Friday 26 March 2010

Welcome to my aangan!

Hi
So this is it! Finally...and long overdue. My political aangan, a space for articulating my thoughts and for interacting with everyone in the web space. Some very kind friends had suggested that given my interest in politics and my free flowing comments on a variety of topics, I should start blogging. I am grateful for your encouragement and suggestion.

I have decided to call it an Aangan....a backyard in traditional Indian homes, where mostly women of the home and neighbourhood gathered to exchange thoughts, express themselves and to gossip! It is a gendered space and a very useful subversive space in which women have traditionally articulated their politics. I am hoping to do the same. An aangan, where I can retreat from my daily chores, and the rigours of a professional life as an academic, a researcher and a teacher.

So the 'chatai' (traditional Indian straw mat) is laid out....come one come all.....lets gossip, lets intellectualise the gossip! :)

Swati

2 comments:

  1. Welcome Swati.
    I am delighted to see you join the blog community. However, I hope you will have time to come out of the Aangan and look at the wide world. And guys like me prefer Charpoy than chattai. At least we can relax better (this is a geriatric problem).

    Looking forward to read your writings. All the strength to your elbow.
    Hariharan

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  2. Thanks for the encouragement. Greatly appreciated. I plan to look at the wide world and then go back to the aangan to theorise (as women traditionally have done because they never had access to public spaces!)...I suppose we could have both the Chattai and Charpoy..:D thank you so much for replying..:)

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