The XX Factor

A Man In India

2010-02-08T12:26:00.014+05:30

I am a man. A man in India.

As a citizen of India, I have some rights - as do all other citizens of India. I may or may not exercise these rights, but I know that as a citizen of this country, no one can take these rights away from me.

I have the right to the highest quality of life in this nation. I have the right to the best food, the best clothes, the highest quality of education, the latest and most modern gadgets. I have the right to own the car with the best mileage. I have the right to live in a home with the best lawn and the biggest bath. I have the right to obtain a degree from the best university and grab the highest paying job in the fastest growing organisation.

I have the right to vote or not vote, to drink or not drink, to smoke or not smoke. I have the right to live and work wherever I wish to. I have the right to spend my time in whatever I find most worthwhile or most enjoyable. I have the right to entertain myself through whichever means are most pleasurable to me. I have the right to marry whoever I want to, whenever I want to, wherever I want to, in whichever manner I wish to. I also have the right to declare or not declare my love and my relationships to the world. I can choose to love whoever catches my fancy, to be friends with them whose company brings me the most joy, to love whoever is most compatible with me, to live with whoever brings me unending joy.

As a man in India, I also have some privileges. I may choose to exercise them, or choose to ignore them, but I know for sure that my gender alone is bestowed these privileges by the Indian society.

I have the privilege to molest a woman and get away with the slightest or no punishment, even harrass her to the extent that she ends her life and the associated torture. I have the privilege to throw acid on and disfigure any woman who refuses my overtures. I have the privilege to rape a woman and then become a magnanimous saviour and a celebrated hero by offering to marry her, since no one else will. I have the privilege to grope the breasts or genitals of any woman who passes by on the street. I have the privilege to feel up and/or press my body into any woman who travels in a bus/train with me. I have the privilege to forcibly drag a woman into my car and do with her whatever I please. I have the privilege to catcall, whistle at, pass lewd/rude remarks at, make derogatory references to, abuse, make fun of, belittle, demean and disrespect any random woman I wish to. I have the privilege to go 'see' as many women as I want to for selection of my bride, and then reject each one of them for being too dark or too tall or too fat or too slim or too short or too educated or too beautiful.

I have the privilege to label any woman who I molest or rape as 'characterless', and have the entire society in my support. I deem it under my privilege to consider asking a woman for 'permission' to touch her - it is my right. I have the privilege to rape a woman and then hold her responsible for not dressing right or being out late at night or talking to me or having been drunk or visiting a nightclub. I have the privilege to assault any random women who choose a lifestyle beyond my very limited comprehension or who dare to think for themselves or who dare to be happy in any place other than their husband's shadow. I can beat up girls who dare to have fun or believe in something I do not. I have the privilege to burn alive women who belong to a caste or sect or race or religion that is distinct from mine. I have the privilege to see 'gori chamdi' as easily available, to believe women who dress in jeans or skirts are wanting to be raped, to think that tourists who visit India are actually only looking for sex.

I have the privilege to harass women on social networking sites with demands for 'fraandship' and 'true relationship', regardless of whether they are interested. I have the privilege to superimpose pictures of random women and girls on those in 'objectionable' poses, and then harrass them for money or sex. I have the privilege to assault and abuse any woman that catches my fancy, and then be absolved of all responsibility since it is she who should have been careful enough while interacting with me. I have the privilege to assassin any woman's character merely by being seen with her.

I have the privilege to interfere in the life of my sister, control how she lives and who she talks to, decide what she wears and where she goes, plan (or not plan) her education and marriage as per my whims, beat her and/or confine her to my home if she does not listen to me, kill her for my 'honour' if she uses her own brain and makes her own choices. I have the privilege to have my wife wait upon my every command, to control her life and mind, to lord over her, to treat her as my personal possession, to ask to sever her relations with her kith and kin, to make unreasonable demands from her or her family, to question her every move, to force my wishes on hers, to smother her dreams and desires with my own, to strangulate her talents and reduce her to a monotron.

I have the privilege to be thought of fervently by my family, to be wished of, to be prayed for, to be conceived, to be nurtured in my mother's womb, to be allowed to be born, to be cherished at birth and for life, to receive the best from my home and my world. I have the privilege to choose the way I live, the way I dress, the way I behave, the way I think and act. I have the privilege to not be responsible for my behaviour and to pin the blame on the victim of my actions.

I have these privileges because I am a man in India - the nation that grants unconditional and unquestionable supremacy to the masculine gender right from when they are planned to be conceived. I am SP Rathore, Manu Sharma, Vikas Yadav, Mahendra Singh Tikait, Pramod Muthalik, Baitullah Mehsud, Ankit Dalal. I represent the Taliban, the Darul Uloom, the Ibtehad Council, the Fatwa Brigade, the Vatican, the Bajrang Dal, the Shri Ram Sene, the Shiv Sena, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Hindu Jan Jagruti Samiti, the Sangh Parivar. I am the privileged one, not Ruchika Girhotra, not Jessica Lal, not Bharti Yadav, not Taslima Nasreen, not Mukhtaran Mai, not the 'Qatif Girl', not Neha Chhikara.

They are women. They are women in India.

I am a man. I am a man in India. I am privileged.

Not Woman Enough?

2010-01-12T10:36:00.006+05:30

I could hardly believe my eyes when I read this today. I read and hear the absurdest of accounts in newspapers every day, but this one is something the wildest of my imaginations could never comprehend. It made me marvel at the nadirs our supposedly 'honorable' courts manage to sink in to, and how a human has ceased to be considered so, and how all this is so easily allowed to go on.

The 'case' goes such. A woman (let's call her W) worked as a housemaid in a home. One day in April 2006, a man accosted her on way to work, dragged her to a secluded spot, and raped her. The woman, once she came to and realised what had happened, wasted no time in lodging an FIR at the nearest police station. Subsequently, the police nabbed the accused Kashinath and booked him under Section 376 (rape). Not surprisingly, he was soon released on bail, even while the case was still pending in a sessions court.

During the trial, the public prosecutor (a woman) asked W to narrate the unfortunate incident in detail, and W revealed certain facts from her personal life. She told a stunned court and bench that she had never had a menstrual cycle. This was also probably why, according to her, she had never had a physical relationship with her husband of two years. On undergoing a battery of medical tests, it was discovered that the sexual/reproductive organs of W were not fully formed - a congenital condition.

If you think this was a shocking pronouncement, nothing can beat the astounding decision the bench (presumably having some kind of basic minimum educational qualification) conferred on the accused. The defence counsel stated that the medical tests that W was subjected to were proof that she had 'not been raped'! And in an apalling judicial verdict, the rapist was set free, acquitted of all possible charges - even those of 'outraging modesty' or assault!

Now come to think of it, what could have prompted such an absurdity from the 'learned' bench? And on a tangential (yet related) note, who is a woman? Or rather, what is a woman? Does a person being have to have the entire paraphernalia of breasts and vagina and uterus and ovaries to be a woman? Or do the qualifying criteria also include the presence of supposedly womanly behaviour traits - compassion, tolerance, maternal instinct? Is the menstrual cycle the defining characteristic of what makes a woman? Or can a woman not have fully-formed or fully-functioning ovaries and yet be a woman? What about a woman who has her fair share of 'feminine' personality traits but lacks a uterus? Or contrarily, what of a woman who has the required physical attributes but does not love children and cannot tolerate the colour pink? Who, then, is a woman?

And anyway, why does a woman need to have sexual organs in order to be sexually violated? A female infant of a few months may not have a fully-developed uterus, has no breasts at all, and has no menstruation. But she is still considered vulnerable to being raped by the Indian law, and granted protection under the Child Abuse Act. Similarly, a woman well past her menopause with ovaries that no longer function and a non-existent menstrual cycle is also protected from rape by the Indian law. Why, then, did the same law fail to protect W?

Is she not woman enough?

What will shock us now?

2009-12-24T11:26:00.009+05:30

If ever there was a travesty of justice, it is this. And we all stand as mute spectators to it. Shockingly, this has ceased to shock us any more than our hair turning white or our brow getting wrinkled would.

19 years ago, a man twice molested a 14-year-old child - a budding tennis star and a chirpy teenager. Today, he smiles as he fishes out a crisp 1000-rupee note to offer as 'punishment' for his 'frivolity'. As for the girl, she died 16 years ago, unable to seek justice and compassion, unable to see her tormentor tormenting her and her family, unable to ask for her right as a human in a state where a woman is hardly so, unable to look at tomorrow in a society where a girl is both unwanted and dispensable plus a lot of trouble, unable to live her dreams (or even her rightful life) in a nation that can see no reason but only power and clout. The story of Ruchika Girhotra is too common, too repetitive, too frequent.

In the summer of 2010, a woman will turn 58. Only, she will never know that, just as she has never known herself since 1973. A wardboy raped and sodomised a nurse, brutally assaulting her and asphyxiating her with a dog's leash. Today, the man walks the streets after a six-year sentence - not for rape, though. The woman, brain dead and oblivious to life, remains permanently vegetative in a hospital bed. The 'honourable' court demurred that the victim had been anally penetrated, so she was still technically a virgin - and thus could not have been 'raped'. The accused had gone to her 'with the intention to rape' - which, of course, was not seen as important enough. The nation has failed yet another woman, and Aruna Shanbaug will never know what she went through that night, what it has cost her and her loved ones.

In mid-2003, a nurse employed with a prominent hospital in Delhi was tending to a patient. Suddenly, she found a ward boy pressing into her from behind. As she turned to protest, the man plunged his fingers into her eyes - gouging out her right eye and grievously injuring the left. He then raped her and left her in a storeroom to be discovered unconscious the next day. The woman approached the court for justice and patiently waited for the judge to pronounce the sentence. Suddenly, the unthinkable happened. The rapist Bhura proposed marriage to her in order to 'wash off her stigma' and 're-establish her in society', for he felt no one else would want to marry a 'used' woman. The Additional Sessions Judge J M Malik took up the offer and delayed the judgement, giving the victim time to 'consider the proposal'. The victim refused, citing the offer to be intensely degrading and humiliating to her. Bhura was then awarded a life sentence, but not before the judge stated that the 'last-minute marriage offer' was rendered 'malafide' since the accused had not expressed 'remorse' throughout the trial.

But no, all of this does not shock India’s judiciary. The Supreme Court and the not-so-supreme courts all remain mute as India goes on violating human rights. We continue to have abject poverty, appalling malnutrition, intense infant and maternal mortality, extreme numbers of farmers committing suicide, an unacceptable number of boots in the Kashmir valley, unspeakable atrocities in the North East, a laughable role in many of our neighbourhoods. But this does not awaken the citizens of this great nation, nor the many supposedly 'honourable' courts.

Judge Sturgess of England has famously remarked: "Justice is open to everyone in the same manner as the Ritz Hotel." At home in India, we can seamlessly substitute 'Ritz' with 'Taj' or 'Oberoi' or whatever takes our fancy. The truth remains the same - justice, far from being the most basic of human rights, becomes the personal possession of the privileged few. But then, a court of law need not necessarily be a court of justice.

These tragic tales are not only about justice delayed and denied. Importantly, they are about justice being made a mockery of, and of appalling disrespect for a fellow human. More importantly, they are also about the ruthlessness with which the morally corrupt seek to silence the victims of their misdeeds. But most importantly, these are sorry accounts of how the State, as we understand it, colludes with criminals to whitewash their crimes. When certain individuals - the rich, the famous, the mighty - get away with the most heinous of crimes, society loses respect for the law of the land. When such people are not shamed, let alone punished, the law-abiding citizen loses trust in those who supposedly implement/uphold laws. Worse, the judiciary becomes an object of ridicule.

I feel that dog collar around Aruna's neck is a manifestation of all that is wrong in the Indian society today. It is the noose that hangs around your neck for all your life, if you are not the high and mighty, and especially if you are a woman. Men get their fair share of injustice and harassment, no doubt. But it is a fact that, especially in India, wherever a case involves a woman, the public already has its verdict - the said woman must have overstepped/crossed some invisible line, the 'lakshman-rekha'. Why is it that, in a nation that virtually deifies the woman, it is so difficult for a woman to find respect for herself? Why is it that in India 'boys will be boys', but girls are always a burden (or politely put, a responsibility)?

If a woman's honour must be protected, why should it be at the cost of her freedom and her right to live her life as she wishes to? Shouldn't such protection come from educating our men - and women - to respect her as they would want to be respected themselves? Shouldn't we teach our sons and brothers that our daughters and sisters too are individuals - with the same dreams and wishes, with the same aspirations, with the same need for space, with the same right to oneself? Why do we instead choose to silence our sisters' laughter, strangulate our daughters' dreams - and draw their space for them? It is easy, isn't it, to control the one who can be easily controlled, rather than hold ourselves responsible for our actions? Let men molest and rape - it will always be because the woman was not appropriately attired or did not behave within the limits we defined for her, never because the men saw her not as a human but as their personal belonging.

Why do men think that women are their private property, that they can do with them whatever they fancy? Why do women think they can (or must) not raise their voice, or even their eyes, up to men within their homes and outside? Why is it that a man can get his way around by beating his wife, but a wife must stifle her dreams and desires to live the way her husband wishes her to?

Outside her home, why is it that a woman must take resposnsibility of the behaviour of men towards her? Why is she asked to dress in accordance with men's wishes? Is it because men are so intellectually and emotionally defunct that they go raving mad whenever they see as much as a stray hair or a bare arm of a woman? No, it is definitely not that, for men are beings of reason and understand their instincts/emotions perfectly. Then it must be because some men molest and rape, know it was wrong on their part, appreciate that the society will always judge the woman and not them, and therefore waste no time in pointing their finger at her.

Is this injustice so hard to spot, or is it that it has now become a way of life for our men and women? In a free society, anyone can have their own set of norms for acceptable behaviour which they would like to see in others. But they can do nothing at all to enforce that behaviour - that is simply not acceptable.

Even if a woman walks the streets stark naked at 1 am, it still does not give any random man the authority or the license to violate her freedom. At best, the said man can report the matter to the police if it violates the law of the land. But how does he suddenly get bestowed with the power to vitiate her private space? If a man gets aroused seeing a woman (and it could be her bare breasts as much as it could be only the veil over her face that aroused him), it is his problem and not her. It is his responsibility, and not hers, to control his urges. Tell me, what does a 2-month-old infant or a 90-year-old woman do to arouse a man? Contrary to popular imagination, they get raped too. It is about time men seriously grow up and start taking responsibility for their own behaviour. It is also about time women start taking responsibility for their own lives - their freedom, their space, their wants and desires, their rights.

But no, these stories do not shock us.

I simply have two questions to ask. If not us, who? If not now, when?

Happy Birthday, Papa!

2009-12-15T18:19:00.003+05:30

They say the most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. My father? He loves his wife to death - sometime even more than his children, I feel! The first man in my life, he shall always remain so. He has been my harshest critique, compelling me to do better or look further beyond. He has also been my greatest comfort, healing those skinned knees and broken hearts of my childhood. He has told me stories and fairy-tales when sleep eluded me. He has held me tight in his arms when those nightmares haunted me. Today, in the 28th year of my life, he still tells me comforting stories to make me sleep and still holds me tight when the nightmares of life terrify me.

Papa has been my Santa Claus, bringing me whatever I desired whenever I did (and even when I did not!). He has been my Easter Bunny, surprising me with things I'd only dreamt of but never asked for. He has been my co-conspirator whenever we ganged up against Mummy or my brother. He has also been my 'agony uncle' when I lamented about that guy who I had a crush on, or the one who had a crush on me. Then, he has been my panacea when growing pangs ravaged me, and still do. He is, I'm proud to state, the best cure for my crankiness and torment on those difficult days of the month!

Most of all the other wonderful things in life come by twos and threes or by dozens and hundreds. There will always be plenty of flowers, stars, sunsets, dewdrops, rainbows, brothers, sisters, friends. But there is only one father in the whole world. My father is someone I never have to seek - he is always there when I want him, and always a step behind me when I need to be left alone. No gift to him can ever equal his gift to me - life!

Happy birthday, Papa.

A little girl needs her Papa

For many, many things:

Like holding her high off the ground

Where the sunlight sings!

Like being the deep music

That tells her all is right

When she awakens frantic with

The terrors of the night.

Like being the great mountain

That rises in her heart

And shows her how she might get home

When all else falls apart.

Like giving her the love

That is her sea and air,

So diving deep or soaring high

She'll always find him there.

The Great Indian Cultural Tamasha

2009-07-27T01:30:00.009+05:30

This, this, and this - if nothing else, must be Indian culture. Oh, and this definitely is.

I'm speechless.

I'll only say, "Support bacteria - they're the only culture some people have."

I'm not trying to be funny or insensitive, but I'm too disgusted to comment on those. And sickened with seeing this happen every damn day.

How, how, can we accept people hating each other as part of culture and look the other way, yet not accept people loving each other (and I'm not even talking about same-sex)?

How is it that we think nothing of humiliating, hurting, harassing, raping, killing other people yet would never ever wish the same upon ourselves or our dear ones?

How is it that we are so blind to others and so full of ourselves that we just cannot accept anyone who is even slightly different than us or does not think/act/live/drink/eat in the same way?

How can we justify any amount and any magnitude of wrongdoing under the labels of 'culture' and 'religion'? How can one person/group have a definition of 'culture' or 'religion' that can be applied to the family, state, nation or even humanity as a whole?

When will we see a woman as just another individual and not a 'woman'? When will we see her as a human being just like any of us? When will we see her as a person and not our or someone else's or just anyone's property? When will we see her as an equal?

Why are we tolerant of the wrong things - harassment, rape, murder, crime against women, crime against children, deceit, betrayal? Why are we not tolerant about religious freedom? Why are we not tolerant about artistic expression? Why are we not tolerant about relationships - between the same or opposite sexes? We could be but we are not. What we are tolerant of, instead, is bullying, crime, gross neglect of safety, and the subversion of justice.

Why do some of us, despite being taught to worship women, go about raping/molesting/killing them? Why do some of us think that if a girl wears a sleeveless top or shorts, she is 'available'? Why do some of our men have serious issues with reporting to a female boss? Why are some Indians so sexually repressed that even looking at a woman arouses them enough to molest/rape her?

The real issue that we must grapple with when such incidents occur is India's collective inability to accept that women have rights, that they are human beings, that they should be left alone, and that they have a right to occupy space in the public arena. If we do not tell a woman to eat brinjals instead of potatoes or drink juice instead of water, what possibly can give us the right to ask her to wear a saree instead of jeans?

