“I have my back…. “

I am standing at a bus-stop. The bus is late. I pull out a book, my friend in need and deed, and immerse myself in it. The wait is that much more tolerable. And all of a sudden, I feel slight warmth at the back of my neck. A hair raising moment (literally), my ears tingle (vaguely), and I feel my knees buckle. I look left and then right and then ever so gently turn my gaze to 180 degrees and spot the stimulus. A young man, early college perhaps, backpacked, grinning and giving me the elevator look. A few seconds later, I check again and see that gaze transfixed. I try to go back to my book. The focus is lost and my attention is now on questions that swim in the form of living beings. What is he looking at? My back? My butt? My attire? The ‘on the face’ questions now spark off a fear and I board the first bus that rolls in. I decide to take a time-consuming route to get to my destination.

This incident is not that uncommon. Most women experience it and talk about it with other women. This episode could perhaps have aggravated to assault, rape, homicide and we would all be talking about what needs to be done for the safety of women. We would beat to death the lack of relevant education in schools and colleges around self-protection; debate on whether it is truly a women’s issue or that of sensitizing men. Not to forget moments when we digress and make it a discussion point on attire, life style and modernization / westernization (call it what we may) that has invaded our very ‘tolerant culture’. The tolerance is moot; nevertheless, we chug on relentless.  None of them are relevant. All of them are relevant…. the deliberations continue.

We need to only look at the statistics of the nature and structure of these conversations and we realize that the focus is on what happens or happened post the ‘hair raising’, ‘ears tingling’ and ‘knees buckling’ moment. I want to pause right THERE at that very moment – the moment that is governed by instinct, an instant that is followed completely and totally independent of reason, a tick that gets the survivor instinct in me going and  an entrepreneurial flash that makes me naturally decisive. It’s that precise moment when something counselled me to look around and I paid heed to it. 

It comes to me naturally. I am born with it…. It’s a gift that we women are born with. It is something that takes us through life and helps us deal with danger and protect our family. We just ‘know’ it, and ‘feel’ strongly what’s best for us and our loved ones – a feeling that has often been questioned by the rational and the pragmatic. It’s a sentiment that has been repeatedly labelled ‘girlish’ and relegated to the background. It’s an emotion that has ever so often been disregarded and sacrificed to the higher good offered by logic and strategy and planning.

And so, today, when I am called upon to talk about “Developing the Women Talent Pipeline”, I wonder what to offer as a conversation. If guarded by fear, I could speak on training and push upon the government and organisations to speed up affirmative action. If guarded by frustration, I could unleash my anger on the prevalence of a boy’s club and the biases that throng their day to day decisions and impact our lives. And if guarded by anxiety, I could perhaps (as an aside) thank the close minded, pull back imaginative parents and siblings who pushed me to be the rebel. Irrespective, I am guarded by something or someone and that sense of ‘guardianship’, by its very definition, secures a frontier. The borders take charge and I pull out my guns.

Days and years go by working alongside men.  We garb their attire, don their language, spell their semantics and in the bargain, the giraffe today has smaller necks. I can’t reach out to the leaves atop the tall trees anymore.  In all honesty, I don’t need to reach out to them anymore. Someone somewhere will pluck them and hand it over to me…. And if that doesn’t happen, I can blame it all on the proverbial glass ceiling. 

‘I have my back’ in more ways than one.

I am a woman – a minority

I am a woman – the weaker of the sex

I am a woman – I need affirmative action

I am a woman – Please have a good fortress

I am a woman – The boy’s club doesn’t grant me entry

Need I go on?????

Even a worm tries to rebel against the foot that tries to crush it.  And as women, we haven’t as yet rebelled against the slow and fading death of our inherent talent – our instinct.  I saved myself that day at the bus stop. Now can I save the instinct that saved me?  It makes me who I am and defines the very nature of my existence.

I opt for the gift that makes me be myself – my inherent intuition – a wisdom formed by feeling and gut. It’s a flair I have of knowing without reasoning. It’s my belief and a hope that nourishes my fire in the belly. It’s the sensation that tells me who to love and not, who to be with and not. When I love a man, I don’t measure his limbs; I just go out on a limb and do it. It gives me success in everything that I do, sometimes not. Nonetheless, both are mine – my successes and failures.  It is a strength that takes me away from being projected as a minority to that of being an individual. It is my affirmative action that secures my physical, mental, emotional and intellectual self.

Ignoring my gut is a decision, acknowledging it is instinct and by doing so I concede to its complexity and its purpose. I have my theme for the talk....

My instinct says that brickbats await me tomorrow. Nonetheless, shall play my cards that I have been dealt with…..

Political Ideology held captive!

It’s hardly a buyer’s market.  I walk into a super market to buy a shampoo and walk to the section marked ‘Cosmetics’. I want to buy the best – the one that will be accepted by all in the family AND economically viable AND makes me look pretty and feel sexy!!!  I see an array of branded shampoos, colorful bottles in different shapes and sizes, with appealing colors, and all priced differently. I attempt to understand its components. It hardly makes sense to me. I pick a handful of the well-known brands, check out their MRP and finally decide on the most economical, eye catching, and aroma appeasing of them all. I don’t know if it's good for me. I am not sure if I will develop an allergy and am completely unaware of its acceptance by the Gen Y at home. Nonetheless, I make my purchase and trudge along to the next section…. picking yet another product in pretty much the same fashion.  

