Ideal,Real and Dialectics

For Hegel dialectics is the conflict between the ideal and real. This conflict, he says,  leads to change.

Conflict between ideal and real. Yes that is what it is. Ideal: riches and comfort. Real: bonded labour and stress. Change: in progress

Ideal and real. It takes ages to understand the difference between them. Most of the time we are so convinced that the ideal is real that reality lands a sucker punch right into your gut. Then you change. 

I’m a woman and I get to choose

“Wars are fought over a woman’s body.”  That’s something our culture study professor explained to us sometime back. She was talking about gender issues, riots and war. The first casualty of man’s triumph in any combat is a woman’s body, she explained.

Last few months have brought to fore some disgusting realities of existence as a woman in my country. Protests, slogans, heated debates, lousy comments; all about what a woman can do and what she should not do. How it’s her fault that she gets groped, raped, molested. That a lot of these comments come from men, does not mean that some women are not agreeing with them.

Among the various casualties of these events, is the one that concerns the understanding of the ideology of feminism. The most common notion being that women who hate men are feminists, and men can never be feminists. Also that feminists are lesbians.

I’m a feminist. and I like to call myself an evolving feminist. I have a list of men I adore (father, brother, nephews, friends, and an extremely large list of celebrities). I confess, that I went through a phase where I hated men. I still do at times, but the only the ones who ill-treat or disrespect a woman. I’m still discovering feminism and it upsets me when men and women want to make it very clear that they are not ‘ feminists’ because of the misconceptions about this ideology.

My first lecture on feminism in undergrad is something I still remember very well. Our lecturer had informed us in advance about the classes on feminism. Excitement is an understatement for what I felt that week. I had been calling myself a feminist for quite some time. At that point it just meant disliking men.

But things were about to change and they did. My professor started the lecture by saying, “ Feminism is not about hating men.” Then she went on to explain the concept of gender and sex, society and biology, and finally patriarchy and stereotypes. This was followed by the waves and the different schools of feminism.

Over the years I’ve seen different kinds of people throw different brands of feminism at me. I’ve agreed, disagreed and dwelled over them. With all of these, every time I try to check my evolution with this philosophy I find that there is a strong constant.

Feminism to me stands for the right to have a choice. That empowerment comes from the fact that I have choice. The word choice here is so vast.

For centuries society has set certain norms for a woman. Dressing, behaviour, culture, future, expectations. Everything has a boundary. In my country being covered head-to-toe is the way a woman should dress. She should be submissive, meek, polite, tender and not opinionated. Her culture is that of bearing pain, suffering and silently. Her future is attached to marrying a man and providing at least one male heir. She is expected to listen and obey, put her family, her children and her husband before herself.

What feminism says is that a woman has a right  to choose. Decisions are not made for you, but you get to make them.

So when I bring in my feminist demands here, I say a woman can dress in anyway she wants to. Bare her shoulder, her back, reveal or not reveal anything. It’s her body and it’s her comfort. She has the choice of doing what she wants with it. She wants to be covered head-to-toe, great! She doesn’t want to be covered at all. It’s her decision.  

Behaviour and culture are the biggest stereotypes. I’ve personally had a lot of trouble with these two. I’ve been told on several occasions that I behave un-woman-like. Some have said it out of jest, some out of concern.

Keeping your hair short, or dressing in pants or jumping fences does not make you un-woman like. It’s your personality and you live it. Someday you’ll let your hair grow and decide you want to wear a dress instead of pants. And you could still jump fences.

The bit about suffering in silence is worrying as a lot of woman consider this to be a matter of pride. It all starts when you are a 13, experiencing excruciating cramps, bleeding for three days and you are not to ‘tell anyone’.

So we lie to our brothers and friends who are boys and our fathers (who know, but they act like they don’t). Let’s just say it, because that’s the only natural difference between men and women. There’s nothing to be ashamed about, it’s actually kind of cool. So take pride in it. If you have menstrual cramps say it, and the fact that you are continuing with regular life inspite of all that pain makes you a hero.

