IE : Empowerment, maid in Mumbai : Nov 10,2007
Empowerment, maid in Mumbai
SUNANDA MEHTA
SUNANDA MEHTA
Posted online: Sunday, November 11, 2007
Women in these villages have moved out to earn for their families, leaving behind their homes and husbands
Tucked away in the hilly terrains of the Sahyadris, a clutch of villages have been quietly leading the way in the emancipation of women. Turning the traditional pattern on its head, here the women make a march towards the cities for work, while the men stay behind to look after the fields, run the households and bring up the children.
About 55 km from Pune is Aadgaon village, which wears a strangely deserted and drab look. Here, about 75 per cent of houses have sent their women to Mumbai, where they work as maids in and around Lokhandwala.
As 46-year-old Yashwant Gopale of Aadgaon spreads groundnuts to be dried in the sun, his son pitches in. My wife works as a domestic servant in four to five houses and earns about Rs 3,000 a month. She sends us most of that money and it takes care of my sons college education, said the farmer who owns about two acres of paddy fields.
In neighbouring Vandre village, Tukaram Jadhav says his wife Shakuntala, who left for Mumbai three years ago, now works as a domestic maid. She earns Rs 3,500 a month, a large part of which goes towards paying off loans incurred by the family. Their 17-year-old son Sanjay stays with the father while the younger one is with the mother in Mumbai.
This trend of women going to Mumbai to work as maids began some 10 years ago but picked pace only in the last five years. In some villages like Gadat, 90 per cent of the women have moved to Mumbai for work. Almost everyone here is a farmer but the returns are just about enough to feed the family. Men cannot go because they need to tend to the fields, explained Ramdas Shinde, gram panchayat member of Amboli, whose wife works in Mumbai.
While many women take their children with them, the husbands learn to do the domestic chores on their own or get an elderly aunt or mother to pitch in. In Mumbai, the women put up in rented shanties and make the trip back home to the village, five hours away, every three to four months. A special daily state transport bus was started a few years ago from Borivili to Belavadi, another nearby village, to cater to these women.
Seated in one such bus is 50-year old Viman Sawant, on her way back to Andheri after a brief visit back home I have been in Mumbai for nine years now and come back three-four times a year. Sometimes, my husband comes to Mumbai to see me and the kids, she said as a co-passenger joked, All husbands make the trip after the 10th of every month to collect the pay!
So with the women elevated to the position of the bread winner, has this altered their status within the family? According to Ganpat Gopale, chairman, Vividh Karyakarta Society Aadgaon, a perceptible change is taking place. Women who move out become smarter, they learn to assert themselves and we see this change in the homes, he said.
Publication : IE; Section : News; Pg: 8; Date : 10/11/07