As I sit down to write this, there are various thoughts running through my mind. Specifically where to begin and where to stop.Let us begin with an incident. I had gone to a get together with some friends. Being the first to arrive, the hostess and I along with her husband went shopping. She kept telling her husband to buy ‘that’ so that another friend’s husband and he could enjoy among themselves. I felt this a bit unusual. I told her outright that it’s wrong to actually encourage drinking. Her reply had three points. One, if she stopped, he would drink secretly. Two, it is not manners not to drink at a social gathering. And three, this happens everywhere.
So I asked another friend of mine, who is reeling under the feeling that he has become what we call a ‘functional alcoholic’ or in plain terms a drunkard, how this works. He told me that the first drink you take gives you a high you haven’t experienced. You space out the drinks. One drink after another doing no great harm but five years down the lane, you search for that initial high with more alcohol because you just can’t have it with the same quantity. His observation is actually a medical fact, though he expressed it more psychologically. The body grows more resistant to the effects of the intoxicant that in time, it takes you more of the intoxicant to reach the same level of ‘high’.
Let us discuss some of my friend’s points. One, that he would drink secretly. Well, I found this amusing. It had a lot of patriarchy in it. Allow your man to have what he wants in ration. Give him permission and endorse it. If you do so, you have him in your control. Isn’t that what perfect women are supposed to do? What if he wants a drink, I shouldn’t stop him. He would find the atmosphere unpleasant and slowly slip out of my control. This is a lesson most middle class women learn from the society. To be tactful enough to ‘keep your man’. Two, that it is impolite not to drink at a social gathering. Well, I have grown around men who drink and who don’t drink. I have seen car accidents to being the only sober one in the party. And I would definitely say that the people who smirk when you say you don’t drink are usually the most ignorant ones. They might consider anyone who doesn’t drink not ‘man enough’. But, it is more ‘man enough’ to say no to something wrongly popular rather than succumb to the requirements of the society. And three, that it happens everywhere. That is precisely why everywhere, irrespective of class, creed or anything, there are anti liquor movements and rehabilitation.
Now, this is where I sadly notice the Kerala Govt’s triumph. Kerala State Beverage Corporation’s turnover for 2009-10 was Rs 5,539 crore, its highest-ever, and a 20% increase over the Rs 4,631 crore that the corporation grossed in 2008-09. This piece of news and the implication was just too great to not ponder on. Kerala has become the drunkard’s haven. Since for the state government, excise and sales tax earnings from liquor form a large portion of its revenue earnings, they are doing everything in their power to make sure that the masses are lined up in front of the shops across the state even before they open. I do suggest they also consider giving mandatory medical, life and children’s insurance coverage to regular customers. Why not also run hospitals, counseling centers for families and funeral services? Hey, let us make it a one stop shop. We can out do Russia in some years if we try. With all those ‘benefits’, people will start pouring in.
Since we talked about the middle class, let us climb down to the lower classes, where drinking is explicitly, a very large problem. Since a third of Indians exist on a daily hand to mouth basis, it becomes a problem when the ‘head of the family’ spends his income on alcohol. In addition to incapacitating him physically, there is this power need to dominate his wife and his children. Hence, no one should question his authority. A less educated or illiterate drunk doesn’t understand that all this money wasted could go for better nutrition or education of his children and in taking care of his family. In the case of middle to upper class drunks, you could say that there is a denial of reality. But, a farmer or a daily labourer hardly knows the reality apart from the fact that he needs to vent and that he is entitled to do so. If you have noticed, all major anti liquor movements in India have been spear headed by women. Women bear the brunt of it. Middle and upper class women can deny or ‘afford’ to be tranquil about the livers of their husbands getting drowned. But, the poor can’t. They need the money. They can’t be calm about losing a single rupee. This is an angle that even our system doesn’t see at times when it comes to rehabilitation of people in the name of development. You give them some money, and instead of investing, they binge on pleasures. No land no money. Who are stranded?
Prior to concluding, let me just say that the women who encourage or silently endorse their husbands’ drinking are making their children sole losers. They are moulding the next generation in a scenario where such taboos become nonexistent whereas they uphold a lot of rigid societal paranoia which ought to be set free. The men, who drink, in my opinion, are selfish. How selfish you get is another question. If you think that one day, when the time comes, when it begins to threaten everything you have, your life, your health, your family, capacity to love, that you can stop it then, you are wrong. You would have fallen too deep into an abyss that you can’t reach the air from it. There is no ‘limit’ to drinking in our social setting. It will keep pulling you under. Try and reach out for help if you can. Someone might be able to help you.
As someone said ‘Responsible Drinking? Now that's an Oxymoron.’.
For the first time in a long time, I am going to rant. If my objectivity wanes, forgive me and just keep on reading.
Sun, rain, curving sky
Mountain, oceans, leaf and stone
Star shine, moon glow
You're all that I can call my own.