With this we teach ourselves not to suffer in silence. A man or woman strikes you, say it out aloud. They have no business of violating your space. You have the choice to say no to him or her. You can’t be claimed as mute property, because you have a choice.

Future. It’s such an important decision. Most women are told that it’s marriage and then children. Again she has a choice. She can study as much as she wants to. Fall in love and fall out of love as many times as her heart permits. She can work, earn and have an independent existence. She can marry whenever she wishes to, whoever she wishes to. Have children, stay at home our pursue a career. She has a choice.

There are no limits to her expectations. She does not have to confine herself to what’s considered right. She can go beyond all those boundaries and define her life or choose to stay within them.

This is what defines feminism and I see no shame in calling myself a feminist. Having the right to choose is a basic. That right should be respected. I’m not a victory claim, or a mute object serving the purpose of reproduction. I’m a human being with a choice and I refuse to let other humans fight wars over my body.

Dancing, For This and a Billion More Risings

“Good girls don’t dance in the middle of a road,” a wise elderly relative told me as I was pulled away from the tiny circle in which my cousins and I were dancing.

It was my brother’s wedding procession, called baraat. Bands, that specialise in music for this kind of a procession, were playing one peppy Bollywood favourite after another. I was the only girl dancing with the boys. My sister and other female cousins were conscious and a little concerned about their sarees. As for me, I had made my mother put extra pins in my saree so that I could dance freely.

The freedom was short lived. I had to fall in line with my sisters, bear disapproving looks from the elders and watch the boys have all the fun.

(Image via http://www.womenlobby.org)

My wise elderly relative would have had a shock of his life if he had been here yesterday (February 14, 2013). Right in the center of Bangalore city, where dancing is banned,  women were dancing, celebrating, rejoicing. They were rising, with a billion others all over the world, for a fearless future. There’s no way anyone was going  to pull me out this time.

Some of us there knew each other, some of us will never know each other. But we danced together. Thrusting, pouting, winking, encouraging, coordinating with each other, liberating each other.

There were men too. Some were rising and some were just curious bystanders. My friend came up with the brilliant idea of distributing pamphlets to the curious bystanders. We hope atleast some of them read why so many men and women were dancing, painting and singing, in this grand carnival against gender violence.

It was an inspiring moment. Irrespective of gender, people were out in the streets against rape, domestic violence, sexual harassment, gender insensitivity, female infanticide and other such social evils.

The fearlessness was contagious. So was the feeling of liberation and empowerment. Each one of us were so different, yet we were there because we’ve all been ill-treated, disrespected or violated because some people think that’s the treatment a woman asks for every time she defies the boundaries imposed on her.

Why was I there?

When activism is your job, words like rising and people and movement start becoming redundant. Yet they are your dream. To see billions of people rising for one cause, starting a movement? Oh yes!

Not participating in one of  these weighs heavily on your conscious. If you have been calling yourself a feminist even before you understood what it meant, then not attending is not an option.

I enjoy certain privileges today because women fought for equality in the late 18 century. My pay is the same as my male colleagues. No one can stop me from casting a vote, or expressing an opinion on the basis of my gender. I live an independent life on my terms and take most of my decisions on my own.

Yet, society does not miss an opportunity to oppress me. I’ve lost count of the number of times I have been touched or seen inappropriately. I have faced abuse. I’ve been judged for not following rules a woman should follow. And this is the story of so many women all over the world.

I don’t have children yet, but I have two adorable nieces and I want to give them the privilege of being fearless. I don’t want them to feel the need to carry a pepper spray or a weapon with them. They should not restrict their dreams because of a gender stereotype. They should have more choices than I have, more freedom than I have. That’s why I was rising.

I was rising for my mother and grandmother, for my nieces, my sister, for cousins and friends, women and girls I know and I don’t know. I was rising so that men and social systems that ill-treat women know that they are in minority. I was rising so that, next time a young girl wants to dance her heart out in the middle of a road, she can do so without being told it’s inappropriate.  

