Jani: 13th-century Shudra Poet

by Anu

The 13th century poet Janabai belongs to the varkari sect in Maharashtra. One of her poems sung by Kishori Amonkar is translated here.  Her abhangs or poems reflect her luminous personality with keen perceptions and ability to articulate complex problems that have only grown bigger in present times, particularly for working women. 

That her poems are available and are still sung is a miracle of sorts.  Born Shudra, as a motherless child she was offered as a bonded laborer and was soon orphaned. This all too familiar background leads to what scholars call a ‘silence’ !

Becoming familiar with silences is a strange experience: it disquiets, elevates, guides and very often leaves one feeling lost. Quietly lost, we search to dispel it, like sitting in a hot, still, shade-less afternoon, with our eyes scanning treetops for movement of wind, the slightest leaf rustle a welcome sound. How many explanations run through our minds to account for nature’s erratic reticence, for that single afternoon? Was it really silent? Or only the usual noises unheard? 

The written worlds, filled with the workings of the world with their own silences, the distinct cadence of female voices, are now gradually texturing the leaves of books, where once they appeared soundless. The understanding, that the unlettered Indian woman’s thoughts can never grace a book as words to be read, enjoyed and contemplated upon, supports lots of research claiming that she is ‘silent’.  Since she does not use this medium, she rarely questions this notion of the lettered. This supports the blatantly wrong assumption that she is also an unthinking individual. Her thoughts and wisdom remain inaccessible to us, because we choose not to listen.

Janabai shares dais with her contemporaries Sant Dynaeshwar and Sant Namdev - poet saints of Maharastra.  Her 300 odd abhangs have become part of Namdev’s repertoire of devotional songs to Lord Vittal.  Here is one where the Lord Vittal works alongside her. These are not household chores as is usually described for a housemaid.  This is work, labor that provides her food and shelter.

While Jani fetches water
Lord Rishikesh follows her 
*
He assists her always
By filling water pots
When Jani draws water
He carries heavy pots
Yard’s swept, cowdung smeared,
He then washes the dirty clothes.  
Says Naama’s maid Jani.
*missing line
 
Why talk about some of her thoughts now? Well, just reading her verses reminds me of modern workplace dilemmas of gender equity, prescriptive and descriptive roles in labor distribution and fixed notions of status. The insights into her times are pertinent for our times also, since the social fabric remains largely unchanged for large sections of the Indian society.  There is a universality to her observations that binds women and minorities all over the contemporary world. 

In many of her poems as in this one, she takes on the normative and inverses the logic with casual ease. The lord becomes her partner at work and sometimes her assistant. She elegantly tackles dignity of labor in a society which functions precisely on the opposite of this. The lord shares all her jobs; in the process he becomes a low caste sweeper and a dhobi (washerman).

In other verses she conveys complete disregard to gender fixity and gender stereotypes. The male god Vittal becomes vittabai a woman. She demands that vittabai now comb and braid her hair, now rub her back and the lord gladly obliges.  With ‘I am he’ or So Ham, she transforms female to male, human to god, dissolving all dualities. 

She messes with family hierarchies; the lord is sometimes her mother, a child or an adult co-worker.  The adored Namadev, whom she cared for as a child and throughout his life, was also not spared from her incisive examination.  She points out that despite the egalitarian principles he espoused, he did not escape practicing inequality in his everyday interactions: 

“Your wife and mother at your feet
And sons are placed proudly in front
This woman is kept at the doorstep ---
No room for the lowly inside”

Jani is an eternal role model; her immortal thoughts are completely relevant to modern day negotiations. Her words and approach to work reminds me of my present boss; a smart, progressive, liberal human, who would rather work alongside us than delegate, who listens to how we want to do things rather than prescribing or describing our roles - someone who knows that labor and its benefits have to be shared:  

“You leave your greatness behind you
To grind and pound with me.”

She is not one who does not know her own power or how others derive from it:

“What will you gain by getting angry with me?
We the devotees are the source of your strength
You have no power of your own.
Hari, haven’t I understood your secret?”
 
Her attitude to gender reminds me of my organization’s presidents, past and present tirelessly working to make it a gender sensitive and inclusive place. But what amuses me most is that she manages to say in 6 word couplets what is now being documented with tedious research involving entire departments with sumptuous resources and personnel to expose and correct the unequal power relations and exploitative nature of labor.

The ultimate weapon she deploys - God himself to be the scribe of this unlettered woman:

“I wrote down Jani’s words
as she uttered them,
Jnanadeva!
Let it beknown to you
This has not made me
Any less divine……
The absolute truth
is the paper
and ink of eternity
Vittal writes on it
Incessantly with Jani….”

And marks her place in the world through the voice of God, no less:

“Jani’s victory
Was proclaimed
In the entire world!”

While enjoying the few translated versions of Jani’s poems and reading through the sparse material about her it is a powerful reassurance for me that the worlds Jani’s are indeed not silent. Searching through the dense noise to hear the clear music and wisdom in these ‘silences’ is deeply rewarding. To gain from their insights we need to listen to the silences, better yet, we need to include not exclude.

Sources:

The previously translated English versions in this post are referenced from:
Images of Women in Maharashtrian Literature and Religion, Anne Feldhaus.
And here

Comments

[indianhomemaker]

Read the post, loved the video... the bhajan is beautifully sung. Amazing that somebody wrote this all those years ago... and we are still the same :(

To gain from their insights we need to listen to the silences, better yet, we need to include not exclude. Well said!