Need for accelerated action: Let's speed it up and create a room of our own

In 1939, almost 85 years ago, Rabindranath Tagore wrote the poem Narir Kartavya (Women's Duties). It is a rather long poem where Tagore describes minutely the culinary skills and ceaseless kitchen work of women, comprising shredding, slicing, chopping, boiling, kneading and frying along with micro-management of the home.

- SANJUKTA DASGUPTA

In 1939, almost 85 years ago, Rabindranath Tagore wrote the poem Narir Kartavya (Women's Duties). It is a rather long poem where Tagore describes minutely the culinary skills and ceaseless kitchen work of women, comprising shredding, slicing, chopping, boiling, kneading and frying along with micro-management of the home. However, Tagore's comments in the concluding part of the poem Narir Kartavya may seem transgressive even in our contemporary times. The poet who was 78 years old in 1939, wrote,

Let us turn to the immediate present. Recently the United Nations declared, "2025 is the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, a blueprint for women's and girls' rights worldwide."

In 2019, in my write-up published in The Statesman, on the IWD, I had observed, "IWD observed on 8 March each year is a shake-up call, it is a gender sensitization day, it is a day not about women's exclusivity or exceptionalism, IWD is about gender inclusiveness and gender equality, it is not about stimulating the negative vibes of misandry and misogyny."