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| 'Sangati' by Bama |
-Brian Mendonca
Sangati (1994) by Bama Soosairaj (Born 1958) was originally written in Tamil. The English translation was made available a decade later. The title means 'events' in English. It prepares us for what is to follow. It is a telling of events as they happen - from the point of view of a Dalit Christian woman in Tamil Nadu, India. The novel is divided into 12 chapters divided into subsections. Here is a summary of the chapters with lines quoted from the text.
Chapter 1: A Woman's Family (3-14)
Pathima, a 13-year-old narrator, studying in Class 8, asserts agency over the narrative, 'When I was born . . . .' (3) The mother Sevathi, and grandmother are introduced. The grandmother, Vellaiyamma Kizhavi, is a midwife, although she is shunned by the upper castes because she is a paraichi (a Dalit woman from the paraiya caste).
The paraiyas became Christians when the priests offered them free education. She is also called Paatti (grandmother in Tamil) affectionately by her granddaughter. Paatti got married at fourteen. After four years of marriage her husband Goyindan went to work in the tea estate in Sri Lanka. He never came back. They had two daughters, the narrator's mother and Perimma, her elder sister. The villagers believe it is good for a girl to be the odd-numbered child. (3)
As Paatti picks the lice in the narrator's hair she tells her the story of Kaatturaasa, a boy who happens to walk past. His name means 'king of the fields' as he was born there. His mother was compelled to work until the last moment. She cut her own umbilical cord with the sickle she had brought to the field. (6) The first salvo against patriarchy is thrown with the caustic remark by Paatti, 'Born as women, what good do we get? We only toil in the fields and in the home until our very vaginas shrivel.' (7)
Discrimination in child-rearing practices is brought out. Paatti herself practised them. 'She cared for her grandsons much more than she cared for us . . . If she brought mangoes, we only got the skin, the stones and such. She gave the best pieces of the fruit to the boys.' (7-8)
Pathima comes of age. '[H]er breasts have grown as big as kilaikkai pods.' (9) Her father wants her to study till Class 10, but Paatti feels that it is not proper 'to keep a virgin girl at home and not get her married.' (9) Paatti got Perimma married against her wishes. She had eight children in a row and died. Her husband demanded sex repeatedly and used to hit her. (10)
Mariamma, Perimma's daugher does not get her periods. She is taken to the hospital in town for an examination. Although she takes treatment to produce more blood, it does not happen. They decide to go to Maduragiri to consult a pujaari (Hindu priest) but 'before that, early on Monday morning, at cock-crow, Mariamma came of age.' (14)
Chapter 2: Becoming a Woman (15-27)
After the first menstruation the girl is kept in a thatched hut called a kuchulu. (15) The women return from work and bathe her singing songs. The importance of women's songs is emphasized. 'Even if there's no kanji to eat, the women can never be stopped from singing loudly and ululating,' says Paatti. (17) The first song 'On Friday morning, at day-break,' is in four verses of four lines each. (17) It describes the motifs of swans and clouds on the garment her relatives bring for the young girl. It is full of water imagery describing what would happen if she bathes in a river, a pond or a well. After the song the women join in to raise a kuluvai. (ululation)
Mariamma falls into the well that is being dug. She spends seven to eight months in hospital. (19) Girls get paid less for doing the same work as boys. The conditions are hazardous and one man got blown up with the dynamite that was being used to clear the rocks. (18) Out gathering firewood, Mariamma drinks some water in Kumarasami's field. He happens to be there in the pump house and tries to pull her in, but she flees. Kumarasami complains to the headman and implicates Mariamma saying that she and Manikkam were together in the fields and he saw them. (20) In the trial that follows both are accused unjustly and are fined Rs.200 and Rs.100 respectively. Samudrakani, Mariamma's father insults her, hits her, and refuses to believe that she did no wrong. (23)
Chapter 3: Living as a Woman (28-36)
Mariamma's humiliation has a deep effect on Pathima. She wonders why Paatti did not speak up for her. Pathima pushes for change and confronts her with, 'Does that mean that whatever men say is bound to be right? And whatever women say will always be wrong?' (29) Though she has not studied beyond the fifth class, she is the one who tries to usher in social transformation. She is like Rebati who wishes to study but faces opposition from her grandmother who does not want to change the status quo.
It is customary for women to eat after the men. Vasuki, wife of the Tamil poet Tiruvalluvar, used to pick up the grains of rice which fell from his plate with a needle. Like Chaucer's Wife of Bath, Pathima questions this subservience and boldly asks whether women could not have eaten before the men. However, to do this, is to risk being thrashed soundly. Song 2, 'Crab, O crab, my pretty little crab,' describes this scene. The woman addresses the crab who she has cooked and complains saying, because she dared to eat before her husband, she was beaten. (30)
Even as children when they played games, the boys used to pull their hair and hit them finding their food tasteless. Those games have become a chilling reality now. (31) A boy-child crying in his cradle has to be attended to immediately, but a girl-child crying can go unheeded. (31) When staging a play they look for a fair-skinned boy to play the role of Mother Mary. (33) Bhakkiyam offered a hen to the priest during Mass. (puusai) (34-5) Though women sing beautifully they are never invited to do so in public at festivals. They have to wait for night to sing and dance the folk songs with clapping, (kummi) (35) Even in cultural expression women are suppressed.
