WIDER and Econ Films on responding to crises worldwide.

 

Click here : https://youtu.be/fiwriDBvsBY

 

They shut me up in Prose _ by Emily Dickinson

They shut me up in Prose—
As when a little Girl
They put me in the Closet—
Because they liked me “still”—

Still! Could themself have peeped—
And seen my Brain—go round—
They might as wise have lodged a Bird
For Treason—in the Pound—

Himself has but to will
And easy as a Star
Look down upon Captivity—
And laugh—No more have I—

“They shut me up in Prose –” is a rebellious poem posthumously published in Dickinson’s 1935 collection Unpublished Poems. It consists of three four-line stanzas. There is rhyme used in parts of the poem, but it is not consistent. This poem comments on social conventions that restricted Dickinson creatively, perhaps her use of Capitals, uses of spaces and dashes. Dickinson’s writing has been categorized as prose, a label which she finds restrictive.

The bird in the poem is personified because it “look[s]” and “laugh[s]” as a person is able to. Dickinson uses metaphor to draw a comparison between a bird that is caged for committing an impossible crime and a girl who is inanely blamed for her individuality.

The word “Girl” calls attention to the speaker’s gender and further suggests that sex has something to do with the poem’s theme of creative oppression. “Treason,” as a highly serious offense to one’s country, is a very politically charged word. The speaker could also feel like she is committing treason because she is different, treated like a traitor by the traditional people that surround her. By equating something as major as treason to a “little Girl” being creative, Dickinson indicates that the “they” mentioned feel threatened just by the prospect of a female writer with new ideas.

Though the beginning of the poem is dismal, Dickinson ends on the hopeful note of overcoming injustice. Like the bird described, the speaker is able to rise above her “Captivity” because she knows that power comes from within, therefore no one can ever stop her brain from going “round.” Like the bird’s need to fly, it is essential to the speaker’s nature to continue to write without inhibition, therefore the rules of style imposed by “they” cannot restrict her.

This poem’s tone is scornful—the bird laughs at its captors, Dickinson scoffs at them for thinking they could keep her “Still!”. They have not shut her up in prose, they have in fact only inflamed and inspired her, by trying to keep her captive, to write this very poem

Grade Saver

The speaker here describes a mysterious “They” as trying to limit her to writing in prose.  She compares this to when, as a child, she was put in the closet in an effort to keep her still and quiet. Perhaps they want Dickinson to write only letters, correspondence, not to try her hand at the male-dominated art of poetry.

She then scoffs at this idea—“Still!”—because if they had been able to see inside her mind while she was in there it would have been clear to them that they had not successfully quieted her at all. In fact, their attempt to imprison her was as foolish as imprisoning a bird for treason in the pound.

This bird has only but to will itself free and he becomes free, as “easy as a Star.” It is so easy that he can laugh at their foolishness. The speaker, just as easily, can will herself out of their captivity, because they cannot control her mind.

They liked her “still” because little girls were meant to be seen and not heard, to be quiet and docile, well-mannered and pretty. The implication here, if the speaker had to be contained in a closet, is that she was none of these things—she was, instead, rebellious. Her rebelliousness cannot be quashed with captivity, however. No matter how they try to contain her or imprison her, she, like a bird, “has but to will” and she can “Abolish” her captivity, for they cannot contain or quiet her mind, they cannot control what she thinks. In fact, the captivity they impose on her body actually frees her mind, revs it up—in the closet, her brain goes “round” at an even faster pace, we imagine.

The metaphor of the bird does not just emphasize her ability to withstand their imprisonment, but also her innocence, for surely a bird could not be guilty of treason, just as a little girl should not be considered guilty for her individuality.

