The Hindu Business Line : Seeking justice

As powerful a book as any that has come out from the genre of the world of women in recent times, They Hang - Twelve Women in My Portrait Gallery by Syeda S. Hameed is an absorbing narrative, as well as a grim reminder, of the tough lives many women live in our society.

These are the real-life stories of women, the author tells us, "who were revenge gang-raped, honour killed, sexually harassed, branded as witches, burnt for dowry, abused as children". Women Syeda saw and interrogated at close quarters as a member of the National Commission of Women (NCW).

Their stories are as poignant as forceful; they cry out for justice, but rarely get it. As the back cover of the book says: "Each of them embodies the predicament of the majority of Indian women, but only a few have the courage to speak out... . This extraordinary document is also an indictment of a society that claims to worship its women."

And yet none of them are sob stories, and go well beyond the clichéd world of women's suffering and suppression. Each woman in Syeda's gallery is a well-rounded, full-blooded creature, whose story deserves to be told.

Take, for instance, the story of Jahanara, with her beautiful green eyes... her name meaning "adornment of the world... daughter of a Badshah, sister of a Badshah, poetess and shezadi, a woman who took up the responsibility of the whole family. You, too, will live up to your name, meri jaan". This was the young Jahanara's nani waxing eloquent... . And proud that in her family, daughters didn't have to be sent to the dhabas to entertain truck drivers. Their kismet brought their buyers to their door.

Jahanara tells the author how her family struck a deal with the "agent" for her nath utrai when she was barely 14. As the elders were exuberant about the Raja Saheb having chosen their Jahanara for his youngest son, she wondered what the fuss was all about. "At fourteen I had no understanding of the goings-on. I fingered the little silver nath piercing my nose, standing in front of the mirror and making faces at myself. What a fuss, nath utrai."

But as the family discussed her rukhsat, the girl asks nani "how she could talk of rukhsat when there was no barat, no nikah." And here is nani's poignant response: "Shhh. We Bedias have no barat or nikah. It is only rukhsat. Barat and nikah are for films only."

It is the old Jahanara or Janno Khala, as she is called by the community, who relates the tale of how young girls from her family were traded with the aristocrats in return for gifts and food supply for months or years for the entire family. To quote her: "From the bloodstained sheets came the bounty for our little household in Reshampura."

Jahanara's story is a matter-of-fact narration, without regret or remorse, of how the Raja Saheb had to "take" her first, as his son was impotent, and later when the boy was sent to her she tried her best to "wake him up", failed and the two of them ended up playing with dolls, a passion of the young prince! "Thus started a strange and wordless relationship between a randi and a raja," is the wry comment summing up her initiation into the family profession.

Gripping narrative

What makes Syeda's narrative gripping are the descriptive details of her prose... there is no attempt to window-dress the epithets used for these women... randi, haramzadi, kameeni, dayan... . the most abusive words used to address a woman are all there. And yet these epithets take away not a wee bit from the charisma and courage of the characters. Exploited, raped, beaten, tortured and cursed, the women in the author's gallery can stand up to the best of female characters ever created. This because they are real and hardy; they've come to terms with their lives and do not wallow in self-pity or curse their fate.

But there are portions in the book that make your stomach churn... like Ram Snehi's narration of the nath utrai of his Didi. When he heard her scream, he woke up the two older women sleeping by his side, saying the dacoits had got Didi.

To which one of them said: `Arrey kambakht! A randi's screams at her nath utrai means that she has proven herself. The more she screams the more the bed is soiled. Her rate goes up with every scream; just wait until the morning. Now thank your luck, harami, your first dalali and what a catch! Go back to sleep. Your sister has proven worthy of her mother's milk."

Then there is the story of Sajoni in Bagjori village of Bihar, with a drunken lout for a husband and five children to take care of. After a persistent drought, when the rain comes one night, failing to wake up her drunk husband she ploughs the field by herself, the worst taboo in the village.

When this `sin' is discovered the entire village comes down on her, with the Hindu pujari and Mullah Fiddu heaping the choicest abuse. In punishment she is put to the yoke and forced to plough the field, even as the men rain blows on her frail, bleeding body.

Equally heartbreaking is the story of 23-year-old Gudia, who along with her sister Yashoda, and her mother-in-law, is raped by the two brothers of the woman who elopes with her brother Vinod. "Take the randis out," says one of the brothers, "Take their clothes out. Let the whole village see these whores, naked. Nothing else will do to make up for our lost izzat. Let them suffer."

And of Lily, the 17-year-old tribal domestic maid of the First Secretary, Economic Affairs at the Indian Embassy in Paris, who is gang raped by his drunk friends when his wife is not at home. Or Bela, whose 11-year-old daughter is sexually abused by her own father; Juhi, Shaista and Kadambari, teachers in a Delhi school who press in sexual harassment charges against the school principal Harish Sir, or 18-year-old Maimun, the beautiful young woman from the Mewat region of Haryana, who was raped by a village gang and then slit from the throat to the navel, for daring to marry the man she loved.

In the introduction the author tells us that her screen is filled with the faces of hundreds of women, each wanting to tell her story and each demanding justice. But, she admits, during her three-year stint in the NCW, she was able to get justice for just a handful of women. But "their stories need to be told so that they are not lost in the official records of the State; so that they are heard by a people's bench; so that they are not erased from public memory."

By recording 12 of these stories in prose that is poignant, powerful and evocative, the author and the publisher have ensured one thing; you will remember these women long after you finish the book.

Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in

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Seeking justice