Vaikitentha Parupady
2022 -Ongoing
If I show you an open field in the middle of a scenic landscape and ask you to picture a group of people having a fun time, will your imagination be gendered?
Bound to have a functional or operational reason to be in public, women are kept away from public spaces for leisurely activities. In the pretense of leisure, women can be found in supermarkets, shopping malls, or other places where the time they spend could be easily defended by the duties they are to perform as homemakers. The idea of leisure for women has been shaped by guilt since childhood. While male specimens watch their favourite cartoons and play outdoors with others, female borns are urged to stay indoors and clean up after the meal in most families. The various ways of domesticating women from an early age to serve others at home make leisure look like a crime, which is then passed on to adulthood.
In a culture where patriarchy flourishes, women would be encouraged to stay within the bounds of their families and limit their ability to connect with others outside of the circles accepted by the men in their families. As an extension of this phenomenon, different spheres of space and their access to them have played a major role in the lack of sisterhood and peer groups among them. The gendered culture of public spaces in Kerala is mirrored in films and literature by endearing visual statements of men huddled under the banyan tree or in open fields having the time of their lives. Public spaces reflect local culture and can promote community involvement, from which women are excluded. All the movies I saw growing up showed me the rich leisure culture I was born into. People sitting in the chaayakadas (tea stalls) sipping tea, people under the aalmaram (banyan tree) discussing anything and everything under the sky, people in the parambu (fields) having alcohol—anywhere could be a site of leisure for people. What I realised a little later in life is that these people don’t include groups of women.
In a society where public space is accessible to women only for necessities, I declare leisure a necessity.
“Vaikittentha parupady” is a widely spoken slogan among men in Kerala, which translates to “What are your evening plans?" Over two decades ago, a famous movie star used this in an ad that caught on through the years in the pop culture of Kerala. Women were never associated with these lines from its origin till now, for evening leisure plans or peer groups for women are absent in almost all spheres.
