RAJASHRI IYER swears out her dilemma on a women’s day celebration….

They  promised me a lovely woodland Far away,

Where the women bloom.

They screamed at me

To come out of my kitchen

To walk in the moonlight.

They asked me to call him

A beast…..

And taught me how to lure him in.

Whispered me of the short-cut

To his heart ..

That is through his stomach.

They taught me how to do manicure

And how the spices tap his senses

To open into my bowls.

They urged me to be bold enough

To broaden my neckline

Revealing my cute cleavage.

They chuckled at me for knitting buttons

On his shirt , taught me how to embroider

A tapestry to my visitor’s room.

They asked me to shake off the rituals

And spread out the tattoos

That most befit my waistline.

They trained me at the gym

To be stiff and stubborn

And gifted me a moisturizer

To keep my skin-tone fragile.

They quoted the doctor

How to castrate him

And taught me how to be ‘safe’.

They also assured to re-stitch me

To a virgin, forgetting my three kids

But they excerpted the psychologists

How to bring up my pampered ones.

They brought me a lawyer

To learn about my rights

And his zero rights on my body and my yard

Where my flowers bloom and sway

Under his shower.

And they led me to the street

That leads to the woods

Where the women bloom and sway,

Feasting pink under the blue…

In Hindu concept, Shakthi is the feminine counter part of God in His all tri-level manifestations. Unlike the female gods of other Semitic religions, Shakthi is worshiped as the Supreme Being of Power and Energy all over India. Pinning hopes on this aspect, Anagha Krishnamoorthy invokes the Indian Women folk to bloom with all their innate fragrance from their ‘all-secured bud stage’ beyond the 33.3% reservation bracket.

‘Sthree’ – the ultimate shakthi virtually the inevitable form of Lordess Kali is as fragile and delicate as a flower from outside, but as strong and tough as iron from within. One crush and the flower gets crumpled. But even after being crumpled and mauled, it can impart  the same fragrance unaltered ,as before. The ‘sthree’ form is no different from this enchanting flower that makes her unique and bestows her, the power of shakthi.

The Second and Weaker (sex)

Since time immemorial, this flower has been in the hands of slavery. Every little movement, even a jerk towards darkness burns up its iden tity.

Yes, women, we are talking about ourselves. We are prone to danger and are insecure everywhere–in the market, on the r oad, in the train, bus or auto, or even at home and work place. We are often exposed to cheap and ruthless behaviors that include harassment, eve-teasing, kidnapping, murders, rape etc. We face extreme trauma in public transport facilities like railways and buses. We are ragged and looked down upon every time we try to come up and show our worth. Our counterparts are assaulted publicly on national highways in the midst of a frozen crowd and there is nobody to raise a voice. Woe! This is the prevailing situation here, today.

Our fellow beings are deprived of basic education, food, clothing, shelter and other amenities in the rural front. They are subjected to brutal foeticides, genital splice surgeries and other such vile things. They are perceived as play- toys in childhood and as home-makers once they are married. Though this scenario has taken a positive turn, the villages are still lagging behind with the age-old customs that are being followed in the worst unreasonable manner.

Where is the Key?

Now, what is the solution for this state of affairs? Of course, every problem comes with a key. The key to this solution lies within us. Our inner strength and beauty gives us courage and determination to fight all the evils and shower goodness. We must mould and shape ourselves in such a way that our dynamism must be capable of outwitting every single person. We must come in par of the male community. Beauty lies in a non-competitive effort to prove ourselves and create an everlasting mark and identity wherever we are put in a game. We must not compete with males, but go on parity with them and show them the worth we have. Let us show them that we also possess the ability, the power, and determination to come up in this fast-paced era and to fight for our position in the society, that we are also liable to equal socio-economic and civil status as our counter sex.

Empowering…

Let us begin it with the positive exploitation of the 33.3% seats in the legislation procedure.

Only this way the flowers within us will tilt themselves towards the sun rays of hope so that they bloom and reach the zenith of growth, development and ultimate bliss. This is the ‘sthree’ that we are talking about. Let us make use of our shakthi and make ourselves secure and special.

Kudos to all mothers, daughters, wives, grand-mothers, aunts and all other women who have grown so far and helped others grow too!

In India, where living together without a nuptial knot is otherwise called as live-in-sin., the apex court came out with a legal support for co-habitation, two days back. Rajshri Iyer talks about the cultural shock that created a stale mate in the country following the verdict.

Soon after the thunder blast of Women’s Bill in the Parliament, came the Supreme Court verdict justifying the co-habitation, which appeared to be a cultural shock to the nation’s centuries-old-beliefs. Hot discussions are spreading over the culture-rich Indian terrains having the dedicated boarder service of the moral police, leaving sounds and fury as usual signifying nothing.

Khushoo when opened up

It was in 2005, that Khushboo, the noted actor of South India kick started with much aplomb, the agitations inside the Indian mindset by positively talking about co-habitation. This made the Tamil people outraged at her and along with some religious hard liners, filed not less than 20 criminal cases against her.

During an interview with a magazine she opened up herself saying nothing wrong if a matured couple decided to live together without the institutional support of marriage. Khushboo also asserted that no educated boy would expect his bride to be a virgin.

Khushboo, the lovely actress belonged to Tamil Nadu has essayed various memorable characters in all the South Indian languages which made her a darling to all the South Indians. Some besotted Tamil rasigar even came forward to dedicate a temple to the actor as Sree Khushambika Kovil!!!! That was her vibrant impact over the South Indian mindset. Such an adored one when came to the limelight to a kind of ‘verbal expose’ in a sudden morning, the people belong to the land of Kannaki, the epitome of vestal wife-hood, could not digest it. Hence were the riots, hence were the excommunications.

Brushed aside as Bohemian the agitations debased her glamorous charisma in her professional life, but she has shown a clean pair of heels by getting into the familial haven where enjoyed much of a usual Indian family bond. Meanwhile, she went on with her legal battles but her pleas were dismissed by the Madras Court. But Khusboo has proved that those sentences she uttered were not banal lip exercises but facts and truths which made her ‘bold and beautiful’ throughout her celeb-life. She took daring steps to move to the Supreme Court which after the usual drags and lags at last came forward with the scandalous verdict.

An Institution called marriage

When Khusboo came out with her shocking statements, the offenders  were outraged and moved towards legal action claiming that she had lead the youngsters astray and caused general chaos by destroying the hallowed institution of marriage.

