fuck Patriarchy.. I'm gonna have a drink....

so i don't know if it's just my parents who refuse to simply have my back and make simple excuses like "oh she has work" or even a "she's just gone to the loo/she's around somewhere"... or people in general are really THAT nosy bout my whereabouts coz i'm between 30-31, reasonably decent looking , educated and working... and ON this fucking "Marriage market"

i don't understand how this bloody patriarchy works.....
so today was a cousin's wedding...a second cousin on my mother's side who I hadn't seen  for close to a decade... and i decided to go participate in the ritual of a "Car-o- bar" with my male cousins because the only two female cousins on this side of the family were the bride and her sister who was basically obliged to be right next to the bride...
i decided, that given the lack of ANYONE my age and gender, i will just hang out with the boys.. because lets face it.. i've always found it easier to hang out with the boys.. but according to my parents,, EVERYONE asked about where i was... and "they're trying to get me married ad i've gone missing with the boys.. which apparently goves the worng impression.. and because the boys were drinking in the parking lot.. "who knows if one girl surrounded by 5 boys is their sister or some 'other woman"... like WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!
i honestly don't know if these ridiculous retsrictions are because my parents are a pair of repressed conservatives or the " society" really asks that many questions...
i was having a drink at a freaking wedding venue in full shiny attire with my cousins...because when i said i don't feel like attending the bloody wedding.. it was a "family event" that i was not gonna get out of..
i faithfully get home from work early and get dressed in a sari and fucking attend the wedding of the daughter of my mother's cousin.. who i have not seen, and am not likely to see for YEARS... i even participate in the "joota chupai" and go do the social sounds and say hello to everyone because that's what is expected of me... but going off AFTERT having done the social obligations is apparently damaging...
WHEN does this end?????????????????????????????
My mother actually told me that "everyone asked where i am" because i went  to have a drink with my male cousins.. and apparently.. when your parents have you on the Marriage mart,... going for a drink with the boys is a No No...becaase the entire community of close to 500 people present at the wedding have nothing better to do than note that i'm not demurely sitting by my mother;s side available for people to ask me inane things like where i work...

WHY THE hell is anyone interested in why i'm not sitting with my mother????? i'm over 30, and i've already done the social rounds for the night...for all anyone knows... i could be checking out the dessert section, or just lost in the crowded wedding... WHY do my parents subscribe to the patriarchial idea of how "society" expects a "good girl" to behave?\

i have no role to play in the wedding.. its just the patriarchal hallmark of a "good girl" who would participate in every family ritual and conveniently melt into the shadows when society expects her to be seen and not heard... I DID THAT ALERADY damnit!!!!!
how is it ANYONE's concern if i'm not at the dinner table with my parents at a social function?
:
or it it that my parent's suffer a particularly virulent form of "what will people say- itis" that makes their idea incomprehensible to me...

if the boys are "distant cousins who are not 'real' siblings... then WHY the hell am i expected to change work and after work plans to hang out with them?? if they are "like brothers.." then why does society have issues if i'm having a drink with them...
what exactly IS the point of having a horde of cousins if "society" Still has issues with me hanging out with my cousins.. i would rather have the option of saying "no thanks.. i;m not going"...

let us pause a moment and think of what consent means

Before anyone reads the rest of this, let me clarify that that this blogpost is more about the definition of consent used in the judgment and NOT about the age of the woman or the stage of her menstrual cycle, because most of the social media outrage has been on the court commenting that the deceased rape victim was menopausal.

http://www.firstpost.com/living/delhi-hc-didnt-say-menopausal-women-cant-be-raped-heres-what-it-really-said-1786761.html

http://daily.bhaskar.com/news/NAT-TOP-forceful-sex-with-woman-above-60-years-age-not-crime-says-delhi-hc-4795538-NOR.html

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-forceful-sex-on-menopausal-woman-not-rape-says-delhi-high-court-2031918

http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/man-acquitted-of-rape-as-delhi-hc-finds-woman-died-of-intoxication-not-forceful-sex/

so there is currently a heated debate going on among court reporters covering Delhi High court about this judgment and the way all of us have covered this story. because even though this judgment was reported last week in every newspaper, including mine, DNA’s story today is the only one which has raised the issue of the language used by the judge in his judgment as opposed to the legal reasoning we all chose to report, because frankly NO one wanted to take on the judiciary and face a potential contempt charge for pointing out flawed reasoning or injudicious use of certain words in a judgment given out by a very senior and very respected judge of the High court.

at the outset, I would like to apologise to this deceased woman. I as a reporter am also guilty of failing to play up this story as much as it deserved to be. I failed to highlight the story and raise the questions the DNA story and the later Legally India story has.. 

the debate among the reporters weirdly enough, is more about how much trouble the DNA guys are likely to be in as opposed to what the judgment is all about.

lets examine the facts- woman, age 60, died due to asphyxia caused by the food in her stomach going back up… in layman’s terms she choked on her own vomit and died.

fact 2- the death occurred during or very near the act of sexual intercourse

fact 3- there are injuries on her vagina, indicating forceful sex, something that the court itself has recognized and taken note of in the judgment.

fact4- there are no other injuries anywhere on her body, which the court has taken as evidence that she did not resist the sexual intercourse, no matter how forceful it may have been

the problem with the Indian legal system is that we tend to give benefit of the doubt to rapists and murderers because somehow, somewhere we cannot accept the idea that RAPE can happen without the victim fighting tooth and nail to throw off her rapist.. she doesn’t need to be battered half to death to protect her virtue.. and in this case, since she was supposedly drunk, the court has simply said that there is nothing to prove lack of consent.

one particular bright spark among our group of reporters, and may god give him SOME sense at some point in life, started arguing that ofcourse people have sex when they are drunk. “daaru pi ke sex nahi hota kya?” was his argument.

now while his argument as an abstract comment on the stupid decisions people sometimes make while drunk is one thing, in this situation, in this debate, it was probably THE stupidest argument made…. the woman is drunk out of her mind. the guy is also drunk, the woman’s husband goes out of the house coz he wants to go drink with a buddy instead of his wife and their neighbor. and just a few minutes later, she’s found dead with her clothes array and injuries on her vagina..

