Nagpur – Borderless

My Shackled Life by Sushila Takbhaure: A Story of Reslience

Book Review by Somdatta Mandal

Title: My Shackled Life

Author: Sushila Takbhaure

Translators: Deeba Zafir and Preeti Dewan

Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books

Ever since Dalit writing has caught the fancy of academics, researchers and social scientists in a big way, we are coming across several new titles almost every other day and are getting to read them in translation, often published by established and reputed publishing houses. The present volume under review falls exactly into this category. First published in Hindi in 2011 as Shikanje ka Dard, this is an autobiography of a Dalit woman called Sushila Takbhaure who belongs to a poor Dalit Valmiki family in Seoni in Madhya Pradesh. Divided into three sections, it tells us the story of how the author rose through determination and her mother’s support to pursue higher education, teach in school and college, build a wide-ranging literary career and become part of the Babasaheb Ambedkar movement to bring social awareness and changes in the lives of the Dalits and the downtrodden in society.

Writing from childhood, she went on to publish poems, stories, novels, plays, criticism and her books are now even taught in university courses. In the pan-Indian surge of feminist consciousness and assertion of Dalit women in the 1990, Sushila Takbhaure is a name to reckon with.

Coming to this autobiography we find how the narrative chronicles the extremely protracted and tortuous process by which a timid and vulnerable Dalit girl fashions herself into an assertive and empowered woman by exercising her agency and single-minded pursuit of education. But the path was definitely not easy. The first section of the narrative entitled ‘Early Years’ gives us details of a society that is dominated by the savarnas or upper caste Hindus, and lays bare the truthful accounts of the disgraceful practices of this casteist order. Like many other Dalit families of the time, Sushila’s story is no different. Discrimination based on caste was widespread, and untouchability was deeply entrenched everywhere. The thatched mud huts of the untouchable Bhangi-Harijans stood outside the village, far from the landowner’s houses.

Raised like the child of any poor untouchable family with a life full of deprivation, Sushila was nurtured by her Ma (mother) and Nani (grandmother) and grew up eating, crying and playing. In spite of working as a scavenger and midwife, Nani protected her daughter from hardship and Ma too sheltered and nurtured her children by giving them an education. With society placing many restrictions on girls, however hard they worked, they enjoyed neither equal rights nor independence. Women lacked awareness and confidence, and the lack of education, knowledge, and foresight crushed the potential of many who had the ability to rise as all unethical behaviour was seen as natural and commonplace.

Sushila fought all odds and continued her studies till she managed to appear for her BA final exams. In a patriarchal society, women are always considered inferior to men though there were some women who through their talent, initiative, intelligence and courage managed to surpass men in every field. But society had conditioned them in such a manner that they could not come out of the shackles imposed by rigid casteist norms. The first section of the narrative ends with Sushila’s Ma continuing to look for a good match for her and she too often dreamt of a loving, caring husband meant just for her.

The second section of the autobiography ‘Marriage and After’ is the most distressing part of the entire narrative. Married to a man much older than her, Sushila finds that things are worse in all respects in her in-law’s place. As it is the atmosphere in the city of Nagpur was different from her village life, but her husband, who is always reverentially mentioned as ‘Takbhaureji’, acts as the typical patriarchal figure, often physically abusing her. The practice didn’t stop even after several children were born to her. He made his wife work at home and like all male chauvinists took away all the salary she earned as a teacher. One often wonders why Sushila went on enduring all the humiliation and never retaliated.

Maybe if she had received love, care, and companionship instead of constant torment, she might have developed the strength to assert herself in public life, but that never happened. The atmosphere at home only deepened her sense of powerlessness and since she lived in constant fear, wrongs were committed against her without hesitation. It is amazing to learn that despite conflict and physical abuse becoming a regular part of her life and filling her with humiliation and pain, she managed to complete her PhD and start teaching in a college. Her married life, as she states, went with all its ups and downs.

The final section ‘Writer Activist’ narrates her rise to become the voice of resistance for her people. Her fury started finding its voice in poetry. She wanted to write about being a Dalit and that became the central theme of her writing. Enduring social humiliation and fighting against the deprivations and oppression born of caste prejudice, she moved forward, slowly but steadily.

Once the various Dalit organizations in Maharashtra involved in the movement to address the problems faced by Dalit women in their homes and society came to know her, they began inviting her to travel with them to distance places to participate in their programmes. Even then her husband went on taking sadistic pleasure in hurting her. His real motive was clear: to prevent her from pursuing writing and publishing, and to keep her confined to the simple life of a working woman who managed both her job and household. But after living in Nagpur, Maharashtra gradually became an empowering experience for her. As a Dalit activist fighting for the ideals of Babasaheb Ambedkar across the country, she began travelling alone to far-off places within India and places abroad like Sri Lanka, Britain, and Dubai.

She could do all this because she had finally begun to feel confident of herself. At times, she received support from people within her community, while at other times, she faced opposition. Her goal was to carry Ambedkar’s ideology and knowledge of Dalit literature to others, and she succeeded in doing so. Although her travels abroad brought her immense joy, they unfortunately did not change her social condition. She remained what she had always been – an untouchable outcast.

This searing autobiography of Sushila Takbhaure, a Dalit woman whose life story reveals not only the brutal machinery of caste but also the intimate cruelty of patriarchy, is a must read for everyone irrespective of class and gender. Though the narrative drags a bit towards the end, one sees its importance too. Having embraced Phule-Ambedkarite ideology and taken part in the movement for social change, Sushila Takbhaure’s writing has gained a clear direction and is vital not only for herself but for her community too. As she states towards the end of her narrative, writing had given her the strength, and it was both a source of joy and a way to give back to society what it had meted out to her. After reading the autobiography, one must sincerely offer kudos to a deprived woman who succeeded in life in spite of all unsurmountable odds.

