The Cryptic Script of a woMAN’s life!

 My mother told me that my name meant ‘alertness’. By the time I was in my teens, I thought my name had an uncanny familiarity to the word Nishaad, meaning ‘one who has no sorrows’. Nishaad is also the seventh note of an octave in the Indian musical system. Somewhere along, I realised that it doesn’t really matter what my name means. My parents thought I was ‘alert’ enough; my husband and in-laws are convinced that I am the happiest and the luckiest person in the world, and I do practice (a lot) the seventh note to get it right. I try to be alert when it suits me. The fear of sorrow got me to write and sing – the self-serving notes to myself.

A couple of weeks back, I was asked to pen down an idea for a short film. Keep it ‘succinct’, ‘hard-hitting’ and ‘passionate’ – remember, the audience don’t want reality. Don’t worry to give us the details. We just need an idea. We will build on it. The reassurance that someone else will work on my idea was scary and yet intriguing. It was an opportunity for me to explore an alternate universe that would be created out of my life and shown on screen! 

This ‘idea’ is my attempt at presenting a version of a persistent illusion called reality. It is a page out of my life. It is about my relationship with the people I live with – my family and more importantly myself. 

(Feel Free to title it as you deem fit!!!)

The protagonist is a young woman Nishida who has a 12 yr old daughter Ranjani. Nishida works in an Ad agency and on weekends teaches music. The story is about the relationship between Nishida and her daughter and the perceptions of the family about the quality of the relationship. Nishida enjoys her work in the agency. She is doing well at work, makes a good deal of money for the organization she works for. She is lively, energetic and full of ideas. Her life at home is just as good. She finds interesting and creative ways to spend time with her daughter. Having an engaging conversation with her while in the kitchen, interesting conversations on the phone when on the way to work / home.  They learn music together and when she is teaching, Ranjani watches her. In essence, she ensures that she is ‘present’ as much as possible physically as well as via the virtual space. 

There is some amount of difference of opinion at home. Her husband (Dhir) doesn’t insist; but has expressed quite a few times that being a ‘virtual’ mom is not good and that it is not helpful to Ranjani. He urges Nishida to have a “good work-life balance”. Nishida’s in-laws (especially the mother-in-law) reluctantly goes along with the way things are going.   There have been multiple discussions between the couple on this front. Dhir believes that compromise, and at times sacrifices, are important when one is a parent. On the other hand, ‘the child should always come first’ is a principle that Nishida doesn’t believe in. ‘I love my daughter and I love myself just as much is what she keep saying. Thus far, it has been discussions and perhaps minor arguments between the couple. Dhir would listen, smile, sigh and move. Nishida would often give the ‘understanding smile’ and tells herself, ‘I don’t need to explain myself, this doesn’t need to be argument and he is not going to understand.’ 

The problem comes in when one day, Ranjani while playing hurts herself badly. She comes home to see that her grandparents have gone out and parents haven’t returned from work yet. She calls her mom (Nishida who is on her way home), who calms her down at first, and takes her through a series of tasks that involves slowly walking to the bathroom, washing the wound, using cotton and antiseptic to clean the area, and to loosely bandage it with a clean handkerchief. Ranjani follows the instructions and by the time this is done, Nishida has reached home and so have the grandparents. They realize that the leg is badly bruised and that Ranjani needs an anti-tetanus. She is taken to the hospital where the doctor attends to her. 

The conversation on return, and at the dinner table is volatile that day. The grandparents are upset that they were not present and at the same time adopt an ‘I told you so’ attitude towards Nishida.  Dhir is proud that Ranjani displayed the presence of mind and did what she was told. He appreciates her and his wife for handling the situation well and at the same time, expresses his discomfort with ‘you are a great professional, a strong person but you still need to be a mother who is present. Not having a mother around when needed is depriving Ranjani of what she deserves, and Dhir is upset at that. ‘Ranjani doesn’t need to learn to be independent as yet’   he concludes. The fact that the situation was handled and that their daughter displayed maturity is what Nishida reiterates. 

