Ladybug's field notes

Mehroon was married and sent to her marital home only to find that her husband already had another wife. She was beaten up by her husband for not performing her wifely duties and the other wife did not spare her either. She ran back to her grandmother’s home where she grew up without parents to save her life. She now considers herself a separated woman and this “woman” is all of 15! This is not a story of North Bihar, neither a story from the hinterland of Rajasthan, it is only about 20 km away from Kolkata, the state capital of West Bengal. I know we would love to find the religion in it. After all it is always the “other” who has all the problems and not us! But, Malati’s suicide in a similar situation a few days ago would not let us do so. May be now we will try to find the caste in it, after all it has to be the other!! Mehroon, Susmita, Tapasi and Mahroof …I met them all in the adolescent centers run by an organization in South 24 Paraganas. Their stories give a new meaning...

Nari sangh, that’s what they call their CBO or sangathan. Each nari Sangh has a separate name and the fascination is evident from the names they selected “ chingari ” (spark), “ bijli ” (thunder), “ sankalp ” (mission) along with names of myriad locally known female deities. Nari Sanghs started forming in villages of eastern UP early 2008. It was a time when the local organizations felt the need of going beyond working with elected women representatives and readying a ground for women’s leadership to emerge in a region now largely bereft of men. Men from this region migrate leaving behind their women to “man” the house and do more. But the social norms expected these women to remain hidden while shouldering these responsibilities. In their families they were to provide food to the hungry mouths and fetch water for the thirsty souls. But they were not to talk about the irregularities in the Public Distribution System (PDS) or for that matter had any say in deciding where the tube-wel...