WOMEN'S EDUCATION
Bhandaru Acchamamba (1874-1905)
(translated by Malathi
Nidadavolu)
*
[The story was presented in the form of a dialogue between
husband and wife.]
Wife: So, you have decided to leave tomorrow? Can you not stay
home for tomorrow and then leave the following day?
Husband: You stop being adamant about this. I must leave
tomorrow.
Wife: I will not ask you again not to go. I pray, please,
keep me informed of your wellbeing once every three or four days. I cannot live
without knowing your wellbeing.
Husband: Yes. I will do as you requested. But, how will you
inform me of your wellbeing? Just as you would like to be informed of my
wellbeing, would I not want to know of your wellbeing?
Wife: What can I do about that? If I am also educated like
you, I will gladly write letters to you every day. I can however ask my younger
brother to write to you occasionally.
Husband: If you had learned to write, you would be able to
write to me all your thoughts lying in your heart. Even if I write to you, you
cannot read those letters and for that reason, I cannot write all my thoughts.
Don you not have to seek someone else's help to learn the details in my
letters? I have been asking to learn to read from the first day after we had
gotten married, and you have turned a deaf ear, is it not so? At first, I
ignored it, thinking you were young still. Even after you had grown up, you
would not drop your childish behavior. Will you learn to read and write now at
least? Or, you will you continue to act in the same manner confirming your
stubbornness?
Wife: What can I do if you get angry with me in this manner?
Sometimes I also consider the idea of learning to read like all other women.
But my grandmother used to say that women must not learn to read and write, and
that the educated women would cause to decrease the lifespan of their husbands;
So it was written in the sastras, she said.
Husband: Is that so? Women in the past imagined such views
without proof. The thought women would lose their husbands, if they received
education is gaining ground in recent times. These words are prevalent only in
older women but not found in sastras. Sastras actually state that women must
study. After I went to Chennapuri (current Chennai), I will
send you a good book. In the meantime, you learn to read from your
brother.
Wife: That is nice. Do I have not other things to do than to
learn to read and write?
Husband: I am not suggesting that you must quit your all other activities. Women cannot shun their domestic
chores. You can finish your housework and after that you can learn to read, in
stead of wasting your time in meaningless chatter with your neighbors. You will
even learn about some of the benefits of education and the disadvantages of
illiteracy. In fact, I am surprised that you are still not intersted in
acquiring the language skills.
Wife: What is the
purpose of that education? To write letters to their
husbands? Do we go to office like you and work? If I learn to read and
write, our neighbors will laugh at me, and make fun of me. They will not
hesitate even to reject me. Why would I want to seek small rewards and court
that pain of rejection? We are not going to be seperated forever, is it not so?
Even if we stay away from each other for a long time, we are not going to be
separated for more than two years. After that, what is the use of this
education?
Husband: It is natural for you to speak like that. You donot
know fully the advantages of acquiring knowledge and the ensuing benefits. One
must not laugh at your ignorance but pity you. Even if you had acquired a
morsel of education in the past, you would not entertain such unwise thoughts.
It is not strange that you should think that education helps only to obtain a
job in an office or helps you to write letters to your husband. But if you
think carefully, you will understand the flaws in your mode of thinking
yourself. People donot become educated simply by learning the script. Only
those, who had read great books written by others and could interpret them, can
be called "educated." Such education sharpens one's intellect. The
invaluable and lofty thoughts from those books settle in the readers' hearts
and make them noble persons. The evil qualities resident in their hearts would
be replaced by noble thoughts. They would become qualified to acquire the
worldly knowledge. Reading new books would elate one's mind. People would feel
relieved from their umpteen worries in their everyday lives momentarily and be
happy. There are several such benefits from education. I can assure you without
doubt that if you set your mind to it and learn to read, you will enjoy
reading, and even forget to eat and sleep after sometime. You will know for
yourself that among all the pleasures, the pleasure of reading is the best. Let
it be for the moment. A wife must be supportive of her husband in this life
forever. And the wife cannot perform her duty fully unless she is educated. The
husband returns home after a long day's work; he should not have to sit and go
over the household accounts. An educated wife would be able to take care of it
herself. That gives respite for the husband.
Wife: If the woman were not educated, could she not remember
the accounts?
Husband: Yes, you women do remember some of the accounts
related to household. But often you make mistakes also. But the educated women
would not make such mistakes. When the washer man takes clothes for washing,
you will memorize as, "two times ten is four." And you'll take back
the clean clothes as you remembered them. You will not know if he brought a
pillowcase in place of a coat. It is the same when the milkman brings milk. You
will draw a line on the wall. If somebody else inserted an extra line between
those lines, how would I [Sic.] know? That is the extant of your math, right?
If you are educated, there will not be such embarrassment and differences, is
it not so?
Wife: All that is true. But then, why did the ancient
scholars write that women must not receive education?
Husband: Let me explain to you the disadvantages of not
having education. If you were educated, you would have read the sastras
yourself and would have learned what had been written in the sastras. In the
sastras I have read, I never found any statement saying women must not study.