Ranjani is a witness to this entire discussion around the dining table. She feels guilty that she is the cause of the argument, angry at her grandparents for their attitude towards her mother, and confused with her father. She doesn’t understand on how one can be proud AND upset at the same time. She struggles dealing with appreciation and condemnation at the same time. Moreover, she wonders if she has to stop being one (role) to be another. I am a daughter and a grand-daughter. So, when I become a mother, why will I stop being Ranjani?. She asks these questions to her grandparents and to her father; all of who, look at Nishida for an answer.  

Nishida is angry at herself and at the family for having made Ranjani feel guilty and  so conflicted. For the first time she bursts out - ‘Why do I have to be stressed out, make sacrifices, or make myself miserable to do well at home and at work? And who decides what is good? My work, like my role as a mother is not a luxury. It’s a need.” For the first time, Nishida lashes out at the so called work-life balance and calls it sheer nonsense. “You are telling me and Ranjani that Home is Life and that we need to balance work and Home, and I have a problem with that. I won’t accept it and neither am I ok for my child to accept it. My life is my home, my work, my friends, my interests and everything that I cherish. And as for Ranjani, what makes you think she is ‘deprived’? The delusion that a child MUST have a 24x7  mom at home and if she doesn’t have it, then she is deprived of something is unacceptable and ludicrous. Ranjani needs to know that she is loved and we need to teach her to take care of herself. She needs to know that we are there for her and that is the one thing that will make her feel safe. Why can’t we just do that for her, for me and for each other?”. 

There is silence at the end of Nishida’s outburst. She slowly smiles, heaves a sigh of relief, takes her phone and leaves the room. Dhir gets up to and takes a seat next to his daughter.  

The evening ends on a note with Dhir having a conversation with Ranjani and explaining to her on what she should do in the event of an another accident at home. In-laws watching the concluding episode of a prime time tele-serial  and Nishida on the phone while she is getting the laundry done. 

“Is there something that you don’t understand? You have read it about 5 times now” I asked my script-writer friend  Jai Raj (RJ,  as he likes to be called). He had penned scripts for a dozen films, 5 of which were block-busters. RJ looked up, grimaced and said, “Where is the punch? Where is the pain? This really needs to be worked on a lot. 

“Sure”, I quipped, “Please go ahead. I am quite curious to know what changes you will bring in.” I could see frustration on RJ’s face. 

“I asked for something real. Why is the husband not fighting the wife. Why is your lady talking about herself. She is a mom. The child comes first.” 

“So, change it… “ I quipped

“The audience will want to see the struggle, the constant compromise, the uncompromising love”, RJ added

“Fine, go ahead!  Bring it on….” I retorted

 “Motherhood is a journey, it’s a gift, it’s the ultimate call to sacrifice. And the audience must see her struggle balance work and the gift. This is what will make the men understand and the women empathise.” RJ exploded and started pacing the floor. 

The silence that ensued was hard to make sense of. Nothing that I would say, would have helped me; or for that matter RJ either. I gently walked out of the room leaving the script in RJ’s hands. Stories are best told by those who have a flair for the narrative; and narratives are best scripted by those who want to keep the story going. 

The story of a woman without a child is the same as the story of a woman with a child; it’s minus the child. 

The relationship of a woman with herself is just as fundamental as her relationship with her child – perhaps more so.  This is perhaps a simplistic representation of my egotistical self; nonetheless, it is what it is – the story of Nishida attempting to effortlessly live the seventh note of the octave! 

Hic Hic hiccup Cures?!

I have been trying to make sense of the results of the Delhi elections. I am not sure if I should be happy that the BJP didn’t make it, depressed that the Congress has been pretty much wiped out, or frustrated that AAP has got one more opportunity! Nonetheless, I am trying to give this specific result some kind of a perspective and realize that any attempt to do so, points to just one thing - anti incumbency! I am going to try and explain this in as annoying a manner as possible – because there is no other way. Any rational, logical, and intellectual debate on this would mean pushing a mode of explanation (or ‘paradigm’ which is the fashionable word) to the point that it would go no further.

