Swetha Menon, her Child Birth and the Moral Mafia

India is a country which is vast, has diverse cultures and is ultimately a potpourri of everything good and bad. Despite the differences, there is one particular subject matter which unites the Indian men- the abject disregard for the women, their health and progress. India is amongst the worst countries when it comes all kinds of gender indices, including trafficking of women. But, within that boiling cauldron of neglect, there is a tiny state called Kerala which tops every gender index, with its seemingly high sensitivity towards gender parity. I have to stress on the word ‘seemingly’ because, Kerala tops in many other fields as well, including the number of obscene posts and cyber crime in India. It also hosts covert sexism and misogyny, starting with the utter inability of women to peacefully use public transportation without their posteriors being groped or brushed against, to slut-shaming, moral policing and dowry. 

It is in this scenario that the actress Swetha Menon let her birth of her daughter be filmed by film director Blessy. I am not going to analyze what their motivation might have been or what incentive might have been instrumental in Swetha Menon deciding that she will. However, it is extremely necessary that the intense ramifications of this act be thought of. From the looks of it, from one blogger overtly suggesting it is the same as porn, to others characterizing her as a prostitute who did it just for the money, SM is now the target for a lot of people’s repressed sense of morality.

I call this the Aishwarya Rai Syndrome, where the celebrity, especially the woman, is supposed to play the perfect Indian woman and be the perfect mother. In this Syndrome, the celebrity conforms to the majoritarian (read Hindu) belief system. On screen she is supposed entice the male folk but off screen she has to belong to one man who sets the trajectory of her actions. Anyone who deviates is bad. 

Here comes the question of agency and personal liberty. Swetha Menon obviously had no problem in letting someone else see what is only extremely natural and which she felt is something so emotionally beautiful that it shouldn’t be deemed to be something one has to be ashamed of. That is her personal choice. Whether or not to allow it to be shown to the world is also extremely personal.  Here, I must actually say kudos to SM’s husband as well. He rose above a typical Keralite man. He also did not hamper her resolve by crying, ‘my woman, hence the womb and vagina are by contract, mine’. Some have called it the new generation of ‘reality TV’. They must really spend more time watching Discovery Channel, NatGeo and The Animal Planet if they feel this is the first time child birth has been recorded alive. Do you think that it is any easier for any other mammal to push a progeny through the birth canal? We don’t see it as reality TV because they can’t scream or shout that they are in pain. 

For those of who think that sex does not take place outside the bedroom or away from porn sets and have been crying out for ‘pay her enough to let someone film her having sex’, the studies of Masters and Johnson or the recent MRI of humans during copulation would be a requisite to put their doubts to rest. There are people willing to have sex, not for money, but merely to abet the human curiosity surrounding it. But of course, it is hard to think outside the moral rigidity when you don’t even have enough courage or conviction to question the archaic notions of morality present in our educated society, which is constantly shifting its baseline consistent with the dynamics of the population. The problem is that the dynamics is changing pretty slowly and whoever creates a counter current in that flow is punished. Create enough counter currents and slowly the pattern of the flow changes.

Coming to the allegation that filming of SM’s labour is tantamount to pornography, one has to wonder in which universe the dictionary contains the meaning of pornography as ‘contractions of uterine muscles which result in expansion of the vaginal wall and the pushing out of a full grown foetus’. Pornography is the commercial manifestation of human sexuality, where the primary objective is the vicarious pleasure of the consumer. Unless the consumer has a sadistic fetish for blood, fecal matter, placenta and the tiny genitalia of the newborn, I fail to see how any sane person can equate this with overtly or covertly with pornography. Any person who goes to watch the movie ‘Kalimannu’ just for the sake of watching her give birth is just representing the repressed sexuality and constantly perverted psyche of the archetypal Malayalee man. Those who write and speak against her, assassinating her character and intentions, are those who pose to be progressive but whose conformity is ‘disgusted’ with the transgression of their moral scheme and has to sublimate their disgust. Similarly about SM being a ‘slut’, a ‘whore’ who sold the sanctity of childbirth to the highest bidder; here, the basic issue is that of the V-word. Keralites try to skip that word, hide everything connected to it. Vagina is bad. So, the issue here is that SM was ready to bare her most ‘sacred’ parts of the body to the people filming ‘it’ and the process (that too men) part of which is ultimately meant for the public. Adding to it is the objective of the act; a grey area for the public, which is not educational or purely commercial in its goal. SM’s intention was not simply professional and from the look of it, she also wanted to record her journey. She just had the good fortune of having a professional behind the camera.