WHY on earth is this not rape?? how is a drunk, passed out woman presumed to have given consent???

the court has gone by the legal principles of proof beyond reasonable doubt and acquitted the 46 year old man of both rape and murder. that part no one can argue with because benefit of the doubt and presumption of innocence is so inherent a part of our legal reasoning that the judge HAD to have given that decision as far as the murder is concerned.

but RAPE? didn’t we recently amend the entire law on sexual offences to say that if she is incapable of giving consent for whatever reason it will count as a rape? severe intoxication IS under Indian law a legal excuse. if someone is drunk, they could NOT have given consent.

and what about the injuries on the woman?? the court in its judgment has said categorically that there are injuries on her vaginal area indicating forceful penetration. does that not count?? how did the court come out with the reasoning that “forceful” is not the same as “forced” in this particular case??

the woman is NOT capable of giving consent. There are injuries on her genitals. she is SO drunk that the sex forces her to vomit and she chokes to death..

HOW IS THIS NOT RAPE?? sure this is not murder, but this is culpable homicide. unintentionally or not, the act of forced sex killed her. how are we letting the “oh she was drunk” argument cloud the debate so much that the rapist goes free.

what would your reaction be if the woman in question was not a drunk old housemaid from the slums but the 22 year old daughter of a businessman who had tequila shots and was then given rohypnol at an upscale bar?

would you still say she may have given consent so the act was not rape because there is no injury? would you still say that forceful sex is not the same as forced sex??

Patriarchy, DDLJ and disappointing brothers...

my brothers have seriously disappointed me.. not the brats, the remaining horde of cousins/best friends that I have, have seriously dashed all my DDLJ fed ideas of how Karva Chauth is supposed to be…

yes I know that is a very very bad line to use if I want to sound like an adult at all and not like a starry eyed tween… but I DID expect better from my big brothers.. I swear I did.. first of all, I will never in my life understand how fasting prolongs someone else’s life.. this is the 21^st century ladies and gentlemen.. WHY are we still following the patriarchal model where the woman has to “sacrifice for the happiness of the family” and somehow starving the poor soul would bring salvation to the family…

secondly.. if you HAVE to believe that this deity with no sense demands fasts in exchange for years on earth, why aren’t the husbands fasting for their wives’ lives? why shouldn’t the husband “show his love and devotion” to the marriage just like the poor starving wife?

in any case.. if we have to go along with this loony idea that the husband’s life has to come at the cost of his wife’s health and sanity, WHY the effing hell is it not reciprocal? specially when the scriptures go on and on about being an “ardhangini” and the married couple being the basis of all life and society??

and (read this as being said in an irate voice with a stomped foot) why did no one out of the dozens of the newly and not so newly married couples of my generation put their foot down and DO something?

sure the previous gen has waaayyyy too many married couples for me to have harboured any remaining hope, but they are all old people, in arranged marriages where ‘the family’ scuttled all attempts at overt mush.. atleast in front of the children..

 but this lot?? my generation! they ALL have married for love and stay far enough away that the entire gamut of aunts and aunts in law and grandmothers and mothers does not descend on them to make them do whatever arcane ritual the lunar cycle demands.. and yet… Karva Chauth remains as boring and old people-ey as ever for my assorted brothers and bhabis…

whatever happened to the “don’t bother babe, religion is stupid, keeping yourself hungry is not prolonging my life”.. or “okay since it’s a required married people ritual, I’m fasting with you (Thanks SRK for that one) or at the very least “ since you’re stuck doing this, let me get up at the crack of dawn and cook you something nice and shower you with presents”…

ANYTHING??? hello?? guys??

Do you HAVE to be all boringly unromantic to my bhabis and be all “what are you getting worked up about” at me??

Go watch DDLJ again … all of you.. if I’m not allowed to question the cultural imperative and must accept that the fast must be kept, I’m gonna continue to be SO disappointed at the lack of reciprocal fasts and dancing and presents and unapologetically unromantic behavior in general... Shahrukh Khan.. you have some serious explaining to do.

hmph…

I am not a kitchen appliance.. Awesome Ads by Havells

So for some reason my laptop is refusing to let me embed You tube videos on the same post as text... still.. if you have seen the prev post, you know exactly what i'm talking about..
Havell's has come out with this awesome series of ads regarding various household appliances, with the underlying theme that your wife/partner/mother is NOT an appliance, and everyone in the family can make their own damned coffee/juice/chutneys.. and men can iron their own shirts.. i really adored the "istree- stree" and "I'm his wife, he thinks i'm a kitchen appliance" punchlines..

but my favorite BY FAR is the arranged marriage ad where the guy's mother is going on about how her poor son is deprived of decent coffee at home living alone in a foreign country.. and the girl hands him a coffee maker instead..
seriously.. why the the hallmark of a 'good wife' a "cook-maid-waiter- in one'?? why is a girl in this arranged marriage market judged on her ability to handle the kitchen and want to have children? can anyone ask if the guy can handle half the cooking/cleaning/random chores like a partner should?

this is the age of technology.. make your own damned coffee

kya hai na auntiji... I am not a kitchen appliance.

Feminism doesn't mean male bashing and asking for a divorce.. it means standing up for yourself and what you believe in..

i have been reading IHM's blog for years and usually find myself agreeing with the things she says and sympathising with the women and men who write in to her to discuss their problems.. but this particular entry REALLY got my goat... even more so the comments and replies which told this girl to get away from her horrible in laws and spoke of how women are always made to feel guilty about wanting 'me time' in their marital homes... to this particular letter writer, all i can say is grow a pair, and stop whining.. you hate your annoying sis in law, tell her to bugger off.. and if you truly cant stay with the family, then grab your husband and walk out the effing door. enough with the pity party and "oh what if they blame me"

This is IHM's post on january 23, 2014.

Sharing an email..

Dear IndianHomeMaker,

I cannot even begin to tell you how grateful I am to you, for your blog has been an eye opener to me and a solace in my times of sadness.

