Page 236 - Communication Processes Volume 3 Communication Culture and Confrontation

Grindmill Songs 211

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l Shackle for animal, khoda: A girl is an embarrassing append-
age.
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l Load, bhar, ojhe: A dead weight for her family, no profit or use,
only a liability.
l Elephant, hattī: Parents would find easier to maintain an
elephant; a daughter brings with her too many problems that
they cannot cope with.
l Sour lemon tree: Parents become aggravated on account of too
many worries.
l Knife, surī: Risk of being ‘stabbed’, disregarded or branded by
her misbehaviour.
The general context of these representations is the mother’s worry
about the youthfulness of her daughter. The female youth is described
as a ‘blossoming mango’, ‘fruit of the tamarind tree’, ‘corinda fruit’,
‘ripe millet’, and so on. It is for these reasons the mother is frightened:
society at large may take advantage of her daughter. If some male has
a close relationship with her, her whole life will be ruined. Mothers
curse the youth of their daughter, although the coming of age for a
girl is a happy event for both of them. But the repressive norms and
representations enforced by the systems of social control turn the joy
of that event into a deadly fear.
Once deep insight is reached through relating the songs to the social
and cultural symbolic systems of communication of the society at large,
animators feel confident of their capability to appropriately make use
of them in the course of cultural action programmes. One can then
proceed with the songs in three stages. First, animators can simply
read out songs from one classification set, all having exactly the same
meaning. The audience of village women assembled for the occasion
may then remember some new songs with a similar meaning but
different words, or songs called to memory by any form of association
(words, ideas, feelings, circumstances, and so on). Those songs are then
written down to be added to the corpus. Second, some participants may
express their reactions and make comments. The latter are noted down
to be further reported and considered in the next study group meeting
of the team of animators involved in the whole programme. This leads
us to understand further what is deeply rooted in their minds. The third
stage is the most important. Whenever possible, animators conducting