Mela is the centerpiece of Nepali rural peasant life. While Mela conjures up notions of a celebratory event in the urban dictionary, it has a distinct rural meaning. Once able-bodied men and their well-tended oxen are done doing the crude work in the fields, seeds soggy with hopes and livelihoods are planted. These seeds burst out into the wild world, oblivious to the whims of the nature, and aspirations of their planters. They have to be taken care of. Weeds need to be removed, fertilizers must be applied, soil might have to be heaped up around the plant; each crop has its own specific demands that need to be met before able-bodied men and their well-tended oxen will again storm the fields to deconstruct this whole exercise reaping the outcomes of the toil. Those work days between these pitches of masculine contributions are the Melas. Participants of Melas are almost entirely women. They start after the sun reaches some degree of brightness until close to the sunset; modifications dictated by seasons. As these women work, they chat, they might even sing together. They are not seeking private space to concentrate upon certain task, they are looking for each others' company to dampen the monotony and physical pain of manual labor that might assert with silence. It forces this workday to be a social endeavor. They exchange gossips, news, information in the process.
These women do not pull out a calendar and plan out when they will gather for Mela is whose fields. The schedules are the outcomes of mutual convenience. It's a fluid process. They talk with each other and dictated by availability, weather and convenience, Melas happen. On a recent visit to village I learned that these days they do most of the coordinating through mobile phones. Everyone in village has mobile phones. Earlier, rural life demanded of cash for salt, sugar and spices. To the list has been added mobile phones. Everyone must have it; they find ways to finance them. But how did these women dial the numbers to call? Because, remember, many of these adult women are illiterate. Literacy rate for adult Nepali women was meager 17% in 1991 and 34% in 2001. Rural women are obviously likely to fare poorer than these average statistics.
I learned of how one woman, who did not recognize the numbers in the dial pad, placed her phone calls. She had asked a youngster to assign pictures to common phone numbers that she needed. So when she had to call, let's say Saili, she would find an elephant; for kanchii she would fetch butterfly using the scroll key and Hira didi would be an ant.
That is the ingenuity of the rural women. Deny me numbers, I will find pictures!
That is also the ingenuity of the bottom rung in the power structure of this unjust society. This country has pushed the powerless to extremes of repression, indignation and depravity. And in turn, the powerful have a tendency to see themselves as quite distinct, "superior" and "sophisticated" than the powerless common folks. However, the truth could not be farther. The powerless in this society do not speak their language but they know what is good and they know how to make that "good" work. They might not know the numbers in the keypad of a mobile phone but they will find ways to make that phone place the desired call. Unfortunately, however sophisticated the languages of our elites sound, we have yet to see them make things work. It would be a mistake to think that the powerless in this society are somewhat fooled by the sophisticated styles and languages of the power holders. They understand it in their own terms that are visceral and crude: less prone to entanglements of falsely sophisticated languages.
It is not hard to understand the results of these elections if we understand that a large majority of the voters are these common, powerless folks who might be illiterate but not ignorant.
These women do not pull out a calendar and plan out when they will gather for Mela is whose fields. The schedules are the outcomes of mutual convenience. It's a fluid process. They talk with each other and dictated by availability, weather and convenience, Melas happen. On a recent visit to village I learned that these days they do most of the coordinating through mobile phones. Everyone in village has mobile phones. Earlier, rural life demanded of cash for salt, sugar and spices. To the list has been added mobile phones. Everyone must have it; they find ways to finance them. But how did these women dial the numbers to call? Because, remember, many of these adult women are illiterate. Literacy rate for adult Nepali women was meager 17% in 1991 and 34% in 2001. Rural women are obviously likely to fare poorer than these average statistics.
I learned of how one woman, who did not recognize the numbers in the dial pad, placed her phone calls. She had asked a youngster to assign pictures to common phone numbers that she needed. So when she had to call, let's say Saili, she would find an elephant; for kanchii she would fetch butterfly using the scroll key and Hira didi would be an ant.
That is the ingenuity of the rural women. Deny me numbers, I will find pictures!
That is also the ingenuity of the bottom rung in the power structure of this unjust society. This country has pushed the powerless to extremes of repression, indignation and depravity. And in turn, the powerful have a tendency to see themselves as quite distinct, "superior" and "sophisticated" than the powerless common folks. However, the truth could not be farther. The powerless in this society do not speak their language but they know what is good and they know how to make that "good" work. They might not know the numbers in the keypad of a mobile phone but they will find ways to make that phone place the desired call. Unfortunately, however sophisticated the languages of our elites sound, we have yet to see them make things work. It would be a mistake to think that the powerless in this society are somewhat fooled by the sophisticated styles and languages of the power holders. They understand it in their own terms that are visceral and crude: less prone to entanglements of falsely sophisticated languages.
It is not hard to understand the results of these elections if we understand that a large majority of the voters are these common, powerless folks who might be illiterate but not ignorant.
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