So, what caused the AAP victory? By and large we tend to look for ‘causes’ of things we dislike.  We will look for the causes for divorce and never for marriage; causes of hate, never ever for love; reasons for corruption, hardly ever for honesty; explore with vengeance the causes for violence, but turn a blind eye to… let’s just say gentleness! We dislike diseases because they are by definition abnormal states. The normal state is marriage / love / honesty / gentleness (or whatever) and this gets derailed in abnormal circumstances.  In the case of violence, the cause (to quote the psychologist Robin Fox) is “ ‘frustration aggression hypothesis’ which again assumes the not so aggressive state to be normal, but derailed by frustration”! AAP did not come in to power because of its 70-point action plan. (It would be a wonder if 50% of it will be achieved. The optimist in me hopes that they would). The AAP victory, in more ways than one, is the result of voters’ expression of violence – a frustration that we saw at work during the 2014 general elections and which repeated itself with the Delhi polls!

The fundamental reason (there could be many more) for the BJP win in May of last year was largely due to the frustration of the masses towards the silence and regression experienced in the last decade thanks to the UPA. It was an expression of passive aggressive violence of an entire nation fervently crying out for speed, growth and visibility.  The mandate was a ‘survival value’ attributed to the very group that administered the mandate.   The Delhi assembly results is a take 2 of the same scene - a group that resorted with passive aggressive violence to the nonsense experienced in the last 10 months. 

So what has happened in the last 10 months?  We have managed to improve our relations with some of our neighbours, except Pakistan (this is a dream long lost), built celebrity bridges with the US and closed the nuclear deal, managed to get the maximum number of bills and ordinances passed during the winter session, (bills that have languished otherwise for no apparent reason); logged in greater number of work hours in the Lok Sabha! There are plenty of positives that provide for a good, intellectual, outcome related and impactful debate. These deliberations are essential, however, not something that will grip our attention for long. The positives accomplished were ‘meeting expectations’, at the very least!

What the BJP needs to understand is that getting an electoral mandate is like getting ready for some amount of pub violence. The violence was inevitable! Pubs are venues where there is no display of reticence and hence conflicts easily provoked. What’s interesting is the assumption that most people are not appalled or disgusted. The rationale being people will get drunk, and therefore will act unpredictable. They become the experimental monkeys whose amygdalas have been hijacked, and who therefore cannot get a sequence right.  What happens in ‘normal/sober circumstances’ is that people are not drunk and are able to appeal to the crowd for support without being intimidating, as during an election campaign.  The state of mind continues when people are not ‘that drunk’; individuals are aware that they are in a conflict situation and make an effort to go by the rules; as in a coalition! Within the ambit of an alliance, individuals react only when the sequence is not respected and it is at that very moment when drunken spectators interfere and they typically do so at the wrong moment which in turn leads to a nation wide regression.

In an electoral mandate, there walks in the motorcycle gang with the bent of mischief and that is when the rest would want to either fight or run like hell. Reflect this analogy to the last 10months. The bizarre and frivolous comments with respect to the number of children that women should bear, the repulsive name calling by some of the saffron clad elected, the ludicrous Ghar wapsi controversy, …these are to name just a few! These are the individuals (partially or perhaps completely power drunk) in the pub of national politics whose behaviour is akin to the motorcycle gang that does not care for any kind of progress or growth. They have unleashed their individual agendas and the centre (intentionally or not) ignores them, which in turn leads to a panic and /or ‘make hay while the sun shines’ situation. The people who awarded the mandate are now the experimental group in the throes of the amygdala hijack. They are conditioned to panic and thus they will. It doesn’t really matter if a maximum number of bills and ordinances got passed this year round (when compared to the last decade); who cares if the price of petrol / diesel have been slashed; how does it matter if the nuclear deal has seen its day; we really couldn’t care if foreign investments have been on the rise and our markets are doing much better than ever before. We are threatened, the brain is programmed for threat as a survival instinct and thus we will in a state of passive aggression pull back what we had awarded. The Delhi results are a way of saying ‘Get your house in order’.

