A Journal of Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya

woman is repeatedly beaten up, be called
‘home’ or ‘family’ in it’s true sense?
Absolutely not. It is just a ‘place’ for her.
Neither is ‘home’ merely the shelter that
a roof provides, nor ‘family’ a provision
to stay with some people. Till mutually
sentient relationships and their resultant
warmth are absent, it cannot be termed
‘home’ or ‘family’. After all, if it’s not
‘home’ and its inhabitants not ‘family’, why
is she there? With which ‘hook’ is she
so tightly fettered with a strong ‘lasso’
that she has to twist her neck and try
to wring herself free every-time. This ‘hook’
is the patriarchal structure. To note is
that patriarchal structure does not solely
mean that man is the head of the family.
Had it been just this then this ‘hook’ would
have been uprooted long back, or the
‘lasso’ would have ripped apart. Does it
need to be said that this structure has
been configured shrewdly and deftly, and
continues to be consolidated today.
Economic, religious, political,
constitutional and cultural frameworks, and
values, limits, yardsticks, ideals and various
manifestations of different beliefs, social
relations and thought processes come
together in an intricate composition for
this. Through this, Patriarchy institutes
and sets forth the misconception of man
being better than woman.
In the poem, the woman has no way
out and no final refuge. It is evident that
she has to chart her own way and be
her own refuge. The woman knows this.
This knowledge and a strong wish keeps
her from heading to the rail-tracks or
the river. Therefore, running away
repeatedly after being battered is not simply
exodus but a step in charting the path
to formulating an alternative. It is also
crucial to remember the feeling of pain
of being physically beaten. Without this
feeling, the dream won’t remain and the
thirst to change her life would lose its
urgency. Without this urgency, she won’t
be able to twist her neck for all she could
to try and slacken the ‘hook’.
On one hand, Patriarchy has held the
woman captive within the house and
disregarded the value of her domestic
labour. On the other, she has been
conditioned to rationalize her exploitation
as normal through disseminating various
ideals and values. Absence of economic
independence and the presence of social
values and customs stop the woman in
this poem from finding her own abode.
These ideological constraints are so pressing
that only so far as her lasso can take
her, i.e. temple stairs, parents’ place or
a relative’s house, become the limits of
her perimeter. Then, to return to her inlaws’
place is her tragic fate. But her
recurrent dream of every night will be
her route to gaining freedom, changing
her life. The reasons that compel one to
contemplate this poem in its detail are
that along with it being the reality of
January-March 2012 :: 135