When asked to comment on the issue, the owner Mr. Alifi, who had caught the accused red handed, said that the elders had not felt the need to involve the police. The dowry would suffice for the loss of the goat. The marriage of goat and man (who according to the owner were still very much together) was of course necessary because the goat had been ‘used as a wife’. (Source: BBC Article)

The phrase ‘used as a wife’ troubles me. Deeply. Why do I know that if this can happen to a goat, it can happen to a woman?

In December 2005, the mother of a mentally challenged girl was willing to have her daughter wed the main accused in the gang rape c

ase that was being heard by a Sessions Court at Ahmadabad. Her daughter was pregnant as a result of the sexual assault and the mother saw it fit for the man who got her pregnant to marry her.

Why, I wonder without wanting to be unduly unkind to the mother, who I am taking for granted did not know that domestic violence was even a crime, would the mother want her mentally challenged daughter to be married to the man who violated her and got her pregnant and that too in as gruesome a crime as gang rape? Is it because the society would pardon the victim, if the man who once ‘used her as a wife’, now legally accepted her as one?

In January 2007, Kamalnath Patel of Madhya Pradesh agreed to marry the girl he had kidnapped and raped a couple of years ago. The girl had only been sixteen at the time of the crime. The marriage, no wonder a ploy to soften the court’s judgement, was solemnised in the presence of the girl’s parents. Why does the rape of a minor appear any less a crime once the accused agrees to marry the victim?

I understand that the members of Kamalnath’s village were socialized in their narrow beliefs. But a member of the judicial system?

In 2005, we all heard the case of a nurse who after being raped in Delhi, sustained heavy injuries including the loss of an eye. When the accused offered to marry her, the Sessions Court asked her to consider the offer as a chance to re-establish herself in society. This time, thankfully the victim refused. But I wonder what the judge was thinking when he spoke of re-establishment? Did he mean that she could gain her respect only by marrying the man who had violated her sexually and gouged out an eye?

There are other extreme cases of course, especially in Asian and African countries where religion and that too, a misinterpreted version, finds it necessary to act as judge. Take the case of twenty-five year old Salma, whose marriage to her husband was annulled by religious leaders in her community, when she returned to her parents’ home, after being raped and molested for six months by her father-in-law.

Mother of two, Salma of Muzafarnagar in Uttar Pradesh was haraam now. Since Islam forbids the wife of a father from being in a sexual relationship with any of his sons, the woman who had been ‘used as a wife’ was asked to leave her legal husband, who was, in the turn of events, given custody of her children since it was deemed that the victim could not have been completely innocent in an incident which repeated itself many times over six months. Salma tells her story differently. The father-in-law kept her under house arrest and threatened her with fire arms, also allegedly threatening to kill her father and brother if she refused to oblige.

Well, these are only the reported cases. We all know that most rape cases go unreported. I now wonder if many of them are settled out of court when the accused marries the victim.

While I do know that in the eyes of the conservative East only a husband and wife are allowed a sexual relationship, I do not understand how sexual assault becomes grounds for an offer of marriage. Assault, it has to be understood, is clearly different from a consensual relationship. How can the society even ask the accused (who indulged in a criminal and violent act) to take responsibility for the victim as a husband (I say this assuming that in these marriages, the wife will remain financially dependent on her husband), and by this, legitimize his crime? Why should it consider the victim at fault and seek to redeem her life?

While it is time for the society to rethink many things, I hope one of the first will be the idea of ‘using’ a woman ‘as a wife’, because the wife is not meant to be ‘used’.

In the meantime, I feel really sorry for that goat. I hope animal rights activists stepped in.

India has the largest number of sexually abused children in the world. The first Myth about Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) that Tulir Centre for the Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse lists on its website reads “Children are rarely abused in India, as the Indian socio-cultural system inherently does not allow for its children to be sexually abused.” On the other hand, this myth and the false conception of a “pure” and “incorruptible” society have given birth to parents who say “Chee!” and dismiss as lies all that a child says when he comes home and complains that his teacher has been fondling him. India’s strongly patriarchal society has been exacting on her children. While it makes no overt demands in terms of dress code or behaviour, what Neeta Lal, in an article published in The Sentinel calls the “near feudal hold” that Indian adults have over children has largely served to perpetuate CSA. Taught to blindly obey elders, especially teachers, who routinely expect an almost sycophantic obedience of students, children are rarely prepared to defend themselves when a perpetrator abuses this immense power he holds over the children in his care.

Further, children in India face an alarming lack of privacy with several children bathing, urinating and defecating in public spaces until puberty. Further, even in homes with walls and doors, children are rarely given the privilege of shutting them, even to barely known “aunties” and “uncles”. Another enormous problem of course is the lack of sexuality education. Words like “penis”, “vagina”, and “breasts” are taboo in most Indian homes and euphemisms are conveniently invented. Little girls are usually barely aware they have vaginas until they begin to menstruate. Sexual exploration in childhood is brushed off, with the ever-present “Chee”, and “what is this?” questions that might concern the mysterious “soo soo” or the “bumps on my Barbie’s body” go unanswered as mothers blush bright crimson and turn away. “What a question! Why do you need to know all this!”.

