Briefly describe the story of Sivaraman
Sivaraman is a story of cobbler and the prevalent caste and gender discrimination, stereotypes and patriarchal attitudes in our society.
- Sivaraman lives in a small village near Karur town in Tamil Nadu.
- Sivaraman is an Aryunthathiyar (cobbler) by caste now works as an agricultural labourer working for Rs 50 per day for only five to six months in a year. At other times, he does odd jobs in the town. This is because of the fact that Sivaraman is from a "lower" caste and therfeore uneducated, and as such he cannibal find a better paying job.
- His wife Sasikala too works with him. But she can rarely find work these days, and even if she does, she’s paid Rs 25 per day for the same work that Sivaraman does. Gender discrimination in our society marks a difference in the wages paid to men and women for the same job.
- There are eight members in the family. Sivaraman’s 65 year old widowed mother is ill and needs to be helped with her daily chores. He has a 25-year-old unmarried sister and four children aged between 1 year to 16 years. A big family size is also one of the causes of poverty here.
- Three of them are girls, the youngest is a son. None of the girls go to school. Buying books and other things for school-going girls is a luxury he cannot afford. Also, he has to get them married at some point of time so he doesn’t want to spend on their education now. The priority for Sivaraman here is to get the girls married and not to educated them.
- His sister and elder daughter take care of the household. Owing to stereotypes, men do no household work.
- Sivaraman plans to send his son to school when he comes of age. Although the family has difficulty in arranging two meals a day, Sivaraman manages to buy milk once in a while, but only for his son. Gender discrimination - Sivaraman only intends to buy milk for and send his son to the school.