Isn’t it true? Of all the things that I possess, can I actually call anything my own? Produced by so many who are hardly compensated for their effort, what is mine? Of all the things in me, what is mine? Is my womb mine? Wasn’t it bartered to that guy who promised me food and a roof, cloths and safety?
Fall gently, snowflakes
Cover me with white
Cold icy kisses and
Let me rest tonight.
So, yes, I am bothering you with questions. I am so tired for working for him. He who is the master of my soul apparently. I am told I must satisfy him, for he will protect me against those lustful eyes that wander on my body when I venture out. Maybe I shouldn’t venture out. Maybe I should stay here, inside these walls. I am comfortable. I can bring up my children like this. I do agree sometimes I want to smell the fresh roses of sunshine or the alluring bouquet of morning dews splattered on the new spider web. But I am not allowed to. My body aches from losing my child last week. But I don’t have time to pause. Time for me is more than a luxury. I tell my husband it pains. He says we must do it till we have a child. An empty home is no home, he says. My in – laws tell me I am no good if I don’t reproduce. Am I no good? Maybe I should have been just a womb and not I.
Storm, blow me from here
With your fiercest wind
Let me float across the sky
'Til I can rest again.
I long for freedom. But I don’t know from what. There is this feeling of perpetual fear. There is no truth in this home. Only contracts. Contracts of private property, status, reputation and conformity. I am supposed to love this falsehood. I am supposed to believe in love when the man who is supposed to love me wants only my womb, not caring for how my heart beats for him or how it is torn every time I lose a baby. Isn’t he supposed to protect me? Aren’t they supposed to treat me as their daughter? Isn’t that what the contract says?
Shine on me, sunshine
Rain on me, rain
Fall softly, dewdrops
And cool my brow again.
What do they mean by empowerment? I have a job. I earn. Isn’t that enough? They tell me I have to be more, that I have to be I, that I have to be free of every chain that binds me. But I am not chained. If I weren’t I, why am I using the word ‘I’ so much? Doesn’t that make me aware? Maybe that’s not the awareness they talk about. They tell me I shouldn’t bring up my kids to such ‘chauvinism’. What is chauvinism? As far as I see, everything has a place in this society. Maybe that place isn’t absolute or the ultimate right. Maybe I have an existence away from my reproductive system. Maybe I do have a say in those choices. Does that mean I can stop bleeding just because I am asked to? But, now that I think about it, I am ordered, not asked. Nobody bothers what happens to me in reality. I am just a machine. When did I become a tool? Everybody has a use for me, except myself.
I've got the children to tend
The clothes to mend
The floor to mop
The food to shop
Then the chicken to fry
The baby to dry
I got company to feed
The garden to weed
I've got shirts to press
The tots to dress
The can to be cut
I gotta clean up this hut
Then see about the sick
And the cotton to pick.
What am I? Who am I? I don’t understand. I don’t understand why I have to be all this that I don’t want to be. Why can’t I just be me? My choices. My life. Me.
Now, let us go to the epi-ranting part. The verses are from Woman Work by Maya Angelou. No, I didn’t write them. What I have done is to take a bottom- top approach. The last stanza here is actually the first. Don’t ask me why I chose this poem. It just came to mind. The question naturally arises though as to the provocation behind this extremely unusual rant of mine. I have always tried to keep objectivity when it comes to writing. But, yes, I lost it today and I am not sure you understand my incoherently concrete work. Coming to the provocation part, it was when one of my close friends had her third miscarriage and is admitted to the hospital. Three strikes in almost 18 months. There are medical reasons why they had to hurry. But there is no vaguely moral justice in this atrocity of pushing a woman so hard to have a child that she bleeds and bleeds and takes all sorts of hormonal treatments, just to survive in this highly unfair world. Medically there is a mandatory 3 month refractory period (crude of me, i know), before the couple can even try. And this society makes sure they don’t have the luxury. If the man doesn’t impregnate the woman, he is not virile. If she cannot conceive, she should be replaced. Why is the womb the only thing that matters now? It’s beyond propagation of species. Look around, there are not even viruses that exceed our population. We have come all these millennia for what? To not embrace civilization even in its most basic form? This pantomime is the murkiest one the world will ever come across.
Like Evita Peron said famously ‘I am my own woman’, we all need to think ‘whose’ we are.