So, unaware and unprotected, and in constant public vision, children learn too late to guard themselves, and by then, join the regrettable “how to keep safe” system that Indian women learn almost instinctively and that little boys are often denied, where one learns that perpetrators “will be” and that one must just avoid them, much like one avoids the monsters in a video game. It’s a gamble. And India, much like the famous patriarchal protagonist of the Mahabharata, likes to gamble. The ancient game saw the loss of a kingdom and the molestation of one woman. Our stakes today are a few million children.

The shame heaped on the victim only works to prevent children from telling people about the sexual abuse; the burden of guilt falls on them.  For those children (and their parents/guardians) who make it to court over CSA, justice is far from easily given, considering that sexual crimes against children are provided for under no special law or act and have to be dealt with through laws against sexual misdemeanor against grown women. 

Child sexual abuse is violence against children.It is abuse of power and one of the ills of a patriarchal society where power is never wrong. It is the victim who is blamed. Lolita is invoked at every step and “child temptresses” are slapped for leaving their hair loose and tempting the abuser. Words like “whore” fly around, as the child is shrouded in shame and over that, falls the iron curtain of silence, claiming one more victim, one more guilty victim, while the perpetrator roams free, looking for his next prey.It is deplorable that Indian society which boasts to no end, in films, and in other jingoistic media, of the wonders of Indian Culture, should allow this heinous crime to grow under the invisibility cloak that Shame provides. Educating children and parents is the only way ahead.

Where, unfortunately, parents are themselves perpetrators is where schools should step in. Pinki Virani, author of the deeply disturbing, but starkly sincere book “Bitter Chocolate” recommends that Child Protection Units and Child Protection Courts be set up to protect children.

The ultimate solution however lies in one word: Listen.

O Ascetic, think hard

And figure it out:

Is it a male or female?[1]

The adoption of a female voice raises questions about the reversal of gender roles. A.K Ramunjan says that the Bhakti tradition is a place of constitution and reconstitution.

‘Men may take on feminine roles, speak through female personae and yearn for the male god as women do for their lovers. Women saints may take on the characteristics of men:  they leave the house questing for their personal God (not their husband’s or father’s) and a community of their own choosing, in ways that shatter rule after rule in Manu’s code book. They become the third gender of my title: men, women and saints.’[2] (emphasis mine)

This is especially true in Mirabai’s case wherein she rejects domestic life and her wifely duties to the Rana and refuses to ‘abandon the love’[3] (Krishna) that she has ‘loved life after life[4]’. In many compositions, Kabir seems to easily don the guise of a woman and drowns himself in this role play. Examine this pad for instance:

‘My body and mind are grieved for want of Thee;

O my beloved! Come to my house.

When people say I am thy bride,

I am ashamed; for I have not touched

Thy heart with my heart

Then, what is this love of mine? I have no

Taste for food, I have no sleep;

My heart is ever restless within doors and

Without.

As water is to the thirsty, so is the lover to the bride.

Who is there that will carry my news to my Beloved?

Kabir is restless; he is dying for the sight of

Him.[5]

Ramanujan posits that saints form a third gender. This position of the ‘third’ gender lends itself to two interpretations. In the first instance, we can envision this space as a new, genderless terrain where preconceived notions of male and female sexualities do not exist, where gendered role reversals are the norm – essentially as a space with exciting possibilities.  In the second instance, we can think of this space as being colored by androgyny – where the amalgamation of the attributes of both genders (male and female) and the subsequent blurring of these character traits becomes the norm.

But these interpretations also pose their own problems – for instance, what sort of ideologies govern the genderless terrain and (or) the androgynous terrain? Are these spaces free from patriarchal belief systems?

Some of Mira’s songs can be said to be certainly rebellious because of its attacks on established social order. For instance, she refuses to accept widowhood because she refuses the reality of her marriage with a mere mortal. She says:

‘Why should I burn myself on a pyre with the body of the rana and be sati?

Is not Giridhar my eternal consort?

I recognize no relationship of body, or by marriage to human beings

I know only Giridhar. He is my father,

Mother, husband, kin and none besides,

I have nothing to do with the ruler of the

State

So says Mirabai.’ [6]

But did the break away from patriarchal order give her freedom to choose a path of her own making which was free from the patriarchal belief systems that she was fleeing from? Sangari argues: ‘Patriarchal structures and religious belief are not inert but subject to constant remaking – it appears that they even are interdependent and mutually generative.’[7] The world of religion and spirituality that Mira escapes into is composed of patriarchal values has in its center, a male God. The world that she enters only reinforces patriarchal ideals in the articulation of devotion – the role plays that operate within this space are that of power hierarchies: the master and servant, husband and wife.[8] She accepts these roles that sainthood thrusts on her but she could have done little else during the times in which she lived in. Sangari argues that Mira only creates a space for ‘spiritual mobility’ but not for real opposition to patriarchal hierarchy or the feudal systems of the Rajput state[9].

Kabir, through the voice of the Virahini strongly advocates against caste structures, brahmanical order, ritualistic religion but not patriarchal structures. He uses Sati as a constant metaphor in his songs.

