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00:00I'm no scholar, I mean, coming in front of Professor Kapoor, I pale out.
00:09But I will certainly put a few thoughts, which are in my thought process, a very important
00:17aspect of thinking about women and India's thought about women.
00:22And therefore, I'll just sort of randomly flow with some thoughts.
00:27As I said, with a big rider that it's not an academically thought through flow of ideas,
00:36but I'll place it for your consideration.
00:40India's had uninterrupted, over the million year, active engagement of women in society,
00:51as Manisha Kotekarji said, in various different roles.
00:56I don't need to recall all of them.
00:58But it is important to understand this has been consistent since, let's say, if you were
01:04looking at Sanskrit literature, whether it was Vedic Sanskrit period, or classical Sanskrit
01:11period, or subsequently, the modern Sanskrit era, or similar period references in the respective
01:20regional languages.
01:23You distinctly find women having played roles, different roles, and no role was prohibited
01:32for her comes out very clearly.
01:35And this has been completely indigenous, no influence.
01:38If anything, it has widened itself in terms of looking at women with a lot more different
01:44and newer perspective.
01:46So if this has been consistent through the millennia, and all over that geographical
01:55conceptual area of what is Bharat, it can even today be seen in different parts, fully
02:05blooming out before us.
02:07Some examples were taken, I'll just use some of those examples.
02:12In the Northeast, even today, you have a custom of a boy who wishes to marry a girl, going
02:21to that girl's family, and spending a whole year to understand how that household is,
02:27he gets married after that.
02:29And the family of the girl accepts him only after that one.
02:34You might say today's India, it is an exception, but it is a practice which has been there
02:38for a long time, like many things, like many habits, like many practice, unless you keep
02:44the practice.
02:46In Tamil, there is a beautiful verse, which plays on the importance of practice.
02:53You want good language, good Tamil to be spoken, that practice will have to be in your tongue.
03:12Only by repeatedly speaking and speaking will you speak your language well.
03:18Chitramam kaipazhakam.
03:20Chitram is art.
03:22It's a habit of your hand.
03:24You have to keep practicing and keep practicing, only then does it.
03:28Similarly, such practices and part of a cultural practice, over the million years, unless it
03:36is kept alive, it is not going to be there, perfection, in its full perfection, nor will
03:43it be as much widespread.
03:45Today, because of the erosion, maybe in many places it's lost out, but it did exist, and
03:53it was not looked down upon.
03:56Another practice which were women-centric, which has a social impact, economic impact,
04:02and even today in some parts of Telangana, you will find it.
04:06In villages, the crop is harvested.
04:11The crop is taken to the market by the men of the house.
04:15Women participate in a lot of activities, storing and everything else.
04:19But the important role of keeping the next bunch of seeds for the next cultivation was
04:25left to the women.
04:27Even today in some villages, you will find women holding that, and they are respected
04:34in the village.
04:35There, there is no caste.
04:38Any woman, or any family, which wants seeds for the next crop, would come and take it
04:46from this lady's hands only.
04:48And she'll be in charge of that bandar where the seeds are kept for the next crop.
04:53Even today, it is not done.
04:56So, these are not practices which have been artificial.