ARPITA NATHKARTIKEYA RAMANATHAN

MALAIYUR,Dindigul: Malaiyur is a village that is separated fromthe rest of the world by a virtuallyimpenetrable rocky pathway thatruns almost four kilometres, all of it uphill. Due to this isolation thesociety has developed its ownnorms that seem peculiar to anoutsider. A grossly patriarchalsociety, Malaiyur’s women are atthe receiving end of customs thatleave them at the lowest pit of society’s hierarchy.

The village has designated alake as sacred, with major culturaland medicinal significance in thelives of the villagers. It is said tohave powers to cure snake venom.Poyiyal, whose name ironically issynonymous with honesty, claimsthat around twenty years ago hewas bitten by a snake. But after drinking water from the sacredlake, he recovered.

“A lot of people beyond this vil-

lage also believe in the powers of 

the lake. Only a few days ago peo- ple from Madurai came to fetch the

water to cure a man who was bitten

 by a snake”, said Poyiyal.The lake has other importance as

well. The village guardian Ayanadtemple is located in the vicinity of the lake, as is the temple of thetree god Kanimar. However,women who have attained pubertyare prohibited from venturing pastthe rock that marks the trail to thelake. If this is done deliberately, atoken fine is imposed upon the

 perpetrator. This custom has beenso stringent since ages that a mythhas come about; it is believed thatwomen who enter the lake’s realmdie.

“Once a girl becomes a womanshe cannot go past the rock thatguards the lake or death shall

  befall the woman. Everyone believes this and no one [woman]has ventured to that area fearingtheir lives”, said Perumatta.

The attainment of puberty for ayoung girl is the beginning of avery controlled life. Menstruationand womanhood is highly disre-garded and denies them full par-ticipation of society. The most

 basic, though the most important,  being restriction into the villagetemple.

“After a girl gets her period sheis not allowed to go to the villagetemple. We pray to the idols thatreside under the trees,” continuesPerumatta.

The idols are conveniently situ-ated where the village starts,which is a few miles off, unlikethe village temple situated in themiddle of the village compound isthe place of worship for the men.The path leading into the village

  breaks into two lanes, one of which is designated for onlywomen to use.

A woman’s menstruation is seenas unholy and a polluted biologi-cal cycle that taints processes of daily life. Every time a womanhas her periods, she is subjected toincredible amounts of discrimina-tion. For example, a woman hav-

ing her periods is confined to asmall 4 x 2.5 feet cell outside thehouse. Even if she does come outof her ‘room’, she cannot enter thehouse or cook. Other femalemembers of the house are to takeup the task or in the absence of other female members; the male isto do the cooking.

“If a woman, while working inthe field, has her periods, she mustimmediately leave the work andnot tell anyone. She should go toher cell or, it is said that she willdie” said Paichiamma.

The show of reverence for a manis a must in Malaiyur; everytimean elderly man crosses paths withthe women, the latter must stand

up to show respect, includingwomen older to the man himself.

The marriageable age of thesewomen range anything fromtwelve to twenty depending uponthe caste and economic status of the girls’fa mily. School educationfor the girl child is not given muchthought, even with the school sit-uated within the village com-

 pound.Sangeetha, who got married at

the age of thirteen, has had twochildren by the age of fifteen.Talking of gender equality whilecarefully attending to her sonwhilst the daughter cries, shespeaks of sending her children toschool, and cites no problems of 

an early marriage. According toher, love marriages do occur in thevillage but, pre-marital sex is nottolerated.

Citing a case she talks of a girlwho fell in love with a man of thesame village, but was ostracizedas she was found to be pregnant.However, the life of the manremained unchanged.

Behind the scenic beauty of a picturesque village on the hill liesthe story of man’s patriarchycarefully formed with myths andmores, cemented through ages.The society is a picture of a sub-mission so great that women can-not challenge, leave alone break from the shackles of subservience.

COVERING DEPRIVATION

MAHITHI PILLAY

KANJIRANKAD, WAYANAD:Inthe last 24 years that she has spentat the Priyadarshini tea estate inthe Wayanad district of Kerala,Mara has been through all thehighs and lows that can be experi-enced onsite at a government proj-ect. A member of the Paniya tribe,native to Wayanad, Mara movedfrom Payyampalli to this estatewhen it was started as a tribalrehabilitation project in 1986, rep-resenting one of the 109 house-holds that also made the move.The number of families has nowrisen to 200.

