Munishwari Questions the Liquor Trade.

 

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"My Choice" - A woman's liberation statement from Munneshwari, Paalaguttapalle (Dalitwada)

During the festivities of Sankranthi in 2014 liquor flowed like water. There were three drink shops in the village, and the youth and men were only there. Darkalaiyna, our habituated drunk, spent the days wandering drunkenly. Munneshwari, his wife, went to Rajagopal anna’s house, one of the liquor outlets, and demanded to know why was liquor was being given to her husband on credit . When Rajagopal anna replied that it was her husband who came and asked for it, she said that there was no reason why he should give him liquor and not kick him instead ! She told him that if he gave him any more on credit, she would go and lodge a complaint in the police station against him.

In goups of women she would hold forth emphatically, the clear voice belying her slight frame. She said that there should be no liquor shops in the village. With such availablility, the men go to the shops and drink ten times in a day, and that even at mignight drink was dispensed. Here one man drinks , and another sees him and goes on to drink. She said that people are running credits of 300/- rupees, 500/- rupees and more.

She said that is the shops here were cancelled, people would go to Kothapeta for drinking. There they would have a bottle or two there, and may even lie around there drunk. But she said she’d like to see who would give them credit there as they give here. She said she would talk to Kala, who was in similar touble with her young and frail husband Narendra drinking away. Annapuna told her that Narenda says that he needs to drink because he works so hard. Munneshwari hooted, ‘That fellow whom if you push once will fall in seventy four different places ? He needs liquor is it ? For the same money let him but chicken and mutton and eat it and at least his health will improve. Now he drinks that urine which is only converted to urine.

Referring to her husband who got dead drunk, and was falled on the railway tracks the previous day, she said, “Yesterday my husband went and did yuddham (war)with the railway planks after drinking . The tracks are still there but his shoulder is gone !” Then she asked how they could eat sangati if they are not able to work ! She said shouting ‘oye amma, oye amma’ each time he has to move an arm does not help. “Will ‘oye amma’ come and help with the work ?”, she asked. When someone said in jest that she should stop her husbanding fom drinking she said she cannot do that, and that there should not be shops in the village, that’s all.

Then, switching mood to the ironic and jesting, she called out as Anand Anna was passing, ‘Madam is saying, you have three shops in your street. We also want one here. We will organize two shops in your street also. I will give 50,000/- each to Oosuabba (a youth who was one of the worst drunks) and an equal amount to another boy to put up two shops. All the men will land up there and leave the women alone. Actually I will start a country liquor processing unit. Then see – all the village men will be sitting there only”. But the women did not start mass action by picketing the shops. Liquor continue to ruin.