In a nation where motherhood is celebrated culturally, socially and religiously while the only effort to make sure the Maternity Mortality Ratio goes down is done through political reforms, programmes and policies, it is understandable that such stigma exists when it comes to childbirth. The ‘down below’ is a sight only for the husband and the doctor. If so, then why are men still pacing about the hospital corridor and not in the labour room in our society? What are they so terrified of? There are cultures all over the world where the husband’s/partner’s presence is a necessity. It provides support and much needed encouragement, not to mention that it is a part of emotional bonding between the parents and the child. In our society, the father is clinically detached from the mother. As an educated society, isn’t it high time Malayalee men gave up the pacing and became pro-active when it came to child birth?  

I am grateful that Swetha Menon took this step. Like Khusboo commenting on and supporting pre-marital sex, through her act, SM broke a taboo. A taboo which begins from the day a girl gets her menarche – that one dareth not mention or discuss anything connected to her ‘sacred’ parts. This narrative is rife with hypocrisy since a woman is valued most in a patriarchal society for those parts. This has to be broken.  To break it, we need more and more women who come forward and break small, small barriers, whichever way they can. It is quite a personal journey, but personal is always political.   

Murder

I know it when the chill climbs

up my spine from within deep;

the murder she wrote begins

to play, its ache unfurling in

tangents of cruel inevitability.

Convulsions; resigned tremors

of solitude as my fingers creep

inside the crevice of my being,

a string of crimson stuck as i

pull them out; a reminder of

fertility coughed out by my walls.

I hardly mind this alienation

from my own; the massacre

accumulating in clots in my pants.

Hardly blink as drops lazy down

my thighs. They are mine.

As long as I’m blind to the murder

that my womb wrote in my pants.

The Cocktail of misogyny.

I know a lot has been written over the movie Cocktail till date. Nothing I write will be original. But it is not about being original, but saying what has to be said.

I had the immense privilege of watching ‘Cocktail’ yesterday and I don’t regret it. For one, I needed mindless fun and that’s what it gave me and for another it reinforced my belief that mainstream Bollywood movies are the biggest pieces of turd on the pile of shit that is mainstream Indian cinema.

Looking at the characters and the storyline, I can’t get over the question as to what makes Gautam so charming that no girl can resist him. He is obnoxious and disgusting. Even if you are going for the obnoxious kind of manly man, he falls short. He is a playboy and unlike many playboys (somebody tell me what is wrong with sleeping around.), he is a huge jerk. The defining moment came when he called the hot ‘gori’ in Capetown, an ‘item’. That is what women are to him. Pieces of body parts. I cannot imagine anyone wanting to fall in love with him unless she has a very, very low esteem. The director seems have a very low opinion of Indian women.

Then let us go to the ohsodesi Meera. Ewwww. As in ewwwwww. Where is the Indian woman in Meera? Where are the loud, giggly ones? Where are the ones who would beat you to a pulp if you do wrong by them? Where is the lovely gregariousness? Apparently all good women have found religion and we pray all the time and we pick after other people’s clothes and make an apartment ‘homes’. Seri-fucking-ously? When Gautam fell in love with Meera, I found myself asking if all the women empowerment in India had failed. Here was apparently the epitome of ‘desi’ness where there… nothing. Meera hardly has any quality which surpasses those you could get in a good maid. A quiet, invisible, maid with a very weak screen presence, if I may add. So the makers of the movie just wanted to emphasize the caution that the men of the house always wants to fool around with the maid. Even while Veronica says that she can manage everything except what Meera has ‘from within’, I am confused. What exactly is that? The dumb look she constantly has on? Or is it that big void that Indian women are urged to cultivate? The drama of domestication. Also, while Veronica is damaged because of her parents’, there is not even a glimpse of the manifestation of Meera’s loss. What her parents’ death did to her. It seems like the premise was written into the script to elicit a collective sympathy sigh from the audience for the poor homely, humble, pure Indian girl with the long black hair.

I have to say that the saving grace of the movie was Veronica. At least till the Director decided she needs to become a whiny piece of mess as to elevate the relative status of the infantile hero and the invisible heroine. I loved her from the moment she came on screen. Unabashedly free, independent spirit, fierce, able to do anything she wants, she is what life is all about. She doesn’t say sorry to anyone. And the high point of her character was her resilience. Who wouldn’t want an honest woman like that? In the era when the urban Indian woman celebrates series like Sex and The City, it seems an abomination to not have let Veronica have the guy. Frankly, I am a bit repulsed that she would want a guy like him for anything more than sex. But unfortunately for us, the repulsive guy has the best sperms in the gene pool and he is a gem. Unless he has one shoved up where the sun doesn’t shine, I fail to see where the gem is. 

So all in all, Cocktail is what every feminist and every self respecting woman loathes. A mish mash of age old concoctions of the wisdom in covering up and ‘acting like a girl’ (Pro-rapist film indeed.) masqueraded as a chic, urban trope which would please the middle class Indian audience. It is like marinating your brain in morphine, adding some garam masala in it and frying it with some rubbish. Well… at least you can save money on your movie snack.

Flatline (unedited)

A strip of life, sliver of hope,

waves pushing against the

pulsating constraints of death.

A prayer went through her

womb, battling the wrath of

despair; dark, deep and numb.

Her finger entwined with his,

ablaze in fear, shadows creeping

along the fogs of doubt, battles

sunk by horrors of likely loss.

Wishes fly, star upon star, hopeful

sighs dash on rocky shores,  her

touch barricades the flailing pulse,

as the flatline marches to conquer.

A prayer lingers… as she removes

her finger.

Need for Cyber Sexual Harassment Laws in India.

This was written a while back, just did not put it up on blog. So the 'recent' incidents may not seem so recent.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

The recent spate of attacks on Meena Kandasamy in the cyber space has indeed raised many questions. The issue of how women who speak their mind on the internet were trolled and subjected to harassment was highlighted to some level along with the degeneration of ethics and an irresponsible attitude. But what has not been talked of is the cyber equivalent of sexual harassment that these women face every day and the measures which ought to be taken to curb such sociopathic moral policing on women. 

Consider the case of Akhila Henry. She posted a sarcastic status about a well known Malayalam actor in her Facebook Timeline. What followed was an onslaught of tirades against her with hordes of men visiting her profile and using derogatory language. When she contacted the police, the response was that such treatment was meted out every day over the internet and nothing could be done about it. Like Akhila, there are hundreds or thousands of women in Indian cyber space who have found new frontiers of self-expression and empowerment, who have to encounter the daunting challenges of cyber bullying, stalking, trolling and cyber sexual harassment. Moreover, such harassment is clear violation of Articles 19 and 21 of the Indian Constitution. It is in this context that we need an evaluation of the current cyber laws in place. The only section which even remotely deals with the concerned section is Section 66A of the IT Amendment Act 2008, which concerns with Punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service, etc and states that, ‘Any person who sends, by means of a computer resource or a communication device,- a) any information that is grossly offensive or has menacing character; or b) any information which he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred, or ill will, persistently makes by making use of such computer resource or a communication device, c) any electronic mail or electronic mail message for the purpose of causing annoyance or inconvenience or to deceive or to mislead the addressee or recipient about the origin of such messages shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and with fine.’ 

