My Travel Stories: Heart and Souls. Part II: The lone lady in the market



My Travel Stories: Heart and Souls. Part II: The lone lady in the market                   
I have special respect for people who struggle through unexpected odd events of life and fight for survival and show immense resilience. Their work motivation during troubled times and turmoil of life are definitely encouraging for others. 

Story of a female vegetable vendor, Monowara Begum, sitting at road side in Sixmile, Guwahati is something worth inspiring. She is the lone woman vendor in that part of the market and belongs to Muslim community, carrying out her business with all male colleagues around. What brought you to this place?, I asked. She smiled. Probably felt shy to answer me. ‘My husband met a heavy loss in the business ten years back. I took over and running successfully till now’. She smiled again, visibly with no expectation of praise from me. 

A lone woman selling vegetables in the midst of all male market, is still unthinkable in this area of the city with growing mall culture. This woman changed the traditional gender roles and became bread winner for the family of three children. ‘My husband looks after the household things and I run the business. He has no complaint as I took the burden at a time when he finished all the capital we had’. After ten years of business, she bought a piece of land, house is under construction and children are completely into school and good in study. 

“Life begins from zero’… she told me and smiled again.
I met her again in August 2018after a gap of six year. She has shifted and expanded her shop and is having better business. She recognized me and smiled again. Her children are in college now and she is relaxed that they have completed their preliminary education. I was offered tea and a piece of bread. Two more women opened vegetable shops in the same market.'They must be encouraged by you', I asked. She nodded with a smile.

Salute to such remarkable yet invisible contribution towards feminist movement. 

 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ima market of Imphal

Image
Imphal: The Khwairamband Bazaar, Imphal, Manipur is a marketplace with peculiar smell, sweat, cacophony and busy movements of shoppers and as well the shopkeepers. There is hardly anyone who does not require visiting the market. Khwairamnand bazaar or the popular name Ima market or Nupi Keithel is the world’s only all-women marketplace and one of Imphal’s main tourist attractions. This is because the most important feature of the market is that 4000 odd shopkeepers are women representing the greater mobility and economic participation of Manipuri women. Women vendors selling dry fish, a popular food in north east India What is not sold in the Ima Market? One can easily find items ranging from food items such as fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, fish and dried fish to local herbs to clothes and woolens, and traditional costumes. Metal and bamboo items are also found in the shops. The market consists of two main sections -one where the vegetables, fruits and necessary items are sold and
Read more

On Citizenship Rights in Assam

Image
 https://www.institutesi.org/resources/monthly-bulletin-march-2021   When and why did you become interested in citizenship rights issues? Illegal immigration has been a perennial socio-political issue in Assam. It resulted in a spectrum of policies and practices in legislations, executive policies, judicial orders for detection and deportation of illegal immigrants since partition in 1947.  These actions enacted from time to time are reminiscent of the colonial legal process based on the colonial understanding of ‘alien’. The process bears reflection of dominant racial and cultural norms together with the claims of civilizational superiority of the ‘Assamese’. Any non-conforming community to this criteria is regarded as ‘outsider’, an ‘Other’ [Bohiragoto in Assamese] and is subjected to persecution, censorship, social stigma, prolonged incarceration and virtual statelessness.   In 2008, I was researching for a project on Understanding Impunity in India, when I started d
Read more

When memories haunt

When memories haunt Memory is a mental activity of recalling information that one learns or experiences in life. Memory can be short term as well as long term. Short term memory is one that remains in the temporarily. On the other hand long term memory is a procedural one that remains for a long time or permanently in the mind either consciously or unconsciously. The long term memories of the victims of the Nellie victims are very much permanent. Yet another year passed by for the victims of Nellie massacre. Each day Nellie victims are haunted by the memories of the massacre that took place long back on February 18, 1983. “We cry when we remember that day and I feel as if it happened the other day. Memory is so fresh in my mind.’ Memories of violence may impact ones reaction and may cause inaction on instance which may be otherwise severely disturbing. “We have seen so many dead bodies that when Mumbai terror attack [at Hotel Taj and other places] killed 200 people, we hardly felt any
Read more