Slavery was abolished in 1807. But
was it abolished in its true sense? Women in India are still mere subordinates
in this patriarchal society. While we are raising our voice for equality, there
are some regions where women are not even allowed to think on their own. One
such woman was Rajathi Rokkaiah who is now famously known as Salma. Before she
gained all this fame and became a celebrated Tamil writer, she, too, was a
victim of the patriarchal society. This problem is faced not just by a religion
or community, but by every woman ever. It is only when they achieve something big;
they are given respect by people around them.
Salma spent nearly two and a half
decades of her life locked inside her house against her will. Life was never a
lap of luxury for her. She had to defy all the odds to fly above the rigid,
oppressive traditions that characterized her village. At 13, she was locked
away when she got her first period with nothing but a window as the only access
to the outside world. Being denied the basic right of education, her desire to
learn grew with every breath she took. She would read anything she found. She
recalled how she used to read newspaper sheets that her mother got groceries
in. That was her source to gain knowledge about the outside world. She asked
her cousin to get books and magazines from a nearby library. She started writing
poems as she had a lot of time and no work to do. She was groomed for marriage
instead of being educated even after she begged to finish school. This was and
is still considered to be the appropriate thing for women to do. Once they come
of age, they are forced to get married and have children. “Women’s minds and
bodies are suppressed, and that leads to violence because they are under total
control. You are not allowed to open your mind,” Salma said about the root
cause of violence against women.
She refused to marry the man she
was betrothed to so she was tricked by her mother in doing so. Nothing changed
after she got married. She was still forced to stay indoors. The only people
she saw were the relatives who came to visit. Writing poetry was the only way
she found peace and escaped reality. She was so scared of being caught that she
used to write in the bathroom where no one could catch her. She used to hide
her poems from her husband so she kept them under her sarees and inside boxes
of sanitary napkins. Her husband told her to stop writing and even threatened
her with acid. She was left with no choice as she knew the consequences of divorce
in a narrow-minded society. She concealed herself under the pen name Salma and
started to write. Her mother smuggled her poems and her father sent them to
editors and publishers. Her poems were published and nobody knew that Rajathi
was behind the sensational writer Salma. She did not even bring her first book
home fearing the consequences of confrontation by her in-laws. This is not the
only case. Women are often stifled in all societies. Their sexual needs are
seen as unimportant; they are just seen as bearers of pleasure, but not
recipients. This attitude is clear in the scene where Salma and her sister argue
with Salma’s nephew about the position of women in society. He is a young man,
but he is not c
omfortable with the idea that his mother wants to go to the
movies. He thinks that women should wear a hijaab all the time as not doing so
might arouse men. This specific part of the documentary outraged me the most.
Finally a Chennai journalist
managed to track Salma down in her village and persuaded her to let him take a picture.
Her picture appeared in his magazine and the mysterious Salma was unmasked as a
village woman who had barely ever been outside her home. The village was
outraged and Salma’s life was very hard for a long while. Salma’s husband was
the head of the village at the time and, though he himself did not approve of
her writing, his powerful position in the village probably afforded her some
protection. The next elections for Malik’s position as “Panchayat Leader” came
under a special government decree that only women be allowed to apply for the
job that year. Malik tried to persuade his mother and his sister to run as a
surrogate for him, but they all refused and he was left with no other option
that asking Salma to do it. She won the election and went on to become an
activist and a political representative and her life turned from that very
moment. The journey to freedom had begun. Salma advised the young women to stay
in school. She encourages the mothers of such children to allow their daughters
autonomy, and to push them towards growing their mind.
She explains the confinements of her religion
so intricately in her poems in a way that has never been seen before. She fought
against conservatism, confinement, injustice and chauvinism in her own silent
way with just her words. It was only because of her faith that the girl who
once looked at the world through a small window, is now travelling around the
globe.
