Indian Writing

“When I was young, girls did not sit on chairs. Those who occupied chairs, and read the newspaper, were men. We sat on the floor to read and write. My eldest sister was considered very clever. The founder of the Hindu Elementary School, Headmaster Bantwal Raghunatharaya, had had a desk-bench made for my sister, perhaps to encourage other girls to follow her example. There was only one such desk-bench in the classroom. It was there even when I went to school, much to my pride. Everyone wanted to sit on it, but it was the class toppers who were given that special honour…

While the girls studied to whatever level they were permitted, and then got married, the boys went away to study to Mangalore or Madras. They used to come home for the holidays, and we felt they had attained heights we would never attain. We treated them with a mixture of fear and respect. My eldest brother studied literature, and became a lecturer in a college for a while. When he came home, it was as though all the English dramatists and poets came with him. In the eating room, he would recite from the English plays, and we would gaze at him open-mouthed. We couldn’t understand any of it from the words, but sought to make sense from his intonation and gestures. For a woman of the house to speak English was considered a mark of arrogance…”

Here is an online translation of Gulabi Talkies (The Penguin collection has a different translation by Tejaswini Niranjana).