Last Tryst

This city

witness of my

Anniversaries

of birth, death

and a million

in-betweens

sprinkled with

memories

of loss and love

of lessons

and joys

of aging

ripening, growing

wounds of evolution

and love bites

of knowing

hundreds of 

goodbyes

await me

in every

nook and cranny

My soul

whirls

in your circular heart

and sprinkles

itself generously

chanting

last birth

last tryst !

Read this poem in Hindi here : Aakhiri Mulaqat

Metaphysical musings on Republic Day

Representational photo of small tableaus on The Ridge, Shimla
Source: Google Images

 

Sitting atop an Electricity Board tableau that had the permission to drive through the generally restricted The Ridge and The Mall in Shimla, my 4-5 years  old self back in the eighties understood nothing about republic or the need to celebrate it.

 

A  small procession that began from the old Telegraph building up to the Christ Church  and the perk of a good refreshment was enough to get me excited about it.

 

That year the theme was how electricity had changed lives in remote areas and the moment the bulb hanging on my head was to be lit , I had to give excited expressions sitting there with a book.

 

All the "artists" were chosen from the residential complex of the board for ease of access.

 

Cause and effect are such a strange phenomenon, what we think is the cause might be the effect of something previous to it.

 

For decades I had completely forgotten about this  but now as I struggle to pinpoint the meaningfulness of a republic or its celebration, the memories are back.

 

My father's family paid a huge price of freedom in 1947 and lived for years with the label "refugees" from across the border. Home was always a very fluid concept for them.

 

I spent a large part of my life in the hills and in some parts of my state democracy or republic has still not changed quality of life services much.

 

The city I live in now, the glorious capital is struggling to find clean water and fresh air.  The disparity between the "haves" and the "have nots" we overlook everyday because we are all helpless in its face.

" Things are changing" is such a lame argument because I feel my 7 years old girl is still as unsafe as my grandmother was in 1947.

 

Yes I am the sceptic, I am alright with being labelled  "naysayer" for asking the cause and effect questions, for asking what use is a latest radar to me if I don't have clean air.

 

To me glorifying the soldier without his human rights is pseudo, to me the façade of a republic where all voices are not equal is a sham.

 

I was reading  Emil Cioran earlier and I so relate to - I feel completely detached from any country, any group. I am a metaphysically displaced person.

 

PS: I will do a follow up post for all the trolls labelling me "traitor" after this, if need be.

In a city winter looking for a home

A dead pigeon
on the sidewalk
bare feet children
begging at the signal
destitution written large
on faces and souls

life's pathways
as complicated as
the routes of the metro

what ifs hanging
like half-constructed pillars
why? why not?
changing like traffic lights

Christmas lights, blinking at wealth
emptiness, deep, dark
and hope faint, cold

a shiver runs down the spine of
the silhouettes of tired trees

its cold
very cold,
winter is a state of mind

all knowing is frozen
love runs down
as a warm, salty liquid
from the eyes

the security guard looks
straight into the fire

we are all looking for home.


 

To Ghalib

drowning
a lifetime into
this city's sunsets
and decades
of despair
to be a legend
I breathe
your angst

dead souls
masquerading
with fake smiles
lust wearing
love's cloak

words die
a silent death.

referendums
and regrets
life is worst
when it is
a pending decision.




 

GRAVES, MYSTICS AND POETS

The fuchsia queen
of some erstwhile carom board
abandoned on a sidewalk
forlorn
waiting anxiously
for a befitting
royal burial

alone
by a busy city road
which cares
for neither life
nor death

in the footsteps
of the Great Mughals
or the corridors
of the empire
in which the sun never set

thousands of souls
that are lonely together
trying to fill
that same blank
with books,lust
power

the Sufis and the poets
the revolutionaries
and the mystics

square pegs
in round holes
misfits all
hiding their rough edges

looking for
the perfect other
to fit in
to smoothen out

stories not
worthy of
any telling
live and die

phoenix-like
the myth of the city
feeds on people
and lives on

how many graves
I walk on each day.

