{"id":569,"date":"2016-01-24T09:29:58","date_gmt":"2016-01-24T15:29:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.srpr.org\/blog\/?p=569"},"modified":"2017-12-28T22:01:26","modified_gmt":"2017-12-29T04:01:26","slug":"higher-than-four-walls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.srpr.org\/blog\/higher-than-four-walls\/","title":{"rendered":"Higher Than the Four Walls: Domestic Space and Women’s Struggle in Oriya Folksongs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shailen Mishra, SRPR Blog Editor & Series Contributor<\/h2>\n

Shailen\u2019s series \u201cSpace in Culture<\/a>\u201d explores the motif of space in the works of Indian poets and poetry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The modern and urban habitation treats the domestic space like a flatland. There is no strict code of where what should be done. If at all there was such a code at one point, those boundaries are increasingly getting blurred. We eat on our bed. We sleep on the couch in the living room. We take our reading to the toilet. Homework gets done upon the dining table. It looks like we\u2019re enjoying bleeding the utility of one room to another. But the compartmentalization of the domestic space can be highly restrictive and codified. Where and how such restrictions exist are pointed questions, because these restrictions often have an inherent component of circumscribing women\u2019s freedom and movements.<\/p>\n

My maternal grandmother, Chandramani Devi, was not allowed to step to the front porch of her own house in the daylight. That\u2019s the social code she had to follow as a married woman who belonged to a respectable household. She was allowed to venture out only on the day of festivities. But even then her errand would be limited to a temple, her face would have to be covered, and she would have to be accompanied by other neighborhood women or her children. When her husband was not in the house, the front door remained locked or uninvitingly ajar. If anyone knocked on the door, then one of her six children would answer the call and act as emissaries, carrying messages back and forth. Under no circumstance, the visitor is allowed to catch a glimpse of Chandramani. That would be scandalous of such proportions that the entire neighborhood would be rocked and gossipy mouths won\u2019t stop chattering. The only way my grandmother circumvented these restrictions and communed with the outside world is through a chink in the doorway. When a marriage procession, political rally, or funeral would pass by, she satiated her curiosity like a spy eavesdropping through a keyhole.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re talking of 1950s here and of a pilgrim city called Puri in eastern India. My grandmother\u2019s situation was not an exception. Rather, it was the norm for married women of that time. My grandfather was not abusive or harsh; he was a gentle character instead. He just preferred to follow the society\u2019s code faithfully. Moreover, I am not sure how much my grandmother would have approved of my grandfather\u2019s progressiveness had he decided to lift the spatial restriction upon her.<\/p>\n

Another level of arduousness to this whole regressive system came from where and with whom you lived. Chandramani was living in a city at that time and all by herself with her husband and children. Having in-laws in the house, which was highly common back then, would have exacerbated the matter with constant nagging and criticism and even more stringent restrictions of where and how she could move in the house. Secondly, change the urban setting to a rural one, a stricter regimen of mores and propriety would besiege you. Chandramani passed through such a phase earlier in her marital life. Between the age of fifteen (the age she got married) and thirty, she lived with her mother-in-law in a village. During that period my grandfather lived in the city and visited her once a week. Without her husband around, most of young Chandramani\u2019s time was spent raising her children, cohabiting with her brother\/sister-in-laws, and most importantly, managing her mother-in-law. From her standpoint, the word \u201cmother-in-law\u201d must have seemed bitterly ironic: less a \u201cmother,\u201d more a \u201claw.\u201d The relationship that my grandmother had with her in-law was not a horror story, which was not so uncommon in those days with young brides getting abused, harassed, neglected, and even killed at the hands of their husband\u2019s family. Chandramani got away with occasional wrapping on the knuckles or wringing of her cheeks. But the fear of upsetting or offending her in-law was constant.<\/p>\n