The move has been advanta-

geous for her to an extent.Employed for picking tea leavesand clearing the land of other leaves and shrubs, Mara recountsthat she has received employmentthroughout the year, from the timeof the inception of the estate. Theconveniences, according to her,are many – medical facilities, likehelp at the time of pregnancy, ayearly bonus as per their perform-ance, paid leave as per their monthly attendance and 14 daysyearly leave as per the public hol-iday calendar. She tells that the30-45 workers from outside theestate don’t receive much in com-

  parison, and after five years of employment sometimes earn only

half of what the tribals do.Though her kids are yet too

young for it, most of the kids onthe estate are sent to private hos-tels or government residentialschools in the district. The gov-ernment bears the cost of educa-tion, also supplying the childrenwith uniforms and other materialsevery June. On the estate itself,there is a balwadi for 3-6 year oldchildren.

Though this might seem like anideal rehabilitation project, theconditions, in fact, are far fromideal almost always. The factoryat the tea estate has remainedclosed for the past 2-3 years, andconsequentially, the residents suf-

fered a lot of problems. Mararecounts that they received nohelp from anyone at that point of time, and had to come up withingenious ways to survive.

One such way was for the mento venture out of the estate insearch of work, but the womenhave to perform coolie work inside it. This was to ensure thatthey were not kicked out of theestate on the grounds of non-per-formance. No matter how hard thesituation, they couldn’t afford toleave the security of this arrange-ment, guided by the comfort of their bare necessities being pro-vided for. This poignant examplesomehow supports the commonnotion that such rehabilitation

 projects make the tribals depend-ent on government supportinstead of empowering them.

Mara tells us of a time when theunion people were really good,

  but adds that they were not of much help after the factory closeddown. In today’s era of politicalopportunism, the tribals are left togroup under whichever union theycan find.

Resisting the authorities alwaysdoesn’t help, though. In the skir-mishes that happened over non-

 payment of bonuses, many peoplewere thrown out of the estate or not given employment. In an inci-dent 10 years ago, she says, any-one who complained was thrownout. Many people also have had tomove out because of no work.

Though she’s neither heard of   NREGS nor of the plans for tourism at the estate, she nods inagreement when asked about her opinion of the plans. Like everyother detail of her life, she acceptsthis detail too with quiet fatalism.

Trapped in the estate

Mara and her family, residents of the Priyadarshini Tea Estate 

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Breaking out of taboosPOOJATHAKAR 

HARSANI, Barmer: Out of the244 students studying from classsix to twelve in the StateSecondary School in Harsani,only 18 are girls. School teacher Laduram Kanhai claims proudlythat the school is the first amongthe neighbourhood villageschools to have as many as 18girl students. Such is theabysmal condition of girl childeducation in villages in theBarmer district.

Harsani is also the home of cousins Dimple and Aruna Jain.They are the first girls in 12neighbouring villages to clear the tenth standard board exams.Aruna studied up to 11th stan-dard and then dropped out of school. Dimple is currently com-

  pleting the final year of her Bachelor of Arts in Hindi litera-ture and History, a correspon-dence course from a college inBarmer.

Initially, their families didn’t

want the girls to go so far, theyfelt what the girls had studiedwas enough. Their argument wasthe age-old one—” Ladkiyan itnanahi padha kart i” (girls don’tstudy so much).

Speaking of how she con-vinced her family to let her con-tinue till tenth standard, Dimplesaid, “. My mother had just hadan operation then and there wasno one to do the work at home,and so my father then felt that Ishould leave school. But I insist-ed that I want to study. I told himI’ll get up at 5 in the morningand finish the housework beforegoing to school, but I want tocontinue studying. Aruna too,convinced her father.”

The board exam centre beingat a far off place, the ordeal of going there and appearing for the exam convinced Dimple’sfather Dimple was not going tostudy any further. Dimple, how-ever, persisted and somehowmanaged to convince her father.Today, Dimple’s parents are

extremely proud of her achieve-ments. “I feel very proud thatDimple has studied so much.Dimple is not only good in stud-ies but now she has learnt housework too. Her father also wantsher to study as we only have onedaughter.”

Aruna is now engaged to bemarried . When asked if she willhelp in her husband’s work,Aruna replied, “Of course, what-ever I can do from home, I willdefinitely do. I won’t be allowedto step out of the house and work though.”

Dimple is unsure of her futureafter getting her degree. Whileher mother says that she would-n’t mind Dimple getting a jobsomewhere, Dimple seemsunsure about how much further her family will support her. “Idon’t know if my family willallow me to study even after myB.A. Maybe it will be my turnafter Aruna’s marriage.”

Right now Dimple is only con-centrating on finishing her B.A.

