Of People and Places

I met Rajeshwari ( name changed) when I was assisting in the documentation of a project run by an NGO in some of the garment factories of Bengaluru. Shy, dignified,she told me her story of how she was buoyed up in her struggles with her oppressive family by the strong sisterhood that exists among them because of their involvement in the project. Run like a community mobilization project that sensitizes garment workers about sexual health, gender inequality, domestic violence and alcohol abuse - there is an air of empowerment in all the stories I hear from the women, but with a strain of the old oppression. Mulling over it and my experiences through the whole documentation - I wrote this short story - it contains all the women that I met there and other women that I have observed outside of this experience :) Let me know what you think! At the seams Chandrika gazed out the window of the car, her thoughts far away. The view was monotonous, one of Bangalore’s newly...

Waiting Women with crying babies and old men in little shorts wait patiently for their turn. The garish, brightly painted Anganwadi is brimming with people today.  A school bench is the makeshift waiting room for patients, while little ones play on in their own universe of tiny claypots and pans, beads and slates on the other side of the room. The doctor, in a plastic chair is attending to a drunk man who has a skin allergy. Old men and women, weighed down, bent double, sit on chairs and carpets waiting for the doctor and the nurse to attend to them. A young woman in her teens in a brightly patterned nightie pats her wailing baby to comfort him. This is a small village in Doddaballapura Taluk in the Bangalore rural district of Karnataka.   Every Thursday, People wait in line for the mobile health van. It is a small village and I am alarmed to see few youths. Where have they gone? Working in the farms? Yes, a few.  But most of them are off to Bangalore...