Saga of a Feminist Writer 3

There were huge differences among us. I had wings and she didn’t. I roamed around in all nooks and crannies of the town but she used to know only the way from home to the girls’ school and back again. She silently obeyed everyone; I never listened to anyone. She knew a lot of things. She knew how to make rice and chapattis, wash the house, arrange the shelves, and wash clothes. She used to get up at three in the morning, along with mother, and participate in the Thursday rituals, in the month of December. She used to feed us and look after us; she used to do everything. I never heeded to any request to do any errands. If mother sent me to get salt from the shop, I used to spend the money on getting a haircut at the hair salon. I got beaten for that but I was never really scared of beatings. In my story ‘Volcano’, I have tried to portray her.

I have told everything and somehow more about her in my above story. She was my elder sister, only five years older than me. I can remember how my mother did not like my habit of roaming and my likings for fashions. I used to wear ‘bell bottom pants’ which was excessive ultra modern fashion in seventies and she used to cut those pants with scissors and on the next day I went for a new one with same design. I can remember, during the period of emergency, the then Chief minister of Odisha Ms. Nandini Satpathy was inspired and activated herself more than Prime Minister Ms. Indira Gandhi. The only major job of state police was in those days to fetch young boys and girls from street and to cut the bell bottom pants of girls and long hairs (they say hippie hairs) of boys. Father bought two sarees for me and I wore saree for the first time in my life and if credit for that went to any one she was veteran lady Nandini Satpathy. What my mother couldn’t do with her strong disciplined rule, Ms. Satpathy could during those emergency days. But as soon as emergency was withdrawn and people declines both Indira and Nandini, I returned back to my old form. Wearing ‘lungi and tops’ the recent fashions of that time.

After my marriage, I came to Rampur Colliery, a century old coal mine, which was not famous in Odisha for its mining but for Jagadish. But the colony was an alienated one and I felt myself exiled and outsider to that place. At that time coal mines were nationalized and they were much more different from the status which now they possess. The colony, at the top of a hill and at 3Km far from a small town; and it is need less to say that in early days of 80’s two wheelers were not common modes of communications for middle class people. I found my self on the land where people, their languages and culture were very different from mine. I didn’t find my known semi feudal civic town there in Rampur colliery. Hence, I had no friend except Jagadish and I waited for him near window, looking for his way to return from office and when I saw him arriving, I rushed out side the home and asked him to go for a short walk. Sometimes we used to visit that 3 KM far small town, and used to watch movies in theatre halls or to eatery of small hotels. But that 6 Km to and fro walking by foot made me so tired that every time I had to vow that I wouldn’t go there in next time, My readers could presume that the vow was made to break on next days.

I was like a staff of other planet for the local coal miners there. It seemed peculiar to neighbour’s women that what was I doing with pen and papers every time besides passing my time in gossiping with them. They used to ask me, “We have heard you are writing books. What you write? How much you do you earn by writing books?” I had to tell them that I earned in thousands, otherwise I couldn’t’ stopped them from asking. But in return they remarked, “Your husband is a clever man, who has wedded to a wife who could earned thousands”. Later, these words were the source of laughing for us, me and Jagadish.

I have forgotten to tell you one thing. I am iconic with my short hair. It is also true that through out my child hood I had short hair. In high school one of my Didis (the lady teacher, as we call female teachers with that name) dragged me to staff common room and she pulled the hair from the sides of my ears and made a braid with these short hairs. I didn’t like my face after this hair dressing. But I started to grow my hair long while I joined my college and kept them growing till I crossed the University gates. It was perhaps in 1989, jagadish was invited to speak on Literature and politics, by ‘Sambad’ a renowned daily of Odisha on its annual day function in Bhubaneswar. We went to Bhubaneswar and Jagadish left for the venue earlier as the organizers sent vehicle and it was decided that I would reach there at the time of meeting. When I joined him, Jagadish got stunned to look at me. I had cut my long hairs and returned to the old form of my child hood appearance. After that meeting, he asked me, “What have you done? How could you return to your coal miners’ locality with that appearance?” I smiled back without answering him and I returned to Rampur Colliery with that gesture. My neighbour’s women in coal mine’s colony told me that I was looking like the English news reader of DD 1. Nithi Ravindran and Minu were the famous news readers on Delhi Doordarshan. Those were the days the private TV channels had not been launched and DD was the only channel on air.

I had my bachelor degree in law, post graduate degree in Literature. After my marriage I was offered with a lecturer post in newly built girls’ college in Cuttak city, to which my father did not agree. In his views, the job would create a disturbed home life and according to him a smooth home life is more needed than money. Though I was a member of High Court Bar Council, but the local judiciary was far from my place and also there was no vacancy in the nearby colleges. At that time, I read an advertisement for a lecturer in a college 15 KM far from my colony and had applied. It was strange that the expert came for interview was fan of my stories and he recommended my name though there were few candidates with strong recommendation from local authorities. And the college committee had to appoint me.

I joined that college when my daughter was only of two years old. There was neither any play school nor any crèche in that miners’ colony and the greatest problem was to look after my baby during my college time. My father helped me a lot by providing a domestic help to look after the baby. But still the hurdles were their. The college was 15 Km away and there was no single mode of direct communication. I used to reach college by changing three buses. First I had to go to the local town from my colony by school bus. Then from the bus stand of that town, I had to go to a bypass square which linked to different towns of the district. From this bypass square I used to avail a bus which could bring me to my college. I had to face very humiliation as the bus conductors were not willingly accept the short distance travelers. That up and down daily travel made me more tired.

College was also not apposite place for me. Our HOD’s wife was also a candidate for the post for which I had been appointed. My that senior colleagues had created a prejudiced concept for me that I was a sex positive obscene writer who writes the story like ‘Rape’ and I was not an ideal person to teach morality to students and he started a move to fire me as I had no moral authority to teach the innocent students. I am grateful to college organizing committee, who declineed such allegations against me. I remembered that the secretary at that time told those who were demanding my exclusion that if a teacher can teach the Shringar poems of the great poet Upendra Bhanja to her students, then what is harm in writing like a story ‘Rape’? The story was later translated in to all Indian languages including besides English and it was also got translated in to French and Spanish.

That time I wrote a story titled ‘Jahlad', which was published in a popular Odia fiction based literary magazine ‘Katha’. It was about a saga of a working woman who left her child at home and who had to face much discriminations at working place. My HOD took this issue promptly and complained that I had hampered the image of my college through this story and the college staff council asked me to beg apology for writing this story. The story is yet to be translated into English but has been included in my Odia short stories collection ‘Chowkath”. My other stories, mentioned in this piece can be read from my English books or from my blog ‘Scent of Own Ink'.

As my presence there in college was making my HOD intolerable, he used to engage the local young ‘mastans’ and ‘goondas’ to comment me with filthy vulgar languages at the bus stand from which I was using to avail buses to ascend on that land or to return. These troublemaker events made me more rigid and I decided not to quit my job as it was like a defeat if I renounce. Later I wrote a novel ‘Pratibandi’ whose main theme was based on my strong confirmation to my struggle.