Indian culture inculcates high esteem on the establishment called marriage. More than becoming the harmony of minds, these customized celebrations mirror a lot of other social expressions. Many people marry for the wrong reasons, such as – to overcome loneliness, to escape an unhappy parental home, or because they think that everyone is expected to marry, because only “losers” who can’t find someone to marry stay single, out of a need to parent, or be parented by another person, sometimes because they got pregnant, or because “we fell in love,” … and on goes the list.

Those are the individualistic aspects. When it comes to the social life of an average Indian, marriage is not something a noun but a verb. Subsequently, this act becomes a platform to showcase the social dignity, financial power, strength of relatives and so on. In turn, the Event Organizers and Jewelers fatten day by day. Local thieves and robbers are busy with novel forms of activities and they are being treated and feasted inside the prison with the tax money paid by the poor Indians.

Traditions and customs besieged by generations become compulsory norms egging the bride’s family to feast the grooms thus make the money lenders throughout the country grown as a hefty mafia. But at the end, Family Court buzzes with the bee-lines of couple-foes and their verbal combats. Simply money or wing-dings can never glue two lives that have to be lived out.

If it is a love marriage, the only difference is while standing in the argie-bargie queues in the Family Court there won’t be anyone to court the couple so that they can sign up in a mutual agreement paper and can came out of the judicial entanglement without wasting much time.  It is nothing but as quoting Frederick Nietzsche, – It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages. A nuptial knot is as worthless as a gold plaited pendent if it is devoid of understanding.

What is Traditional?

It is in such an India the apex court came to the lime light with a parboiled verdict. Subsequently, apprehensions and soliloquies usher along the track. The Asian Age, the accepted English newspaper has given a green signal to the verdict by extolling the panel and they described it as a legal mile stone in the judicial history of India. Most of the media inside and outside India either directly or indirectly upheld it in the pretext of the bold headlines of a felicitated stardom.

But the average men were taken aback at this new twist which they fear to help create broken families, venereal diseases, single moms, teenage pregnancies and such fragmented culture and scarred kids like that of the dilapidated Western way of life, right in India. They also apprehend of sending a wrong signal to the youngsters in this world of consumer economy.

The distinction here has a clear cut between that of moral and legal. They flay the panel for offending the age-old traditions of India and narrating that of Krishna-Radha co-habitation story instead. There is no law against Pre-marital sex and Live-in relationships in India. But India’s Fundamental Rights enshrined in the Constitution are having a solid moral boundary and it has chore concern over the social ethics.

By providing a legal recognition, the young generation would go astray, the parents apprehend. But the escalating rates of divorces nudge the need of a deviation in our thinking. Earlier, while India was a coalition of combating provincials under tyrant kings, we had a lot of zenanas where the kings had a number of ‘substitutes’ besides the queen. Like the said Radha-Krishna, there had been a number of extra marital affairs. We can pick a Sree Ram or a Vasista-Arundhati couple or a Satyavan-Savitry cult out of the many polygamy traits of our tradition.

Why should we go beyond ages? Just look around,-  How many of the Indians of the previous generations are having a surname or initials with that of an own father? The matriarchal system pertained in Southern India was ‘rich’ with single moms and the kids had only their maternal uncles as their local guardians!! Still some tribal communities in some villages in Tamil Nadu follow these kinds of live-in relationships unto their death. Sometimes on the 60^th birth day of the ‘groom’ they might undergo such wedding ceremonies carried out by their grand children. Sun TV has aired about those jovial couples in their behind-news program Nijam, one month  back.

Moral Policing

But when morality equated with chastity, through the intrusions of Victorianism in India, some of our own traits became forbidden for us. We ourselves have mutilated or dismantled some of the customs according to personal convenience. When we nurture our children we nurture our whims and wants along with them and that may be ardently differing to their own thoughts. But we won’t agree to let them, in the pretext of following the tradition in which we were forced to stifle in the bygone days.  So we attempt to glue to the scanty moral fiber with which we try to tether them also.

The Supreme Court has thus come out of the colonial hang over and threatening taboos at last, thanks to Mrs.Khusboo. But along with the bursting out of a revolutionary remark the judiciary should step ahead to provide legality to such relationships that exist in India beyond the accounted statistics. By doing so, we can wipe out the ‘moral police service’ and ‘peeping Tom culture’ now rampant in the Indian society parallel to the hike in IT industry and mobile revolution. In a democracy where ‘honour killing’ is equated with divine sacrifice and young blood drenches the religious streets to purify the sins of ‘unrecognized sex’, judiciary can have much more strong pillars to support our social canopy.

Being the wife of a real Communist is synonymous with walking through the fire. Savitry Aryan, an 80 year old Brahmin lady from Kerala, talks with Ajitha Jeevan, about her life of endurance after being wedded to the fire-brand Communist leader of Kerala, Mr.A.V.Aryan . This narration brings about what is the significance of being a wife and being a real Communist at a time when India really needed a Communist Manifesto.

The very name Savitri brings in an illumination of silent flame of purity and divinity to an Indian’s mind. Indian Myths elucidates the story of the vestal wife-hood Savitry had been undergone as an epitome of love, dedication and piety towards husband, which at least in a pinch is still followed by Indian women, though globalization has its own impact in their mindset also.

This is the story of another Savitry  – Savitry Aryan, also known (less known) for her persistence, love, dedication and everything similar to what Mythical Savitry had with her husband. Savitry Aryan also had to undergo the ravages of debunking realities after her marriage to a fire brand revolutionary A.V.Aryan, one among a few who can be saluted as a real Communist, a Comrade in the political history of Kerala.

Savitry Aryan recently created a wave in the political scenario of the democratic Kerala State, with the publication of her auto biography titled ‘Sahanathinte Kanal Vazhiyil’ (Through the Burning Terrains of Endurance’). Unlike a Taslima Nasreen or a Kamala Suraiyya, her words did harm to any religion, any community, any individual or any belief. Still it could instigate guilty conscience for some who possess such a thing – conscience. If it could blow at least a breeze over the narrow routes covered by ashes to unveil the cinders under, on which she had burnt her feet all through her journey of about 80 years, we can say, it has created vibrant waves.

From Savitry to Savitry Aryan

Born to a Somayaji (one who has honored for being conducted Somayaga), her child hood was rhythmic with the chanting of Vedas and Japas. It was far before Independence and at a high time when Kerala had been grappled under the Caste and Creed disparities. And the Kerala Brahmin (Namboodiri) community, had all the more strong citadels within their Illams(homes). Namboodiri women had no rights for schooling, no freedom beyond their palm umbrellas. From such an ambit young Savitry directly came into the life of A.V.Aryan, a born Communist, ‘a perverse son’ as termed by his own illam.