Chapter 4: The Mirage of Marriage (37-44)
Sammuga Kizhavi scorns Paatti's efforts to try to get Mariamma and her younger sister married. (37) Sammuga is fond of eating ragi-kuuzh gruel. When going to work, she carries it in a flask, leading others to call her 'flask.' (40) Without ascertaining the facts, she says that everyone knows that Mariamma has been found guilty and shamed before the assembly.
To get some rice for their weddings, the sisters try to find work, to cut grain at harvest time. Yet, everywhere Mariamma faces ostracism on a false charge, and her name is spoilt. (40) The pressure of getting the daughters married, mounts. During the month of Vaiyaasi (May-June) Samudrakani marries off Mariamma to Mannikkam. (41) Mannikkam beats Mariamma everyday. The narrator is enraged by this.
Thaayi was another woman who suffered the same fate. 'Her husband used to drag her along the street and flog her like an animal.' (42) Pathima asks her amma why the women cannot leave their husbands if they ill-treat them. Her mother fatalistically says, 'she must continue to suffer until her head rests in the earth.' (44) Her daughter is not ready to accept the status quo. The churning in her being is represented by feelings of 'anger, excitement, fury, pride, resentment, hatred.' (44)
Chapter 5: Peys and Possession (45-59)
Manacchi is possessed by a spirit (pey) and is seen dancing in a frenzy. 'Everyone knows that all peys are attracted by the smell of mesntrual blood,' says one of the women who are discussing the issue with Paatti. (47) In a bid to cure her, Manacchi is brought to St. Anthony's shrine. On another occasion, Irulappan's wife, Virayi, gets possessed by the spirit of Esakki. (47) The soothsayer beats his kodangi drum and releases the spirit from Virayi. (49)
Paatti narrates the story of Esakki as part of the folklore of the village. Esakki was the only daughter among eight children. However, she was in love with a boy from the vanaan caste. Her brothers disapproved, so she eloped with him. (51) The brothers found out where they were and reached there when she pregnant and nearly full term. They convinced her to come home to have her first child. On the way back, the brothers took Esakki to a forest, beheaded her and killed her baby. (53) Esakki became a pey after that, which is why a cradle or winnowing tray are given to placate her. (54) Peys can also take the form of a person and impersonate them. (56)
Pathima realises that only women, and mostly Dalit women are possessed by peys. (58) This is because they are brought up on fear. 'Once a girl comes of age she has no more freedom. They tell us all these stories, take away our freedom, and control our movements.' (58)
Chapter 6: Marital Discord (60-68)
Paatti's dish of kuzhambu made of meat or vegetables is very tasty. Raakkamma and her husband Paakkiaraj get into a fight. Unlike other women who yield submissively, Raakkamma retorts, 'Instead of drinking toddy everyday, why don't you drink your son's urine? Why don't you drink my monthly blood?' (61) She lifts up her sari. Her husband walks away. Pathima reflects that Raakkamma's strategy of confrontation is what keeps her alive. (62) She conjectures that because Dalit women find neither pleasure nor fulfilment in their sexual lives, the language they use in their fights is full of obscenities. (68)
Even when the daughter is mistreated, the parents wash their hands off saying it was she who chose him, so what can be done? (63) When Kaaliamma and Chinnappan fought they did not come to blows. (63)
Bama points out the multitude of tasks the women have to do managing work outside, and work at home, to care for the family. (65) Men used to go to the bazaar after work and while away their time, but women had to get back home, cook, and feed the family. The narrator ponders whether the absence of asserting their male pride at work, because they are Dalits, makes them vent their anger on their wives and children.(65) The upper-caste women show no solidarity with the Dalit women. (66) They suppress their difficulties and sometimes become mentally unstable. (68)
Chapter 7: The Girl Child (69-78)
Seyarani is the eldest of six children. She is 11 years and is called Maikkanni because her eyes look as though they are lined with mai (kohl) Their father spends his time between their mother and another woman. (69) When her mother has a baby, Maikanni goes to work in a match factory because her mother cannot work at this time. She used to come home after that, take care of the children, and do the housework. (70) She loves going in the big bus to the match factory, and eating ice cream cones. (71-2) When she gets the window-seat in the bus, the boys push her away.
One day she was hit twice at work. Once on her head because she wasted some labels as there was too much gum, and later because she had to go outside to answer the call of nature. (73) She drools over the songs in the movie Veera in which Rajnikanth acts. (74) They played the songs at the factory. A group of children call one of them paraiya. They take their tiffins and refuse to work. (74) She has the sense not to go into the forest alone. (75)
Songs by women give expression to their female experience, be it about love, betrayal, or longing. (76-77) Women sing lullabies, and songs of lament (opparis) at the time of death. 'From birth to death, there are special songs and dances.' (78)
Chapter 8: Weddings (79-90)
The narrator's mother got married in 1947, the year before Gandhiji was shot. Paatti gave her a grinding stone. Muttharasi, daughter of Sakkarai, is presented with parisam (bride-price) by the bridegroom's family. (82-3, 89) 'On the day Muttharasi got married, there were five weddings altogether.' (83) Some women are not prepared for marriage. Perimma is terrified of what will happen. 'He . . . was patient for a while, but after four or five days, he came and dragged her away and forcibly slept with her.' (88) If her husband dies, a woman will carry out her routines as before. (90) Widows are treated like anybody else.