 

UNIT2: GENDER ROLES

Dalit child bride to $112 million CEO: The wonder story of KalpanaSaroj _ by Rakhi Chakraborty

Being awarded the Padma Shree

Kalpana Saroj is described as the 'original slumdog millionaire', a compliment as backhanded as it is degrading. Born in poverty and subjected to inhuman abuse, she overcame impossible odds to become one of the most sought after entrepreneurs in the country. Today she is at the helm of a $112 million empire that is growing rapidly. How she did that is as heart breaking as it is faith affirming. The only lesson you need to understand from her journey, she insists, is that ivy league degrees and fancy MBAs are not what make an entrepreneur. Grit, perseverance and a superhuman ability to have faith in yourself does. Her story, in her words

Early life

 I was born in Vidarbha. My father was a constable and we used to live in the police quarters assigned to us. I had three sisters and two brothers. I was a bright student and loved school. In the quarters where we stayed, I and the other children would play with abandon. It is the adults who posed the problem. They expressed displeasure if I ever came over, scolded their children for playing with me and forbade them from visiting my home or accept any food I offered. This attitude, though hurtful, was unsurprising. It is the behaviour of the faculty at school that shocked me. They tried to make me sit apart from other students, constantly prevented me from participating in extracurricular activities and undermined any dreams I had for myself. It didn’t matter anyway as I was pulled out of school in class seven and married off.

Child Marriage

My father was not a very educated man, but courtesy his job in the law enforcement, he was emancipated in his views and wanted me to complete my education. But in the Dalit community where I grew up, child marriage was the norm. My father’s refusal was drowned out by the clamour and clangour of the extended family- people who placed little to no worth in the life of a little girl. My father was powerless against their united front. I was powerless.

Married Life

The kind of society where I grew up, it was a given that life post marriage would not be a bed of roses. I was mentally prepared for all the slavery that was expected of me. But even I couldn’t have foreseen the hell that was to come next. Image source I was a scrawny kid of twelve, responsible for all the cooking, cleaning, laundry etc. for a household of about ten people. But that wasn’t enough. They were a sadistic lot and I was the easiest scapegoat around. They would look for the slightest excuse- too much salt in food, house not scrubbed clean enough and so on- to hit me, brutally kicking, punching and thrashing. They starved me and heaped emotional and physical abuses on me. When my father came to see me six months later, he was horrified. He said he saw a walking corpse, not his daughter.

Walk of shame

 In my community, and most poverty stricken societies across the nation, girls are burdens to be cast off at marriage, never to be thought of again. When my father brought me back home, not a single eyebrow was raised at what I had been made to go through. What caused the hysterics was the ‘shame’ I was bringing upon my family, community and society at large by daring to return home a married girl. I was determined not to be a burden on my father. I applied at a local women’s constable recruitment camp, nursing school and even the military. But either my age or lack of education got me rejected. Forlorn, I picked up some tailoring skills and started sewing blouses at rupees ten apiece. But the levels of hate and taunts kept rising. My father gently suggested I go back to school, but I could not fathom putting up with the humiliation and vitriol coming my way every time I tried to leave home. People kept whispering that only if I killed myself would the dishonour that I had wrought upon my family be expunged. So I obliged.

A second chance

 Living is hard, but dying is easy. These were my last thoughts as I downed a bottle of poison. My aunt caught me in the act and rushed me to the local hospital. I was in a critical condition and doctors informed my parents that if I didn’t regain consciousness within twenty four hours then all hope was lost.  I don’t know how it is I didn’t die, given the quantity of poison I had had. But when I opened my eyes in the hospital room I was not the same person anymore. Gone was the naïve helpless girl the world had deemed too worthless to exist. I felt strong, recharged and empowered. I had been given a second chance at life and wasn’t going to waste it on self-pity for one more second.

A new life

 I convinced my parents to let me move to Mumbai, where I stayed with an uncle and committed to my tailoring gig full time. A little while later, due to bureaucratic shuffles, my father lost his job. I was the eldest daughter and only earning member of the family. I put down my savings as deposit and rented a small room at forty rupees a month. My siblings and parents joined me here. The space was cramped and money was tight, but we were together and that’s what mattered.

