The Second Feature on our Women's History Month is the tale of the Bedia Community of Nomads who have been branded as criminals by the British and forced to earn a living as prostitutes over the course of their intriguing history. 1/#WomensHistoryMonth
The word Bedia is a corruption of the word ‘behara’ meaning a forest dweller, the community of nomads is believed to have come from the line of Rajputs, the dissimilarity in their fortunes, however, is startling to say the least. 2/
The Bedia community, mostly living in parts of central and northern India, have been traditional folk dancers. It is believed that members of the community used to entertain artisans who had come to build the iconic Taj Mahal during the mid-17th century. 3/
Gradually these people became highly sought after for their various talents by kings and zamindars and even by foreigners in the 18th and 19th centuries. They are also said to have enjoyed patronage of the Mughal Generals as they provided sexual pleasures to their soldiers. 4/
In the mutiny of 1857, the Bedia people were used by rebel rajahs and princesses to aid their armies either as messengers or as spies in their fight against the British , this led them to be branded as criminals when the war got over. 5/
The laws proved to be detrimental for the community, who in order to earn a living started using their talent for different purposes, particularly in the field of prostitution. 6/
Today the birth of a girl child in the Bedia community is celebrated with pomp unlike in many other communities, though the reasons cannot be further away from each other. 7/
As soon as a girl hits puberty, she is considered ready and given two options, either get married or go into prostitution. Though some are not so lucky to be given such choices. They are taught the tricks and nuances of the trade by elder members of the community. 8/
After her first menstruation around the age of 16 or 17, a symbolic function titled “Nat Uthari” is celebrated by deflowering the girl by her first client in exchange for a handsome gift in cash or kind. 9/
Bedia women are forced to remain single, and they continue to engage in prostitution well into their 30s. Romantic relationships of any kind are strictly prohibited. 10/
The economic freedom however proves anything but beneficial for the Bedia woman, their fate and life remain in a stranglehold of age-old traditions and a patriarchal society that only considers them as mere objects. 11/
Even though the community is considered as Scheduled Castes by law since 1950, they receive negligible benefits from government schemes which complicates their predicament even further. 12/
These days many NGO's and self-help groups like Samvedna are trying to reach out to the community and spread awareness regarding female education and its benefits. 13/
Though some have been lucky in venturing out, the majority of the community still remain in perpetual struggle between traditions and individual identity. 14/
Pitch doctors of Sri Lanka: To celebrate Women’s History Month, in our third feature, we remember the traditional female pitch doctors of Sri Lanka.
Episode 3: a thread on this rare group of women (1/n)
Back in 2012, when the Barmy Army of English Cricket entered Colombo’s very own Oval ‘P Saravanamuttu’ stadium, they experienced something unique (2/n)
It was a storied country ground indeed, with a beautiful scoreboard - Sri Lanka played their first Test here, registered their first Test Victory here and it also was the only Asian ground where Sir Don Bradman played cricket (3/n)
To celebrate Women's History Month, we will delve into a series this week - an ode to the women from the subcontinent in unsung professions through the ages. The first feature is on ‘Women as Porters’, the primitive occupation of transporting goods. (1/12) #WomensHistoryMonth
Women at the workplace is not exactly a modern concept, rather it dates to the ancient world, even back to the Sumerian civilization. We look back at some interesting slices from the past where Indian women were found working as human transport carrying goods. (2/12)
Madras, circa the 1920s. The gorgeous photograph shows five ethnic women carrying giant clay vessels on their heads, that greatly resemblance the famous Martaban jars. (3/12)
How an Indian young man's desperate appeal for help launched one of the biggest rescue ops of all time - a Thread: (1/n)
In the early 2010s, a series of popular uprisings rocked the Arab world that subsequently came to be known as the Arab Spring. It started off with the Tunisian revolution in January, 2011 and soon spread to Egypt and then Libya (2/n)
The latter had been under the autocratic rule of Muammar Gaddafi since 1969. The unrest began in early 2011 as protests by citizens against the draconian Gaddafi regime but soon spiraled into a full-fledged civil war that ravaged the nation for months (3/n)
Today marks the end of Black History Month, 2022, and we bring in a story of how a humble fabric from Madras, India once had a wondrous connection with the Trans Atlantic Slave trade. Thread. (1/13)
This is an account of an ancient lightweight cotton fabric with a typical grid-patterned texture and Scottish influenced tartan design named after the place of origin - Madras, the erstwhile name of Chennai, Tamil Nadu. (2/13)
Madras fabric was considered a common garment material made of vegetable dyes and natural oils for the working class of Southern India until the Dutch arrived in India in the early 1600s. (3/13)
A thread on the infamous Death Match played between the bakers of Kyiv and the ruthless Nazi opponents that became a symbol of defiance, courage and resistance (1/n)
Recovering from the Stalinist regime, just when the Ukrainians started dreaming of Dynamo Kyiv dominating Soviet football, the scenario changed for the worse as WW2 interrupted its course and German forces occupied Kyiv in 1941 (2/n)
Soon after the fall of Kyiv, the civil life of Ukrainians under the Nazis became worse than what it was during the Stalinist regime. By November end, approximately 100,000 Ukrainians had been executed brutally (3/n)
He or She? An intriguing thread about female impersonators who once mesmerized the theater world of Bombay: At the beginning of the mid-19th century, Bombay’s theater culture was experiencing a sort of boom, thanks to Parsi, Gujarati, and Marathi groups (1/n)
The Stage was particularly popular among middle class Parsi students, who besides studying at Elphinstone college, were making headways in to the stages of Bombay’s famous Gaiety and Novelty theaters (2/n)
Though many of Bombay’s theaters were owned by Parsis, they were open to all. The Parsi theater’s use of different languages for production and medium created a unique stage for cultural synergy that wasn't restricted by region or linguistics (3/n)