Their marriage was also a small revolt as it was without dowry a common custom among the  Namboodiri community at that time. Savitry remembers her wedding day as 1948 january 30, the day Gandhiji was shot dead. Marriage ceremony was simple and without any celebrations or customary festivities. For a real Communist, such things are not simple customs, but ‘unwanted and need-to-be-removed carcinoma affected the society’.

A.V.Aryan had been chucked out from his home prior to his marriage for being against the landlordism since his father himself was a landlord. But Aryan was always by the side of the tenants and for their rights he always rebelled with his own family and had been ousted for ever. So after marriage, Savitry Aryan could not enter into her groom’s house but directly went to a rented single room where the life alone was horrible for a young girl who came from a rich familial bond.

Making of a Communist

But the life has been playing golf with her here after. Being the wife of an atheist who believed only in deeds, she also has transformed into an atheist. Party Office became her in-law house, where party members from all castes and creeds became her in laws. She as the ‘great sis in law’ (In Indian family system, the eldest sister-in-law is equaled to mother) began to feast all the party members of the State with whatever she had with in her kitchen. Her husband A.V.Aryan was always by the side of the poor and destitute. So young Savitry reinstated the graceful faces of Gods and Goddesses and installed her husband there. Savitry Aryan became a communist; she forgot the well learned Slokas and Mantras.

Savitry was well aware that her in-laws are very rich and affluent but they never accepted her. One day, subdued to the pressure by Aryan’s friends when she along with her husband went to the home, but  they protested terming her as non-Brahmin. As the daughter of a known Somayaji, she could not tolerate it. Then she also became obstinate and that was her first revolt after becoming a Communist. She could enter into the house but no one uttered anything, no one gave her anything, she was denied of food and water there, still she could sustain there for one month!

After a strong combat, Aryan could pull off his birth right properties from his home. That place was somewhat like a bushy forest and there was a sacred grove protected by a lower caste man. An atheist Aryan cleared out the area and tried to stay with his wife there, but was in vain. His family landlords stirred the lower castes against him for the destruction of the groves but the people with whom and for whom Aryan had been for long nothing done against him.

Then her life became an infinite journey with Aryan. Each day end up in different homes of the Comerades where she slept to awaken for another travel. The people who hosted were of different castes with which she could not adjust with in the early days. The journeys came to a halt when Aryan settled in his own place in a small house at Olari, Trichur.

Through the terrains of endurances

She narrates in her auto biography,: “Every morning Aryan set out with some Comrades without speaking anything to me. When he returns it will be at night, may be with 10-15 Comrades. And he will call out ‘Savitry, is there anything to eat..?’. Even in the mid nights I had to prepare food for a lot.” Even she had to prepare non vegetarian curries for his friends!!!. She says “Aryan was adamant in one thing- no one should leave our home with empty stomach”.

Meanwhile Aryan asked her to continue her studies in school and she has joined in the 7the standard. People began to stare at the ‘kujathol’ (young Namboodiri girl), coming to school to sit with lower caste students that is too, after marriage. Anyways, she continued her studies, along with the other roles of a vestal wife, a host for the comrades who come daily there for food, a little land lord who guides the labourers in the fields. While Aryan was in incessant combats with the authorities in power for the rights and protection of the poor working class, Savitry Aryan was struggling with the novel forms of life with which she had to face in every minute, in aloofness. However, to the amazement of even today’s women, she could get through her 10^th standard with a first class, which was a rarest of rare thing at that time.

Aryan was least bothered of the family. Even after the birth of three children, he never asked anything about them. He was always in a run to nurture the party in the State.

As an activist

‘Tube light still pulls me back to 1964.” Says, a bouncy Savitry Aryan. “It was in 1964 that the Communist Partys’ first Polit Bureau Meeting was being held. That was in this premise, in front of our home. A huge ‘pandal’ (temporary shed) has erected with a lot of tube lights. I was seeing tube lights for the

first time in my life. It was like a festive ambience. A lot of people from all over India who go along with Communist ethics came here. Surjit Singh, Sundarayya, EMS Namboodirippadu, Basava Punnayya, B.T.RanaDive, and like a lot. I was busy in the kitchen. Surjit likes only Chapati. ….” .

She remembers the agenda of the meeting still. “It was about  the new tendencies evolving inside the party concerning its own ethics, and the basic issues of the Soviet Communist Party”. While hot discussions were at high, Police came in battalion and they destroyed everything inside the pandal. Breaking the tube lights and everything around they created a terrific ambience there. She remembers. “All leaders including Aryan were arrested and jailed, except EMS…” She herself thinks that it might be a mark of generosity they had shown for the former CM”.

While the famous Toddy Tappers Agitation at Anthikkadu and the Agrarians Agitations at Pullazhy were going on under the vigorous leadership of A.V.Aryan, she remembers the additional duty with which she had been conferred to, was taking bail. Aryan was always in the war front and along with him a lot of laborers also were subjected to arrest at almost all the time when the agitations are at high.  This was a usual phenomenon on those days of struggle. She scribbles in her book, “ How long I had waited in the narrow corridors of the Trichur Magistrate Court with the receipt of the land tax remitted. How

many times with empty stomach and dry throat, leaving three kids alone at home… to take a bail for the arrested ones including today’s’ fore-front Communist leaders.. They may not remember all these things.”

Changing manifesto

Each time when Aryan comes from the police custody, tortured horribly, with weak and blood stained physique, Savitry was there to witness and prop up, but as soon as a party worker calls him for support, gulping a bottle of water Aryan would set out of the home.

Each time after an all party conference, their land had to be sold to compensate the expenditure. When Savitry begins to complain Aryan would console her “why do you worry? These lands were actually owned by the working class, our tenants. My ancestors took it away from them by simply betraying and threatening them.”

Evoking the memories about the split of the Communist party is still painful for her. After the split a lot of people with whom Aryans had also a personal rapport were shifted to CPI. But Aryan glued to the mother party upholding the party ethics more than personal relationships. “Such an Aryan when pointed out certain misdealing of the party people such as partisan attitude, nepotism  and the intruding of extremism(like Naxalism at the time of Emergency) into the party, Aryan became an ‘impertinent’ inside the party. For his arguments Aryan had all the evidences and credentials to support it. But instead of making an enquiry into the reports, the party leadership asked him to quit the party. They never asked him an explanation; instead they had been threatening him using some quoted phrases like ‘party discipline, anti-party ethics’ etc.” Narrates Savitry.