To begin my story, I am a well educated, 32 year old woman working in the software industry for the past ten years. I am doing very well for myself and consider myself to be successful as well as grounded. I come from an upper middle class family where education was of prime importance. I am the youngest of 5 siblings and as result was a very pampered kid.  My parents are traditional as well as modern. My dad has been specially very progressive, as a result, all his kids were well educated and settled well. I grew up in a very open household which was full of opinions, joys, fights, arguments etc. Everything was welcome in my house. Craziness, Bad moods, guests, friends, decisions, everything from every kid was welcomed with open arms. There was always guidance, chiding, scolding, beating, but at the same time there was freedom and acceptance.

I have been living on my own after my graduation away from my parents and my hometown (all my elder siblings were away by then owing to their careers and families). Living alone has only added to my fierce feelings of independence and equality. I have been a responsible and a conscious person also.

My parents started looking for a guy for me after I hit 25. While I worked, I never really had any relationship or looked at anyone with the intention of marriage. So a love marriage was out of question for me. And the proposals for arranged marriages were not interesting enough or I was rejected one way or other.

My parents gracefully accepted my views and kept sending me new proposals, it was a cycle of constantly meeting guys and their families and sometimes talk to a few men away from families for a while and then reach a not so positive conclusion.

Years passed and I was still unmarried and happy in my own life and my friends.

Once I hit 30, my mother was specially stressed because of my unmarried status. She is the more traditional of the two. Relatives and the rest were continuously inundating my parents with unwarranted hints , analysis and advice as to why their daughter is still unmarried. In my community, frankly even the most broad minded and educated ones would find 30 year old spinster unacceptable.

My siblings and parents wanted me to get serious about marriage and make a decision for myself in favor of marriage. So I decided to give it a try on my own and registered on a matrimonial site.

Within a few days, I got talking to a man, in whom I almost found my replica. We started meeting and interacting and liked each other. He had lived in the US and had returned to India for good. It was just a family of 2 brothers and his youngest brother was married to a housewife.

My FIL was an educated govt officer and my MIL was a housewife. From what I got to know from him, they seemed like a normal family. My husband and I shared lot of common views about religion, marriage, kids etc which totally got us into each other. We told our parents and were happily married soon.

After my marriage, when I started living with them, it was tough for me to adjust to the new surroundings. I had to wear salwars only with a dupatta on always even at home (I was mostly a chick who wore jeans and shorts but I agreed to forego it because I felt for any traditional family to accept such stuff was a bit asking for too much), wear bangles (no one in my house wears bangles other than my mom wearing some simple 2 bangles), wake up early (I was living alone and woke up at 11), cannot stay out alone after 7 (I have been out till 10, alone, sometimes), cannot watch irrational(??) TV programs, and most importantly, I realized, to my sadness, they hated vocal behavior of any kind. No one speaks up against wrong in this house. Specially the ladies are supposed to shut their mouths, no matter what they think. Elders should always be treated with respect. Husbands have the last word. My FIL ruled the roost.

My husband I are atheists by choice and we do not follow any religious rituals. The rest the family is very religious, they pray and fast… blah blah.

My in laws are very nice people. On a general note, they never interfere in our lives, they are never rude or mean and they don’t impose religious restrictions on us. They have been good to my family and appreciate me whenever applicable. They are not fake or pretentious people. But one has to abide by the unspoken rules/culture in the house that I mentioned above.

My younger BIl is someone who probably has no character or any personality. He is just going with the flow and very much aligned to his parents and their way of life. I barely ever interact with him. But more or less, on some occasions, I see my PILs (Parents in law) side with him or prefer him over my husband. I understand that to be because my husband was away from them for many prime years and they were just more closer to their younger son. My FIL feels my husband is Americanized and he hates it.

My Husband supports the finances and my BIL also contributes to the household expenses.

My BIL’s wife is a young housewife related to my MIL through her sister.

She was married before me into the household. When I initially came into the house, it was very clear that she was immensely insecure about me. She has ill treated me on several occasions which I casually ignored thinking that she is young and immature. She sees competition with me in every single thing. I find this very annoying. If anyone praises me for any reason, her face goes all black and blue. She simply cannot see me getting better attention from my PILs. Many times she even did her fake praising B***S*** to me too, which I clearly expressed (not in words) was a useless act on her part.

She does not have any god forsaken opinion of her own. She is always ass-licking my MIL. Every decision (even when she will go to take a shower) about her, she consults my MIL and then does it. I feel as if my MIL secretly enjoys the control over this chick. Her hobbies are those that my MIL’s are. She has nice things to say about my MIL/FIL every minute. She will not eat a meal if my MIL is also skipping a meal. She has even gone to the extent of impressing my PILs by saying that her life has changed into great betterment after she married into this house. Basically meaning that her married life and family is much better than her previous one. I mean, Dude, which stupid girl on earth would think/say that!

I also got to know that she got some electronics as gifts (read dowry) from her house when she was married. I was severely disappointed in them after knowing this. Had I known this earlier, probably my decision to get married into this household would have been different.

Anyway I never claim/do such things. I am on my own. I don’t come in their way and they don’t come in mine. I did not get anything as dowry.  I am polite and nice and keep myself in my room most of the time.  I never give my ideas or opinions unless asked for. I don’t ask for permissions, have my own ideas in place and make my own choices. My husband claims that my PILs really like me a lot and find me to be a genuine, honest and well balanced person.

I accepted everything because I knew my husband was on my side an he was my kind.  We shared a great relationship anyway. I found solace in the thought that my husband did not have any such views. My friends and family told me that my husband matters to me in the long run and not the others. I thought that I need to make some adjustments for his sake.

