The Female Humpty Dumpty

"Woman woman sat on a wall,
Woman woman had a great fall.
Four-score Men and Four-score more,
Could not make woman where she was before."

After all how could they, when they are the ones who perhaps photographed the 'fall' (the first four-score) and consumed it too (four-score more and more). Or maybe not. Katrina Kaif's bikini pictures with her alleged beau Ranbir Kapur are all over the print and television media today. Why do I get a feel that her bikini has a bigger role to play than anything else- holiday in Spain or even Ranbir Kapoor? The angel-faced actress, who we easily forgave for being Sheila and Chameli (though we cheered and leered), sporting a bikini on a private holiday is surely a big thing. How could she! And if she could, we are very well within our rights to bring it to the world- thus spake the unidentified photographer and the team of Stardust and other media. 

Kaif is completely justified in being upset at the invasive nature of media. But we the people and media do not want to allow her that either. Just because she is an actor, female at that, puts her in a doubly disadvantaged position. She is not supposed to separate her public and private selves: each aspect of her life is up for consumption. She must deal with the voyeur in each of us, for she chose to be an actress. We, the voyeur, have an upper hand always and she must submit. Laura Mulvey of Visual and Other Pleasures clearly states that "Voyeurism has associations with sadism: pleasure lies in ascertaining guilt, asserting control and subjugating the guilty person through punishment or forgiveness." So yes, we may 'forgive' her, but she remains guilty. 

As a female actor in the Indian film industry, Kaif clearly is devoid of the power that another victim of this low breed of journalism the Duchess of Cambridge wields. A formal investigation has been initiated against the publishing head responsible for the French edition of Closer magazine and two photographers for Kate Middleton's topless photographs published last year. Many things are in favour of the Duchess: she is, well, a British Royal and she was holidaying with her husband and not an alleged beau. I doubt, therefore, if any such investigation or even an advisory will come the way of Kaif's photographers and publishers. Alas, Katrina Kaif, you are no queen. Not even of our hearts. You are perhaps just a female humpty dumpty. Your 'fall' makes us laugh. 

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

Slut Walk to Chhattisgarh to the Streets of Guwahati

That morning, I could not find the most appropriate attire to befit the occasion. SLUTWALK, arthaat Besharmi Morcha. Besharm is a relative term, with a nuanced understanding spread across space and time. To be besharm, I settled for a pair of denim shorts and a blue T-shirt. I was staying in the Officers’ Mess of National Security Guard at Manesar. As ‘memsahib’ is not supposed to dress like any other girl, and not at all like a SLUT, I decided to wear a skirt to cover the legs. The skirt was supposed to be removed later.

The husband volunteered to drop me and our daughter, less than two years then, at the venue. It was an extremely uncomfortable weather to be outdoors and I immediately regretted bringing the daughter along. But then, it was for her sake that I was participating. Blame it on my hyper enthusiasm, we reached the venue before time. And after the husband left, daughter and I tried to make sense of the scene around us. I also had to get rid of my ‘modest’ avatar. Those now famous denim shorts had to be revealed. But how and where? There were no ‘green rooms’ at Jantar Mantar. Carrying the already flushed daughter to a relatively cool and shady spot, I spotted some minarets of chairs leaning precariously against the wall. So, this was going to be my little dressing (down) room.

A few steps away was a bevy of camerapersons and reporters from all the possible newspapers and TV/Radio channels. One of the camerapersons noticed our presence and kept shooting me while I took off my skirt. Others followed suit, obviously, and zoomed in. It is because of their dogged determination to find the ‘slut’ at the otherwise modest walk at Jantar Mantar that the trio, daughter-denim shorts-I, shot to fame. When I got back home that afternoon, the husband greeted me with a mixed look in his eyes: appreciative and yet confused by my dare-to-bare act on national TV. What?

The ‘media’ had done it again. The story had to be sold and it was important to focus on the ‘sellable’ aspect of the entire ordeal. The mundane act of getting ready for the walk received more attention than my reason to be a part of it. Runs and reruns of the footage did wonders. The men and women from national and international media houses 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 became the face of Slutwalk, Delhi. And yet, the skirt-dropping footage was what people talked about, on and off-record.  Actions speak louder than words, certainly.

I am reminded of my Slut Walk experience today but not only because it remains forgotten after a year or that it failed to achieve anything substantial for the cause of women empowerment. I’m compelled to rewind the happenings of that day to be able to understand the pain of girl from Guwahati. She, unfortunately, has clearly suffered much more than I did. In the Slut Walk case, I was perhaps a victim of the misplaced sense of support. The Guwahati girl, on the other hand, has suffered at the hands of unabashed pursuit of sensationalism. Now that it has been proved that it was the cameraperson who instigated an aggressive and hair-brained mob to molest this hapless girl, one wonders what do the upholders of “media as a pillar of democracy” have to say? To stoop so low to look for a scoop, and to create one when not finding any, is that what has become the norm? Yes there is outrage against such a barbaric act, and the strongest criticism has come from the journalist fraternity. Yet, there is no denying the rot that is weakening this fourth pillar. Only a matter of time when the collapse happens.

I do not wish to launch a tirade against paid-media, sensationalism and other such things. Yet, there are a few questions that I’m compelled to raise on behalf of every individual who has suffered because of media’s insensitivity and ethical malpractices. The business of news seems to be overriding everything else, even human life. Nobody should be allowed to forget about the death of Tarun Sehrawat, the young Tehelka journalist. The Frankenstein’s monster has begun feeding off itself. Many people blamed the young man’s act of bravado for his tragic demise but few raised questions pertaining to the pressure that he must have had to face, to prove his worth. A daring story from the forests of Chhattisgarh was perhaps going to be his ticket to fame. At what cost, though?

While the rot in media needs to be addressed pronto, it is hypocritical to blame the media for desperately trying to feed a gargantuan appetite that the readers and viewers exhibit all the time. The demand and supply dynamics cannot be wished away. Yet, we need to be constantly reminding ourselves that there is a limit to which one can ask for ‘news.’ Nobody deserves to die to fulfil our cravings for some piping hot news on the platter. Nobody deserves to be molested either. 

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?