A minor amount was spelled out, mostly when she was relating specific dialogue she had overheard. Most of the bad language in the book was indicated using the "he cursed" style. The second half focuses more on specifics of her life story (including life in a city and dealing with the changing times in regards to the untouchable castes). The first half of the book is full of general stories about her relatives and her childhood and gives the reader a look into their culture. She gives some information about Hinduism and Buddhism and the political movements that helped change life for the Dalits, but generally only as it directly impacted her life. She also talks about how things have changed for the Dalits during her lifetime. She gives details of what daily village life was like in the time of her grandmother, mother, and in her childhood. She is an excellent storyteller, skillfully bringing her stories alive in my imagination.
The Weave of My Life is the memoir of an "untouchable" caste woman in India. In this frank and intimate memoir, Pawar not only shares her tireless effort to surmount hideous personal tragedy but also conveys the excitement of an awakening consciousness during a time of profound political and social change. Though she writes in Marathi, she has found fame in all of India. That is why there has always been a tendency in our people to shrink within ourselves like a tortoise and proceed at a snail's pace." Pawar eventually left Konkan for Mumbai, where she fought for Dalit rights and became a major figure in the Dalit literary movement. As Pawar writes, "the community grew up with a sense of perpetual insecurity, fearing that they could be attacked from all four sides in times of conflict. Pawar grew up on the rugged Konkan coast, near Mumbai, where the Mahar Dalits were housed in the center of the village so the upper castes could summon them at any time. Forbidden from performing anything but the most undesirable and unsanitary duties, for years Dalits were believed to be racially inferior and polluted by nature and were therefore forced to live in isolated communities. Dalits, or untouchables, make up India's poorest class. It is the weave of pain, suffering, and agony that links us."Īctivist and award-winning writer Urmila Pawar recounts three generations of Dalit women who struggled to overcome the burden of their caste.
I find that her act of weaving and my act of writing are organically linked. "My mother used to weave aaydans, the Marathi generic term for all things made from bamboo.
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