‘Now the time has come,

When she obtained her heart’s desire:

How could the Sati fear death?

When she has taken the sindur box in her hand?

The death which the world dreads

Is joy for me:

When shall I die? When shall I behold the One

Who is Plenitude and Joy supreme?[10]’

He depicts ‘Maya’ as a woman and views as an obstacle to achieving union with God. He says:

‘Maya is a harlot,

Who sets her snare in the market place.. .’[11]

Sangari argues that in Kabir’s compositions, ‘Maya becomes the conceptual basis for differentiating between various kinds of women along a typological plane’[12].

If we are to talk of androgyny, can we talk of it as being applicable to both male and female saints? Ramanujan cites that androgyny in sainthood – ‘like that of Ardhanarisvara the form of Shiva is a male phenomenon.’ [13] Only male saints are given the complete freedom to don the guise of the female personae in Viraha poetry and slip back into the real world at will. We have already discussed how through the voice of the Virahini, poets like Kabir have reinforced patriarchal systems of belief like Sati. For the female saints, their rebellion with the domestic sphere is seen to be the dominant ‘masculine’ trait – the voice of Mira in all her compositions is that of a woman. Sainthood for women (at least during the Bhakti movement) did not make any more allowances than this. Sangari says: ‘When a male bhakta uses the female voice, e.g. Kabir it is only one voice among other available voices – while a woman must sing as a woman.’[14]

Ramanujan’s third gender then is neither one of androgyny nor one of pure gender role reversals but is predominantly a liminial gendered space which privileges masculine ideologies of spirituality and sainthood.

Fairy Tales are very telling pieces of fiction. A conspiracy hatched by our parents, in collusion with Disney, of course simplifies these complex and mostly female-centric tales of human life, into candy-sweet Barbie versions where every story ends happily ever after. No one ever tells us how the Little Mermaid, pining in her abusive and unhealthy relationship, ends her life rather than kill the man who uses her. Meanwhile, we all sing “Someday my Prince will come”, hypnotized as a beautiful dark haired child-woman draws water from a well on TV.

            Fairy Tales are really a repository of some of society’s darkest secrets centred on women. Far from being stories of beautiful women, whom the wood creatures help at the slightest call, they are often tales of abuse, abandonment, violent relationships, the exploration of adolescent sexuality, and even feature macabre themes like necrophilia.  Far from the evil-stepmother – beautiful princess – handsome prince face-off, original versions often feature abusive, and jealous mothers, princesses who do not want to marry the Someday Prince, sexually and otherwise abusive Princes, and necrophiliac lovers.

Case in point is Snow White, most pre-Grimms versions of which have the Prince falling obsessively in love with the corpse of Snow White and where the evil witch is not the stepmother, but Snow White’s own mother. Snow White, a child-woman who recognizes her mother in the guise of the peddler who sells her combs and apples, and falls almost willingly into her death-trap, a child longing for the attentions of a murderous mother.

            Rapunzel is a personal favourite. She lives alone, confined to her tower of chastity and sexual repression by a witch, who jealously visits her every day, asking the girl to “Let down her golden hair”. Then comes a Prince, and Rapunzel discovers sexual love, and the delight of a secret affair as he climbs into her tower nightly. Soon she is pregnant and in the Grimm brothers’ tale, unaware of this, whereupon she asks the witch, “why is my dress so tight around the middle?” The angry witch, proceeds then, to cut the girl’s hair off and turns her out and the pregnant woman roams the desert until the Prince, blinded by the witch reaches her and the two reunite.

            Female sexuality, I find, is a theme in most fairy tales. And versions we hear often depend on the state of society at the time these tales were written. So, Snow White turns into a perfect, cheerful housewifely character in Disney’s 1937 movie. The Little Mermaid, on the other hand is a 1980s girl, in Disney’s hands, and though very deviant from the original, this story tells us of a spunky young mermaid, who pouts for her prince.  Even in the original tale, Beauty’s conservative sexuality consists in using her gentility and sacrifice to win over the Beast, who is the quintessential abusive bridegroom. She does not seek escape but learns to love him.

Hans Christian Anderson’s Thumbelina is a story of a girl’s journey to sexual maturity, beginning with the ever-present (in modern versions) idea of a woman pining for a child. Several scholars have characterized Cinderella as the woman who is so indoctrinated in patriarchal society, she now fears freedom. Red Riding Hood enters a state of sexual vulnerability as she wanders the woods in her red cloak (the symbol of a prostitute in some interpretations). She has been variously characterized by revisionist scholars as a child prostitute and a victim of rape. Early versions of the tale, which describe macabre rituals are a far cry from the tale we usually hear and bear out the interpretations of these revisionists.

Having said all of this, I am, in many ways, thankful for the Disney-Parent conspiracy.  Dark and painful as they are, these tales were never meant for children, and I don’t think they should be told to them. I am not saying little girls should be brought up to be “Someday my Prince will come” girls. But cannibalism, necrophilia and rape seem a little too harsh as bedtime tales.

Woman: Shanta! Shanta!

Man: Shanta must be asleep! Do you even know what time it is?

