During the first visit to Prakriye, students met Soumya, one of the Sakhis (Informediaries of Prakriye). She shared her life experiences with us.
Nikhila, one of the students at Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, shares her reflections on Soumya’s story, and the potential of using her life experiences within the course of the project.
Towards the end of our first field visit to Mysore, we spoke to Soumya, an infomediary working in ITFC. She told us the story about her life; which gave us a first-hand account of the problems faced by women in the villages. She like many other women in her village was not given the right to make choices regarding her education, marriage and family. Her story of negotiating within these restrictions to make a path for herself highlighted the personal struggle and victory that constitutes what we refer to broadly as “social-change”.
To me—a city-dweller—Soumya’s life at first glance, seems to be riddled with patriarchal restrictions. But her story provides us with the nuance that is often missing from the narrative that members of an urban setting expect from a woman from a patriarchal society. Her negotiation with the restrictions in her life emphasises the importance of noticing how women negotiate exercising their choices within the restricted environments that they live in. Qualitative personal-traits like negotiation-skills are an important aspect of dealing with these issues, more important than a theoretical understanding of what to expect from a socially-just society that is prominent in an urban-approach to social injustice. These qualitative traits need to be built in the context of the community at large.
