Page 253 - Communication Processes Volume 3 Communication Culture and Confrontation

228 Kusum Sonavne

9

A ReActivAted

PeRfoRmAnce cAPAcity

Kusum sonavne

The Plight of Deserted Women

Barring a few remote villages, by and large, singing songs of one’s
composition while grinding is disappearing as a living performance
in western Maharashtra. Still, the creative capacity that carried that
tradition is not altogether extinct; neither is its communicative po-
tential. As evidence of this, what follows is the content analysis of a
set of twenty-seven songs that I composed and sang during a two-
.
day meeting organized by the Poor of the Mountain (Garīb dongarī
.
.
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sanghatna) for forty-five deserted women in March 1997 on the oc-
.
casion of International Women’s Day celebrations.
To facilitate the self-reflection of the group and create an atmosphere
congenial to sharing personal life stories, we envisaged of composing
distichs meant to link up the words, speech and tunes of yesteryears
with the present expressions and experiences of the participants. The
latter are women who, without fault on their part, have been rejected
by their husband or in-laws for selfish purposes. Though the particular
condition of their elders was not one of desertion as is theirs today,