Even if we were to make this an intellectual debate (which can be equally annoying), the narrative goes against the BJP. The agenda of the BJP government and forcefully broadcasted by the PM has been ‘more power to states’. This is based on the rationale that the centre should in effect be the support system and play the role of being an enabler to the local /state governments. For all practical purposes, for a political party to believe in it, and propagate it, one would infer that it would be based on the assumption that the state would pretty much display the saffron colour! The Delhi campaign, or for that matter, any of the state elections post May 2014 is a contradiction in terms to the mantra of ‘more power to states’. The chief campaigner has been the PM and not the state party chief/ leader thereby making a political statement that there is no state under a leader who could be sure of winning on his own accord.  The campaign has hardly been issue based. Maharashtra was more of yes-no dilly dallying between the BJP and Shiv Sena; Jharkhand was a no brainer given the abysmal health of the state; Haryana was a foregone conclusion! That leaves us with Delhi.

The biggest blooper of the BJP was its CM candidate. The reasons cited qualify for the bizarre. Presumably, she is the ideal for many women in the country! I struggle to recall a women’s leadership seminar where Kiran Bedi has got any good ratings. She has been looked up to for being the first woman IPS officer which cannot be seen as a qualification and definitely not a a brownie point for being a CM candidate. It is akin to the first woman going to school / college / walking in to a place of work! About time!!!! Presumably, Kiran Bedi is someone who will get things done and speaks her mind. True, and that would be on the 9pm national debates where she reels out her opinions like bullet points off a power point presentation.  Her performance during the campaign was the worst of the lot. She projected herself as a ‘yes sir’ with no mind of her own.  There was no way she would live up to the slogan of ‘more power to states’! She, like the Delhi police, would report to the central and not the state government! The overwhelming majority of AAP is more an anti-BJP; not so much a pro AAP!  A protesting Er(wind) is more reliable than a spineless K-k-k-kiran!

The Delhi results are much more than a wake-up call for the centre. The writing on the wall is clear - Get your act in place! In the pub of politics, please ensure that you have your bouncers who will throw out the ill-behaved power drunk barging in motorcyclists!!!!! Stay focused on the national agenda and not that of your ‘Teacher’s’!!!!! Remember, the electorate is just a few drinks behind and  may soon take on the role of bouncers in the absence of yours!

Crossing the border: Skepticism to Atheism!

I wake up to the sound of a humming air-conditioner, the melodious rhythm of my wind-chimes and the sound of my doorbell. It’s the beginning of a work week. I let go of the comfort of my bed and as if by instinct go for the news channels. A terrorist attack at Karachi airport and around 20 feared dead… A fear grips me and there is a quality to that. It’s a fear unmingled with hope; a panic that confirms the fading of a promise; a confirmation that there is nothing to fear when danger is at hand.

A terror attack in a neighboring country should perhaps be the least of all reasons for one to turn into an atheist; nonetheless, it has happened. Skepticism and our relationship with Pakistan has gone hand in hand for decades and one could perhaps hope that with the advent of a leader we could look forward to health and hygiene. Am not sure of that anymore!

“People who ask us when we will hold talks with Pakistan are perhaps not aware that over the last 55 years, every initiative for a dialogue with Pakistan has invariably come from India”… and truly so were the words of Mr Vajpayee at one point in time…

And we keep at it, as do unpredictable skeptics, in anticipation of the achievability of the implicit claim in Vajpayee’s observation that we shall see (perhaps) the light of day.  Little did we realize that the demonstration, from Pakistan, of the implicit claim would be low-slung and could hardly be effective in a controlled environment.  And as skeptics do, we witness two images - the imaginative and placebo-ridden democratic Pakistan; and another, the real one being operated in a double-blind fashion. The former imaginative and the latter controlled. And like any skeptic, we resentfully infer that the implicit claim of Mr Vajpayee is indeed that of a moral one and can possibly be read as…

We have a duty to make all attempts possible to have a good and fruitful dialogue with Pakistan

The key insight here is that while politics and morality are interconnected; they are not necessarily indistinguishable. A skeptic operates from the belief that all political actions ought to be rational, logical and perhaps moral even; however, the reverse is not necessarily true and may not hold good. And hence the implicit claim espouses political overtones and is interpreted as …

Pakistan must be gently nudged to concede to a dialogue

This was bound to happen. Any attempt to link politics with morality or moral values is feeble due to the inherent and insurmountable differences of opinion woven into it. 