I will continue to rise till stigma that haunts women across the globe is wiped out. I will rise till the choice, opinion and rights of every woman has the strength of a billion. And I know, each time I rise I will have a billion rising with me.

Closet Cleaning: What’s Out and What’s In

I’ve finally accomplished something. It’s a task I despised as a teenager, but I’ve overcome the trauma and done it. I’ve cleaned my closet.

It was a giant heap, a mess. Lots of clothes everywhere, unarranged, unorganised, a nightmare for anyone with OCD. I forced shut the closet, even locked it, so that the heap does not tumble out. But then I had to unlock it because I had to extract something out of it, to enhance my appearance in the world outside my house.

On one such occasion, the heap of clothes started tumbling out. One after the other; old clothes, new clothes, forgotten clothes lay on the floor of my bedroom. I did try controlling the avalanche but I was pushed back and made to witness this disaster.

Thus started the arduous task of folding, arranging and cleaning my closet.

I found the t-shirt which I thought made me look good. Purple, enhanced the right bits, covered the not-so right-ones, in short a safe bet for a sexy day. But somehow the magic had faded. It didn’t do the same thing. Last time I wore it I looked exactly as fat as I am in real and that’s not nice. No point keeping it in the best bet stack, so I chucked it out.

A blue tank top, with a hole, followed the purple t-shirt, and that one was followed by a shirt with a massive tea stain. They should have gone long ago, and they are now. All of them live together in the discard stack.

Then there was this red top. I remember shopping for it. Love at first sight, I wasn’t sure if it would look good on me, but I had to buy it. Watching someone else wear it would have killed me. So I bought it. I did wear it a couple of times, but it never seemed to match anything. It was too red and honestly, now it looked fairly ordinary. Confession: a bad buy. I kept it in the standby stack and if I don’t wear it successfully soon, it will join the fellows in the discard stack.

Discarding led to re-discoveries. A long-lost and one-time favourite balloon top, a halter which I’d picked up after promising myself that I’d lose weight to fit into it, a cotton dress I’d picked up in Goa, a pair of shorts from Goa again and the list can go on forever.

I lost every plausible excuse to shop again. Regretted shopping for all those clothes that were lying in the discarded heap. In a small corner of my small brain my mother’s voice reprimanded me for not arranging my wardrobe regularly.

I put all that regret aside and looked at what was left of the heap of clothes. The lost lot, and my favourite lot. Home clothes a.k.a prized possessions.

Striped boxers held together by stretched elastic, the out-shape t-shirt from college, which used to be dark green but is now some unidentified shade of green, the black one with crazy lines and a tattered hostel laundry tag, a pair of shorts I’d stolen from my brother, very big and very comfortable. I can go on and on and on.

These clothes get a special shelf in the cupboard. They personify comfort. Slipping into the pair of now-ill-fitting jeans from college days cures the gloomiest of days.

They have memories. They are as good as skin. No matter how fast my sizes change, these always fit. They are reassurance. In fact some of them have changed sizes according to me.

I’ve hidden them from my mother, lied about their existence so that she does not throw them away. I’m a bit too attached to my special old clothes. They are my constants in this ever changing, fast moving life.  When I wear them, the whole universe gets together and says, “Everything will be okay.”

So that’s it, my closet is neat and full of clothes that retain the quality for which they had been picked. They make me look good and feel happy. 

Who Doesn't Like Being Raped?

In the tiny single column on page three of the newspaper, the anchor on page one and tiny corners all over the newspaper, some woman, child or girl is getting raped.

It's becoming routine now. How do men in Haryana spend their time? They go around looking for girls/women, anything with a vagina and breasts to rape.

If we are to believe authorities, girls and women and anyone with a vagina and breasts, anywhere in this country, apparently walk with a tattoo on their head which says, "Rape me. I am a woman, you ought to rape me."

