![]() The exhibition was inaugurated by four of the women in the photographs - who launched it with a song from the fields. I had spent much time in that village and I think some of the best images in the exhibition are from there, including that lead photo on the panel ' A Lifetime Bending.’,” he adds. The women in the photographs were from the village Budathanapalli in Vizianagaram district some 80 km away. “There was a rally of 30-35,000 landless women, including some of the women in the photographs themselves. “It was put together in its current form by AIDWA,” Sainath says. The exhibition, documenting the ‘astonishing labour that poor women put in every day of their lives and the gigantic – yet unacknowledged – contribution they make to national economy’ was first inaugurated in the winter of 2002 at a conference of All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) in Visakhapatnam. The photographs are a testimony to the success of Arivoli Iyakkam. “I am in two photographs – teaching a woman to ride a cycle and in another photograph on educating the quarry workers. On a visit to Chennai to see the exhibition, Kannammal is at once moved and enthralled. The exhibition is now part of Chennai Photo Biennale at Fine Arts College in Egmore. In one of those extremely rare photographs that women are seen widely smiling, Kannammal is teaching a woman to ride a cycle. Kannammal is one of the many rural women featured in ‘ Invisible Women, Visible Work – Women and Work in Rural India’ – an exhibition of photographs by eminent journalist P Sainath. Women were able to go to some faraway places to pursue their education and were not dependent on men to go around locally.” ![]() “This happened in the early 1990s and today there is no woman in Pudukkottai who doesn’t know how to ride a cycle. They laughed when we fell down.” But at 56, Kannammal couldn’t recollect a more gratifying moment in her life. “The men castigated us for ‘leading the women astray.’ They said it wouldn’t rain in Pudukkottai anymore. We ended up training about one lakh women.” There were slurs and snide remarks. At least 60,000 women took part in the competitions. We knew the women wouldn’t come forward if we told them to learn cycling so we announced competitions. “At Arivoli Iyakkam (Light of Knowledge movement) in Pudukkottai, we decided to include mobility for women as part of our agenda. Vividly recollecting every facet of the movement of which she was an organiser, Kannammal says it changed her life – and many others. N Kannammal’s voice is cloaked in an unmistakable wave of excitement when talking about the Pudukkottai cycling movement.
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