Eventually I began finding it very tough to tolerate my super buttering fake and liar co-sister and my MIL’s submissiveness. My MIl made sure her submissiveness is very well inherited by her DILs also. I am never ready for it but I do not confront or argue. I just ignore it. I was given all the cooking responsibilities. My co -sis does the other activities (sorting out groceries/crockery/vegetables, arranging the table, monitoring the maids). my MIl helps wherever needed (this is super rare, only when we are making some new dish). We have maids in our house for all house work and the cooking is not exactly tough or taxing. But waking up according to their timings (Am a chronic insomniac, they know it) and putting up a happy face and cooking whatever they want, even when I am tired after my long day in the office, while my co-sis sits in front of the TV and passes orders to me in the kitchen, really took a toll on me. While I make non stop dosas and rotis for everyone at the dining table, I am alone in the kitchen dishing it out to them, I cant stop feeling like nothing but a maid/cook. Staying in my room all the time in the house got into me. I found it completely unfair that I had more domestic work to do even though I am a working woman, while my co-sister naps all day at home and does not do much other than trying to impress people with her sugar coated senseless talks. My husband still claims that his mother has distributed the work equally among the two.

I turned sour, angry, began having mood swings and vented out at my husband. He would try to empathize initially, but after some time, I could see him getting irritated. I realized that complaining/pointing out problems to someone about their family is something no one will like.

I missed the freedom to go out whenever i wanted, eat/cook/clean whenever I wanted. I missed the freedom to just be myself, feel happy/sad/excited at my own will and at my own times.

I could see our relationship suffering too. It was clear that he thought that I was not adjusting to his house. He made it clear many times that I could have ended in a much worse situation and expecting an open house like my parents’ or a free life like my single life is simply not done. This is my secret disappointment in him.

Within a year, I am tired of the kitchen politics, of the subdued life, of the skewed morals and unspoken and unreasonable expectations. I seem to have changed myself so much now, that nothing seems to make me happy now. Am not ambitious now, put my career on a total back burner, worrying that I might have to spend a lot of time in office if I take up more responsibilities,  rarely wish to meet people now, am always grumpy and sad for no good reason with feelings of regret and depression (I signed up for all this) always looming over me. I am just unable to make myself happy and feel like my dream of a happy marriage has crashed. Now I just think of marriage as contract to go serve some stranger family. As a matter of fact, am simply over sentimental now (Totally opposite of what I was and seriously stupid) and lack clear views now.

My husband is also tired of this women issues at his place and he wants out separately.

But the problem is, I feel very guilty to do it. I just cannot see myself separating him from his family and living in the same city. Am sure he will be sad about it. I don’t feel like hurting his parents at all as they have treated me well enough.

It also scares me that I will be blamed for it and I will be seen as a villain in the family.

What should I do?

How do I get over these feelings and figure out the right thing to do in this situation.

Please help.

Thanks

ANNNNND... 

the following is the knee jerk comment i wrote... don't even know if IHM allowed the comment or deleted it.. but i wanted to put it up here anyway...

is this woman for real??? while i agree with the resentment for forcing a clothing style on you… WHY is she’s whining about how she has to arrange her time to wake up/clean etc according to her MIL’s decisions??? when you lived at home with your parents, didn’t you have a curfew/ bedtime/ get yourass to the dining table time???

living with ANYONE, even if you live independently with a roommate needs adjustment.. and from your letter, it seems more the the resentful whining of someone who has lived on her own for too long to deal with adjusting with anyone… if you truly cannot deal with the drama, the stop with the pity party and get the hell outta there, you say that your husband would also want to leave the joint family right?? then shut down the guilt and just DO it… the family might say shit for the first few weeks, but here is the good part.. you won’t be around to hear them…

what i fail to understand is this “i don’ want to be the one taking him away from family”, “what is he resents me” routine… you’re not kidnapping a baby from his ma. if he truly loves you and both of you want your own place, then just get up and do it. family will come around eventually…

coz let me tell you, i am an educated unmarried woman living and working in Delhi, I live with my parents, and my parents impose the same ‘wake up to help ma cook breakfast- help set the table for lunch- eat dinner at the dining table with family’ rules on the days taht i am at home… even parents try to impose a curfew if possible.. EVERY parent with a kid does it…. the ‘cooler’ parents just have a later curfew.

if you have an issue with the “women’s drama,” then TALK to your husband and MIL separately.. tell your husband that you would like it if he starts helping around the house.. make sure he knows that he better start offering to help without making it sound like you are forcing him into it..
ask your SIL if she would like it if her husband helped out at times… have these conversations separately with all of them and make sure they don’t know that you had the same conversation with the other person.. . instead of keeping to your room and not trying to interact with them, just try and find some middle ground.. its called FAMILY!

I am a 26 year old girl, and god knows i can’t deal with the saas bahu gossip the aunts and bhabis in my family get upto, but that doesn’t mean that i stop interacting with them… didn’t you have any people in your family who you just didnt have ANYTHING in common with but had to deal with anyway coz they were family?? put that experience to use..

as for the whining about standing in the kitchen making rotis, just ask the maid to do it if you dislike it so much!! you say that you have maids, and don’t really have tyo do much, then what on earth are you whining about??? In my house, if the maid is on leave, then the job of making rotis falls to my mom or me or my dad, and yeah obviously whoever is making the damned rotis eats last…
its called division of labor…
and if you are too tired after work to do stuff in the kitchen.. just SAY it out loud… swap chores, offer to help clean up on the weekend if your SIL will take on kitchen duty for the weekdays.. because i am wiling to bet anything that THAT is what happened when you lived at home with your siblings.

you're the Man now...

misogyny and affirmation of patriachy come in hues so varied that sometimes you can't even tell its there, and sometimes it is so brutally in your face that you're left gasping in shock at it..
i could write reams about the recent incidents of "harassment" at workplace that happened in the much venerated halls of teh judiciary and the media.. but enough newsprint has already been spent on it.. my concern is with a little more insidious and "oh its a joke" kind...
has anyone seen the new Park Avenue perfume advertisement? the one which shows a guy 'marking his territory' like an animal?? THAT ladies and gentlemen is what has my hackles rising..

since i'm writing on a computer where youtube is blocked, i'm gonna have to write down the story sequence of the ad..
there is a woman siting at a bar
a guy approaches, tries to chat her up
another guy, presumably a husband or boyfriend, all dolled up in a nice suit and gelled back hair, sprays his Park Avenue perfume on the bar stool beside her, and says "my territory"
Guy 1 tries to pick up her drink, Guy 2 sprays on that too, staking his claim
finally, guy 2 sprays the perfume on and around the girl, saying 'all mine' as he does so...
the girl? oh she's staring vapidly at the two men as if she has no b%^$ idea whats going on..
the ad ends with the tagline of "real men mark their territory with their scent"

