Time Machine

He squirmed, frowning at extinct
racoons; Spiff no longer allured
his grey, as the sun set in dimmer
red, earth no more to be saved.

Suburbs subsumed by corridors
of urban anthromes, snowmen
melted into ebbing rivers, sleds
of fantasy mid way in emptiness.

No mars colonies, floating cities,
disintegrated future in zero gravity
boots; last snowflakes seek shelter
from tired hordes of trampling feet.

‘Drat! The Time Machine is broken.’
Muttered Calvin as Hobbes slowly
ruminated, ‘Science goes big Boink
when Bang scatters humanity.’

Divine

My mother has tiny fingers,

restless, carefree; delightfully

alive, kindle everything good

and warm with a fairy charm.

Subtle vagaries in subliminal

illumination, as her soldiers

march; screams of ticklish

surprises sprinkled with love.

Melting into the hug sublime,

flashes of the Sistine fresco;

her finger of human divinity

sparks the life in my being.

Suicide Note

See or may be unseen, conjure

of thread split from the seams,

no threat to the greater fabric,

spun finite a length not longer;

I take comfort in death, knowing

tomorrow the dawn breaks yet

again, sorrow glibly smoothing the

wrinkles of joy; love lingers, a

ripple of coherence in throes of

chaos: touches, words and looks,

mirrored in multitude;

you live on, embrace the wilting

breath, vibrating from me to the

throngs of new cosmic dendrites.

I take comfort in death; the world

still harmonious in its harmonics.

On... Neo-pop-culture and the Indian woman.

I want to discuss the omnipresent ‘F -word’ that pervades our pop culture nowadays. No, am not talking about Fuck. But Feminism/Feminist. That’s right. That is the new F-word. It has been co-opted by the conservative and consumerist media, along with it, churning out a new series of pop and cultural icons that exude confidence in their Gucci pumps and Prada clutches (They used to be called shoes and purses not long back.). The new generation identifies with the ‘rebellion’ of these icons to an extent that the core feministic values are covertly sabotaged by the market determined subtext. In the Indian context, this is made worse because of the juxtaposition of dynamic thought and stagnant culture. 

Let us take one of the universal Indian pop icons first- Aishwarya Rai. She is paraded around as the perfect everything. The epitome of the new Indian ideal. Whether you hate her because she is just a beautiful face whose familial roles reinforce the old patriarchal stereotypes or you love her, we cannot neglect the effect she has on the media. She is no different than the submissive, indoctrinated characters on Indian TV. Yet she has a market value and a ‘good girl’ certificate more valuable than most other actresses because of her ability to stoop to win, like the perfect woman. There was this moment when a friend told me once that Aishwarya Rai proves that a small town girl could do anything. The next sentence should have been ‘because she is fair, because is conventionally beautiful, because she conforms.’ This is the same sentence that I once heard the Malayalee soft porn actress Shakeela say. That a girl can do anything if she wants it. There is no crowd to cheer her on except late at night or in a darkened theatre.

This brings to another actress on the other end of the spectrum, Sunny Leone. A lot has been said about her. The orthodox section going wrinkled nose while the neo-liberal progressives happy about someone who sells sex and flaunts her sexuality finding space in mainstream Indian media. We cannot forget the fact that current world porn industry is essentially anti-woman. We cannot also forget the fact that Sunny Leone is not in any way doing anything original. She is just using her body to make money.  However she might define it, it is patriarchy at work. She is catering to her customers, who are mostly heterosexual males in a patriarchal society and whose ideals are formed and manipulated by the market forces. Like most of the porn stars, she has glistening legs, no hair anywhere. How is this in any way progressive? She wears what makes her look good, more desirable to her customers and fans. She is a commodity with fundamentally no talent. There is a huge difference between using sexuality to make a point and making a point to justify what is essentially everything feminism and woman empowerment stands against- objectification. Such subversive tactics of the market should not be considered as a triumph. Sunny Leone, Rakhi Sawant (Why is it that Rakhi Sawant is derided while Sunny Leone is venerated? Because she looks and acts ‘Western’ and refined while Rakhi is blatantly offensive and distastefully Indian.)  et al are doing nothing but make a retrogression in whatever empowerment has happened till now.

