What is it that women do?

It was now nearly a week that the rains had stopped, and the sun was shining brightly in a perfect blue sky with a few scattered puffs of white clouds. This year the rains had started late but once they had begun had continued steadily for the last two months. It was a welcome change from the last two years when the rains were not only late and sporadic but had come down so hard once or twice as to cause landslips in several places in our village. After debating for some time, I decided it would be safe to charge the solar cooker today, and after loading it with rice and dal, I went back to my reading. I was sitting on our veranda with my back to the sun and was deeply engrossed in an article on the work of Claudia Goldin, who had just been awarded the Nobel prize in the Economic Sciences, on my tablet, when I heard the clang of the metal gate, and a voice rang out ‘Uncleji Namaste’. I looked in the direction and saw two young women or should I say girls coming down the stairs after closing the gate behind. ‘Namaste Priti, Aaj bahut sawere dikh rahi ho, aao aao’. Hello Priti, you have come very early today, come come, I replied and got up to welcome the two girls. ‘Mummy has sent this for you and Auntiji’ said Priti and took out a greenish-yellow vegetable, the size of a small club. Vegetables in the Uttarakhand Himalayas often grow to a prodigious size, and cucumbers often particularly so. This cucumber was at least the size of my forearm, and I took it from Priti and asked her and her friend to sit down on the veranda with me.

Priti is barely 5 feet tall, a wisp of a girl, and it’s difficult to make out that she had just completed her graduation and was soon going to be twenty-one. Priti stays a few houses up the hill from us, and she and her two siblings have been coming to our house for nearly ten years now. Earlier when she was younger, she and her sister would recite poems, and sing songs and dance very unselfconsciously whenever we asked them, and we would give them chocolates, or biscuits or some lemonade. As they joined high school their visits became infrequent. Three years ago, we learnt she had gone off to college in Nainital. She wanted to study economics for her graduation, but the college near our village did not offer economics, commerce or science courses. Her parents, unlike other parents in the villages here, did not discourage her, even though it meant that she would stay on her own more than 50 kilometers away and the family budget would need to be tightened.

Priti was very familiar with us, and no sooner had she sat down, she reached out for my tab and asked Aap koi film dekh rahe the? ‘Were you watching a film?’ ‘I will tell you, but won’t you introduce me to your friend first’. Her friend was sitting straight on the chair I had indicated, clearly, she was not so comfortable, and even though I had passed her a few times on our walks, my acquaintance did not go beyond the Namaste that we had exchanged. ‘You don’t know Mamta’ exclaimed Priti, ‘She is Sher Singh Chacha’s daughter, they live in Phulgarh’. Phulgarh is a tok or neighbourhood on the far side of the village, so I was not very familiar with the families living there, but I knew Sher Singh, so I nodded in understanding. ‘Before I tell you what I was watching on the tab you have to tell me what you would like to drink, Buransh squash or chai?’ I enquired. Priti immediately said ‘buransh’ and after a slight delay Mamta also agreed. Buransh or rhododendron grows wild in the oak forest surrounding our village and every year I make a few bottles of squash from its bright red petals. I handed over the tab to Priti, opened to the page I was reading, ‘Read what is written here, and tell me what you think. Didn’t you just complete your Graduation with Economics. This article is all about women and economics.’ And I walked indoors to bring them their squash.    

When I came back with their drinks, Priti sounded miffed. ‘I thought you were watching a film, but this is all in English. You know I don’t know English.’ ‘But you know economics, and this is all about economics’, I shot back. ‘But we studied economics in Hindi, I have told you earlier.’ Priti parried, ‘you tell us what this is all about in Hindi, and I will understand.’ ‘Okay’ I agreed. ‘But let me get to know Mamta, first. Mamta, what are you studying? I asked. ‘I am studying in Class 12’ Mamta replied demurely. ‘At the Simkhola Intercollege I asked. What subjects have you taken?’ ‘Hindi, Sanskrit, History and Home Science’ replied Mamta. ‘What do you want to do after your Class 12, have you thought about it? I asked.

At this point Priti piped in ‘Bahut ho gaya. Now will you tell us what is written in the article?’

‘Have you heard of the Nobel Prize?’ I asked the girls, and both of them pouted their lips and shook their heads indicating they hadn’t. ‘Every year some of the world’s best scientists and authors and given the Nobel Prize. It is the world’s most important prize for Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Economics, Literature and World Peace. Have you heard of Rabindranath Tagore? He had won the Literature Prize many years ago.’ The blank look on their faces indicated they didn’t recognise the name. It would be futile to mention the names of Amartya Sen or Kailash Satyarthi, or Abhijit Bannerjee some of the recent Indian Laurates, so I said, ‘have you heard of Mother Teresa?’ and there was a flicker of recognition. ‘Didn’t she work with poor people and orphans.’ Priti said with some hesitation. ‘Yes’, I agreed, ‘and the world recognised her good work, and she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. This year a woman economist Claudia Goldin from America was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics. She was given the prize for research on women and their work. Have you heard her name?’ I asked Priti. She shook her head in the negative and shot back, ‘What did she write? What is written in that article? You haven’t told us that as yet!’