It’s definitely not a seller’s market. The industry invests tons of money in local and global research & development; which in turn creates a range of products that qualifies for a hair splitting exercise. All products must be good (quality) AND high priced, AND fast selling … and last but not the least ensure a huge market share!!!!! So, we now have shampoos for dry hair, hair with split ends, oily tresses, damaged hair, and chemically treated hair, naturally curly hair… and so on. And all this is done for a majority of the population, which in all probability is completely oblivious and perhaps couldn’t even care of its hair texture. So, with limited knowledge of the consumer’s psyche we have tons of money spent on manufacturing of products that produce lather. Pretty much a bubbled dream ….

It is the death of purpose, the culmination of commitment to a cause…. Moreso, the end of Ideology – a situation prevalent in today’s less industrial and more knowledge based society; a condition that grips the psyche of the ordinary citizen, a status quo that signifies the death of change, a state of affairs that depicts the degeneration of humankind,….What’s deafening is the constant reference to its alleged existence; especially, with boisterous hypocrisy. One can watch it unfold, center-stage, spelling out the Brechtian mantra

“It is easier to rob by setting up a bank than by holding up a bank clerk”

 In political parlance, there is no longer at play a thought or a belief; however abstract or symbolic, attempting to explain the social, economic, or political realities at play. It is more a web of notions, cast(e) and recast(e), distorted for immediate gains, contrary to any reality that an ordinary citizen can relate to, and last but definitely not the least subject to false consciousness. 

A notion is now an ideology!!!!!!

The ordinary citizens tell themselves that welfare is important, governance primary, and development much needed. This is merely borrowed language, temporary at best, and hardly empirical. What is truly happening is a veiling of visceral and primal attitudes. Feel that primal pulse; define its origin, and what we see is fundamental faith leveraged and distorted by a certainty of power.

Campaign in poetry and govern in prose

The lyrics of CHANGE soon take shape to assorted and plagiarized text. How else can one explain the frivolity of Modi’s responses in the Times Of India?

Our Prime Ministerial candidate first takes Political ideology as hostage …

 “The use of the term Naxalism is outdated and incorrect. Maoism would be a more correct description”.  One cannot ignore the fact that it ‘Naxalism’ originated in India as a rebellion against lack of development and poverty at the local level; especially in Eastern India. It derives its name from that of a village ‘naxalbari’ in W Bengal where the movement originated and then spread to states like Chattisgarh, AP and Kerala. Maoism is a form of communist theory that is widely applied to political and military guiding ideology. It establishes a classless society and rebels against imperialism. Referring to Naxalism as Maoism is a slur on the fundamental ideology of the movement (as it originated). How else can one explain the symbiotic relationship between the naxals in interior Andhra and the government owned steel plants that provide employment to the locals? Is Mr Modi displaying his inability to understand history and its inherent significance or is he attempting to MODIfy it altogether by making it inherently insignificant?

The hostage is now held to ransom ….

“It goes without saying that pragmatic foreign policy has to be guided by an understanding of the ground realities. However, I think the people in Pakistan increasingly want to strengthen the democratic institutions in Pakistan”.  A country’s foreign policy consists of self-interest strategies chosen by the state to safeguard its national interests and to achieve its goals…. The operative word being IT’S! Hence, Mr Modi, the ground realities to be considered are that of India and not that of Pakistan!!! Are we vying for the position of the ‘leader of the world’ so that we can play arbiter to other 3^rd world nations?

The hijack is now justified and hence hardly any need for discussion.

“Everybody has a right to form opinions and to express them. However, where there is a difference of opinion on facts and matters of law; it is in everybody’s interest to let there be a finality of opinion with the judicial system”. This is perhaps his way of chartering the hijacked flight via Godra! Sir, by definition there cannot be a difference of opinion on FACTS. There can be interpretations of events, issues, incidents and definitely so on statistics. Please understand that facts are stubborn, statistics pliable.

The capture complete…

And so it goes on…. Be it comments on Agriculture, creating employment, defense spending, or the role of the RSS!  And amidst his well attired and bizarrely articulated political agenda, we hear him and the opposition play the caste card. The ordinary citizen applauds to both.  The captor jubilant, the captive secure!  It doesn’t really matter who is right. The enslaved is caught in the moral matrix of a cage and attempts to seek confirmation of the grand narrative everywhere. 

Just as I do….. I go looking for people who bought the very same shampoo as I did, people who agree with me that it is the best viable branded option in the market. They tell me that the shampoo gives me my hair a bounce and I smile! I feel complete. My identity (as a consumer or political) is not a series of choices I make, but a genetic mutation that is reflective of a Darwinian contest. I pick a product or a political identity to assert sophistication or perhaps to reflect that I am able to articulate a coherent worldview. I am, in reality, asserting a pre-determined conditioned cleverness and articulating a world view not my own. 

