Tuesday, May 25, 2010

LEISURE AMONG FARM WOMEN OF HARYANA

Research was done using protocol provided by the ICAR.

Many women don't know they have problem. If your grandmother got up and put a pebble in her shoe every day, and your mother did the same thing, you're going to put the pebble in your shoe too, and not think about complaining.

Leisure being a necessary part of life in every human being- as it provides a chance to relax and recover from the stress and fatigue of everyday life. Rural farmwomen of Haryana have their own ways of enjoying leisure and recreation despite the scarce means, hard work, and everyday struggle involved in a subsistence-oriented life style. They have an amazing capacity to turn some of their routine work into avenues of recreation, and thereby, transform some of the most mundane and dry work into rewarding leisure experience.

Farm women have developed the skill to carve out pleasure from their meetings during everyday work, chatting with friends and relatives during their social visits and festivals, visit to market after sale of crops, their food preparation and their handicrafts. Farmwomen’s leisure activities mainly are: Embroidery, knitting, sewing, crocheting, dari making, kitchen gardening and preparation of special food item for their families.

This article has attempted to show that women of the farm families of Haryana, enjoy recreation and leisure in their own unique way as they they don’t know they have problem with lot of work and no formal leisure and recreation means. It is significant to note that they found some ways of stealing away from the mental sense of obligation and pressure generated by their cumbersome daily work performed in a largely hostile and disadvantageous environment, and of creating their own mental worlds of joy within their daily struggle.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Realty- that prevails

Women are the architect of society-let them drudgery free.

----bimla.


farm-women weeding

The Realty....

It is stunning to note in a study, near about 70 percent of farmwomen of Haryana belongs to the landless and small land holding category, work for 13-18 hours a day, the bulk of which for majority of them is on subsistence activities and housework. Besides their most of the work in the home, farm and animal husbandry domain is drudgery prone. When we disaggregate women's activities in home, we find that the largest and most invariant category relates to food preparation. In all cases women spend at least two hours a day preparing food for themselves and their families. At farm, farmwomen see weeding as their hardest and most time-consuming task, it was found most tiring and tedious job because it required, bending and concentration in order to do the job properly and thus caused backache. Again weeding took up more days in the field, then any other farm operation. Minimum estimate of the days spent weeding were 60, this figure increased as much as120 because of the areas of two cropping seasons. For some crops weeding was found as never-ending task, in cotton, particularly, one might have to go through the fields as many as four times. In animal husbandry domain bringing fodder was found their hardest job. Farmwomen have to walk a considerable distance to collect weeds/grass for fodder from the fields, which steals their lot of time and energy.

Accomplished my 2 missions there!

I got invited to Agra to attend conference there!!!

My father was IAF Police officer, he was posted at Agra, i studied my 7th&8th std there.
on this tour i met my two friends/classmates there.


My father


Taj at Agra...one of the seven wonders of the world
  1. Bimla. 1985.Energy conservation a must for Rural Homes. UGC Sponsored National Seminar cum Workshop on Home Economists as Extension Workers on 7th to 9th Feburary,1985, held at DEI Agra-282005.
paper can be down loaded here....

Thursday, May 20, 2010

My Project

i joined the Research Project in the year 1981 on Feb 5

Monday, May 17, 2010

My paper published in IJMCH

My research based paper was published in Indian J Matern Child Health
here is the abstract....

Abstract

PIP: 48% of India's 844 million population in 1991 were women and 62% were women and children. The health status of this population is a concern of the government in striving for Health for All by the year 2000. In this study, 60 women from Kurri and Bherian villages within 10-20 km of Hisar city of Haryana State, India and 82 preschoolers were randomly selected for health assessment in April-May 1990. Health status was assessed with anthropometric measures standardized by Jelliffe. The results for the women were grouped into good (80=100%) of standard values), average (60-79% of standard values), and poor (below 60% of standard values). The majority of women (56.66%) were aged 25-50 years and had an average health status, 43.44% had a good health status, and none was found in poor health status. Scores for height, head circumference and mid arm circumference were scored as 1 unit for weight, and totaled with parameters for weight for age, height for age, head circumference for age. Total scores were then grouped as good for 10-12 points, average for 7-9 points, and poor for 4-6 points; scores were determined as 1 for below 60% of the standard values, 2 for 60-79% of standard values, and 3 for 80-100% of standard values. The health status of children was found to show 53.66% of preschoolers with average health status, 35.36% with good health status, and 10.97% with poor status. 25.61% of the girls had an average health status and 28.05% of the boys had an average health status. Simple correlation analysis showed that the good health status of the mother was an important indicator of good health status of preschool children (r = .705, p .01). The health status of girls vs. boys was not found to be markedly different.

link here...

Health status of women and children (pre-schoolers) in rural areas of Haryana.

Bimla RA, Singal S.

Indian J Matern Child Health. 1993;4(2):52-4.PMID: 12318487 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Saturday, May 15, 2010

My paper published in World Leasure Journal


I submitted my paper on farm woman's leisure activities to WLJ, it was accepted. Later Professor Ken Roberts AcSS,Editor, World Leisure Journal,asked for abstract. i than submitted as fallows:

Abstract

Surveys have been carried out in the villages of Haryana state, Hisar in the year 1997-2000 to record the activity profile (leisure activities drawn in this paper out of the activity profile) of farmwomen of the state. Multistage random sampling method was used to select the district, villages and farm families of the study. In all nine hundred families were surveyed for activity profiles of farmwomen. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research’s Home Science Unit provided the protocol of the survey. It was observed in the study that the leisure activities of the farmwomen were does not fall under the real meaning of the leisure. Farmwomen extract their leisure through chatting with their friends and relatives, for which they seldom consume any free time. Next they feel satisfied and relaxed through preparing special dishes for their family members. Making handicraft items by doing embroidery, crocheting, knitting, weaving also makes them happy. Gardening and marketing which are the necessary activities of the home in farm families of Haryana state of India, but farmwomen extract their leisure by performing these activities. This study shows that farmwomen of Haryana are burdened with strenuous activities, but they curve out leisure from their routine activities. The study results were corroborated by the studies of the other states with the same project.

The World Leasure Journal has recentky published a paper I authored. It can be found here, beginning on page 166:WLJ_Vo_l49_no3_2007.pdfDownload File



My paper published in World Leasure Journal

The World Leasure Journal has recentky published a paper I authored. It can be found here, beginning on page 166: (PDF 776 kb)