Accompanied by her original illustrations portraying their work and workspaces, Reema K. presents stories of women from Kerala’s Moosari community of sculptors.
Reema K.
Moosaris are a caste-based community of sculptors who belong to the Kammala (also known as Viswakarma) caste. Sculpting in bronze, brass, and bell metal is their kulathozhil.1 As part of my doctoral research, I visited kottils, the traditional workspaces of Moosaris, in the Kannur district of northern Kerala. In the very first kottil I visited, there was no woman involved in sculpting work. There, women mostly contributed to work by cooking for the sculptors. But did women always cook and serve the male sculptors and stay away from sculpting? Do women still work with men in traditional workspaces of sculpting? If spared from the traditional space of work, is it a loss, a gain, or something else from the women’s perspective? The stories of and by these women would hold answers. By the term “story,” I don’t mean fiction. The word “story” is meant to convey the narrative nature of these women’s accounts; these are all real-life stories told to me during my fieldwork. In this spirit, I have used their real names, with their consent, to acknowledge their work and their selves.
Latha: From the Kottil to Entrepreneurship
Latha was introduced to the kulathozhil of sculpting at her in-laws’. She used to work alongside her husband and mother-in-law in their kottil for years, and stopped only when they decided to close their kottil as their products were no longer in demand. Her husband joined another kottil with his distant relatives. Latha recollects that when she started working in the kottil, the work was extremely hectic. Women of the house were expected to do all the household chores including cooking. Women also had to work in the kottil with men every day. Labour was divided in a way that women had to mostly assist in sculpting, while men performed the core tasks of sculpting. Assisting didn’t mean less work, it was hard work from early morning till late evening. After retiring from kottil work, Latha, who has always been a hard worker, didn’t quit working and earning. She explored multiple occupational options. She worked as a packaging staff in a curry powder company, she worked as a salesgirl in a couple of shops, and she tried to build a small-scale food business. Currently, she is an entrepreneur–she runs a grocery shop where she also markets her homemade food products.
Sreelatha: Working Together in the Kottil
When I met Sreelatha for the first time, she was preparing the soil used for sculpting, sitting under the shade of a tree outside her family’s kottil. Sreelatha and her husband work full-time at their kottil. She joined the kulathozhil only recently. Her husband worked abroad in the Gulf for around thirteen years. She was staying back home, raising their children. After quitting his job there, he decided to come back home for good. It was then that they decided to take up their kulathozhil for a living. In fact, it was Sreelatha who suggested that they take up their kulathozil for the life ahead. She supported her husband in building a kottil of their own. Since then, they work together in the kottil. For Sreelatha, the kottil provides an opportunity to be together as a couple, even at work. They are compensating for the years of long-distance relationship by working together.
Sindhu: Blazing the Trail
Sindhu testifies that the life of Moosari women in traditional workspaces is challenging. She learned sculpting after her marriage. She used to work with her husband and in-laws in their kottil. She stopped actively working in the kottil only a few years ago. Sindhu is a yoga trainer now. There is a story behind this. The hard labour in the kottil gave her neck pain. That was when she thought of learning yoga. In a joint family, it was difficult to have personal choices. Making decisions for oneself was a daring task, but she didn’t give up. She is a self-taught tailor as well. She made time for sewing during nights, after her work in the kottil and the daily chores at home. From sewing, she earned the fee for yoga classes and managed to convince her family. Attending classes over weekends, she completed the course successfully. Though she learned yoga for herself, she gradually started giving yoga training at home. Now, she doesn’t work regularly in the kottil and joins the family at work only occasionally when the work is extremely hectic. Currently, every woman of their family joins sculpting only occasionally, having found their niche outside the kulathozhil.
For a while now, I have been looking forward to writing these stories somewhere. The point of these narratives was not to delve deep into the “why” and “how” of the changing gender roles in kulathozhil. That is a question worth exploring, but I spare that for another time. Here, I am trying to bring the stories of women at kulathozil to the foreground because women’s labour in spaces of kulathozhil should be recorded and acknowledged. During my fieldwork, instead of focusing on the absence of women in the kottil, I have been trying to understand what women do outside the kottil. My observation from the case studies so far, of the Moosari caste-community, is that women’s engagement in the kulathozhil is reducing over time. This disengagement has also enabled women to diversify their occupations beyond the caste-based kulathozhil. The question of whether the disengagement in kulathozhil or the venturing out of kulathozhil happened first is like the chicken and egg question. What is clear is that inside caste communities that continue to engage in kulathozhil, women are making a significant change. Women bring about this change by making their niche outside the kulathozhil. To make space outside the kulathozhil is to make space beyond those marked by caste. These changes initiated by women might seem invisible from the outside, but these are very significant changes towards delinking labour from caste.
About the Author: Reema K. is a writer, researcher and artist hailing from Kerala, India. Currently, she is pursuing her doctoral research at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Her research interest is mainly visual arts. She can be reached at reemavellur[at]gmail.com. Check out her art at @ReemaKurikkalot (Twitter) and @meemitales (Instagram).
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