An Instagram page sparks a conversation around women and the alien language of leisure

Instagram page ‘Basanti: Women at Leisure’ has become a platform to reflect on the deep-rooted sexism of social constructs

For Surabhi Yadav, the idea behind the Instagram page, ‘Basanti: Women at Leisure’, started with a desire to document her mother’s life after her passing. While talking with her friends and relatives, she came across shades of her mother that surprised her. They gushed about her goofiness, singing, and dancing, memories that were not part of Surabhi’s life.

We live in a society where we have normalised the controlling, restricting, and manoeuvring of women’s lives, from their bodies to their being. One such camouflaged form of everyday oppression, one that we overlook at home, is the denial of the right to leisure.

The more Surabhi waded around the idea of leisure, the more strongly she felt the currents of patriarchy, capitalism, caste and class. And so, to explore leisure in depth and to document more women, she started the visual project as an Instagram page in 2018, and named it after her mother Basanti. “It started with a deep longing to know her and more women like her,” says Surabhi, currently based in Kandari, Himachal Pradesh. 

Through the page, Surabhi creates awareness about the language of leisure. In a capitalistic world, production and value go hand in hand, and leisure is misunderstood as ‘rest to work better’ or as a reward. “Decoupling leisure and productivity is crucial to understanding its importance. Leisure is about taking time for yourself. You don’t need to earn it,” says Surabhi.

Access to leisure is limited by gender, caste, class, and financial worth. There are socio-political reasons for keeping a woman constantly engaged in production. This is especially true for housewives, who are constantly told that they are not being productive, specifically in a monetary sense, implying they are worthless. This argument is used to justify denying them power and a role in their households, often even becoming grounds to justify abuse. 

A recent National Statistical Office report revealed that an average Indian woman spends 243 minutes on unpaid domestic work or caregiving, which is almost 10 times the 25 minutes an average man spends. This shows the disparity in the time left for leisure or rest. Yet, there are no conversations about housewives and burnout. “How much labour are we taking for granted? Are there stories of mothers burning out, giving up, and if not, why not?” Surabhi asks. 

It’s so common to see a man reading a newspaper in the morning that the image is commonly used to portray a patriarch in cinema. But something so common seems like rebellion when women do it. Physical space and time have to fit in perfectly for women to engage in leisure. It has to be on a balcony or terrace, after lunch but before dinner. “If a woman sits on the terrace in the morning, she will be questioned, looked down upon, painted as irresponsible,” says Surabhi.