Woman: (ignores him) Shanta! Set the table.

Man: It is past dinner time, if you have not noticed.

Woman: Shanta! Where is that girl?

Man: I don’t like this!

Woman: (Finally turning to look at him) What?

Man: I don’t like this.

Woman: What don’t you like?

Man: My wife walks in at an odd hour and refuses to even look at me.

Woman: You don’t have to like it. (Turning to the door again) Shanta!

Man: How dare you talk to me like that!

Woman:  (Simply stares at him and sinks into a sofa) Please! I am too tired for this! I was out all day.

Man: Out! (Pauses) And with whom?

Woman: Gita

Man: Gita?

Woman: Yes Gita Narayanan, your doctor’s wife and my friend. Five feet four, a little plump…

Man: (impatiently) I know who Gita is! It can’t be her.

Woman: What can’t be her?

Man: The person you were out with.

Woman: And why not?

Man: Gita called about two hours ago. She sounded that surprised you were not home.

Woman: That is because I was with her earlier in her evening. Then she went home. (Woman looks away) Shanta!

Man: (Man looks hard at her) So who were you with after that?

Woman: Does it matter?

Man: Yes.

Woman: (Pause) Who do you think?

Man: Rakesh

Woman: Rakesh?

Man: Yes, Rakesh. Six foot one, well-built…

Woman: No. I was not out with him.

Man: Lies

Woman: What?

Man: Lies!

Woman: Who..?

Man: You! You are lying to me.

Woman: I am lying to you?

Man: Yes, you are! Don’t deny it.

Woman: (Pause) So what if I went out with him. Chickoo is only an old friend.

Man: It is Chickoo, is it?

Woman: Come on, it has always been Chickoo.

Man: Chickoo! A name befitting a gorilla. I have always wondered why!

Woman:  Come on! You are overreacting. I always called him Chickoo and he called me Pinky. We knew each other since we were five. You know that!

Man: Childhood Sweethearts!

Woman: You also know we were always just friends.

Man: (laughs sarcastically) Friends!

Woman: Yes. Friends.

Man: I see. (He looks her up and down) Does he not have other friends?

Woman: (Looks up at him) He does. That is why he is not in town. He is in Bangalore. At a friend’s wedding.

Man: At a wedding! Tell me, why is he not married?

Woman: (Tries to get up) I don’t have the time for this. I am tired.

Man: (holds her arm tight) Oh please! What are you trying to hide?

Woman: (Winces and pulls herself away, looking at him defiantly and then slowly sits down) You know why he is not married! Nita died.

Man: That was three years ago. Why did he not marry someone else?

Woman: (Slowly) Maybe because some men love one woman all their lives.

Man: Do they? (Pause) And does ‘Chickoo’ love ‘Pinky’?

Woman: (Long Pause. Then in a soft voice) You want to know something?

Man: What?

Woman: Chickoo did love Pinky. Rakesh did love me. A long time ago. Before Nita.

Man: (laughs cynically) Aha! Finally!

Woman: (softly) I refused.

Man: And why?

Woman: Because of you. I… I… loved you.

Man: Should I be touched?

Woman: That is up to you.

Man: (Sits down. Neither speaks for a while. The clock is heard ticking. After the pause) Do you regret it?

(Woman does not reply.  Instead she turns away and looks at the inner door)

Woman: (her voice is not very loud) Shanta! Where is that woman?

Man: So, you do regret it?

(Woman stands up and hums a tune to herself. It is slow and broken humming . The song can’t be made out. She walks to a corner, snapping her fingers to her tune subconsciously and turns a music player on. A guitar is heard).

Woman: I found this in the loft. I was listening to this last evening. Do you remember the song?

Man: (looks at the player and then smiles a little distantly) Yes, I do.

Woman: Do you remember how well you played?

Man: Yes, but that…

Woman: Do you remember the day at college when you played on stage for the first time?

Man: It was a cultural fest or something…

Woman: It was an inter-college cultural fest. Long time ago. (softly) Long time ago (Pause. Hums again and moves closer to the sofa) Beatles. Love me Do. You dedicated it to me.

Man: Yes. But…

Woman: Chickoo was there too. Did I even care?

Man: No….

Woman: He asked me that night.

(Pause. Man looks up at her)

Woman: And I refused. For you.

(Man stares at her quietly. Woman lets the music play and sits down on the sofa. Man moves to sit down beside her).

Man: So, where were you today? Why won’t you tell me?

Woman: Do you remember the paper planes?

Man: The notes I passed you in class? Of course!

Woman: Long time, isn’t it? (Takes a leaf and tries to fold one. Man takes it from her and folds it. When he finishes, she takes it back from him and turns it in her hand, before she puts it down). Notes, songs and so many silly things. What fools we were?

Man: Is that what you think?

Woman: No, I think we were happy. We were in love.

Man: So…

Woman: I was out with Gita as I told you. After she left, I was out alone.

Man: All alone? Why?

Woman: Sometimes when everything feels wrong, I like to be alone.

Man: What do you mean? What is wrong? And why can’t you tell someone? Why go out alone?

Woman: (Laughs) I was not really alone.

Man: What do you mean?