The tragedy that made me an entrepreneur

 As I mentioned, money was scarce. Amidst this, my youngest sister fell ill. We could not afford her treatment. We scrounged everywhere, but to no avail. She kept crying, “Didi save me. I don’t want to die.” But I could not help her. Her words are seared in my memory. That’s when I realized that life without money is useless and I was going to earn lots of it. I started working sixteen hours a day, a habit I still maintain.

Getting started

I went through various government schemes and applied for a loan (Mahatma Jyotibhai Phule scheme). With that small seed fund, I started a small furniture business where I sold cheap versions of high end furniture from Ulasnagar. I did not give up my tailoring gig either. Our circumstances gradually began to improve.  I learnt everything about being an entrepreneur from the ground up through this business- sourcing raw materials, the art of negotiating, identifying market trends and, above all, holding my own among a sea of crooks trying to take advantage of me. I also started a small NGO where we aggregated and distributed knowledge about the various government loans and schemes available to people like me. I did not want a single child, boy or girl, go through what had happened to me. I wanted to let them know that they could do wonderful things with their life if only they cared to find out how.

Seizing opportunities

 It took me two years to pay off my initial loan. Meanwhile I was on the lookout for other business opportunities and an interesting offer came my way. The proprietor of a litigation locked land need cash urgently. He offered to sell me his property for a pittance because the land was practically worthless to him. I ‘begged, borrowed and stole’ the funds to buy it and then threw myself into the ensuing legal torture that unfolded. The next two years I was in and out of the courts, trying to get my property cleared up. After that was successful I wanted to get the land developed, but had no resources for the same. So I took on a partner who agreed to invest if his share was sixty five per cent of the profit. Soon a building came up on that land. With my thriving furniture and real estate business, I felt life had come a full circle. But the best was yet to come.

The strange case of Kamani Tubes

Ramjibhai Kamani was a disciple of both Nehru and Gandhi, a pioneering entrepreneur in a newly independent India. After independence he came to Kurla and opened three companies- Kamani Tubes, Kamani Engineering and Kamani Metal. His ideas were firmly rooted in worker rights and their welfare. He had big visions for the country’s economic progress and wanted to be a key player in the nation’s development. All went well for him. But in 1987, not long after his death, dispute broke out among his sons. The Union at the time went to court to demand that the ownership be transferred to the workers since the owners were acting against the best interests of the company. At that time such changes were sweeping across countries like France, Germany and Japan. In India Kamani became the first company where the Supreme Court passed the ownership from the legal heirs to the Workers Union. But if there are going to be three thousand owners, who is going to do the actual work? Soon tussles and the inevitable ego clashes broke out. The union leaders had no vested interest in the company, they were just out to make a quick buck. Since this was the first time the rights of the workers had been, supposedly, upheld people assumed that Kamani industries was at the forefront of a revolution. Banks poured in with loans, extensions and credits. The government provided them with various funds and benefits. They had huge capital and no expertise with which to utilise it. From 1987 to 1997 the company kept limping along. Shutting it down was not an option. Since the servants were the masters, who was supposed to do the shutting down? Once the investors realized what was actually going on, they came down heavily. The Electricity and water supply was cut. Once IDBI surveyed the situation and realized that the workers had become defaulters, the court mandated that a new promoter be brought in. 140 litigation cases had been filed against the company. A debt of 116 crores had been incurred. Two unions were battling it out for supremacy. Of the three Kamani firms, two had already gone into liquidation. The third seemed set to go down the same way. That is when the workers came to me, entreating me to save their company and, thus, their livelihood. My flourishing NGO and my business acumen had earned me a decent reputation among certain circles. My knowledge was nil, but the thought of 566 starving families gave me pause. I have nothing to lose, I thought.

