A Certain Liberation

"...Gurudasi Mondol, who roams the streets of her small town in Southern Bangladesh and is known as a mad woman who takes money from passersby at will. Some people give her money out of pity, but most tolerate her to avoid some kind of attention-drawing incident. Mondol has garnered an authority in usually male-dominated spaces by physically touching men passing by or beating them with a stick she carries around or simply by uttering swear words that a woman is not supposed to – she defies all definition of being ‘lady-like’. [...] The circumstance of her life is rooted in the atrocities of the Liberation War of Bangladesh [...] The war took everything from her, and she found her own way of liberation and survival. By being obscene, she is liberated and free to do whatever she wants. But it is difficult to say which is more obscene, her madness or her circumstances." (Tazeen Ahmed)