Woman: There was a crowd at the temple. At least a hundred people. I was not really alone.

Man: You went to the temple? I thought…

Woman: Yes, I thought I did not believe in anyone from up there too, but it seems I do. I had to pray today.

Man: (looking at her carefully) Why?

Woman: I had to pray for strength.

Man: What is happening? Is something wrong with you?

(Woman shakes her head quickly, but says nothing)

Man: (He moves forward and touches her cheek) Tell me.

(Woman looks up without a word)

Woman: It really bothers you if I am late.

Man: Yes. It does.

Woman: It bothers you if I may be out with someone else.

Man: (very softly) Yes.  (He moves forward and kisses her. Woman pulls back).

Woman: Why does it bother you?

Man: I love…

Woman: (stands up quickly) What will happen to this house? Can we sell it?

Man: What…

Woman: I don’t want it. If you do, you may keep it. Or shall I put it on the market.

Man: What are you saying? We live here. Both of us….

(Woman gets up and looks around, as he speaks).

Woman: I meant after the divorce.

Man: Divorce! (Stands up suddenly. She moves back) What the …? (He moves forward to grab her. A flower vase falls on the ground and breaks, spilling water on the carpet. Woman looks down at it and clicks her tongue as if she is really worried. Man ignores it. He grabs her by the hand). It is Rakesh, isn’t it?

Woman: You broke the bloody vase!

Man: (Shouting) I don’t care a shit about the vase! It is Rakesh isn’t it?

Woman:  (turning around and facing him) No. It’s Maria.

Man: What? (He lets her go)

Woman: (She moves away and massages her arm) Yes, Gita dropped me at your office. I saw Maria…

Man: Maria is…

Woman: I saw you kiss her.

Man: She…

Woman: Her cheeks, her lips, her neck, her breasts….

Man: You…

Woman: I saw you…

(Another voice from backstage)

Voice: Amma, did something fall?

Woman: Shanta! You can hear a vase? Can’t you hear me? Set the table. I’m hungry.

Voice: Yes amma. (turns to leave)

Woman: (looks at the man and then all around here). Come here Shanta. Clean this first. I don’t want the carpet spoilt. No one will want it at the sale!

(She exits. Man sits on the couch in stunned silence. Shanta cleans the floor. As she finishes, the clock strikes twelve. Man stares at it, until it stops chiming and then moving forward lights himself a cigarette).

It’s time to focus on liberating that sad, oppressed group that so often gets overlooked in feminist writing- the straight males of this world.

The last thing I’d want to be is a straight man. I can’t imagine living a life that is so fettered and limited.

I’m not being sarcastic. Frankly, as a woman in this particular time in history, from my particular socio-economic background (which I assume most readers of this blog also share), I have a hell of a lot more freedoms and options in life than my straight male brothers and friends.

The modern feminist movement has struggled long and hard to secure women the right to vote, to participate in government, to educate themselves, to lead corporations, to marry of their own will and avail of the option of divorce, and to empower themselves with contraception and the power to choose what to do with their own bodies. We are enjoying all of those hard-won freedoms, those big victories that have done a great deal to level the playing field between men and women.

We women today also enjoy a lot of smaller freedoms that straight males don’t.

I can wear jeans and t-shirts almost exclusively, cut my hair short, be a computer or science nerd, pursue a career in sports broadcasting, forgo makeup, be a huge fan of Bruce Lee movies, and avoid heels like the plague… and no one will automatically call into question my sexuality. I am, by default, a heterosexual female.

Imagine a straight guy transgressing such gender boundaries, even with such petty little gender ‘rules’. As a corollary, a straight guy growing and styling his chair, enjoying chick-flicks, knowing the difference between pumps and wedges, and aspiring to be a nurse, would be simply unacceptable.

There are of course varying degrees to this comparison. If a woman decided to stop shaving, started looking overtly masculine and, oh I don’t know, started dating other women, then, of course, eyebrows would be raised. But in between that extreme and the other extreme of rigid femininity, modern women have the freedom to explore and embrace an identity embodying a range of characteristics that were formerly pigeonholed as strictly masculine or feminine.

A good friend of mine recently complained that her straight male friend was making her uncomfortable, by doing stuff like carrying her handbag in public and admitting to liking Gossip Girl, of all things. I wondered if a male friend of mine would ever get uncomfortable if I admitted to loving WWE Raw or death metal music. Of course not. He’d probably be delighted that we have those things in common. So why are women alone so incredibly sensitive about the men in their lives adhering to certain rules that they themselves fought long and hard to break? It’s hypocritical.

But the real reason I feel sorry for straight men? Even with their best friends, they feel uncomfortable expressing their feelings for each other with anything more than that ‘man hug’ (that thing guys do where they clasp hands and bump shoulders for a second) or a brusque ‘I love you, man’, which they will quickly qualify with a manly burp and by crushing a beer can on their forehead.

Yes, I happen to live next door to a frat house in California.

Guys also seem to only express their affection for each other by insulting each other. The more you insult your friend, the more you care about him. Which is great, whatever floats your boat. The problem is that it is the only way. I have friends whom I love, and we express our love by teasing each other mercilessly, and with other friends I am the sappier than the worst-written Hallmark card you could find.

