Yashoda Umbre sings about the grinding to be done early in the morning so that the children can eat
Yashoda Umbre and her family were landless farmers in Rajmachi village of Mawal taluka in Pune district, when the Grindmill Songs team met them in 1997. It was not clear if they were agricultural labourers or tenant farmers. Her house was large. "My mother-in-law threw my husband and me out of our ancestral [joint family] home,” she said. “My husband and I built this house [where we now live] with our own labour.”
By the 1990s, because of its famous fort, Rajmachi has come under the spell of homestay-tourism. Villagers had built large houses to accommodate tourists, using their own skills of masonry and carpentry. Yashoda and her husband had also built a bathroom with a proper door for the convenience of tourists. She was rather proud of her bathroom as well as the large house. One of her sons gave us a visiting card.
Yashoda’s eldest son was mentally challenged. The other three were students; one was away at college in Mumbai, and the two youngest sons were studying in the village school.
Yashoda, then 46, learnt grindmill songs from her mother, who lived in Dudhivare village in Mawal taluka . When we visited her, she was reluctant to sing. She said her brother’s daughter had died after being poisoned by her in-laws – and according to custom, women then don’t sing for at least a year.
