Jain Spirit 2003 03 No 14

Author(s): Jain Spirit UK
Publisher: UK Young Jains

Page 31

ART & LITERATURE
Motiba Challenged Gandhiji
Mira Kamdar continues her award-winning story of a strong and resilient grandmother
N ADDITION TO FINDING HERSELF MARRIED TO A man who spurned all physical pleasure, Motiba experienced a distinct and sharp decline in lifestyle. She had been raised in the lap of luxury, with an army of servants and attendants to look after her every need. She was used to wearing fine clothes and costly jewels, and had never had to cook, clean, or otherwise help around the house. In the much more modest Kamdar home, the cooking and many of the other household tasks were done by the women of the family. This included physically demanding chores, such as fetching water from the river. Today, the river in Jetpur is so incredibly filthy and polluted, it is hard to imagine it as anything but the open sewer and toxic waste dump it has become. In 1924, however, decades before the town would experience a boom in the textile-dyeing business that would destroy its ecology, it must have been much cleaner, for my grandmother and her then nine-year-old sister-inlaw, my Jasiphaiba, used to fetch water from it every day. Jasiphaiba told me that they would always take a certain path that was rather steep in parts, requiring them to hike up their saris and tuck them in so as not to trip over them. When they reached the river, they would again adjust their saris so they wouldn't get wet as they waded out a bit where the current ran faster and where, they believed, the water was cleaner. They would take the clay water jars, dip them in the water, and slosh them back and forth to clear the surface of any debris, then fill them, lift them up upon their heads, and turn back to make the return trip. I can imagine my beautiful grandmother with her lithe young legs sparkling with damp as she stepped out of the river and
38 Jain Spirit March May 2003
began her way up the dirt path towards the town, letting her sari down as soon as it was practical with one hand as the other steadied the heavy jar on her head. Most of the year, it would
have been so hot and dry that a trip to fetch water with. the inevitability of getting somewhat wet would have been a welcome errand.
Jasiphaiba, who lived with my grandmother during those early years of marriage at her in-laws house, confirms the legend of my grandmother's saintly demeanour under all the circumstances. Apparently, Motiba never once uttered the smallest complaint, never gave the slightest sign that she was unhappy about any of the changes in her life. Like an Indian version of Snow White, so noble was the character of the beautiful and rich young Motiba that she smilingly went about performing tasks of household drudgery that were clearly below her station to which she'd been born. After all, it was her 'duty' to do so. It was her fate to go to her husband's house, even if her husband wanted nothing to do with her. A vow of celibacy on
the part of one of the partners in a marriage on the day of the wedding would be grounds for annulment in most cultures. But not in India. Even today, when divorce has begun to make a hesitant and very recent inroad on tradition, marriages are generally considered unsunderable, no matter the circumstances.
Gandhiji marching to Dandi
Motiba's new husband was never an easy man to live with. He later became a patriarch whose grown children tremble in fear whenever he called them. Bapuji always