The Weave of My Life: A Dalit Woman's Memoirs

by Urmila Pawar, Maya Pandit, Wandana Sonalkar

Overview

"My mother used to weave aaydans, the Marathi generic term for all things made from bamboo. I find that her act of weaving and my act of writing are organically linked. The weave is similar. It is the weave of pain, suffering, and agony that links us."

Activist and award-winning writer Urmila Pawar recounts three generations of Dalit women who struggled to overcome the burden of their caste. Dalits, or untouchables, make up India's poorest class. Forbidden from performing anything but the most undesirable and unsanitary duties, for years Dalits were believed to be racially inferior and polluted by nature and were therefore forced to live in isolated communities.

Pawar grew up on the rugged Konkan coast, near Mumbai, where the Mahar Dalits were housed in the center of the village so the upper castes could summon them at any time. As Pawar writes, "the community grew up with a sense of perpetual insecurity, fearing that they could be attacked from all four sides in times of conflict. That is why there has always been a tendency in our people to shrink within ourselves like a tortoise and proceed at a snail's pace." Pawar eventually left Konkan for Mumbai, where she fought for Dalit rights and became a major figure in the Dalit literary movement. Though she writes in Marathi, she has found fame in all of India.

In this frank and intimate memoir, Pawar not only shares her tireless effort to surmount hideous personal tragedy but also conveys the excitement of an awakening consciousness during a time of profound political and social change.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231149006
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	07/15/2009
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Urmila Pawar (b. 1945) received an MA from the University of Bombay and for many years worked in the department of labor welfare for the government of Maharashtra. She is the author of two acclaimed short story collections, Sahava Bot and Chauthi Bhint, and, with Meenakshi Moon, coauthored a book on the role of women in the Dalit movement. She is also a former actor of radical Marathi theater and a playwright.

Maya Pandit is pro-vice chancellor of the English and Foreign Language University, Hyderabad. She is an experienced translator of women's writings from Marathi and an activist in the women's movement and alternative theater.Wandana Sonalkar teaches economics at Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad, Maharashtra, and is director of their Women's Studies Centre. She has also translated and written a comprehensive introduction to Urmila Pawar and Meenakshi Moon's Amhihi Itihaas Ghadavila on the participation of women in the Ambedkar movement.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction, by Wandana Sonalkar
A Note on Kinship Terms
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Notes
Glossary
A Note on Readers' Reactions to Aaydan
Illustrations

What People are Saying About This

Rochona Majumdar

Through the descriptions of her early family life, Urmila Pawar skillfully takes the reader through a rich archive of Dalit history. Remarkable in many ways, her autobiography demonstrates the deep fissures between the feminist movement and movements for the uplift of lower castes. Pawar's own experiences as a Dalit Buddhist female activist abound in the difficulties she faced while joining these different causes.

Editorial Reviews

The English translation by Maya Pandit is quite successful in bringing out the ethnic flavor of the Marathi original.

World Literature in Review - Basavaraj S. Naikar

Engaging and well written.... It provides a rich case study from many different angles.

Quarterly Journal of the American Society of Missiology - Nancy Thomas

I would recommend this engaging and well written (and translated) narrative to missiologists...It provides a rich case study from many different angles.

— Nancy Thomas

Quarterly Journal of the American Society of Missiology

The English translation by Maya Pandit is quite successful in bringing out the ethnic flavor of the Marathi original.

World Literature in Review