Battle

 In my first order of business I formed a core team of ten, each an expert in their respective fields. Then we hired some consultants and created a proposal on how to go about fixing the damage. When I took my proposal to the board (which comprised of several IDBI and bank representatives), they said they would give me the go ahead if I agreed to sit on the board and took charge of all liabilities. I agreed. They appointed me president. This was in 2000. From 2000 to 2006, we were just running in and out of courts. I realized that penalty taxes and interest were the main contributing factors of the 116 crore amount. I approached the then finance minister and pleaded with him to forgive the penalty and interest. “If the company goes into liquidation, then no one will benefit,” I told him. “This way at least the lenders can get their money back.” He held extensive talk with the banks. I feel proud to report what happened next. Not only were the penalty and interest amounts forgiven, they deducted 25 per cent from the principle amount as well. Now that the debt had been reduced to less than half the original sum, life got much easier. In 2006 I was appointed chairman of the company. The court transferred ownership of Kamanitubes to me. We were told to pay off the bank loans within seven years. We did it within one. We were instructed to clear the workers back wages within three years. We did it within three months. We gave out five crores and ninety lakhs, instead of the requisite five crores only. While we were paying off debts and clearing liability, it was imperative to focus on restarting manufacturing and getting the firm back on its feet. We started by replacing all the machinery which either had been stolen or fallen to disrepair. The union had also sold the land in Kurla, on which the factory operated, long before I came on board. In 2009 I shifted the factory to Wada, where I had bought a plot of seven acres.

Future

Ramji Bhai Kamani had started Kamani industries with a vision for what the newly minted nation of India would look like and the radical role companies like his would play in the nation’s growth. I share those dreams and will take this company forward in the way he envisioned it- on principles of justice, fair play and equality. I am in the process of acquiring the other two branches of the Kamani firm that had gone into liquidation- soon I will have reunited the empire that once was.

Advice

 Hard work is not overrated. It is fail proof. What you want- whatever it is- you shall get if you apply yourself wholeheartedly and work towards it with a single minded vision.

KITCHEN:   by  VIMALA

This kitchen: how wonderful, wafting aromas
How it makes mouths water,
Like an open shop of sweets
It breathes spices, incense from the pooja room
Wakes in the morning to the churning of butter,
Or vessels being scrubbed.
The earthen oven gets a fresh mud-wash
Decks herself for the burning.
From the small change in the box of spices and seasonings
We bought ourselves sweets,
Played house, played at being cooks,
With jaggery and lentils: it was a magic world
The kitchen ensnared my childhood
Remained a spell, a passion.
Wisps of childhood shadows lifted,
It’s no longer a playground.
I was taught ‘kitchenness’ here;
My shaping started here.
Mother, grandmother, all the mothers in the house
They say learned womanhood here.
Our kitchen now is a graveyard with corpses of all kinds,
Tins, dishes, sacks.
It hangs there in the smoke, clouds from damp firewood.
Fears, despair, silence lurking there
Mother floats like a spirit.
She herself looks like the morning kitchen
Her eyes ran out of tears long ago
Her hands are worn out with endless scrubbing.
Look, she doesn’t have hands anymore.
She looks like a ladle, a pan, a bowl:
A piece of kitchen bric-a-brac.
Sometimes she looks like a flaming oven,
Sometimes a tigress trapped.
Restless, she paces the kitchen floor, bangs pots and pans.
How easily they say, with the flick of a ladle
Her cooking gets done!
None comes this way, except to eat:
My mother is empress of kitchen,
But the name on pots and pans is my dad’s.
Fortunately, they said, I fell into a good kitchen:
Gas, grinder, sink, tiles and all.
I make cakes and puddings
Not old-fashioned things my mother does.
Even now the name on all utensils is my husband’s.
My kitchen wakes to the whirr and hiss
Of the grinder and cooker.
I move like a modern kitchen, a wound up toy.
My kitchen is like a workshop:
It’s like a butcher’s shop with its babble.
Washing endlessly what has already been washed.
Cooking and serving, cooking and serving,
There’s kitchen even my dreams:
The smell of spices even in jasmines.
Damn this kitchen.
Inhuman, it sucks our blood, robs us of hopes and dreams
A demon, a vulture, eating into us bit by bit all our lives.
Kitchen culture, kitchen talk, we’re reduced to cooks and maids..
Let’s smash these kitchens for making ladle-wielding our duty
No more names on kitchenware
Let’s uproot these separate stoves.
Our children are about to enter these lonely kitchens:
Come, for their sake,
Let’s demolish these kitchens now.