True, maybe Naxalism is Maoism! Perhaps Foreign Policy is for the ‘other’ and that there can be versions of facts. The nuances of these inaccuracies (or not) is lost in the flood of vocabulary and its threatening semantics.  Errors muffled, the captive rewrites history unaware of the shifting changes of a figurative line of control – created, devised, manipulated and implemented by the shifting sands of someone's political agenda!

Harass-me(a)nt is now a hyphenated word!!!

An Inference is an educated guess and I am going to indulge in that. Approximately, 54% of the population in India are farmers, close to 50% are women, and approx. 15% would constitute people employed in the Indian Railways, Air India, cab/ auto drivers, bus drivers, and government owned transport services. Now include the unemployed (by choice or not) and home makers and the aggregate would be close to 70% (give or take). We are denoting a mass that believes the nation and its country to be its ‘place of work’ and expects its leaders to deliver a safe, secure and hostile free working environment.... Fair?! 

I guess, yet again, that this is an unfair expectation. Given that we are unable to deal with terrorist attacks and belligerent neighbors, to resolve issues around murder, theft and scams and to keep our head afloat in a sinking economy; the assurance, to a farmer who tills the land to feed its people, of making available a workplace that is free of any banter is downright bizarre and far-fetched. All of the above-mentioned, like me, made the choice of living in a country that we refer to as our karma-bhoomi and day on day, in broad daylight are subjected to behavior that is unacceptable, inappropriate and unequivocally qualifies for harassment and sexual banter. In trying times, sacrifices need to be made and thus we will expense harassment at the altar of bigger evils.

April 2013 was the day when The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal) ACT was passed. It was not a joyous moment for anyone; rather of relief. Every woman in India, can now dauntlessly voice her protest and it is a legal obligation for her employer to address it, either through the Internal or the Local Complaints Committee. The law protects me from any inappropriate comment and / or behavior from a colleague, a co-worker, a friend… and dare I say a stranger too. When someone known makes a comment that causes distress, it’s a breach of trust. When a stranger makes such a comment, he / she is making a private assessment of me, or for that matter of anyone, in public, it’s a breach of security. It makes me feel unguarded and unprotected – a sentiment that is perhaps experienced by the majority – the 70% who look at India as their work-place, their Karma Bhoomi! One wonders if there is any fundamental (mis)understanding of the issue at hand. Did we, as a nation, indulge in an ACT as a ‘means’ to turnaround the ‘polls at hand’? One wonders!!

The election campaign supported by a very active and raucous media has relegated decency to absurdity qualifying for a ‘mere discussion’!  It’s perfectly ok to refer to the President of a political party as an ‘alien’, it is presumably entertaining when a senior politician ponders on the marital status of his female colleague, and yet again a ‘point to ponder’ on why ‘the’ lady should don a sari specifically for election campaigning! The nation has been shredded by a ‘mother-son’ duo, a state is governed by an ‘arrogant butcher’, a ‘Patiala peg’ will decide how ‘Punjabi’ a person is, and certain people can very well be asked to relocate to Pakistan! Comments on individuals’ personal lives, their marital status, and their personal relationships are prerequisite fillers; make for interesting coffee conversations, and indispensable prime time debates. Observations come in plenty and are made with caustic verbiage. I guess, it shouldn't really matter, considering all and sundry are at it. Seemingly, that makes it right…. or maybe just OK!   Guess, it’s all part of the grand ACT!  

Today, the substantial 70% is casting its vote to elect a party, check that, an individual. This individual has blatantly and successfully played his / her part in creating a hostile work environment for the very same group that is going to elect him / her to the highest office in the world’s biggest democracy.  There is very little one can do about this because work places are boxed out images, are territorial spaces. They do not take into account geographies! The look of this 70% is mapped with bewildered unhappiness over a system that brazenly swamps its political arrogance over the presumed ignorant.

I moan my past: If I had just known as a child that no human being deserves to be belittled, perhaps, I would have fought back and reported harassment to my school principal, my basketball coach, or my parents too. It’s possible that I would have gathered courage to push back the bully on my own. But at that time, all I knew was that if I avoided eye-contact, ignored the behavior and displayed self-restraint; it would be a lot easier to get through the day.  

I critique my present: Very little has changed as of date. I am equipped with the understanding that my intellect is not just a form of damage control and that ignoring harassment is not seeking acceptance. I know that the law is allegedly on my side. Even so, I avoid eye-contact, ignore the banter, change the channel, turn to page 3, and thereby display the vanquished power of self-restraint.

I condition my future: I am the ‘presumed ignorant’ casting my vote with averted eyes…. My body, soul and intellect reflecting my situation. I have abandoned the most fundamental of my rights - Right to Dignity - for a life of hypocritical forbearance.

All this for the reason that I am protected, at home, at work, in a building (hospital, school, college etc)…..and on the street! By Inference, I am protected as long as the area is well defined in and confined to the ACT!

My nation, my country, my karma bhoomi is out of bounds…. !!!!!