The Urban Rural Woman

(class assignment)

Sprawled across a side street in Janpath, a Gujarati colony flourishes. There is a long stretch of men, women and children selling beautiful, hand made garments. One face calls out to me. She smiles and gestures at her stack of clothes, I can't help but smile back. Her name is Geeta and she is a devout mother, wife, daughter-in-law and business woman.

Geeta's family comes from a small village near the district of Daang, in Gujarat. Ironically she has never seen her ancestral home. Her parents left their little village to make a life for themselves in the big city. They settled down in Chandigarh and that was where Geeta was born and raised.

She proudly tells me of how she has studied till class X and that she was a bright student. Geeta was married to Vinod, a young man from Delhi. She then moved with him to Delhi to start her life as a wife and a daughter-in-law.

The couple work very hard at selling traditional hand crafted items that they get all the way from Gujarat. Vinod travels to Gujarat every month to bring fresh 'maal' and is hardly ever at home. Geeta handles the sales and the family. She sells kurtas, lehengas, bedcovers etc.

What is striking about Geeta , in particular, is how happy and content she seems with her life. I can see it on her face and in her response to my questions. She is very open, talking to a stranger, me.

She has two children, a girl and a boy. Alisha,10, studies in class V and it warmed my heart to hear of Geeta's aspirations for her daughter. She laughs and says that her husband probably loves their daughter more than their son.Their son Abhishek is 3 and goes to play school.Geeta confessed her husband wasn't very keen on educating the children and believed they would do better working with the family but she stood firm and insisted on schooling and to top that tution!. The children both have tutions because their mother feels it is important to keep the children busy while she works and so that they can have some extra learning.

I ask her about how the trade works with so many stalls side by side, there must be much competition? Her reply is pleasantly startling. They are relatives! Each person there is somehow related to another. Be it an 'chacha' or a 'tai ji' or her 'sasurji'.
Though they do not want to have fights over customers with the extended family, she says sometimes it cannot be helped. And when that does happen, the senior most member of the clan is the decision maker.

During the course of our discussion, she wears a 'ghoongat' and partially hides her face. I ask her why and she smiles and explains, it is a sign of respect in the presence of her elders. Her brother-in-law is seated right next to us.

The last question i ask her is cliche but important. ''Did you ever see something more for yourself? Are you happy with your life as it is right now?'' And without a hint of hesitation she replies with a nod and that smile. She explains, '' Haan hum khush hain. Din ka gusara ho jata hai. Bus mann mei yahi iccha hai ki bacche kuch ban jaye''. On further prompting she adds, '' Apne aap ke liye toh kabhi sapne nahi dekhe but in ke liye dekhti hoon.

And this is the story of Geeta Kumar, a woman making her way in a 'man's world', a woman who is modern in her ideas and traditional in her lifestyle. The perfect mother, wife, daughter-in-law and business woman.