The resurrection of a failing skepticism marked by Nawaz Sharif’s India visit on the eve of PM Modi’s swearing in ceremony hails as one such subverted political morality moment.  Hands shake, eyes meet, and maternal instincts crystallize to be quickly dispersed with yet again. It didn't take too long to bring home the fact that a marriage of politics and morality would yield unintended (?) consequences. And today, the world has witnessed precisely that.

For a discussion with Pakistan on any issue, specific or otherwise, one needs to be all geared  up to deal with the invisible echelons of power; namely, the military - an organisation that casts its sullied shadow on the whole shebang of its democratically  elected premiers. In Orwellian terms, a ‘legitimately’ elected Pakistan establishes a dictatorship to safeguard a revolution; and its military fashions the revolution to establish its dictatorship. The sovereignty of military in Pakistan exemplifies the emotional fiefdom of an entire nation granting it the licensed liberty to use guns ….. And thus is born an unusual kind of radicalism. The skeptic settles for the word ‘terrorism’.

The attack at the Karachi airport (not Lahore or Islamabad!!) is symbolic. The past is the symbolic capital that the militia invested in and that cannot be forfeited at any cost. One wonders if the event is truly a terrorist attack as presented. Either which way, it’s the reign of Chaos. There is some seminal truth in PM Modi’s observation...

“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”. 

I was born post the Indo-Pak wars and have by default been immersed in a generational riot that questions the “love thy neighbor” commandment. This age band attains a contained insurgency when political leaders with their blend of morality attempt to suture singed relationships. Nonetheless, there is some merit to morality and there are indeed moral absolutes. We get blown away by a political language woven by one poet, and repeated by yet another a decade later, lending solidity to pure wind.  We trudge on and make for one final effort to retain a seed of hope; only to wake up and realize that we have got the framework all wrong.  Big Brother is watching. He is the fly on the wall. There can be no dialogue….. and what we see today is the vision of a future…”a boot stamping on a human face”

Skeptics are cynics. We doubt. We thrive on the despair that is caused by inexplicable ambiguity; or whatever that means. And nestled in that inexplicable ambiguity is the germ of hope; a perhaps! "Maybe, I am wrong"... moment.  It is that one seed that we fervently hope is not destroyed. It's destruction converts the skeptic into an atheist. We then travel to the other extreme and move from the realm of questioning to a space of negation.  We annul all possibilities; reverse any probabilities; and satirize galore the skeptics.

There is no dialogue that is going to work with Pakistan. It’s a dead-beat, dead end, and deadened conversation. I am the skeptic turned confirmed atheist on this!  

Grassroots Uprooted!!!

 Henryk Skolimowski, a Polish philosopher observed that it is the illogical man that advertising is after. It is anti-rational and aims specifically at uprooting not only the rationality of a man, but also his common sense.  And this is true not just of advertising, but also the social media (the forum within which advertising operates) and dangerously so with its apparent bed-fellow and significant other - ‘Politics’! Politics is for the illogical mind. It is for those who are perfectly ok to hand over their one deep-seated skill –their common sense. It is for those who are ready to forfeit its rewards for the devalued benefits threaded by political silence and theatrical pro-tem ignorance.  

The nation for the past 10 days has witnessed and perhaps even silently applauded the death of commonsense. The assault and murder of two young girls in Badaun, the insensitive comments made by the father and son duo, the inexplicable death of Minister Gopinath Munde and last but not the least the bifurcation of the state of Andhra Pradesh.

There is very little that can be done with regard to the bifurcation. One would have hoped that our politicians will learn from the kernels of history and make any division a painless moment. True, one can hope and that is all there is to it. This brings us to the horrific death of the young girls and that of Gopinath Munde. Both very diverse issues and are being looked at so very differently.  The rape and murder of the Badaun girls is being investigated by all and sundry who have nothing to do with it, commented upon by the irrelevant, irrational observations by those in power and all this is happening when the center holds steadfast.  Discussions on women issues continue on prime time, debates galore on the reasons for the insensitivity in our society (yet again) and incessant deliberations and speculations on lack of effective governance. Is there any specific reason why no one has intervened to speed up the investigation? What could possibly be the reason for this sudden shift of debate from the nature of the crime and its impact to the so called lack of eminence in the state of UP . How different is UP from Delhi? Guess, if Dec 2012 had repeated itself, the focus would be on…..? Check that … That’s NO ONE. We don’t have anyone in Delhi to blame!