DELHI - First impressions, second time

• MIND OVER MATTER You may value your marble floor and wood work a lot but they can't make a meaningful conversation.
• RESPECT A barefoot child selling some random item on the signal deserves more respect than a man spitting out pan from his expensive SUV.
• FEMINISM A plumber works day and night to give his only girl child a college education and a man with a few factories just wants to add a few more zeroes to her dowry cheque.
• LIFE Possessions are just that , first you posses them then they possess you.
• HOME Bricks and cement, price tags mean nothing if they do not have the warmth of human souls.
• LEARNING The more you learn the more you must unlearn to uncomplicated and live a life free of prejudices and baggage.
• DELHI A city can be a friend, a frenemy, a teacher and all of the above.

CHATTER @ WECHAT

I can think of at least a 100 people whom I would love to chat with, ask questions, know their viewpoints and tell them my own. I am a people’s person and love to have long talks with cupfuls of tea or a few leisurely drinks. So yes sieving through that long list and short listing my top few to share the privilege of WECHAT was a tough assignment. To make things easier I decided to begin the rounds of chat with a divine intervention.

Ever since I was a kid I loved to chat with my friend Lord Krishna. Oh! Please do not get me wrong I am not the religious discourse types, but I like to talk to him about every day things- people, relationships, money, career and the like. One question I have often asked him in the recent years and would love to get an answer via WE CHAT is – why didn’t he enable Draupadi to be strong enough to save herself and instead chose to come himself to her rescue? I understand the importance of having worthy episodes in your biography if you are a God, and also the ethical rightness of responding to a devout cry for help. But wouldn’t it have been a sterling example for all Indian girls to be empowered themselves instead of letting your lousy husbands lose you in a bet, their relatives insult you and then a brother-like God come to your rescue. In the wake of the Delhi rape case I asked this question too often, has our mythology set the wrong precedents so much so that the woman is blamed for crimes against her, giving the lame excuse that she crossed the Laxman-rekha, and all kinds of restrictions are put on women in the name of their safety. We do not blink an eye when a husband treats a wife as his property and why the victims lose IZZAT while the criminals have human rights activists shouting themselves hoarse to treat these monsters with sympathy?

I definitely would ask my dear blue god about his concept of true love? Is the kind of love you and Radha shared possible for humans like me? What is the most important lesson we can take from your legendary friendship with Sudama? Is it possible to have a true friend beyond the class boundaries?

Once Krishna in his charming way gives me some answers I will let him go back to manage the affairs of the world and settle to talk to my favourite revolutionary of all times, the one and only India’s very own Che Guevera Bhagat Singh. His atheist beliefs are well-documented and his beardless and short hair pictures are popular even in the Sikh heartland Punjab. So I would want to ask him on behalf of a lot of my Sikh friends that how does one prioritise when an issue is important to you but it demands disobedience to your religious principles? How much of what we wear or don’t wear consists of our religious identity? This is a common conflict I see in lots of Sikh families where the youngsters want to do away with their beard and kes (hair) and the elders consider it absolutely impermissible. I would ask- How would you evaluate the direction in which this country’s youth are headed? You were just 23 when you made the choice to lay your life for your country and now most 23 years olds would be unable to even give one full day of their busy lives for India, what would you say to them? What would be on your reading list dear Bhagat, in our times and yes would you like to meet Che Guevera some day? I hope he would say yes to the last one because two great revolutionaries, they would surely churn out lots of food for thought for all of us.

Hitler would come next, because all my life I have tried to understand how hatred could drive one person to such a violent extreme. There has been much analysis of love and of individual violence, but the kind of collective violence he engineered is unparalleled in history. Well I would try not to ask him about his strange and funny moustache:-p but I would want to ask him what his regrets are, if any? Does it hurt to be one of the most hated men of all times? Today when the world sits on a nuclear pile of explosives one extremist like you could push the world to its very brutal end, would you do it differently if you had a second chance? Is a person’s family tree so important, is race so important? I would ask Mr.Fuhrer how he managed to deceive a whole nation to participate in his idea of an ideal state.

