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Literary Review
Quiet acts of courage
C.S. LAKSHMI
THERE seems to be a great need here to make heroines out of women who have made even the slightest gesture of protest. A young girl goes with her parents and willingly buys everything from refrigerator to washing machines, all in two numbers because the groom's family has instructed so, and then right at the end when they ask for even more in cash and insult her father, she becomes angry and complains to the police and the groom and his mother are arrested. Actually they should have arrested the father and the daughter also, for giving dowry is as much a crime as taking it. If the groom's family hadn't asked for anything at this point and instead asked after marriage, one is sure the girl's family would have obliged, for, any family that is willing to buy two numbers of one item is the kind of family that is waiting to be exploited. They are also the kinds who believe that a daughter leaves her parental family in a doli and only her arthi (ashes) leaves her husband's house. Nisha Sharma, the young girl in question, in a moment of fury, protested and she is a heroine because she refused to give a huge amount as cash dowry. Immediately after, she gave interviews saying she would marry anyone else her father chose and so on. When questioned as to why she allowed her father to buy all those expensive household items in the first place, all that she had to say was a weak, "Woh toh Papa ne leliya... " (Papa had already bought them... ) But by then the media and some women's groups had already anointed her as a rebel heroine. There are offers to give her entry into politics (where else can one put someone who takes such late decisions?) and now Nisha is put in a situation where she has to invent some principles. If one were Nisha, one would do some introspection and avoid all this publicity for a gesture that came too late for anybody's good.
If Nisha encashes all the items bought by her father and gives the money back to her father or to a needy women's group, one can say this incident has changed her completely. But such miracles normally don't happen. Despite the media writing as if the moment Nisha complained to the police is the moment of her nirvana, one won't be surprised if after all this dies down, Nisha marries some other person chosen by her father and they quietly sell the extra items already bought. That may seem like a harsh statement but one has known greater heroines and greater parents who have taken decisions despite criticism from all quarters, including the extended family.
A few years ago, in Tamil Nadu, there was a young girl from a small town who stopped her marriage because the groom's people, at the last minute, demanded a cycle. There was no media hype although some Tamil journals did write about it. Maybe the media gets excited only when the dowry items are more and if the concerned girl is photogenic. Even when there was no media coverage and it was not fashionable to protest — I am talking here of the first few decades of the 20th century — some quiet revolutions took place.
Aa. Madhaviah, the well-known writer, as a matter of principle, got his daughters married only in cotton saris. Dr. Krishnabai Nimbkar, the freedom fighter, went against her mother whom she admired and loved when she chose not to wear a thali. Mother and daughter did not talk to each other for a while. In 1947 two persons from two well-known families decided to get married, for they had met and fallen in love. The boy was Akshay R. Desai, the famous sociologist who died a few years ago and the girl was Dr. Neera Desai, one of the pioneers in Women's Studies. Both the families were preparing for a ritualistic and ostentatious marriage because for both the families the marriage was very special. Akshay and Neera felt that such a marriage would go against their principles. They gave notice and invited the registrar to Akshay's room and had a quiet civil marriage. Around the same time, a young girl called Saroja who later became well-known as writer Saroja Rammurthy, married fellow-writer Ramamurthy in a civil ceremony much against the wishes of her family.
In the 1970s when I travelled around and met many women, I met Pavai Parvathi, the writer, who did not wear silk saris, as a mater of principle. A South Indian wedding without silk saris, where the bride herself refuses to wear silk saris was unthinkable then and is probably so even now despite the example set by Aa. Madhaviah. So Pavai Parvathi remained unmarried for a long time till someone came along who understood her need to assert herself this way. Someone else told me about a working woman, from a middle-class family, whose marriage was arranged. She had found her future father-in-law waiting outside her office on the salary day of the following month. When she expressed her surprise at seeing him, he explained that he had come to collect her salary for her earnings now belonged to her husband's family. The girl made some polite excuse and came home and told her father to cancel the plans for her marriage. The marriage had been arranged after great difficulties and the cancellation would damage her future prospects of marriage she was told. But the girl was firm that she did not want to marry into a family which saw her personal worth only in terms of the money she earned. And there is that incident of a tribal woman in Maharashtra whose husband battered her and abused her in every way possible. She wanted a divorce from him. Those who were witness to her decision told me about this incident. She appeared before the tribal panchayat and brought out Rs.500. She said, "My husband bought my body for Rs.500 when he married me. I would now like to pay him back Rs.500 and reclaim my body."
A sage and a learned man we knew took many decisions and made many statements which took people by surprise. A family once came and complained to him that their son was not willing to get married. He talked to the son and the son told him, thinking he was being very modern, that he would marry only when he met the girl of his choice and that he wanted a simple marriage with just the necessary ceremonies, if need be. The sage told him, "If you meet a girl with whom you want to share the rest of your life, where is the need for marriage and any ceremonies then?"
Great decisions these are, which quietly get written into history. No drama, no publicity.
Such decisions come from deep convictions and a strong belief in oneself.
C.S. Lakshmi is an independent researcher and a writer. She writes in Tamil under the pseudonym Ambai. She is the founder-trustee and director of SPARROW (Sound and Picture Archives for Research on Women).
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