I woke up from a dream. It wasn’t nice since I was rudely shaken to consciousness. I had to go to the physiotherapy department of the Medical College. As I was waiting in the long corridors, which I assessed then, was clean from sickness, from blood, there was no screaming, nobody was crying; everything was quiet. Then, all of a sudden my eyes fell on this gorgeous fellow; tall and handsome and like all fertile females of my species I gazed upon him. I would have stopped staring hadn’t it been for one reason. He was walking with the help of a stroller. He had only one leg, which had been bandaged so that it could stand the extra pressure. As he walked down the corridor, I kept looking at him. Then an amazing thing happened. He looked at me with a smile. I couldn’t help blinking to keep the tears off. Then I realized why there were no screams, no blood. They were bleeding inside, they were screaming inside. They had the choice to go on, despite the nervous twitches that made that woman in red sari convulse with her every step. Despite the obvious paralysis the man in the wheel chair was in, despite the effort with which the guy, who had his legs cut off from the thighs, tried to hoist himself up and down a special chair to gain practice. Despite their setbacks, these people, they had hope. I twitch when a mosquito bites me or cry when my finger is hurt. I feel pretty pathetic right now.
I know and you know, I hate going into statistics. But this is one of the occasions where they are absolutely necessary. In India there are around 70-80 million disabled persons. What exactly do we mean by the term ‘disability’? Or shall we say, as it is PC now; differently abled. I wasn’t sure. So I decided to look it up. Apparently, in our scenario, disability covers physical disability, visual impairment, hearing impairment, speech disability, locomotors disability and overlapping conditions. It is said that one in every twelve households has to care for someone with disability.
Now, a very small percentage is educated and only around 40% of the disabled are employed in some way or the other. Though there is reservation in Govt jobs up to 3% since 2003, it applies only to loco motor, hearing and visual. But the fact is that they are seldom filled. Here I do wonder how disabled friendly our Govt offices are, both in terms of infrastructure and human relations. In private sector (for obvious reasons), the condition remains abysmally wretched. MNCs employ less than .05% disabled persons in their workforce while the aggregate of the top 100 corporate heavy weights in India employ around .4%. When we talk about social parity, we conveniently neglect certain aspects. We frame policies but seldom approach the implementation at a people centric level.
But, does that mean we have millions of educated disabled people waiting to rush in to fill the vacancies. Yes, there are some. But, not many. Our education system has a high problem with identifying children with special needs and responding to them. In simpler terms, the Taare Zameen Par situation (generalizing) is much more serious than the celluloid representation. There is a 3% reservation of disabled children in schools guaranteed under the Persons with Disabilities Act. Then why is there a hesitation when it comes to admitting them? A large proportion of schools are ignorant of this Act, whether Govt or private. But when it comes to private schools, again we see the proportion dwindling. So social responsibility means nothing to them? But yes, they hardly have to care when the Govt schools themselves have decaying infrastructure which mocks at the personal integrity of an ordinary child, let alone a disabled child.
Why is there such a discrepancy? We stare at the ‘midgets’, we make fun of those with twisted limbs, we don’t know how to behave with someone different. There are ‘them’ and ‘us’. As always. Well, one can argue that the system is struggling to accommodate a billion people with no difficulties and it is bit too much to ask that everything be made ‘differently abled friendly’. Maybe. But are 80 million lives too little a price to be paid for negligence? Here, who becomes the beggar in the street tugging at your dress and looking up at you to have some mercy on him or an ex army man who sells lottery for his daily bread because that’s all he is told he could do? Who becomes the one with prosthetics and has a shot at better life? Economic disparity too reflects in this stratum. But that will not change unless the social and political disparities change. There are a million questions and considerations in this issue. I just hope…. Like the man learning to walk, I just hope.
I really don’t think anyone expressed it better than Martina Navratilova, when she said; Disability is a matter of perception. If you can do just one thing well, you're needed by someone.
We need to find those 80 million different things.
Let us, as usual start with a story so that we can very conveniently understand the nuances of it. I was nine and I had a tutor who coached me for various stage programs. Let us just skip the peripherals and say that he molested me one day. For seven years, I carried the secret with me. By that time however, I had become a ghost of what I had been. I had transferred schools and the deep confusion and fear regarding this incident kept me away from the stage and from the popular events. I despised attention. It took me a marvelous teacher at my college to find the stage again somewhat and renew my confidence. You could say that I did it because I didn’t want to disappoint him.
Now, let us go into the emotional side of the victim here aka me. I was tormented, for I wasn’t sure what had happened. I was too young to comprehend. But when I did understand, I felt ashamed. I felt as if it’s my fault. There is no question as to why I thought so. I just did. Then came a stage when I knew it wasn’t my fault and on a day when I was 16, I told my mother. She went in search of him, but since he was a guest teacher, there were scanty records of him. And 8 years past since I told her, she is very protective of me as she thinks it’s her fault it happened to me. How can we be expected to distrust everybody in this world? My mother left me alone with him only once and that when my younger brother was there. My teacher sent him to buy something. So, opportunity was created from the blue. Then of course, as I began to understand I wasn’t alone and around 25% of children in this world and 50% in this nation undergo Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) in some form or the other, there developed a sense of acceptance. Yes, it happened to me. But, life has to go on. I cannot deny that my blood doesn’t boil at the very thought of another child undergoing the same trauma or that sometimes I wish I could search him out and shoot him. I wish I could bring justice to millions of those kids who trust their elders while lustful eyes and hands wander over their tiny bodies, contaminating their innocent souls, filling their hearts with fear.