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME!!!!

what exactly is this ad trying to show?? men are animals? women are to be 'protected'? or simply that people in whatever ad firm that thought this up have zero respect for women or men for that matter..??
mark your territory??
so you're a dog or something that needs to piss on things to feel like the master of the domain?? the woman is "territory" with no brains or tongue of her own?

civilization and civility demands that we learn to respect people as People, as individual persons, and here we have an Ad that not only reduces a woman to an object with no mind of her own, you also have an ad that suggests that even the well heeled, (hopefully) educated upper class men have to behave like anmals and disrespect their partner if they want to "be Men.'

its one of the worst, most brainlessly put together ads I have seen in recent memory... 

the futility of life and death

The crowd cheered and clapped and shouted with relieved vengeance today as the four rapist-murderers were sentenced to hang. People shouted bloodthirsty slogans calling for stricter punishment for the juvenile.

I don't know what it says about us as a society that we ask for bloody vengeance when shaken out of our stupor but live in a fog of acceptance to everyday harassment.

I am a reporter, I am a woman living in Delhi.

As a reporter, it is my job to meet strangers and go places. As a woman, i travel with a purse large enough that it can cover my torso/ back when taking public transport and carry pepper spray in a pocket. The spray has thankfully never been used, the bag serves its purpose every day.

Am i happy that these men who tore at that hapless girl like beasts will now hang? Yes.

Even if the idea of killing makes me uneasy, i am used to the idea that rabid dogs must be put down, and an animal which has tasted blood will forever seek it.

But who is this animal that's tasted blood??

After the gleeful protesters left the court and the police slowly began retreating, it was only a handful of reporters and random people on the road outside the Saket court. And on that empty road as I walked towards the exit, some unknown man deliberately walked up behind me, bumped into my arm, and kept walking as if nothing had happened.

There was at least 10 ft of empty space on every side around me.. And yet he walked close enough to touch my hand.

Less than 30 minutes after protesters shouted slogans for women's safety and death to rapists. less than 50 meters from where the protesters gathered.

I don't know who that man was.

I didn't even react to his behaviour because its been drilled into me since childhood to not react, step away and walk on.

And today especially i feel violated more than ever.

What was the point of these protests and the sentence and the so called sensitization for the past year??

Who does this death sentence serve as a deterrent for??

water water everywhere...

The Delhi High court today has told the Government and the civic agencies of the city to submit yet another report on the measures taken to prevent waterlogging in the city after they found that the reports submitted today said nothing about the actual work. The court's been monitoring what the government is doing to tackle the veritable floods that happen every time the rain gods descend and create swimming pools out of potholed roads.. turns out that even they admit that they haven't really done much...

The report  was only talking about creation of a task force and committee meetings, which, as the Chief justice himself commented, "can go on till eternity."

coincidentally , after reaching office this evening, for some reason I found myself looking up Gertrude Stein's quote "a rose is a rose is a rose" on wikipedia, and fell down the rabbit hole of random wikipedia clicks... and THIS particular gem is what i found...

"The Persian philosopher, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), once wrote the following response to opponents of the law of noncontradiction:

"Anyone who denies the Law of Non-contradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned."

John Locke claimed that the principles of identity and contradiction were general ideas and only occurred to people after considerable abstract, philosophical thought. He characterized the principle of identity as "Whatsoever is, is." The principle of contradiction was stated as "It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be." (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_classical_laws_of_thought#Aristotle )

obviously someone should make the Delhi Civic agency officials sit down and read their works, (preferably also go through the lesson Ibn Sina recommended) till they realise that a job done and a job Not done are different things, and just filing a report saying that they have started the work does not equate to the work getting done...

nirbhaya

Sing with me, sing for the years
Sing for the laughter, sing for the tears
Sing with me, just for today
Maybe tomorrow, the good lord will take you away...
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the songs says 'dream on'
i hear something completely different..
I can see them, hear them.. the don't expect me survive, but they're terrified to let me die.. I am too stubborn to let go... the world will erupt in flames if i do, don't you know..

My heart gave out twice, they pumped it back on, my body has been torn to shreds, by the monsters who my champions are out to kill, and a little bit by the healers in their quest to sew me back together again and defy god...

They were out on the streets fighting for me just yesterday, those who stood by and watched as i bled out, almost to the point of dying... they've adopted me as their new inspiration.. I am 'Nirbhaya" the fearless one, their "amanat.' their legacy..

 i am the image that they have of a fighter who will live despite everyone wishing for her death, despite how badly those wolves tore my body... Now new wolves are out hunting my scent.. they are the ones who will lick up teh spilled blood from the streets and feed their war machines with it. the propaganda will go out, loud and strong.. there will be proud men in prouder uniforms, telling the world that they fought off the monsters, they made the world safe for me and my sisters, so that when i finally do leave this world, my fighters won't set them on fire..

I can hear them chanting outside my window.. those who 'fight for me'.. they don't care that the didn't bother to raise their voice before mine was destroyed. they don't care that the wolves they fight lurk amongst them, they don't notice the tattered wool that clings to the wolves they see as sheep.. they even ignore the screams of my sisters who are being snatched away by different bands of wolves even as they continue their chants for my good health...

I do dream you know... i still live.. i dream of a day that i went out with a friend, had a fun evening, and went back to my parents unmolested.. i dream of a day that i walked across a road to my sister without the laughter of a hyena or the growl of a wolf behind my back.. i dream of a time when they would fight off the wolves and not sit back and watch as they tore at me, encouraging them with their indifference and their contempt for 'my kind'. i dream of setting up and walking and talking and acting like a human being.. i dream of being treated like a thinking, feeling, LIVING human being with the right to travel within my city without their eyes following me in the darkness..


and i dream on... till that dream comes true...

wake up! its not just the police, its us too...