After being chucked out of the party, for which Aryan had been tortured, thrown out of the family, lost all his properties, he was left alone. Though he could be elected to the Assembly twice, with the supports of the working class and the laborers of his domain, he was ousted as untouchable. That made a bold Savitry (at that time she was the President of Mahila association, may be the first Feminist Association in Kerala), weep.

But Aryan was not depressed. Along with a few Comrades, he tried to create a new political party. Working class was always along with Aryan as they themselves had experienced his generosities and empathies a lot. He started a news paper “Kahalam” to convey the party ethics and decisions to the people. Savitry says “ Kahalam has made another liability for which we had to surrender our 2.5 acre land.” But the other side, with power-haughty police suppressed the poor working class by arrests and physical tortures. Savitry recalls “ it became such a state that if anybody allies with Aryan would be arrested or beaten to death.” The scared and hapless laborers gradually withdrew from is party one by one. But Aryan went on with his fire-brand speeches, roamed about the State.

End of a revolt

Then, it was Azheekoden Ragahavan’s (a prominent Communist leader of Kerala) murder which became the climax of their life. That startling news became a trump card at the hands of those who opposed Aryan. Aryan was arrested, connoting him as Naxalite. Savitry remembers those dark days of misery and fear. “After his arrest, no one ever came to our home, looked at us. My children had to suffer a lot as an assassin’s children. We have no way to get out of the home. In the sleepless nights I gave my all ears to the maundering of police jeeps. No one came to us. No advocate in Trichur was ready to get a bail for Aryan They all was scared. I have cooked and served food for thousands. With my children when we were pushed in to utter penury no one came to our help. My children had hardly two pairs of dress to wear….”

But the hand which had feasted a lot of political leaders (even of today) never extended for a sympathetic support. Savitry was sure that though Aryan had thrown out his ‘poonool’ (a sacred thread worn by Brahmins), he could never kill a man. At last, Aryan was released free. But unto this day, no one could trace out the real murderers. This ambiguity which pervades still in the State is but a clear vignette inside Savitry. That thing, she leaves to her readers, to browse between the lines. Because she is the only witness who perceived the life of Aryan before and after this accusation.

After the end of a revolutionary journey, when Aryan was laid on the floor of the house at Olari, which hosted thousands of Comrades, alone, it was a realization not only for Savitry and her children, but for a whole generation which does not live unto themselves. No Comerades turned to Aryan’s cremation, instead “the party channel and party news paper gave flash news as ‘A.V.Aryan, the Naxalite leader and the one of the accused in the Azheekoden murder has passed away…”. Savitry stops for a while.

Wading through the blazing  penury and experiencing the Bohemian effects, her children grew. As to the father’s wish the elder one followed Law against his own will and became a District Magistrate. Daughter has been married to an athiest but a born Brahmin who is also a lawyer. Third one, to the amazement of all, became an astrologist as his queries find an answer in it when went out wildlyto debunk the ‘superstitious customs’.  Savitry Aryan is living with him now.

Savitry Aryan is still lively among the books with the whole vigor and passion that she acquired from her husband while was being an unseen shadow all along his ways. But at times we hear her whispers as if a call to God. Within the collection of her books on Marxism and Leninism, we can see some Hindu classics and epics now. When the world celebrates Gandhijis’ life of forfeit, the sacrifices of Kasthurba went into oblivion. Let us give an ear to such sobs which are wrapped under the ashes of history, at least in this Centennial of Women’s’ Day.

At a time the world redefines the word ‘adultery’ and perceives women just as skirts, it is significant to know about Akka Mahadevi, a Kannada seer-poet whose whole life was the denial of all the yard sticks to gauge and tag. Gayatri Sundaram narrates Akka’s journeys through the wilds unto a legacy of illumination, which is relevant in the current scenario.

Taoism excerpts the story line of a sage named Lu Nan-tsze. One day when he found himself obliged to pass the night in a house whose only other occupant was a woman he lighted a lamp and read aloud until morning to avoid exposing her to unjust suspicions.

What is this unjust suspicion?

Bible gives the answer through Matthew: “You have heard that it was said “You shall not commit adultery”. But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart”.

So how many of us would escape the reprimand?   To avoid being guilty Muslim brothers ask their women to hide their body from those victims who might have the chance of penalty.

Hadith of Muslim says:

“The adultery of the eye is the lustful look, and the adultery of the tongue is the licentious speech, and the heart desires and yearns, which the parts may or may not put into effect.”

So the suspicion is not unjust. But even though covered their body in 6 meter sari, women are being stripped by eyes in the streets, in the markets and wherever she goes even with her husband. In India, according to the Hindu custom it is not advisable to see a woman ‘in the other way’, if she wears sindoor on her fore head.

An epic that is Akka

Despite the feminists’ hues and cries, assaults on women are sky rocketing in India .In this context; it is relevant to bring back Akka Mahadevi the seer- poet of Karnataka, to the present turbulent arena. Probably, she may be the first feminist in India as she has been in a constant battle against the established institutions and rituals prevalent in India, in the 12th century.

“Get back, I hate you!

Don’t hold my sari, you fool!

A she-buffalo is worried of its life,

And the butcher, of its killing!

The pious think of virtues,

And the wicked, of vices;

I am worried of my soul,

And you, of lust….

Fie on this body!

Why do you damn yourself

In love of it–this pot of excrement,

The vessel of urine, the frame of bones,

This stench of purulence!”

Vignettes of Draupadi at the Kouravasabha flash through your mind…Naa? According to the latest statistical reports at least 80 Draupadies are being stripped in India in each minute! Krishna never comes for the rescue. The bursts and cries end up inside the four walls as a weak sob.

Any doubt? Ask Vanitha Commission.

Akka Mahadevi, wrote these lines 900 years ago. Exploding these words, she set out of the court completely nude! She never put on any clothing thereafter. She was in search of the Man of her life, ready to merge with Him ‘like an arrow that is shot should penetrate so deeply that even the feathers do not show’. She was wandering for her Man in a spiritual voyage to be one with him, throwing away her riches and pleasures of the palace, almost similar to Buddha, (though the verses sound like that of Kamala Das).

It was in the 12the century such a feminist voice, heard from a country like India, where the patriarchal system is at its best. A time when females are forbidden at the school entrance, Akka Mahadevi could take part in many gatherings of learned men at the Anubhavamandapa in Kadal Sangama, to debate philosophy.

