Post Relief Camps: These Assamese Women Find Calm in Kabaddi

In this small hamlet in Deosiri, women had little, by way of personal entertainment – till an NGO introduced kabaddi

Kabaddi, kabbadi…chorus the women as they match each other’s strengths and weaknesses on the lush green fields in a far-flung, remote hamlet in Assam.

Dressed in blue and red t-shirts and tracks, these women look as if they have been playing Kabbadi for ages. Taking turns in tagging their opponent team members and running back to their side, young and middle-aged women sometimes falter, sometimes get hurt, sometimes grip their rivals hard.

Some of their menfolk stand as spectators, egging them on.

Cheering loudly each time they win a point, they also look crestfallen at each loss. But every time they play, they immerse themselves in the spirit of the game – nonchalant, for a while, about life’s other worries.

Between Relief Camps and Housework, a Moment of Leisure

In this small hamlet in Deosiri, dominated by Santhalis, Adivasis, Sutradhars and Assamese population, who often have to spend their lives in relief camps owing to climate vagaries and ethnic conflict, there are no movie halls, no cell phones, no Internet. Women have little, by way of entertainment.

Laxmi Cheri, a volunteer with The Ant (Action for Northeast Trust) who works on women empowerment, says:

With a population of about 400, the women here have a hard life. Moving between relief camps and rebuilding their houses frequently, they do not get any pastime. It is either household work or earning the day’s wages, looking after children or thinking of how to manage the next meal.

Which is why NGOs working on women’s rights in the region, decided to introduce Kabbadi as a form of entertainment for women here. Till then, women members of the self-help groups would only listen, share their experiences and part ways after the meetings. On a typical day, they’d be busy tending to work in the fields – whilst several of them also travel to Bhutan to find work as housemaids.

Therefore, when the volunteers mooted the idea of Kabbadi to the women a year back, they were hesitant. Having never heard about the game, they wondered at the possibility of devoting time to a game in the midst of their punishing hand-to-mouth existence.

It was then that they were made to understand that similar to how children have a right to leisure and play (as prescribed under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child), women too were entitled to leisure. Issues like their right to be entertained and striving for gender equality, were discussed threadbare.

How Kabaddi Gave These Women ‘Me Time’

The village women consulted their families who were initially not receptive to the idea of homemakers devoting time to a sport – a feat not common in these parts – but the resistance was soon overcome.

As we started the regime, however – teaching these women the nuances of the game, more and more women became interested.

Loishi Basumatary, Volunteer at The ANT

So teams were formed and women started playing a game or two informally.

Maitree, Menuka, Rambha – all in their 20s – became motivators of the teams. Hailing from very poor backgrounds, the trio work as housemaids in Bhutan, where the pay is high. They often trudge to the borders and wait for the middlemen to hire them as housemaids. Sometimes they return without work and have to fend for two square meals a day, besides putting up with the tantrums of their menfolk.

Yet when they come together for a game of kabaddi, their spirited participation only makes their bonding stronger.

Maitree, 22, who has a kid and a husband and works as a day labourer, says:

Kabbadi has been liberating; we feel exhilarated after a round of the game. We never thought ‘me time’ was a possibility earlier, but kabaddi has helped us focus on ourselves.

Maitree concurs,

We now realise that taking time out for ourselves is not a crime. We don’t feel guilty about playing.

Having spent half of her life in relief camps, kabaddi wafted into Maitree’s life like a breath of fresh air.

For Menuka, 20, who has attended school and keeps the accounts of the SHG, playing a game either in school or elsewhere was never an option. In fact, if the teacher was absent, which was quite frequent, it simply meant going back home to fend for a family of six.

For us, talking to other women used to be our only leisure activity. Now that we’ve discovered kabaddi, we feel like there’s more to life than just the home.

“The Ability to be ‘Unproductively Free’”

Kabaddi is generally played on weekends. The women even have numbered team jerseys, and regularly play teams from other hamlets.

Alaka M Basu, Professor, Department of Development Sociology, Cornell University, recently wrote in a leading newspaper column:

For the bulk of women, leisure is probably best described in very simple things such as a chance to rest, to socialise, to be entertained; in other words, as the ability to be ‘unproductively free’. Such  freedom should include the freedom to occasionally lie on the terrace gazing at the stars without worrying about the milk boiling over, and the right to stand on the street and laugh loudly at a performing clown without being called a hussy.

Kabbadi too has been cathartic for the women of Deosiri.

(Rakhee Roytalukdar is a freelance journalist, based in Jaipur.)