And that’s fine. I’m at liberty to do both. For God’s sake, I love one of my girlfriends so much we got fake-married. We’re still married on Facebook, and as we all know, that makes it official.

My girlfriends and I have long conversations about which female celebrity we’d ‘turn gay for’, we hug (ACTUALLY hug) when we see each other or say goodbye, we have serious conversations about our feelings, we’re nice and openly affectionate to each other… and I simply can’t comprehend the fact that straight men somehow cannot enjoy these same little simple pleasures that all women do. Is masculinity really in such a fragile state that men must work so hard at defending it?

Imagine Justin Timberlake singing “I Kissed a Guy and I Liked It”. What a shitstorm that would be.

A movie that brilliantly demonstrates everything I’m trying to say here is, surprisingly, Dostana starring Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham. I don’t know what the hell the critics were on when calling it ‘India’s Brokeback‘ when it was so clearly a remake of I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. I went in to the movie with low expectations, but to my surprise, it walked a very clever tightrope of being entertaining and ‘palatable’ for Indian audiences while still bringing up some important questions that remain unanswered.

When two men- who clearly consider themselves the epitome of everything macho and heterosexual- decide to pretend to be gay in order to get a good deal on an apartment, the biggest obstacle they have to face is not from society, not even from their own family and friends, but from their own prejudice and homophobia. The idea of pretending to be gay is terrifying despite the fact that they’re in Miami and no one really cares- it’s terrifying because they’re men. Manly Men.

(Manly Men who just happen to wear brightly colored floral shirts and flaunt religiously toned bodies, which is a sly nod to the fact that practically every Hindi film hero today looks ‘gay’.)

However, as the movie progresses, and they relax into their new roles, the men discover that this façade has actually allowed them to discover a deeper level of friendship than they’d ever actually experienced before. It’s sad that these characters had to pretend to be gay to get the same deep level of friendship and affection that  I effortlessly share with my girlfriends.

At the end of the movie, John Abraham and Abhishek Bacchan are forced to kiss each other as ‘punishment’ for misleading everyone.  They do, and Bobby Deol tells Priyanka Chopra, “I love you, but even I wouldn’t do that for you.” Of course you wouldn’t, you’re a douchebag, I wanted to shout at the screen. And that line really had nothing to do with Indian culture’s issues with homosexuality- it’s about every straight guy’s struggle to come to terms with his own sexuality, whatever that may be, whatever box it fits or does not fit in to.

So let’s start extending our support to the oppressed straight males in our lives. Let’s work for them to enjoy the same million small freedoms that women enjoy today. Let’s encourage them to experiment, to experience, to feel, and not be ashamed of it. Let’s, for God’s sake, abolish the phrase “That’s so gay” from the English language entirely.

Because in the end, feminism is just humanism. It’s about gender equality. It’s about just letting people be, be whoever they want to be, as long as they’re not hurting themselves or others in the process.

And guys, really, it’s okay to love Gossip Girl. That show is freaking awesome.

Introduction:

If they see

Breasts and long hair coming

They call it woman,

If beard and whiskers,

They call it man:

But look the self that hovers

In between

Is neither man

nor woman

O Ramanatha.

The notion of the Virah or love in separation is central to the Indian Bhakti corpus. It is used in both Saguna and Nirguna traditions.  Viraha explains Vaudeville, ‘is a complaint sung by a young woman who is separated from the one she loves’. In Viraha Bhakti, this role play is evoked, wherein the absent Lord is seen as the husband to whom all devotion is directed to by the devotee who sees himself/ herself as the wife.

This type of Bhakti which viewed God as the husband is termed as Madhura Bhakti and was seen as the highest form of Bhakti by the Vaishnava school of Bengal. It is interesting to study this phenomenon where Bhakti itself appears feminine in nature in contrast to the largely masculine, hegemonic Vedic tradition which was present during this time. It is my intention, through this paper to study this use of the female devotional voice in Viraha Bhakti through the poetry of two Bhakti saints: Mirabai and Kabir.

God is the only male, all humans are female:

The Bhakti tradition viewed the female condition as the universal condition of mankind. But why was the condition of the woman taken to be the representative human condition in a patriarchal world?

Perhaps an oral Urdu tale involving Birbal and Akbar could be useful in understanding this feature in the Bhakti tradition. Akbar asks Birbal to bring him four individuals with different traits: a modest person, a shameless person, a coward and a heroic person. The next day, Birbal appears with a woman and asserts that she possess all the four different character traits that Akbar had wished to see. Birbal proceeded to explain his stance when he saw Akbar’s puzzled face. He said: ‘When she stays in her in law’s house, out of modesty she doesn’t even open her mouth. And when she sings obscene insult songs at a marriage, her father and brothers and husband and in laws and caste people all sit and listen, but she is not ashamed. When she sits with her husband at night, she won’t even go alone into the storeroom and says, ‘I am afraid to go’. But then, if she takes a fancy to someone, she goes fearlessly to meet her lover at midnight, all alone with no weapon and is not afraid of robbers or evil spirits’. Hearing this answer, Akbar is said to have been pleased and rewarded him handsomely.

