Author: Sarjoo Katkar
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: June 12, 2001
When Belgaum's Jayashri Joshi planned
to celebrate the 80th birthday of her father D.S. Talawalkar, she thought
of engaging women purohits (priests) for the religious rites. She didn't
know she was initiating a caste and gender revolution. Her husband Shrikant
welcomed the idea, but traditionalists were shocked. In Karnataka, engaging
women purohits is very new.
But then, Jayashri is from Satara,
Maharashtra, where women purohits are often called upon to conduct rites.
In fact, Jayashri's sister Chaya Ashok Rao Palawanakar and sister-in-law
Varsha Talawalkar are purohits at Pune.
When Jayashri called them over,
they promised to come with a team of 11 women purohits. A crowd, including
some senior men purohits, came to Jayashri's house to see the women purohits
at work.
These women were trained by Anjalitai
Hinge, the "guru" of most women purohits in Maharashtra. Hinge herself
was a student of Shankarrao Thatte, who first floated the idea of women
as purohits in Maharashtra 50 years ago.
In Pune itself, five organisations
train women purohits and the city along with Mumbai account for over 4,000
such purohits.
The team of purohits consists of
women from all communities and castes, thus breaking the tradition that
only Brahmins can recite mantras.
Sham Ogale, a senior Belgaum purohit,
was impressed with the women purohits performance. C.A. Kulkarni, a senior
purohit, welcomed the change.
