Single in the City

In my grandmother's village in Bihar lived a most astonishing woman. Beautiful, stern, an amazing horse rider, and the village's best shot with a rifle. She lived in her own house at the far end of the family compound and oversaw the farming on her own land. When the men discussed serious matters in the chaupal, her voice was the only female one raised and heard.

As a child, I was fascinated by Urvashi because she wasn't married or widowed although she was as old as my grandmother. She was free from rules and made up her own as she lived. Of course, as I grew, I noticed other single women who were forging their own paths through life.

My grandmother, widowed at an early age, was another single woman who handled property and legal matters, ran the household, oversaw the farming and the disposal of the crops. My aunts, young, educated and unmarried, were the flipside of the single-woman coin; they were single by choice not circumstances. In their strength of character, articulation of their needs and steely determination to cope with life, these women provided inspiring role models

When I began researching the recent urban phenomenon of single women for a book, I assumed that such role models were few. After all, most researchers and reports suggested that the single woman was a contemporary trend, brought on by economic liberalization and social change. Many analysts held liberalization, satellite TV, and the Western influence responsible for the growing number of single women in India.

Yet, as I spoke to single women across the country, they all referred to role models at home. "I never thought of Americans or foreigners," says Hema. "I had a teacher in school who lived on her own although she was in her forties. She lived alone in a little house, drove a red Fiat and had short hair. Back in the sixties, in small town in Madhya Pradesh, that was a rarity. Now when I look back, I suppose I really wanted to grow up to be like her. She was beautiful and intelligent and seemed a lot happier and stress-free than all the married women around me."

Hema isn't alone in finding her role models close to home. Many women mentioned a widowed aunt, an unmarried teacher or a neighbour as their childhood ideals.

Another homegrown phenomenon amongst single women is the wariness of the feminist label. Most single women don't consider themselves feminists although they are living, practising proofs of the women's movement. "When I think of feminism, I get this image of a foreigner burning bras and talking about her right to have sex. That is not what I am interested in," says Aparna, a university student.

Indian feminist leaders have also failed to capture the imaginations of the single women brigade. "They are all hypocrites," says Amrita from Patna. "They sit in their ivory towers in Delhi and Bombay and talk about feminism. They have no clue about the difficulties women like me face in places like Bihar."