 

The Poem ‘Kitchen’ is a feministic  poem written by Vimla in telugu. It is translated into English by BBVL Narayana rao.

The poem is written in the point of view of housewives sufferings in the kitchen and their household responsibilities. They have been confined and imprisoned in the kitchen for ages. The poet brings out the plight of women in ordinary homes in India.   The poet is not talking just for herself but for women community.

The poet recalls her childhood association with the kitchen.  It was a mouth-watering treasury, filled with a sharp, bitter smell and decorated with well telugu version of the poem వంటిల్లుwashed utensils, pans and tins.

In stanza 2 “we saved secret money...” the poet used first person plural ‘we’  to apply this phenomena to all the girls in India. They save their money in seasoning box , this  is more common in every household in India. When the girl has grown up the kitchen has no longer playground but a training centre in which girls are trained at cooking variety of recipes.

The poet calls kitchen a mortuary and her mother a ghost as all the pans, tins, gunny bags crowd like corpses that hang amid clouds of smoke. The poet’s mother sometimes glows like a blazing furnace, works restless and at a great pace in a caged kitchen.  The writer laments that no one in the family visits the kitchen except to eat and expresses her anguish for not giving due recognition to their work. Though her mother was a queen of the kitchen, her father’s name was engraved on the pots. The same thing has been repeated in her case also.

The writer shows the change in the kitchen gadgets and compares her modern recipe with mother’s old fashioned snacks. She calls the women folk to remove the names engraved on pots and tins and destroy the lonely kitchens.

At last the writer fervently appeals to establish a new kitchen which was shared equally by all the members of the family and warns not to step solitary into  kitchen

click here to readtelugu version of the poem kitchen:వంటిల్లు https://chaibisket.com/telugu-poems-about-indian-women-by-vimala-garu-that-will-melt-your-heart/

 

UNIT3: ENDING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

 

What is my name?  By P.Satyavathi.

A young woman, before being a housewife. A woman, educated and cultured, and intelligent, and capable, quick-witted, with a sense of humour and elegance.

Falling for her beauty and intelligence, as also the dowry which her father offered, a young man tied the three sacred knots around her neck, made her the housewife to a household and said to her, 'Look, ammadu, this is your home.' Then the housewife immediately pulled the end of her sari and tucked it in at the waist and swabbed the entire house and decorated. The floor with muggulu designs. The young man promptly praised her work. 'You are dexterous at swabbing the floor — even more dexterous in drawing the muggulu. Sabash, keep it up.' He said it in English, giving her a pat on the shoulder in appreciation. Overjoyed, the housewife began living with swabbing as the chief mission in her life. She scrubbed the house spotlessly clean at all times and beautifully decorated it with multi-coloured designs. That's how her life went on, with a sumptuous and ceaseless supply of swabbing cloths and muggu baskets.

But one day while scrubbing the floor, the housewife suddenly asked herself, 'What is my name?' The query shook her up. Leaving the mopping cloth and the muggu basket there itself, she stood near the window scratching her head, lost in thoughts. 'What is myname — what is my name?' The house across the road carried a name-board, Mrs M Suhasini, M.A., Ph.D., Principal, 'X' College. Yes, she too had a name as her neighbour did — 'How could I forget like that? In my scrubbing zeal I have forgotten my name — what shall I donow?' The housewife was perturbed. Her mind became totally restless. Somehow she finished her daubing for the day.

Meanwhile, the maidservant arrived. Hoping at least she would remember, the housewife asked her, 'Look, ammayi, do you know my name?'