‘Batata hun, batata hun’, I said in a reconciliatory tone, ‘her research was about women’s work, so let’s do a small research on that now. Will you do it with me?’ ‘Aap khali baat ghumate ho. You are always talking in riddles. But okay’ Priti grudgingly agreed.

‘So, let’s start with you’, I told Priti, ‘What do you want to do now after completing your graduation?’ ‘I am not sure. Sometimes I think I should do MA and then teacher training and become a teacher. Then someone told me I should study for Government civil service exams. One of my friends in Nainital is going to join a course in Bareilly to become a Lab technician, but she had Zoology as a subject. You tell me what I should do.’ She concluded. ‘So, you want to do some kind of naukri, right. Now Mamta what would you like to do when you finish Class 12 and then plan for your future?’

‘I am not so good in studies like Pritididi, and I don’t think my parents will allow me to go to Nainital to study. I think I will do a course in computers in the ITI. But it all depends on what my family says. Granny sometimes says that I should now start working more in the home and fields, and that’s going to be useful after my marriage. But I don’t want to get married, not right now.’

‘So, what is our research saying just from what two of you are saying? Let me summarise, on the one side Priti here wants to do a job work outside of home, and on the other side Mamta’s granny is talking of marriage and working at home and in the fields as her future role. Mamta herself is not very sure, maybe she would like to learn a practical skill so that she can do some work, somewhere. Right.’

‘Let us now go back one generation and see what your mothers were doing at your age. Will you tell me?’

‘My mother was married by my age, soon after she completed her inter. My elder brother, Dinu was also born by the time my mother was 20. I know because she had said it to me one day when she was angry at me because I was reading a book and she had asked me to cut the fodder for the cows.’

‘And what about your mother, Mamta?’ I asked.

‘Her mother works in the jam factory’, said Priti. ‘Is that so, that’s very nice’, I said.

‘But that is now, she is working for the last 5 years of so,’ Mamta shot back. She was becoming more assured in her replies as she saw Priti was not at all awed talking to me. ‘My mother did not complete high school, only up to Class 8. She was probably married by the time she was my age. I am going to be 18 this year. My mother started working only after my older brother Kishan was married and bhabi was handling all the work at home.’

I learnt from Mamta that they were four brothers and sisters, and her brother Kishan was ten years older than her, and she was the youngest. Her older sister Maya was also married and her second brother who was three years older than her and was an apprentice at a hotel in Rudrapur.

Mamta’s father was the oldest son of the family and so their grandparents also lived with them and among her younger uncles, one lived with his family in Noida while the other had built his own house right next to theirs. This was a typical arrangement in the villages around here, where families were becoming increasingly nuclear, and brothers would build their separate their homes right next to their father’s homes.

Very few families now lived in the traditional bakhli arrangement, which was a line of stone houses built with common walls and a common courtyard or angan. Our village has two such bakhlis and all the families had their ancestral homes in either one of them. One of these bakhlis was still being used, while the other is no longer used and is in ruins. But that is a story for another day.

Once we had learnt about Mamta’s family I asked them, ‘So both your mothers were married by your age and were doing work at home and in the fields, can you tell me what that work could have been?’

‘Women have to do a lot of work and that is why many of my friends don’t want to get married, and are looking to study more or work,’ said Priti.

‘Munni got married earlier this year, she was your classmate in school, wasn’t she?’ I asked having attended Munni’s wedding a few months earlier. ‘Yes, Munni was a close friend, but Munni’s husband works in Dehradun, and she has gone with him to Dehradun. Munni had told her parents that she would only marry if the groom had a naukri and quarters outside the village. Mamta why don’t you tell Sir what your bhabi has to do at home, and your bhabi is also a graduate, isn’t she?

‘In the morning the cows have to be brought out from the goth and given fodder, and then the goth has to be cleaned. Mother does the milking and bhaiya takes the milk to the dairy. Then she gets Pappu, my nephew ready for balwadi. After a few days it will be haymaking season and women have to cut grass from the khet and make lutas.’

Haymaking or stacking dry grass into large conical haystacks is a very important agricultural activity as fodder is very scarce between the months of November and June. Women are busy from early morning cutting the long grass that grows on terrace risers and tying them into bundles and leaving them to first dry for a few days before stacking them into lutas. The hay is mixed with cattle feed and given to the cattle in the dry months when green fodder is scarce. Often the luta runs out and then families have to buy huge sacksful or even trucks full of straw. Straw is not only expensive as it has to be brought from the mandi in Haldwani but is less nutritious than hay.

