A couple of years ago, I was taking part in some program at the Yale University and I happened to visit the Sterling Memorial Library situated in the campus. As I walked towards the library, something caught my attention. Right across the library was a beautiful, elliptical structure or sculpture made of green granite that was resting on a rectangular base.
As I walked over and stood in front of it, I noticed that there were engravings on the top of the green granite; numbers corresponding to various years. I stood there for a bit with the ‘ I wonder what this is’ furrowed brows, when a young lady standing beside me remarked, ‘This is the work of Maya Lin’. I had to get back to the library to finish something I had come there for, but the name Maya Lin stuck in my head, as did the intriguing shape and the engravings on it. I recalled watching a brilliant documentary on Maya Lin’s inspiring journey on the making of the Vietnam War Memorial a couple of decades back. I made a quite commitment to come back and engage with it at a later date.
I happened to visit Yale for a storytelling workshop a few weeks later. It was then that the story of the Woman’s Table revealed itself to me. The work was commissioned in 1989 to commemorate the 20 year anniversary of Yale becoming coeducational. The engravings on the granite represented the number of women who studied at Yale from 1837 through to 1993. The numbers engraved in a spiral shape told the story of increasing number of women at Yale every year. This was a monument, a chronicle and a compass to the presence of women at Yale. Almost like a poem that poses questions about the past and thus provokes reflections on the future. Yale apparently had women right from the early years, but they were silent listeners. They would attend the classes, but however were allowed only to watch and listen. It was only sometime around the mid 19th century that women were enrolled into classes for active engagement and learning.
Maya Lin was a student at Yale and it was during this period that she went through an inspiring yet deeply challenging experience of designing the Vietnam War Memorial. The Women’s table in my mind seemed to hold all of these stories. Beautiful, intriguing and reflective. Fluid, Strong and Graceful.
Was this the voice of the silent listeners of the early years at Yale? Was it a quiet yet emphatic metaphor of the generations of women from Yale and at Yale who have had a profound impact on society and the world in general? Did it hold the notes of the struggle and the inspiring doggedness Maya Lin showed in creating the War Memorial where gender issues would have played its part? I also thought about gender diversity at work places and how a large number of corporations still continue to be predominantly male-heavy, testosterone-driven and often guided by dysfunctional notions of power as against nurturing havens where future leaders are born. The compass in Maya Lin’s table is as strong as its chronicle.