WE PROUDLY BREW

Oh you bright serpent of human faces
Slithering in the corridors of Connaught Place 
(and other Places)
Waiting for the Manna,
Brewed, processed in swanky kitchens!
As the drops of the dearly gained ambrosia wet your tongue,
You begin to talk:
Of hunger, of silence, of the poor, of violence, of rape and red-tape, of disability, of corporate social responsibility, of riots and various diets, of this and that and of that and this.
You hiss.

You shed your skin and leave it crumpled inside the napkin that comes with a mug of Starbucks. 
WE PROUDLY BREW
WE PROUDLY SPEW

Blank Stares: Of Rape and Rehab

“Mumma meri Kummo se baat karogi?” (Mother, will you talk to my Kummo?) asked excitedly my 2 year old daughter drowning whatever my mother was telling me on phone. I asked my mother about this ‘Kummo’ who had activated such enthusiasm in Nyasa. “Her name is Kamala and she teaches Nursery kids in the school. And when you send Nyasa to me, she becomes her governess,” told my mother. So, Kummo is the one who handles my child and I better be thankful to her. After a week when I travelled to my hometown to fetch Nyasa back, I finally met Kummo and her sister.

My mother has been running a school in what can be called one of the most backward districts in Uttar Pradesh. Whenever I get too busy in my professional ‘shenanigans,’ I send Nyasa to her grandparents where she can be taken care of in a much better manner. All the parties involved love this arrangement. Including Kummo.

When I reached my parents’ house that noon, I saw Nyasa being fed khichdi by a tall teenaged girl. She was dressed in the way almost every small-town girl does: a pair of unaltered jeans with dirty and worn out cuffs, a synthetic kurta and a shiny stole. Her hair was tied in a high pony-tail and she wore inexpensive earrings. A dusky complexioned, completely average looking girl who greeted me with a Namaste and stood aside to facilitate an emotional reunion of her ward with the mother. As I learnt later that day Kummo took care of Nyasa during the school hours when my mother was busy in her office downstairs. She bathed, clothed, fed and even tutored the two year old. Her elder sister, who also teaches in our school, paid occasional visits during the school recess but Nyasa hadn’t taken a fancy to her.

As a nitpicking mother and an ungrateful daughter I observed Kummo very closely during my stay there for one reason initially and quite another after the first day. The girl appeared a little unstable, extremely sweet at one moment and quite detached the other. She stared continuously at a spot without realizing it. She ran without really having to. I found her really irritating at times. I was waiting for my mother to come upstairs after winding up for the day. How could she trust our most precious treasure with a girl who was definitely mildly idiot if not totally a crackpot! I never realized in my sanctimonious demeanour at that moment that Nyasa was MY responsibility which I comfortably transferred to her expecting world class arrangements in a god-forsaken mofussil.

“Mom, this girl is a crackpot, her hair is dirty and she has no sense of hygiene. And she stares a lot. Find somebody else. Can she actually teach? Just because her sister was a student here doesn’t mean that you have to employ both of them.”  And so on. I had endless complaints. My mother, as usual, made an angry face which was an age-old signal to shut up. She then declared, “This girl is a rape survivor.”

“Stop being so judgmental,” she demanded. “And, haven’t you noticed how happy your daughter is in her company! Nyasa is an extremely headstrong child and hypersensitive one at that. You think it is easy to find somebody who can be so patient and genuinely caring. Why don’t you find one in Delhi?” I was ashamed of myself on many accounts. How could I be so callous that I chose to ignore her patience and loving ways with Nyasa and focussed on her messy hair! That she was a rape survivor hadn’t sunk in at that moment.

“You ask me why I have employed her, so here are the two reasons. Firstly, the sisters belong to a poor family and do not have means to support their education. Whatever I pay them here goes towards their education. I agree that they are not great teachers but at a nursery you don’t need educators. You need people who can connect with little children. They take long leaves during the exams and come back to teach once done. And with all your gender equality activism in a metro, do you realize how difficult it is for a girl who was raped and brutalized in childhood to survive in a small town like ours? She is a little unstable but at least she is putting up a fight. Isn’t it our duty to help her and the family to put the trauma behind them?”

I was suitably chastised.       

Next morning when I woke up to Kummo’s shrill voice, I was gripped by a renewed sense of guilt. Her instability was an outcome of horrible deeds of some depraved men and it was as if she was questioning our collective consciousness through her blank stares. Her ways did not change but my attitude towards them did. I learnt a new lesson in empathy. Till now rape was something distant, which happened to some unfortunate women. A woman myself, I had hitherto distanced myself from rape, it only happened to unknown people. It would never happen to me or my friends or family, I had thought. I had tackled it as clinically as possible to save myself the emotional drain. When I faced Kummo, however, all that was bound to change and it did. The reality behind her odd behaviour and the pain behind her loud laughter educated me like no literature, seminars or debates on rape would.