Let us discuss another widely removed, essentially Malayalee pop icon, Ranjini Haridas. I have courted fire because I have said in progressive circles that I don’t like her. She is individualistic. I agree and I do like her courage to be blatantly frank about herself. But to promote a woman who dropped her weight to skeletal thin along the show, creating a negative body image to the younger viewers and who once more, endorses everything unreal and nothing original, gives an extremely distorted view about the feminine. Femininity does not lie in coquetry. Empowerment does not lie in being oneself just because one had the means to. Wonder how many Ranjinis can afford to emerge from the quintessential middle class setting without being laughed at. Such ‘ individualistic empowerment’ is the monopoly of the privileged class.   

Feminism has always been utilized by the patriarchal setting as a scapegoat for furthering its goals. But till now, it has been a covert process. Now, with girls doing Slutwalk and telling everyone to call them sluts and not feminists because ‘Feminist is an ugly word’ or pretending that fun- feminism and iFeminism; feminism perpetuated and mass sponsored by the markets as through consumerism (Yes, I made that up.) ;are more individualistic and hence right than the collective spirit that actually constitutes feminism, there is no need now for the society to be covert. Consider this. Buying anything pink is girlish. So what? I like pink. It accentuates and reaffirms my femininity, which I have the right to express in the neo-social setting. I am a feminist. Look, the market has lovely pink accessories for my pink dress. I might as well buy them because it is my choice and I am defying the stereotype feminists who don’t wear pink. Really? The market tells you what feminists wear and don’t wear. How is that in any way empowering? 

I don’t mind the ignorance because it is hard to discern this sort of definitive subjugation in today’s setting with so many corrosive factors at work simultaneously. But trying to project all these women as the essential ideals of modern Indian pop/cultural icons is somewhat disheartening. The question is not whether our girls should have the choice to buy a doctor Barbie or a Katrina Barbie or a lawyer Barbie. It is whether or not they should buy or be a Barbie at all. 

As long as we don’t recognize that question, feminism will remain the F-word, a stylish expletive.  

   

Testicular

Three pairs, vast differences vasa deferentia,
buzz Hindolam, pheromones between legs.

Pan fry one, shallots, garlic, garam masala et al
swirling in aromatic pungency of muskiness as
pepper screams; lewd, spiced the heat climbs.

Marinate in yogurt, the next, zesty tang brews
redundant the stoic, virile garb; fire grilling the
chars of ghosts, flakes of tough skin repugnant.

Sauce for last, blended sweetness, sparkles of
manly flagellates, boiling chemotaxis; ambrosial
savoriness adrift in bland, attenuated insipidity.

Servings, delicious finger lickings past, perplexity
remains; no penile answer to a vaginal question,
what does a real man taste like?

Feel

Havoc, hand of a chassis piquantly

stilting my heart, enamoured in the

armour; trapped in restless Amor.

Torch, spasms envelope my truant

breath, clouded softly in shrouds of

ashes; arctic nerves ember to red.

Pain, slivers in agonizing harmony

crack my ribs, trumpeting silence

seethes, draws crimson of victory.

I feel.

At odds

Many years back, my parents presented me with a copy of the adventures of Vikramaditya. Not the abridged version, but the complete collection. I couldn’t quite understand the seductive nature of the stories, but something stood out – an image later occurring in The Arabian Nights. Supernatural beings which congregated around death, especially females. It was a strong image, something which remains in my heart after all these years because I got curious about them more than all the beautiful princesses and sex in those stories. There was something quite compelling and appealing about death, which drew me nearer into its allurement. It wasn’t until I saw the movie ‘American Beauty’ that I realised that I was in fact, infatuated with the idea of death. I was enthralled with the possibilities of it and what I perceived to be the finale of consciousness, rather than an end. It was oblivion. I wanted to know what it felt like. 