'What is it, amma?' said the girl. 'What do we have to do with names of mistresses?'You are only a mistress to us — the mistress of such and such a white-storeyed house, ground floor means you.' '

'Yes, true, of course, how can you know, poor thing?' thought the housewife.

The children came home from school for lunch in the afternoon. 'At least the childrenmight remember my name' — the housewife hoped.

'Look here, children, do you know my name?' she asked.

They were taken aback.

'You are amma — your name is amma only — ever since we were born we have known only this, the letters that come are only in father's name — because everyone calls him by his name we know his name — you never told us your name — you don't even get letters addressed to your name,' the children said plainly. 'Yes, who will write letters to me?'Father and mother are there but they only make phone calls once in a month or two. Even my sisters are immersed with swabbing their houses. Even if they met me in some marriage or kumkum ceremony, they chatted away their time talking about new muggulu or new dishes to cook, but no letters!' The housewife was disappointed and grew more restless — the urge to know her own name somehow or the other grew stronger in her.

Now a neighbour came to invite her to a kumkum ceremony. The housewife asked her neighbour hoping she at least would remember her name. Giggling, the lady said, 'Somehow or other I haven't asked your name nor have you told me. Right -hand side, white storeyed - house or there she is, that pharmaceutical company manager's wife, if not that, that fair and tall lady, that’s how we refer to you, that's all.' That's all that the other housewife could say.

It’s no use. What can even my children's friends say — they know me only as Kamala's mother or some aunty, now my respected husband — is the only hope — if anyone remembers it, it is only he.

During the night meal, she asked him, 'Look here, I have forgotten my name — if you remember it, will you please tell me?'

The respected husband burst out laughing and said, 'What is it, dear, never has it happened before, you are talking about your name today. Ever since we were married I have got used to calling you only as yemoi. You too never told me not to address you that way because you have a name of your own — what's happened now — Everyone calls you MrsMurthy, don't they?’

‘Not Mrs Murthy, I want my own name — what shall I do now?' she said in anguish.

'What's there, you choose a new name, some name or other,' the husband advised.

‘Very nice — your name is Satyanarayana Murthy; will you keep quiet if I ask you tochange your name to Siva Rao or Sundara Rao? I want my name only,' she said.

'It's all right, you are an educated woman — your name must be on the certificates — don't you have that much common sense — go and find out,' he advised her .

The housewife searched frantically for her certificates in the almirah — pattu saris, chiffon saris, handloom saris, voile saris, matching blouses, petticoats, bangles, beads, pearls, pins, kumkumbarinas, silver plates, silver containers to keep sandalwood paste, ornaments all things arranged in an orderly fashion. Nowhere could she find her certificates. Yes — after marriage she had never bothered to carry those certificates here.

'Yes — I haven't brought them here — I shall go to my place, search for my certificates and enquire about my name, and return in a couple of days.' She asked for her husband's permission. 'Very nice! Must you go just for your name or what? If you go, who will scrub the house these two days?' said her lord. Yes, that was true — because she scrubbed better than the others. She had not allowed anyone else to do that job all these days. Everyone was busy with their own respective duties. He had his office — poor things, the children had their studies to take care of. Why should they bother about this chore, and she had been doing it all along — they just didn't know how to do it, of course.

But still, how to live without knowing one's name? It was all right all these days since the question had not occurred to her; now it was really hard to live without a name.

'Just for two days you manage somehow or other — until and unless I go and get my name, I shall find it difficult to live,' she pleaded with her husband and managed to get out of the house.

'Why, dear daughter, have you come so suddenly? Are your children and husband all right? Why have you come alone?'

Behind affectionate enquiries of the father and the mother there was a strain of suspicion. Recollecting immediately the purpose of her visit, the housewife asked her mother most pitifully, 'Amma, tell me, what is my name?'