It runs deep into our collective psyche. Most of our men wish to marry so that they won't have to eat outside food while living alone in their city of work. In a family run by a working couple, it is the woman who is expected to carry out all the household chores after performing her duties at the office. The men just take it for granted. The women do, too. What's worse, if an understanding husband tells his buddies that he manages the home/kitchen or babysits while she is at work, as a genuine gesture for the woman he loves and not as a favour, he is likely to be ridiculed and laughed at.

It is an insult of the highest order to call a man a woman, or to say he tends to display certain 'feminine' qualities (such as love, caring, understanding). Why can a man not be accepted as being loving and caring and understanding? Why is a man who loves his wife and stands up for her called her slave, or even an eunuch? Why does a man constantly need to prove his manliness to the society by lording over the women in his life? Can he not love her or care for her as she does?

The answer is staring us in the face - everyday. In our towns and villages, millions of little boys grow up listening to someone telling a woman that she should not hold her head high when she walks, or that a woman's true calling lies in serving her husband and his family (mostly extended). In some small town a rape victim is asked to marry the rapist. In another village, a girl without a dupatta is called a whore and beaten and/or killed, and I haven't even mentioned jeans yet! In a well-built house in an affluent colony, a mother calls upon her daughter to help her with the dinner, never her son. In the same house, the father asks his son to get stuff from the market, never the daughter. So deep rooted are these gender roles that it is almost impossible for the average Indian to think of an gender-independent environment. Most of us discriminate without even realising it!

We as a nation are so sexually repressed and so condescending/patronising towards our women that we make it seem acceptable for a guy to feel a girl up in the bus, or slap her bottom on the road, or grab her chest in a shop, or touch/look at her inappropriately. Every single woman in this country will have a similar story from her life - regardless of whether she was wearing a burqa or a ghunghat or a saree or a skirt or a two-piece bikini. So much for the attire being responsible! Those who say women must not show skin since that turns men on must remember that their are men who can get turned on even by a glimpse of a woman's eyes or hair or hands or feet. Or simply her height - that turns on people too! So what must women do, be seen with a blindfold? Or not be seen at all? Or not be at all?

Indian society, with its holier-than-thou hypocrisy thinks nothing of perpetrating crime against women. Not even babies are spared! How do we stop it? Do we make fornication legal? Or do we make being a woman illegal? I believe a better way would be if we stop blaming the woman for the crime against her. If we really can accept that if drinking or smoking or dancing or losing your virginity is wrong for girls, it is wrong for boys too. If it is okay for boys, why not for girls? Our Constitution says we are all equal. So why do we add an asterisk to that and say 'conditions apply - check if you have a penis or breasts'?

We can never completely eradicate crime in a society, and even not crime targeted at women. But we definitely don't need educated (not simply literate) men demeaning their wives. We definitely can't accept mobs sexually assaulting women. We definitely can't tolerate a woman being shamed for being molested or raped. Lastly, we definitely must never let a woman feel she ought to have been born a man. How, as a nation, can we be outraged if a terrorist goes about killing innocent people, yet not feel even as much outrage if 50 men strip an innocent woman?

When will we learn to treat our women well? When will we give them the respect that they so deserve - if not for being women, at least for being humans? When will we stop judging our women on the basis of how and what they eat/drink/wear/say/act/live? When will we see our daughters and sons as no different from each other, both being our children? When will we see our husbands and wives as our partners and friends, with equal rights and equal responsibilities?

The links at the start of this post say (rather scream in my face), "Not any sooner."

Edited to add:

It was a saree-clad Sita that was abducted by Ravan. It was also a saree-clad Draupadi who was publicly stripped by Dushasan. Yet, it is Sita's fault coz she overstepped her boundary and Draupadi's fault coz she laughed at Duryodhan. Never mind what Ravan and Dushasan did! And if they could do it and get stories written and TV serials made for themselves, so can we. Behold the modern Ravans and Dushasan - a dozen a penny! Oh, and 'God' Krishna could get away with stealing the clothes of women who were bathing, and we proudly narrate the story to our sons!

So Did You Miss Me?

2009-07-03T00:11:00.003+05:30

Hi there, everyone! I disappeared for a while, and without letting anyone know. My sincere apologies.

Its been an unintended break, longer than expected. But like it tends to, life intervened. I’ve been busy with work, practically trying to keep my job in the dark economic times. Work aside, I have been suffering from the worst writer's block ever. Maybe the turmoil at work had something to do with this.

I promise to be up and shining soon, but it may take a little more time so don't forget to watch this space (and my other one too). I failed to write the last few weeks, which have been some of the most turbulent in my professional life. This, I confess, was totally deliberate. It just felt like I wasn’t doing justice to my writing if I wasn't writing with my mind and heart in it, and both these critical components of my being were kind of preoccupied with seemingly mundane issues. Nonetheless, enough excuses.

If there's one thing my being absent from the blogging scene has shown me, it is how much my writing is valued and appreciated, even eagerly awaited, by my friends on the blogosphere. Many thanks and a zillion hugs to my bestest friends here, especially Solilo, Indyeah, IHM, Monika (in no particular order). And everyone else who patiently awaited my return and regularly visited this space to check on me. I am ashamed to admit I'd actually thought my friends would have lost interest in my blogs since I'd not written for so long. I'm so very touched to see they are as loyal to my blogs as I am to theirs, even when I never announced I wouldn't be writing for a while. Thank you.

The Hand That Rocks The Cradle

2009-05-10T00:19:00.009+05:30

I'd rather be a mother than anyone on earth,
Bringing up a child or two of unpretentious birth.
I'd rather tuck a little child all safe and sound in bed,
Than twine a chain of diamonds about my carefree head.
I'd rather wash a smudgy face with round bright baby eyes,
Than paint the pageantry of fame or walk among the wise.
(Meredith Gray)

Zaputou Angami felicitated at the CNN-IBN and RIL "Real Heroes 2009" initiative

She is 85 and has mothered 81 children. One, her biological daughter. And the others, abandoned children from the insurgency-hit North East. She is Zaputou Angami, the Founder of the Kohima Orphanage in Nagaland's capital.

It all began in 1973 with one child. Zaputou was a nurse at the Government Hospital in Kohima when she brought home a baby abandoned by his parents. From that moment on, there was no looking back. Zaputou had brought home seven children when it hit her. She wondered how and why so many babies did not have parents.

Zaputou found herself to be very happy in the children's company. She found the job of feeding hungry mouths and singing to sleepy eyes and tending to injured knees to be more rewarding than any other job she wold ever do. The rest, as they say, is history.

To say it has been easy for Zaputou, or that life has been kind to her and her children, would be an insult to what this great mother has done and continues to do. She has seen days when there wasn't a paisa in her pocket but there were mouths to feed. She has seen nights when insects ravaged tiny bodies that only wished to sleep but there was nothing that could be done. She has also seen times when illness rampaged across the orphanage, and all that she could give to the children was her love.

37 years later, the road remains as difficult. Yet, Zaputuo has never thought twice about her journey. In insurgency-torn Nagaland, the Kohima Orphanage stands as a symbol of love and strength for children without a home. Amidst all the hate and the killings and the unrest, here is a place where life and hope abounds, where a goodnight kiss can wipe away tears of strife, where the strains of a lullaby can silence the loudest of bombs.

Zaputou's home runs on help that comes in bits and pieces from the state government, well-wishers, the church and the Assam Rifles. Today, a total of 80 children - from across Nagaland, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, and even Myanmar - are all proud members of Kohima Orphanage. Also with Zaputou is her own daughter Nebunuo, who smilingly supports her mother in the best and worst of times.

Sometimes, in this certain yet uncertain life for Zaputou and her children comes the time of presents and cakes and songs - a time all the little ones look forward to for simple joys. Beyond all this, the truth remains that this home survives on meals and clothes donated by people. Yet, unperturbed and undaunted, two brave and loving mothers - Zaputou and Nebanuo - continue on with the calling of their life, day after day.

Today, on Mother's Day, I pay homage to Zaputou and the many women like her around the world - who define motherhood in the true sense. Who are mothers not only because biology made them so, but also because they possess the grit and strength that only a mother can, and the will to not merely survive but actually live against all odds.

Happy Mother's Day, Mother!

Source: www.ibnlive.com
Picture courtesy: www.realheroes.com

Being 9, a girl, ... and PREGNANT!

2009-05-01T12:07:00.007+05:30

Brazil is home to coffee, carnivals, Pele, and the most number of Catholics in the world. It is also home to a 9-year-old child pregnant with twins. Till recently a sprightly and bright child, she was raped and impregnated by her stepfather. Doctors warned that she was not developed enough to carry forth a pregnancy, much less twins. In fact, not only was the child not physically developed to carry a pregnancy to term, but any attempt to do so would have jeopardized her life. The child herself weighed only 80 pounds.

Defying all rational thought, and in a declaration that would scare the daylights out of any sane individual, the Catholic Church declared the decision to abort the foetuses as amounting to 'murder'. Although abortion is illegal in Brazil, there are exceptions - and this case certainly qualified. Unfortunately, the child has now been labeled a murderer. I can not help but wonder how furtive glances of pity and shame would affect her as she attempts to build her life over the years with the weight of what she has already endured on her heart.

Then there is the man who raped her. He is in jail and will hopefully endure severe repercussions once he is convicted, although that may not be likely. Brazil's laws on rape would have been laughable had the situation not been so grim. Rape in this country is considered a crime only if the victim is a virgin or 'an otherwise noble woman'. Not surprisingly, the term 'noble' is not defined in the country's law books and is left to the imagination. Moreover, rape of a virgin whose age is between 14 and 18 is only punishable by 6 years in jail. Victims only begin to recover after 6 years; in Brazil they would be forced to live with the reality of once again running into their rapist on the streets. Again, kidnap and subsequent rape of a woman is a crime, provided she is a virgin, but the maximum sentence is only 48 months.

In Brazil, an unmarried woman who is not a virgin cannot legally be raped. Never mind that the emotional rape will continue to haunt her for the rest of her days. In the eyes of the law, violation of a sexually-active unmarried woman, or one who is not a virgin, is not recognisable as an offence. But the most horrific flaw in Brazil's legal construct is the fact that it makes no mention of any repercussions for raping girls under the age of 14.

What's with the world that they judge a woman against a flimsy tissue called the hymen? Why?

The vicious cycle associated with all forms of child abuse is reliable by definition. Some warning signs of abused children include:

Depression at an early age
Withdrawal from friends and those outside immediate family
Addiction and substance abuse
MPD (multiple personality disorder) or DID (dissociative identity disorder)
Suicide attempts
Inappropriate sexual behaviour even before puberty

Once these children reach adulthood, the multitude of problems they would encounter are merely extensions of those that would have developed years ago. Often, without resolution via counseling or not being allowed to pursue legal avenues to prosecute these abusers, the cycle repeats itself later in life. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this cycle is the common profile of a paedophile. Many paedophiles are themselves victims of abuse as children and/or had parents who were addicts. These children had low self-esteem which only lowered further with every passing day. Clearly, the cycle repeats time and again.

What, then, can be the answer? Experts usually disagree on the best solution, but most endorse the presence of the victim during the legal proceedings. If these children do not witness justice meted out to them in an accepted manner, they will equate it to not being important enough to be given justice. Sadly, even despite a robust legal construct that are in place, far too many victims either fall through the cracks or do not survive to seek justice. For those who are removed from their abusive homes and placed in protective custody, history repeats itself in more terrifying ways. The most frustrating aspect is breaking this cycle before it sends up the red flags.

That said, it is certainly not a lost cause to ensure protection for these children. A collaborative and coordinated team approach can be designed to protect the rights of these children. The legal representative must work hand-in-hand with government agencies, counsellors and guardians or custodians of the victims. Such combined effort can work to the advantage of the children and are make them feel as though someone is looking out for them.

We can only hope (against hope) that the Catholic Church reconsiders the label it has so carelessly placed on this innocent little girl. She already carries enough on her young mind without being accused of murder too.

Courtesy: LawyerAhead

Edited to add:
Someone actually wrote this in his comment on a forum: "Why do you need to give a man a life sentence or death for a rape when the female can easily get on with her life after sometime? It is a crime that can in no way equated to murder or cutting off a person's hands or legs."

Maa Tujhe Salaam

2009-04-27T17:50:00.008+05:30

The picture above shows a resplendent and radiant mother-daughter pair. But behind the radiant smiles and crinkled eyes are ears of trauma and a long struggle. A struggle to give birth. A struggle to be born. A struggle to live.

This is the story of three persons who were told they deserved to die, or at the most live a second-rate life. Just because they were women. They were abused, abandoned, berated, belittled, disowned. Just because one was a mother who was not given the right to beget a daughter. Just because the other two were offsprings who carried a different DNA pattern than the one desired by their family. Just because Neera had the guts to bear and raise Shubhra and Pooja despite the hardships she had to endure for doing so. Just because Shubhra and Pooja were determined to live the life their mother struggled to provide for them.

Like any other Indian girl, Neera was married to a well-placed and fairly well-to-do man who she'd thought would be her 'partner' for life. The marriage was not the perfect romance or a bed of roses or a perpetual honeymoon or any other simile the word is accorded by poets and romantics. But like any other Indian wife, Neera tried her best to pull the relationship through. And then she discovered she was pregnant with her first child.

Neera's in-laws told her everything would be back to normal with her husband if she could give him what she had been brought into the family for - a son. When Shubhra was born, the marriage predictably went from bad to worse. Her husband decided to seek on the streets the son he did not get from his wife, and made no qualms about flaunting his many 'women' in his wife's face. Despite that and everything else she was subjected to in her marital home, Neera did not (read could not) walk away. Just like any other Indian daughter. She tried her best to please everyone from her malicious mother-in-law to her adulterous husband, all the while hoping and believing that she could win them over. This despite the fact that she served her cancer-stricken mother-in-law with all her heart only to hear abuses hurled at her. This despite the fact that her husband brought one of his mistresses home and announced their imminent wedding. This despite the fact that there was nobody who stood up for Neera or even felt for her.

Then Neera was pregnant a second time. This time, she fervently hoped and prayed for a son. But I wouldn't have been writing this and being inspired, had Pooja not been born to her.

Neera's worst fears came true when nobody from Pooja's paternal family ever came to see her. She had to borrow clothes for her newborn daughter from the new mother in the adjacent bed. When Pooja was 20 days old, Neera made a choice. She left her marital home with her daughters, and hasn't looked back since.

This was not the end of misery or hardship for Neera, but she could breathe again. The freedom from a shame and a guilt that were in no way hers brought the courage to live again. For herself. For her daughters. Needless to say, the little girls imbibed their mother's grit and devotion to them, returning and sharing the feelings in equal measure. They not only lived for each other, but were determined to live for themselves as well. Not surprisingly, Shubhra today is a management professional happily married and blessed with a daughter.

As for Pooja, we saw her crowned Miss india-World 2009 on a night when the stars shined down upon her. Amidst these, the brightest star is her mother, who truly and completely gave her life. More than any ordinary mother could.

Am I So Pretty?

2009-04-11T03:15:00.006+05:30

A cute little girl peers into the mirror and asks her father if he thinks she is pretty. She tells him that nobody looks at her (possibly due to her obviously visible spectacles). She remembers how she willed the little boy seated beside her to look in her direction, but he doesn't. The next day, her father arrives at school in a brand new Maruti Suzuki "Dzire", and picks her up right from the middle of her classes. As the car moves out of the school porch, she is delighted to see scores of her fellow students clamouring for a look at her (or was it the car?). She asks her father, this time in a thoroughly upbeat tone, with just a tinge of vanity, "Am I so pretty?" The background score goes, "Take a look at me now."

Now this ad left me shocked, and not to mention disgusted. Shocked because the ad had one of the cutest little girls I have seen on TV saying those lines and portraying those feelings. A child - who should be spending her time playing and studying and making new friends and discovering new wonders, instead of fussing before the mirror or vying for a classmate's attention. Disgusted because of the advertising world's obsession with the feminine to sell any and every product. Never mind if this time it was a little girl instead of another of those models with unrealistic bodies and unrealistic emotions.

Every channel we flip to and every show we watch is interspersed with a plethora of ads. Almost all of them (and the exceptions are right on top of the 'highly endangered ads' list) use women and their body parts to sell everything from food to toiletries to cars to men's underclothes. Any women's magazine one may open is full of articles earnestly proclaiming that if a woman can only just lose those so many 'extra' kilos, she'll have it all - a perfect marriage, a doting spouse, loving children, amazing sex, and a rewarding career. Bliss lay all this while in the race to size-zero (or even negative), while I ran after chocolate and friends and fun and love. How naive of me! Phoo!

Discriminatory, unrealistic, and even insulting standards of beauty are imposed on women, a majority of who are naturally larger and more mature than any of the models. Ever wondered why? The roots to this practice are clearly economic. By presenting a target of outward appearance that is obviously difficult (sometimes impossible) to achieve and maintain, the cosmetic and fitness industries are assured of growth and profits. It is no coincidence that flawless youth is increasingly promoted as the most essential criterion of beauty. Either all women need to lose weight, or they are ageing. If nothing, their complexion has yet not reached that perfect shade. According to the industry, age is a disaster that needs to be dealt with.

The stakes are huge. On one hand, women who are insecure about their bodies are more likely to buy the products that promise them socially acceptable standards of beauty. On the other hand, a deliberately constant exposure to images of stereotyped female bodies that are presumably deemed acceptable by society's yardstick may culminate in loss of self-esteem and the development of an alarmingly unhealthy lifestyle in women. Worse, the age profile of these women gets younger every passing day; it has begun to influence girls as young as 5. The evidence - the ad I mentioned at the start.

What is perhaps the most disturbing facet to this image-consciousness is the fact that media images of female beauty are unattainable for all but a very small number of women. Recently, researchers in the USA generated a computer model of a woman with Barbie-doll proportions. The study found that if such a woman were to exist, her back would be unable to support the weight of her upper body, and her body would be too narrow to contain more than half a liver and just a few centimeters of bowel. Incidentally, the small and large intestines together are a total of upto 8.5 meters in length. Such a woman would therefore suffer from perpetual chronic diarrhoea and eventually die from malnutrition. Frightened? Here's more. A Mattel study also indicates that 99% girls aged 3-10 years own a Barbie doll, or at the least have seen one.

