 |
|
Suhagbati Shah |
I'm now about forty years old. I was married when I was fifteen and have two girls and two boys.
My five brothers were well-educated: the eldest is an engineer who even studied in Russia. But my parents insisted there was no reason for me to go to school. They said, you learn how to cook rice, make
roti, weave baskets, make mud stoves and kothi (storage vessel for rain) and dung paddies and logs for fuel.
With my little brothers I made play cookies out of mud and dolls out of old cloth. With a stick I used to make designs in the sand.
When I moved to my husband's house I remembered the designs I'd made on the ground and I painted them on our walls for
Deepawali, the
Festival of Light. Now sometimes people ask me to paint their walls for the occasion of marriage.
My paintings show events and things in my life. I like to paint rituals of our culture and also scenes from daily life that I see on the road or in our village.
Bus painting:
I ride a bus that takes people to and from the Indian border. The inside is crammed with people and on top are goats which are sold at
the border. Most of the people on the bus are men but there are about fifteen women who ride with me, and more on Wednesday and Sunday when
they take vegetables to the market. I know the conductor now, and he always stops the bus for the "working person from Chandnichowk
neighborhood."
Very often we have a puncture and I'm late at the center or getting home by one hour. My daughter is now having advanced tuition so she's
not at home when I return. Of course I must cook, but if I come late my husband helps with the dishes,
|