Women who stifles under the established powers but unable to get out of  the tangles should definitely turn back to 900 years, to find a teenager who fought for her self assertion. It was a time of strife and political uncertainty in Karnataka. It is significant when we recall her movement that made her an inspiration for women power and enlightenment. Her non-conformist ways caused a lot of concerns in a conservative society and even her eventual Guru Allama Prabhu had to face difficulties initially in enlisting her in the scholastic gatherings of Anubhavamandapa. But the final victory was with her, thanks to her consistency.

Akka Mahadevi is even remembered and revered all over Karnataka as a seer-poet and a social reformer. You can see a number of educational and charitable institutions all through the State, named after Akka. In a recent incident, the head of the Viswa Kalayana Mission Charitable Trust, Mathe Mahadevi has got tangled in a judicial controversy when she changed Akka’s pen name in the latest edition of Akka Mahadevi’s works. In another occasion BJP has called for a protest to egg the government to name a newly formed university after Akka.

Some consider Akka Mahadevi as an incarnation of Sree Parvati, the better half of Lord Shiva. From her child hood itself, Akka has accepted Shiva as her mystical spouse. Abandoned her husband King Koushika and all the palatial comforts she went out in search of her eternal mate. It reminds one of Meera Bai of the 16^th century. Buddha comes even after that.

A grand get away

Akka Mahadevi was an ascetic at the same time she challenged the social restraints and the human outlooks. Although all religions pelt stones at adultery, nobody was as hectic as Akka Mahadevi to challenge it with the same degree. She not only wrote vachanas about the foolishness of lust, but challenged it directly by living the rest of her life without wearing any clothing proving the triviality of ‘this pot of excrement’.

She was never contended with the restricted role of a girl at home or of the vestal wife in a palace. Limitations placed on women in the pursuit of education and spirituality was unacceptable for her. She proved herself that a woman has every right and has all the means to pursue a life of an ascetic. Her joining with the Veershaiva saranas,( those who worship Lord Shiva with considerably less rituals) was emphatic with her thought that individual refinement is better than outward rites.

Legends say that she was married to the Jaina king, Kaushika, and once when he tried to molest (?) her, she suddenly threw away her clothing and stepped into streets nude. She was said to be an extra ordinary beauty and that she had her flowing tresses enough to cover her beauty. On the streets she lived like a wandering sannyasin with ‘village rice in the begging bowl…temple ruins to dwell…..Chenna Mallikarjuna for the company of the soul”. Before attaining enlightenment at an age of 20 years, she had been accepted by the Kannadiga community as ‘Akka’(respected elder sister). Only Basaveshwara (Anna) and her Guru Allama (Prabhu), had achieved this position, before that.

Along with Basaveshwara, she was also one of the socialist reformers who spoke out against the caste system. Among her 315 vachanas, considered as sacred scriptures by the Kannadigas, one proclaims this message:

“Unrestricted to any clan, this caste less one is whom I love for this reason, I’m for this man”. Akka’s vachanas are the greatest contributions to the Kannada literature.

Her eternal journey ended up in Kadali Vana, near the Sreesailam temple, inside a cave. She is said to be merged into

the Great Void.

Making her mark

Akka Mahadevi was a celebration of rebellion, feminity and legacy down 900 years. Her denial of the riches and comforts of the palace and the amputations of the domestic bonds reminds one of Buddha. Akka’s radical poems written with female body as a metaphor induced a lot of poets in and out of India. Her ideal of social and gender equality, propagated in the 12^th century had become the creed of higher education in and out of Karnataka.

Akka Seva Samajas, the charitable institutions in the State, pursue the same goal Akka Mhadevi has propagated – uplifting the status of the girl children. They work for the destitute girls and down trodden women in their three branches at Kumara Park, Rajaji Nagar, Rajarajeswary Nagar along with the first one established at Bangaluru(Bangalore). The proceedings of the Samajas are inspired by the life and teachings of Akka Mahadevi who burned up as a flash of light in the caves of Sreeshailam.

In spite of the various women empowerment programs across the nation, married women in India, are seemed to be settled down as only two social groups – either working women or homemakers. Maya Krishnan meets them personally to see what happens to these multifarious range of girls after marriage, in order to shrink into merely two sections.

“No written law has ever been more binding, than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.”

This statement evolves out as a solid fact, if we travel along the length and breadth of India, where the conservative concepts are still fervent. Though India has accepted globalization with all its pragmatic effects, most of the Indian communities are still seemed to be dogged on the orthodox wheels of the patriarchal world order.

The most valued thing in Indian culture is motherhood. It is honored and glorified along with the subservient vestal wife-hood, to hood wink the age-old male domination. This ideology is being inculcated and passed on to generations through anecdotes and grandma stories and recently, through the TV serials. (Besides, the nation itself is personified as a woman, a mother.)

Women, especially the married ones, in India are still hemmed in this traditional pattern worked out by some cantankerous ancestry, at a time when physical strength helped the survival. This system has curtailed her ability to pursue a career and clogged her in a role dictated by the custom than her personal choice. As there is no written law she has nobody to argue with except her own self. The prevailing custom kicked them upstairs with the traditional rules of thumb.

The Working Women

These are the most desolated segment of the Indian society. Even though, the social and economic status of the women folk in India had a rocketed leap after the nation’s merging into the global village, a steep decline in the personal life of Indian women cannot be ruled out. Here her professional commitment verses her personal responsibilities. Achieving a perfect balance between work and family is far from easy. If you happened to come across with a working woman quite happy, she would tell you the amazing support she gets from her family. But such incidents are very rare.

Unlike in the West, Indians are far more family-oriented. For every Indian, family is a private domain, where the nation’s cultural values are nurtured and reproduced. And the family is oriented around the pivotal central point of a mother or house wife, who is sustained to be the illuminating lamb inside. As the joint family system is fading, we can perceive the struggles with which each and every nuclear family tries to adapt to the changing ambience. The nucleus of the family, the woman goes out for the job leaving the kids in the play house or at home, closing all the doors and windows. And as Gold Mier stated, ‘at work she thinks of the children she left at home; at home she would think of the work she left unfinished’. Such mental conflicts unleash multifarious problems inside the home. This is applicable to the women in the lower strata like, artisans, house-maids etc, who survives on their associations glued to some political parties.

When work places demand more time, energy and commitment, she has to yield to the problematic situations inside the home. Mobile phone rings all the time, index finger takes off the patting pose and places either on the TV remote or PC mouse. Family ambience is changing….Career woman perplexes balancing their own needs and others.