The deluge of overt and covert messages about warped ideas of beauty tells 'ordinary' women that they are always in need of adjustment, that their body is an object to be perfected. These overwhelming reminders mean that real women's bodies have become invisible in popular media. The real tragedy is that many women internalize these stereotypes and begin to judge themselves by these standards. They learn to compare themselves to other women and compete with them for male attention. This focus on beauty and desirability insidiously destroys any awareness and action that might help to change this situation. Women across ages and ethnicities get and stay trapped in this vicious circle, a proverbial catch-22 situation.

Like a whiff of fresh air comes the Women's Horlicks ad with Konkona Sen Sharma as the face of the product. The film shows Konkona waking in the morning and beginning her day with running down a a list of things to do. She is shown taking up one task after another - from household chores to professional responsibilities. As the day passes, she looks at the myriad notes that she had made at the day's start, and realises that she forgot about herself. A voice-over says, "Aaj is badi si list ne chhoti si baat ka ehsaas dila diya. Apni hi list main apna naam nahin." Konkona enjoys a cup of the drink and indulges in a variety of pursuits for her health. The ad ends with her proclaiming, "Because your body needs you too."

It is high time we women (and our men) begin to look at ourselves as a whole person and not focus on body parts. We deserve to do things that we enjoy, no matter what shape or size we are. We can begin by understanding that images and stereotypes portrayed by the media are created for a commercial purpose and are not reflections of reality. This understanding must also be shared within our family and other social units to avoid misconceptions and dissonance in thought. We can encourage ourselves and each other to think beyond traditional stereotypes. For instance, instead of complimenting someone or ourselves by saying, "You/I look great/ pretty today", we can actually say, "You/I did a great job today". This would help widen the range of appeal beyond the aesthetics to grounded realism. Lastly, everyone should be allowed to make mistakes and learn from them.

Consider this. What would life be if not a melange of different people - truly different and not assembly-line products similar in appearance? Variety, as they say, certainly is the spice of life! So let us all be different and celebrate the fact. Surely, love and laughter, and not external appearances, make the world go round.

Now go watch this, rejoice the fact that you aren't there yet, and promise yourself you never will be.

"Then be bold and love your body and stop fixing it. It was never broken."
- Eve Ensler, "The Good Body"

Disclaimer:
The comments on the advertisement of "Maruti Suzuki Dzire" do not necessarily become applicable to the actual product. The description is also not intended to discourage purchase of the same.

Source: Media Awareness Network
Video Courtesy: JaagoRi

"Bus" Ek Pal? Ab Bas!

2009-04-05T00:20:00.006+05:30

If you wish to be groped and fondled, get on a bus. It does not matter whether it is a DTC or a Blueline or a BEST - a bus on Indian roads is the surest and easiest way to be leched at, pawed on, felt up or even flashed. Think it can or will never happen to you? Think again. It can and does happen to any and every woman, transcending all boundaries of age or ethnicity or lifestyle or even the much-talked-of 'dress sense'. So you may as well be in jeans-and-tee or a denim micro-mini or black spandex with fishnet stockings as in a sari or a salwar kameez or a hijab and burqa - there's no escaping prying eyes or wandering hands.

I will never till my dying day forget two trips in Delhi's acclaimed Blueline buses. Two different days, two different occasions. A similar experience each time but two strikingly dissimilar reactions.

The first incident happened at nearly 5 pm one sweltering summer evening. I got on to a bus, crowded but the first to come. It was unbelievably hot and I wanted to get home quickly. It was a long journey home. Now I was clad in what is unanimously considered to be 'decent' clothing - a simple churidar-kurta with that 'modest' dupatta draped around my shoulders. What's more, the dress had sleeves. Think I would have been safe from prying eyes, a dowdy demure girl? Like hell I was.

I stood right in the front of the bus at the start of the aisle, with some other girls my age. A few minutes before the second stop since I got on, a guy come up and stood behind me. The bus was packed fit to burst, and I suddenly felt him pressing into me from behind. I felt uncomfortable, and not just because of how stuffy it was inside the bus. However, I told myself the poor fellow probably had no choice, considering we were all stuffed like sardines in a tin. You'll have to believe me when I say that I actually felt he must be fidgeting like I was, and that given a choice he would have maintained a respectable distance. I was about to discover how ridiculously naive I was.

Two stops later, there was more space in the bus. But this guy was either blind to this obvious fact, or his legs had been nailed to the bus floor. He stood exactly as he did three stops and fifteen minutes earlier. What did I do? Nothing. What did I say? Nothing. I simply stood there, without a single expression of discomfort but screaming and howling inside. Each jerk and turn of the bus would literally throw the man on to me. I still stood as if carved out of stone. An eternity of agony later, I got down at my stop.

I wish to this day I’d done or at least said something, to someone if not to him. I did not. Instead, I endured in silence. I wish to this day I'd felt enraged. I did not. Instead, I felt dirty, even ashamed. I went home and threw up. When Mom asked, I said it was the samosa I'd eaten earlier in the day.

If there was one thing I learnt that day, it was this. The next time I encountered anyone who doubted his being a man and tried to reassure himself thus, I had to stand up for myself, because no one else would or even should. And stand up I did.

Three weeks later, I again stood in the bus, at the front of the aisle. Same place, same bus. And suddenly, same situation. This time the creep tried to run his hand up my back. That day I did what I had learnt. I gave it right back to him. I asked him to get away just once, and he leched in a totally sick manner with the oft-heard and dependable, "Arre madam ji, itni bheed hai, kahan khade honge hum?" Then, that touch again - even as he spoke. I turned to face him fully and slapped the living daylights out of him.

Before he could even recover, the three conductors who'd been listening to songs on a mobile phone came and surrounded him. Using the best cuss words I knew (and I know quite a few, mind you), I demanded the creep be deboarded that very instant. Not only did the conductors instantly do exactly as I said, they even got down to give him company and thrashed him nicely. Then they brought him back up into the bus from the back gate this time, and took him to the police station at Pragati Maidan, the next stop.

That day I learnt another lesson. It never is our fault. We have nothing to be ashamed of. We did not ask for it. We do not invite it. Never ever. Yet we take it. Silently.

As far as I believe, people you'd go to expecting support or even empathy would unanimously think (or be kind enough to say it on your face), "Well, you know you are dressed in such a way. What's more, you have breasts and other typically female apparatus. So believe it or not, you asked for it!" So today, such creeps have obviously decided that any woman is an easy picking, so they can easily cop a feel or worse any time of day or night. They see no rhyme or reason to stop, seeing as the makers and implementors of law have seemingly better things to do. The creeps have been doing it for years and nothing earth-shattering has happened to any of them yet. What is there for them to fear?

If we have reached a time when we need to think before stepping out of our homes, or indulging in the simplest of pleasures and innocent pursuits, then we seriously need to stop and take stock. Hell, we need to actually give everyone (including ourselves) a vigorous shake from this deep slumber. The government needs to actually do the job they were meant to in the first place - 'govern' the goddamn place. The law and order machinery needs to do what they are supposed to - make sure there prevails at least some bloody sort of law and order. What kind of a country are they running where women cannot even welcome the New Year without getting groped and stripped by a deranged mob in the process? Remember Gateway of India?

What is it with creeps and this behaviour? Is it their long-repressed sexuality? Is it their suppressed curiosity about the other kind of human? Is it their utter depravity? Is it their unfulfilled experience of sex? Do they not get any or enough? Is that why they decide to let themselves loose on any and every woman out there? Is that really it? What do they wish for? Touch her? Fondle her? Is that it? And now that they’ve done that and got a nice buzz going, what? Pounce on her? Rape her? What?

I seriously doubt such creeps themselves know what they actually set out to achieve. More often than not, these men are cowards. They feel that the crowd gives them a perfect opportunity, and anyway the woman won't protest, her honour and all. They feel their being a man will help them get away with it. They expect no or at the most feeble reaction from the woman they creep up on. And that is exactly why most of the time a shrill yell or a tight slap sets them right.

To my fellow women, I say this. Stand up and fight right back. Scream your lungs out. Make a scene. Slap as hard as you can. Stomp down on to his foot. Push him away hard. Most importantly, look him straight in the eye. Help yourself. No one else will.

Who was it that once said, "Until the day a woman can go for a walk at midnight and return safe, we haven’t got true freedom"? Looks like after 62 years of freedom, we aren’t free yet.

Happy Birthday, Mummy!

2009-03-31T09:54:00.007+05:30

Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother. My Mother is the sweetest person to ever set foot on the face of the earth. She is my 24-hour support system, my bestest friend, my guardian angel. She is the vault which I deposit all my hurts and worries in, and withdraw happiness and love from. She did not sacrifice her individuality when she became a mother. She also did not sacrifice motherhood to be an individual. In fact, motherhood, she says, helped expand her capabilities.

Mummy is a homemaker, and her adeptness at this very essential job is visible in every corner of my home. And of course, my house is called a home because my mother has made it so. She has been a stay-at-home Mom ever since I came into the world, but if there's anyone who loves her for that, it would be me. She was always there when I came home from school and just had to tell someone about the A+ and golden star I received from my teacher. She was always there when I came home from a competition and just had to show someone the trophy/medal I had been awarded. She was always there when I came home from college gushing about that cute guy who smiled at me and just had to confide in someone how much I loved him. She is not someone I can lean on, but someone who makes leaning unnecessary.

Most of all the other beautiful things in life come by twos and threes or by dozens and hundreds. There will always be plenty of flowers, stars, sunsets, dewdrops, rainbows, brothers, sisters, friends. But there is only one mother in the whole world. My mother's love is something I never have to acquire; in fact, I do not even have to deserve it. She is the only person on earth who can divide her love equally between my brother and me, yet both her children still have all her love. No gift to her can ever equal her gift to me - life!

Happy birthday, Mummy.

I find myself wondering...
Did I give you your due?
For all that you've done for me,
Did I ever thank you?
For all of my childhood memories,
For helping me with life's stresses,
For helping me accept my defeats,
And celebrating my successes?
For teaching me the value of hard work,
Good judgement, courage, and being true,
The laughter, the smiles, the silence we shared,
Did I ever thank you?
If I have forgotten, I'm thanking you now,
You taught me right from wrong;
I hope you know how much you're loved,
And I know you knew that all along.

You filled my days with rainbow lights,

Fairytales and sweet dream nights,

A kiss to wipe away my tears,

Comforting words to ease my fears.

You gave the gift of life to me,

And then in love, you set me free.

I thank you for your tender care,

For deep warm hugs, for just being there.

I hope that when you think of me,

A part of you you'll always see.

You were there when I first walked

And went unsteadily across the floor.

My childhood you fashioned ever so tender,

Till my steps took me out the door.

Wherever I go, you can be sure -

In spirit, you're never alone,

For where you are, is what matters,

'Coz that's what I call home.

There's no place like home...

2009-03-27T21:14:00.012+05:30

Disclaimer:

This post is a piece of fiction. It is meant as a tribute to Elisabeth Fritzl, her children, and all the other children who lose out on their childhood and innocence due to the horror called incest.

Father,

Why wasn’t I ever your little girl or your baby? Who was I all those years that you never called me 'yours'? You never held my hands and taught me to walk, one tiny step at a time. You never bought me toys and chocolates and little trinkets when you came home from work. You never listened to me gushing about my first day in school or my first prize or my first crush. You never took me for walks in the park or shopping sprees at the market. You never hugged me when I was sick. You never wiped my tears when I was hurt.

Where were you all these years, Father? Oh, I forget. You were between my legs all this while. You never came up to look at me - your daughter, your flesh and blood, your child.

Surely I must have been, like all daughters in the world, the apple of your eye. What could have possibly turned me into a receptacle of your carnal desires? Did you hate me? Did I annoy or upset you? But I was always a good girl, the right mix of innocence and naughtiness. Wouldn't it have been good if the characteristics of this 'good' girl weren't also the characteristics of a daughter living with a terrible secret, trying to cover up the shame that should never have been hers? I grew up in a home where I was taught valuable lessons about not wasting money or time or an education. Why then am I left with a wasted childhood?

I will never forget that night. It was exactly a week after my seventh birthday, which you had failed to attend yet again. That evening, Mom had to go to a relative's place for a function and would only return the next morning. I was overjoyed thinking that I could finally have some time alone with you, Father. Evidently, you had the same thoughts. For very different reasons. You asked me if I'd like to lie down with you on the bed you shared with Mom and watch some TV. I was on cloud nine. My father was actually willing to spend quality time with me. I jumped up and reclined beside you, unaware of how that innocent decision would change my life forever. I found the TV program boring and soon drifted off to sleep. Suddenly, I woke up completely and found myself to be drenched in cold sweat. By the time I could even comprehend what had woken me so abruptly, I became aware of your fingers groping under my frock and beneath my panty. I saw you wearing nothing but a crazed expression on your face, your eyes glazed over with something so unfamiliar yet so familiar. Lust, I later learnt. I froze, and in that very instant, time froze for me. Forever.

Had it been a one-off incident, as I fervently hoped it would be, I could have tried to forget and move on with my life. I could even have forgiven you for what you did to me that day. But it happened again, and again, and again. I tried to explain to Mom the very next day after that first time, but I just couldn't believe what had happened could possibly be true, and I forbade myself from ever again mentioning it to her till I lived. I had no one to go to except you, to satiate your perversion and make you feel 'like a man'. That was what you said it was for, didn't you? I was fortunate to have been chosen by you, you had said. Only I didn't know it was to remind you of your masculinity whenever you had the tiniest of doubts about it. Over the years, my body became numb to the disgust I felt each time you ravaged me. Now I felt nothing but my soul getting crushed every time. I found my self blown up into a zillion shreds, never ever to be brought together again. Worse, I was alive the morning after each night of abuse.

I taught myself to believe I was not being raped. I told myself it was not happening to me. Bit by bit, agonisingly slow, I could feel life draining out of me. I had travelled beyond the boundaries of pain, beyond the worst of nightmares, beyond the greatest of fears. I saw you every morning, smiling at me like a doting father would and a ravager would never. Every fraction of every moment I realised that I was going to die. But I didn't. Maybe I wasn't meant to die. Maybe I had to live through and out of this. Exactly ten years and a thousand deaths after you had first defiled everything that was supposed to be sacred to me, I told Mom.

I saw the horror in the eyes and on the face of my mother. How she had loved me and cuddled me whenever I had wanted her to. She had such radiant dreams for me, dreams that she could now see shattering before her very eyes. I was terrified, possibly even more than that night I had felt your hand inside my panties. Had I failed her? Would she hate me and be repulsed? Would she blame me for letting you do this to me? Would she berate me for not having told her the very next day it first happened? Would she side with you and leave me to deal with my broken self alone, yet again? She knelt in front of me, looking straight into my stricken eyes. In that instant, I saw sense in all this madness. The eyes that were locked on to mine were, for a welcome change, glazed over with love and kindness. She understood.

I was going on a journey which I couldn't avoid. I had no idea where it would take me. But I knew this - I would not let you steer my life anymore. I had to pick up the pieces of my shattered being and put them back together. I promised myself I would do all I can to see that you get what's coming to you. That day I had told Mom. Now I told the world.

Today, exactly twelve years after that day I cried with joy when you asked me to share your bed, I cry with joy again. Not because I have won the lawsuit I filed against you sexual abuse. Not because I have managed to get you sentenced to a lifetime behind bars. Not because I know you will pay for some fraction of your crime now. Because I can breathe again. Because I am free, finally free of the horror I witnessed even before I was old enough to understand what horror was. Because I have finally shed the load of guilt and shame that I was forced to carry - your load, but my burden. Because I am going home for the first time today, a place where Mom and I will begin to build our lives anew. Because I know that, like yesterday and like today, Mom will always be with me and stand by me tomorrow, no matter what. Because I can smile again. Because I am free - free of being your daughter.

I sometimes suffer the guilt of sending you, my own father, to a harsh and merciless life. But one look into the mirror, something I had despised for twelve years, convinces me that I did what was right. Nothing would have been able to rest my conscience if I had faltered in taking this one difficult but morally correct step. The silence is gone, there is no more silence now. Today is the beginning of my new life. I am starting over today. I am surrounded by my Mother and my friends who all love me. I look out my window and see beauty all around me. I have begun to talk and laugh and sing. I am awake. I am alive. I am happy.

I believed in these words that first night twelve years ago, though in a strikingly different context I look at Mom and repeat them one more time. "There is no place like home."

A daughter

Why should boys have all the fun?

2009-03-12T12:01:00.006+05:30

A recent World Economic Forum (WEF) study has placed India at a proud 113 amongst 130 countries in terms of gender equality. In fact, India ranks behind countries like Bangladesh and several Middle East countries which are notorious for the harassment of women. A shocking revelation, no doubt. But is it really that astounding?

Today, I shall not talk of rural districts or femicide or even domestic violence or rape. I will rather discuss the role of popular media in unwittingly or otherwise inflicting a sense of disparity amongst us boys and girls.

By the time a girl reaches the age of 16, she is forced to look decently good to be accepted by the common standards of society. If boys wear spectacles, they look handsome and studious and clever and mature. Says who? The fashion police, of course! But what if a girl sports glasses? Oh no, who in the wide world would marry her? Yeah, right! Remember what Aamir Khan told Salman on 'Dus ka Dum'? When Kiran Rao offered to do away with her glasses, Aamir said he married her with glasses and curly hair et al, and therefore saw no reason for any change now.

It is perfectly fine for a man to be fat, and not at all obnoxious. In fact, it signifies 'happy' things as a loving family or a wealthy life and so on. But if a girl does not possess that coveted Miss-India-esque curvature, she is frowned upon. She is gawked and stared at and snide remarks reach her, all while overly-anxious aunties and didis fear for her future! Driven to the gym to break sweat, whether she likes it or not, she is taught to look desirable for the society at large. She starts to fear coming out into the stern public eye.

Open a newspaper or a magazine, or even switch on a random TV channel. Predictably, a starving model in a size-zero figure taunts at us. We resign to the fact that life is for living, and that we care a damn for our weight. But it doesn’t help that half the pages in half the magazines rave and rant on 'weight'y matters. So much that the Obamas and Osamas and Chandrayaans of the world are content with a second place to this most critical of human issues.