"protest' they say, 'Raise your voice', 'down with government", "down with police and inefficient justice"... does anyone remember that a whole lot of bystanders, the so called "PEOPLE" stood by and stared while the rape victim and her friend were bleeding on the road and inching towards death...???? Civility, civic sense are dead.. social values are dead, what use is your 'outrage' when you still don't stop to help someone in desperate need? what price 'humanity' when you are so quick to judge a girl whose doing nothing except walking down a street, accompanied by a boy?

There's a 23 year old battling for life after having been brutalized by 6-7 men in a moving bus. Her friend, a boy who offered to drop her home as Delhi is 'too unsafe' had to stay in the hospital too because he was beaten with iron rods for trying to stop the drunken men from teasing his friend. there is 'outrage' and 'protests' and talk of death penalty for rape..
and everyone knows that this too shall die down... courts and NGOs and activists have been saying for years that we need to revise rape laws, make provisions for quicker disposal, stricter punishment... when we don't even have the legal provisions punish the sheer horror that this episode was.. it wasn't just a sexual assault, it was a concerted, sickening show of violence against the girl and the boy for standing up to the men who were 'teasing' her. 
She has been beaten, raped, given nearly irreparable internal injuries, hanging on to life by a thread and fighting to stay alive.. and the most the laws can do is book them for attempted murder.. we don't have provisions for punishing aggravated sexual assault, we have procedures that ensure that these cases drag on for years even in the 'fast track' courts which still take two years to decide 'fast track' cases.. 
and we have politicians and political wannabes and publicity hounds who do stupid things like 'visit the victim and her family' at the hospital where she is battling for her life, for the sake of a photo op..

we have 'the people' who will scream and protest and write blogs but will not bother to slow down and stop at the side of the road when there's a bleeding body slumped on the sidewalk.. who won't bother to give basic medical aid or even a cloth to cover up a semi nude, battered person lying before them.. 
we have people who are asking why they 'stepped onto a private bus?' or 'why were they out so late'? 9 pm is late??? thats when all offices start closing!! why would anyone NOT step onto a public bus that is taking passengers, with a conductor shouting out the destination and selling tickets? the problem is with the attitude of 'why bother'.. the problem is with this inertia... you shout and protest and make a big to do about it, and the next morning when some other news breaks you move on to the next topic... questions of basic safety, civic sense, morality remain unanswered... 
and a woman gets harassed or hurt every day....

here's something i saw on IHM's Blog about the attitude of people in this country towards women..

Has anyone seen this show called 'PunarVivaah'?

Having grandparents at home guarantees that you will be exposed to those god-awful saas bahu sagas that run on TV all day.. I get fleeting glimpses of most of them since I tend to drift in and out of the living room at various points of the day..

Has anyone seen this show called ‘PunarVivaah” on Zee?? It started out as this progressive sounding show about a widower and a divorcee who get married to each other via an arranged marriage. It started out showing the heroine as this awesome independent woman who took care of her 4 year old son and her in-laws and took on the world with a hockey stick… and now the woman has been reduced to the caricature of the downtrodden Bahu in the home of her new husband, who incidentally is still so in love with his dead wife that they live in a room that is little more than a shrine to the dead girl.

lets recap the episode I saw today shall we…

• ·         The couple, plus their three Kids (one hers, two his) return from a holiday with the man in a towering temper for some unexplained reason.
• ·         The woman walks in crying, the man frowning, and the family is stunned and stares at them walking in
• ·         the man walks off somewhere, presumably work or whatever
• ·         the ENTIRE 20 member family, including elder brother and bhabi, Father and mother in law, little sister in law and aunt in law, alongwith the girl’s mother corral the girl in the drawing room and start asking her why their boy was so unhappy “when she had promised them she would make him happy.”
• ·         NO ONE of the gathered lot tries to comfort her in any manner whatsoever..
• ·         The mother in law gets into this whole “I will never trust you again coz you made my son unhappy” rant
• ·         meanwhile the poor heroine is literally on her knees on the floor in tears, begging them all to say that they trust her. She’s asking them all to listen to her, she’s begging them to understand that she hasn’t done anything to anger him or hurt him.
• ·         and then the MIL stalks off after giving her an earful.
• ·         and NO one questioned the man because he’s simply stalked off in anger.

what I don’t get is, does no one care about the fact that this woman is also desperately unhappy???? The in-laws treat her as some servant who is only there for their son’s sake. she can’t eat or wear or go anywhere as she pleases. She is no more than a nanny for the kids because that man refuses to accord her so much as the respect due to a wife. She is living in a room filled with pictures of another woman, who is remembered by the entire family as this paragon of perfection. She has to practically beg the family to even be allowed to live in the house. Her happiness of no import?

why is the man not asked a single question? why is it that the sole responsibility for the marriage working out on her??? why does NO ONE care that the injured party in the case is HER and not that man who simply shoved bags in a car and drove off?

and most importantly.. WHY the hell is the family interference limited to badmouthing her??? if they are so interested in scrutinizing their marriage, why do they not ever see that the man is doing nothing whatsoever to make his wife even feel comfortable and wanted?

why is it that TV shows simply reinforce these disgusting stereotypes? Why is it that the man can just do anything and the woman is so dependant on his approval for happiness that she has to grovel before the entire family to be allowed the right to live in her marital home? Why is it that the wife is blamed if the man is even slightly inconvenienced but no one raises an eyebrow at the fact that this man obviously wants nothing to do with her and is simply living in the past? She has gone through a hellish divorce, but no one has ever said that the guy should be trying to put a smile on her face just as she is made responsible for his happiness.

She is supposed to find contentment simply because she is married again?? why is no one asking the In laws about why they treat her with so much indifference?? even her own mother departs the house after some platitudes about how true love conquers all!!

She is supposed to be happy simply coz she has sindur on her forehead and her son has a “father” again?? even though her in- laws treat her so poorly and the husband is indifferent? just because he claims to “respect” her and lets her stay in his house??

She seemed much happier to me in the initial episodes. When she zipped around the city on a scooty, taking care of her son, assisting her parents in their business. taking down rude shopkeepers with sharp words and goondas with a wicked right hook.

hot cakes to hot potatoes

So this judge made a rather interesting observation today... "The questions raised by the arrest and detention of SM Kazmi will have repercussions on the entire judicial process that is being followed under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act"... No shit sherlock... I, a barely graduated law student cum rookie journo could've told you that....when the police and courts start taking decisions without clarifying points of law, somewhere or the other the lapses will come back to bite the entire system on its ass.

