“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…..