Men are tall, dark and handsome. But girls must be fair and lovely to even live a life of dignity and respect. Reason - they appear gorgeous that way only. Once they reach the blessed twenties, they must be listed as 'fair' and 'slim' and 'v. beautiful' on shaadi.com, bharatmatrimonial.com, jeevamsathi.com and even Times of India or Hindustan Times by concerned parents. Every television show broadcasts a fairness product advertisement at least thrice. Oh, sure we have a 'Fair and Handsome' product too, but in the world of TV as well as the actual social scenario it is twice as less in demand than its feminine counterpart. Never mind that Bipasha Basu is dark yet so stunningly sexy!

I haven’t even reached the part about acne and skin blemishes. How well do we know those mornings when we wake up wishing death for every pimple out there. Societal pressures, you say? Bingo, girl! You're right on it. So when I watched in utter horror Dr. Kiran Bedi of all women endorsing 'NoMarks' anti-blemish products, I felt we'd achieved what our fashion-crazed nation has always wanted - that beauty obsession runs deeper than nation-wide unrest! That advertisement actually prompted me to write this post.

Our men have donned 'western' apparel ever since we remember. I mean, we hardly see a young uppity boy dressed in a lungi or a dhoti or a langot, do we? But our 'desi girls' are expected, and even allowed, to sport only sari and salwar-kameez for the society to see them as existing. Maybe we have girls on city streets dressed in denims and skirts, whose styles change every so often. Nothing wrong with that, you say? How many of us would be dying to wear our 'decent' and 'homely' salwar-kameez but cannot do so due to pre-determined societal rules? None, since only 'western' attire is restricted and frowned upon, therefore making it that much more desirable.

Let us move on to more serious issues. If a man has a fling or a one-night-stand or an extra-marital affair, it is accepted by the large-hearted society as being a man's 'needs'. But when a woman engages herself in any relationship not mentioned in the society's rulebook, she is termed as 'loose', 'unchaste', 'characterless', 'available' and what not. She brings shame upon her family and society, so she pays for it with her life (which was dispensable anyway). So what happened to women's needs? And if unacceptable by society, why are female bar dancers and prostitutes more common than their male counterparts?

Nature decided to make male birds more attractive than female birds and female humans more striking than male humans. But for once, just once, accept us for what we are. We are beautiful inside even if it does not reflect on the outside. Physical attractiveness in a woman is good, even desirable, but can never be essential. We have achieved our right to work, to exercise financial control, to speak our mind. None of this happened because we wore a sari or had a flawless fair complexion or a 36-24-36 figure. It happened because we had a brain and a tongue that we used effectively. Now we wait to be liberated from unreasonable and derogatory societal demands. Like Priyanka Chopra’s popular ad goes, "Why should boys have all the fun?"

Because I am a woman

2009-03-08T00:43:00.006+05:30

Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, 'She doesn’t have what it takes.' They will say, 'Women don’t have what it takes.'

Gender apartheid exists. Yes, it does. So? So nothing. Let's go deal with it. Women are and women will. The challenge lies in the 'how's and 'when's.

In over 60 years of our democratic history, each ruling government has deliberately and insidiously ensured that women remain invisible and silent. How mahaan does that make our Bharat? Why have we not all hung our heads in shame? Why does nobody speak up? Is it because we actually believe a woman's worth is actually nothing? Do we see women as dispensable, of which kind many are available? The answer was 'yes' 60 years ago. Today, it remains just that. Not that it still affects us. We continue to pretend all is well.

Our President is a woman. Our chief of the ruling party is a woman. We have formidable women chief ministers. Women are increasingly joining their male counterparts as the nation's workforce. Isn't that enough cause for celebration? In this day and age, celebrating the achievement of less than 2% of the female population in India is ridiculous to the point of being laughable.

It is no longer astonishing how depressingly low we estimate the worth of our women, even as we reveres the Goddess in her various forms! So how does that happen? It happens because we are too busy deluding ourselves that all is hunky-dory. That beyond the beatings and burnings lies a good heart that 'loves' women and wants them to 'improve'.

Well, guess what? The beatings and burnings worked. The new and improved woman has arrived. But, alas, there still is no celebration, really. She isn't what we exactly wished for, now, is she? To 'man'kind's eternal horror, the new and improved versions came equipped with a mind - to think! Too bad. What do we do about this? Can we again control her? Should we create a remote for this mind? Why, of course. It ain't too tough to teach her a lesson. We've been doing that for ever since we care to remember!

So we go right ahead. We strip her clothes. We kick and punch her. We fondle her and feel her up. And when all that does not satiate us, we rape and plunder her. That, if nothing else, teaches her a lesson.

Yes. It teaches her the lesson that she must stand for herself, because no one else can. It teaches her the lesson that if they unite, along with real men (who respect women and therefore earn respect for themselves), their numbers will multiply. It teaches her the lesson that she must do things with freedom, no matter how hard it is. It teaches her the lesson that she must always stand on the side of truth and justice, no matter what it costs. It teaches her the lesson that she alone owns her honour; no one has a claim to it and it cannot be ever taken away from her. Most importantly, it teaches her the lesson that she does actually possess a mind to learn these lessons with.

With elections just round the corner, we do not hear a single political party address women's issues, not even their pet topic - women's reservation. It is as if women don't exist - not even as a vote bank. They may talk pretty about some obscure temples or mosques that no one really cares for. They may invoke the dependable ideology of Hindutva or minority-appeasement to fill their vote-hungry coffers. They may play the divisive card and arouse the dormant pride in their voters for their region (read party). But they fail to see that the society they so earnestly solicit votes from is one that marginalises half its population. Such a a society can see nothing but decline.

Domestic violence is our best kept dirty secret. Not a single politician has recognised this skeleton in their closet, or the devastating effects it has on their voters. As long as our women continue to be either battered or ignored, we cannot call ourselves a civilisation, let alone a developing one. Pratibha Patil may come and go, but her own kind only goes, never comes. So, all in all, a thoroughly depressing scenario for the erstwhile 'sone ki chidiya'. Oh come on, of course not.

SRK once said, "Hamari filmon ki tarah hamari zindagi mein bhi, end tak sab kuch theek-thaak ho jata hai. Aur agar aisa na ho, to ye samjho ki kahaani abhi khatam nahin hui. Picture abhi baaki hai." Yes, there are more reels to go. This year, this year, we subvert the usual gender agenda - a literal gender bender. The eternally enslaved and exploited woman will always find her crusader. But the new age truly and completely belongs to the dangerously liberated and obnoxiously loud-mouthed woman. You don't like her? Then its time you learnt to live with her.

The new and improved 'desi girl' has decided she isn't going to wait for help - she will help herself. She is not the martyr - she is the marauder out to reclaim her life. The knight in shining armour has finally been laid to rest, bless his soul. The change is here, and the change is her. Maa di laadli bigad gayi, so, enna rascala, mind it!

Happy Women's Day!

Playing Tag...

2009-03-07T03:31:00.007+05:30

The tagging frenzy has finally caught up with me, courtesy Goofy Mumma, forcing me to halt all activities on this blog. All right, GM, that was an exaggeration. And yes, I know I should have done this sooner. But really, what a way to start this chase!

GM asked me (and I thank her for it) to enlist 25 random facts about myself, including weird quirks and lofty dreams. Here I am, rediscovering myself, introspecting and talking aloud. Much as I tried, I couldn't come up with anything cynical/hypercritical (like me on "The XX Factor") or preachy/patronising (like me on "Hate, Actually")! Nevertheless, here's me described best by who else but ME!

1. I believe it takes one person to show the world how change can happen. One person, really. And nothing better than that one person being me.

2. I believe in the power of love, which I think can do miracles when nothing seems to work. I believe a child's love is the best and the purest - it is unconditional. I love babies and children for that very reason. I also believe in the power of positive touch - a pat, a hug, a kiss, a caress, a handshake. I believe a touch can communicate much more than words, and equal if not more than eyes can.

3. I am a sentimental fool. I have preserved letters and greeting cards and non-perishable gifts from friends and family, even those I no longer talk to. I just can't throw them away. Ditto for my old/torn/damaged possessions - I feel such pain throwing or giving stuff I've used/owned away.

4. I am a gab, but I am a great listener as well. I love it when my friends share their problems with me. If I can't offer them help or support or advice, I simply listen to them; it does as much.

5. I sign off all my mails (except official or those to unknown people) with the word 'Cheers!'. And I have 350+ people in my 'Friends' list on Orkut - not all of them are friends now, though; they are classmates or coaching-class-mates or people I met through people. No strangers, though.

6. I have huge crushes on Hrithik Roshan, Arjun Rampal, John Abraham, Farhan Akhtar and Dhoni. And I call Dhoni as Mahi, not as MSD or whatever else he is called. If I were a man, I'd have the hots for Preity Zinta, Juhi Chawla, Priyanka Chopra and Bipasha Basu. My favourite directors are Satyajit Ray and Ingmar Bergman. My favourite musician is A R Rahman. My favourite lyricists are Gulzar, Javed Akhtar and Prasoon Joshi. My favorite films/ actors/ actresses/ books/ authors/ singers are too many to list here.

7. If I love someone truly, I love them with all I have. If I hate someone truly, I hate them with all I have. For all the others, I'm a pretty nice person to be with. I love making friends, and if I can, keeping them.

8. I believe friendship overrides all relationships - even those we call love. Friends bare their souls to each other, and know each other inside out.

9. The foundation of any relationship on this planet, trust is, without a doubt, the single most important element in any of my relationships. There are many relationships that are equally important to me, and I expect each of them to trust me with the others.

10. I believe no person can survive without respect for the self. That is the first step. If you don't respect yourself, you'll never respect anything or anyone.

11. I am fiercely protective of my personal space, and no one - I repeat, no one - can encroach over it.

12. I expect a lot of my friends, and sometimes get hurt in the process. I have taken to limiting myself to a very few chosen friends who are mirrors to my soul, and I to theirs. One of them I spent two memorable years of hostel life with, and he is like the elder bro I never had.

13. There are only two other people, apart from my Mom and Dad, who I can talk about anything and everything with. They are my best friends from school.

14. I am a reasonably good singer, though I think myself to be better than I actually am. I love to sing; it makes me happy and content. I sing both inside the bathroom and outside it. I can write and tell good stories, and have a reasonably good command over both the languages I know - Hindi and English. I love to act, and am a big drama queen when I want to be. I also nurture a secret ambition of being a teacher some day.

15. Music to me is my religion, my chicken-soup for the soul, my escape, my haven. Music is to me what God may be to you. I especially love classical and Sufi. My favorite bands include Indian Ocean and Mekaal Hasan Band (the most talented band ever from Pakistan). I revere classical music (Hindustani and Carnatic, vocal and instrumental), Sufi music and ghazals.

16. I am an atheist. I believe in no religion, though I respect others' right to believe in their respective faiths. I love listening to religious songs (bhajans, sufi music, carols) but they fail to arouse any reliious instincts in me; they are simply another beautiful form of music.

17. I abhor superstitions and the gender-bias inherent in each religion of the world. It simply makes me so mad. I hate religious fundamentalists and bigots to the core - they are the worst thing to ever happen to the world. All the world needs is rational thought and common sense. Is that too much to ask?

18. I cannot stand or accept discrimination or injustice of any kind. I hate it with my core. I see all people as humans, regardless of their gender or name or appearance or lifestyle or religion or nationality. We are the same race - homo sapiens.

19. It is essential for me to have fun in life, to laugh and smile without inhibition, to do what I love doing.

20. I have only cried in only three movies so far - Titanic, Taare Zameen Par and Matrubhoomi. One of my favorite films in recent times has been "Chak De India", especially for the dialogue "... agar ladkiyan kisi ko paida kar sakti hain, to wo kuch bhi kar sakti hain ..." Also, the only two books I ever wept (and even threw up) reading are both penned by Khaled Hosseini - The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. I threw up when Laila has her Caesarean without anaesthetics.

21. I am a big fan of the Harry Potter books and Robin Cook. I own the entire respective series and have read them multiple times. I also love to read Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl, Charles Dickens and P G Wodehouse. I would want nothing more than Wonka's chocolate factory to be real, and me to be let loose in it. Ah, heaven!

22. I nurture a secret desire to travel to Pakistan and meet the people I share common roots and a common history with. I would wish to understand and end the hostility between us and them, seeing as we are essentially the same people.

23. I love to eat most things, especially salads and desserts of all kinds. Chocolate is a necessity. I hate to shop, especially for routine stuff. I even hate to shop for clothes or shoes or accesories, though I love having as many of them as I can. I love buying gifts for my closest friends and immediate family. I absolutely detest jewellery (esp. if gold) and make-up (except moisturiser and lip balm/gloss).

24. I value humility greatly, and abhor arrogance especially if it comes from someone not worthy of it. I hate hypocrisy and double standards with all my heart - there are very very few things I hate more than that.

25. Delhi and Noida are home to me, and I love them despite all the associated evils and issues.

Errr... 26. I can never love anyone more than my Mom-Dad and Bro, my kid(s) in future, and my bestest friends. No one. Can't say about my partner coz I haven't met him yet.

Whoa! I could have said so much more about myself, but my 25 points are over. I did try to fit in as much as I could, though, and one extra point too.

I now bequeath the said responsibility on to the following worthy souls (if someone else didn't already beat me to them):

Goofy Mumma (returning the favour), IHM, Solilo, Chandni, Roopie, RK, Mad Momma, Chikki, 1conoclast, Yaamyn, Rakesh, Usha, Monika, Indyeah, Tarun, Madhu, freespirit. Okay, maybe Prashant too, but I know all about him.

Happy tagging!

She is Sunshine (Chapter 3)

2009-03-07T01:26:00.002+05:30

August 12, 2008. A day of contradictions and controversy. A day when history was rewritten. A day when a woman challenged the tradition of centuries and rescripted the scriptures. A day when Lucknow smiled with Naish Hasan and her to-be husband, as Islamic laws breathed in a gust of fresh air.

August 12, 2008 was a day when the wedding of a Sunni couple was attended by Shia guests of honour. If that was not scandalous enough to make an entire nation sit up and take notice, this nikaah was to have only women as witnesses. But what actually made jaws drop and eyes pop out was the fact that a woman acted as the qazi to solemnise the marriage. In fact, the only male presence at the venue was that of the groom!

Twenty-nine would hardly be the age when history is made, but Naish achieved this feat in 30 minutes flat. An economics post-graduate working as a vocal women's rights activist with the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Aandolan that she founded, Naish and her fiancé Imran, a PhD from AMU, taught the world the true meaning and nature of the Quran. By opting for an all-woman nikaah, even as venom-spewing hard-line fundamentalists receded to the background, the young couple volunteered to make a beginning and break the shackles of deep-rooted patriarchy that haunts every religion. They are fortunate, especially Naish and her qazi Dr. Syeda Hameed (a member of the State Planning Commission), for few can actually practice what they preach.

The courageous couple and their gutsy qazi have raised a firm voice against the subjugation of women which had for centuries plagued a religion whose name means peace. The spunky bride had other unheard-of pre-conditions. She refused to dress in the traditional bridal finery, refused rituals as baraat and vidaai, and scoffed at the idea of mehr (the bridal dower). She also refused to allow herself and Imran to be seated in separate veiled enclosures; the two sat together on a table, separated only by Dr. Syeda. The nikaahnama or marriage certificate was drafted by Naish's organisation and proudly displayed the equal rights it bestowed to both Naish and Imran in matters of decision-making, finances, marital responsibilities and divorce.

The extremists and religious bigots boiled their blood and simmered their tempers over the flames of revolt, the least of their worries being the bride's age which they perceived to be way beyond marriageable. Nevertheless, several eminent Muslim scholars endorsed the nikaah and hailed the courage of the newly-weds and Dr. Syeda. Tahir Mahmood, a celebrated Islamic scholar and member of the Law Commission, lauded the nikaah as a symbolic resentment against an unbridled male chauvinism typical of Indian society. Also supportive of the event were Kalbe Jawwad and Khalid Rashid Firangimahali, both highly respected Islamic scholars and members of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board. Very surprisingly, Shaista Amber, the President of the All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board, chooses to remain sceptical of the incident that took the world media by storm. She exhibits her patriarchal mindset in advising that religious work is best left to men and women should only fill in as stopgaps for men's absence.

For Naish and Imran, however, advices never mattered. They have come to be seen as crusaders in their own right, disregarding archaic customs and leaving the world over-awed with their brazenness. Cameras covered this historical event held in a hotel of all places, and fawned over the facts that stirred a hornets' nest amongst the Islamic clergy. The day belonged to these iconoclasts, because even while the bride wore no veil and the groom had no customary cap on his head, an important part of a traditional Muslim nikaah went missing - the recitation of the Quranic verses and the mandatory khutba (sermon). The nuptial vows were taken in English.

As Naish and Imran tied the knot on August 12, 2008, they and Dr. Syeda also untangled conventional binds and misogynist nooses. Whether it remains an isolated epoch-making event or encourages other Muslim women to fight for gender equality is too early to predict, but the credibility of the audacious bride, along with her spirited husband and their brave qazi, surely represents a serious challenge to the established order.

She is Sunshine (Chapter 2)

2009-03-05T12:16:00.003+05:30

At first sight, she may seem frail and even a little sickly, but this gutsy lady is truly a woman of substance. For when a 59-year-old illiterate Dalit woman from a non-descript village transcends the shackles of traditions and addresses the United Nations, history is written.

Girija Devi belongs to the Mushar community from a dingy village called Bhirkhia-Chipulia in Bihar's Motihari district. Her community has been the subject of talk recently, when it was discovered that they are so named because they eat rats. But Girija's unusual taste for rodents is not what caught New York's fancy. It was her courage to tame the abusive men in her village who turned up drunk every evening and mercilessly battered their wives. What is even more notable about Girija's crusade is that it began with her own home, against her own husband.

Life has changed for the once demure housewife who suffered humiliation at the hands of the male members of her family, including her husband Singheshwar Manjhi. The day she received the invitation from UN to address the 15th session of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Girija's husband saw red and told her in clear terms that in no way was she to break tradition and leave the confines of her hut. To drive home the point, he pounced on her and began beating her mercilessly. That day, Girija picked up a heavy lathi and hit him right back.