I wouldn’t say that my life hasn’t been changed because of it. It has. And I wouldn’t say that it is not demented. It is. But, it is life. It constantly challenges you to overcome obstacles. Very objectively speaking, I am glad it happened to me for one reason- it made me a better person over the years. It made me think about myself. Well yes, there are negative points. I don’t trust men easily, though my closest of friends are mostly men. I am extremely conscious of how a stranger looks at me. An innocent touch is doubted, even from relatives. I have an ambivalent attitude towards my genitilia. I do not allow any man to take control of me. My brother hates that. He cannot comprehend how I can perceive him as anything other than an extension of me. So he does things to challenge this boundary. I think over the years I have become more comfortable with myself and as a result more comfortable with him crossing those boundaries. It reassures him that he is still mine.
I have often wondered what makes a person so perverse as to get attracted to such innocence. What pleasure do they get? But, it is not for me to wonder. I cannot imagine getting inside such a person’s head without any training. Simone de Beauvoir wrote in The Second Sex that for a man sexuality is objectified. I will be grateful if one day somebody explains to me how this sexuality is objectified from the tip of his penis to a region that possibly cannot accommodate it. It has no logic in it. But, of course as always, human mind is not about logic alone.
Yet, I think, is anger the way out? If I search him out and confront him, does it make everything alright? Yes, I want to search him out one day. I want to stand in front of him and say that he hasn’t destroyed me. But, I need to achieve my dreams for that. Maybe its post conventional stage of morality, but I don’t believe in revenge. If indeed I were to feel angry towards anyone and destroy that person, does it make me any better than him/her? I believe in avenging. I believe I should have the courage of conviction to stand up straight and say, yes, that’s my past, that happened to me, but look at me now. I avenge myself when I let my light shine and change the world around me. There are a lot of things wrong with this world. Lot of things. Does that mean I run away from it? How can I run away from a world that tomorrow is my children’s? Do I teach them to stay and fight or blame everything on the world and run for comfort? Do I let my emotions get the better of me, seek him out, yell at him or do I get to where I want to be, where I can help people who have gone through what I have been through or worse? Or help make policies and generate awareness about CSA or rape or anything else? Isn’t that the ultimate REVENGE? Isn’t there a bigger picture than me in this? I believe so. I believe I have to do my part in that picture. For better or worse, I am wedded to this need;to this idea of societal evolution.
Child abuse casts a shadow the length of a lifetime. So said Herbert Ward. Let us cast some light over it, shall we?
This story begins with a mango and two brinjals. A mango that I bought. It seemed perfect when I bought it from the super market. But I found it wasn’t as tasty as I had expected. Then one day, my mother bought mangoes from a street side vendor. They looked horrible. I asked her whether it wasn’t a waste of time. I had to suck in that attitude when I found out that they were so tasty, I could hardly quit eating.
Now, we talk about the brinjal. Not Bt. Two ordinary brinjals, side by side. One is smaller and the other is larger. The larger juicier looking one costs less than the slightly disfigured small one. Which one would you buy? Naturally the larger one. Does it matter that they are fed on pesticides and fertilizers while the other is completely organically grown and that’s why it costs more?
More than half of the population is employed in agriculture in this country whereas agriculture as itself amounts to only 18% of the GDP. After the liberalization started, the growth of this sector has decreased when the whole economy is dashing across the race track at top speed. Where the entire population’s income rose by around 4%, only a marginal increase has been there in the case of agricultural workforce. Around 48% of small scale farmers are indebted. And we can guess to whom they are indebted. As the Government drives the economy towards more and more liberalization and offering incentives only to the richer of the farmers, one cannot help wonder how many more are going to commit suicide. So, I am talking about policies and how they affect the lives of some people. But, let us go a step further, round the corner to the nearest local farmer’s market. We are going there at a time when ASEAN pact is all set to import everything on the platter on a lesser price. Now, the question comes, when there is a growing following in the developed countries when it comes to the local farmer’s market, why is there apathy from our system? Why is it that most of these farmers have little or no access to technology and instead of admitting them into the system, we keep them on the periphery?
The middle class is increasingly being attracted towards the all-in-one supermarkets. Well, there is no question as to where the small farmers are left in this scenario. They are forced to sell their produce at much lower rates than usual which the supermarkets sell for much higher price. Last week I refused to buy spinach from an old woman because I had already bought some very colourful ones from a shop. She asked me where people like her would go if we didn’t buy from her. Very valid question. She told me that she has to sell her wares at the end of the day to some middle men at much lower price than what I would give her.
