“Gulabi Talkies”: Technology, Empowerment and Changing Spaces Women Occupy

Abstract

This article shows that in postcolonial India technology changes the lives of women, and hence the spaces they occupy get transformed. It tries to show how the age old technology of midwifery and the economy itself persist and change, with the coming of newer technologies like the hospital  and the cinema. Besides the lives of upper class women changing, lower class women have had to reinvent themselves by taking up occupations that make them operate in different spaces, and put up with a patriarchy whose norms and practices have not changed much, but have perhaps got more sophisticated in a changing world. The article hopes to establish that through the short story “Gulabi Talkies,” Vaidehi highlights the spaces that a woman can function in despite  changing technologies. It also hopes to show that a cultural transformation takes place with Lillibai, the protagonist, as an agent who functions from boudoir like spaces of the birthing room to the public space of the talkies. Technologies change and for the working classes, survival is linked to reinvention and adaptability.