To understand this psyche, you have to watch the world through my eyes, which since isn’t quite possible, might be illustrated as follows. Consider yourself seeing everything you think, every violent act you can think of. When I want to smash my brother’s head in, I don’t think, I see. Time stops and I see it. I see the blood running down his forehead, the walls coated with crimson. I see it, like in the movies, in a vivid microsecond. It is scary. When I travel by train, I see myself jumping into the deep waters below. I imagine myself drowning. When I cross the road, it is another chance that I would be closer to death. I have killed myself a thousand times in my head. But thoughts can get you only so far. I have tried to, in reality, but stopped myself in that last moment when reason struck. When I descend a flight of stairs, at times I get an image of me at the bottom with a broken neck. It is not something I do purposefully. It is something in me, which draws me deeper and deeper into the darkness, the more I allow myself to be tempted by it. Not long back, I climbed this cliff at a beach and stood at the edge and looked down. I was afraid to go near the edge. Not because I might fall, but because I might jump. I could feel the tension in my body as I tried to act normal and take photos. Every day, at least once I think how I COULD die. 

That is where the paradox happens. I am not unhappy. I am not a melancholy person. I am a person who loves life, who loves to smile and laugh a lot and who is said to radiate a warm positivity. There is nothing ‘wrong’ with me. It took me a lot of time to learn that. All my life I had been trying to fit into an image, an image for every person, which would give me some form of acceptance till I evolved into this equilibrium where I know myself. I accept that I am emotionally unstable and unpredictable, I accept I am much more sensitive than most people, I accept that I have what they call ‘over expressiveness’ because I am animated. So naturally most people cannot see the duality that exists in me. But, most people don’t matter. Some do. What happens when you hurt those some people over and over again, just because they love you? A sort of guilt is generated, which consumes you. Unfortunately for those loved ones, I am over that guilt. Because I also accept that I am a bit to the dark side. I cannot write happy poetry. It was a struggle for me to find my voice, but I am there and it is dark and melancholy and intense. I accept me. But my mother could never accept that I love death. Or anything dark. My best friend still gets concerned and gives a tiny caution if she feels I have forayed too much into the forbidden emotional realm. There is a constant blanket of love which gets restless when I talk of grey and black. 

I would never say they shouldn’t feel what they feel. I cannot help that. But I cannot help my behaviour either. It is time they realise that I am not going to kill myself just because I want to. It is my character. When I say, ‘hey, I feel like killing myself.’ I mean it, but I am not going to do it. It is only a sign of that duality within me. It is my way of communicating with me. A way of coping with the contradictions in me. When I think it out loud, I am putting the thought into clear terms and giving it a touch of lightness. The thought goes away with the wind. Yes, sometimes there is a small battle in me. I still seek help from my loved ones and put them on alert if I feel I might need a reminder. I still get tempted to do a lot of horrific things to myself. I need to at times keep my impulses in check when I know I am tempted by the obvious opportunity to embrace death. But that battle has evidently, always been won by the will to live. Not to exist, but live. That is what I wish my loved ones could see.   

You might be wondering why I wrote this post. It is a way of reaching out to those who might see it and need it. Just to let that person know that s/he is not a weirdo for loving death or the ‘dark stuff’ for no apparent reason. You could, like me, be just born that way. It is not a disease, just a tiny part of who you are. For me, as Peter Pan says, ignorant of what death would be, "To die will be an awfully big adventure". That excitement is what charms me.

Confinement

I got a knot in my breast,
accidental subterfuge of
a lazy stretch, across the
afternoon, calmly bleak.

Doubt the site of malady,
my ribs? Certainly not the
lump of flesh, a virgin to
travesties of mortal aches?

Below my intrigued fingers,
depths of mammary kernel,
a fibre throbs, sobs against
her pushy sisters, confined
in her definition.

I got a knot in my breast.

In case you get raped...

Molestation of women and rape have always been parts of modern India. We are told what to do, how to behave, when and where to work so that our ‘modesty’ may not be violated. Be as that may, when it comes to rape victims or harassment victims, there is no set of rules one can follow to avoid character assassination. So all my sisters out there who are thinking about taking the villain to court, or who are still limping or crawling to the nearest help after the ordeal, it might do you good to remember these points.

1) If the first question is, ‘what were you doing there?’, please remember to reply that you were at the spot of the rape or harassment because you were going to buy some exotic medicine for your mother or husband or child. You might wonder why you should lie about it. But trust me, the Bharatiya Nari is not supposed to be doing anything other than sacrifice her time and effort for her loved ones. Of course, I am sure you would have seen enough films which illustrate my point.