There was one particular ordeal that traumatized my grandmother more than anything else. There was no indoor toilet system at her in-law\u2019s house. Not even a pit latrine. All the excretion business had to be done in open air, either in the field or behind the bush. Chandramani was a city girl. She had the luxury of growing up in a house with a toilet in it. But the rural lifestyle denied her any such convenience or privacy. And even worse was the fact that she had to conclude her sanitational routine before the daybreak so that no villager or neighbor would see her. Under such circumstance, any bowel movement in the daytime must have felt like a witch\u2019s curse. I have heard tales, embarrassing tales, mind you, of how women relieved themselves of nature\u2019s call at the \u201ccurfew\u201d hour. Heaven forbid if you\u2019re hit by a bout of diarrhea. I am not going to get into details here. But it suffices to say that hearing stories of women managing toilet emergencies made me realize why sanitation standard was so unfairly stacked against women at that time. It\u2019s not like India has fully ridden itself of the open-air toilet practice for large section of its population. In many cases, people don\u2019t build and use toilets out of cost-saving mindset, obstinate habits, and\/or outright insensibility<\/a>. Women suffer the most in this outdoorsy practice at the expense to their safety and dignity<\/a>. Men, on the other hand, who have the decision-making power and who find it convenient to relieve themselves in open, would rather build a fortress of restrictions around women to \u201cprotect\u201d them than the four walls of a latrine.<\/p>\n

What we have here is patriarchy hacking an easy way out of its self-devised conundrum: women cannot be exposed to the outside world; if they must then let it be in the veil of darkness. The above restrictions surrounding the toilet practice and living room usage are examples of how a patriarchal society circumscribes women\u2019s spatial freedom, and designates the conditions for moving within that restricted space. My grandmother\u2019s personal accounts are a window to the experiences of brides and wives of her generation. Imagine being barely fifteen or less and being shipped off to a strange land to be a wife, to be a suitable daughter-in-law, and soon to be a mother. Movement to the outside world forever restricted, forever monitored. Only times you\u2019re allowed to experience the outdoor was through bits and pieces, through the depth of night, through the door crack, or through the second-hand accounts. Indeed, a patriarchy of its own kind, of its own times, and with its own set of peculiarities, trauma, and violence.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a folksong titled \u201cWhen Will I, Mother, Visit Home\u201d that comes from my grandmother\u2019s hometown, which recounts the sad tale of a new bride, struggling to find her place at her husband\u2019s home. I don\u2019t know if my grandmother knew this song. But this folksong captures the anxiety and homesickness of a young bride, who faces hostility and harassment at the hands of her husband\u2019s family. I first encountered this song in the Oriya (or Odia in contemporary parlance) folksong collection compiled by the prolific Oriya writer and poet Kunjabihari Das. In the preface to the collection, Das mentions this particular song movingly, while pointing out that this song\u2019s theme is part of a broader trend in Oriya folksongs. He writes: \u201cThe sad tales of in-law\u2019s house are the lifeblood of most Oriya folksongs. They overflow with the pitiful tears of the bride. Is there a reader whose eyes are not moistened by that torrent?\u201d Indeed, the collection has several songs that speak of young bride\u2019s struggle. There\u2019s no personal testimony here; no written account; no individual stories that bear the name of the sufferer. All we have is these folksongs that have outlived the victims and that bear the imprint of a common struggle, a shared reality, and a fused history.<\/p>\n

The folksong \u201cWhen Will I, Mother, Visit Home\u201d in its original Oriya script is shared below (if the script is not displayed by your browser then click here for the pdf<\/a> file):<\/p>\n

\u0b15\u0b47\u0b09\u0b01\u0b26\u0b3f\u0b28 \u0b32\u0b4b \u0b2c\u0b4b\u0b09 \u0b18\u0b30\u0b15\u0b41 \u0b2f\u0b3f\u0b2c\u0b3f<\/h1>\n