I wonder why the criminal justice system in this country is so messed up... on one hand you have police officers and lawyers who take money to bury cases of rape and murder, on the other hand you have overzealous or just plain careless prosecutors who come strutting to court without clearly figuring out just what their argument is going to be, on a different hand you have prosecutors who bludgeon their way through procedures and laws just because they're the "state" and can do no wrong.. another hand shows you judges who either don't care about what rules they're bending, or just let their exalted status inflate their egos and then refuse to hear any plea that's against their opinion. on yet another hand you have turf wars between the police departments, on yet another ego clashes between prosecution and judges.

any way you look at it, that is far too many hands groping around and sullying the criminal justice system of the country..
 

the curious case of SA Kazmi

so the law is either the written word or customary practice.. but what about when the written word is ambiguous and the practitioners are stumbling all over themselves to figure out what to do??? then we get the case of a man in Judicial custody being taken up and down the judicial ladder while judges all over the place try to assign authority to each other.
SA Kazmi was arrested under the provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the UAPA.He is currently in custody of the Delhi Police Special Cell. While I , and indeed the rest of teh world, don't know enough about the charges against him and the evidence available to even begin to hazard a guess about his guilt or innocence, the past couple of weeks have shown me that the Legal system in place to handle such special laws is quite seriously suffers from ambiguity and lack of clear authority structure.

The Police brought him before the Chief Metropolitan magistrate, the highest of the lowest rung of criminal judiciary. Then the Sessions court, which is the next rung on the said that the CMM does not have the power to hear cases under the UAPA. So the matter stood still for a while and then was heard by a Sessions court. Then the police decides to approach the High Court of Delhi, the highest judicial authority in the state. The high court decides to deliberate on the question of jurisdiction, and in the interim says that the prevailing practice i.e of bringing such cases before the CMM's court, should continue. The High court will now decide on the question in October.
Meanwhile, this man who has been in police custody for over three months is taken to four different courtrooms in the span of two days while judges remain confused. Is this really how a legal system with such a huge number of written statutes is supposed to work???

And he isn't the only person affected by this legal confusion, questions may be raised about the legality of the detention of others, including suspected terrorists allegedly belonging to the Indian Mujahideen and Lashkar -e - toiba, simply because the courts haven't decided who exactly is competent to hear cases of people arrested under the UAPA. If the High Court decides that the CMM never had jurisdiction, then the courts will be left with a fair amount of eggs on their faces, specially because the fate of terror suspects hangs in the balance.

Women, violence and religion.

Article in Foreign Policy Magazine WHY DO THEY HATE US by Mona Elthawhny

how many times is it that issues of violence against women are ignored in the midst of obfuscation created by questions of 'culture', 'safety' and 'propriety'.

practically every civilisation in the world over the course of history has placed maximum value on the 'purity' and 'safety' of the women of the society as the benchmark for the 'safety of the Culture'. from foeticide to locking women in the house to laws denying rights to women to dowry to the earlier practices of jauhar and Sati, women have somehow  been the bearers of the responsibility to uphold social virtue.

These slogans, used during the Delhi Slutwalk covers my response and the frustration that women worldwide have with this patriarchal attitude

so just what are they teaching the police in the so called "sensitization sessions"

Here is a quick reckoner. In 2010, as many as 414 rape cases were reported in Delhi, the highest among 35 major cities in the country. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the conviction rate in rape cases in the capital was a dismal 34.6 percent.

In a two-week long investigation, Tehelka undercover reporters posing as research scholars, visited 23 stations across the NCR and spoke to more than 30 policemen with experience of 20-30 years.

cover story in TEHELKA magazine

NDTV report

Seventeen senior cops of over a dozen police stations across Gurgaon, Noida, Ghaziabad and Faridabad were caught on spy camera blaming everything from fashionable or revealing clothes to having boyfriends to visiting pubs to consuming alcohol to working alongside men as the main reasons for instances of rape. 'It's always the woman who is at fault' was in essence the argument offered by a majority of the cops. Many of them believe that genuine rape victims never approach the police and those who do are basically extortionists or have loose moral values. Others believe that the women from Northeast could never be victims of forced sex as they are invariably involved in the flesh trade. Even more shockingly, some of them are of the view that if a woman has consensual sex with one man, then she shouldn't complain if his friends also join in. If a woman is doing late hours at the office then she had it coming... and the arguments keep coming.

misogynistic and completely ridiculous arguments from people who would rather blame the victim than do their actual job.

Yes i agree that there are a shocking number of false cases filed as far as sexual crimes are concerned.. but that doesn't mean that one dismisses real concerns out of hand, and it REALLY doesn't mean that a woman out of the house alone is "asking for it"

You aren't a 'woman' here.. you're the "Vakil Madamji"

Child marriage is an accepted, if outwardly hidden norm for a large section of Indian Population even today. despite the various warnings and "social awareness"  about the detrimental effects of child marriages on the children, the family and society. Having an express Law banning child marriages doesn't seem to have worked very well because people are still stuck in the "lets get them out of our hair and to their 'own' family as soon as possible" mindset. 

infact, i recall having a major argument with someone recently about child marriages and the impact they have on the girl. shockingly, this guy was a "social worker" employed at one of Delhi government's 'Gender Resource Centres', which are run by NGOs in the city and provide employment, education, self help aid, legal and medical aid to poor women.This man has been working there for over a year, raising awareness about education and social issues such as gender based violence, population, sanitation etc. he's a graduate from IGNOU and belongs to what passes as a 'well off family' in the area, roughly as lower service class family. 

and despite the fact that this man is employed by an NGO that seeks to empower women., his outlook is set firmly in the tiny little box that his 'community' allows. 

