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.   

Flesh and Blood

She sighed, the last drop of motherhood

cleaned off of her, cleansed in the ritual

of medical precision.

A boy! She heard the doctor say; a sting

of love meandered unwelcome, reaching

maritime deep of denial.

Minute of minute indecision held sway

the pristine anguish; unwilling synapses

firing in rapid pulses.

A tear rolled down, burdened by the pact

carefully undone in destiny, resigned to

the validity of her sign.

Outside, his blissful parents cooed in love

abundant, echoes of absolute affection,

oblivious of the womb.

Names

You call me a nothing, an
object; frigid or a whore.

Them flat as a pancake,
ear warmers, flesh pillows.

Snort at the astronaut's
wife, whistle at the babe.

Am a bad girl or a good
wife; a slave or mistress.

Snooty, arrogant; if you
pass by and i don't care.

My box in open fantasies,
shut in your wilful reality.

Bad kitty purr on your lap,
slut if pick anyone but you.

Everything good and bad;
hot and not, lovable and
hateful, but never.....

Ghost

If
I could breathe for you,
would the chains of our
regret,
fall apart; asleep in time?

A
sigh of your cold heart,
reflecting blue in tender
agony,
untold, whispered to me.

May
I seek your trembling soul,
kiss the whimpering hurt
restless,
twisted, forsaken by her?

Your
voice echoes the insanity,
reverberant, catatonic;
seeping
through my unwilling ears.

The
years, crowded with much
more than that moment,
sigh
as my tears cry in your pain.

Am
your ghost, forever a shadow
creeping into your existence,
breath
of relief as you laugh with her.

Shoot

He talked.
not about flowers or the enchanting
snow falling on perilous mountain
slopes.

About the
sting of excitement as the bullet left
his gun, poised in numb anticipation,
serene.

He saw
the fall, gutted remains tangled in the
mangled screams of a startled family,
descend.

I asked,
if he felt the hit; life hesitantly escape,
unceremonious from target’s stomach,
spill.

He laughed,
parable of a soldier’s duty, wrapped
cozy in trained reflexes, structured to
kill.

Educating Girls..

Hundred International Women’s Days have been celebrated, a Socialistic movement turned into a universal movement. There have been many analyses and critiques churned out in the past couple of weeks. Some illustrating how far women empowerment has come since Women’s Suffrage and how much more gender equal our societies have become while some have carefully pointed out the flaws and the deficiencies in the present scheme of things. I intend to do neither. There have been times when I have asked myself if automatic Universal Suffrage was a bad idea in India. We never had a Women’s Suffrage movement. In fact apart from pockets of resistance on social issues regionally, we don’t even realise that women make up half the democratic base in India. But I woke up today asking myself a specific question- what is the failure of Women Empowerment in India? There was only one example which came to my mind.

 A couple of weeks back, the baby of one of my closest friends came down with measles. The immediate concern of hers  was if she would be able to tend to her child, because measles is associated with a goddess and my friend was about to have her period- an educated woman fearing god’s wrath and being ready to not tend to her sick child.

In a nation where roughly only more than half the population of women is literate, it is a crime that educated women hold on to such dogmas in the name of tradition and culture. True, a person has the right to practice his/her faith. But it should stop the moment when faith encroaches on common sense and science. Education is supposed to set a person free. There is a quote which has been used often that “If you educate a man you educate a person but if you educate a woman you educate a family.”. But, what if the education stops at the gate to her house? When an entire community or society tells her that her common sense colliding with faith is not permissible, she resigns her brain in faith’s and tradition’s favor.

Women in India go through a lot. From the very first step to the last breath. A woman of the general population has to let go of her dreams in order to fulfill the obligations that ‘culture’ bestows on her. Religion just adds insult to the injury. I draw my line at being told by people that I am not worthy of entering god’s abode because I am impure during ‘those days’. Menstrual blood is even a source of endometrial stem cells. Imagine that. Yet, I am impure because the scriptures say so. I, as a woman of more than 12 years of formal education am perfectly satisfied at being treated like a cow. I, as a woman of more than 15 years of education still have to wear a burqa in the hot and humid climate because my faith tells me to. I, as a woman doing her PhD still do not believe condoms are to be used and I believe abortion is a sin, because my priests tell me so. 

Reason is not a sin, it is not a crime. On the other hand, not using the right to inquiry that evolution has so graciously gave us, is indeed a crime. If you evolved into a human being, it means you are naturally inclined to ponder over the restraints imposed on you. This functional disability imposed by religion as a mental set is not natural. It is simply a power-play. Women have the capacity to make or break a society. If you keep my thoughts chained, you make sure that I breed docile human beings into the next generation. But on the other hand, if I break free, I am a threat to the status quo, to the social collectiveness which ensures a smooth flow of functioning. And yet, I, the woman of the 21^st century, need to be shaken by my shoulders and taken out of my trance by another human being. Even then, I refuse to go beyond the ‘wisdom’ that I shouldn’t refuse my husband sex or go on birth control. 

That right there is the failure of women’s empowerment in India, ie, educated, enlightened, tech-savvy women of today not being able to shake past their religious beliefs to lead more fulfilling lives. What is the use of putting the girl child through school then? We campaign for pro-choice, we stand steadfast asking for 33% reservation, we shout against honour killing. But real change begins at home. Unless I am able to tell my parents that they are wrong and that I am going to tend to my sick child no matter what, we as a society are doomed.

Are there any ways out? YES. Girls need to be taught to be proud of their bodies from a young age. They should be made aware that breasts are natural and menstruation is nothing to be ashamed of. If a young girl is confident of her body, it is inevitable that she will question every process which tries to suppress her as a woman. That is how educating girls should move forward. Simultaneously, she should also be equipped with the support system to jeer back at the boys who giggle when she has to be excused from a classroom to change her sanitary pad. When she is told that she cannot attend an auspicious ceremony because of her ‘condition’, she must have the courage to ask why it is so. She should develop a sense of ‘I’ enough to question why her hair should be covered in church and why it is her shame that men become enticed by it. Education must prepare our girls to develop that faculty of questioning which religion suppresses. I would pity a nation full of educated women who are like my friend. 

Remember, culture and traditions are not something that sprouted into existence all of a sudden. They are something which continue to evolve. Either you, as a man or a woman can contribute to its progression in a more egalitarian and socially sustainable manner or you can watch the disintegration and destruction of every fundamental right at its root. In simple words- do or die. The choice is yours.