'What is it amma, you are our elder daughter. We gave you education up to B.A. and got you married with fifty thousand rupees as dowry. We took care of your two deliveries— each time we alone bore the expenses of the maternity home. You have two children — your husband has a good job — a very nice person, too — your children are well-mannered.'

'It's not my history, amma — it's my name I want. At least tell me where my certificates are.'

'I don't know, child. Recently we cleaned out the almirah of old papers and files and arranged some glassware in their place. Some important files we kept in the attic —we shall search for them tomorrow. Now what is the hurry, don't worry about them — take a good bath and have your meal, child,' said the housewife's mother.

The housewife took a good bath and ate her meal, but she could not sleep. Whilescrubbing the house, humming happily, joyously, and making muggulu, she had never thoughtthat she would have to face so many difficulties like this by forgetting her own name.

Dawn broke, but the search for the certificates among the files in the attic had not ended. Now the wife asked everyone she met — she asked the trees — the anthills — the pond — the school where she had studied — the college. After all the shouting and the wailing, she met a friend — and succeeded in recovering her name.

That friend was also like her — married, and a housewife like her, but she had not made swabbing the sole purpose of her life; scrubbing was only a part of her life; she remembered her name and the names of her friends. This particular friend recognized our housewife.

'Sarada! My dear Sarada!' she shouted and embraced her. The housewife felt like a person — totally parched and dried up, about to die of thirst — getting a drink of cool water from the new earthen kooja poured into her mouth with a spoon and given thus a new life. The friend did indeed give her a new life — 'You are Sarada. You came first in our school in the tenth class. You came first in the music competition conducted by the college. You used to paint good pictures too. We were ten friends altogether — I meet all of them some time or other. We write letters to each other. Only you have gone out of our reach! Tell me whyare you living incognito?' her friend confronted her.

 'Yes, Pramila — what you say is true. Of course I'm Sarada — until you said it I could not remember it — all the shelves of my mind were taken up with only one thing — how well I can scrub the floors. I remembered nothing else. Had I not met you, I would have gone mad,' said the housewife named Sarada.

Sarada returned home, climbed the attic and fished out her certificates, the pictures she had drawn — old albums, everything she succeeded in getting out. She also searched further and managed to find the prizes she had received in school and college.

Overjoyed, she returned home.

'You have not been here — look at the state of the house — it's like a choultry. Oh what a relief you are here, now it is like a festival for us,' said Sarada's husband.

'Just scrubbing the floor does not make a festival. By the way, from now onwards don't call me yemoi geemoi. My name is Sarada — call me Sarada, understood?

Having said that, she went inside, humming joyously.

Sarada who had always cared so much for discipline, keeping an eye on every corner, checking if there was dust, making sure things were properly arranged each in its correct and respective order, now sat on the sofa which had not been dusted for the last two days. She sat there showing the children an album of her paintings that she had brought for them.

By P.Satyavathi (Translated by VadrewuVijayalaxmi and Ranga Rao)

 

About author:

Smt P. Satyavathi is one of those writers who have brought feminism to the peak in Telugu literature. Though she is a retired English lecturer, she has great understanding of the Telugu accent and the idiom of the respective regions. She is adept in portraying human experience universally. The technique of appealing to the readers by weaving the story wonderfully with a philosophical touch and theological aspect is her forte. She has published four anthologies of short stories, five novels and a collection of essays. She has won a number of prestigious awards.

This story “What Is My Name” is originally published as “Illalakagaane Pandagouna” in Telugu in 1990 and has been translated into almost all the south Indian languages and Hindi .

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Voice of the unwanted girl:  by Sujatha Bhatt.
Mother, I am the one You sent away When the Doctor told you I would be A girl-in the end they had to Give me an injection to kill me. Before I died I heard, The traffic rushing outside, the monsoon Slush, The wind sulking through Your beloved Mumbai- I could have clutched the neon blue.

