The day would crawl, the hours identified by the chores completed. A glance at the watch and her face would transform, fatigue replaced with a sparkle in her eyes that would reveal her hidden excitement. Barely concealing her smile, she would run up the cement stairs, taking care to furl her pallu to avoid it the rusted iron rods that protruded from the sides.
The sounds of chatter, peppered with giggles would greet her as she neared the terrace opening. Joyful shrieks of ‘namaste didi’ …two words that conveyed a plethora of emotions...happiness, excitement and more importantly… respect. The urgent shuffling of feet as the girls vied to sit closest to her, the tinkle of numerous anklets when the feet met the stone floor, eager eyes squinting in the sun reflected the unmasked admiration, and the fertile minds percolated by the manure of curiosity would be ready to explore.
Roshini (Baby) Thorat had been married into a rich Maratha family of the village, the aristocracy and her wedded name the biggest hindrance to her freedom. Perhaps realising the futility of being confronted the brick wall of marital life, Baby had relegated herself to being the quintessential daughter-in-law, her interests confined to the kitchen alcove.
But they say that the survival instinct takes over when the last breath is about to fizzle out, Baby started holding the adolescent girls’ youth wing meetings at four in the afternoon, discussing topics, breaking stereotypes, …It was the only time of the day when she would define and redefine the motives of her existence…the only space where she would be Baby-the individual... and not somebody’s wife or daughter-in-law. She could momentarily forget the various roles that had encroached upon her identity.
The mind takes one where the feet cannot, but the heart desires. During our long talks, Baby would talk about the freedom that she would have loved to taste…her studies that she had wanted to continue, her dreams of visiting Mumbai, the scent and sand of the beach that she would never visit. The simplicity of her wishes would shame me into a desperate silence. The little things that bordered on inconsequentiality in my life were a part of conscious imagination in hers.
My education was an obligation for me, a paid training for a money-minting subsistence…its worth confined to admission fees and mark-sheets. Baby’s heart ached to reach out to this inaccessible luxury that held the key to a treasure of knowledge that would enrich her existence.
Desires erupt in both the male and female hearts with the same intensity…the desire to learn, to experiment, to convey…the desire to live their life than lead it. Then why do women have to let go their desires for people they love the most. More importantly, why do they let go… “You and she are different”, my logical brain would scream out, the product of an urbanised ‘informed’ life. But her thoughts always surprised me.
In the youth wing meetings, Baby talked about women’s empowerment, their rights to carve their destiny guided by the force of education, their right to a choice in their marriage, awareness of the scalpel of caste that has gutted the society. Many a time the conviction with which thoughts invade your mind loses its fervour when the time comes for its reflection in reality. “Why am I made this way” she wept.” “Do I have a right to mouth words like stree vikas, when I let myself be led into a marriage, when the path to protest lay open to me….do I have the right to tell the girls to continue their education, when I myself didn’t want to.” The despair that echoed in her voice still resonates in the depths of my mind…Baby, a defeated warrior, unwilling to perish without a fight...
Were I and she different? Maybe we were…not because of our residential difference, not because of the morose sindoor that streaked the partition of her hair, not because the finesse of high school education that had not evaded me…but because my thoughts would have the opportunity to surpass into the realm of possibility, but her desires would remain confined to her thoughts, fenced in by the spikes of responsibility. Or maybe the strand of womanhood connected her life to mine…I would be someone’s wife or daughter-in-law too someday…responsibility’s curtain would cover my identity’s window as well…maybe I would be a part of two disconnected worlds too…
For urbanites inequality… deprivation…rights… are ‘issues’ prompting ‘discussion’. We can afford to talk about it, respond with agitated comments of the ‘wrongness’ of it all, and then let the waves of indifference wash over the sands of deliberation. For people like Baby, the luxury of apathy is not an option, because for her it does not end at a discussion…the ‘issue’ is her reality!
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