Page 254 - Communication Processes Volume 3 Communication Culture and Confrontation

A Reactivated Performance Capacity 229

both have a lot in common to share. Nevertheless, my report is not
meant to underscore that commonality as such. I want to draw the
attention towards the potentialities of the tradition of grindmill songs
as an as-set of communication (an input medium) in the particular
context of a collective self-introspection exercise undertaken by a
group of deserted women from Pune district (mainly Shirur taluka) in
Maharashtra. The idiomatic continuity is strikingly effective.

In the Words of an Immemorial Tradition

The twenty-seven distichs comprise 325 words or so. Among those,
three occur most often (in direct form and otherwise) to denounce a
-
reprehensible male behaviour. The first one is papī, sinner, occurring
in nine songs. The word had been extensively used in the tradition of
songs with the meaning of sexual aggression perceived as a social stigma
of which the victim will bear the dishonour and severe consequences.
The songs presently composed in March 1997 proclaim the women’s
innocence and point to the misdeeds of the actual miscreants. Their
connotations extend to various sorts of sexual abuses and injustices
meted out to innocent women. They are meant to clearly denounce,
rebel against and call for retaliation in words and further on in practice.
This is what deserted women can and should nowadays do without fear.
They should realize that there is a sort of ‘plot hatched by sinners with
a treacherous mind against them noble women born from the womb
of their mother and father’ of good repute. The cow is used here, today
as yesterday, as the emblem of a woman on account of her simplicity,
innocence and unselfish nature, qualities that make her an easy prey
to selfish interests of males:

Oh! you sinful man! you committed a lot of sins
In the deep forest how did you ill-treat the cow?
On the riverside, a black cow is grazing
Eh! you sinner, you have no pity for her.
Oh! you sinner, a villain, your sin is as heavy as the earth
How many girls who did nothing wrong have you killed?