Anpadh and Women education

Aap ki Nazron ne samjha 

Pyaar ke kabil mujhe 

The song plays in the back ground as I write. It was one of my favorites while growing up. The number of times it was  played on TV and radio I assume it was a favorite of many. Probably the symbolic reference to the ultimate fantasy of an Indian woman for her Pati Parameshwar. Something we are brought up with and see all around. Don’t ask me, I still keep Karwachauth every year despite being a feminist and all. 

So while the song was all melodic and appealing, there is a certain acceptance and humility. I only realized the real story behind the song when I watched the movie and heard my mother’s story. 

The movie released in 1962, Mala Sinha played an illiterate coy girl who marries into a rich educated family. Her husband first doesn’t accept her for she is uneducated and he an avid book lover. (Side note - Imagine if I married an uneducated person - will I be able to relate to him or share my writings with him.) Finally, he accepts her and she is humbled by his affections (very much depicted in the song). Then the husband dies and leaves her in misery. She ends up living a life full of hardships but still provides a good education to her daughter. 

Drawing inspiration and realising perils of illiteracy, 

a generation of women marched to the cinema theatres first and then to the schools. My mother who was only 9 years old at that time had only entertainment intentions. But her father’s sisters were older and got an eye opener. They were all waiting to get married and had left schools sometime back. They went back to schools to get back the prized education - the key to a life long security. Eventually they finished education and were married to educated men and continued to work even after marriage. A rare thing in the 60s. 

Women figured being educated was the first step in becoming a self reliant. In those days it was a given that women either got basic or little education, only enough to manage the household. Too educated girl was considered a burden. What if she was more intelligent than the boy? How will a man’s ego take it? What is the point of educating when she has to sit at home? I know because I have observed my mother’s pride and my father’s discomfort about her MA to his B. pharmacy. 

However, not all men are like this. My great grand father was a progressive man. I never saw him except in the Black and White glass photo frame adorned with a Garland made of chandan hung in one of the old rooms. It was there till my childhood but with each generation these photos get lost. Time has its own ways to perish history. 

He had a younger brother who married a young girl called Savitri when she was 13. Within an year of marriage she delivered twins. Six months later the latest mahamaari took away her kids and her husband. Widowed at a young age she had nowhere to go. She had no brothers and no one to take care of her at her father’s home. 

My grandfather was the Head of the household. He decided to educate her and make her independent. She was sent back to school - a revolutionary idea in the 1930s in a small town of Jagraon Punjab. She studied and became a teacher herself, and eventually principal of the school. 

My memories of her are from her annual visits to see all her grandchildren and great grandchildren. She would regale us with stories of her travels, of Gods and religious tales. She was our source of news on the happenings in other extended households, who died, who got married and who took birth. She was like the narad munni of the family but would never anger anyone or create disputes. She led a life with wisdom and authority. She would call my grand father Satt, only a few years younger than her but a respectful nephew.  In her last years she moved to Haridwar and lived in a small community with her own room and resting place. What an amazing and strong woman. 

However this progressive story has an ironical side to it which adversely affected the men in the family. While the men were trying to make a better life for the women kind. The women of the house had a wild imagination. The loss of a son and the twin kids led to a superstition that a girl without a brother is inauspicious for their sons. A few minor tragedies and some co-incidences made it into a full fledged family myth. The over worried mothers with their fasting and prayers made this a family rule to be followed for generations blindly and obediently. Like most of our traditions! 

It became a pre-requisite while finding a match for any boy in my grandfather’s, father’s and brothers’ generation. Every time a brother got a girl, the first thing a mother asked if she had a brother. The elbow room of emotional black mail is the biggest weapon for an Indian woman especially a mother. My cousin has somehow lost many loves of his life basis this pre- condition from his mother. Now it’s the fourth generation so let’s see how the mothers react.

Mind you they are all educated. While education is supposed to make you knowledgeable and conscious, there is no guarantee that it can turn you into a rational and liberal being.