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| 01.
On a small death |
| 02.
'Disabled' but coping
well with parenthood |
| 03.
The politics of gender
in the politics of hate |
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| ... |
| On
a small death
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| .. |
| Who
is there to weep for you, little girl who
died too soon?
Yet we all wept with reasons each our own:
Grandma wept conventional tears
Though glad at heart her burdened house was
rid of a girl;
Mother - poor Mother - secretly shed her sorrow,
Though you never knew;
And the good neighbours who always join to
help the dead to final rest,
Why should they weep for what is second-hand
sorrow to them?
I could have wept, but thought: why weep for
so small a death?
And thus, we all mourned, as must at death.
According to custom, resting foreheads in
our hands.
Finally we lifted you, a small burden, from
that sad house;
We walked a little, turned the corner toward
the burning grounds
And there she was your little friend, at the
window.
She looked intently, watching your new game:
To climb up like that and sleep on grown-ups'
shoulders;
We, the mournful, paying no attention, moved
on.
Suddenly it dawned upon your friend;
This cruel game - your grim departure; she
cired her lament aloud.
She mourned, the only one in the world to
feel the loss.
And I who never meant to weep could hardly
hold my tears. |
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| Source:
Uma Shamkar Joshi, 1930 quoted in Wadley
S (1989)
"Female Life Chances in Rural India", Cultural
Survival Quarterly 13, 2, p. 35 |
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| In
one area of the one-hectare farm a man works
for 1,212 hours in a year, a pair of bullocks
for 1,064 hours and a woman for 3,485 hours.
The woman's average working hours are: 640 hours
for weeding etc. 384 hours for irrigation, 650
hours for for transporting organic manure, 557
hours for sowing and 984 hours for harvesting
and threshing. |
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| Source:
Government of India's country report, Beijing
1995, p. 60. |
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Photo
: Abir Abdullah/ Drik
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