It is said and

spread that modern Indian woman has stepped out into the open air at par with men in all spheres of life. Yes, contemporary time witnesses a massive change in all zones – in relationships, in values, in social setups. But the nucleus-the woman-she dabbles along multiple roles, being simply a pooh-bah and becomes a pessimist at the eve of every mess, irrespective of the field with which she works.

The social fabric of India is changing like never before. Earlier, the entire family was depending upon the male one who goes out and work hard, the kitchen-fed female was supposed to yield with full willingness before them, who had the established upper hand in the family. Now along with the political and social empowerment Indian women have procured a self possession of independency at least economically. They augment the family income by their contributions and there by the family is able to afford luxuries and nice things, which they might not have been able to, otherwise.

But on the other side, these women are toiling away in these mindless and tiresome jobs. They are often torn by the divided priorities. They try to give the best to both home and office (working place), find themselves burdened by guilty conscience. Mentally, physically and emotionally they get drained at the end of the day.

If she is to succeed in managing her two roles, she will have to get rid of the guilty feelings. She will have to be ruthless about setting apart some time for her – to relax, to chat with a friend, to enjoy a TV show, to listen to a melody and like. She will have to nurture independency and flexibility.

To be or not to be

But is it possible for a segment, adorned as the light of the home and skirted inside the kitchen walls as the feeding machine for the family? When gets at a square peg in round hall, she starts to think of a harmless compromise, where the only way left is giving up the job, if it is financially possible.

In one way this is some what a prostration to her whole entity. Because India is still said to be having a support system as far as the family ambience is concerned. We have parents and in-laws who are happy and willing to baby-sit. Today’s parents prefer employed girls for their sons. When asked about the new trend of school syllabus and extra curricular activities of the children, they quote the recent researches of the University of Texas showing the children of employed mothers are at par in the social and intellectual development, language skill and intelligence, with the children of the stay-at-home-moms. They push her to go for the job and she unwillingly admits as she is aware of the draw backs of the granny-sits, in a world of competitions into which her baby grows.

To be a home maker or a career woman, or somebody competently complied with both, a tri polar ambiguity reigns her mind.

In financially settled families, women are awared of these facts that they have the luxury of taking time off and they tend to experiment with other areas of interest.

The threshold between a house wife and a career woman is very thin. The two roles are mutually exclusive. Still it is a fact that, a certain segment exists in this marshy society handling both roles with great aplomb. But they themselves commit that it is simply a touch and go.

When public justice v/s private happiness

The urban ladies, when fed up of the scuffles of multi-tasking lives, finally yield to be caged inside the vestal wife-hood and highly adored motherhood. In the long run, they succumb themselves to a deplorable erosion of what they earned and learned. Unlike her grandma, she is not illiterate, she reads Simon De Boure, goes through the news papers, browsing through the informative TV channels. Sitting inside, she wanders around the world, once she done with candor. It gets on to her nerves that some thing has been percolating out of her self. Despite the diverse influences across the globe, the cultural ethics of the inhabitants are under a re-defining process.

The mother hood

Just look around and see… how were the previous days of the present generation moms? They might have missed the seat in a professional college for a whisker. Some times they might be professional graduates. You can see the one who was a fire brand speaker, another one a rebellious extremist, still another, a politically conscious, some ‘a noted naughty’ and like. But once when she became a mother, she herself takes the decision to be with her baby, shedding all the potentials she possesses.

Mother is such a being. Listen to a pediatrician’s words “I meet an average of 50 mothers a day. They come from various zones of life. But one thing is common in all-the anxiety about their kids’ health, habits, education, future and so on. They are seemed to be worried and pondered over these musings almost all the time. There is nothing unnatural about it. In my view mother is not just a woman. It is a phenomenon, a unique truth that can’t be seen any where else.”

If quote Osho, “whenever a child is born, the mother is also born”. If noticed you can find a sea change in the mindset of a girl after becoming a mother. Nobody is tethering her to motherhood. She herself does it, cropping all her potentials only to concentrate everything for her child. That becomes “a loss for the community” as Stendhal stated, if she is a talent or a genius.

An interview with the Founder cum Director of a charitable institution, brought out an emphatic conformity to the afore said thing. A modest lady of 40 plus, a college professor, she told me ‘if I have a kid, my all thoughts and deeds will be revolved around it. Then I won’t get enough time to spend with these hapless ones. So I decided not to have a baby of my own. My husband also agreed with my decision’.

Yes, after becoming a mother, a woman is being taken down a peg not by the laws, but by some intuitions that change her outlooks to some what parochial. She shrinks herself in to a tiny planet that revolves around her Sun, her baby.

“That doesn’t mean she is cruel”, says an IAS officer, now a district collector, “if your career is essential to your personal identity and self worth, I say, you don’t quit your job. It was my long cherished dream to become a District Collector and now I am what I dreamt of. So why should I immigrate on a non working visa………Yes, my daughter is always whimpering “mamma, when will you come out of this collector’s gown?” it is true. I would say my children are adjusting a lot for me”.

What happens to her..?

As the house wife (has got promoted to the position of home maker) is highly educated and enjoying every mode of informative devices, she naturally, thinks a lot. Even while cooking or cleaning utensils, her thoughts take her to a world of apparitions. This leaves scratches and stretch marks in her mind which makes her feel inferior to everyone around. When goes out for a film, or a private visit, the usual question she has to face is, “what are you doing now?”.”Nothing…” is the readymade answer slips out of the inhibitions. Keeping a straight face at such questions force her to sit inside and brood over her hey-days in school and college where she got laurels and applauds. The rusted talents metamorphose into grave ineptitudes. Constant suppression of self conscience and the voluntary tramples of the sprouting musings make her moony and muzzy.

When the babies have grown up to school going children, she begins to feel that she is not an indispensable presence at home any more. And when the same children ask her ‘why are you sitting at home idly, why don’t you go for a job as my friends’ moms do’, her apple cart turns upside down. When loneliness and boredom come knocking, along with the ‘drab and destitute feel’, at times she goes out in search of a job, where her age factor denies the chances. The years she smoldered for the family fall into oblivion and become worthless. No one bothers it instead they would ask,’ who told you to do so?’

“If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands?” asked Milton Berle. But mothers, after all women, are conditioned to act accordingly.

That’s why we see a Russian lady doctor married to an Indian doctor, embroidering the pillow covers and taking her little son to tuition classes in auto, through the by-lanes of rural Kerala. That’s why a civil engineering graduate, takes mathematics tuition at her home, after sending her two daughters to school, and waiting for the call of her husband from Dubai. That’s why a university rank holder, a post graduate in Agriculture, toddles with a baby on her hip, another two hung on her either hands, wandering along the festival grounds and vegetable markets, as her husband has no time to spend for such trivial things. That’s why craft workshops and boutiques mushroom across the country and internet offers free ad columns for ‘job at home’ segments.

