Women can have an active writing life even within the space of the domestic

What if you are a woman whose life is ruled by the relentless demands of the kitchen, where one keeps time by meals cooked and served, not by stories or poems written?

August 05, 2022 12:30 pm | Updated August 07, 2022 01:45 pm IST

A still from Tamil anthology ‘Sivaranjaniyum Innum Sila Pengalum’, where Parvathy’s character is a 90s working woman in a joint family household, who keeps a secret diary.

A still from Tamil anthology ‘Sivaranjaniyum Innum Sila Pengalum’, where Parvathy’s character is a 90s working woman in a joint family household, who keeps a secret diary.

There is a way in which we take for granted the need for both space and solitude as preconditions to writing. This is now part of the common sense of writing communities. A room with a dedicated writing desk, supplies of stationary, access to Wi-Fi, a scenic view, coffee and hot meals prepared by a genie — that is the dream. But what if you are a woman whose work is the work of that genie?

Virginia Woolf’s idea of a room of one’s own is haunting in its urgency. Published in 1929, Woolf’s landmark essay, which argues that in order to write women must have money as well as a room of one’s own and not be drowning in domesticity, has since become a centrepiece of feminist literary thought. However, there is the danger of taking her too literally, of assuming that without independent means, without a room of one’s own, women cannot aspire to a writing life. What are some other ways to be a writer? What if you are a woman born in a large family? What if you are a woman whose life is ruled by the relentless demands of the kitchen, where one keeps time by meals cooked and served, not by stories or poems written? Is a writing life even possible?

Work and more work

The Kannada novelist, short story writer and playwright, Vaidehi, describes with great precision the household in which she was raised. In a piece titled ‘About My Writing’, translated from Kannada by Tejaswini Niranjana, she writes:

Kannada novelist, short story writer and playwright, Vaidehi, at ‘The Hindu Lit For Life’ festival in Chennai, 2013.

Kannada novelist, short story writer and playwright, Vaidehi, at ‘The Hindu Lit For Life’ festival in Chennai, 2013. | Photo Credit: S.S. Kumar

“Especially in the mango season there was not a second to spare. When we had work to do in all four directions, suddenly sometimes — like a ship foundering — relatives would descend upon us. It was a house where anyone could bring their friends and acquaintances, at any time, without any hesitation or anxiety, and they would get a joyous welcome. The serving of food — an ‘ever-readiness’ to be hospitable — was a permanent feature of our inner world. There was never any feeling that it would make things difficult for us. For what did we have except work and more work? Reading, writing, singing, all these were for later.”

It is precisely in the “ordinariness” of food preparation and in its generosity that the magic lies. Vaidehi goes on to describe the ways in which she navigates her writing life — in and through rather than in opposition to — the space of the domestic.

Born in 1945, Vaidehi (real name Janaki Srinivasa Murthy) is known for her sensitive portrayal of the lives of women. She writes in a dialect of Kannada called Kundapur Kannada. Her stories are about small-town India, about the fascinating lives of people one would otherwise deem ordinary. Her story ‘Gulabi Talkies’, for instance, is about a midwife who becomes the gatekeeper at a town’s new movie theatre. Learning, for Vaidehi, is a function of the everyday, an everyday in which she finds both beauty and happiness:

“How did I learn poetry? Among my lessons was the pandal thatch made from woven coconut tree leaves. That was truly a poem. Through the hundred crevices of the thatch, the sun would peep inside, leaning on his stick.”

Finding balance

It was after her marriage to a man whom she describes as “a good man among good men”, that Vaidehi came into her own as a writer. When she speaks of what matters most to her as a writer, she looks to the kitchen:

“It’s a word I used to hear from my mother: ‘hada’, meaning ‘balance’… While chopping vegetables in the kitchen, while adding each spice, while checking how much cooking each dish required, and how much seasoning — if the ‘balance’ slipped it was a job badly done... My desire is to achieve in my writing the balance I have heard about in the inner world of the home.”

Women cannot possibly escape to the Himalayas, concludes Vaidehi. They must continue engaging with all the joys and tribulations of daily life, and what matters in the end is work. Vaidehi’s position is neither naïve nor old-fashioned. The wise thing to do perhaps is not to dream of space and solitude but to train your eyes to see the ordinary, to learn from it and to write about it with love and empathy.

The writer and independent scholar is currently writing verse that re-imagines the ‘Mahabharata’.

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