Chapter 9: Separation (91-97)
Peechiamma meets the narrator and asks why she is not married yet. According to Irulaayi, Peechi could not live with her first husband as he was ill-treating her. She asked her father to convey this to the village head. (naattaamai) A meeting was called, and Peechi made her case. They were allowed to separate. As far as the children were concerned, it was decided that the girl, Ramaayi, should stay with her mother and the boy, Kali, with his father. (93) Peechi went on to have a child with her second husband, when her first was still living. Pathima, being a third-generation Christian, feels sad that this option is not available to Christian women, but concedes that Hindu upper caste women would not leave their husbands. (93)
Pottalu Ayya's daughter came back from her husband's home to his house, because her husband used to ill-treat her and kept his father's sister's daughter as his woman. Overcome with grief that his daughter was now abandoned, he died the next month. The mother also lost the will to live. (96)
Chapter 10: Elections (98-104)
Paatti has scant regard for going to cast her vote for the elections. (98) The voting is reduced to a farce because several people like Anandamma stamp more than one election symbol. (99) The women are wooed by various parties for their vote. They came to take Ucchaayi to cast her vote when she was defecating. (100) Sanmuga Kizhavi insisted they drive her back in Govalsaami Ayya's car after she was taken to vote. (101) She reveals that she simply folded the ballot paper without marking anything, and put it in the box. It is caste, not the party, that is important. (102)
Earlier the landlords used to belong to different parties. Now they have all rallied under one Naidu, who has floated a new party. Women's apathy towards voting is widespread. 'More than half [of the women] never go to vote.' (103) This is paradoxical, since voting is meant to empower them. Because they do not see the point, and are not organized, they lose out on a chance to elect an MLA from their own community, and demonstrate their strength through political power. (103) There is talk about Ambedkar, and a call for unity.
Chapter 11: Inter-caste Marriage (105-110)
If a girl marries outside her caste, it is unacceptable, but if a boy does the same, people do not mind. (106) A girl, who was educated and had a job, was beaten by her father and younger brother everyday. When she confided in the parish priest, and asked him to arrange the marriage, he humiliated her. (108) A girl cannot marry someone of her choice. She has to go elsewhere and be married secretly. (110) If she marries outside her caste, boys from her own caste feel slighted, as if they were not good enough for her. 'A girl may go around with ten men of her own caste, but she must not seek a single man outside it.' (110)
Chapter 12: Dalit Women (111-123)
There is no distinction between upper and lower class women, feels Susaiamma. 'We suffer in one way, they suffer in another.' (111) Marypillai feels she is lucky that she belongs to the paraiya community. They are not obliged to give their daughters expensive gifts. The bridegroom comes, offers something, and takes the bride away. If the bridegroom dies in the upper castes, the woman has to give up everything, In the lower castes the woman can marry again. (112-13)
Chinuma's daughter Devi rants about how she is fed up with eating ragi-kuuzh (114) but as the ragi is ground by her mother she eats the flour. (115) Both, the rich and poor eat ragi.
The Dalit woman bond over their bathing ritual. The other castes will not be so bold as to bathe naked in Raasa Nayakkar's well. (116) They enjoy the natural way of cleaning themselves in the water. They dive into the well. There is no space in their tiny houses to bathe so they come to the well. On the way back Othadi narrates how Sammuga Kizhavi urinated into the pot of drinking water brought by the ayya. (118) The narrator admires Sammuga's guts. Sothipillai recounts how their women had to sweep the church. When she complained to the nun, she was told it would help them gain merit before God. (119)
'The biggest problem . . . is trying to live alone as an unmarried Dalit woman,' (120) No matter how much she is willing to pay as rent, no one will accept her if she says she is a paraichi. Because she lives alone, she is seen as a prostitute, 'Why shouldn't a woman belong to no one at all but herself?' (121) 'Women have minds of their own too. They have their own desires and wishes.' (122) 'We should give our girls the freedom we give our boys . . . Then will come a day when men and women will live as one, with no difference between them; with equal rights.' (123)
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Page references to the Oxford University Press edition of the novel. Translated from the Tamil by Lakshmi Holmstrom, OIP. New Delhi, 2008. Updated 25/4/25.
Credits
-Tiruvallavur: By S. Maharajan. Sahitya Akademi monograph. New Delhi 2017.
-Wife of Bath: mtsd.us
-Match Factory video of Sivakasi, Tamil Nadu: 'The Young Indian Labourers Losing Their Childhood' (2016) by Journeyman. Dur. 10.36 mins.
-Veera: Tamil movie starring Rajnikanth on YouTube.
-Ambedkar: Kaala rang, khala sthan, Blogpost by Brian Mendonca. 25 October 2021.
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