2) Remember not to wear anything other than salwar kameez and sari for sometime after the incident. Better not wear sleeveless too. Apparently for some women, their arms function as secondary sex organs, which signal the rapacious male. Wearing anything ‘immodest’ will be a huge negative for you when it comes to public support.

3) Always cry. When you look into the camera, tear up. Wobble your chin like the actresses from the sixties' movies. Take acting classes if necessary. (It goes for all the potential rapees.) Throw around the hint that your husband doesn’t want you or that nobody will marry you now.

4) Make sure that you sell one of your kidneys. You will need a very good team of lawyers, need daily therapy to help you face the court, police and the media. But of course, if you come from a well-off back ground, I guess the easiest way to justice would be to kidnap the guy and cut off the tools of the crime perpetration rather than face all the pantomime.

5) Are you good looking? How young are you? The younger and the better your looks are, the more sympathy you will get. There is no greater joy for our male patriarchs than to aid a beautiful damsel in distress. Let’s face it. If you are in your thirties or forties, you have already been in bed with a guy or two and have had all the action and might as well be considered a washed up hag with no sexual future. You should consider that point before you pursue the case.

6) If you were a virgin before the incident, it would be better if you get a certificate from a doctor that your hymen broke during the rape. Our society needs no more proof that the rapist(s) was/were vile creature(s). Oh, the horror to have broken the seal of virginity of a young maiden!

7) Do you have a boyfriend? Break up, break up, break up. The press will be all over that, portray you as a woman of loose morals. But of course, there is always the chance of your boyfriend describing every romantic moment you ever had to the media. Also try and be sure he doesn’t have any videos and pictures of you in any Abharathiya Nari positions. Don't even think about going to the police if you have a girlfriend.

8) Since this is the age of the internet and everyone is on Google search through Facebook, it would be extremely prudent to wipe off your entire set of pictures from the net, especially ones in which you are having a good time with your male friends or the ones where you are laughing with your mouth open. Shame shame, very loose woman.

9) Now this is a very important point to remember even if I have kept it for the last. Teach your family and friends the art of looking at empty space as if they are zombies.

If you have got all the above criteria intact, then take a long deep breath, pop in a nerve relaxant, walk into the police station and hope you don’t get raped there again.

Envy

A drop of water, leaked forth,
crevices of lifeless platitudes
seethe in colourless contours.

She looked at me-masked in
life's vitreous glory, the green
and blue spinning turquoise
in my lush fertile abundance.

I giggled, basking mercilessly
in her obvious envy; barren,
broken, wobbling in despair.

Bleeding, the profuse tragedy
of humanity, I scream. Green
to brown and dust, my womb
empties into ashes of destiny.

She shivered, helpless to share
my fiery heart, molten in iron
and irony. The moon trembled.

The Pathology of Culture

Two phenomena have captured the frenzy of the media lately. One would be the Slutwalk being organised in New Delhi and the other is the unfortunate assault on an IT professional from Kochi called Thasni Banu. Both very different from each other but interrelated to an extent where it becomes imperative to understand one to understand the other. What I want to do here is not writing about moral policing alone, as such, but about how these two are connected and ask some questions.

First off, there are the similarities. One, we have a girl and a guy, traveling alone at night and slapped around for not having a ‘Kochi culture’. The other, we have millions of women in India, who walk the streets every day, being taunted, teased and being the victims of ‘Indian culture’. Two, there are questions raised on the character of Thasni Banu. After all, what Malayalee woman would travel alone at night with a friend! On the other side of the coin, victim blaming plays a very important role when it comes to all those cat calls and vulgar comments passed at women, those skillful hands groping your back. The major facet of victim blaming is always the dress. Yeah, she asked for it alright. Look at her hips go in those tight jeans, aren’t they tantalizing? They seem to be asking men to grab them. Never mind the fact that curves are accentuated more in saris or that the tissue thin blouses show every heave of the breasts. That is accepted cultural vulgarity, I suppose. Never mind that even sari clad women are subject to eve-teasing and rapes. Three, Thasni Banu and these millions of women do not walk on the streets or travel because they want the exercise. They do it because they must, in order to feed themselves, to cloth and shelter themselves. Those are human rights (The statement is made assuming that the reader considers women as human and not as cattle, as many do. If not, yes, women are human beings, i.e., Homo sapien. Look it up if you don’t believe me.). Not a privilege.

