Page 256 - Communication Processes Volume 3 Communication Culture and Confrontation

A Reactivated Performance Capacity 231

Woman, the deceitful fellow, what tricks he used
How did he not show pity for a woman’s life?
In your consideration woman’s existence is like vegetable
Eh! deceitful man, your existence, who gave it to you?
Today women face off and men look down with shame. Those who
‘have hatched so many tricks’ and made women ‘bearing the brunt of
their stratagems’ are frightened:
You, treacherous men! your mind is prejudiced
A woman’s name pushed in the forefront
makes your blood run cold.
Four other qualifications apply to men’s behaviour. The word
.
cānd . āl, fickle, inconstant in loyalty, occurs in two songs that focus in
.
this respect on the sight of men who look around for girls and make
eyes at them. They ‘play games with their eyes’, their ‘mind is burnt
caught in the glance of girls’. A song warns them ‘not to wander off at
the sight of young girls’.
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Anyaya, injustice, unfairness, occurs in two songs with regard to
the injustice done to straightforward women by men. A first song
expresses the grief of helpless parents whose daughter’s life is unfairly
damaged and spoilt:
Mother and father say: ‘My daughter is a jewel’
But her life a sad story with no unfairness on her part.

The second song compares a righteous woman to the acacia tree strip-
ped from its bark at the image of women whose life is manhandled:
An acacia on the way, the passers-by prune it
A woman with no injustice, they burn her alive.

The third characteristic feature is men’s use of women for the
perpetuation of their supremacy. A woman may be addressed as a
Laksmī, but this is not in consideration of her personality. A song
.
places sarcastic warnings in the mouth of the husband to that effect:
that marriage is only meant for maintaining one’s lineage; which is to
say, obtain a son: