Learn Curve for Girls

Tag: history

  • How do we respond to news? How do we react to news? – Intense Writing and Self-Aware Structures

    Book Review: Walking Out, Speaking up – Feminist Street Theatre in India by Deepti Priya Mehrotra

     

    A book on theatre and dissent, Walking Out Speaking up – Feminist Street Theatre in India by Deepti Priya Mehrotra is a book which is at once academic and rooted in social reality. Walking Out Speaking up – Feminist Street Theatre in India is a book made of fragments, fragmented as our lives are by dowry and social lies. The fragments comprising this book are quotes from interviews, extracts from plays in Hindi and English, photo documentation, news excerpts, feminist activism as a lived experience etc.

    The book is a study and a very very meticulous study of the methods and formulations of the street theatre in North India that started with a wish to stop dowry deaths and other crimes against women. Om Swaha is a play on a dowry death, made personal and immediate through the commitment and agency of the method of street theatre.

    Ehsas, a feeling and a street play, can be sensed so clearly and evocatively through the means of this book. The book almost takes us through a video journey of brilliantly apt images that bring Ehsas to life.

    Images stark and real, images of death and murder, images colourful and on the dangerous invocations of fire in India today that would have made our ancestors from the prehistoric era who discovered the many positive uses of fire shudder, images of that which can be understood and images of that which has to be explained – images of feminist street theatre in India.

    Feminist street theatre in India is an important part of the woman’s movement in India. Delineating the structure of the same is this book, a ready manual of intense writing which is at once self-aware and socially conscious. Feminist Street Theatre in India is both a subject of deliberations and actions.

    Feminist Street Theatre can be understood as a grassroots movement lead by scholars and academics – central to our understanding of how to respond and react to that which is the content of our daily newspapers.

    Feminist Street Theatre in India is a collective and movement lead by the chance and often lifechanging meetings of actors, feminists, activists, directors, scriptwriters, theatre coordinators over the outrageous and enraging contents of daily news. News – short and impersonal, hardly evocative and image based but full of reality as we never want to know it forms the basis of feminist street theatre in India.

    News and journalism if the backbone of a society and culture, then theatre especially feminist street theatre is its secret mystical kundalini or serpent power – magical and powerful at once.

    Watch the news and experience its horror and discover solutions for the realities it photographs and who better to help in this than feminist street theatre – a magical portal of learning and democratic processes? 

  • Knowledge quests and investigations into Indian feminism – Interview with Dr. Sushumna Kannan

    Could you talk about your career journey?

    My career began when I started my masters in Cultural Studies. I did English Literature in my bachelors. Studying English literature was a launch into the questions of selfhood. When I was younger, I had read Hindu Philosophy. English Literature felt like it could be a way of enquiring into ourselves. There is a joy in studying the social sciences and humanities and focussing on culture.

    The kinds of questions cultural studies answered didn’t satisfy me.

    As I was doing my PhD, it occurred to me that cultural studies answered the how question (how things are done?) rather than the why question (why they occur in the first place?) I wanted the why question answered. Knowledge quests are in a very fundamental way asking about the why question. I started getting answer to the Why question through Hindu studies. I was studying Akka Mahadevi. I was studying an array of religious studies.

    I read over 200 books in feminism. I do identify as a feminist. I have read a lot from the discipline of religious studies. In the United States, I did a lot of religious studies research. It is an interesting engagement. I love some scholars and don’t love some of them.

    Could you talk about your reading?

    The academic reading is read in order understand ideas, draw comparisons, etc. Culture Studies reading helps gain a different impression of history and culture. It is a different experience. Reading fiction is an altogether different experience. It allows to experience in images, in full colour and sensory details. I have read 200 odd novels. It has been a joyous experience. I have read English literature, Kannada and regional books in translation. Amit Chowdary is one of my favourite writers and ‘Strange and Sublime Address’ is one of my favourite books. I love the way he writes. Shashi Deshpande and Arundhati Roy are two of my favourite writers. The impulse to write a novel or a poem next follows me.

    Could you talk about history writing from India?

