Dasara

Amma

Amidst the sounds of the rain lashing against Amma’s tin roof, her battery-powered radio played romantic Malayalam songs and the smell of freshly-cooked sambhar wafted into the big room with small windows that held a fire place. This big room has no doors; it is a room made of mud with a thatched roof where Amma sleeps and roasts yams on the woodfire. On most nights, the only sounds she will hear are of the crickets or the frogs in the rains. On other nights, the soft thuds from banging drums and dull fireworks to scare off wild boars and elephants in the distance will disturb her silence.

Amma has spent her entire life here, in the dense forests around Ponmudi Hills, home to the Kani tribe to which Amma belongs. For the last many years, Amma has lived alone after her husband died of a heart attack and one of her sons was killed by a wild elephant. Her days are spent working around the house and attending to the ocassional patient who will appear very surprised at a glimpse of her life and at where they are as they trudge along the dirt path towards Amma’s home. They look even more curious when she opens her lone wooden closet and scours through a hundred bottles to make a concoction of oils and ointments.

The trees are very tall and the jungle is dense in these forests. A small patch of medicinal plants grows wild behind her kitchen, a small enclosure made of tin holds her religious idols and offerings next to her house and half the house remains unfinished because Amma ran out of money while building her home. She speaks fondly of the days when the Kingdom of Travancore ruled these parts, of when the King himself would show up to enquire about her tribe. She’s unhappy that the government today won’t come to ask her how she’s doing. Her poems began to reflect the society that trasnformed around her; the road that was never built, the man that drank too much alcohol and the changing history of Kerala. It surprised everyone around her that Amma had managed to stretch her few childhood years of education into a blossoming love for poetry and writing. Everyone here knows Lakshmi Kutty, they also know her as the herbal doctor and poison healer, as a poet and as the seventy four year old woman who lives alone. Forty four years of treating patients using natural medicine and several decades of writing poetry has made Amma a diligent list-maker, 514 patients treated for everything from cholestrol to cancer and over 300 people treated for poisonous snake, scorpion and spider bites to be precise. Every patient she has treated finds mention in her diaries.

On days when we walked through the forest, past shiny, clear streams; Amma warned us about the perils of bathing too late or eating too early, about the waste we produced or the things we consumed. There was a lesson in everything Amma did and said; metaphors, humour and rhyme found a way into her everyday humdrum of life. When she switches on the radio again at night and settles in to write poetry on her wobbly desk, Kunjan and Kunji keep warm near the fire. Amma sings aloud her old poems, her voice competing with the sounds of the friendly frogs and the static of the daily news as another lonely night falls in the Ponmudi Hills.

Play Like A Girl

The small state of Haryana in northern India has the worst sex ratio in India at 879 females per 1000 males. It is also one of the lowest in the world. Haryana is also known for caste and sexual violence against women and female infanticide, rape, trafficking and domestic violence are common. But, a small and scattered community of girls are breaking stereotypes and winning international laurels in sports ranging from hockey to boxing, wrestling to football and rifle shooting. In a place where women are rarely allowed outside the house unaccompanied and wearing ‘western clothes’ and playing physical sports are a complete no-no, Haryana’s young girls are qualifying and winning in the Olympics, Commonwealth Games, Asian Games, National Games among various other national and international championships. However, the path to pursuing a sport of their choice comes with great struggle. Most of the girls belong to poor families and cannot afford the equipment, diet and upkeep required to play professionally. Most girls can’t even dream of having access to psychologists or medical facilities that their western counterparts have access to. Even though, there is a great push from the Haryana government to develop sports in the state, sporting facilities have a long way to go and bureaucracy makes it harder for some players to get access to meal schemes, prize money, etc. Some girls even mention how the prize money for girls is less than the boys for the same sports. A lot of the players don’t even have access to toilets or changing rooms.

Besides obstacles on the playing field, the girls battle patriarchy and gender-based discrimination on a regular basis. Many families object to their daughters’ wearing shorts or playing with boys or even playing a sports which is what men do. Most girls realize that they may have to give up their sports careers when their parents decide that they have to get married. But, success as a professional player brings with it financial freedom, success and fame which allows the girls to negotiate marriage at a later stage and helps them support their families. In lieu of alleviating a families societal status and reputation, many girls are allowed to pursue their sport of choice for much longer. The success stories of Olympian Sakshi Malik and the Phogat sisters have inspired more girls to take up sports and fitness in Haryana and more families now encourage their daughters to play. Things have a long way to go for these young sportswomen in Haryana but they are leading the way and proving how sport can play a big role in empowering young women and bring about much-needed gender equality in this state.

(This project was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation)

Ladakh