The first argument he gave in favour of child marriages was a very cliche'd "why bother educating girls when all they have to do is take care of the house?" this while more than half his co-workers are women. 

the second was "these people are poor, they cannot afford to feed and take care of girls". This when his co-workers are active contributors to the family coffers and he himself is working with women's financial self help groups.

third- "madamji people say bad things about women who roam around outside the house and tallk to strange men" THIS when i was sitting in the office of the NGO with him alone and having this discussion.. so did that  mean that according to this man I and all teh wormen working in his pffice were not worthy of his 'respect' because we were out of our houses?? 

he apologised for the last remark though when he realised that i had taken serious offence to al his arguments. He stubbornly refused to take back his arguments though, and as a last word, his closing argument was "madamji you belong to a different society. Here people respect you because you are from a different social strata and are educated. No one sees you as a 'single young girl' here. You are the "Vakil Madamji".

so when the society refuses to give these girls and boys any identity beyond their membership of the family, when their aspirations, their very existence as a rational being is denied, is it really a surprise that the government needs to take seemingly weird, drastic measures to ensure that laws are complied with?

This is the news item that prompted this post:

Bharatpur admin makes DoB of bride, groom must on wedding card

PTI | 06:03 PM,Mar 31,2012

Jaipur, Mar 31 (PTI) To check child marriages, Bharatpur district administration in Rajasthan has taken an unique initiative of making it mandatory to print date of birth of the bride and groom on wedding invitation cards. A circular was issued on Thursday, directing all press owners in the district to print the cards only after taking age proof of bride and groom. "Legal action will be taken against such press and registration would be cancelled if they fail to do it...To check that they are following the guidelines, we will conduct surprise check," Bharatpur District Collector Gaurav Goyal said today. "The step is aimed at ensuring that no child marriage takes place on the upcoming occasion of Aakha Teej," he said, adding that the order is for two months now and may extend further. Child marriages are rampant on the occasion of Akshya Tritiya particularly in rural areas in the state.

lets talk about Sex baby...

how does one define 'morality'?
doesn't public morality change practically with every generation? even with every new development?


whats 'natural' and whats 'unnatural'? or the even vaguer 'NORMAL'? when you have 7 billion people on the planet, and several million ways of doing things, then what defines 'normal'?


is it 'normal' to hate someone just because they do things differently, even when what they do is not affecting anyone at all?
why is it 'normal' to look down upon half the population because they weren't born into the right family or community or gender?
how is it 'normal' to live in fear and cover up when one steps out or lie about one's family or sexual preference to protect oneself?
how is it 'normal' to conform at the point of a sword, literally being killed for not following social diktats?


just yesterday, Fali S. Nariman stood up for the rights of Homosexuals in court and stated that

things had changed so much in recent years that family planning and population control now find a place in the Constitution. “What are the petitioners moralising about? In 1860, the thoughts that prevailed were of a different kind. We live in different times. We have to move with the times.”

(the Hindu March 2, 2012)


but then, he made a statement that completely perplexes me..


"any homosexual act may be unnatural but not against the order of nature"


what IS this 'natural' and 'unnatural' in today's context anyway?
Victorian England was of the opinion that sex was simply for procreation and therefore 'unnatural sex' was the sort that did not fall within the boundaries of sex for procreation between a man and a woman. but in that era, Sex per se was not something that was 'allowed' by polite society.. it was hidden away as a 'Baser instinct' and hallowed into a sacred task between man and wife for the furtherance of the species. 


And even THEY knew that this opinion was a load of crap because Sex for pleasure existed way before some church decided to restrict pleasure for the sake of religion.
so why does today's supposedly secular modern society have such a view of sexuality? 


the same country whose population rises by the millions each week keeps sex hidden away as a taboo topic. its a 'we shall not talk about safety or informed decision making because someone somewhere decided that simply banning a topic was enough to ensure that the consequences of the action would be minimised.....


if you don't talk about it, it will go away... but that doesn't happen now, does it?


Sex for pleasure exists, Homosexuality exists, AIDS exists, the ever increasing population EXISTS because people refuse to actually deal with sexuality and safety in a rational manner 
because 'polite society' doesn't talk about it


because apparently, talking about  it makes people want to do it.. because acknowledging the existence of something will make more people "experiment with deviant behavior" and "destroy our ancient culture"




what IS this morality that they're trying to protect????

wow..

so i came across this amazing story about a poem describing Radha's anger at Krishna for abandoning her...

love-sex-aur-maafi- OPEN Magazine

I'm glad that in a country full of people who so adore to protest against any piece that in an manner whatsoever criticises a God's divinity, such works exist and are being appreciated...

Most Humbly Prayeth

Today in Court, for the first time in my life, i find myself wondering just what kind of people pass the Bar and get to positions of responsibility and respectability.. The petition by Google and Facebook etc against the Government is being heard in the Delhi High Court and  from today's discussion it seemed rather like some of the court officers were either HIGH or had never in their lives used the Internet.


sample this...

Counsel: your lordship if the state can only tell us where the offending material is available we will make efforts to remove that material"
His Honour: very well counsel, the offending photograph is available on &$^%&.com.
Counsel: your lordship this is merely the name of the website. that is like telling us the picture is in Delhi. If your lordship may be kind enough to tell us the URL we will take steps to block that URL
Opposing counsel: lordship when we give them the website they tell us its not sufficient. what is a URL??? will they only take some steps if some offending pictures of their own family members will pop up on the internet?? we have told them the name of the website, now they should block it!
Every one in Court: huh????????????????????????????????
His Honour: Mr Counsel you must show this Court that you are serious about taking care of offensive content otherwise we will have to become like China and block everything!
Someone in Court: WTF just happened dude!..................

seriously, have these people NEVER used the internet????????


DISCLAIMER: there are almost verbatim transcript of the last few minutes of conversation in the courtroom today.. I most Humbly pray that His Lordship excuse my young self and forbear to sentence me for contempt of court since I found myself unable to stop myself from expressing myself under my constitutionally granted freedom of speech and have nowhere made any remarks which are offensive or disparaging of this court's dignity.  (the opening sentences were inserted by google.. I SWEAR!)

The petition hearings are in open court and i'm just waiting to see what the newspapers write tomorrow about this thing after the beautiful proceedings today.