No one wanted- No one wanted To touch me – accept later in the autopsy room When they knew my mouth would not search For anything – and my head could be measured. And band and cut apart. I looked like a sliced pomegranate. The fruit you never touched. Mother, I am the one you sent away. When the doctor told you I would be a girl – your second girl. Afterwards, as soon as you could You put on your grass – green saree- The orange stems of the parjatak blossoms glistened in your hair.

Afterwards Everyone smiled. But now I ask you To look for me, mother, Look for me because I won’t not come to you in your dreams. Look for me, mother, look Because I won’t become a flower I won’t turn into a butterfly. And I am not a part of anyone’s song.

Look, mother, Look for the place where you have sent me. Look for the unspeakable. For the place that can never be described. Look for me, mother, because. This is what you have done. Look for me, mother, because This is not ‘God’s will.’ Look for me, mother Because I smell of formaldehyde- I smell of formaldehyde And still, I wish you would look For me, mother.

Summary

Sujata Bhatt is one of the finest living poets. In this poem, she has voiced her concern about the gender-bias. In our society girls are treated as inferior to boys. The birth of a girl is considered a misfortune. The technique that helps to determine the sex of the unborn child is used against the girl child. If the expected baby is a girl, it is destroyed. That is why, the difference between the numbers of boys and girls is widening day-by-day.

The speaker in the poem is an unwanted girl who was destroyed before she was born. She is speaking to her mother. The girl tells her mother how she destroyed her. The doctors told her that the baby would be a girl. She put on her green sari and went to hospital to have the child destroyed because the girl was unwanted. The mother already had one daughter. The doctors gave an injection to kill the girl. The mother did not even care to look at the girl. After the girl was destroyed everyone was happy.

The murdered girl child asks her to look for her in vain because she was lost forever. She will not grow up into a beautiful girl to be admired by someone. She tells her mother that she has acted against the will of God. God wanted her to live and grow up naturally.

Meaning of the 1^st Stanza: The voice of the unwanted girl is addressed to the mother. The voice of the unwanted girl questions the mother’s conscience because she did not object female infanticide. When the doctor told the pregnant mother that a girl child would be born to her, she instructed the doctor to destroy the female child in the womb. The infant was killed with the help of injection. This is the pathetic voice of an unborn girl which haunts the imagination. This is a living story in the form of poem. This is the incident of Mumbai where there was heavy traffic and the monsoon set in. The wind is sulking through Mumbai. The poet realised these things and presented it in her poem.

Meaning of the 2^nd Stanza: In an autopsy, room, the medical examination of – a dead person is carried out to discover the cause of death. In the autopsy room, the unborn child in the womb was examined. The doctor knew that the mouth of the unborn child would not search for anything and her head would be measured and cut apart. No one wanted to touch the unborn girl. The girl says further that she looks like a sliced pomegranate. This fruit was never touched by you. She addresses her mother and says that she is the one she killed her. When the doctor told her that she was going to bear a girl child. This is the second girl child. Afterwards as soon as she put on her grass green sari, the orange stems parijatak blossoms and they are glistening to her hair. This tragedy was happened when the doctor told the mother that her second child would be a girl.

Meaning of the 3^rd Stanza: Everyone was smiling. But now she asks her mother to look for her. She must look for her because she would not come to her in her dreams. She again tells her mother to look for the girl child because she would not become a flower and she would not turn into a butterfly. And she is not a part of anyone’s songs. The unwanted girl goes on lamenting the cruel practice of female foeticide. The unborn girl child was killed not in accordance with Divine Will but because of social constraints.

Meaning of the 4^th stanza: The unborn female child once again tells her mother to look for her and look for the place she has sent her. This unspeakable child must be looked for. She looks for the place that can never be described.
She addresses her mother and look for what she had done. This thing has been done without the disposal and will of God. The unborn girl was like a gas with no colour and a strong smell, used mixed with water to preserve things in the laboratory. The girl wishes to have a look on her and her sin. She again and again tells her to realise her great mistakes as well as a great crime

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