She raises her arms over her head to tie her long dark hair as a few lose strand interrupt her evening ritual. The faint light from the flickering candle throws a shadow of a few pots and pans and a stove as they adorn a corner of the hut which serves as a makeshift kitchen. In the middle of the room sits a dilapidated Onida T.V. which serves as a distraction for the kids as Babli Rahagora makes rotis on the kitchen stove. Once she has finished making dinner, we have a bit of time to ourselves, she speaks about her childhood, her life, her womanhood and soon a rich tapestry is ready to be woven out of the struggles of this 29 year old woman who currently earns her living as a domestic help. Based in this small village of Jamshedpur is this week’s feminist who in her own way is attempting to build a better life as the years pass her by.
Babli’s childhood was not a very happy one, her father was a Rickshaw driver and they used to be a single income family. They lived along the banks of river Tati in a small mud hut which was all the meagre wages of her father could support. They were three siblings and Babli and her five years older brother suffered the most during these early days. I recognise a slight shiver in a voice as she recalls, “In our childhood, if we got one new piece of clothing in a year we would be over the moon about it.”
The parents had tried their best to give the children better opportunities by sending them to school but by the time Babli turned 12 her father fell seriously ill with Tuberculosis and both she and her brother had to drop out of school. To ensure that wages were coming in, Babli’s mother took to cleaning and cooking as a domestic help in a household. “I started working in a bengoli household by the time I was 13, we needed the money. Once my father got even more ill I had to leave that household and take up work in 3-4 different places.” said Babli.
The half formed whistle of a dented pressure cooker called Babli’s attention to itself at this point and I waited for her to continue after she had emptied the contents of the same to a steel bowl. It was then that I looked around to notice that the hut did not have a refrigerator and realised the extra work of cooking each day that accompanies this absence.
Babli commented that the Basti where she lived was not good back then. The men would eve tease women and often there would be violent drunken scuffles between the men themselves. During her work at the bengoli household her pay would be Rs300 and she would be allowed to stay there as well. Her mother also felt that this was a safer situation than attempting to walk back and forth to the slum each evening. Meanwhile Babli’s brother left to learn Lete work as a craftsman and sometimes would go door to door selling cashew nuts and odds and ends to make a living.
By 16 Babli was married to a man from Asansol who used to come to Jamshedpur on account of work. When recounting her marriage at the temple she smiles shyly and admits that hers at least was a love marriage. I almost see Babli’s chest push out a little with pride as she talks of her husband and how he never asked for dowry. She mentions, “There was no dowry, although all grooms asked for dowry at that time, they do even now. And technically the law says that dowry is illegal but the practicality is very different. You cannot go to the police everytime. Sure you can report the people once or twice but ultimately the result is that your daughter remains unmarried.”
Post her marriage she lived in Asansol at her in-laws place for six years where she had her first kid at the early age of 18 and the next child at 20. Having to manage both the home and earn a living became a challenge as employment opportunities in Asansol were limited. Her husband would come back once in six months after having worked as a labourer under contracts and though they were making more money than Babli’s parents used to it was tough making ends meet. Clearing her throat Babli said,”All that time apart, it didn’t feel like a family at all. More like machines.Dropping the kids to school was also an issue as the distances were great. And I really want my kids to study and do better than we did. All that I am doing now is so that they make a life for themselves and can get out of this rut. What is the use if they have to struggle the same way we did.”
Finally they decided to move to Jamshedpur for the sake of career opportunities but most of all so they could live independently. Babli laughs and mentions how it is nice to be able to wear what she wants to wear here as opposed to having to keep her ghunghat drawn in Asansol at all times. Now she continues to work as a domestic help in a number of houses. I realised that having a hobby is a luxury when she gave me the details of what a regular day for her is like. She gets up at five, prepares the food for her children and as her husband drops them to school she leaves to cook and clean in 3-4 houses. She returns to her home by two cooks lunch, gets the house in order and then leaves again by five in the evening to cook dinner in other households. Bewildered I ask her if she gets any time to spend with her husband and she replies “Each evening after I come home from work around eight, my husband helps me cook dinner, and we get to spend that time together. I’m thankful for it.”
As a mother of two kids and a wife with responsibilities Babli’s own aspirations as a woman, to educate herself and to find out what that future could have held for her did not come to fruition. Both she and her husband are unskilled labourers and with the current wage rate in India, it is an uphill battle. “Somedays I just want to give up. It feels like an endless cycle that goes on and on. We have no respite.” said Babli as she quickly wipes away a tear. Despite this she now aspires to save enough to be able to educate her children so they can live a better life than she did.
She offered me some tea and we sipped that mostly in companionable silence, post which I rose to leave. As I crossed the threshold I turned back one last time to ask her if she could relate to me one moment or time in her life when she thinks she was the happiest. She thought for a while then said, “I’ve never had the time to recall such things….This one time before the kids had been born my husband and I were celebrating our first Durga Puja after marriage. We were hardly earning anything and could not afford to spend on clothes, etc. Still we went out, just walking from one place to another, we could not afford public transportation, you see. We watched the different idols and by the time we came back home we were tired and our feet were aching. However, once we reached home, my husband sat me down and revealed a small Laddu that he had bought for Rs.10 when I was not looking. I was overjoyed and he ate half of the sweet and I ate half of it.”
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