Songs of Silence!

Songs of Silence!

Yogesh Snehi

Rural Indian women shares with her western counterpart the idealistic burden of the society in the form of nurturing, doing household jobs and adhering to the patriarchal setup etc.. Besides working in the field and sharing gravity at home and outside, she is a silent bearer of enormous burden which is not borne by men. But, an Indian woman has some peculiar characteristics which distinguish her from westerners. The pains, pleasures and anxieties which she goes through are hardly reflected and represented in her behavioural patterns and literature.

Studies around the world have revealed that female bias exists in every society and is reflected in the marked preference for boys. This can also be seen through unevenness in sex ratios, especially in India. Theoretically, one possible consequence of this kind of equity (which is perhaps common in the west) would be a heightened envy and hostility towards males. But, no contemporary evidence indicates hostility of Indian mother towards son or sister towards brother. Instead, the patriarchal setup of our society is such that a son is equally dear to a mother and a sister. This has been made possible through construction of myths relating male child to Krishna, Rama or to the Prophet.

Literature may tell us about the attitudes of a society. But, almost the entire canon of Indian literature has been composed by men, barring a fractional representation by women in devotional literature. But, there is an important source which links itself to the feeling of agonies, anxieties and frustrations of women, which are an outcome of sanctified patriarchy. Oral traditions throughout India are intimately linked to women’s voices. Infact, folksongs, ballads and couplets are sung mostly by women are represent psychological vent for women. Folk songs reveal the painful awareness of inferiority that transcend every class and caste of women.

Women’s songs are important statements of their identity and must be understood in terms of a society’s gender norms. Due to the rules of seclusion, social events in which women sing together, or women’s song fests, almost always occur in enclosed space. Their songs are often related to life cycle events and present a distinctly female view of the world and represent resistance and counter-viewpoints against men. Oral traditions frequently challenge the norms and values found in literature, almost always written by men.

A folk songs from Braj captures the frustration a women on being born a girl and expresses her desire to be a koel, fish or lightening instead.

O mother, who gave me birth,

Why didn’t you bring me up as a koel of the gardens?

In the gardens I would have lived,

Unto the gay flute player of the dance gathering

I would have offered my cooing.

O mother, who gave me birth,

Why didn’t you bring me up as a fish of the ponds?

In the ponds I would have lived,

Unto the gay flute player of the dance gathering

I would have jumped.

O mother, who gave me birth,

Why didn’t you bring me up as lightening of the clouds?

I would have lived in the clouds,

Unto the gay flute player of the dance gathering

I would have flashed.

The work spheres of men and women are closely gendered and set forth strict realms of the public and private domains. During the freedom movement the spinning of the thread from wheel had become a symbolic representation of women’s work. Gandhi believed that since spinning is essentially a slow and comparatively silent process and women is an embodiment of sacrifice, hence it remains women’s speciality. But, a Punjabi folk couplet explains the agony of women who spins charkha and perhaps against her wish.

Listen, O sun,

Listen, O moon,

Tears roll down my eyes.

The world enjoys,

I spin my sorrow.

Another Awadhi song shows the agony of a daughter towards her father. Interestingly, the song also shows her parallel intimacy with the brother and the mother. She relates herself to sparrows, which will leave for in-laws place.

Don’t cut this neem tree, father,

The neem gives rest to sparrows:

Let me clasp you, brother.

Don’t trouble your daughter, father,

Daughters are like sparrows:

Let me clasp you, brother.

All the sparrows will fly away,

The neem will feel lonely:

Let me clasp you, brother.

Daughters will leave for father-in-laws places,

Mothers will feel lonely:

Let me clasp you, brother.

The social stigma attached with the life of widows has a long history. She not only bears the apathy of her paternal family but also social derecognition and castigation. A Habli song from Bastar narrates the plight of a widow.

Nothing to be cooked in the widow’s house

She works to fill her little belly;

Whatever she gets, half-cooked or rotten,

She jumps to eat but starves.

The lives of million of such rural women in India is similarly narrated in thousands of such folk songs, unwritten, but recorded in their subconscious. Each one of them retells the unheard and unfelt story of their anguish towards patriarchy.

01 November 2003