Women’s time will come -- New Internationalist

Women’s time will come -- New Internationalist



 Women’s time will come

During a week of bad news, Mari Marcel Thekaekara looks to women who inspire her.

A major Indian magazine, Outlook, carried a piece about our iconic women. Reading about them is both heart-warming and inspirational. They cheer you up when all the other headlines, dismal gloomy bad news, send you into a depression cycle. To add to the good news, last week a journalist friend remarked how on revisiting her ancestral village she discovered stories of ordinary women. How they survive in spite of adverse conditions, insurmountable odds and very little support. It set me thinking about other wonderful women I know.

Gayathri, my friend Rama’s mother, recently turned 80. She is a particularly strong woman, and I always admire her spirit, her chutzpah. She moved from bustling Bombay as a young girl, to marry into a Karnataka village family. Even now, though it’s changing rapidly, Indian women marry their partner’s family, not just the spouse. We rarely lead separate lives.

For Gayathri’s 80th birthday, Rama invited all the relatives to a surprise dinner. It was wonderful to hear the stories surrounding Gayathri’s youth. Apparently, the entire village talked about the ‘revolutionary Bombay bride’! She arrived, a modern young bride, around 60 years ago, quite prepared to deal with her new life. The only thing which threw her was that there was no toilet. She threw up her hands and said: ‘That's one thing I am not prepared to do. I can’t go to the open fields or behind bushes.’