Aunties Of Vasant Kunj: Anuradha Marwah Peeks Into Complexities Of Womanhood

Three women try Buddhist chanting, activism and fermented drinks of various kinds to make sense of their fast-changing worlds.

Shailaja, abandoned but lovelorn, wistfully teaching romance in a Delhi University college; Mrs Gandhi, plump and garrulous, dedicated to providing endless cups of tea and plates of biskut to all and sundry; and firebrand Dini, ensconced in her idyllic female world; they simply cannot see eye to eye.

But suddenly, their lives take unexpected turns. A lecherous boss, a cheating husband and a completely unsuitable but irresistible lover make them seek out each other. Will Vasant Kunj, with its tight shared spaces, unlawfully occupied pathways and perennial water and electricity crises, provide intersections for unlikely friendships? Or will they continue to collide at Aunty Point, where they’ve all been cast ashore?

Aunties of Vasant Kunj offers a hilarious peek into middle-class Delhi and how women navigate conflicting identities and desires at almost forty, while liable to be still a little naughty.

Here's an excerpt from Anuradha Marwah's Aunties of Vasant Kunj 

‘Controlling women and their sexuality has been the bedrock  of patriarchal systems like arranged marriages.’ In the Vasant  Kunj step-well, where aunties congregate, the maker of such a statement would have been sniggered at for being ‘cracked’ in the head. While Mrs Gandhi was standing guard over home and hearth and Shailaja was moving in, Dinitia or Dini, as she preferred to be called, had travelled very far from this setting— literally 20 kilometres—into a world where such a perspective could be presented in relative safety. She was at the India Habitat  Centre, building up her argument in a conference where the cognoscenti were discussing the track record and future scope of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, commonly called the PWDVA, which had come into force a decade or so ago. 

Dini was quoting a scholar she admired greatly. She had first read Veena Talwar Oldenburg while doing a Master’s in Social  Work, and it had changed the way she thought of marriage. She was now of the firm belief that women needed the strongest legal fortification to be able to survive marriage. Dini began to present her findings on domestic violence in a low-measured voice. She described the world of the basti through the eyes of the women she had rallied into a group. She enumerated case studies of rampant alcoholism, routine rape, and systematic sadistic abuse by husbands and by other men in the home.

With a lump in her throat, she described an instance of resistance that had especially moved her. There was a cough and a splutter at the word ‘resistance’ from the audience. It was terrible the way vocabulary was being sanitized in such a gathering as well, Dini thought to herself. It must be a disapproving bureaucrat. She went on nevertheless, ‘To protect her pregnant daughter-in-law from drunken rape, the mother had started to give her son food laced with a local sedative whenever he came home drunk. Bonding between women can pose the most effective challenge to domestic violence. This  women-friendly Act, even though it might have been dilute considerably in practice, continues to provide this opportunity.’  

Dini concluded with the recommendation that NGOs working with the PWDVA should especially encourage women to talk about sexual relationships. There was more coughing and some shuffling as well at that. Irritated, she decided to go all out. ‘The hidden war on women’s bodies should come out in the open,’  she asserted. ‘Men cannot keep going scot-free.’ She walked back from the rostrum to her place in the large conference hall with the feeling that she had presented her case rather strongly. 

Once the conference broke for lunch, she met responses she had expected: some commendations, but many more doubts and challenges.  

‘In the village where I work, it is the schoolmaster who  first heard about the PWDVA and began to talk about it,’ said Radhey Shyam—RS, as he was called. He managed an NGO  in Banswara, Rajasthan, and she held his work in high esteem.  He had a PhD in rural communities and globalization from the esteemed Jawaharlal Nehru University. 

‘I’m sure he would prove useful in your work,’ parried Dini. ‘But don’t you think it is important to include men in these discussions about sexual violence? I mean, if one consciously excludes men from such discussions, wouldn’t it just alienate them?’ he persisted. 

‘It is important to get the women to talk first,’ replied Dini. Would women even come out with the kind of stories that had made her shiver if it was a mixed gathering? 

‘Frankly, I feel you are putting too much emphasis on sexual aggression. All Indian men, all these men in your basti—they are not rapists. There are also good sexual relationships there,’  RS continued. 

Why must he look like this at her and speak about good sexual relationships! 

Extracted with permission from Anuradha Marwah's Aunties of Vasant Kunj; published by Rupa Publications