So let the Indian women make use of these par boiled accretions at their best. Emotionally it may be hurting; but rationally, it is the only right thing left for them to pursue with. Let’s salute, those who surpass  these ordeals and emerge out with colorful wings as the pride of India.

Indian culture is encoded in every Indian art form. Not every Indian artist need to reflect the same always. But, Madhu Chembery meets a true Indian woman artist who portrays India with its verity of plurality and uniqueness throughout.

Talent or genius sprouted out inside a feminine physique is a mere waste not only to herself but to the whole race. This is a time honored custom, despite geographical, cultural or racial disparities. If she has to abrogate this system, she will have to cross the cinders of inevitabilities. If she is succeeded, we call her versatile, bold, unique or what not? That is what Lata devi is about.

Latadevi is a known personality in the art scenario of Kerala. A Trichur based Fine Arts Graduate; Latadevi has been in the world of colors for the last 25 years. It is not as simple as that for one to remain steadfast in the same field in this era of appearances and unhealthy competitions. But she reinvented herself in her realm, by promoting Fine Arts to a popular art form, radiating its shades along the coastal barriers of understanding and realization. She tackles this juncture, by providing intense training in drawing, painting and its various other forms such as oil painting, acrylic painting mural painting and like, to a lot, from various zones of life. Her students range from 4 years to 80 years!

As a Guru

India’s unique tradition calls a real teacher a Guru, with whom his students are indebted their whole life. Now we have a lot of teachers, who inform us, teach us and enrich us. But Latadevi’s students prefer to call her Guru, as she does not simply teaches but enlightens her students with the wisdom and delight of art, she scored innately. That is why, her student, an 8 year old one is able to assimilate naturally, two objects of the same wavelength, if given, with his novice collections of landscapes. That is why she could make the lives of D

oni.S.Mani, a deaf and dump boy, and Neha, a little angel came to this world for a short period of 10 years, blessed and gratified, by conducting an exhibition of their paintings for the public to adore and appreciate.

Latha devi can be better called as a Fine Arts teacher otherwise, when a segment deserted and left unnoticed, in school staff rooms, as drawing teachers. She enjoys this title in the highly praised campus of Bhavans Vidya Mandir, Trichur. If you ask any of her students or colleagues about their Lata Teacher, with a wide smile they will say ‘ Wah! She’s great!’

When asked about her teaching style, she told in her usual subtle tone: “whoever comes to me to learn drawing, I won’t say ‘no’. But from the first stroke he makes I get a vision of his going. According to that particular way I try to lead him. I never compel my students to follow me but I give them a chance to imagine and work accordingly. I never give homework but I pursue them to observe.”

In fact, she peeps into the dark caverns of her student’s mind with her search light of genius to touch the ability hidden. With ample encouragement and technical aid, she extends her hands to them to a level where she stands.

Recognitions

Apart from a teacher, she has proved herself an inevitable presence in the Fine Arts zones in the length and breadth of the nation. She is the first person in Kerala to conduct a group online painting exhibition, which has imparted a national recognition to her identity. Through the website ‘people.com’, she could showcase the talents of her female students ranging from 5 years to 80 years. She has conducted a number of solo exhibitions of her works at Kerala Lalithakala Academy, to her credit. Also she has participated in the nationally and internationally enthralled exhibitions in various parts of India. In 2002, she was honored with the Best

Art Promoter Award by www.orgpeople.com. She has attended various National Artist camps of the Lalithkala Academy. She has been selected for the exhibitions conducted by the Kerala Lalitha Kala Academy for 3 consecutive years, recently.

Now she is engaged in the picturisation of the contradictory notions of growing indoor plants and bonsai trees. This is for the coming Solo exhibition to be conducted at Trivandrum in November 2010.

Illumination

Works

Though she handles almost every nuance work in the Fine Arts zones, she is excelled in oil and acrylic painting in canvas. Most of her pictures are emphasizing on solid themes, certain strokes tell us the amazing possibilities of the brush and paint. Her works based on themes ranges from nostalgia to human intimacy.

“An artist must be attuned to society. So I cannot simply rule out what all things are happening around me”. She says. Thus emerged the acrylic works on “Muthanga” and “Marad” Incidents. (Both these are the names of places in Kerala, where communal and political riots made the arena miserable for a long time, and its aftermaths are still in the air). As a warrior retorts with his sword, she expressed her pangs through her strokes. These works brought her laurels from various zones of the country.

The works on the negative and fierce impacts of abortions, child hood reflections, illuminations etc are some of the applauded works of Lathadevi. When every one is behind ‘yoga’ to get some positive energy in the midst of the tiresome works and hues, she was on the way of bringing it into canvas as a series of 6 images. You will astonish to say it as simply superb. She remembers one Mr.Vinod’s comment on this series as “padiyarum kadannavidechellumbo l’( a hymn indicates one encounters with God after climbing 6 steps in the hazardous life).

Her portrayal of ‘Dasamatrukakal’( depicting 10 mothers of various classics), reflects the motherhood innate in the Nature and in the artist. Her series of paintings ‘srushty’, ‘sthithi’ and ‘samharam’ (creation, preservation and destruction) imply the very identity of the second sex synchronized with its partner, portrayed in an abstract style, proclaiming the very existence of Nature.

More over, we can see an enthusiastic debutante with a quest for updating in the field, while we go through these works. Unlike the coeval artists of the time, she never sticks to the strait-laced contemporary methods, but tries to revive it with up-to-date renovations.

A medley of colors

Like most of her paintings, her life itself is a medley of colors. As she is very keen to assimilate the colors and not as simply add-ons, she dabbles along multiple roles of an artist, a home maker, a teacher, a wife, a mother

and so on. If you ask her how she could manage this array, she will reply with a smile. “My nights are very short, but they are vibrant”.

