BANGLES AND CULTURE
Green bangles, red bangles, bangles of all colours.... Sri Devi's number on green bangles was even a 90s hit. Decorative, artistic, shiny, fine round wrist-sized glasses rolled in dozens; covered in a shiny transparent film, cushioned cautiously in cardboard boxes are a joyous sight to behold in some of the most narrow and non-descript pockets in India.
The first sight of bangles goes back as far as thousands of years; the dancing girl figurine wearing bangles was excavated from Mohenjo-Daro in Pakistan around 2600 BC. The origins may have dated beyond that, but the first sightings are sealed to the excavation of the latter. Since then bangles have evolved from copper, shells to gold, metal, glass, plastic and so on.
Stretched from the Arabian peninsula to the South-Eastern regions of the globe, bangles differ from bracelets and for that matter kada in Sikhism. Derived from the Hindi word, ' bungri' (glass), bangles are named and shaped differently in different cultures. A Punjabi bride wears 'chooda'- a kind of bangle with silver stonework. Similarly, a Bengali bride wears white bangles made of sea shells and a Bihari bride wears 'lac' bangles.
Bangles speak of culture; a tradition that has long been followed by women, especially the married women in the subcontinent. It gives a sight of fullness; it completes a Hindu women's attire.
Additionally, the colour of bangles change to green with the onset of 'Sawan' - a pious month in the Hindu calendar.
HOW DO BANGLES SEEP INTO LITERATURE?
Amusing as it sounds, day-to-day observation serves as raw material for literary production. It had been around me for so long but the pulse felt when I became a part of the glistening heritage.
I even came across Sarojini Naidu's proud and beautiful poem on ' The Bangle Sellers'.
For her bangles are the epitome of empowered women, whose hands nurse the generations to come. The bangles change colour as the poem progresses, and it is symbolic of the journey of a maiden to a woman who has journeyed through half of her life.
The charm of domesticity comes with its own challenges and the women brave all by their husbands' side. In Naidu's world, women are not inefficient or weaker sex but on par with men. Bangles are no different than a warrior's wristband.
It speaks of a simpler time celebrating women in all their charms and glory.
Literature imitates life and the poetess has been true to the imitation.
THE BANGLE DEBACLE: THE CHAOTIC JINGLE THAT SOOTHES PATRIARCHY
At odds with Naidu's glorious portrayal of young girls and women wearing bangles is the large section of women who don't derive strength but the ire of the conformists for not putting up a cultural show.
The tedious heap on hardened hands; the irritable jingle to taunted ears; the soulless flame in the holy fire speak of the multitudinous stories of crushed desires.
Bangles are synonymous with frailty; a trope furthering the idea of patriarchy.
Instances have been found of women imbued with internalised misogyny presenting bangles to men in their failure to match up. It made men feel emasculated to be equated with women. The agony was to such an extent that their eyes welled up.
A case against the dance bars by the Maharashtra government was overturned by the Supreme Court saying that it is a source of livelihood for thousands. In turn, the women's wing of the Nationalist Congress Party presented bangles to many officers holding ranks and positions to respond to their failures.
Were these women aware of the irony? What a paradox! These women were propagating patriarchy and justifying male domination.
WHAT'S FAIR?
The right to choose the way a woman wants to express herself is the fairest of all. The differences in expression among women shouldn't create crevices but should be seen as multitudinous streams meeting and subsuming themselves in the sea of unity.
Maybe the women in Sarojini Naidu's poem personified her!