GENDERED SPACES IN THE CITY
Course:
Gender remains one of the preeminent ways in which all human societies are structured. Its imprint on urban spaces may be recognized throughout India's long history, from the Harappan Civilization to the present day. Our cities have recorded the existence of people of a variety of gendered and sexualized identities and behaviors. These include and go beyond the categories that we now understand as male, female or transgender, as well as the spectrum of sexualized distinctions which are common to the modern world, i.e., gay or lesbian, bisexual, heterosexual, etc.
In this course, we studied the historical traces of gender and sexuality upon the urban landscape as they intersect with other forms of belonging. How were spaces gendered in our urban past? What counted as male or female, or that which was considered in-between? What kinds of spaces did women and queer people inhabit? How did gender interact with other distinctions of age, caste, race, ritual, class and slavery? What legacies from this history survive today?
The drawing explores the life of a married couple around the time the Kamasutra was written (During the era of the pleasure-based society). In the centre, we see a woman and a man having dinner together. Their stories are then divided into two opposite directions (one based on historical texts and the other fictional).
The left side depicts the life of the husband, called as the man-about-town in the Kamasutra. The book prescribes what such men should do in order to live a life of fulfillment and pleasure. He cleans himself in the morning, gets ready by applying different kinds of oils, fragrances, beeswax and red lac. In the evening, he entertains himself by going out to watch quail-fights, cock-fights and ram-fights. He goes out with his friends- the libertine, pander and clown. They meet the courtesans in public spaces, enjoy daytime events, engage in conversations and other kinds of pleasures. The man-about-town then takes one of the courtesans home, or visits hers to spend the night together.
Throughout this, there is no mention of the wives of such men in the Kamasutra. The only indication we get of these women is when the ‘inner bedroom’ is talked about. All the activities that the man engages in happens in the ‘outer bedroom’ of their house.
The question that arises is ‘what happens inside the inner bedroom?’
The right side of the drawing follows the story of the wife of the man-about–town. She seeks pleasure in her chambers by spending time with her attendants and friends. They play games together, have discussions about scholarly knowledge and their lives or even engage in sexual activities with each other. As mentioned in the Kamasutra, the women of the harem often used to relieve their desires by giving pleasure to one another. It is also written that these women also appointed their female attendants to dress up the young men-about-town as women to sneak them inside the harem. In this story though, the wife instead dresses up herself as a man and goes out. Only her attendants and friends know about her secret. Sometimes, she just goes out for a ride alone in the forest and the town, or she seeks out men to find pleasure. This goes on parallelly with the life of her husband, which is talked about in the book, while hers remain completely unknown. Their paths only meet when they have meals together, which is pictured in the centre of the drawing.