Somdatta Mandal, critic and translator, is a retired Professor of English at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, India.

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The Last of the Barbers: How the Saloon Became the Salon (and Where the Gossip Went)

By Charudutta Panigrahi

If language were a haircut, “saloon” got a buzz cut and a blow-dry and came out as “salon.” That change in spelling is the visible tip of a larger style transformation: one rough, male-only ritual space has been trimmed, straightened, scented and repackaged into a gleaming, multi-service, mostly woman-centred retail experience. Along the way, the loud, fragrant, argument-heavy mini-parliaments of small-town India — the saloons — have been politely ushered into warranties, playlists and polite small talk.

Barbers in India are almost as old as conversation itself. The profession of the barber — the nai or hajam — is embedded in pre-colonial life: scalp massage (champi), shaves, tonsure at rites of passage, and quick fixes between chores. These services were usually delivered in open-fronted shops or under trees, with tools that were portable and livelihoods that were local.

The “saloon” as a distinctive, Western-flavoured, male gathering place began to consolidate during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Port cities and colonial cantonments — Bombay (Mumbai), Calcutta (Kolkata), Madras (Chennai) — saw the rise of dedicated shops selling not only shaves and haircuts but also imported tonics, straight razors and a distinctly public atmosphere shaped by newspaper reading, debate and gossip. Over time, that form blended with older local practices and spread inland. By the mid-20th century, the saloon — a recognisable, chair-lined, mirror-fronted social stage — existed in towns from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and from Gujarat’s chawls to Assam’s market roads.

So ancient barbering traditions fed into a colonial-era intensification of the barbershop as public forum; by the 1950s–70s, the saloon as we remember it was firmly a part of India’s social furniture. The precise start date is a quilt of custom and commerce rather than a single founding ceremony — and that is part of the saloon’s charm.

Walk into a saloon in Nagpur, Nellore, Shillong or Surat and you’ll notice an uncanny resemblance. The reasons are simple and human:

Low price point: Saloons survive on quick volumes and walk-ins. That encourages many chairs, fast turnover, and layouts that invite waiting men to talk rather than sit quietly.
Ritual services: Shave, cut, champi. These are short encounters that thread customers through the same communal space repeatedly — ideal for gossip to collect and ferment.
Social role: The barber doubles as ear, counsellor, news-disseminator and crossword referee. That role is culturally consistent across regions: a saloon’s psychic geography is the same whether the tea is masala or lemon.

The result is that a saloon in Kutch and a saloon in Kerala will differ in language, politics and local jokes — but both will produce that same satisfying racket of opinion, repartee and advice. They are India’s unofficial, peripatetic fora for public life.

Enter the salon: padded seats, curated playlists, appointment-booking and a menu so long it reads like a restaurant wine list (colour, rebonding, keratin, facials, pedicures, threading, and sometimes a minor festival of LED lights). A couple of business realities did most of the heavy lifting:

Women’s services earn more and recur more often. Regular facials, hair treatments and beauty routines translate into steadier, higher bills. The money follows the customer, and the space follows the money.
Franchising and professional training created standardized staff who follow brand scripts — which tighten conversation and reduce the barber-confessor vibe.
Unisex salons consolidated footfall, but that consolidation shrank male-only territory. Men who once had a semi-public living room now sit in chic, quieter spaces that discourage loud, extended debate.

The practical upshot: the saloon’s boisterous mini-parliaments were replaced by stylists with laminated menus, muted background music and an etiquette that favours privacy over political salvoes.

What we miss (and what we gained)

We miss the moralisers, the wisecracks, the boisterous consultancy of unpaid experts who knew which councillor was friendly with which shopkeeper and which wedding was scandalous; the loud education in rhetoric and local affairs; the bench-seat apprenticeship in how to perform masculinity in public.

We gain in expanded choices for women, more professional hygiene and techniques, new livelihoods for trained stylists (especially women), and spaces where people can pursue personalised care without the social cost that used to attend public rituals.

It’s not a zero-sum game — but it does reorder who feels proprietorial about public grooming spaces. The new economics say: she who pays more — and pays more often — gets the say.

Not all saloons are extinct. In smaller towns they still hum. In cities, they’ve evolved into hybrid forms:

Old-school saloons persist where price sensitivity and cultural habit remain strong: walk-ins, communal benches, loud conversation and a barber who’ll recommend both a haircut and the correct candidate for local office.
Nostalgic barbershops in urban pockets lean into the past with “vintage” decor, whiskey-bar vibes and sports on TV — except now they charge a premium and call the barber a “grooming specialist.”
Some entrepreneurs stage “men’s nights” or open-mic gossip hours in neighbourhood shops, trying to recapture the civic pulse while keeping the modern business model.

If you want the old saloon spark, look for places without appointment apps, with too many phones in sight but none in use, and with a tea flask on the counter.

What’s lost isn’t only a loud, male-only gossip pit; it’s a training ground for public argument and a place where local memory was kept live and messy. The saloon taught people how to spar without a referee; the salon teaches how to look good while being politely neutral. If you mourn for the saloon’s barbed banter, you can grieve — but also take action: host a “Salon for Men” in your local café, revive a community noticeboard at the barber, or convince your neighbourhood salon to schedule a weekly “open-chair” hour for community talk (and maybe offer tea).

And until then, if you miss the salty, pungent chorus of small-town democracy, go to any saloon that still has a kettle on the stove and a barber who knows the mayor’s schedule by heart. Sit down, get a shave, and watch a mini-parliament assemble around you. You’ll leave clean-faced, better informed, and maybe a little animated — exactly how democracy used to feel.

Charudutta Panigrahi is a writer. He can be contacted at Charudutta403@gmail.com.

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