The very next day, journalists thronged the village in hordes, all for a glimpse of the woman whose courage changed the lives of her community, and to inspire others with her success story. Girija, a mother of four and a trained midwife, was informed of the UN invite by Action Aid, an NGO with which her 'Mushar Vikas Manch', which she formed six years ago, works in close cooperation to fight against alcoholism. For a woman who could barely sign and who spoke only in Bhojpuri, this news was literally a bolt from the blue. She was understandably nervous, but saw it as an opportunity to raise her voice on a global scale. Her grit finds a testimony in Jaimangal Manjhi, an ex-drunkard and ex-wife-beater, who extols Girija as the beacon of his life that had been blinded by toddy and other distilled liquor.

Men in this village, until some time back, used to return home from work drunk, having spent the day's entire earnings on alcohol, forcing the children to sleep on empty stomachs. Then Girija gathered the members of her Mushar Vikas Manch, men and women alike, and handed them lathis, one of which had once put an end to her own abused life. Together, this motley gang would crack down on homes where they heard a woman scream. The cause of the scream - a violent husband or cruel in-laws, sometimes even sons - would be tonsured, adorned with a garland of the shabbiest and stinkiest chappals, and paraded round the village on a donkey. The fish would catch the bait - hook, line and sinker.

It would be an insult to Girija's efforts if we were to think this massive upheaval of Bhirkhia-Chipulia happened overnight or even in a matter of days. Her method of checking the bacchanalian conduct of the menfolk did not go down well with many, but the aggressive style of her Manch gang was the proverbial zipper on their loud mouths. Many stopped drinking out of sheer fear of humiliation, and once they did, their eyes opened to the dark shadows under their wives' and children's eyes. In fact, such was the revolution Girija introduced to her Manch loyalists that two of her associates registered FIRs against their husbands for misbehaving with them under the influence of liquor.

The story was never intended to end the day Girija stood proudly at the dias in New York and addressed a multi-cultural and multi-national gathering in February 2006. She was elected representative of Ward No. 3 of the local Gram Panchayat for the next five years. She diversified the activities of her Manch with the help of local NGOs and now fights for minimum wages for landless farmers. Her life may resemble a fairy-tale, but the challenges of her responsibilities are real and many. She may have reined in the wayward men of her community, but her international recognition has not helped in her persuasion of the local administration to get homes in her village repaired for ill weather. Girija was never one to give up hope; she proved that the day she picked a lathi to hit her abusive husband back.

Despite her meaty and diverse portfolio, her pet project remains deterrence on marital violence and irresponsible drinking. "I will never allow men to drink beyond their capacities. But I will also never allow women to ruin their lives and those of their children for men who beat them." The voice that galvanised a sleepy hamlet in Bihar and could be heard as far as New York is no less than the sunshine that burns up an arrogant sun to provide warmth and hope to life on earth.

She is Sunshine (Chapter 1)

2009-02-26T13:21:00.009+05:30

She is a petite 13-year old with eyes as dark as the night that twinkle with mirth and the cheer of childhood. She is naughty et innocent, and loves to laugh; her laughter, fresh as the dew at dawn, tinkles like a hundred tiny bells in a meadow. She is also a victim of a ridiculous ritual that propagates child marriage. She is Minati Gagaria - winner of the 2005 National Bravery Award for her exemplary grit and spunk.

The morning of 15 January 2005 heralded the annual village festival of Magha Parab. For Minati and other members of Orissa's Munda tribe, the occasion is a chance to be gifted new clothes and knick-knacks, coupled with lots of dancing and merriment. Minati, adorned in a new dress and flower ornaments, went to the festival ground with her friends. At midnight, she along with other girls started dancing to the beats of dhol. Steadily, as the beats turned faster, the skies turned red with the sindoor that men threw at the dancing girls. Minati's life took a dramatic turn when 50-year old Suna Hembram threw sindoor at her and it settled on her forehead. The next moment, senior members of the community declared it a 'marriage' in accordance with a bizarre tradition of forced child marriages. That was when Minati stood up and said 'No'.

Amidst a crowd of dumbstruck onlookers, with her head held high, Minati walked up to where the village elders sat and refused point-blank to give in to the ridiculous custom. She accused them of trying to control her life, and warned that they had no business imposing their decisions on her. She firmly asserted that she would not accept a man fit to be her grandfather as a husband. Having said so, Minati went back home and locked herself in her room.

The next morning, and many such mornings after, her entire family accompanied by Hembram tried to convince her but failed. The bruised ego of Hembram was further riled by Minati's 'attitude', and he cornered her when she was alone at home one day. When Minati later complained to her mother that she had been raped, the entire family took it upon themselves to shame Minati for what was in no way her fault. The gritty girl gave her family one smoldering look and walked out of the hut she used to call home. Her family searched far and wide for her, while she slept peacefully in the forest for seven nights of hard-earned freedom.

Support came in the guise of a friend, whose husband helped Minati lodge complaints against her family and Hembram with the local police. Fortunately for her, they were all arrested. Later, while her mother and sister-in-law were released on bail, her father and brother awarded their sentences. As for the groom, he was booked for rape, and as Minati says with her impish smile, was good riddance.

My heart swelled with pride as I wished there were more girls like Minati who can make a difference. She has not changed the world, or the country, or even her village. She stood up for herself. By standing up to and against injustice. By not accepting anything just because it is religion/ tradition/ culture/ etc. By showing her friends the courage to do the same. By showing what is right and what isn't in our society. By having a mind of her own and using it.

I firmly believe that any individual who can't stand up for himself/herself will fall for anything on earth. Minati showed the world how standing up for yourself is bravery, not impudence or disrespect. She also showed us that all individuals, and women too, have a right to decide what is best for them. In India, this right is constitutional and irrevocable. How many women know that? How many women would use that right? Sadly, a woman in India may have her constitutional rights, but not her humanitarian rights - to happiness and to a mind of her own.

As my tears flowed... (Chapter 3)

2009-02-17T12:22:00.014+05:30

This was just another one of those depressing stories we read in the newspapers almost every day. Savita Kasture lives with her three children in Ulhasnagar, a depressing industrial township on the outskirts of Mumbai. Some months back, her husband left home without explanation. Savita was forced to find work and also to borrow money from her neighbours for her survival. Then, one day, without offering any explanation about his disappearance, her husband returned. On learning that Savita had taken up a job - something that he had forbidden her to do - he flew into a rage. While she slept next to him that night, he cut off her nose and then threatened to kill their two children.

This may sound like a scene straight out of those tacky Bollywood films which are churned out by the dozen. Unfortunately, it is the actual experience of a very real and very ordinary woman. It comes as a rude reminder of the extent to which women encounter violence within the ostensibly 'safe' walls of their homes every single day. Women are good at compromise. Victims of domestic violence say that compromise brings peace to the household. But peace at what cost? Victims of domestic violence also say they suffer in silence 'for the sake of the children'. But the children will grow up following the same pattern. Women often say, "We only fought after the children went to sleep, so they don’t know anything." Children always know - sometimes more than adults.

No one speaks of it. Women suffer it in silence. They are schooled to believe that ultimately it is their fault, and their fate. Behind the closed doors of a home, women are abused - physically, emotionally, verbally. But these stories rarely make it to the public domain because the victims themselves will refuse to speak. They will think there is no option but to keep quiet and accept. Marriages are made in heaven, they say. But for millions of married women, it is living hell on earth.

When the police caught Savita's husband and questioned him, he admitted to the crime and said, "My wife disobeyed my instructions and I decided to teach her a lesson." That is the key - 'teach her a lesson'. Men continue to teach women 'lessons' by raping them, beating them, torturing them or simply murdering them - the same women that they are supposed to love and cherish. The awful reality of the growing violence against women worldwide is that half of the women who die from homicides are killed by their current or former husbands or partners. Moreover, nearly one out of every four women in the world experience sexual violence by an intimate partner at least once in their lifetimes.

Every year, November 25 is regarded as the International Day against Violence Against Women. Worldwide, women's groups use the fortnight from that date onwards to put forward evidence about the reality of violence in women's lives and advocate strategies to confront and end this violence. But despite years of such campaigns, the statistics do not present a very encouraging picture. According to UNIFEM and other surveys, in countries ranging from rich to poor, women's experience of violence is almost identical.

In India, the National Crime Records Bureau (2000) reports that there are 480 cases of crimes against women reported every day. Also, there are 45 reported cases of rape and 19 reported cases of dowry deaths every day. The word 'reported' is of much significance here, because these numbers are but the tip of the actual iceberg formed by such violent acts. Statistics reveal that every hour five women face cruelty at home and there are four cases of molestation reported every hour.

Not any more. For, even if Indian society has failed its women on many counts, we can now celebrate the fact that India is one of the few countries around the world that recognises that domestic violence is a violation of the human rights of women. The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, which was notified on 25 October 2006, is path breaking in more ways than one. Most significant perhaps is its definition of 'domestic violence' as spelt out in Chapter II of the Act. All forms of abuse - physical, sexual, verbal, emotional, economic - are defined as 'domestic violence' by this law. It offers women victims of such violence civil remedies of a kind not available to them earlier.

Till now, women could use Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code to file a complaint against an abusive spouse. But this did not give the woman the right to, among other things, stay on in her marital home or demand a maintenance if thrown out or seek protection orders from the abusive partner. The law now provides her these civil remedies that are as important as the punishment provided under the law for committing the offence.

Violence-free homes make violence-free communities. They would make a difference to boys as much as to girls. Surely boys who grow up seeing the kind of violence as carried out by Savita's husband could decide the norm in how to treat 'your' woman. Reason being, behind the violence is a mentality of possession, of ownership, of a belief that men know best what is good for women, and that women must silently obey - or face the consequences. Whether it is honour killings, dowry deaths, wife beating or disfiguration, the motivation is identical - a desire to assert power and full control over another person.

As my tears flowed, I realised that the statistical graph of violence against women will continue to climb steadily until we can find a way to crack this belief in male superiority - in the undiluted conviction in millions of men that they were born to rule, to control, to be obeyed.

As my tears flowed... (Chapter 2)

2009-02-13T10:43:00.011+05:30

"The right to life of women in Pakistan is conditional on their obeying social norms and traditions."

- Hina Jilani, lawyer and human rights activist

Zahida Perveen's head is shrouded in a white cotton veil, which she self-consciously tightens every few moments. But when she reaches down to her baby daughter, the veil falls away to reveal the face of one of Pakistan's most horrific social ills, broadly known as 'honour crimes'. Perveen's eyes are empty sockets of unseeing flesh, her earlobes have been sliced off, and her nose is a gaping, reddened stump of bone. Sixteen months ago, her husband, in a fit of rage over her alleged affair with a brother-in-law, bound her hands and feet and slashed her with a razor and knife. She was three months pregnant at the time. "He came home from the mosque and accused me of having a bad character," the petite 32-year-old murmured as she awaited a court hearing. "I told him it was not true, but he didn't believe me. He caught me and tied me up, and then he started cutting my face. He never said a word except, 'This is your last night.'" In court, Perveen's husband stated, "What I did was wrong, but I am satisfied. I did it for my honour and prestige."

Honour crimes are acts of violence, usually murder, committed by male family members against female family members, who are held to have brought dishonour upon the family. A woman can be targeted by individuals within her family for a variety of reasons, including refusal to enter into a forced marriage, being the victim of sexual abuse or assault, seeking a divorce even from an abusive husband, or (allegedly) committing adultery. The mere perception that a woman has behaved in a way that dishonours her husband or family is sufficient to trigger an attack on her life. Some women who bridge social divides, publicly engage other communities, or adopt some of the customs or the religion of an outside group may thus also be attacked.

One of the most notorious such killings of recent times occurred in April 1999, when Samia Imran, a young married woman, was shot in the office of Hina Jilani, a prominent Pakistani lawyer helping her to seek a divorce which her family could never countenance. Samia, 28, arrived at the Lahore law office of Hina Jilani to seek a divorce from her violent husband. As she settled on a chair across the desk from Hina, her mother Sultana entered with a male companion. Samia half-rose in greeting, but the man, Habib-ur-Rehman, grabbed her and held a pistol to her head. The first bullet entered near Samia's eye and she fell. She did not scream; there was dead silence. She probably never even knew what was happening. The killer stood over Samia's body and fired again. Hina reached for her alarm button as the gunman and Sultana left. The mother never even bothered to look whether her daughter was dead. The aftermath of the murder was equally revealing. Members of Pakistan's upper house demanded punishment for the lawyer and none of Pakistan's political leaders condemned the attack. The clergy in Peshawar wanted the lawyer to be put to death for trying to help Samia.

The loose term 'honour killing' may also apply to killing of both males and females in cultures that practice it. This is practiced as 'karo-kari' in the Sindh province of Pakistan. Karo-Kari is a compound word literally meaning 'black male' and 'black female', metaphoric terms for the adulterer and the adulteress. These killings target women and men who choose to have relationships outside of their family's tribal affiliations and/or religious community. They are never given an opportunity to give their version of events: most significantly of all, often the making of the allegation alone suffices to defile honour and, concomitantly, to justify the killing.

Two main factors contribute against women in the name of honour. These are a woman's commodification and the cultural concept of honour. The concept of women as an object or commodity, and not a human being endowed with dignity and rights equal to those of men, is deeply rooted in tribal culture. From time immemorial, they have been considered to be the property of the men in their family, irrespective of their class, ethnic or religious groups. The owner of the property has the right to decide its fate. This concept of ownership has turned women into a commodity which can be exchanged, bought and sold. In fact, in the tribal society of Sindh and Baluchistan, a woman is equated with money. This view goes far towards creating a situation where she may be butchered if she transgresses the conditions under which she is bound to a man for life. She may also be freely traded or given away as part of a karo-kari settlement.

Ownership rights are at stake when women are to be married, almost always by arrangement of their parents. A major consideration is the young woman's future inheritance rights over family property or assets. In Pakistan, feudal and tribal customs dictate that property be kept in the family. It is not uncommon for girls to be married to cousins, so that control over the estate (jagir) is not weakened, as would happen if a daughter were to marry an outsider. In absence of a male cousin (paternal or maternal), the woman has to undergo the ceremony of haq-baksh-wai, or marriage with the Quran. While women are usually forced to accept such matrimonial decisions made by their fathers, men have the freedom to wed a second woman in accordance with their liking, and lead a life in the public sphere where they can find fulfillment. Women by contrast are usually confined almost entirely to the four walls of their home.

The commodification of women is also evident in that every marriage in the tribal society involves payment of a bride price. The bride is exchanged for a price in the market, which is paid by the groom to her father in lieu of the bride's possession and custody. The bride price varies according to the status, health, beauty and age of the woman and, like other possessions, the bride subsequently adds to the honour of the groom. To receive a sum of money in exchange for a bride is honourable not only to her family but also to the bride herself, whose worth is thereby acknowledged. Sometimes, the bride price is taken in the form of another woman. Men exchange their daughters and even granddaughters for new wives for themselves. While demanding a low bride price for their daughters, some men ask in addition that the as yet unborn granddaughter(s) be handed over to them to be married off for another bride price.

The commodification of women is also the basis of the practise of 'blood money', which is a compensation negotiated to end a dispute. Besides money, such compromise usually involves a woman to be given to the adversary. For instance, a woman may be handed over to compensate a man whose honour has been damaged or to settle a conflict between two tribes or families. The standard price to settle a conflict is either one girl above seven years of age or two girls under seven. Usually, it is seen that the girls' milk-teeth are broken to create the impression that they are above seven years of age. That way, a family would only have to give away one girl.

A man's property, wealth, and all that is linked with these forms the sum total of his honour value. A woman is also an object of value, and therefore is an integral part of the honour of a man. When the rights of a woman are transferred from her father to the man she is marrying, the guardianship of honour shifts as well. Perceived as the embodiment of the honour of their family, women must guard their virginity and chastity till, and even after, they are married. By entering an adulterous relationship, a woman subverts the familial order, undermines the ownership rights of others to her body, and indirectly challenges the social order as a whole.

Womens' bodies must not be given or taken away except in a regulated exchange, effected by men. Their physical chastity is of utmost importance. By the merest hint of an 'illicit' sexual interest, a woman loses her inherent value as an object worthy of possession, and therefore her right to live. In most tribes, there is no other punishment for a woman accused of 'illicit' sex but death, often in the most brutal of manners and with an audience to witness. Their dead bodies are thrown in rivers or buried in special hidden kari graveyards. Nobody mourns for them or honours their memory by performing the relevant rites of a funeral.

The perception of what defiles honour appears to have been continually widened to the point where it is now loose. Male control does not only extend to a woman's body and her sexual behaviour but all of her behaviour, including her movements, language and actions. In any of these areas, defiance by women translates into undermining male honour, and ultimately family and community honour. Severe punishments are reported for bringing food late, for answering back, or for stepping out of the house without permission.

As my tears flowed, I marvelled the paradox that women who enjoy such a poor status in society and have no standing in the family should become a focal point of a false and primitive concept of family honour, which they are accepted to uphold at the expense of their inclinations and preference for how they wish to live their life.

As my tears flowed... (Chapter 1)

2009-02-12T10:43:00.019+05:30

The date: February 27, 1998. The day: Friday. Close to 30,000 men and boys poured into the dilapidated Olympic sports stadium in Kabul, Afghanistan. Street hawkers peddled nuts, biscuits and tea to the waiting crowd. The scheduled entertainment? They were there to witness the flogging of a young woman, Sohaila, who was to receive 100 lashes. Sohaila had been arrested for walking with a man who was not a relative - a sufficient crime for her to be found guilty of adultery. She was single, so her crime was punishable by merely flogging; had she been married, she would have been publicly stoned to death. As Sohaila, completely covered in her shroud-like black burqa, was forced to kneel and then flogged, Taliban 'cheerleaders' had the stadium ringing with the chants of excited onlookers. Among those present there were just three women: Sohaila and two female relatives who had accompanied her.

These Friday circuses, at which Rome's Caligula would without a doubt have felt at home, are weekly fixtures for the entertainment-starved male residents of Kabul. These events are regular and continual; each inspiring the same frenzy in the thousands present to witness them live. There is nothing covert or hush-hush about the regime's punitive measures; in fact, the Taliban ensure they are as widely publicised as possible. In March 1997, the regime's radio station - the only one permitted to operate - broadcast to the nation that a young woman caught sitting in a clinic chatting with a man who was not her relative had been stoned to death. On another occasion, it was announced over the airwaves that 225 women had been rounded up and sentenced to a lashing for violating the mandatory dress code. A woman had her fingers amputated for the crime of wearing nail polish, and the grisly photographs appeared in newspapers around the nation.