Who put that tattoo, you ask me? 

Hey these are women.If they are allowed to survive in their mother's womb, and then later outside of it and allowed too much time on this Earth then they are asking for these tattoos.

Did you not know that they are unwanted? You have to make them and those who want this unwanted species realise the mistake they have made by bringing her to this world. The only reason we might just tolerate them is that they also produce male children. And those, everyone wants.


The government knows about it and who knows it might soon launch a secret mission to get rid of females, sparing a few who will only reproduce male heirs. Women are the trouble makers, men are expected to behave the way they do. Right?

This the truth, like it or not.
-----------------------------------------

All of us have those tattoos on our head, I see men trying to read it everyday. The day one of them deciphers it, I'll join the group of woman who wanted to get raped. Who went out of her way to attract the attention of a stranger on the streets and he was so helpless that he raped her.

What's even better is the word rape does not seem to horrify anyone anymore. So when a cricket team thrashes another we say "Oh! xxxxx raped xxxxx." If you point it out then you are the hyper feminist who can't take a joke. Rape, joke you say?  Okay, the jokes on me, tattoed on my head perhaps.

The hard truth about being a woman in this country is that though you are unwanted, you are still wanted. They just want your legs to part and if you don't oblige they'll make them part for you.

You get more despised  if you are educated, independent and speak your mind. They hate you when show them that you don't need a man to run your life. That you can be on your own and choose a life you want to lead. That you are not a production machine to suit a man's need. What you posses is more powerful than any man, and you have the right to yield this power, and have children because you want to and not because it's your duty to a man.

Often, I get told off for being critical of men. But really if the slightly sensible and yet-not-turned-rapists variety of men, have some shame, they'll not question me again. They'll not complain about the fact I get free entry and drinks at a posh bar. I also get molested and groped.

This privilege of walking in somewhere  for free is not for me, it's for the men. They pay to walk in, groove with some, grope some, molest some and who knows if they get lucky rape some and make it to the tiny column of a newspaper. In the end it's always the women's fault.

What Happens When You Walk on Clouds

If there was some sort of a system of giving certain titles to the years of your life, I’d title my 26^th year as the Year of Awakening. It’s also because I began 26 in a not-so-sober-state. Post the drunken stupor everything is a rude shock.

A piece of advice before I elaborate the Awakening:

I know getting drunk on your birthday is really cool and all, but then it really isn’t. The person who got you into this world had to bear a lot of pain to push you out. She did not have the option of taking a tequila shot. She brought you in sober, and the doctor gave you one hard smack to make sure you were also sober. So being sober on the day you were born is a natural choice. Stick to it and you won’t have life smacking you back to sobriety. That’s the end of my advice.

When I think of my 26^th year so far, I see a caricatured version of myself with a crooked tiara on her head. Her eyes are shut because she is smiling ear to ear and she is walking on clouds. Below these clouds are people looking at her, clapping, holding their stomachs and laughing. They don’t see the clouds, they just see me with my eyes shut, smiling and walking on what I think are clouds. When I woke up I saw the same.

It’s tragic and comic. I woke up when the clouds decided that I was to heavy to walk on them. They didn’t tell me that they were going to give-away just like that. They did, and I fell with a thud on the marble floor of my house. That was the first why in the string of whys I have been asking since then.

"Why did the clouds give away, they could have told me I, I would have moved?" 

The now awakened part of me said, “Sweetheart, there were no clouds. You were high on something, it was this very marble floor maybe you got confused with the colours.”

"Why were all those people laughing at me? I knew some of them, they could have told me that I was not walking on clouds."

Awakened me said, “Honey, it’s rare to find an idiot who thinks she is walking on clouds. Everyone likes a good laugh, so they built more clouds for you and laughed even harder.”

“No one’s ever going to tell you the truth. They should, but they won’t, it’s for you to figure out. And you will once you fall flat on the marble floor. What you figure out is always going to be wrong according to someone else. You’ll be told that you were walking with your eyes shut. And that’s not entirely inaccurate. But now that your eyes are not shut anymore you can stop serving yourself up as entertainment to others.”