\u0b2a\u0b39\u0b3f\u0b32\u0b3f \u0b2a\u0b3e\u0b33\u0b3f \u0b32\u0b4b \u0b2c\u0b4b\u0b09 \u0b26\u0b47\u0b32\u0b41 \u0b2a\u0b20\u0b47\u0b07
\n\u0b38\u0b3e\u0b02\u0b17\u0b30\u0b47 \u0b2f\u0b3e\u0b07\u0b25\u0b3f\u0b32\u0b47 \u0b38\u0b3e\u0b28 \u0b15\u0b15\u0b47\u0b07 \u0964
\n\u0b05\u0b27 \u0b32\u0b4b \u0b2c\u0b3e\u0b1f\u0b2f\u0b3e\u0b0f \u0b2e\u0b4b \u0b2a\u0b3f\u0b24\u0b3e \u0b17\u0b32\u0b47
\n\u0b2c\u0b3f\u0b26\u0b3e\u0b5f \u0b39\u0b41\u0b05 \u0b2c\u0b4b\u0b32\u0b3f \u0b2e\u0b4b\u0b24\u0b47 \u0b15\u0b39\u0b3f\u0b32\u0b47 \u0964
\n\u0b27\u0b48\u0b30\u0b4d\u0b2f\u0b4d\u0b2f \u0b32\u0b4b \u0b2b\u0b47\u0b21\u0b3f \u0b24\u0b3e\u0b02\u0b15\u0b41 \u0b15\u0b39\u0b3f\u0b32\u0b3f \u0b2e\u0b41\u0b39\u0b3f\u0b01
\n\u0b38\u0b41\u0b06\u0b30\u0b3f \u0b06\u0b17\u0b47 \u0b26\u0b47\u0b2c \u0b26\u0b41\u0b39\u0b3e\u0b33 \u0b17\u0b3e\u0b08 \u0964
\n\u0b1d\u0b3f\u0b23\u0b4d\u0b1f\u0b3f \u0b32\u0b4b \u0b15\u0b3f\u0b23\u0b4d\u0b1f\u0b3f \u0b2e\u0b4b \u0b28\u0b23\u0b28\u0b4d\u0b26 \u0b25\u0b3f\u0b32\u0b47
\n\u0b39\u0b3e\u0b23\u0b4d\u0b21\u0b3f \u0b32\u0b4b \u0b36\u0b3e\u0b33 \u0b15\u0b23\u0b47 \u0b2c\u0b38\u0b3e\u0b07 \u0b26\u0b47\u0b32\u0b47 \u0964
\n\u0b2f\u0b47\u0b26\u0b3f\u0b28\u0b41 \u0b39\u0b3e\u0b23\u0b4d\u0b21\u0b3f \u0b17\u0b4b\u0b1f\u0b3e \u0b26\u0b47\u0b32\u0b3f \u0b2b\u0b41\u0b1f\u0b3e\u0b07
\n\u0b38\u0b47\u0b26\u0b3f\u0b28\u0b41 \u0b39\u0b3e\u0b23\u0b4d\u0b21\u0b3f\u0b36\u0b3e\u0b33\u0b41 \u0b26\u0b47\u0b32\u0b47 \u0b09\u0b20\u0b3e\u0b07 \u0964
\n\u0b27\u0b3e\u0b28 \u0b15\u0b41\u0b1f\u0b07 \u0b2c\u0b4b\u0b09 \u0b2a\u0b3e\u0b23\u0b3f \u0b06\u0b23\u0b07
\n\u0b17\u0b41\u0b39\u0b3e\u0b33 \u0b17\u0b4b\u0b2c\u0b30 \u0b2c\u0b4b\u0b09 \u0b2e\u0b41\u0b39\u0b3f\u0b01 \u0b2a\u0b4b\u0b1b\u0b07 \u0964
\n\u0b17\u0b41\u0b39\u0b3e\u0b33 \u0b15\u0b23\u0b47 \u0b2c\u0b4b\u0b09 \u0b2a\u0b24\u0b4d\u0b30 \u0b2a\u0b15\u0b3e\u0b28\u0b4d\u0b24\u0b3f
\n\u0b2d\u0b3e\u0b24 \u0b15\u0b02\u0b38\u0b3f\u0b0f \u0b2c\u0b4b\u0b09 \u0b2c\u0b3e\u0b22\u0b3f \u0b26\u0b3f\u0b05\u0b28\u0b4d\u0b24\u0b3f \u0964
\n\u0b32\u0b41\u0b23 \u0b28 \u0b25\u0b3e\u0b07 \u0b2c\u0b4b\u0b09 \u0b24\u0b41\u0b23 \u0b28 \u0b25\u0b3e\u0b07
\n\u0b17\u0b4b\u0b2c\u0b30 \u0b17\u0b28\u0b4d\u0b27\u0b30\u0b47 \u0b2c\u0b4b\u0b09 \u0b16\u0b3e\u0b07 \u0b28 \u0b2a\u0b3e\u0b30\u0b07 \u0964
\n\u0b36\u0b4b\u0b07\u0b32\u0b3e \u0b2c\u0b47\u0b33\u0b15\u0b41 \u0b2c\u0b4b\u0b09 \u0b2f\u0b4b\u0b09\u0b01 \u0b39\u0b1f\u0b39\u0b1f\u0b3e
\n\u0b26\u0b41\u0b06\u0b30 \u0b15\u0b3f\u0b33\u0b3f\u0b23 \u0b2c\u0b4b\u0b09 \u0b2e\u0b3e\u0b30\u0b28\u0b4d\u0b24\u0b3f \u0b17\u0b4b\u0b07\u0b20\u0b3e \u0964
\n\u0b2f\u0b47\u0b09\u0b01 \u0b39\u0b1f\u0b39\u0b1f\u0b3e \u0b2c\u0b4b\u0b09 \u0b2e\u0b4b\u0b21\u0b3f\u0b32\u0b3e \u0b2c\u0b47\u0b33\u0b47
\n\u0b2a\u0b47\u0b32\u0b3f \u0b26\u0b47\u0b32\u0b47 \u0b2a\u0b21\u0b3f\u0b2f\u0b3e\u0b0f \u0b2a\u0b39\u0b23\u0b4d\u0b21 \u0b24\u0b33\u0b47 \u0964
\n\u0b2a\u0b39\u0b23\u0b4d\u0b21\u0b15 \u0b24\u0b33\u0b47 \u0b2c\u0b38\u0b3f \u0b15\u0b3e\u0b28\u0b4d\u0b26\u0b41 \u0b25\u0b3e\u0b0f\u0b01 \u0b2e\u0b41\u0b39\u0b3f\u0b01
\n\u0b26\u0b3e\u0b23\u0b4d\u0b21\u0b2c\u0b3e\u0b21\u0b3f\u0b15\u0b3f \u0b1a\u0b3e\u0b39\u0b3f\u0b01\u0b32\u0b47 \u0b2c\u0b4b\u0b09 \u0b2e\u0b4b\u0b30 \u0b15\u0b47\u0b39\u0b3f \u0b28\u0b3e\u0b39\u0b3f\u0b01 \u0964
\n\u0b15\u0b47\u0b09\u0b01\u0b26\u0b3f\u0b28 \u0b32\u0b4b \u0b2c\u0b4b\u0b09 \u0b18\u0b30\u0b15\u0b41 \u0b2f\u0b3f\u0b2c\u0b3f?
\n\u0b39\u0b3e\u0b23\u0b4d\u0b21\u0b3f\u0b36\u0b3e\u0b33 \u0b15\u0b23\u0b47 \u0b2c\u0b38\u0b3f \u0b38\u0b2c\u0b41 \u0b15\u0b39\u0b3f\u0b2c\u0b3f \u0964<\/p>\n