Another crux of the matter is most of these local markets operate in unhygienic conditions, along the roadside. No protection is offered to the vendors and no respect to what they sell. They have to stand the heat and the rain. So while we buy vegetables kept fresh by injecting god knows what, preserved in cold for a longer time than the everyday fresh ones in the market, we hardly notice the underbelly of these giants. And the real lives sacrificed for their making. I really don’t understand why there are no proper regulations to protect these lives or why the consumers aren’t made aware as to the choices they have and how these choices affect the economy. It is rather a pathetic condition when successive governments are doing everything to liberalise everything while owing no allegiance to the masses which voted them to power.
As always, since someone else (Robert M. Hutchins) said it better than I, The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.
Well, the last part is an entirely different topic. but, then again, i find so many different dimensions to this one statement.
This musing is inspired by one of my favourite RJs. On last night’s show, he commented that women have a power over men that can be used to draw make them dance to their lines. I really don’t know how or where to begin or end. This is absolutely true. But, the under currents are so much more than he could conceive. First of all, this particular ‘power’ he refers to is of raw sexuality. To understand that statement, we need to look into the process of evolution of gender. The primary objective of any species is to propagate themselves. In this process, man had the role to impregnate as many women as he could while female had to make sure she got impregnated by the fittest male to enrich the gene pool. Haven’t you ever wondered why men mostly go for younger women and women go for men who could protect them? Well, this facet of life originates from evolution. So while this inextricably torturous factor remains in our build up, it is also true that society has changed, there are many other factors in play. Evolution continues. The point is that this power is not limited to one female. Every female has it. So when a male meets a female he isn’t committed to and is attracted (which is quite natural) to her, what my dear RJ doesn’t perceive is this invisible thread of control from good to better genetic prospects. I am not talking about intellectual relationships where mind does matter, but about the ordinary section of the species. Now, here man is tempted to go for a smaller reward of granting attention to this woman temporarily forgetting that a longer fulfilling relationship with the other woman is what he actually wanted. When a woman finds out that she is ‘cheated’ upon, naturally that bond of trust is broken. So, this illusion of ‘power’ is nothing more than an illusion.
Secondly, I take offence at his advice to make use of this power. It is stereotyping. It is telling a woman that she has to use tact, sexuality and her charms to stay in a relationship. I agree that it is how it works most often, but it is wrong. There is a phrase Stoop to Win, when it comes to women. An advice rendered through mothers generation to generation. Females have to use tact, keep the man to her side, feed him right and he will protect you. In this 21st century, designating this strategy as the ultimate weapon of one half of the population is no more acceptable. It shouldn’t be acceptable. It becomes all the more atrocious when an opinion such as this is aired through a popular show. It is as degenerating as telling a woman she should lay back, open wide and think of god, whenever he commands her to.
I am not going to whine on how men treat women and how we are subjugated. As far as I am concerned, men are in the same cage as women, they just don’t realize it because the material aspects are for their benefits. Whenever somebody sees and not perceives through the blindfold, he/she is nothing but blind. But whenever he/she has her eyes gauged out because truth was seen and can see no more, still the perception is there. This stereotyping of both genders occurs very slowly, continuously and steadily. The reason why we are still primates with the animalistic instincts controlling us is because of this. Throughout history, ever since family became a unit in the idea of private property, human race has needed an order to be kept. And for this order, some sections had to obey. It is quite simple actually. Who obeys? The physically weaker. Who is physically superior- the warrior or the potter? This warrior can control women, traders and serfs. But not god. That’s how clergy came into existence. So you see, we are still living in an extended version of Vedic times. Isn’t it time we moved past?
As I read somewhere, ‘The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, "It's a girl."’.
The expression- the closeted may confuse you. Am I going to write about homosexuality or what? No, I am going to talk about a much wider section of the population of India. The ones that have their own ideals and principles which are different from the majority and the only place they can express it is right where you are, on the internet. I began social networking years back when my friends asked me to join Orkut so they could connect with me more easily. But once I did join, I began to explore the mileu of opportunites in its communities. I found out that people who would dare not express their opinions in public were expressing them online, vociferously and strongly. Now, I have moved away from Orkut and migrated to Facebook. The first thing that strikes me is that it is not about simple expression,. But rather about finding an in group, where your views are echoed. It is hard to do out in the reality, considering the fact that in all my family and friends of my age, I am the only atheist and feminist. So naturally, when I extend this logic to the rest of the people, it is only predictable that they could be feeling the exact thing. I have found that though many movements start out on the net, they comprise of only the middle to upper classes and mostly they are constrained to one city or so.
Now, my question is what makes us not be wary of such in groups on the net. Why is freedom of expression practiced there and not outside? Why do I write about what I feel, but when it comes to arguing with my grandfather who says that no matter what you become, women should cook, I simply smile and let it go? I am confused. I can refuse to be served second at the family get together lunch because I am a girl, but I don’t. Instead I ferociously attack the predatory nature of chauvinism on the online communities, but hardly open my mouth in public. Why is there a social gag on our voices? Shouldn’t the system encourage us, the majority, to find in groups within us rather than discriminating on the basis of beliefs? I have to be able to stand up straight and say I have my period and I have entered the temple to prove that the sky doesn’t fall down if I do so. The other fellow should be able to express something equally politically incorrect, no matter what his views are. That is precisely what the online communities do. There is no necessity for political correctness. Your conviction is held true without judgment which might cause you any direct harm. Besides, there is always some random stranger who supports your case. It is this safety net that lets most people take that leap into the world of public opinions.
But, the real question here is, whether this helps anything. True, the ideas are broadcasted and you find your in-group, but it stops there in almost all cases. I found out rather roughly that there is a kind of social barrier which promotes isolation between these groups. For example, certain atheist groups do not encourage theists to join their discussion since they ‘preach’ to them. Similarly Pakistanis cannot have a say in Indian matters. There is almost no communication between the groups, which is rather sad. Here, social networking becomes just another vestigial tool, which majority doesn’t care to use in the right way. This social isolation or should we say virtual isolation demands of the individual that he/she be dogmatic, whether a theist or an atheist, whether a chauvinist or a feminist, whether an Indian or a Pakistani, with absolutely no say over the other. The intellectuality reeks of rotting thoughts and nothing more. We have become parodies and parrots, with no originality. We talk, we create. To what end? In this case, the system gags us again. How pathetic is that! That we allow the gag on our liberty in the real world to closet us in the virtual world! Where we are headed, I wonder!
Hopefully ‘To a future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone, to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone’.
And thus I bury my originality by plagiarizing George Orwell. Thus, we all, generation after generation, in this futile attempt to be original, do nothing but remain closeted and ape the words of the greater ones.
There was a feature on a prominent news channel today about mass adulteration of milk in Mumbai. It was shown how they carefully open hundreds of milk packets and replace the milk with water. Apparently milk adulteration is a non bailable offence. I have often noticed that in such cases the media tends to concentrate on the harm caused by such ‘anti social elements’. It makes me wonder how far we would go using laws and security as solutions to problems that lie at the roots of the society. Do we ever pause to wonder how desperate a person should be to turn him to such activities? Does the Govt provide jobs or rehabilitation in such cases? Are second chances given instead of labeling them as criminals? What we do not remember is that this is an illness which strikes at the whole system. Now, we have two choices. We can take immediate steps to cure the system or we can take preventive measures. And I say both are necessary. Laws and force aren’t going to be enough to deter a person from engaging in wrongful activities in the future. It is because of some simple reasons. One, our population is becoming larger and larger. True, the growth rate is slowing down, but still it is a long way from stabilizing. There is a constant demand on the resources of the nation by the populace. Since agriculture has ceased to be a viable means of income and since globalization has given an impetus to the service sector, naturally the rural to urban immigration is more. Once the migrants reach the destination society, they exert more pressure on the framework without any scaffolding from the system. They need money. Two, global warming. Seems silly? Well, in the coming years more and more people…millions will be pushed down the gutters of poverty. The Ganga plains will dry up slowly. How will the system feed all these people? The British did nothing during the various famines India witnessed during their reign. Lakhs perished. Now, this is a democracy and millions will perish by starvation. There is nothing we can do to avoid it. We can try and postpone the catastrophe. But I doubt if we can stop it by the looks of the complete indifference of the system keepers. Three, plain apathy of this generation. The present generation which idolizes nepotism, vindicates consumerism and are products of complete brain muting hardly care what happens at the lowest rungs of the society. So what if Dalits are still made to bear inhuman torture? So what if their ACs take much more energy than fans in a climate where people are dying of heat stroke? Their lives are comfortable in the nuances of Prada, Pepsi and Twitter.
We are at the crossroads here. And we are taking all the wrong turns. Without exception we know which ones are the right ones. But we refuse to. We know that people cannot be approached as problems that have to be solved. They have to be approached as people. The Govt says, the FICCI says that we need to build infrastructure in the Maoist controlled areas so that people can be empowered. Now the right question is why is the FICCI concerned other than to make sure ‘development’ proceeds along the lines they draw? We build bigger storage facilities, store more wheat when people are starving and instead of exporting the necessary quota, we import. The facilities will get bigger and bigger. Who benefits? I don’t know. All I know is that democracy has ceased to be democratic. It has ceased to be people centric.
Agnes Repplier once wrote ‘Democracy forever teases us with the contrast between its ideals and its realities, between its heroic possibilities and its sorry achievements.’ How true! How sorry!
So, well here I go again. When I wanted to write, I had two topics in mind, both running off in opposite directions. Obviously I chose only one. It is about me. You see, only when life throws something big at you that you even realize that you are capable of catching it without falling down. Or even if you do fall down, life seldom waits for you to get up and pick up the pieces. The winner is not the one who doesn’t fall, but the one who falls, gets up, brushes off his/her defeat and stares at life in its face. I realized this only a short while back. So I thought maybe I should write about what I have learnt in the past month. It may seem strange. But like I said, you need to wait till life taunts you cruelly to see how strong you are. As I write this, there is a strange sensation at the pit of my stomach. My critics tell me that my most endearing quality as a writer is the honesty of my words. Perhaps it is this honesty that I am scared of. Doesn’t matter. Consider it another of my rants. Where do I start?
Where better than love! I learnt that love is the strongest word in the dictionary. It is stronger than words, swords or the most evil cause that can be conjured by the human mind. I am not talking about the eternal love that beseeches you and lets you believe life is euphoric. I am talking about falling down, looking around helpless and suddenly everyone whom you thought had turned against you gives a hand. I had that moment a while back. There was not a murmur of disapproval, no questions, no accusations. However much I might’ve pained them, they held me tight without even a tremor of anger. Only my pain mattered to them. It is that love that brought me back to reality. The highlight of that period was when my brother with whom I was fighting for silly reasons, one who always expressed his love in the un-loveliest ways, put his arm over my shoulder and told me that he cannot be mushy, he doesn’t know how to be, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love me. This unconditional love gives me the protection that I thought I could get from an ephemeral infatuation.
Then I learnt that no matter what I won’t crumble. I considered myself to be too fragile which I am not. I have strength in me which originates from my heart. Somehow, my heart throbs are stronger than ever. And now, they beat only for me. That liberates me. After all, goddesses need gods, not mediocre human beings. (Didn't mean to say I'm a goddess, but hinting at my self worth and who should be worthy of me.) I feel not like Virginia Woolf or Silvia Plath, but rather like Joan of Arc. I am ready to fight for what I believe till am burnt at stake.I am not going down as a coward or as a woman who weeps over her lost dreams. Dreams change. But I have only one life.
Third, I rediscovered the forces of nature. When earlier it was the vastness of the ocean that mesmerized me, now it is the wave. There was this one day when I was standing at the edge of the water allowing the waves to sweep past my feet. Then somehow I was drawn forward. I remember looking at the huge incoming wave and getting scared. I don’t know how to swim. What if I am pulled in? But I stood there, my heart beating fast, wanting to run back to safety. When the wave crashed, it swept past me, higher than my waist and pulled back with the same force. And I was still standing. It might seem trivial. But it was wonderful to me. When the next big wave came, I told myself – Look at it, those are your fears; you can either run or face them. If you run, you remain safe, but you remain scared and scarred. Face them, the salt heals your wounds, but whether or not you fall, you remain true.
Around ten to fifteen such waves later, I was standing still, drenched to my bones. But still standing.
Then I learnt something. You can’t build reality on passion. Passion is something to fly on, not to build on. Passion doesn’t earn trust. It is transitory and momentary. Love is not. Love holds. And the funniest thing is, the passion had never earned trust. All the promises of taking care and protection held from me the truth that i didn't need to be protected. I have done that my whole life without flinching and holding fast to my courage of conviction. Had the trust been earned, I would still be crying over losses, not happy that I escaped my soul’s death. For now, I cease running. No nightmares. Now I know that safety and that light becomes me. Something I have to spread, not extinguish. Yes, it is hard. When you strip naked to your soul and then try and get the whole system to work again. The snake's head keeps popping up and asking 'why?' 'why?' 'why?'. The snake of hatred. It is hard to find the anti-venom to its poison which tries to invade my heart. The only protection is my purity. My love. I cannot hate. Simple truth - I don't need to hate to love this world or feel loved. And that frees me.
So yes, i learnt quite a few things over the last month. And I'm happy I did. Because for the first time in 21 months, I'm actually alive.
Didn’t Maya Angelou say something like ‘We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated.'?
Stuck it in a box,
Clamped it shut.
Sat on it till
The screams waned, but,
Unforeseen,
In one moment
The clamp came undone.
Nursing the agony,
Pieced it together,
Glued as one.
A stubborn little crack,
Vainly was I filling
When it shattered again.
Amend a broken heart;
I sat by it,
Cried memories,
And smiled regrets.
It laughed and laughed,
At my helpless sighs,
Frozen tears.
As with a friend,
Tried logic,
Reminded the betrayal,
Scolded at the unworthy hurt,
Useless questions.
Ignore, ignore
I whispered-
His name,
In the lub-dubs
That grew louder.
With patches of pain,
Stitched up what was left.
The last pull of
My last stitch,
The needle of anger-
It pricked my soul.
I dropped my heart.