Raheja and Gold point out that this tale expresses the stereotypical South Asian misogyny that sees the woman as ‘a split between virtue and sexuality, weakness and strength, essentially duplicitous or hypocritical because of its multiplicity’.  But it was this precise heterogeneity that was thought to be inherent (by the predominantly male population of Bhakti saints) in choosing womanhood as the representative state of the devotee. However, this depiction leads us to think that womanhood was perceived of as a site of elasticity of character traits, whereas manhood was doomed to be seen fit with perhaps two or three ‘strong’ inelastic attributes of personality: that of chivalrousness, strength and machismo.

This, then leads us to the second reason which explains why men wanted to sing as women. Womanhood was taken as a central metaphor for the helplessness (which was seen as one of the dominant character traits of a woman) and dependence felt by the devotee (symbolic of the wife) in relation to a male God (signifying the husband) who was powerful and bountiful to all his devotees in his love, an objectified application of patriarchal order that prevailed within domestic confines.

Thirdly, to sing in a female voice was to confirm to the heterosexual norm. This was safe and acceptable and suggests that for the male poet ‘though I am a poet named so and so, I speak to/of my beloved in the voice of this pining woman; my normal self would be inadequate to the purpose’.

Viraha Bhakti thus comfortably accommodates all these strands of thought and allowed the devotee to center all his/her love towards a God who is forever physically absent.

A lot of things must have happened last year that made every feminist bone in my body want to yell. After all, starting Sa, was a response to the several times I had come home and ranted about all that was anti-feminist about life. So, here’s the list. Do feel free to suggest any incidents from your own experience in the comment box.

1.     Encountering Pornography: Yes. I am among those feminists who believe porn is not feminist. While sexual expression and freedom are important, porn reinforces the idea of the human body as no more than an object of sexual pleasure. I find it de-humanizing. Further the porn industry is full of sleaze and exploitation.  I find it hard to justify such an industry. Twice in the last year, I found myself having to defend my point of view on this. Once, when, at a conference, a delegate decided to stand up and say to me, “If she wants to show off her body, it’s her business. Why are you getting all worked up?” and again – and this, for some reason, is more disturbing – when at least five or six people told me (around the same time, come to think of it), that all men watched porn as a regular thing. “They need it”. Sometimes I wonder how men can put up with being branded weak and sexually desperate creatures.

2.     “Abortion is baby-killing”: This subject has already been dealt with on this blog in Shweta’s article “Abortion: A Mother’s Choice and Right”. However, I found myself, this last year, several times, driving into dead ends as I discovered that most people (in a group of 33 that I spoke to, two people –one being me – stood for the freedom to terminate pregnancy) believed that abortion was “murder”. Well-educated women who called themselves supporters of women’s rights told me, “If the woman got pregnant, it’s only her fault. She should now just have the baby.” When I mentioned that several people in the country either do not know of contraception (less than 2% have heard of it, according to a survey at the General Hospital in Chennai, which is among the largest hospitals in Asia), or do not know how to effectively use it, or worse, simply don’t use any, because they don’t know how important it is, I simply get people shaking their heads at me. “No no. See, contraception is a totally different issue. Don’t bring it in here.” Wow! So, how about this, more contraception, means less unwanted pregnancy, means less need for abortion. Stating the obvious, but apparently some twins of Sarah Palin need it.

3.     Women just make a big fuss about sexual harassment and domestic abuse: I truly will stand up for any man who has truly been abused by his wife or boss, just as I stand up for all the women who are victims of every form of domestic abuse and sexual harassment. But I do not understand the groups that protested the passing of the law against domestic abuse, on grounds that women “economically exploited” men, or would file cases on false pretexts. In a country where about 1 in every 4 women has been a victim of some form of abuse/harassment in the home and in her workplace, and where the words “marital rape” were considered oxymoronic until 2006, I see this is as blatantly unreasonable. Sexual harassment is not to be condoned in any form and is a violation of privacy and the right to life and freedom. It is shameful enough that India yet has no real law against sexual harassment in the workplace. Domestic abuse is even worse, being the violation of the sanctuary that is home. I blame the media, in some ways, for giving these “men’s rights groups” (hah! Have they addressed real issues such as the sexual abuse of little boys, the identity issues that several men go through, the pressures of the “masculine image” and so on?) the attention they got during this time.

4.     “Women want to be raped”: I felt physically sick the day I had to spend an hour listening to an exposition on this. The rationale apparently is – brace yourself – every woman doesn’t get raped, although crime is everywhere. Only some women do. Why do they? Because they want to be raped. When I and another woman in the group reminded the speaker (herself a woman) that the word “rape” itself means forced sexual intercourse, and that she was essentially blaming the victim of a horribly violent crime for the perpetrator’s twisted act, we were told that she was “not blaming anyone but only pointing out the result of the careless thinking of some people”. For the last time, no one wants to be murdered, lynched, or taken hostage and threatened. Similarly, no one wants to be raped. These are crimes for which there is no justification and rape cannot be classified separately as a “lust crime”. It is as much a violent and ugly act as murder, lynching or any other crime and cannot be justified by any claims of unnaturally large sexual urges that apparently cannot be contained.