Referring to some other great conquerors, warriors and political leaders I would like to know his opinions about Gandhi’s non-violence and Martin Luther King’s struggle for civil rights and Nelson Mandela's campaign for social justice.Who do you think is remembered more and fondly you or any of them?

Chats with three men in a row I think I would definitely need some lady to chat with now, and who else but one of my favourite writer’s and feminists of all times- Virginia Woolf. Wow lady! I must compliment you for inspiring many generations of women to have A Room of One’s own !!But dear let me tell you that just like you then women still live in “potentially dangerous space” everywhere in the world. Even today it seems “women are imaginatively of the highest importance; practically completely insignificant.” I would ask her to elaborate on her notion of trickle down patriarchy. I would ask her how we can manage the struggle to recognise women’s unpaid work in today’s highly commercialised work. What made you choose to integrate your creative work into social thought? And on a lighter note I would ask her how does it feel to have her face a wide range of gift-ware and memorabilia like book marks and mugs, does it dilute some of her strong stance or just popularises it?
Next up would be someone I observe carefully every day but have reserved my views about for some time now. The intellectual-looking, possessor of the strongest vocal chords in the universe, the TV journalist-crusader.  

Yes I am talking about the same-wardrobe-all-seasons, the same-pitch and tone-all issues person who screams his lungs out because the nation wants to know. I want to ask this person how they decided to compensate for the dearth of real horror genre in India in primetime news. These mighty people must tell me the nitty-gritty of running a kangaroo court on TV screens where just like the brand of coffee endorsing their channel there is instant justice and punishment.
I want to ask them are their panelists (who either silently nod their heads in disagreement or frustration from their tiny window on the screen or ONLY agree with the huffing and puffing journalist of courage) paid or their silence is golden.
I want to ask them, who decide what “breaking news” is. Is it called so because most of the times I feel like breaking my TV or my head when I hear them shout BREAKING! In the race of becoming “your channel got this first” how did you come to presume that the nation really wants to know only your opinion on everything?

I would also love to chat with someone I call a Facebook fanatic. I want to ask her does she think that the earth now rotates on the frequency of her status updates. Why does she think that the world would end if she does not display the picture of her lunch and dinner plates? I would tell her that using infinite smiley faces and cuss words in her updates and comments is so juvenile, has she ever tried using her mind instead? I would definitely like to ask her home remedies for a sore thumb caused by constant typing. Does she know that there is a whole world outside the Facebook home page and friends’ photo albums? I would want to ask her what is her tip for time management, how much time can one waste to take bathroom breaks in the middle of day and night chats? The number of friends on your list is just that A NUMBER or do you think that number is directly proportional to your well-being and “influence”? I would also like some light to be thrown by her esteemed FB self on how many starving children she thinks she has fed by a click? My parting message to her would be- “Darling, facebook likes are the wrong scale to measure self-worth or any one else's worth, remember the last time you looked at the sunset or walked in the park(without peeping into your Smartphone every two minutes),so sign out of  FB and log into real life !”

Once I am done with my vicious outpour I would like to sit down for some soothing chat with two of my all-time favourite writers- Ruskin Bond – the bard from the Mussorie hills and Paulo the Alchemist Coelho. I am sure both these soft-spoken gentlemen would be kind to answer my questions about how to maintain calmness in chaos? How to find the answers and how to choose the right word to express what you have found?

I wish I had enough energy to chat with IPL team owners and fans, cyber stalkers, public property destroyers, the US President and my great grandmother, but I’ll not be greedy and as the cliché goes last but not the least I would like to chat with my favourite costumed crime fighter- Spiderman. I am sure he can tell me why we need to believe in superheroes? I would want to ask him about how can a commoner like me save the world even if I manage to save only a small bit.