The scattered beats,
The million resonances,
I gathered with trembling hands.
Among the remnants
Of divine hate,
Set fire to it.
And as the last embers dimmed,
I felt my heart beat.
My heart beats.
It is yet another Women’s Day. The centennial actually. How wonderful! A day signifying all the glory and ‘empowerment’ of women. It is today that my attention turned to some incidents in no way connected, yet somehow entwined. First off, in 82 years of the ‘prestigious’ Academy Awards’ history, a woman won in the Best Director category. I was musing over the hurdles she might’ve faced as a woman and whether a Kathryn Bigelow would’ve emerged from the Indian soil, who stays in India and takes films of political importance. Right at that moment, I got a text message from my best friend wishing me a happy woman’s day. Suddenly I’m lost. Not because I’m not happy that somebody remembers that 3 billion people in this world exist, but because they need a day to be reminded so. My housekeeper cum cook asks me what she should make for breakfast and again, my randomly coherent brain leaps in her direction. She woke up as usual. She works for around 18 hours a day. Does she know that gender signifies anything special in this society and that’s why her sons can berate her for not getting the lunch ready in time? Even though she is the main bread winner of her family, she is treated as a second class member. Is she aware she deserves more? Unfortunately, like most of the three billion, she is not. If there is no water in the tap, she has to wake up earlier and go to the road side tap. Easier, I think. Considering the fact that women and girls have to walk miles for two pots of water everyday. So what if her uterus tilted due to some accident and every time she has sex, it pains and her husband still uses her irrespective of her medical condition, causing her more pain? Women in Congo are raped with sticks and guns so that their insides are torn apart and their bladders burst. She has it relatively easy. Alright, so let’s leave my housekeeper there. Let’s go to another extremely poignant peace of news. At the national consultation on access to justice, relief and rehabilitation of rape victims organized by the Women and Child Development Ministry, CJI said that due respect must be given to the rape victim’s autonomy whether she could marry the rapist if so offered. I’m at a loss here to understand what this ‘autonomy’ is. It reinforces the idea that patriarchal protection of women is more important than justice as established by the law of the land. It conveys to the potential rapist that his moral obligation is diluted. He can now rape a woman on the possibility that if he becomes her husband, he gets the legal right to rape her. What kind of autonomy is that? There is no freedom in choosing to live a life in hell with someone who violated you or being support less in society. What are we telling the ordinary woman here? I’m with the UP CM here. Financial compensation for rape victims is the most plausible justice. Well, it seems crude. But let us analyze the system a bit. The major social objectives of justice in a rape case should be to empower the victim and punish the rapist. Empowerment in a society like ours doesn’t come with slogans and moral courage. It comes with equipping an ordinary woman to face the morrow with confidence. Telling the woman that there is such an option undermines the scope of law and empowerment. Take the case of Sushama Tiwari, a 25 year old UP Brahmin girl who married an Ezhava man from Kerala only to have death snatch him away after seven months of marriage in the form of the ever-so-brutal honor killing. He was killed along with his parents and two other minor family members. The perpertrators? Sushama’s brother and his four friends. Although the Bombay HC awarded death sentences to them, the SC in Dec ’09 changed it into 25 years life imprisonment. Well, I know it feels like I’m on a roll here judging justice. But, like all my other rants, just bear with it. So, we would think that Sushama who escaped by a hair while pregnant and who is tired after all this struggling, would stop. No. She is at loggerheads with the SC, condemning its verdict. The society would think- ‘Say; the girl wants her brother to die too? What kind of a woman is she?’ And I would say- the right kind. The kind that awoke to this mad world and decided that she wants to change her bit of it through her convictions. Now, what gives her this courage? Is it love? Is it education? I’m not sure. I feel the latter is the firm base beneath her. Education gives the woman better odds of finding herself and standing up to what she believes. As I’m writing this, I cannot but wonder what the use of my intellectual enema is. The poor Mr Hamid Ansari was practically dragged away from his podium because the democracy in India cannot see eye to eye in one of the most historic Bills till date. The Women’s Bill is causing such a furore and for all the wrong reasons. Yes, I do agree that reservation should be there within the reservation. I do agree that UPA is trying to make this their NREGA in the next elections. But, Acts can always be amended. That’s why Parliament exists. Instead of waiting for some more years for such a bill to be tabled again (after the usual numerous commissions and reports), logic is in passing it now with precise debates and considerations and amending it later. But, it is not the objective of the fuss, is it? It is not an amendment that matters, it is the bill itself. So, yes, hundred years pass and another hundred will pass. May every Women’s Day be this eventful, because it seems man sees not the bosom but the heart and woman sees not the womb but the head only one day of the year. The question remains though…. When the planet is all sucked dry by us and we return to the cave, will the only reason woman gets the fair share of the meal be because she carries the child or because she gathers firewood? Madness, madness.