But the similarities end there. We could include the Thasni Banu incident as a subset of this rape culture and victim blaming phenomenon. Though I disagree with and disapprove of Slutwalk on many fronts, I cannot but offer my solidarity to the basic philosophy behind it that no matter what we wear, nobody has the right to touch us or even ogle at us. This rape culture aka Indian culture or Kerala culture or whatever we call it, is quite literally a disease. It is like AIDS. It ineffective in small doses. But once the number grows, the immune system fails. An attack here and there may not seem like a big deal. We might be thinking that it is only one Thasni Banu. But the truth is, Thasni Banu incident is a symptom of our society’s dysfunction.

A question which might arise in your mind is-hey, but this is not restricted to women. Remember the crack down on low waist apparel worn by men? Then how can it be a rape culture? The answer is, it is not. Both are moral policing. Both are extremely derogatory and unwarranted. It seems as though our society is more concerned with how goes on under our dresses rather than how our brains can be used for the betterment of the society, a society which focuses on the culture below our waist. But there is a difference between the moral policing of women and men. When it comes to men, it is about impressing upon them the idea that they, as the dominant sex should uphold the virtue of his mother, sister, wife, daughter and friend. On the other hand, when it comes to women, the idea is thorough oppression. A slap to put Thasni in her place, to tell her she should obey the social norms of the superior sex. A vulgar comment to a girl on the street to tell her that she isn’t allowed beyond the four walls of her house (her father’s or husband’s house, not hers.) and that her every private part is open to public inspection. Where is culture in this? Culture is a part of civilization. I don’t think we can find any civilization in what is happening in our society. Even the dogs which approach the bitch when she is in heat has the permission to smell up the pheromones.

Now the argument maybe that we need certain restrictions on the movement of the individuals of the society for it to function smoothly and that the individuals who perpetrate such violence are merely being the guardians of the fabric. As I said to a friend, there is no such thing as restrictive freedom. There simply cannot be, when human beings are designed to always move forward in a direction which will maximize the chances of his/her self-actualization. A society which holds people captive in restrictions and says that we have the freedom to do whatever we want within those restrictions is by any standard regressive. True, primitive tribes were much more equal and non-restrictive in that sense. But the fact is, they moved forward to new ideas of freedom. Progress is always about freedom, even personal. But the gender aspect still lags eons behind the economic and political freedoms that we enjoy.

Coming back to the issue at hand, can Thasni stop traveling at night? No. Will all the women who work at night or even day be safe? No. We seem to have arrived at a bottleneck here. In either case, women suffer. Going by the usual rhetoric, it is necessary that the democratically elected Government of our nation and right now the State does something about the safety of the ever increasing work force of women, especially those who work late at night. But it is simplistic to say that just the Government or the women alone are supposed to fight against such oppression. It is the society’s responsibility as a whole to come out of the dark ages if it wants to move forward. It is ironic that if a woman wants to contribute to her society, she has to overcome the hurdles set by it first.

But suppose that Thasni Banu was going with a man late at night, not to work but somewhere else. Suppose that she was wearing a mini skirt. Suppose that she had her arms around the guy while riding pillion. Suppose that she was whispering naughty things to him, just to him. Still, who gives you the right to interfere? Unless, that repressed culture below your waist is suddenly agitated at the power she has. That culture, dear sisters, can be thoroughly subdued with a good kick at the orbs of their supposed power. Start wearing the high heels of resistance, girls.          

The Story of a Razor

This might be a difficult topic to broach, especially in a world where everything connected with a woman is unclean. This is not to scandalize anyone, especially since it is really embarrassing for me to write and share this. So, if you as a reader, are not comfortable with ‘gross’ and ‘indecent’, it would be better if you stop reading right here and now.

My mother has imparted many pearls of wisdom to me and one of the most womanly pieces of wisdom would be on reproductive health. Since I ‘became a woman’ when I was a kid, it was necessary that I knew exactly how to take care of myself. Within the ambit was shaving my pubic hair. There! I said it. An Indian girl talking about pubic in public. 