And then following his dictum- “with great power there comes great responsibility”, I will not misuse my WECHAT power and call it a day pondering on the lessons I take home from all these eye-opening sessions.

SOME DIFFICULT QUESTIONS

During this last one month images and voices related to the Delhi Rape,the subsequent protests and debates have flooded our lives.My daughter had a few difficult questions for me,here I try some answers.

Why does this girl hide her face?
This was a shocker,it came after she saw graphics similar to the ones mentioned in this article,which represent the woman survivor of a sexual crime as SHAMED.

But as any logic would point out shouldn't the wrongdoer be shamed instead of the victim of the wrongdoing?The worn out logic of social stigma against the survivor needs to break.

I told her she is not hiding her face,she is not ashamed,she is hurt.If we support her she will surely show us her face and smile some day.

Why did bad men kill her?

She is too young to understand what bestiality they subjected her to before attempting to kill her finally,but that doesn't lessen the impact of this query from a four year old.What kind of images of men is she forming in her mind,I wonder?

She still doesn't understand death due to violence fully yet knows killing is a bad word and a bad deed.

I told her sometimes we all are tempted to do bad,hurt others.But if you are being hurt by some one ever,speak up and if ever you are tempted to hurt some one remember its BAD and STOP.

Can I go in a bus when I am a big girl?

Wish I could say no to this.But then wouldn't I be participating in the extended conspiracy of locking-up our girls from public spaces due to fear of sexual or other exploitation?

I tell her you can but you have to be vigilant and brave,hoping that by the time she is old enough to take a bus alone things would have changed for the better for her and all us women.

MARYADA- मर्यादा

मर्यादा -पुरुषोतम  भी
ये दुसाहस
नहीं कर पाए थे

सीता को त्याग कर
उन्होंने  ही शायद
नियम ऐसे सुझाये थे

उसके साथ अन्याय
हो जाये तो भी
उसको ही  दंड मिलेगा

आज भी दुसाहस
रुके नहीं हैं

आज भी नियम वही है
दुर्बल कहते हैं जिसको
वही आज भी

मर्यादा का भारी
बोझ उठाये खड़ी है !

RAPE is not just another four-letter word -"The ax forgets, the tree remembers." Maya Angelou

"The ax forgets, the tree remembers."

Maya Angelou, Even the Stars Look Lonesome, 1997

In the last decade or so Delhi has witnessed some horrible rape cases

2001 a 26 yrs old is raped in a Blueline bus which she boarded form Mathura Road in South Delhi

2003 A 17 yrs old is raped in the Buddha Jayanti Park

2005 The Dhaula Kuan rape of a student in a moving car

2010 gang-rape of a BPO employee

All the cases sparked debates,protests outrage and most importantly false promises by the Delhi Police which were never fulfilled.

The kind of support system we have for the victims is evident from these reports.

So after six months perhaps this uproar would die too,till there is another victim offered to be sacrificed on the altar of this woman-hating culture.The educated ,liberated,independent woman is so difficult to "tolerate" by the men she is quickly displacing in all fields.confining her in purdah and kitchens and "teaching her a lesson" if she doesn't confirm are covert ways of keeping the power structure intact.

Even those of us who raise voices at homes an in cyberspace are labelled to be "armchair activists" who have nothing better to do.The language in which we refer to women is still largely as "protectionist".

Till we raise our boys as privileged,more empowered and superior than our girls,the problem will persist.Men who enjoy these notions in homes and families will never be able to accept a woman as an equal and hence her right to everything as valid as their's.

lets not teach our boys to protect the women in the family instead RESPECT WOMEN,their bodies and their opinions.

Doomsday prophecies when fairy tales have gone horribly wrong

21/12/2012 has been in the limelight for long now as the supposedly last day for humanity on the planet,interestingly big daddy of the info world GOOGLE celebrates the 200th anniversary of Grimm's fairy tales in its doodle and a girl brutally raped and harmed fights for life in a Delhi hospital.

