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Writes Mehrotra: "Home is often counterpoised against ‘the
world’`85and associated with shelter, refuge, safety."
But can we take this for granted; accept home as being
unproblematic? Home is as much about survival and struggle, as
the world outside. "If people stopped performing ‘house’-work,
the world may well grind to a halt. Infants would hardly survive
without care, nor would many older children. But the
arrangements and structures within which such care takes place
are far from ideal. Homes are often oppressive, violent places,
perpetuating intrinsic hierarchies." And very often, it is
from homes such as these that single mothers emerge...to create
new spaces and new homes.
Single motherhood
is a growing phenomenon in middle and upper-class India, and
consequently more visible to the English-speaking urban eye. The
phenomenon, driven primarily by the education of women and
economic liberalisation, has led to a growth in the divorce
rate. Middle-class women have become more assertive and
independent and aware of their rights. There is also an increase
in the number of single women who choose not to marry but may
adopt a child to raise it alone. It is in this context of ‘choice’
— wanting to or consciously taking on the responsibility of
being a single parent — that the writing and recording of a
book like Mehrotra’s makes most sense.
In ambitiously
trying to also integrate stories of ‘circumstance’
(widowhood, abandonment, etc.) Mehrotra begins to stretch her
canvas. However, despite her going over the top to include all
manner and sections of society (working class women from slums
and rural areas; women who are unmarried, divorced, and widowed;
women who are Sikh, Christian, Hindu, or Muslim; Indian women
who live abroad and NRIs who have returned to India), the
framework still holds. It does so because the stories are told
simply, in first person, and are engaging. For instance, listen
to Sabina’s voice: "When I walked out of my marriage, my
son wasn’t the dominant consideration. But later he ended up
being the major consideration for all my moves. From being just
a little child, Dilip has become imperative to all my choices.
Living the way I do has 80 per cent to do with him."
But it is in the
last section of the book, Reflections and Insights, that
a reader may be tempted to throw in the towel. Mehrotra’s
scholarly voice, attempting to touch on every aspect of the
stories from survival to sexuality makes for ponderous reading.
For instance, in attempting to communicate that single moms need
not feel restricted about their sexuality once outside the
framework of family and marriage, Mehrotra writes: "The
right to an ethics in sexuality, demanding accountability,
equity and dignity in the most intimate of human relationships
requires ‘a multiplication of spaces where sensuality can be
made manifest, active and dialogic.’ By opening up alternative
spaces, sexuality is rescued from the exclusivity of family and
marriage."
Mehrotra has
attempted this book in the nature of research because, as she
herself says, the lives of single mothers have "so far been
hidden from sociology, psychology, and political science."
However, her academic voice does not exactly make for layman
reading. Mehrotra is not alone. Many academicians, when writing
a book, lose track of where a book meant for the common reader
ends and a PhD thesis begins. That is what editors are there
for. Mehrotra’s attempt is praiseworthy and Penguin’s is
not.
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THIS
is an ambitious book. It is divided into three parts. The first,
titled The Terrain, is a sweeping introduction to the ‘ground
realities’ of single motherhood. The second has 17 stories (all
told in first person) of single mothers. And the third, Reflections
and Insights, holds a microscope over the already-told stories
to examine them in a sociological context—gender study, sexuality,
rights and alliances, human security, etc.