For years I had thought it was something I had to do because my mother told me, then for years I did it because it was cleaner and more hygienic, at least for me. But the crux of the matter lies not in the phenomenon, but in the tool. The ever so holy razor! Guys might frown at this. After all, there are so many brands and range of products to shave. But truly, is there? What you are offered is close shave, smooth and smoothest. What we want is safe and without the issue of ingrown hairs arising later.  At times, I would have to endure not shaving because it was hard to find the exact razor that I want, when I want. Each shave would leave my skin tender and raw. As opposed to after shave lotions, we apply moisturizers and heaven help us if it is not the right one. For a girl in our very conservative society, these are things really hard to come by. We don’t see the products on TV. We don’t read about them in magazines. After all, feminine products are limited to sanitary pads (well, we simply can’t keep cleaning blood off our thighs, can we now? That would be gross.) and cosmetics. We get to know of the products from shop keepers and friends. A whole lot of women at the mercy of strangers.  

Then, last month, I asked my brother to get me a razor when he went shopping. The guy bought me an ultra costly razor. My usual brand, but a different product. He told me that the other product wasn’t available in that shop and this looked better. I didn’t even know such a product existed. I didn’t know what specifications would give me a nick free, safe, smooth shave. He did. He understood how the design works exclusively for women. It took a man to find the right product for a woman. A part of me felt offended that I hadn’t seen this first. A part of me felt happy that now I had a better alternative. But the largest part of me was wondering- why didn’t I find this razor before and why didn’t the system want me to?

Both the questions are interrelated. Answer number one is quite simple yet enlightening -because I didn’t know what I was looking for. Incredulous to imagine that. After all, women were gatherers predominantly. We could cherry pick the life out of the rainbow of fruits. I could dive into a pool of earrings and come out with the exact ones I want. Or go into a bookstore, browse the titles in one glance and know exactly which ones I should shortlist. But I didn’t know what products were available for my most sacred, intimate necessities. It was kept anointed in some corner among the men’s razors and forgotten. I was not targeted as the market for the product, because after all, shaving is a man’s arena. Women are meant to be born with silky smooth skin as they show in the advertisements and if they don’t, they have hair removers and waxing to take care of the detail. The removers, ladies, are in the other section, right next to the fairness cream.

The answer to question number two is even easier, though longer and convoluted unravels quite easily if you gut it the right way- because we are meant to have no choice. Women are invisible. Think about this. Everything except what a woman ‘needs’ to attract a man, is made for men exclusively. What women want is derived from those existing goods, like the good old Adam and Eve story. Only, in this society, it takes on a whole new meaning. Subjugation becomes so thoroughly ingrained in our being, that even we are programmed to shut reason off. I should have demanded my choices, instead of being satisfied with what they wanted me to find.On some level, the society has made sure that my body disgusts me, that I cannot ask for my share of TV space, that I should not be made the target audience of brands, that I should go around like a criminal for wanting to keep my genital area clean.

I hardly think this is the just my case. I have some friends who are conflicted about same or similar issues, which on a broad scale can be summarized as the apathy and indifference of a morally perverted institution when it comes to women’s needs. Not the kind of needs like how to make perfect sambhar or which washing powder gets the stains out of my husband’s shirt. But the real leaky, messy, smelly needs of a woman’s body without the accompanying cellulite dolls of the era. Whatever goes on in the parts of my body which the society cannot see is not its immediate concern, apparently. Then society should stop dictating the terms of my reproduction as well. It should also be quiet on how I want to utilise my body, including my brain. If it pretends it has the right and ownership over it, then every single cell of my body should be nurtured, my mind should be freed. But as long as it doesn’t happen, I am forced to hold a placard for my pubes.          

 

Torn

Knife halfway in air, fragmented

guilt shivers in silent savagery, a

whispered doubt, echoing love.

See you drowning in my blood,

calling out, forsaken in ruins of

distress, fortitude ebbing slow.

Tremble at your screams, ringing

clear the fantasy of choice, irony

of I lingers, stings the paling red.  

For you the knives are rusty, left

invisible in my dark, a throbbing

temptation, seduction of death.