The Taliban now control between 65 and 85 percent of Afghanistan, a country where statistics are anyone's guess. And they have easily overstepped Saudi Arabia to become the most oppressive nation on earth for women. Many of the Taliban's restrictions are rooted in the hardline Gulf state's gender apartheid. Saudi Arabia has also been financially supportive of the Taliban and the religious schools in which they are indoctrinated. The Taliban regime claim they are restoring Afghanistan to the 'purity of Islam', and world media invariably parrots them. But authorities in a number of Muslim countries insist that few of the regime's dictates have a basis in Islam. In fact, the Organization of Islamic Conference, a 55-country body, has withheld both a seat and recognition from the regime. "The Taliban is not the image the Islamic world wants to project", says a Muslim diplomat. And with good reason.

Islam dictates that education is mandatory for both males and females. At the time of the Prophet, Muslim women attained such scholarship they became teachers to prominent men. They also worked. In fact, the Prophet met his first wife because she was his employer. The medical corps of the Prophet's army was an all-woman corps, and in most battles, women took up swords and joined active combat. Women participated in public affairs, were involved in negotiating treaties, were even judges. Islam declared gender equality through the Prophet's words, "Women are the siblings of men." Islamic scriptures are very clear on the veil: only the Prophet's wives were required to cover their faces. In fact, when women undertake the Hajj, they are required to do so with their faces uncovered. They also mingle with men not related to them. Obviously, the Taliban's military prowess far exceeds their knowledge of Islam.

The pariah regime has expunged all leisure activities. Their list of what is illegal grows daily: music, movies and television, picnics and parties, celebrations, any kind of mixed-sex gathering. They've placed but a blanket ban on children's toys: dolls, kites, card and board games. Photography and painting people and animals is forbidden, as are pets, cigarettes and alcohol, magazines and newspapers, and most books. They've even forbidden applause - a moot point, since there's nothing left to applaud. Explaining why the regime has banned virtually all forms of entertainment, they say, "Time should be spent serving the country and praying to God. Nothing else. Everything else is a waste of time, and people are not allowed to waste their time."

It would probably be quicker to list what the Taliban haven't banned. The regime has even outlawed paper bags. Like many of their edicts, this would be laughable if the penalties for infractions weren't so severe. Break the Taliban's law and you risk imprisonment, flogging, or death in the most brutal ways. And to insure their dictates are followed, religious police, part of the "Department for the Propagation of Virtue and the Suppression of Vice", constantly roam the streets. Often teenage boys armed with automatic weapons, they also carry broken car aerials or electrical cabling to whip those who they decide are not properly observing the regulations.

For women, the restrictions are even harsher. Female education, from kindergarten through graduate school, is banned. Employment for women is banned. It is illegal to wear makeup or jewellery, to pluck your eyebrows or cut your hair short, to wear colourful or stylish clothes and shoes, to walk about in high heels, to walk making a noise, to talk loudly, to laugh in public. In short, women are completely prohibited from being seen or heard, lest they 'excite' men into lustful misadventures, which all the afore-mentioned activities are supposed to do.

If women do venture out, it must be for an essential, government-sanctioned purpose, and they must wear the all-enveloping burqa at all times. Even then they risk their lives. Not so long ago, a young mother was shot repeatedly by the Taliban while rushing her seriously ill toddler to a doctor. Veiled as the law requires, she was spotted by a teenage Taliban guard, who tried to stop her because she shouldn't have left her home. Afraid her child might die if she were delayed, she kept going. The guard aimed his Kalashnikov machine-gun and fired several rounds at her. She was hit, but didn't die on the spot, as she should have. Instead, locals watching the incident in the crowded market-place intervened, and mother and child received prompt medical attention. When her family later complained to the Taliban authorities, they were informed that it was the injured woman's fault. She had no business being out in public in the first place.

The burqa covers women from head to toe; the heavy gauze patch across the eyes makes it hard to see and completely blocks peripheral vision. Recently in Kabul, a Taliban tank rolled right over a veiled woman who could not see it approaching. Fortunately, she fell between the tracks and was not crushed to death; she was severely traumatized, though. To ensure women are effaced as effectively as if they never existed, the regime has ordered all exterior windows of homes to be painted black, lest a woman inside be seen from the outside. It is illegal for women to talk to any male except close relatives, which precludes them from visiting male physicians, no matter how sick, or even when in labour.

Amnesty International calls Afghanistan under the Taliban 'a human rights catastrophe'. Afghan women, struggling to survive in what has become a police state claiming to be a theocracy, describe themselves as the 'living dead'. Conditions are so deplorable for these women that many are severely depressed. Without the resources to leave the country, an increasing number are now choosing suicide, once rare there, as a means of escape. A foreign physician working in the city tells his tale. "Doctors are seeing a lot of esophageal burns. Women swallow battery acid or poisonous household cleansers, because they are easy to find. But it's a very painful way to die." For most women, it's the living that is painful; death is but a release.

Why does the regime insist that women be confined at home? Reducing women to mere objects, a senior Taliban official says, "It's like having a flower, or a rose. You water it and keep it at home for yourself, to look at it and smell it. It [a woman] is not supposed to be taken out of the house to be smelled." Another leader is less poetic. "There are only two places for an Afghan woman - in her husband's house, and in the graveyard."

As my tears flowed, I surmised that the graveyard is a far better option; one is free there - free from the world, free from being a woman, free from being.

Chaddi Pehen Ke Fool Khada Hai

2009-02-10T13:54:00.026+05:30

Come one, come all! Participate in the "Pink Chaddi" campaign this Valentine's Day to assert your being and raise your voice against the violators of our Constitution.

Women (and men, too!) all over the country are collecting pink chaddis and sending them to Shri Shri Pramod Muthalik as a Valentine’s Day gift. Surprised? Don't be! The idea is to arouse disgust and shame and other 'moral' feelings in the heart (?) of our beloved CEO of Morality, Inc. Yes, you heard me right - heart! He doesn't have a brain, now, does he? But he has a heart that's so filled up to the brim with filth, and beats so for a culture which according to him exists and we all agree to.

The aim of the campaign is to scream from rooftops the infalliable fact that this monster (no, no, that's not a typo on 'mobster') has been busy piling up his bigoted views on 'culture' and 'dignity' and 'chastity' and what not in filthy heaps all over the nation. We just cannot let HIM, of all people, take our freedom away.

Gifting panties may seem like a soft, even mushy, way to protest. Yeah, I know. But trust me, I seriously did consider options like face-blackening or dung-splattering these morons. On second thoughts, however, it gives much more credence to our collective lack of 'morals' and 'shame' and 'virtue', those extremely desirable qualities the revered Morality, Inc. is so very desperate to see in us women.

What's more, the campaign planners will hold a press meet to announce their collection of pink chaddis. The campaign is all about letting people know what we think of Muthalik and his goons, these blots on our society. Shri Shri Muthalik used the media in a clever and planned manner to cover the Mangalore assault, thereby getting their propaganda known far and wide. So why not give them a taste of their own medicine?

Girls, contribute chaddis in all shades - baby pink, bubblegum pink, rose pink, candy pink, candyfloss pink, hot pink, fuschia, magenta, whatever! They can be lacy, frilly, high-cut, thong-like, cotton, silk, spandex, whatever! Don't have a pink chaddi, you say? Well, go and buy them, then! Buy the cheap ones, though; it is recession-time, after all, and seriously, Victoria's never intended to let out her Secret, if you get what I mean!

Boys, if you don't wear (or at least don't own) the pink 'uns, buy a pair or two and contribute to this 'moral' cause. Heck, borrow from your girl! Better still, boys, you can also send in a pink 'dhoti' or 'lungi' or 'langot' or even one with a pink 'naada', for this is all about preserving Indian culture! Just-for-men hint: polka dots make it even better. You can also pepper your contributions with one-liners such as "Real Men", "Macho Me", "I Love Pink and Respect Women", and so on. Just a thought!

If you're not already doing it, or have done it, please film yourself or others doing it, with reactions and views of the contributors, and put it all up on Youtube. Its all about publicity. A real kick in the you-know-where to Shri Shri Muthalik.

However, a teeny-weeny part of my mind cautions me: Will he even get what this is all about? Is he capable of understanding, the moron?

A Midsummer Night's Horror

2009-02-09T14:36:00.002+05:30

"Man endures pain as an undeserved punishment; Woman accepts it as a natural heritage."

Every year, the drought-hit districts of Rajasthan speak about the number of deaths for the day, of bodies and carcasses strewn all over, of predictions for the continuing drought. Sometimes, the state speaks about a small village, Adharpura in the Banikantha district, where the news is of another kind of squalor.

Women from Rajasthan have from time immemorial overstepped their conventional boundaries, travelling far and wide in search for water. But women from Adharpura travel far and wide with their husbands in search for sex. Not for pleasure, but for money. Sometimes with fatal consequences. Fatal for the women, that is.

Every year, when the scorching sun divests them of water for months on end, the men turn to pimping rather than toiling in their parched fields. Many families live off the money that the women of their home - daughters, sisters, wives, mothers - bring in from prostitution. While the rest of the state languishes in famine, there is convivial celebration in this village which satiates all kinds of hunger - carnal, too. Then, without as much as batting an eyelid, the men return to tilling their fields once the rains begin to fall, and the women are shackled to their four walls. Till the next year’s drought, they are respectable people - who traditionally worship the Goddess.

Men in traditionally patriarchal societies in India either abhor women in the household as 'useless', or respect and love them as the 'weaker sex'. But men from Adharpura have little qualms about treating the women as Goddesses when the rains abound, and as prostitutes during drought. Men are seen leading 'clients' into their wives’, daughters’, sisters’ and sometimes their ageing mothers’ rooms - and whilst customers are serviced, the men distil illicit liquor for their guests who come from all over the state.

To read about this the first time was nauseating to say the least. Worse, I also discovered that the women are nonchalant about it; they joke about the sexual pleasures they might not have known if not for their summer prostitution. The men are another matter altogether. How could a person offer the body of his own mother/ daughter/ sister/ wife to another man for a sum of money? How do they suffer the ignominy?

A virgin, newly introduced to the trade, relates her traumatic experience. She was afraid; her father forced her into the room after beating her up, and her 'customer' raped her five times during the night. Her family kept vigil outside the room where the 16-year-old was violated; they would wake up periodically through the night when they heard her repeated screams, and then go off to sleep again. Early morning, after her customer’s departure, her father came into the room and had sex with her!

One has heard about incest, but this is something else entirely, for it combines incest with commercial prostitution. And it is all perpetrated by the family. The residents of Adharpura are mostly descendants of nomad migrants from Rajasthan who came here following one of the worst droughts two centuries ago. Faced with an uncertain and destitute future, some women clandestinely took to prostitution. The landlords were willing patrons. Thanks to the 'success' of these women, virtually every house in the area turned into a brothel overnight.

There have been countless programs over the years to eliminate prostitution from the area. The police has kept a vigil to deter 'customers' from coming. Welfare schemes have been launched with loans and subsidies to the villagers to start businesses. But each year, the residents of the village return to this profession, whether or not they have enough to eat and enough to wear.

Health workers conduct HIV tests on the women and men of the village. About 70% of them have tested positive for AIDS and another 20% suffered from some kind of sexually transmitted disease. With the lack of awareness about AIDS in Rajasthan, this disease will spread further beyond the boundaries of the village.

One may, in their anger and disbelief, feel it is just retribution for the perpetrators of the crime, and the participants. But how about the countless women in other parts of the state who had no idea that their husbands were 'clients' and are now infected? How about the children of women who participate in this seasonal activity? These innocent lives would be doomed but for the actins of others and no fault of theirs!

This problem does not have an easy solution. It needs people like you and me to contribute, start an awareness drive, organise campaigns to educate those who can be, and punish those who refuse to change. The government will listen, but only if we make the effort first.

Report by: Ms Deepika Singh

Masakali...

2009-02-07T17:07:00.015+05:30

I feel liberated when I hear this song. It should be the anthem for the women of India.

Ae masakali masakali
Ud matakali matakali

Ae masakali masakali

Ud matakali matakali

Ae masakali masa masakali

Ud matakali matakali

Masakali masakali
Ud matakali matakali

Zara pankh jhatak
Gayi dhool atak
Aur lachak machak ke
Door bhatak

Ud dagar dagar kasbe kooche nukkad basti mein

Titli si ud adaa se mud
Kar le poori dil ki tamanna
Hawa se jud adaa se ud
Phurr phurr phurr
Tu hai heera panna re

Masakali masakali
Ud matakali matakali

Masakali masa masa kali
Hey matak

Ghar tera saloni
Badal ki colony
Dikhla de thenga
In sabko jo udna naa jaanein

Udiyo na dariyo
Kar manmaani manmaani manmaani
Badhiyo na mudiyo
Kar naadaani

Udiyo na dariyo
Kar manmaani manmaani manmaani
Badhiyo na mudiyo
Kar naadaani

Gaa taan le muskaan le
Kahe sa na na na na na hawa

Bas thaan le tu jaan le
Kahe sa na na na na na na hawa

Ae masakali masakali
Ud matakali matakali

Ae masakali masakali

Ud matak matak

Tujhe kya gum tera rishta
Gagan ki baansuri se hai
Pawan ki guftagu se hai
Suraj ki roshni se hai

Udiyo na dariyo

Kar manmaani manmaani manmaani

Badhiyo na mudiyo

Kar naadaani

Udiyo na dariyo

Kar manmaani manmaani manmaani

Badhiyo na mudiyo

Kar naadaani

Gaa taan le muskaan le

Kahe sa na na na na na hawa

Bas thaan le tu jaan le

Kahe sa na na na na na na hawa

Masakali masakali
Ud matak matak matakali

Masakali masa masakali
Matak matak

Once again, I fail to find words to thank Mr. Rahman for another priceless gem. I can only bow my head in reverence for this great yet humble artist. My humble gratitude to Prasoon Joshi, the lyricist and Mohit Chauhan, the singer.

'Masakali' is the name of Sonam's pet dove in the movie, and means 'freedom'. I think the dove and Sonam (at least in this song) are synonymous to each other. Sonam represents a girl perfectly - a mix of innocence, beauty, naughtiness, freshness, irreverence and freedom.

Morality begins at home

2009-02-04T12:39:00.012+05:30

What really defines India in all its 'cultural' glory? A woman being paraded naked in front of the whole village and her children because she dared to call a painter to whitewash her home when her husband was not in town? A child being molested and then burnt alive by her own grandfather for daring to wear lipstick? A young educated woman being beaten by her 'educated' husband in a crowded marketplace for wearing jeans, a 'manly' piece of clothing, when out shopping with her parents? Or the police dismissing each of these incidents as a 'family matter' and no case being filed against any of the accused?

Shocking? Yes. Outrageous? Yes. Disgusting? Disgraceful? Shameful? Reprehensible? Yes, yes, yes. But horrific? Only to one really innocent about honour crime in India. Let’s face it. These are clear incidents of honour crime - acts of violence against women from male members of a family or community who decide that the women have brought dishonour upon their unit. Recently, some right-winged bigots sick in their head believed that women having a drink or socialising with male friends was a blot on India’s collective honour, and decided to protect Indian 'culture' and sense of 'decency' by groping, beating and trying to strip five hapless young women. Unfortunately, in the lurid landscape of honour crimes, such violence is rather moderate behaviour. The other accounts are more gruesome for the simple reason that they occur in the courtyard and rooms of homes where the victims are born and brought up. What's more, they are carried out by the very men they place their highest trust in - their own fathers and brothers.

Crime in the name of 'culture' or 'morality' does not occur only in the back of beyond, safely tucked out of sight of urban India. It also happens dangerously close to the nation’s nerve centre, and in uppity urban areas we christian as 'happening'. In November, in Greater Noida, two schoolgirls were killed by their brother for running away from home, apparently with their boyfriends. In September, also in Greater Noida, two teenage lovers were lynched by the girl’s family. On the eve of Republic Day, a young couple were chased and publicly shot dead in Punjab by the woman's father and brothers for marrying against her family's wishes. In June, in Hyderbad, a spunky 20-year-old was bludgeoned to death with a pestle by her brother for asking the village head for help in settling the argument with her family over her love affair. But perhaps the most tragic of all is the story of a little 12-year-old girl of Bulandshahar in Uttar Pradesh, who was mercilessly beaten to death by her father and uncles because they found her schoolmate, a 14-year-old boy, studying with her in her room.

There are hundreds of murders in the name of protecting honour every year, both within and outside the family. All of these are believed to carry 'reasons' which 'provoked' the murderers and are hence justified. Dozens of women are maimed and blinded for life as they are attacked with acid by men raring to teach a lesson to women who spurn their unwanted advances. It is no longer even ironic that the same women would be maimed and killed by their own families and communities if they were to accept those very advances. The life of a woman is deemed so trivial and so worthless that a man dreams his wife has cheated on him, wakes up to find her naked in bed with him, and slits her throat without a distinction between dream and reality. This actually happened and the killer escaped punishment. Those who heard justified his crime as an act of immense love and passion for his wife, so much that he could not bear to be separated from her. Now how could that be a crime?

This, from the land of Krishna and Radha, who were unabashedly open lovers and whose love people revere to this day. This, from the land of Heer and Ranjha, Sohni and Mahiwal, Laila and Majnu, whose love-lorn tales echo from the days of yore and colour our culture with their passion. This, from the land of the Kamasutra and Khajuraho, which teach us that making love is not merely a bodily function, it is an entire art in itself which must be enjoyed by the acting couple. This, from the land of Durga, Lakshmi, Saraswati, Kali - who are worshipped as goddesses for epitomising those facets our patriarchal minds connote with men - power, wealth, wisdom, wrath. Whether it is the village panchayat or an urban right-wing group, male fanatics attack women, who they perceive as their property and who are excluded from power equations, to preserve the values of a patriarchal society. And politicians don’t dare fight such practices, for patriarchy runs deep and is allowed to justify the most vicious of crimes.

We Indian women have won our rights and freedom - to education, to choose partners of our choice, against child marriage, against being burnt alive for sati, to equality in the workplace - through a bitter struggle. Yet we fight daily for simply our right to live and be respected as a human being. Let us not surrender these rights to the diktats of the saffron or white or green fundamentalism. Let us raise our voices loud and clear against the self-appointed custodians of 'morality'. The only morality we uphold is one which respects a woman's unfettered freedom and her right to decide the life she chooses for herself - including education, profession, life partner, clothes, food and drinks, entertainment. The only morality we uphold is also one which abhors any attempts to poison relationships between communities and places tolerance for others at its pinnacle. And treats all individuals - men, women, transgenders - as humans first, which they are, all of them.