But on a second reading, it becomes clear that there exists no standard definition for ‘grossly offensive’ or ‘menacing character’. This can be examined through the recent complaint that Sajitha Madathil lodged with the Hi-tech Crime Enquiry Cell of Kerala Police against cyber stalkers who apparently spread vitriol against her on Facebook and elsewhere. Since the concerned terms are fussy in nature, as to what constitutes such vitriol becomes highly subjective and skewed. Those who have criticized her justly and in a civilized yet firm manner might also end up being clubbed with the stalkers. 

On the other hand, the real issue of cyber sexual harassment goes unnoticed in the existing paraphernalia of vague terminology. What Sajitha Madathil might have and Meena Kandasamy to a much greater level did experience is traumatic to varying degrees. No woman wants to be subjected to threats, abuse and innuendos in real life. Why should cyber space be any different? That is precisely why we need the IT Amendment Act to include sexual harassment online too. A number of women bloggers I talked to, stressed the extra amount of time and energy they spent on weeding out trolls on their comments and getting accustomed to differences of opinion being expressed in sexually explicit language. Women bloggers and writers who speak their mind on cyber space cannot survive unless they numb themselves to the constant onslaught of such nastiness. The average Indian chauvinist makes sure that the apparent anonymity of the internet is used to spew verbal hatred and incite misogyny in ways he would never do in real life. 

Indian cyber space is rapidly expanding its dimensions to gender inclusiveness, since more and more women are becoming financially independent enough to own their own PCs and laptops. The recent surge in smart phone use has also contributed to the ease of access to both men and women, making sure their friends, knowledge and cyber activism are in the palm of their hands. The younger generation is one which is being trained to ask questions, speak out and stand firm. The young women have an edge over the older generations in this aspect, since they have an audience for their thoughts which is constantly making them evolve. This evolution is real in every sense and tantamount to empowerment. When one read about or saw Thasni Banu on TV, it might not have occurred to the older generation to get to know her personally. But by one click on our computers, we can include her in the circle of our acquaintances, hence assuring we are being surrounded by likeminded people. This translates into action in real life as well. Solidarity is formed, knowing that you aren’t alone. It is this solidarity and empowerment that trolls, stalkers and sexual harassers try to suppress. They have their own networks, ensuring that even if we complain, report or block a particular person, scores of others, who are waiting for his word will come rolling down, crashing our virtual gates open. It is upsetting for an ordinary person to tolerate such unsavory characters and at times even veterans who are seasoned in the art of ignoring them can become upset over call to rape and sexually explicit descriptions in threats.

There needs to arise a systematic line of measures taken to ensure the continued freedom of speech of women over the internet. One major task is generating internet ethics. Someone who has a personal moral compass rather than the ones infused by socio-cultural precedents will never indulge in such verbal sexual harassment online and setting a sociopathic preliminary to carry out misogynistic activities offline. This can only be done by spreading awareness and enforcing legal aspects, so that in the long run, such a personal moral compass becomes functionally autonomous and ingrained in the person. For that, we need separate cyber sexual harassment laws which are specific and in par with real life sexual harassment laws. Threats of gang rape and genital mutilation are not in the same boat as calling woman sexually derogatory names. Nor is a onetime anonymous blog comment synonymous with continued trolling. There should be a gradation in the specification of the crime and punishment given, with the complexities of our social setting taken into account. For example, Meena Kandasamy was targeted also because she is a Dalit activist, making it a multidimensional issue which needs a multipronged legal solution. Immediate action and necessary follow up by the police will help drive the point home that sexual harassment is not acceptable anywhere, in any form. 

In future, the importance of cyber space will become almost equal to the home, the office and public places, all where we have laws to safeguard women. It is emerging to be the need of the times, so that women can speak their mind, share thoughts and ideas, empower themselves and through that contribute to the progress of the nation. Women should also not be cowed down by these threats and attacks on their freedom and stop expressing themselves. After all, as Audre Lorde rightly said, “When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.” So let us keep speaking.