I still keep sending my daughter to my parents at regular intervals. In the past one year the bond between my daughter and her Kummo has strengthened. Whenever Nyasa is set to come back to me, Kamla asks about her next visit. Last birthday the sisters gave Nyasa a cute little yellow bag. I tried my best to stop them but their loving defiance was way stronger than my concern towards their economic status.

Last night Nyasa asked her father all of a sudden, “Dadda, aapko Kummo yaad hai? Aap Kummo se miloge?” (Father, do you remember Kummo? Do you want to meet her?) What a coincidence! I was outraging against the brutal gang-rape of a 23 year old medical student that is sending shock-waves across the country and has jolted even the most insensitive and apathetic of cops. While almost everyone is demanding a befitting punishment for the brutes- ranging from public stoning to bobbitization, I am more concerned about her rehabilitation if she survives. The brutalities suffered by her body will unfortunately deprive her of a normal “physical” life. The doctors have said that she might never be able to eat again. She has decided to live and has shared the sentiment with her mother through a written note.

I pray she gives no blank stares upon recovery for I now have at least a little understanding of what lies beneath them. And if there are any, they must meet cheering and empathetic faces. Rehabilitation and assimilation of rape survivors is far more important than punishing the culprits. One sneer here or one jeer there can annihilate even the bravest of us while we are picking up the pieces of our brutally shattered life.  

* The rape survivor's name has been changed to respect her privacy. 

** Image courtesy http://www.kabar24.com

Stone Pelting Beyond Kashmir

Recently stone pelting once again made headlines when Omar Abdullah declared a one-time amnesty for the stone- pelters in Kashmir. Social media was flooded with observations, questions and varied responses pertaining to this decision. This brought back the turbulent memories of my visit to the Valley when stone-pelting was at its peak. I also tweeted a bit and then forgot all about it in some time. Though, my amnesia lasted only till I faced stone-pelting. Once again. And this time, not in Kashmir.

I was supposed to join my husband in Kolkata and despite his fierce protests I chose to travel by train. He tried his best to persuade me to take a flight but I put my foot down and booked a seat in Howrah Rajdhani. For me there is something romantic about a train journey which even the most comfortable air travel cannot match. Travelling by an aircraft, one reaches the destination without experiencing the journey. A rail-trip, on the other hand, educates you in the process of getting you to the destination. On my eventful Delhi-Kolkata journey I too learnt a thing or two. About the stone-pelters.

An hour after it started from New Delhi Railway Station on September 7, Rajdhani Express too caught up with the latest trend in the country: bangs and booms. Incidentally, in the morning India’s Rajdhani (capital) shook with the blast in the High Court premises. Everyone was talking about it, while trying to settle in the designated seats. Uncomfortable with mine- it was right next to the door- I was desperate to get it changed. Before it could be done, I had a déjà vu experience. My glass window got shattered by a stone-pelter’s perfectly aimed missile. I had a family with a seven month old boy as co-passengers. A few bewildered moments later, when all of us realized what had happened, the child was carefully examined for any injuries. Mercifully, there was none. None of us got hurt and we called the coach staff to clean the shards of glass that were strewn everywhere on our seats and the floor.

The staff came with “first-aid” material for repairing the window lest the air-conditioning suffered. As the “bandaging” was in progress we heard shrieks. Another stone missile and another shattered glass. Unfortunately, the passenger sitting next to it was not as lucky as us. The splinters had injured his face and people around him were in a state of shock. Needless to say, I began to doubt my decision to travel by train. Since I had requested the coach superintendent for a change of seat, I was rushed to the next coach where I settled comfortably in my Upper Berth. I started to think about my narrow escape and suddenly two of the coach attendants ran past. The TTE followed and informed the curiosity stricken travellers that yet another window got attacked two coaches ahead.

This incident of stone-pelting, most likely, will go unnoticed by media. The foremost reason being, apparently it was not a part of any organized agitation. There was probably no agenda behind these attacks. Most importantly, this did not happen in Kashmir. This perhaps was a sport activity for many an idle adolescents staying close to the railway tracks. Who shatters the window emerges as a winner. Yes, I was informed by the superintendent that many young boys bet and aim at the train windows. And what better target than the Rajdhani!

Rajdhani, the symbol of elitism for many decades. As a child I was amused by the stories about its plush interiors, polite attendants and delicious food. This was an era when low-cost carriers had not entered the market and air-travels were beyond the imaginative horizon of Indian small towns. For most of us, the Rajdhani ticket was a status symbol. Years later, Rajdhani has lost its snobbish glamour, becoming a bit more vivid in terms of its passenger composition. Thanks to the advent of low-cost carriers and ever-slipping standards of the Indian Railways’ service, Indians are flying more often. Interestingly, despite all the odds Rajdhani has retained its status as the unattainable mistress for a large number of people. And the broken windows are a testimony to this. A comfortable train journey still remains a distant dream for a huge chunk of rural population of India. There is no money, no reservation counters and no stoppages to let them travel in say, Rajdhani Express. They see this plush red-and-yellow train and its endless glass windows. The jet-setters may find it uninspiring but for the rest Rajdhani is an object of desire. And the stone-pelting could be seen as an equivalent to acid attacks on many young women in the country. If I can’t have you, I’ll scar you.