    Until 1970s, history writing in India was conducted bias free. Since the 1970s, very left leaning ideologies have taken over history writing in India. There are two very different things – one looks white and one looks black.

    Could you talk about women’s history writing in India?

    Women’s history in India can’t be understood unless we understand StreeDharma. In a Jain scripture we get glimpses of women performing rituals and yagnas. The Upanishads are known for the Brahmavadinis – independent women who are independent scholars. In the Upanishads we get small glimpses of how women lived. Who were the foreigners who altered us? Hindu warrior code was clear that you should not fight a woman. The warrior code of the other side seems barbaric now and they did fight women. Streedharma, which looks very regressive, was set up in these circumstances. Women are restricted to their home. Uma Bharati, Andal – the stories of these women give us a glimpse of lives of women in ancient India.

    There are two tasks that hindered the history writing process in India – extreme tolerance for the project and extreme hatred for the project.

    Hindu Dharma did offer women compensations. If women due to family commitments could not participate in spirituality – equalities and substitutes were offered. Hindu dharma did offer that. That is kind of feminist.

    What about the unique place of Goddesses in Indian history?

    Celebrating Goddesses in a country where women can’t still be what they want to be in society fully, is showing futility. Women in India should be like Goddesses in real life. We retain the ancient goddess tradition in India. We once had women who were brahmavadinis – that is the goal.

    Could you talk about the Dus Mahavidyas in this context?

    If you tap into these energies – you will never be disappointed. For me however, this is an academic endeavour and an active research process that gives the answers.

    Could you talk about your research topic and Bhakti in particular?

    Bhakti opened a way for women out of StreeDharma. To pursue knowledge is a bhakti search in medieval India. Wherever there were hostile external circumstances some women became bhaktas – living within and living detached. They lived in society but in a detached manner. Times can be very difficult in an unsafe society and society still feels unsafe. That needs to change.

    Akka Mahadevi is addressing a deep quest within. As far as time immemorial in India there has been a quest for the self, a philosophical quest. She is a part of this ancient tradition. It has been there for men and women. The quest for the self within remains in India. The interesting this about Akka Mahadevi is that she does not deny StreeDharma and recommends it for women in general. Akka Mahadevi was a part of the Veerashaivaite movement. Her Ista devta was Shiva as Mallikarjuna. Veerashaivism had a tantric understanding of Shiva and Shakti. Here we can clearly see the connection between tantra and bhakti. Scholarship tends to look at literary aspects of bhakti writing without understanding their experiences.

  • The culture of India through the stories – Interview with Preeti Yadav – Part 2

    Story Knowledge Systems of Mothers and Grandmothers of India

    How does Indian culture get transmitted through its stories?

    Indian Culture through its stories makes a distinction between the good and bad. These stories give a strong foundation to children. These stories encapsulate the values we pass on to the younger generation. These stories are an introduction for every child to the world of morality. Storytelling strengthens our culture in a sure way. Stories teach us about righting wrongs. The Ramayana makes an important point about respecting women. Stories can make the point much clear.

    Can you talk about Indian stories in the context of world stories?

    Other cultures will have their folklore and folk stories. The aim behind such storytelling in all societies is to create a good society. Other cultures will have their stories where the broad guidelines to have a peaceful and content life are defined. Indian cultural stories are as relevant today as they were in the past. In the Mahabharata, we when we read it, we can see the stories are still happening today. The learnings from the epic can be still implemented in today’s climate and scenario. When we look at the stories around us and hear stories of disrespecting of women, we can see that Mahabharata is as relevant today as it was earlier.

    The basic moral stories can relevant even today. The story where the crow puts in stones to get a level water teaches us still about patience and logical thinking.

    Could you talk about Indian tales?

    I read the Panchatantra in the 1st and 2nd standard. These stories cover basic values. Akbar and Birbal stories show how intelligent and quick thinking can solve any problem in a witty way. In our culture, mythological stories become the very foundation of our culture.

    Stories come into play at a very young age. We hear them from our parents and it comes before we go to school and before we learn to read. It is our first introduction to the world.