Humanity is already dead in every space where fairy tales have become nightmares for girls.Public outrage,candle light marches all happen after an incident.Oh please do they want us to believe that so many people are actually concerned,if they were the girl and her friend wouldn't be lying naked on the road till the police arrived.

We have had good public campaigns like justice for Jessica Lal and a few others but the root cause - how we perceive our girls,still remains more or less unchanged.

Celebrities,institutions,families,individuals,media all have to ensure this outrage does not die the death all our petitions and campaigns do.Let us hope that as NASA suggests there is no doomsday happening tomorrow and all of us have some more time to bring in the change and be better equipped to look after our girls,prevent crimes to a large extent and to handle sexual crimes like rape better as suggested by IHM in her brilliant blog post.

No law can guarantee a crime free,safe,equal society only you and me can do our bit in our homes,workplaces and wherever we are whenever we can in whatever way.

Are Rapists from Mars or Policemen from Pluto?

Are Rapists from Mars or Policemen from Pluto and Judges from Jupiter?

NO, they are raised and come from the misogynist homes and families of this very society where they are constantly "taught" victim-blaming and shaming, men are more precious, any sexual harassment less than RAPE is not grave, any domestic violence less than murder is not serious!

CHANDIGARH-A post-graduate student in a university hostel rushes into the common room in a panic and starts crying she has just witnessed a man flashing himself, she did not know what to do and immediately rushed back to the hostel. When she narrates this to a few fellow hostel friends(all post-graduate or Research scholars ) a lot of joking and laughing happens

KOLKATA-A middle-aged lady who teaches in a college takes a taxi to return home but finds the driver is not following the correct route and is not listening to any instructions or protests when she manages to force one of the back seat doors open and threatens to jump from the running taxi he drops her at a deserted spot and runs away.

LONDON-A young Asian woman, who is new to the city is taking a bus to her college. It's very early in the morning and the only other passenger on the bus is a young man who sees her alone, moves closer to her seat, passes a lewd comment, and makes an obscene gesture. She is visibly upset and looks lost, the driver watches the scene and quietly drives the bus to the nearest police post.

These are not imaginary incidents, these are real incidents that have happened to real women, some of my friends in real cities. Don't they tell us a lot about gender sensitivity, social attitudes to sexual crimes, and why RAPE still remains the ultimate threat to a woman, sometimes even worse than murder?

A list of a few of these common words is usually given in Gender sensitization workshops to participants to understand gender stereotypes:

Dependent - Independent

Weak - Powerful

Emotional - Logical

Supporters - Leaders

Fearful - Brave

Peace-makers - Aggressive

Cautious - Adventurous

Passive - Active

Gentle - Strong

Recipients-Providers

In most sexual crimes like the recent gang-rape in Delhi, all these stereotypes seem to play an active role in the causes of the crime.The rapists are not from another world, in fact, statistics tell us that most of them are people the victims know and trust. Similarly, the police personnel who are so insensitive to victims of sexual crimes are men and women from this very society.

The perpetrators of course need to be highly dehumanized and detached from the plight of the victim to assert their physical and sexual power so violently on them. Although no two sexual attacks are the same and neither are the mental states of the attackers similar but RAPE for most criminals is essentially about showing the woman her place, punishing her for raising her voice, offering resistance, and teaching her a lesson.

Remedial measures are required but I believe the real change has to start in homes, families, schools, bus stops, offices everywhere, whenever we see a woman being harassed. If we ensure that the society and the system stand by her and not against her would be a definite deterrent.

