“When I was 25, I was making decisions about baby food, breastfeeding, whether my husband had eaten or his clothes were washed. But now when I look at my colleagues who are 25, they are taking decisions on what outfit they would wear the next day or planning to surmount Rupin Pass,” a woman dressed like a traditional Indian bride can be seen talking in a video being circulated on social media.
But unlike typical Indian brides, the woman in the video – Soli Somanath hailing from Kochi – is clad in all black. Symbolically, black here represents the restrictions she faced by being pushed into marriage at the young age of 21.
Soli Somanath
The video is part of an online campaign titled 18 Shades of Black, where 18 women from various backgrounds come forward to talk about the restrictions they face because of the simple fact that they are women.
The campaign, featuring short videos and photographs of the women, is conceptualised by Kochi native Sharmila Nair. 18 Shades of Black aims to show how women continue to be restrained within the four walls, even when on the outside there are discussions and debates on progressiveness and renaissance.
The campaign points out that whether it is homemakers, techies or writers, regardless of the class or status of a woman, she is under constant subjugation, either from her own family or from society in general.
“Whenever there is a car going slow in front of yours, I often hear my friends – who are mostly open-minded people – say ‘oh a woman must be driving that car’. They might not have even seen whether it’s a man or woman in the driver’s seat. But it’s a common generalisation that a woman cannot drive well,” Smitha Naik, an interior designer from Kochi, can be seen saying in another video while driving a car swiftly through the city roads.
According to Smitha, who is keen on driving, one of the constraints she still faces is the attitude of people when they see her driving. “Be it a narrow lane or a highway, when they look at me in the driver’s seat they give me this look, implying ‘penanalo vandi odikunath’, meaning ‘oh it’s a woman driving the car!’ I could be a better driver than them, but that is what they think,” she says.
According to Sharmila Nair, the number ‘18’ in the title and the common theme of ‘black’ is not coincidence. It is in reference to the Sabarimala agitation that Kerala witnessed in the recent past following the Supreme Court order to let women devotees visit the Sabarimala temple.
The temple is famous for the 18 golden steps that pilgrims have to ascend to see the sanctum sanctorum, while black is the colour worn by pilgrims visiting Sabarimala.
“The project as such does not have anything to do with the Sabarimala issue, but the protests inspired me to work on the theme of restriction for the campaign,” Sharmila tells TNM.
For writer Lekshmy Rajeev, one of the women featured in the campaign, the restriction she faces was the notion that one should get appreciated in all that one does. “I grew up in a society which says one has to always do good. That has always restricted my activities. Somewhere along the line, everyone suffers from one or the other kind of performance anxiety,” she says.
Lekshmy Rajeev
So far, Sharmila has published videos and photographs of nine women on social media as part of the campaign, which has received wide appreciation.
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