My understanding is that no sastras had probably made such claims. Women like
your grandmother would spread what they had heard. And people like you believe
them because you are not in a position to verify them, and thus pass the same
ideas to others. Thus, due to the blind faith of some people, several
reprehensible beliefs are being spread in the name of sastras in our country.
Nobody seems to care and verify whether these beliefs were recorded in the
sastras or not. There are a few, very few, who would want to verify the
authenticity of these statements. But there are countless scholars, who would
keep those people under their own spell and make them commit countless evil
deeds. Thus, we do not see many people, who would use their brains given by
god, and examine the good and bad in their actions. This being the case for the
educated men, it is not a surprise that women do not step outside of their
slovenly world. At least now, you must step out of that well of absurdity and
see the light of knowledge. Today it is of greater urgency for women to acquire
knowledge at a much higher level than men did. The reason women have the
additional duty of educating the children yet to be born, and help them achieve
greater success. Typically children take after their mothers. If mothers were
uneducated and ill behaved, their children turn out to be so; and if the
mothers were educated and principled, their children would be just as well
behaved.[1]
It is only proper that children should take after their mothers rather than
fathers. Take your own case. Now you are not willing to learn to read only
because you have listened to the ill advises of your mother and grandmother,
who were uneducated themselves, is it not right? Your children in future also
will be uneducated. Children by nature are inclined to learn through watching
and listening the adults around them. One scholar
wrote that the education children receive from the scholars does not equal the
knowledge they receive from one worthy mother. Therefore, it is important that
women should learn to read at least to make their children worthy citizens.
Wife: Your goals are commendable, why would I go against
them? If you wish me to be educated, I will start tomorrow. I am fully aware,
regardless of my lack of education and dullness, that I am duty bound to wear
my husband's commands on my head and that I have no other god except my
husband. I will not be scared even if my grandmother reprimands me, and
neighbors taunt me. I will learn to read to please you.
Husband: Is that true?
Wife: Absolutely and undoubtedly. Ever since I heard your
good speeches, I am anxious to read books. Now on, I will write letters to you
with my own hand. You should send me a good book as soon as you arrived in
Chennapuri. I will write letters to you, but then, I am also worried that you
might laugh at my writings.
Husband: As soon as you have learned to read, I will send
you books with great pleasure, several of them in fact. You make sure that you
will set your mind to it without fail. How long do you think it will be before
you have learned to read and write letters to me?
Wife: How can I give my word to you with precision now?
Husband: What an auspicious day it will be when I receive a
letter written by you. You cannot imagine the pleasure I would feel at that
time. I am elated even at the thought that you have agreed to learn to read in
return for all the speeches I have been showering on you. Right now, I see it
in a dream: You are sitting here with a paper, a pen and an inkwell to write a
letter to me. The pen in your hand is shaking. Your face is pale with fear and
embarrassment. The letters on the paper are in various sizes, big and small. In
between, there are ink spots splattered on the paper.
You want your first letter to me to be perfect; you are trying so hard, yet to
you they look intolerable. Your heart will not let you send it to me and so you
will fair copy it on another paper with meticulous care. You are not satisfied
with the second draft either. Your heart sinks. You get tired of it, and put
the same letter in an envelope, and give it to your brother to write the
address and mail it. My face lit up happily at the sight of the letter written
with your own hands. My friends noticed it and teased me. I pretended to
protest their teasing but I was pleased inside. I read the letter from my dear
wife again and again. That was not enough for me and so I read it several
times. Each time it gave me a new pleasure. Aha, what a pleasure it is! In addition,
I am having one more dream.
I am in our bedroom with our son, Sumati. You are sitting
next to me in an armchair and reading aloud an article from a monthly magazine
for me. As I am listening to your sweet voice and watching your brightened
face, I am experiencing a heavenly bliss. And then, there is another dream.
You are sitting with Sumati and Savitri and teaching them
how to read warmly.
Wife: You are speaking strange words. Are you saying you are
dreaming while wide awake?
Husband: I am not joking. All these things I have mentioned
just now are not my dreams. I am asking you if they would ever become realities
or do I have to be content with dreams only?
Wife: They will become reality. Definitely they will become
a reality.
Husband: You are both my gruhadevata[2]
and Saraswati (goddess of learning) as well. With your blessing, your word will
definitely become a reality. Will you write to me in six months?
Wife: Certainly I will try to write to you. And then, I will
worry that you might ridicule my writing.
Husband: Why do you say that? Will I laugh at your
letter? You do not know yet. We two care deeply about each other. Whatever we
do out of affection for each other may appear small for other but remains
special between the two of us.
Wife: I will start writing after five months. But you must
start writing to me every two days, informing me about your wellbeing. If you
write each letter separately, and not in cursive writing, I will try to read it
myself. That is all fine. You must return home soon also.
Husband: As the exam time approaches, you cannot ask me to
come home soon.
Wife; You will come home when you
the school closes for a holiday, is it not so?
Husband: Definitely I will come.
Wife: Since I listened to every word you have said, you
should also listen to my words.
Husband: Let me know what that is?
Wife: You should come home for Deepavali.
Husband; Yes, I will come.
***
(The Telugu original, strividya,
was originally published in 1902 in a monthly magazine, Hindusundari.)