A journey with the Indian women

(Debunking the crumpled bibliographies and the most wanted websites, Srilaja Prazad unveils the real face of today’s Indian woman, through a cross section of the peninsular landscape)

‘The day when passion is accepted as a mark of woman hood, it will mark the beginning of the end of feminity”

When I begin to talk about the women folk of present India, I cannot simply rule out what Baba warned about its impending evolutions.Indian woman has grown a lot, from its medieval harems- through the zenanas of the royal suits, to the present tinsel blinks. Burnt in the communal flames of Sati and Jauhr, she proved her chastity to the royal dominance. Being a widow at the brim of adolescence, tonsured, she made the society around, reflected on her head. Wearing purdah, she kept her beauty unseen only to display it to her master. Her education hemmed inside the tim-tims of the dirty utensils and the grayish walls of the kitchens. ‘By the road side, waiting with tired patience, hoping for a miracle in the morrow’ she dwelles upon the flogged-to-death subjects.

Thanks to Gandhi

It was after Mahatma Gandhi’s intervention, that she got the courage and strength to come out to the world around. When Gandhiji, strongly argued and fought for her equal rights, she simply obeyed

the whims and fancies of her in-laws. When Iswar Chandra Vidya Sagar inculcated that in any Hindu Scriptures, the gender division was not encoded and it was a concocted jugglery of the men folk to keep her subordinate always, she sighed out her religious fears. Ultimately Gandhiji, took out his last weapon that found the target. He said “the responsibilities of household are important for women but it should not be the only one. In fact, she should come forward to share the responsibilities of the nation.”

It was the birth of modern Indian woman.

The saga of the gems of Indian women personalities expanded from Vijayalaxmi Pandit, Sarojini Naidu,…….until Indira Gandhi whom the world adored as the epitome of intellect and talent. I won’t put a full stop here, but I definitely need a breach here.

Old wine in a new bottle

When we think of today’s women folk of India, it is somewhat paradoxical. A sight-seer journey from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, through the convoluted and narrow trenches, along the lush groves, through the sky-kissing metro cities, along the dried up rivers, in the crowded streets, inside the air-conditioned cabins of the multi national companies, inside the sweating second class compartments of the passenger trains, in the front yards of the temples and churches, along the empty foot paths at nights… we see her in different shades, but with the same stuff.

It will be scathing for the feminist folks if I brought all under the same banner. Anyway, a rummage through their life journey will reveal, the same outlook with which they live in.

The male dominationComing to the paradoxical situation in which Indian women live is something to brood over. India is always having a male-dominate

d society. The bias of male chauvinistic policy worships her as Mother Goddess or Saint Mary on one hand but denies certain privileges destined to her human self, on the other. The adored ones are destined to accept their permitted abodes on top, from where they are inhibited to come down. Meanwhile, brothels are being set up throughout the streets for the protection of the women inside the homes.

The changing scenario

House wives get the promotion as home makers while, prostitutes are entitled as sex workers. Women were portrayed as just romantic lyrical kinds, who personify the desires and dreams of men. Once a veteran Indian writer himself admitted this conscience like this: “until I read her (Simone de Bouvoir), I thought about women, just as images to dream, the only participation is as the images in poems and paintings” . But when the Indian woman began to write, liberated from the male vision, their write-ups also got marginalized, as a pastime like embroidery.

She got more kicks than half penny, when she cried out through the wolf whistles. Ever since she fought with tooth and nail, she had been receiving threats and stigmatizing unto death. When assaulted or gang-raped, she has to run from pillar to post to get the justice, but in vein. Eve teasing when becomes a hobby for the moral police, inside a crowded bus or a noisy market; she is being portrayed as flirtatious.

The venomous villages

This tendency is rampant in the once adored village scenarios, of which bards sang hymns of being the abodes of innocence. Lives bespattered by the scandal mongers will be there behind those who swam against the flow. Most of the Indian village premises are not fit for a calm life now; since they lost their green fields and the breeze left there is polluted with the concocted scandals against the native nubiles, who are confined to be clogged between the extremes of the so-called moral conservatism. That is why Kamala Das left her village to the busy metros, loved to return only to spend short vacations. Pelting stones towards the odd one to be out is a common criteria practiced there. Men seemed to have never seen women before, is a customized outlook prevalent in some rustic villages, if a nicely clad girl passed by.

The’ welding ‘lock Coming to the insides, most women are victims of nuptial tangle. After marriage, whatever a woman thought of herself and her feelings was conditioned by her husband or in-laws. Women are expected to play certain conventional roles and their own wishes and aspirations are not taken into account. Domination of the male and the consequent dwarfing of the female inhibit the expression of the essential feminine tone here. But these kinds of post marital problems are decreasing of late, thanks to the global concept conceived by some, though minimum.

Another pernicious moot point is regarding dowry. Some statistics say that in every 93 minutes a woman is being burnt by her in-laws, as an end to the dowry combats. This may be wrong, according to the latest reviews, since such headlines are not seen in the news papers, of late. But a custom of sending daughters with maximum gold and currency to the in-law’s house is an accepted one here regardless of cast or creed. This is a part of show casing one’s status co now.

Why curse the male folk?

See, why we pelt stones at the male folk now? It is the girl who pursues her family to have this much gold and this brand car specifically, when she goes to her new home. Even though the groom’s family didn’t’ ask for any, the bride and team ‘does what all they can’, which creates some sort of unhealthy defeatist attitude among the community.

While the common woman faces loads of problems thus, see the other side of this same community. Gone are the days here, girls are being modeled by their character and behavior. Now prudishness and, then the showbiz rein the youth wing. Onrush of the television channels has a remarkable part in changing the mindset of such a value-based community.

India became a celeb-obsessed society and whatever the celebes raved through the channels became the hymns of the youth. A passion for the fame engulfs the personalities and for that they shed off whatever values they have. Through the foreign channels, their culture, mannerisms, and dress codes everything flown in and we surrendered to the pomp and splendor of their feasts. Bollywood copied the teeming rhapsodies of Hollywood . Tollywood, kollywood and like folks gulped it without water.

From the tinsel world, voluptuous beauties proclaimed that they were happy to be entitled as sexy. In the cell phone screens of the adolescence, the titillate gutter press prepared chat shows. The skimpily clad women on the ramp told the news men that they wanted to emulate Mother Teresa. Heroines of the filmdom are honored as bombshells. They advised the young girls through the channels and bombastic women magazines, the inevitability of having curves in the body line.

* * * * * *

See, Indian women have grown a lot from the medieval harems. Culturally, economically, socially, and like every facet of life they etched their own marks. When Kalpana Chawla flew to ethereal heights, P.T.Usha, lost an Olympic medal for a whisker, Arundhaty Roy and Kiran Desai were honored with Booker prize, the world came to know the potentials of Indian women. Long before that, it was known for the unparalleled chastity and modesty of Sita, Arundhati and Savitri. Now the only change is in the names and shames; but we compromise it with fames.

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