The blame game endures!  It is criminal to steal a wallet, daring to steal a fortune, and a mark of greatness to steal a crown.  The blame diminishes as the guilt increases.  So let’s blame the poor people for being poor, the backward for being regressive, and the desperate for being timid.

And then befalls the rearward, over your shoulder event marking the tragic death of Mr Gopinath Munde. With this, the nation trails yet another social issue that is essentially a matter of discipline – road sense, civic sense and the use of seat belts. Guess that makes the subject simple enough!  It really doesn’t matter if a 1000kg Indica rams into a 1300kg SX4 at a speed (assuming) at a minimum of 80kms per hour in the wee hours of the day. It is not a matter of importance that there is hardly a dent observed on either of the vehicles due to the impact.  It is definitely not of consequence that a person who has suffered blunt force trauma is rendered unconscious immediately after and cannot therefore ask for a drink of water.  It is paltry to suggest that the impact which has resulted in the death of an individual (who suffered heart attack, lost 1.5 lts of blood, suffered a liver rupture, and suffered a C1/C2 rupture) should have been experienced by the rest in the car. There is no talk of airbag deflation (The SX4 was recalled due to faulty airbag). There is no deliberation on whether there will be a formal investigation; the driver of the Indica gets bail; Arnab Goswami talks about traffic rules and our disinclination of wearing seat belts; the media focuses on the astronomical role of '#3' in the life of the Mahajan and Munde family; we all observe a moment of silence, thank the lord (silently) for giving us another day of nothing to do … and life goes on.

The lame game continues. It is criminal to steal a wallet, daring to steal a fortune, and a mark of greatness to steal a crown.  The blame diminishes as the guilt increases.  So let’s blame the common man for the death of greatness and censure the grassroots for the demise of the establishment.

The issues that we have been talking about are those that hit us at the grassroots level – and by grassroots we are referring to issues that by their very nature are resistant to any central control. The issues taken up by the grassroots have the potential to alter an entire culture. Approached incorrectly, it will turn on those who try to exploit it.  This is not theory; but plain simple commonsense. The issues we face today distress those at the bottom of the social and political pyramid. The opposite is the ‘establishment’.

The commonsense questions (IF and when asked) are a reflection of the attitude of the people who believe in a kind of activism that reflects an attitude – an attitude of freedom, creativity, unrestrained political enthusiasm, of willingness to come together for a common purpose by asking the most fundamental,  uncomplicated, vital and central of all questions – How can we be in a better place? These commonsense questions should typically be the essence of politics. It is the dumping of tea in a harbor, it is making salt characterized by the dandi march, it is setting in motion the charkha that helps us weave our own clothes, it is the Mandela resilience in his diligence, it is participating in a nation-wide movement to say no to corruption, it is the silent coming together on the night of Dec 13 to protest  violence against women. These questions that emanate from a well sewed attitude cannot be managed. Any intent to manage or monitor is intrinsically antithetical and even offensive to grassroots activism – which typically is second nature to the common man / woman; the first one being fight or freeze.

Gopinath Munde, the OBC leader from Maharashtra took on Sharad Pawar with that one question that no one had asked him before - on his links to the underworld a.k.a Dawood Ibrahim. The father of the daughters at Badaun has asked that one fundamental question which hasn’t been responded to yet – ‘Am I not a citizen of India?’. These common sense comments, statements, questions, call it what we may are fundamental and indicate grassroots activism. It is what brought Munde to the forefront of Maharashtra politics and is what makes the murder of the Badaun girls that much more horrific. Our leaders and the establishment have found a way to respond to common sense. Find someone and Blame it on them.

To err is human….and to blame it on someone else is politics!

Mr PM and Mr Home Minister: we shall wait for you to come out and take credit for the rain. Meanwhile, please go ahead and blame someone else for the drought!  You have our vote!

“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…. !!!!!