Behind the veil again

About two decades ago Anees Jung wrote a book called Unveiling India: A Woman's Journal (Penguin), a book about the women of India that went beyond numbers and statistics and left its impact on the reader. Beyond the Courtyard is a sequel to Unveiling India.

Nafis Sadiq, Director of the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (the organisation that had sponsored the earlier book) suggested that Jung visit the daughters of the women she had met earlier and talk to them on issues that are vital to them. Jung did just that and stories she collected make up the book under review.

Jung is very dismissive of westernised young women in cities, "an opaque mass that has given up one identity before it could find another".

It would have been worthwhile to look into the reasons that lead to this identity crisis so that one could juxtapose the plight of women in cities with that of their sisters in villages. The ghutan or inner claustrophobia experienced by the latter can possibly be linked with the identity crisis of the other.

She starts with an account of a meeting with Ameena, the young girl from Hyderabad who had been married to an Arab old enough to be her grandfather, rescued by an air hostess who had found her sobbing on the flight.

Her story had made headlines and many NGOs had rushed to help her but gave up as her father did not trust them. Twelve years later she was married off again to a widower, much older than her and with children she would have to bring up. Jung puts it this way, "The passing years have not changed the destiny of girls like Ameena. They remain a part of a social landscape that refuses to move ahead."

Even when a person wants to move on ahead, get educated, lead a better life, circumstances can be absolutely thwarting. Incompatible marriage, domestic violence, desertion, widowhood... the nightmares recur till one loses the urge to fight them off.

Some, like Lallan Bai manage to rise above their circumstances, but most like Vimal just give up. Why? Jung generalises, "Though they have succeeded in creating an alternative space, an alternative vision has yet to emerge. Their biggest struggle still remains within the home where the perception of men is unchanged."

Yet there are faint rays of hope. Suman, whom the author met in Kanwarpura was the first girl in her village to have passed high school and was studying for a BA degree. Yet the serenity in her eyes did not match her mother's warm behaviour which lifted Jung's spirit. She wonders why the young people were so disinterested in everything.

Her travels and observations lead her to blame the circumstances in which they grew up. To quote, "Uninterested teachers, uninvolved parents, a social structure that does not allow talking and interacting. What do the young do then?"

Another person who cheers Jung up is Nazia who runs a beauty centre in the Mewat region, considered a backward area. She aspires to be an anchor on TV or radio, or compere stage programmes.

The single-mindedness with which she pursues this career, at the same time teaching the girls in her village her personal concepts of beauty, is cheering. In Jung's words, "The fact that even one young girl, trapped in the midst of a forgotten land, has begun to dream of another life gives me hope."

Beyond the Courtyard is a collection of 20 essays, based on Anees Jung's experiences as she travelled through villages, mainly of northern India, places which she had visited earlier. One feels she should have visited more places especially in the southern, western and eastern regions of India. That would have given her impressions a Pan-Indian context.

As of now, the book limits itself to one particular region "" northern India. True, visiting the same places and talking to the same women and their daughters after a number of years is a sound way of finding out about the changes that have or have not taken place in their lives. But visiting other regions alongside would offer a more comprehensive view and allow one to compare better.

Anees Jung's style is lucid with a flow that retains the reader's attention. Readability is the book's strongest point and as one reads, it is possible to become more acutely aware of the condition of women who do not belong to the privileged class. The list of NGOs helping women and children in these areas is provided in the Appendix, possibly with the hope that some readers might feel motivated to work with them.

BEYOND THE COURTYARD
A Sequel to Unveiling India

Anees Jung
Viking 2003
Pages: 159
Price: Rs 250