[Reader-list] From: Madhavi Desai

[mmdesai]

Women and their Spatial Narratives in the City of Ahmedabad

 

Along with Delhi, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Agra, Lucknow and Pune, Ahmedabad is considered to be an important fortified city that originated in the medieval period. Much of the old city is still present and forms a conspicuous central area, continuing to hold, albeit in a modified form, to its ethnic, social and occupational characteristics. Like many medieval urban settlements, the city of Ahmedabad began, in 1411, on the banks of the river Sabarmati with the Badshah's palace located in Bhadra fort. The second major element was the mosque-the Jama Masjid-that became the focal point of the residents of the city. Over the years, the city got closely built with a high density of population. There was no planned network of streets and the streets have remained organic in nature till today. This medieval urban fabric is well known as the pols of Ahmedabad. The housing type here is the traditional dwelling, a long house between two shared parallel walls.

In the post-Independence period, particularly after the 1970s, the city grew on the other side of the river that is the western side, at a tremendous rate. From being essentially of suburban nature, this part has now grown to be almost self-sufficient, a city within a city. The predominant housing type here is the modern apartment. I am studying the relationship of Ahmedabad and women (either housewives or working) living in the inner city as well as in the newer suburbs as explained in Sarai posting I. I am looking at the middle class segment.

I have been reading from secondary sources and have been conducting questionnaire surveys so far. It has been very difficult for me to explain, "What am I doing?" to my subjects. We generally take our cities and our lives for granted. One woman was outright suspicious. She is a divorcee who kept saying my father would not like to have anything in the newspapers, no matter how much I tried to explain about the academic nature of the project. The following are some of my preliminary findings:

            The joint family structure is more common than what I had imagined.

 

            Most middle class women still view the inner city as 'the city' for their shopping needs, especially clothes and other items.

 

            Most men do the daily shopping like groceries and vegetables.

 

            The priority of the vehicle is with the men in the family.

 

            Almost all women identified traffic, pollution and bad/costly bus service as problems of the city.

 

            Most women spend their Sundays doing house-work (if they are working women). The housewives also often end up doing more work on a Sunday as guests come on that day. They rarely go out alone at night. 

 

            Their socialization is often limited to their housing community and relatives.

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