My translation:<\/p>\n

When Will I, Mother, Visit Home<\/h1>\n

You sent me off in the small hours, Mother
\nAccompanying me was the uncle junior.
\nMy father went till half the way
\nFarewell to you, he said.
\nShedding my patience I voiced this plea
\nThe cow haling the carriage to be milky.
\nSharp as bramble was my sister-in-law
\nShe sat me by the kitchen stove.
\nThe day that I broke the pot
\nFrom the kitchen was I shoved off.
\nI pound the grain, Mother, and haul the water
\nI too clear the cattle manure.
\nBy the cowshed corner, Mother, is my dinner seat
\n<\/span>A bowl of rice they serve me for meal.
\nNo salt or dish to go with it
\nIn the stench of dung I can\u2019t eat.
\nAt the bedtime, Mother, so much uproar
\nI get kicking behind shut door.
\nDuring the rubdown they give me hell
\nI fall down when shoved off the bed.
\nSitting on the floor I moan
\nIn the whole house none to call my own.
\nWhen will I, Mother, visit home?
\nWill tell you all by the kitchen stove.<\/p>\n

The song begins with the image of the bridal send off. Considering the era, the narrator has most likely not seen her husband yet or the house and the village that she is about to call \u201chome\u201d for the rest of her life. In such a context, no wonder the bridal send off, the parting scene between the mother and daughter, becomes an emotionally eviscerating affair. The young bride is reminded over and over by her mother, aunts, older sisters, and girlfriends that a girl\u2019s fate is to bid farewell to her family. She has to embrace her new home. She has to make the most of it. After all, (so the saying goes) the girl child is always another one\u2019s daughter.<\/p>\n