That was enough of a lecture to put an awake person to sleep, but it worked the other way round for me. So Awakened me and groggy me got together, we sighed and said the last ‘why’.

"Why me?" 

We could spend the rest of the 26^th year looking for an answer to this question. Or just say, F*** this S*** and figure out a way of building more reliable clouds to walk on. For starters, let’s lose some weight.

Awakened me nods, and votes for option two. So do aye!

  

The Magic of Ink

It was red and teal. My first ink-pen. Then it was the first step to growing up. Pencils were for kids. Twelve years later it’s not very different.

I had a terrible hand-writing, so my teacher in Class IV would not let me use an ink-pen. The rest of my class, however had made the transition.

But the inevitable happened, I was in Class V and everyone has to write with a pen in class V. I spent hours at the local stationery shop, looking for my first ink-pen. The Chinese nib ones, were not good. Our teacher was particularly critical of them, so they were a big no. Parker or Pierre Cardin were not for beginners, Mont Blanc was out of question.

So I settled for a red and teal ink-pen with a silver nib. The ink-tank in that pen had an injection mechanism. This made my very ordinary pen, very cool.

Thus began my affair with ink-pens. My hand-writing was still not very good. But I believed that a good pen would make a big difference. So I spent a lot of time at the stationery store, trying out different pens.

Then on a certain birthday my father gave me the most beautiful ink-pen ever. It was black with golden rims. It made paper feel like silk. It made my untidy hand-writing legible.

We were perfect together. It set in my palms, like it was made to be there. Writing with it was a pleasure. Exams, class notes, homework as long as there was something to write. 

I’d start all my exams with that pen. With it I managed to clear most of my tests with decent grades. It was good, it could not have been better than this. I had found my magic.

I was writing my final exams for Class VIII. As always, I had my beautiful pen with me and we started out on yet another examination journey together.

English language and literature papers were always very satisfying. After once such paper, I told the girl who sat in front of me about my beautiful pen. About how well it wrote and how good we were together. That the colour and the model of this pen was not easily available in the market now. I was very-very proud.

Then, before our next paper, my pen was gone. It was very disturbing. I had just kept it in my box, where could it go?  I bought another colour of the same model. It was horrible. It looked the same, but it wrote like dried wood.

Before our last paper, the girl who sat in front of showed the new ink-pen she had bought recently to me. It was black with golden rims. She said it wrote beautifully. I knew it did.

I shed a few tears before going the bed. I cursed the day, I told her about my pen. I cursed her for taking it away for me.

After that, I did not write with an ink-pen again. My pen was gone. It was with someone who did not even value it. It was over.

I moved on to gel pens. They were new and cool. I collected loads of them in different colours. I had my favourities there too. Then I fell further and moved to cheap disposable ball-point pens. Now, it’s mostly the keyboard.

After almost 12 years, I thought of going back to the ink-pen. I went to the staitonery shop and asked for one. They looked at me like I had asked for a dinosaur egg. They threw the Chinese nib ones at me, and I said no, instantly. Then the owner walked in and pulled out some old, dusty boxes.

I automatically went for the black pen with golden rims. It was not the same. So I settled for a simple grey pen.

When I wrote my first sentence, my hands quivered like they did when I was in Class V. I am re-learing and re-writing. It‘s like I am writing for the first time. The feeling has not concrete definition.

It’s like meeting a long-lost friend. Or meeting someone you liked after many-many years and realising that you never stopped liking them. Then you wonder, why did you ever give up on them, if you liked them so much in the first place?

I don’t know how it works with people, but I know that I can hope to find my magic again. I have found my long-lost friend. I have found the one I always liked, and I am not going to stop till we fall in love with each other. Together we will weave beautiful stories. We’ll create worlds beyond and our dreams.

….and this time I am not telling anyone about us.