'Off' you go, girl!

2009-01-28T11:13:00.008+05:30

I have strong objections to the phrase 'married off', which is commonly and liberally used without as much as a thought to how it sounds or what it implies. It means (at least to me) that a daughter is a burden that needs to be disposed off (for the cause of holy matrimony) as soon as possible. Such a liability cannot be borne for long. What will the relatives/ neighbours/ society say? "Abhi tak ladki ko ghar pe bitha ke rakha hai?" Shuddering gasp with one hand clutching at the heart and the other the open mouth. Worse, daughters are dispensable, and need to be dispensed as soon as possible.

This mentality, of thinking of women as commodities being passed around from one male to the other (father to husband), comes from patriarchy. And not even the Law thinks otherwise! Last February, the Bombay High Court has held that every father is under obligation to 'maintain' his daughter and get her married off. Maintain?

We hear of parents saving money for their son's education and their daughter's marriage. This mindset is propagated far and wide by popular media. What everyone conveniently forgets in these arrangements for the future is the daughter's education. Was any money saved for that? Was it enough for her to pursue all her dreams? Or was she taught to see just one dream - getting married 'off' - day after day and night after night? To be a 'good' and 'cultured' girl who will dream only of being a 'virtuous' and 'homely' wife to some benevolent Angel of Mercy who will agree to 'take' her if bribed with enough dowry.

Not just that. It suddenly becomes her duty to 'stay' married as well. Even at the cost of her happiness and peace of mind. Even at the cost of her individuality and independence. Even at the cost of her life. After all, her parents are done with marrying her 'off', what more can they do? Why don't they educate her to settle into a profession and empower her to provide for herself, instead of and before embarking on a search for a 'settled' guy who can?

The findings of the National Family Health Survey III reveal that, in rural areas, 52.5 per cent of girls aged between 20-24 get married before they turn 18. The corresponding figure for urban India is 28.1 per cent. Is that shocking? Yes, it is, for someone who has lived in a posh locality, received the best of education, and would not think of marriage before the age of 25 or even more.

Yet, with the rise in the age at which daughters get married, investment in them has also risen due to a longer period for which her natal family must support her. Investment in her education becomes important to enable a better match, which will likely be more expensive too. All this becomes a vicious circle which spins the web of dowry.

At first glance, a tiny part of the world with good schools and colleges, malls and multiplexes seems to symbolise development. The person who collects garbage; that newspaper guy who leaves a daily at your doorstep; the milkman, the grocery boy: they are the inhabitants of a much larger space where a girl’s marriage before the age of 18 happens because it does. If at all such individuals are surprised by the survey’s findings, that would be since half the women of today’s India are getting married after 18!

Why do we not allow our daughters to marry as and when they meet the right kind of person? Why is there an age limit fixed for a decision that has nothing to do with age and everything to do with how the couple work as a team? Why do we not support her when she chooses to marry someone who respects her, as an equal, and not someone who tries to change her in accordance with his view of life? Why do we not let her be someone who uses her own mind to think what's best for her, and not be told about who she should spend her life with?

The old mindsets can change only when the onus of choosing a life partner is on the man and woman concerned. It is about being responsible for your own decisions and working together to implement them. Some of our glorious traditions need to be broken. For starters, the practice of arranging a marriage which leads to any kind of demand - expressed or implicit, needs to be changed.

As parents, you can begin by dissociating yourself from choosing the spouse of your children - and the expenses for and after the choice. Assume the role of a friend and confidante, instead, to guide your children through the path they choose and to lend an ear. Restore - completely, unequivocally - to your children, especially your daughters, their inalienable right to select their mates. Let them take responsibility of their lives before they become responsible towards each other. If they're mature enough to marry, aren't they equally wise to decide who they want in their lives?

A daughter is not the property of her parents to be donated or dispensed to some obscure unknown fellow who simply happens to have the astronomical bodies in the right position at the right time. She does not need to feel obliged just to have been born to you. Accept her adulthood. You may not be able to save her from a heartbreak or a failed marriage, but let her make her own mistakes and learn from them. Support and console her without saying 'I told you so'. Be there for her at all times, and yet do not interfere in her life. A fine balance indeed!

So she can't be your son? Why does she have to? Just let her be your daughter. Is that too hard?

Chastity belts, next?

2009-01-28T10:42:00.009+05:30

So free am I, so gloriously free,

Free from three petty things -

From mortar, from pestle and from my twisted lord,

Freed from rebirth and death I am,

And all that held me is hurled away.

(Mutta, Therigatha, "Poems by Buddhist Nuns", translated by Uma Chakravarthi and Kumkum Roy)

India - a melting pot of beliefs, a melange of faiths, a multitude of languages.

In India, culture manifests itself within the multi-layered and multi-coloured lattices of region and religion. Therefore, any attempt to look at culture as a homogenized entity would be erroneous to begin with. The diversity contained in what is called Indian culture indicates high degrees of interaction, assimilation and integration for all communities in the lived sense. Even a cursory look at daily life of any section of Indian society will reveal the continuities between various kinds of cultures and the experiential basis of these continuities. Culture cannot be viewed outside of a social context. We find across the length and breadth of the county that cultural practices vary according to social patterns that have been historically and geographically determined to a very large extent.

Indian culture - from a strictly ritualitic point of view - has been appallingly male-appeasing. A plethora of 'traditions' and 'customs' existed - and many still exist - which explicitly and emphatically advocate discrimination against females and award them a secondary status in society. These include casteism, widow burning, untouchability, dowry, terminating the girl child. And sadly, quite a few Indians will go to any extent to defend these practices. What's more, there is no guilt or remorse involved, not even a feeling of wrong-doing, all in the name of 'culture'. India takes pride in celebration of womanhood. But again, she doesn’t like it when a girl child is born. We have an unnecessary and completely unrealistic grand opinion of ourselves – a sense of greatness which is completely hollow, an artificial construct so delicate it can burst like a bubble.

Over the years, however, women have begun to realise they have an equal right to live and contribute as an active member of a society, and that they too enjoy fundamental human rights like men. The emergence of the women's movement, popularly (and condescendingly) called Feminism, concentrated on changing the intellectual fields for women. By and large, it began to play a major role in directing women’s feeling of themselves as the other sex.

In many ways the Indian women’s movement has far outstripped the women’s movement in the West in recognizing the wide range of issues that impinge on women’s equality and emancipation. In India, religious fundamentalism and sectarian nationalism have additionally become obstacles to women’s advance. The women’s movement in India analyses how desecularisation of polities has affected societies.

Culture in India, considering the multiplicity of our social fabric, has little to do with religion. Mixing the two is merely a dangerous strategy adopted by extreme-right groups to capture political power. The obsession to identify Indianness with religion leads to the violation and erosion of the rights of Indian citizens, and to collate religion and politics thrusts forward an obsolete and injust patriarchal ideology in the guise of 'Bharatiyata'.

In the name of tradition and culture, there is active recreation of old social evils so vociferously fought against for decades by the women’s movement. These include some absolutely abhorrent practices such as untouchability, suppression of property rights, child marriage, sati, veil, and restricting women to the home.

Misula*, an adivasi from Gujarat, recounts her very identity being challenged and suppressed, terrorized into declaring herself as part of the majority community. Urmila*, a dalit activist from UP, underlines that although she belongs to a caste where women and men are treated with some semblance of equality, extremist forces make incursions leading to observance of social evils. Similarly, Vaishnavi* from Jharkhand narrates the struggle of adivasi women over land rights, and their heroic stance to safegurd and protect their life pattern and sources of livelihood. Intimidating tactics adopted by right-wing parties in UP include the harassment of and discrimination towards the minorities in their daily lives. While they make a big noise about the film on Benares widows by Deepa Mehta, they show utter apathy for the thousands of women abandoned by their families during the Kumbh melas.

Religion has always been used to suppress women’s rights and to sanction women’s oppression. The religious texts also make women a party to their own oppression by creating and endorsing definitions of the ‘ideal’ woman. These definitions are largely penned around a misogynist and patriarchial image. Women, they say, are essentially mothers. They are also defenders of tradition and bearers of the family honour. These descriptions aim to keep women backward and divorced from the mainstream, even as real-life situations force them to come out in defence of their rights.

And that is why the mayhem that unfolded in Mangalore certainly angers us but does not surprise. It is yet another dagger through our broken hearts. It was once again a brutal reminder that as a country we have decided not to grant protection to half the population. Those who carry out the assaults are unabashedly bold and unrelenting, because they know that there is a political and judicial construct that will help them get away with their crimes. That explains why after the attacks and the outrage that followed, they have been freely intimidating the victims and also the brave young man who came to their rescue.

So what next, after no holding hands with men or even no talking to them? Chastity belts?

* All names changed to protect privacy

Mere paas "decency" hai...

2009-01-25T20:32:00.015+05:30

"Freedom is that instant between when someone tells you to do something and when you decide how to respond."

Freedom is the right to live as we wish. This right, however, died a painful death on Saturday, when 'activists' of a self-styled pro-Hindutva moral brigade which calls itself the Sri Rama Sene barged into a pub in the coastal city of Mangalore and assaulted (physically and sexually) a group of young girls. Oh yes, they had a 'reason' for their impotent behaviour too, as most impotent men always do. According to these 'morally uptight' local Talibanis, the girls were "violating traditional Indian norms".

A deranged mob of about 40 'men' forcibly entered the pub, claiming 'unethical' activities were on inside, and that some of the public had complained. They then viciously attacked the hapless girls and also outraged their modesty. The young men accompanying the girls to the pub on the busy Balmatta Road were also assaulted when they tried to protect their friends, as also were the staff who'd collectively risen to help.

Claiming responsibility for the attack, state deputy convenor of the Sene Prasad Attavar said that it was a spontaneous reaction against women, who flouted 'traditional' Indian norms of 'decency'. He said these girls were Hindus who dared to get close to Muslim men.

Sadly, Karnataka - a state that once had a strong image of peace and tolerance - seems to be heading in a very different direction now.

Source: TOI, NDTV, IBN

Okay, here's what I gather from this incident. "Indian Tradition and Culture" is a manuscript written by a bunch of goons and hooligans. The manuscript itself is a list of dos and don'ts that these morality-preachers collate and dispense at will. They decide what comprises morality and decency according to what they deem fit, and it only pertains to the females of the nation. It definitely advocates the use of violence and sexual perversion - liberally and frequently.

This piece of literary genius does not include (or rather overlooks) such mundane things as terrorism or dishonesty or crime in general. It only stresses on matters of utmost importance to India today - namely, what women should and should not do/ wear/ eat/ drink, where they should and should not go/ look, how they should sit/ stand/ talk/ pee/ shit/ barf, whether they should live/ see/ breathe without permission from the authors of the afore-mentioned script, how they should always provide for the sexual repression and frustration of these esteemed authors, and the like. As for men, well, some of them wrote the manuscript, didn't they?

All I can say is that Manu, the acclaimed author of the Kohinoor of Indian literature, Manusmriti, smiles in content and indulgence at his faithful protégés. After all, did he not say that a woman is an embodiment of the worst desires - hatred, deceit, jealousy and bad character - and so should never be given freedom? The saviours of India surely know where to fuel their regressive mindsets from!

"Day and night women must be kept in dependence by males (of their families), and, if they attach themselves to sexual enjoyments, they must be kept under one's control."

Edited to add:

I just had to publish this comment from some anonymous 'moral' fellow who's too much a coward to display his/ her name while commenting - "one thing i want to know is how do we control a person who is beyond decency limits & who will draw the line? since the government & NCW have failed in this, common man has no other way but to resort to such wild behaviour. I saw the TV. what sri ram sena said is correct, these people usually take drugs & behave badly & dress badly also. NCW should be held responsible for this." This person should be lynched for insulting the common man by saying they'd believe in what the Sena did! And there's more to cover his/ her posterior - "I do not support sri ram sena either. They need to resolve this issue by peaceful protest Like wearing a black mask & sitting for dharna infornt of bad people & bad places. They should not hit people." Yeah, right!

Edited again to add:

Here's what the founder of Sri Rama Sene, Pramod Mutalik, has to say after Saturday's appalling incident - "We oppose this. Women have to be protected as the law has failed. Parents are worried about their wards going astray in materialistic pursuits. We are the custodians of Indian culture." Like hell you are! And like hell the parents gave YOU the authority to 'protect' their daughters! And, surprisingly, he says "there is no need to raise such a hue and cry about the incident". Sure, there's no such need; Manu made that clear eons ago!

Barf bag, please

2009-01-25T01:16:00.007+05:30

Is it just me, or is no one really smiling? Yes, I have a sense of humour. And a very active one at that. Yes, I’ve listened to and even laughed at sexist jokes and did not fire up in indignation at the derogatory undertones. But yes, I am outraged at this. I'm sorry, but the laughter just doesn’t erupt from within my being.

Courtesy: UltraViolet

Gaudaan... Vastradaan... Annadaan... Bhoodaan... Kanyadaan?

2009-01-24T05:21:00.006+05:30

Kanyadaan = kanya (girl) + daan (donation) = Literally, the donation of one's girl/ daughter

Kanyadaan is often dubbed as 'mahadaan' - a donation of the highest order. As one of the irrefutable rituals of a Hindu wedding, the father of the bride is entrusted with the 'sacred responsibility' of performing kanyadaan as one of the greatest daans of his lifetime.

The idea of 'donating' one's child generates from our patriarchal norms and traditions which are unabashedly male-centric. The focal point of the universe is thought to be men, and women, instead of complementing them, are marginalised at the peripheries. Women are seen as merely an instrument to fulfil masculine purposes - particularly that of 'putra-praapti' or begetting sons so as to keep the lineage alive.

For producing male progeny later in her life, an unmarried female has to be kept 'chaste' and 'pure' by her father as part of the larger plan of survival of human race. Her personality, spirituality and psyche is expected to be so moulded as to unquestionably fit into her pre-destined role of the second sex. Nowhere is it ever mentioned that begetting daughters is a desirable (or even one of the not-so-desirable) goal of society, even though they are as much a part of evolutionary progress as sons would be.

Nothing is more atrocious than the concept of 'kanyadaan'. It is against the basic human values. In fact, shockingly, parallels can be drawn between 'gaudaan' (donation of a cow) and kanyadaan. Cows are useful to the extent that that they produce milk and calves, hence they need to be fed and kept properly. Similarly, the practice of kanyadaan draws from certain religious ancient texts which actually mention that a woman's place is at home where she should be given sufficient food, ornaments and clothes to wear - all so that when her husband comes home from work, he finds her attractive for producing male progeny.

Marcel Mauss wrote: "To give something is to give a part of yourself." This worries parents, especially fathers, making them extremely cautious about their daughters' marriage arrangements. Kanyadaan quite literally takes part of the girl's father with it - in the form of her father's blood, and his money. On the other hand, the gift of kanyadaan is likened to a gift to God. The daughter’s husband is akin to Vishnu, while the daughter herself represents Lakshmi (not surprising, considering the amount of dowry she brings to her marital home).

According to the scriptures, a daughter is the finest gift a man has to give to another man. Though he loves his daughter, he cannot keep her. In fact, to keep her past her puberty was considered a great sin for a father in olden days, which was why tiny pre-pubescent girls were married at a very early age, often as young as five or six.

However, the humiliation of the daughter, now a daughter-in-law, doesn't end there. Her acceptance involves the receiving family in risk. Conveniently overlooking the absolute dependence of the lineage on her reproductive powers, the ideology of marriage focuses on the dangerous substances the bride brings in her blood to mix with the husband’s patrilineage.

"The boy will enter the householder stage and he is taking the girl to enter; hence it depends on the girl. If she isn’t of good blood line, his whole grhastyam is spoiled. So purity of blood is essential." So say the 'wise'!

What is even more baffling is that often traditions like kanyadaan are not questioned, since on the superficial level they are not perceived as being overtly gender discriminatory. However, the problem is they serve to perpetuate gender inequality and reiterate a woman's tertiary existence and male supremacy. This plays on a woman's psyche and strengthens the in-built injustices of society where women are subject to violence and abuse, even death. Another problem is that since kanyadaan takes place during a wedding, gender-sensitised citizenry are also hesitant to disrupt the ceremonies to protest against this regressive practice.

The Frog Princes

2009-01-18T23:03:00.010+05:30

In a bizarre ritual, two minor girls from the remote Pallipudupet village in Tamil Nadu's Villupuram district were married to frogs on Friday night. The ceremony, an annual feature during the harvest festival Pongal, is conducted 'to prevent the outbreak of mysterious diseases in the village'.

The girls, both 7, dressed up in traditional bridal finery of gilded sarees and gold jewellery. They wed the frog 'princes' in elaborate ceremonies amidst chanting of Vedic hymns. The priests garlanded the brides and tied the magalsutras on behalf of the frogs. The girls were pronounced as wives of the amphibians before the sacred fire at the auspicious hour. The ceremonies concluded in sumptuous feasts.

And like any traditional Indian wedding, there were 'baraatis' and 'gharaatis' as well! The villagers living in the western part of the village acted as relatives of the brides and those from the eastern part acted as relatives of the grooms. Relatives of the brides came in a procession to the grooms' adopted homes to fix the marriage and later went to the temple pond to catch the frogs. The frogs were tied to long sticks bedecked with flowers, as they awaited their resplendent brides.

Sadly, unlike the popular fairy tale, the ugly frogs could not have turned into handsome princes when their brides kissed them. That was at least a 'fairy tale', though. The poor amphibians were thrown back into the temple pond after the ceremony.

An elderly woman of the village said the ritual was practised traditionally for several generations to 'ward off evil spirits and diseases' from the village. The district collector R Palaniswamy says he deputed a team led by the local social welfare officer to visit the village and submit a detailed report. The district administration, he says, proposes to evolve 'comprehensive schemes' to enlighten the villagers against such evil and ignorant practices.

Funnily, this evil and ignorant practice has been going on right in front of his unseeing eyes, year after year.