VIOLENCE,APATHY AND BLAME

I hold her little hand
and see her smile
in her sleep,I wonder
do I owe her an apology

for bringing her
into this world
where schools aren't
immune to guns
and streets are filled
with savage brutes

where they deify her
and then immerse her
constantly in the dark waters
of honor and shame

where she has to be
fair,slim and homely
wear decent clothes
need to be "protected"
and rarely really respected

What am I really thinking
when I tell her fairy tales
don't I know
the real stories of girls
are too horrible even to tell

still I will speak up
and voice these gruesome truths
let me introduce her
to new words
violence,apathy and blame !


This post was shared at http://fakeindianbbahu.wordpress.com/2012/12/23/second-thoughts-first-violenceapathy-and-blame/
and here http://twitter.com/fakeindianbbahu

HIPPOS SWEAT RED - IZZAT and RAPE in DELHI

Some believe hippos sweat red when angry or sad,the analogy is weird here I agree but apt for what we do  so often after a crime against a woman in India. Their is rampant outrage in media,social networks ,there are candle light protests and then there is the strong undercurrent of shame and immorality that we heap on the victim,irrespective of whether she is a teenager found murdered in her house or a victim of gang rape in a bus in the national capital.Then something else grabs eyeballs,TRPs and mental space and we  go back to our utopias or our shells.

A reputed fellow blogger asks "What do you think made these rapists in Delhi so fearless?"

The character of the victim is questioned,her upbringing is analysed and criticized and we conclude that she will live a hellish life afterwards if she is lucky to survive.Not wrong but instead shouldn't the afterward be made shameful for the perpetrators of such crimes instead of the victim.

Generalizations are easy to make but most often I believe men involved in such crimes and women who patronize such men or blame the women victims are brought up in social environments where a girl child is often killed even before she is born and if born a daughter or a sister is always considered to be a liability for the family and the wives just owned objects.

So that leaves only two options for thousands of educated women in Indian cities:

• Go outside,use public transport,work,study,watch movies,meet friends but constantly in the fear of getting teased,harrased,molested,raped or killed 
• Stay inside the four walls,maybe in purdah,do not work,do not study and still be vulnerable to violence  of the worst kind.

As a woman,as a mother this is not a society I want to exist in.There are two Indias every where here,the imaginary new and shining only in terms of malls and colleges and the medieval and real inside our minds where power equations haven't changed much.Where the responsibility of IZZAT is still heaped onto the shoulders of the girls and it is enjoyed only by men.

Instances from every day life of being just elbowed in a bus or leched at in public places,of patronizing advertisements,films and TV serials where women are either devi or devils,where men have a right to presume NO as yes and we just laugh at "boys will be boys" need to change.

Crimes like these are not only about sex they are always about weak men trying to assert pseudo power,men who use abuses pertaining to daughters,sisters and mothers at the drop of a hat,men who believe women need to dress up and act in a certain way and they will teach a lesson to those women who do not confirm. 

They are supported by a system where they use violence in their own homes and the culture of silence prevails,where numbers of women are declining so fast that they are rarely seen and never ever heard.A set of politicians and experts who never use public transport,never walk on a dark street alone to and from work debate it in the comforts of news channel studios and then do not do anything about the lame laws that allow the criminals in such acts to  find a way around the legal system easily.

The rape capital is not going to change till we change our bedrooms,our kitchens and our classrooms.

DIFFICULT DELHI GOODBYES

Almost a year ago
Neatly stacked
and packed
in lifeless ugly boxes
life was moving
to another city

love , pain
anguish
lay jostling
with salt,pepper
and crockery
in lack
of suitable containers
to confine them.

memories
autographed the walls
and dreams clung like cobwebs

Delhi - a part of me stayed behind
the rest now has a new address !

Delhi Book Fair

The sights and smells
here would send me on a tizzy
Like a grasshopper
on caffeine
I would hop from one pile to another

Inspite of the
picnic-making crowds in the aisles
the sweltering heat
the fear of pick-pockets
I would make my way
from one end to the other

not once
but on two or three days

at the end of them
my bags would be full
my wallet empty
but my heart still wanting more

Delhi book fair
This time I'm not there
do you miss me?