Obedience is Bad, especially for Women

Obedience is Bad, especially for Women

 I think I was about three years old when I realised I had special status as a 'motherless child.') I was going to Madras (now called Chennai) to visit my maternal grandparents on that day in May, which I remember. My father told me to go next door and tell my echis (cousins, sisters) and ettans (brothers) there that I would be gone for a week or two. 

This is the house where I spent most of my waking hours. There were no children in that house and they spoiled me silly. Except Kannettan. He was a tailor, with a pedal Singer sewing machine parked on his veranda. He never smiled and would not let me go anywhere near his precious corner, full of multi-coloured bits and swirls of cloth, that I wanted to reach. But, on this day when I was leaving he went into his garden with me and plucked a perfect red rose for me. 'Poor motherless little one,' he said.

So motherless had its positives. Indeed, as far as I was concerned, it made no difference to me. My aunts and cousins loved me -- they combed my hair, dressed me for the day, wiped my tears when the kitten scratched me... Nani edatht always put a lot of love on to the semi-toothless comb when she did my hair.

However, our house was a little bare and naked compared to others I visited. Next door also had just the two chairs and the odd rickety bench. The women never sat on the chairs in either house. My Achan ate his meals at a small round table all his own, and the rest of us had palakaas -- low wooden stools. The food was served in tin plates on the floor.

My Velyamma hardly came to the veranda -- her domain was her kitchen. In houses with mothers, I noticed embroidered cushion cloths on the chairs sometimes. There would be a colourful hand-loom sheet occasionally on a bed. Next door, there was even a bunch of plastic flowers on a little table, on the veranda.

I had strict instructions from my father not to hang around in the kitchen, which I loved doing. Looking back, I think he was scared I would become like his sister and niece -- a denizen of the kitchen-world. So he set me work to do most days when I was at home. The long Malayalam poem, Karuna, by Kumaran Aashaan, was in four-line verses, and I had to memorise a verse a day. Tennyson's In Memoriam was another boring chore. I hated that one and have never looked kindly on Tennyson since.

I must admit the Eliza Doolittle role started early, with unforeseen consequences later on, when I started having my own ideas about what to think, how to live. At twenty-one I chafed at the bridle and gave my Achan enormous headaches. When he complained to a friend, the man said, 'But you told her not to be obedient.' This was true.

I remember my father going up the stairs one day while Velyamma complained I had been disobedient. 'Obedience is bad,' he retorted. 'Especially for women.'