Dimple (third form right) and Aruna (extreme right) with friends

YASODHARA RAKSHIT

VILLUPURAM: Every timeLakshmi S. buys her monthlyration, along with ingredients likegroceries and food, antiseptic andgauze bandages have been on therise, leading to an increase inhousehold expenses. This leadsher son and husband to crib,accusing her of spending unneces-sarily. In a deep twist of irony,instead of being grateful, they

 berate her for earning for them.Lakshmi, 63, is a farmer. Born

in the village of Mannalpadi, shehas been here all her life and hascleared her senior school matricu-lation. She started as a teacher inthe village school. However, after her marriage, she was forced toleave her job as her husband,Shivamani, began to veer towards tivating it with the help of her  vince her brother to do was to It was in vain that Lakshmi ilies, not even asking their mother 

mouths to feed. When asked abouthis mother’s condition, 36-year old T.Ganesh said, “ My mother isa stubborn woman. Since shetended this land for a long time,she refuses to let anyone of ushelp her.” However, looking atthis old woman, hunched over inthe blazing sun, this does notseem to be the case.

The local Self-Help Group(SHG) denies any problems withLakshmi, stating that they havetried to help her by giving her pes-ticide and seeds at half the market

 price, but it is only so much they

At the end of the day, instead of selling it at a high market price,she is forced to become a roadsidevendor for her vegetables, sellingthem at measly prices. This is

  because the middlemen in themarket do not let her sell her wares or ask for an abnormallyhigh price for giving her space inthe market place.

“Maybe it is because I’m awoman, or because I’m old,”shrugs Lakshmi, , “All I know isthat I’m doing this for my grand-children. The thought of themgoing hungry is more than I can

HARD TIMES: Laxmi S tends to her fields on a normal working day in Mannalpadi. Here she sows the seeds later sold to tother farmers. 

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Ploughing a lonely, heartbreaking furrow for 60 yrs

The serenity of  this  village  is only surface deep:  inside  is  total

absence of freedom for  women. (Left)  The hellhole for menstru-

ating women of the household, shunned and segregated.

They don’t get a fair deal in MalaiyurREVATHI RAMANAN

VILLUPURAM : Dressed in asimple white sari, her face hard-ened from years of fighting not

 just the men in the village but alsothe upper castes, Navaneetham,the Dalit woman president of thevillage of Iruvelpettai is under-standably skeptical about media

 persons and their ability to make adifference.

Facing the double whammy of   being a woman and a Dalit, lifefor Navaneetham has been a con-stant struggle between performingher duties and handling this stig-ma. She was one of the 13 candi-dates to stand for the post of thePresident of the village in 2006and won by a narrow margin, thusmaking her very unpopular.

Talking to The Word, 53 year old Navaneetham said that in spiteof having been the president of thevillage for three years she hashardly gotten her due. Though shehas been working hard for the pastthree years to ensure that the peo-

 ple of the village get their rationcards and old age pensions andvisits the city of Villupuram atleast once a week to meet theBlock Development Officer (BDO), she still faces stiff opposi-tion from the other side of the vil-lage which consists of the upper castes.

Iruvelpettai also has the dubiousdistinction of being the only vil-lage which hasn’t had a singleGram Sabha meeting for the pastthree years since Navaneetham

has been president. These meet-ings which are supposed to hap-

  pen once a month are a farce  because no one attends them. “Imake sure that everyone in the vil-lage comes to know about themeetings and tell them the dateand venue. I can only organise themeeting, not make people come”,says Navaneetham when ques-tioned about her failure to conductGram Sabhas. Her caste and her gender are the reasons for her increasing unpopularity accordingto her. “I don’t get any privileges

  because I am a Dalit. The VicePresident of the village, a 25 year old man belonging to the Vanniyar caste (BC) has been incitingagainst me. He doesn’t like thefact that I wield more power”.

As she winds up her interviewwith The Word Navaneetham has

 just one thing to say. “I have takencare of the villagers as a mother would take care of her children. Ihave been severely maligned just

 because I am Dalit and a woman.Until that mindset changes it will

 be hard to see development.”

Navaneetham, President of

Iravellpettai 

 It is while she cuts and cultivates that 

her fingers suffer calluses and bruises.

 But her sons offer no assistance

‘Double trouble’

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Shivamani, began to veer towardsalcoholism and violence. Withthe birth of her sons, Lakshmi

 bought a small piece of land on letwith her earnings and started cul-

tivating it with the help of her  brother who soon moved into her home. Soon, her brother startedgetting disinterested. However,the only thing Lakshmi could con-

vince her brother to do was toinstall a water pump, thus makingirrigation easier. It is while shecuts and cultivates, that her fin-gers suffer calluses and bruises.

It was in vain that Lakshmihoped that her sons, whom shestrove to give an education, wouldeventually help her out. Both of her sons got married and had fa m-

ilies, not even asking their mother whether she needed any help. Theolder one moved out while theyounger son stayed back and pro-vided his mother with three more

 price, but it is only so much theycan do.

She does everything in the fieldfrom sowing, cultivation and

 picking of seeds without any help.

going hungry is more than I can bear.” People in the village mur-mur sympathetically while the oldwoman carries on doing what shetaught herself to do: living.