In some villages of Rajathan, I hear, women who must lift their ghaaghraa in the open, face a whole new menace: pigs.
When the women go out, at dawn, to squat in the fields, the impatient and hungry pig-population of the village follows. And being impatient and hungry pigs, they don't usually wait for the women to finish and leave before they come up, a-licking their hairy snouts.
On occassion, the pig topples the woman over, while she 'shoo-shoo'es away helplessly.
When feeling particularly vicious, the pigs have been known to break a leg, twist an ankle or two, and even rip open a thigh.
Mid-sqaut, women are forced to get up and run for their lives.
In fact, the pigs have smartened up to our rustic toilet-habits; the moment they see someone headed to the fields, lotaa in hand, they begin to give chase.
This story is told and retold by the men of the village, peppered with loud guffaws. And women activists, though appalled, helplessly laugh, as hard as I did, when they first told me.
The trouble, of course, could extend to men, as well. Except that men, being bigger and in possession of stronger, better exercised vocal chords, manage to shout, shoo and throw things at the impatient pigs.
Women dare not scream in their bare-bottomed condition, while men couldn't bother with being discreet.
Now, will someone from Sulabh step in and help? These women urgently need pukka toilets, and plenty of water.
2 comments:
This is really funny...perhaps you should compile a collection of these into a book.
Hahahahhahahaaha....Men and Pigs understand each other, hilarious, this is in reference to your post on the pigs who bother the women in the fields,when they are doing their business.
Where do you work? And how do you have all these anecdotes? Simply amazing. I have learnt a lot. Like you were taken aback by the number of strong and passionate Panch women in Dehradoon, I am taken aback by the women of Blogistan.
I cannot help remarking that though I was in India for my first 20 years and I was pretty well travelled. I had no idea,about a lot of things, till I started reading blogs such as yours.
Thank you.
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