The narrator is not naive. In a subtle way, she registers protest against her father, his lukewarm response, as he accompanies her in the farewell ride only halfway as if trying to fulfill a mere formality. As she gets to her husband\u2019s house, the narrator\u2019s ordeal begins right away. Her skills as a cook are put to test. There is no room for mistake here. So breaking of the clay pot becomes a grave offense, an excuse to cast her off as inept and demean her status in the house. As the song progresses, the space within the house becomes a dominant dimension through which the intensity of the narrator\u2019s agony is registered. Space and emotion inflect one another, and in this reciprocity what illuminates is that the domestic space is not just a designated limit to the women\u2019s autonomy but within it lies a spatial hierarchy, echoing the gradation of marginality.<\/p>\n

If we take our narrator to be a typical case of her generation, then she\u2019s most likely not educated. Psychologically conditioned to be a wife and a mother, her sense of self-worth comes from these two identities. In her twin role as a caretaker, to be able to cook is of elevated importance and an intimate way to win approval. So within the domestic space, the kitchen (the ability to manage it) becomes the epicenter of a woman\u2019s agency. The mother-in-law exercises her dominance by granting and limiting access to the kitchen. After all, she was a young and novice daughter-in-law once. When the narrator is barred from the kitchen, her hardship manifolds. She\u2019s relegated to do menial work like pounding grain, fetching water, and cleaning manure, which are reserved for servants. Further, to stigmatize her and underscore her diminished status in the house, she\u2019s assigned a spot by the \u201ccowshed corner\u201d to eat. The punishment thus delivered through the spatial dimension conveys the hierarchical division of space within the household and how it can be instrumental toward spelling marginality and exercising power. For the narrator, her psychological isolation is most pointedly conveyed when she observes: \u201cIn the whole house none to call my own.\u201d Her new \u201chome\u201d becomes a nominal entity, bereft of familial empathy and consideration. Not even her husband is a source of comfort here, a character conspicuously missing from the song. The distinction between the narrator\u2019s parental house and her husband\u2019s house is steadfastly upheld in the song. The designation of \u201chome\u201d always applies to the former. So the narrator\u2019s homesickness, her desire to be relieved of her struggle is registered in the final two lines of the song: \u201cWhen will I, Mother, visit home? \/ Will tell you all by the kitchen stove.\u201d<\/p>\n

The repetition of the title of the song in the penultimate line is a touching plea because of the uncertainty that looms over the question. The narrator\u2019s chance to visit her parental house will be determined by her in-laws and husband, a possibility that may or may not come to fruition any time soon. The last line, though, connotes an intimate space at the narrator\u2019s parent\u2019s house, where she and her mother would have chatted, laughed, quarreled, and shed tears. This memoried corner in the kitchen is now an abode of refuge. There the narrator looks forward to unburdening her sorrow and she\u2019s assured of finding an empathizing ear.<\/p>\n

The kitchen\u2019s multiple symbolic import is noteworthy here. On one hand, kitchen is a site of contestation: power is exercised by granting or denying access to it, and moreover, a woman\u2019s self-worth is determined in relation to the kitchen. On the other hand, kitchen can also be a site of learning, bonding, commiseration, and solace. This dichotomous contrast is actually two sides of the same coin, since the mother who bonds with her daughter at the kitchen is capable \u00a0of being a different person in her role as a mother-in-law. Nevertheless, the song underscores that the kitchen, a space synonymous with feminity, is simultaneously a symbol of patriarchal restriction and a site of woman\u2019s agency. Further, the domestic space surrounding the kitchen is laden with hierarchical status. This is definitely true even today in the rural Indian culture. And we see this sentiment echoed through the humiliations that the narrator suffers when she is made to eat by the cowshed.<\/p>\n

Brutality against brides, confinement of women to the domestic space, restriction of their movements, and curtailing of women\u2019s agency are not archaic norms that belonged to Chandramani\u2019s era. Rather, they are still active and ruthlessly enforced in many parts of India today. If at all women\u2019s marginal conditions become news then it is often under tragic circumstances; otherwise, their stories will remain unknown and unvoiced. In lieu of their silence, what we have is these folksongs, an extant example of their struggle, a cadence of resilience.<\/p>\n

\u2245<\/p>\n

\"Shailen<\/p>\n


\nShailen Mishra<\/a> is a book hopper, story whore, poetry pariah, novelist, three times failed guitar learner, and an aspiring didgeridoo player. He holds a Ph.D. from Illinois State University and an MFA from North Carolina State University. In his spare time, he edits SRPR\u2019s blog and manages its website.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
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