Uncrowned, but men rule still on
WOMEN might be touching new heights in contemporary Indian society, but the traditional mentality of ‘male dominance’ does not seem to be changing, at least at the rural level. Recently, one of the reporters — while doing a news story in the interiors of a village in Gujarat — enquired about the name of the village sarpanch. Now, although it was later known that the particular village has a woman sarpanch, the villagers named her husband as the sarpanch. As the reporter clarified that it is the woman who is the sarpanch and not her husband, a villager said, “What's the difference? It is the same thing.” And all the hullabaloo on women empowerment continues.

— Contributed by Parimal Dabhi and Tanvir A Siddiqui.

Off Tangent

The home that was...

Life, for many, always seems to be unfair. One peek into the past churns out all the memories, but for Jamnaben, the road down the memory lane is a clean slate. At the ripe age of 70, her silent life screams for memories to come back. She always keeps her bag packed, for she yearns to go home. Just that she doesn’t know the way back.

Through decades, Jamnaben’s story has been passed on like a legend in the Ansuya Leprosy Hospital in Vadodara. The inmates say she is the oldest in the hospital, the lone survivor in her family after a flood in the early 70s. The flood had washed away her family and then her memory. Somehow, she had found her way to Ansuya. “Many years ago, she had mentioned the name of her village and was taken there to reunite with her family,” said a young nurse. But the villagers did not recognise her, and the place she had pointed out as her home, was a barren land.

... contd.