Source: The Times of India website

Now, here's the reactions from various readers of the news:

"The only thing missing in this report is whether the persons performing these rituals were thrown in the pond with the frogs. Ignorant goons. Please leave kids alone!"
Nope! The villagers are still on terra firma.

"Why attrocities only on females? These folks should start marrying off the males now. Poor goverment policies. Shame on people and netas of India."
Yes! Why are ONLY females always married to dogs, trees, snakes, stones and what not? How on earth are THEY always responsible for anything that does or may happen (in this case outbreak of 'mysterious diseases)? And why should it happen at all - to anyone, male or female?

"This is a violation of frog rights! :)"
Sarcasm at its best! Sadly, the smile doesn't come.

"It is astonishing and sad that such bizarre practices are still practised in this era. I am curious to know if these girls are allowed to marry 'human beings' later on or are they supposed to live life praying for their 'Frog Prince'."
Trust me, I won't be surprised if they live their lives as lawfully wedded to and faithful wives of the animals.

And, finally, to add salt to the wound comes this comment that left me seething:

"This looks exactly like an article a Western newspaper would publish about India. What exactly is evil about this custom? Was anyone harmed here at all in this ritual? Is this more evil than universal Christian custom of eating Jesus' flesh and blood at church (transubstantiation)? The only thing evil here is the reporter's bizzare hate towards harmless age-old Indian traditions."
Perfect! The best defense is offense - so start mudslinging other religions and traditions. Christianity has its own set of superstitions - agreed. So instead of sitting pretty and talking big, fight against those as well!
And how was no one harmed? What about the girls? Their dignity? Their self-esteem? Their rights as a human? Their respect as an individual? Oh, I forgot, the poor girls were not supposed to have any of those.
Just to think (let alone believe!) the girls are in any way responsible for what happens/ happened/ will happen/ can happen/ may happen in the village is tantamount to harming them. How would you like it, Mr. wise guy, if someone blames you for the tsunami of 2004 and forces you into holy matrimony with a whale?

Girl, Interrupted

2009-01-13T05:27:00.006+05:30

Courtesy "Unchaahi"

What the ....

2009-01-10T17:37:00.006+05:30

I recently came across a revolting practice while researching on content for my next post. I was too sickened and outraged to comment when I read it, so I'll put it up here for my readers.

A hostel in Madurai has been forcing students to maintain a public register of their menstrual cycle. This, apparently, is to prevent pre-marital sex and to ensure that teenage girls do not 'go astray'.

This crass invasion of girls' privacy has been taking place for years at the government hostel for poor and backward class students in the affluent and very urban Madurai. The register has columns for the exact dates of their cycle. Even slightly irregular dates invite snide remarks and harsh reprimands by the hostel warden.

"Making them write down their menstrual cycle dates creates mental torture. Most girls are not even able to tell their parents about these things. It is creating a lot of tension," said Jeeva, Regional Convenor, TN Child Rights Protection Network.

Defending the outrageous measure, the hostel warden says it is the best way to 'keep the girls under check' and prevent possible pre-marital sex. "I've only been continuing what my predecessors started. I am doing it with students' interest at heart," said Selvarani, warden, Adi Dravidar Students Hostel.

The girls revealed that the policing is done by the cook under the overall supervision of the warden. But while their records may be strictly monitored, their sanitation is not. The girls claim their hostel has just one bathroom but that is exclusively for the warden. The girls can enter it but only to clean it and not use it. Ironically the moral brigade is unconcerned about the fact that the girls have to bathe out in the open after dusk. From banning anything except sari and salwar-kameez-dupatta on college campuses to monitoring their menstrual cycles, primitive mindsets, it seems, are there to stay in our educational institutes as well.

Courtesy: "Reflections" (Dr. Bruno's blog) and NDTV

Born to die

2009-01-10T16:23:00.005+05:30

“Let a female child be born somewhere else; here, let a male child be born.”

- Atharva Veda v 1.2.3

Lakshmi* already had one daughter, so when she gave birth to a second girl, she killed her. For the three days of her second child's short life, Lakshmi admits, she refused to nurse her. To silence the infant's famished cries, the impoverished village woman squeezed the milky sap from an oleander shrub, mixed it with castor oil, and forced the poisonous potion down the newborn's throat. The baby bled from the nose, then died soon afterward. Female neighbors buried her in a small hole near Lakshmi's square thatched hut of sunbaked mud. They sympathized with Lakshmi, and in the same circumstances, some would probably have done what she did. For despite the risk of execution by hanging and about 16 months of a much-ballyhooed government schemes to assist families with daughters, murdering girls is still sometimes believed to be a wiser course than raising them. "A daughter is always liabilities. How can I bring up a second?" Lakshmi, 28, answered firmly when asked by a visitor how she could have taken her own child's life eight years ago. "Instead of her suffering the way I do, I thought it was better to get rid of her."

A tenant cultivator, Gauri* has two daughters and a son at 24. The baby that she was accused of strangling was the third daughter. She and her husband were jailed along with their youngest child. That three baby girls born around the same time had died in Gauri's village had alerted the police. The father of one of the girls had told his wife, "Why should I have anything to do with the legal proceedings when the baby died in your mother's house? I won't bear the expenses. It is your problem, not mine." Home on bail, the wife solved the problem by taking her own life.

Various brutal methods are adopted by parents to kill the female infant. Usually, midwives are hired to carry out the task, who feed milk laced with the sap of poisonous plants or pesticides to the infant, give paddy (rice with its husk) that slits the tender throats of new-born children, feed salt to increase their blood pressure or even stuff the infants into clay pots. In some cases female infants are starved or dehydrated by parents and are even wrapped in wet towels to help them catch pneumonia. These techniques have been passed on from generations in our country and continue to be passed down further.

Alligundam, a remote village in Tamil Nadu, is an eye-opener in many ways. The families there are aggressively protective of their right to eliminate their female children. A village elder shouts angrily, "We don't kill female infants in this village? Go and see... you will find at least one girl child in every house." What he conveniently forgets to mention was that the next... and the next... and the next... would all be eliminated. The families believe that one girl is needed to 'light the lamp' in each home; the others are intrusions who just have to go. They want more boys, so family planning is never an option.

What lies at the root of this tragedy for these families? At an awareness camp for school children conducted by an NGO in an infanticide-prone area the children were asked who they preferred for a sibling - boy or girl. 99 percent of them favoured boys; girls, they said, cost more to their parents. A 14-year-old schoolboy ran away from home when his parents refused to kill the twin girls born to them rather late in their life - he did not want to shoulder the responsibility of marrying them off later in life!

Female infanticide is a wicked practice that is common in India. People forget that on the one hand they worship female deities and view young girls as their avatar whereas on the other hand they are busy murdering innocent females. It is true that the birth of a male child is an occasion of celebration while most families see the birth of a female child as a burden. A son is said to carry the family name forward. It hardly matters if the daughter is more capable than the son. It is the son who is more pampered and treasured. Women who are incapable of giving birth to a son are often ridiculed and abused and even thrown out of their husband’s home. Sons are called upon to provide the income; they are the ones who do most of the work in the fields. In this way sons are looked to as a type of insurance. With this perspective, it becomes clearer that the high value given to males decreases the value given to females. In most traditional homes, where a girl child is looked upon as Goddess Lakshmi, she is also said to bring poverty for her parents and riches for her in-laws. This is in reference to the system of dowry where girls take money and presents to their husband’s homes when they get married.

60-year-old Kanchamma*, a midwife in a non-descript village in Tamil Nadu, has witnessed the killing of many female infants. Her job, she says, is only to deliver the baby. What they do with it is a family decision. On rare occasions, though, she is able to persuade the family to give a girl child away for adoption. Kanchamma, with her native wisdom, has a perfect explanation as to why more girl babies were getting killed every year. "The value of a girl goes down every time the value of gold goes up," she says.

This raises several fundamental issues for reflection. Are the women who commit (or are forced to commit) such crime more sinned against than sinning? Are we punishing the victims of patriarchy rather than its perpetrators? Didn't they kill the female babies they had been taught to devalue from childhood, mainly to ensure their own survival in their marital homes? "If the baby is a girl, don't come back" is an injunction not to be taken lightly. Should not the state have launched a massive education campaign to publicise the basic biological reality that it is the chromosomes of the father, not the mother, that determine the sex of the baby? Given the reality that vast stretches of rural India still reel under patriarchy in its crudest forms, is it realistic to penalise its victims for not standing up to it? Whose fault is it that the woman, who labours equal to (and sometimes more than) the man, yet subsists on much less, has come to be perceived as a liability?

The disastrous impact of the consumerist culture spawned by globalisation that has been a driving force in pushing up dowry rates and consuming brides in flames has been widely held to account by social scientists for the spread of infanticide to new areas and communities. They perceive the spread not as a relic of an atavistic past, but as consequence of a narrowly based, consumerist path of capitalist development within a framework of strong patriarchy and son preference, and an environment of universalisation of the small family norm. They also suggest that policy intervention and social mobilisation are urgently needed on this issue.

A perception held by a section of social activists is that as one strives to change state policy as a long-term goal, punishing those who kill their offsprings with a proprietorial right, could work as an effective deterrent in the short term. This has, in effect, opened the floodgates to foeticide, aided by modern scanning technologies. Another point of view that it is the father who should be arrested instead of the mother, as infanticide could not happen against his wish, was tested in a gathering of women in an affected area; some thought that it would ruin the marriage and would split the family. Many, including a large number of NGOs working in these areas are against any punitive action, and stress instead basic policy changes that would expedite attitudinal changes.

It would be naive to perceive female infanticide and foeticide solely as expressions of violence of the families concerned, ignoring the deceptively invisible violence that is inherent in the path of market-driven economic development and an acquisitive culture that creates and strengthens inequalities and inhumanities. Compassion, humaneness and the worth of the individual are totally alien values in an economic dispensation where greed is assiduously cultivated and individual profit is celebrated as the crowning civilisational goal and glory. It is about time we exerted ourselves to reflect and debate on who the major and minor players are in these killing fields and whether the women in distress should be penalised and made to bear a cross that belongs elsewhere.

* All names changed to protect privacy

Drop Dead, Gorgeous!

2008-12-12T15:58:00.010+05:30

"Ladka mare kambakht ka. Ladki mare bhaagyawaan ki." This is said in many parts of India for several centuries now. If this does not give you goose-pimples, here's more. "Now they no longer feed them paddy husk or poisoned milk… They stifle them with a pillow or with a cloth." So says a midwife from a non-descript village in Tamil Nadu.

So, you think all this happens in villages and slums only? Here's a news flash. An educated woman working as an IT consultant at Chandigarh has had four abortions in five years. No prizes for guessing they were all girls. Here's what she has to say. "We knew the doctor at the scan centre and went to the clinic that he suggested and had the foetus removed. The next three times were also okay, except that I got very tired and had to give up my job. My husband said having a son was more important than having a job." So go and eat your words now.

Now I hear you saying that these doctors only operate out of dingy clinics in seedy bylanes. Yeah right! Just read what Dr. Aniruddha Malpani, a famous IVF specialist and one of the most vocal pro-sex-selection activists in India, has to say on the topic of sex-selection and sex-selective foeticide. He in fact goes on to say, "Many doctors would have few or no qualms about discarding an embryo diagnosed as having trisomy 21, in the belief that a baby with Down’s syndrome will have a less than optimal quality of life. So if we allow people to choose when to have babies, how many to have, and even to terminate pregnancies if they inadvertently get pregnant, then why not allow them to select the sex of their child, if it is possible?" The Hippocratic Oath, amongst other things such as conscience or ethics or morality, just went out of the window. And he has the audacity to say that he 'only' has two daughters and is 'still happy' with them. Many thanks, Doctor!

Someone please tell Malpani that a daughter is not the same as a child with a non-curable and debilitating disability. Yet, in this society, many daughters are treated as just that. A child with a disability. The financial implication is high (dowry), the emotional angle is also high (they go away to another family, we invest so much just to lose them to another home), and they bring shame to the family anyway (molestation, rape). So, well, that seems to justify their right not to be born at all!

One cannot 'choose' the child on the basis of its sex because that is the work of Nature. Not of corrupt doctors(?) like Malpani who won’t hesitate to misuse technology for a few extra notes. Tell me, Malpani, if couples have planned for two children and both are girls, why do they try a third time? To 'balance' their family, you say! Would they still do so if both were boys, just to have a girl too and 'balance' their family? Can you answer that, Malpani? So take your 'wisdom' and stuff it up your arse. And stop the facade of being 'happy' with your girls, you filthy hypocrite! Because if it is alright for you to have only girls complete your family, it definitely is alright for everyone else as well.

Edited to add: This affects me so much more because my Dad's a doctor!

India has historically had a deficit of women compared to most other countries, but we now live in a time when a systematic extermination of an entire gender is taking place right before our eyes. Until the 1980s, women and girls were dying either of neglect or were killed soon after they were born. Today, the horrifying reality is that, thanks to 'advances' in medical technology, they are now eliminated while still in the womb. Female foeticide has become an organized crime and the ultrasound machine has mutated into an instrument of murder.

India has become an appalling story of deeply embedded and destructive patriarchal beliefs, disempowered women who have no claim on their own bodies and the active complicity of a ruthless and callous medical and social system. It is chillingly clear that the macabre practice of eliminating female foetuses spells doom for our sons as well as our daughters and is bound to have a disastrous impact on future generations.

For those girls who do make it out of the womb, survival isn't a guarantee, say child rights activists. Many die in their infancy because they are given less food and medical care than their brothers. Those who do survive will generally get less of an education, in both quality and quantity, than their brothers. Life isn't always fair to the fairer sex!

The Coolest F-Word

2008-12-09T23:35:00.010+05:30

Heavens no! I am not advocating profanity. So stop giving your computer screens that look, take your hand(s) away from your gaping mouth, and read on!

The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, “It's a girl.” So cheers to feminism - the coolest F-word ever! Feminism helps us face the challenge of being complex people in a society that reduces us to pink and blue.

Feminism for me is doing what one likes for one’s own satisfaction, not proving a point to anyone, not even to the men. I don’t believe it is necessary to go out and do everything that a man does and excel in it just to prove that I am equal to the men and thus a feminist. I don't want to be labelled a "working woman" or a "house wife". Just let me be - it is my choice. I shouldn't be expected to work or not work because I am a woman; I should work or not work because I want or don't want to. I should not be expected to cover my body because I am a woman; it should be because nudity is equally unaccepted for both men and women. It is as simple as that.

Feminism to me means that I should not be treated as second-rate just for being biologically and emotionally different from men. I should be accepted as equal in spite of the difference. It is the complete ban on the use of the words "No you can't/ shouldn't, because you are a woman." So? So what if I am a woman? How does it make me any less of a human being? I may be different from men in a number of ways, but in no way am I any lesser. I can still celebrate that difference, can't I? I am not inferior in any way - I am just different. Is that so difficult to accept?

Feminism to anyone should be never ever feeling that life would be better if I was born a man. Or never ever feeling that I am entitled to something special because I am a woman. Both these thoughts have crossed my mind only once each. I whined about a flat tire a month back, saying "I wish I was a guy so I could change the tire without worrying about ruining my clothes. I am a girl, Papa! I shouldn't be doing this." Papa actually screamed, "What on earth is that supposed to mean? You have two hands just like a man has. You have a spare tire and a jack in your car. You also have a phone to call up the 'RACE' people if you don't want to deal with it yourself. So does a man. If you were born a woman, it does not make you so inept that you can't help yourself. It also does not make you so special that you deem such tasks beneath yourself. So get going with that car." He then hung up on me. My Papa - the feminist!

Feminism also means that I should not be blamed if I am sexually harassed by a creep who thinks he is a man. Feminism is realising that sexual harassment and related crimes are a law and order problem, and not a woman's (or her dress's) fault. A three-month-old baby girl was raped; surely she didn't flaunt her boobs for the rapist, did she? Similarly, women are raped in places like Saudi Arabia, where all one sees of a woman is her eyes (and that too is only for the more 'free' women, whatever that is supposed to mean). Please, a woman does not ask for it or invite it upon herself. The mere thought is absurd! No woman wishes to be harassed or assaulted, whatever we may think. It is just not possible. And even if someone says '... she was throwing herself at me, encouraging me, ...' etc. etc., I ask him one simple thing. Surely you had the better sense to avoid her than to do what you did?

If I see a man walking down the road or standing in a bus, I do not ogle, lech, whistle, catcall, grope or pounce on him. So why should I, if I walk down the road or ride a crowded bus, be ogled at, leched at, whistled at, catcalled, groped or pounced upon? If I see a man dressed in jeans or shorts or briefs, I do not sexually assault him; I merely carry on with what I am doing. Why should a man behave any differently?

Feminism is also standing up for some women who, for whatever reason, do not wish to or cannot stand up for themselves. It means letting a wife-beater know you will complain and not consider it a 'family matter', because it is not. It means letting a prospective groom know you will not allow dowry to tarnish the wedding, because the bride should only be entitled to her share of the family wealth (just like her siblings) and nothing more. It means helping your wife with the chores because she is as human as you are, and therefore gets as tired as you do after a day of work. It means not making her feel guilty because she works and therefore does not take care of the kids; they are your kids too, so why can't you care for them when she's not with them and you are? Feminism is also not blaming your wife for the kids' poor results or the leaking kitchen faucets, because it is not her fault any more than it is yours.

Feminism is not a fad. It does not stand for women society labels as "bold" or "strong" or even "cheap" and what not. Anyone - men and women - can be a feminist, if they answer "Yes" to the question "Are women human beings?". Feminism is not proclaiming women to be better than men or non-feminist women (whatever that means). It does not mean we hurl abuses at the men in our lives and in the world at large. Feminists do not indulge in male-bashing or bra-burning. We just want to be a woman and still be able to live a life of our choice and liking without being reminded that we are a woman. Hell, we know that already!

And hey, men should be feminist too. They can help create a better society by making sure that they treat their mother, wife, sister, daughter, colleague, boss, neighbour, customer and friend as an equal. How, you ask? Simple - just think of her as an individual and not a woman. Feminism is good for the society, because it is all about refusing to carry out or accept injustice. No society can thrive if half the population is treated as second-rate.

Feminism, therefore, is the 'radical' notion that women are people.

Beginning of an End

2008-12-09T18:27:00.010+05:30

XX - the chromosome that heralds the beginning of a life.

Sometimes, the end.

This weblog is an attempt to raise a voice for her who is not given a chance at life - the discriminated woman.