Attacking the train windows may also be seen as a sign of protest, and this is what the two stone-pelters - the one in Kashmir and the other in rural Uttar Pradesh or Bihar- have in common. They both are protesting against a system that ignores them. Their stories get lost in the larger narratives of nation building and modernization. In Kashmir, stone-pelting is a collective exercise: a political act of dissent and backed by multitudes. Around the railway tracks, the shattered windows are a result of an individual’s shattered dreams. The very act of throwing a stone may have different connotations in the two contexts but what underlies it is discontentment. The stone-pelter wants his situation changed. Lop-sidedness and apathy in formulating policies give birth to stone-pelters. Sometimes the marginalized come together and create the phenomenon of ‘stone-pelting’ and sometimes it is the lone stone hurled. Both are equally potent symbols: of disenchantment, thwarted hopes and helplessness.

The glasses will be repaired in these coaches and the Valley may also assume a semblance of normalcy, but what will remain unchanged is the angst of the stone-pelter. It is just a matter of time that more Rajdhani windows will be broken and more stones hurled at government representatives and security forces. I’m now close to reaching Kolkata and pondering over these questions and thinking of booking my air-ticket for the non-journey back home in Delhi.

From the woman who marched in shorts with her daughter at Slutwalk

Through this message I intend to show my gratitude. My first big fat ‘thank you’ goes to the camerapersons who kept shooting me while I changed into my now famous shorts. It is because of their dogged determination to find the ‘slut’ at the otherwise modest walk at Jantar Mantar that I and my jean-shorts shot to fame. I wish to thank the people at the editing desk as well who decided to focus more on the mundane act of getting ready for the walk than my reason to be a part of it. Runs and reruns of the footage have done wonders. Actions speak louder than words, certainly. I’m also grateful to the dedicated men and women who hounded me for ‘bytes’ and would not relent even when I requested them to leave us alone. My two year old was not comfortable with microphones thrust upon our faces. Thanks to their desire to develop a sensational mother-daughter narrative, I am now the face of Slutwalk, Delhi.
I want to show my gratitude to some of these men and women who twisted and turned the basic facts about my life to turn me into a phenomenon. I became “a housewife from Manesar” who came thus far to be a part of the Slutwalk. Quite radical! The participation of a lecturer (English) from Delhi University and the editor of a national magazine is no big deal, it is the daring ‘housewife’ that is capable of catching eyeballs. Thanks for stripping me off my professional credentials. Other people doing similar commendable job are the great minds discussing the Slutwalk on live talk shows. By a woman politician who ‘supports’ the Slutwalk, I am identified as a “videshi mahila” for whom donning such clothes is “aam baat.” Thanks for robbing me of another element of my identity. I’m not an Indian woman anymore since I was not dressed like one!
The worthy men and women leaving their comments on the online articles covering the event also deserve a big thanks. I’m so glad that you understood the whole concept very well: women like me are asking for their right to be scantily dressed. No, this is not about equality. We don’t want to question the lop-sidedness of gender relations in our society, we just want to strut in bikinis. Thank you, my dears, for giving me lessons in moral science, religion, psychology, sociology and even biology. And I loved the way you put across your thoughts. Here are a few samples:
My personal favourite and the most informative of all is, “Men are born with an organ that puts them in a different state as soon as they are excited…the gorgeousness of some girls (in delhi esp).. turns us excited. Why do you want to purposely wear something very provocative and then expect men to turn down ?? You want to tame them Or in an attempt to be 'gentleman', do you want them to grow impotent ??”
I feel sorry for this community of poor men who are threatened by the crimes of women.
“the insect drools only on the uncovered savouries. If you're properly draped, you earn respect for yourself.” No burka clad woman will ever be raped, then?
A respectable woman typed, “Girls grow up and realize its your responsibility too. If you dress up half naked with your body parts jutting out of course the men will stare at them.. it's just natural - be it any part of the world.”
I will also follow the “natural” and leer at the men dressed in shorts and vests. If I get an opportunity, a little grope here and a smack there may also follow, duly peppered with lewd remarks.
“Now all women can wear skimpy shorts and sleeveless tops in India as Nisha anticipated. Bra and thong will be in demand eventually. That might solve womens' issues.” I hope I’m offered a billion bucks to be a brand ambassador, then!
Thanks everybody for trivializing the entire issue and bringing it back to clothes. Of course, it has always been about clothes!
Wear something trendy: you asked for it!
Wear shalwar-kameez: It’s sexy enough to turn me on.
Wear a sari: Oh, the exotic Indian beauty, cant wait to see what you got under drapes!
Wear a burka: You think you can escape me? OR How dare you?