Page 245 - Communication Processes Volume 3 Communication Culture and Confrontation

220 Tara Ubhe

different villages and hamlets of the Mulshi and Mawal talukas of Pune
district, the area where we do our animation work. Let us give some
concrete examples.
In a village a meeting of women was organized. They requested
us that they should be let free to go home at 10 o’clock in the night
because they were tired after a whole day’s hard work. In the course
of the meeting, one of us sang two grindmill songs with reference to
the point which we were putting forth, and they literally electrified the
whole atmosphere:

At the heart of a huge fire, the tender areca nut burns away,
There’s no appreciation for a girl’s labours at her home or at her
in-law’s.
Engulfed in flames, a patch of greenery burns away,
Wherever a woman goes, she must toil.

The meeting went on until 1 in the morning with the participants in
the meeting exclaiming: ‘You started singing our songs and then, we
never realized how time passed!’
In another village, women gathered in one house where the
verandah was large enough to accommodate forty to fifty people. Before
we started the meeting, the lady from the house said, ‘You had better
choose another house for the meeting. I have to get up early in the morn-
ing.’ This was given as an excuse for not participating in the meeting
as she was afraid of doing so. We shifted to a nearby house and started
our discussion. While discussing, we sang some grindmill songs:

Mother and father say: ‘Daughter, you must die there,
where we handed you over,
The firewood must burn away in the hearth.’
You endure sāsurvās [harassment at in-laws’ house]
What will happen if you bear it?
What will happen if you bear it? One obtains devpan . [godly status].

As usual, women participated.The meeting became very lively. Next
morning, the same lady who had been listening from her house,
told us, ‘Excuse me, I should not have insulted you. I was listening and