Mamta went through the long list of agricultural tasks that her bhabi and other women in the village did which varied depending upon the season. In the alu season, women had to do weeding from time to time and then had to meticulously pile up the loose soil in long ridges around the roots so that the potatoes were covered with soil. When it was the harvesting time, men would sometimes join in, but rarely when it was time for weeding or hoeing. Because of the tedious weeding and post-harvest process most families had stopped growing madua. But alu wasn’t the only crop, before alu they often grew matar, which would mean planting small sticks for the pea vines to climb, and then there was periodic harvesting, after alu it would be time for patta gobhi, and makka and rajma. Agriculture was a year-round activity, and the returns were becoming less with irregular rains and regular depredation by monkeys and wild pig.

We also talked about the other things that were done by women to keep the farmstead running like collecting dry oak leaves, or pateil in spring when the oak trees shed their leaves, just before the new leaves emerged. These were collected in large piles besides the cowshed and each morning after cleaning the floor of the cowshed, a new layer of dried leaves would be spread over the floor, to be collected next morning. The dried leaves, mixed with cow dung and urine, would then be piled into something like a midden heap which slowly decomposed into farmyard manure. Before each sowing season women carried baskets full of khad on their heads so that the men could them mix it with the soil when they ploughed the field with the power tillers.

Women also went to the oak forests to collect oak leaves which was considered excellent green fodder. They went to pine forests, during the fruit season to collect dry pine needles. These pine needles were used between layers of fruits when they were packed into crates and cartons. Packing fruits was seldom done by women.

Both the girls were engrossed in this discussion, when Mamta suddenly remembered ‘But you have not told us anything about what you were reading, and you have been only asking us questions.’ I picked up my tablet, clicked it awake and showed them this picture.

‘Look at this picture carefully and tell me what you see.’ I urged them, and their heads converged on the screen. I handed over the tab to Priti, for them to have a closer look.

After a couple of minutes, Priti raised her head started reading out ‘Married Women in Work, %age, Agriculture, Industry, Service Society, Expanding Education, Changing Expectations, Contraceptive pill. I think I understand some things, but you have to explain it.’ Pointing to the woman with an agricultural implement in her hands, she said ‘It shows women working in the field, then she is going down the stairs and carrying water in a bucket and continuing to walk down the stairs. Why is she going down the stairs?’

‘You are saying the right things’, I said. ‘This is what has happened in America over the last 200 years. Look here it says 1790, that is about 230 years ago. At that time women did 60% of all the work for the family, and it included working in the fields and working at home, then the steps go down, which means that women’s contribution to the family economy becomes less with time. About 100 years later in 1880 some women start working in Industry. Can you tell me what is industry?’

‘I know this’, said Mamta, ‘I have heard my uncle say it – it means factory.’

‘That is right. If industry is factory, what is service?’ I asked.

‘Does it mean office?’ Mamta ventured.

‘Ekdum thik’, I exclaimed. ‘You two are fantastic researchers! Look here what Claudia Goldwin has said and compare it with what you have just told me.’

‘You just told me that earlier women did nearly all the work in the field and all the work at home. And this is what this chart is also saying. Then with time women start contributing less outside the home. Some women start working in factories, just like Mamta said her mother started working in the jam factory. But that was possible only after your bhabi took up all the other responsibilities of the farm and the home. Right?’ They agreed. ‘But now women don’t want to work in the field and look after cattle anymore, just like Priti’s friend Munni. This is what the chart is showing as Changing expectations over here. But women now want to work in office because they are also more educated than before, just like what Priti has said about what she wants to do. So, the stairs are now going up. You can see that here.’

Both Priti and Mamta nodded in agreement.

Suddenly Priti’s mobile started ringing. ‘It’s Mummy’, she said raising it to her ear. We heard some anxious words from the other end and then she brought down her mobile. ‘Mummy is wondering what has happened to me, it’s over 45 minutes since I came here to give you the kakdi.’

‘Okay then you two must now get moving. I hope you were not bored with this discussion. You can’t blame me though. You had asked me to tell you what I was watching on my tab.’

‘We will go off now. But there is one thing you haven’t told us still. Tell us what this Contraceptive Pill means, and we will run’ Priti added.

‘Aha’ I said. ‘Okay tell me quickly how many brothers and sisters does your father have?’. ‘I have three chachas and three buas, so they were seven brothers and sisters’, Priti shot back. ‘And you are three, aren’t you, two sisters and one brother? So, what is happening over time is that women now have fewer children than before, because now there is family planning. In earlier times there was no family planning, so women had many babies, but now women are educated and also have fewer children. And they also want different things in their life,’ I said pointing to the three lines on the chart where it said Expanding Education, Changing Expectations and Contraceptive Pills. Do you get it now?’

‘Yes, yes’, they said in unison.

‘And all this as you said happened in less than 50 years or less over here in the hills of Uttarakhand but took 200 years in America. That is what I was reading about.’

‘But I have a question for you to think about as you go home’, I said as I stood up encouraging them to leave, ‘What is happening with the men and boys in these years? If women’s want different things in their lives, what changes should men be ready to make?’

‘Now go and don’t tell your mother that I had stopped you’, I said smiling.

They both said Namaste, and I said ‘Bye’ and they skipped up the stairs to the road above.

(Names and some specifics have been creatively reinterpreted)