I can only be glad that for all of this, I have had some amazingly positive experiences this last year, as well, not the least of which was taking the Eco Feminism class that Dr. Crystal David teaches at Stella Maris. As a StartingBloc fellow in July, I met several wonderful feminists from all over the world, and was inspired when I returned to start this webzine, which was, when I left for London, a sort of nebulous plan in my mind. So, I can say ciao to 2008 in peace and look forward to 2009 with several new plans for Sa, brewing in my grey matter.

I was, of course, curious. My family being, what we called “progressive”, we did not celebrate coming of age rituals the way even other families in the neighbourhood did – with a little ceremony and singing. Though my eleven-year-old mind soon found other things to busy itself with, this fact, that while I could whine my period away, even as I sat on a plush sofa, downing water and muscle relaxants, there were little girls whose genitalia were being mutilated to “celebrate” their puberty remained stuck in the back of my brain – an indelible truth. Urinary Tract infections would become a daily affair to them, their babies would stand a much greater chance than mine of dying, and as my family crowded in to celebrate my newborn, years from now, theirs would demand the re-closure of the birthing channel. And though I knew none of these girls, I realized, as I grew up that there were many of them. Far too many.
According to the United Nations, over 130 million women, most of them in Africa and the Middle East have undergone FGM. Two million girls live in the risk of genital mutilation every year. Further, this is not confined to a specific area and cases have been reported in every continent and geographical area in the world, including Europe, North America and Australia. While laws have been passed, criminalizing the practice, their effectiveness is yet to be evidenced and documented. An interesting programme of the United Nations in this area has been the “circumcising with words” idea where the UN works with priests and the traditional community, organizing a verbal “coming of age” rather than one involving mutilation.
While this could be effective, as it involves the community, I think, ultimately, the idea that a woman becomes any different in consideration for “chastity” as soon as she attains puberty is the root of this problem. According to the WHO, the need that certain communities feel, to rein in female sexuality, and the belief that mutilating a woman’s genitalia will somehow cause to bring her libido down, is among the most important reasons for the continued practice of FGM. As such, maybe, that is what we need to be targeting – why circumcise, even with words, when the ritual itself indicates a mutilation in spirit, if not in practice, of a woman’s natural desires?
Female Genital Mutilation, is prevention, to Honour Killing’s cure. But the disease itself, it is important to realize, is really freedom. Freedom of choice – to live as one chooses, or in the case of the former, often, merely to live normally beyond puberty. Surely something the world can afford to let its women have.

Yes, behind the twin giants- symbols of medicine’s imperial power in Chennai- and nested in the midst of these old buildings, is one department, that is secreted away to safeguard the identity of its patients – the Department of Sexually Transmitted Diseases. And while, patients in all other departments have to fight their way in and out through one narrow door, this department, enjoys the dubious distinction of having five doors, none of them obviously placed and is more popularly known by the number assigned to it by hospital records than by its name. Such is the stigma that is attached to these diseases.

Sitting inside, on old wooden benches are the few who braved the stigma to see the doctor. Early in the morning, the patients are mostly men – young and old. For women, the day starts late – sick or not, the early hours are dedicated to household chores, husbands, children and in-laws. No one complains or grumbles. For most of them this is the rhythm of their lives. If anything broke that melody, it is this time that they have taken out of their schedules to visit the doctor.

From the way they sit, it is easy to tell if this is their first visit to a doctor in this department. While old patients nervously turn over their papers and note books, hardly daring to look the passerby in the eye, the new, undiagnosed cases sit separately, taking in the details of this old building with almost curious apathy, their heads turning every time footsteps shuffle in and out of the doctors’ rooms. Most of them are unaware of the nature of the disease they suffer from. They came to the out-patient department to get a quick cure for itches, rashes, ulcers and discharges in the genital area – symptoms that they have tried to keep a secret for long and are now becoming increasing difficult to ignore.

‘I have been having it on and off for some time now’, said one patient. ‘The work (at home and sometimes, at a construction site) does not allow me the time to go to a doctor. Even if I did go, what would I say? It is so…’ Her voice trailed off and a nervous smile followed.

She is not one voice, but the voice of a million women around the country. As students, we spend our afternoons, rattling away statistical details at seminars and symposiums, classes and exams. As interns and doctors, we know that the numbers we see at the clinics represent only the tip of the iceberg. We are just thankful they came at all.

Sexually transmitted diseases are not new to any society or country. We have records of outbreaks in early history. But aided by the stigma that goes hand in hand with these illnesses, they continue to thrive aplenty. And while both men and women are affected by the illness and the stigma, women suffer a little more for it. Relegated to the lowest rung in the social ladder, her health is largely ignored – her disease even more so. And when the disease involves her private parts and her sexual habits, fingers will point only too quickly. She is left sometimes with no choice but to ignore the illness and choose an unhealthy but ‘dignified’ life.

So the moment of truth is sensitive for both the doctor and the patient. While an abrupt or a premature disclosure could mean the loss of a patient – now a link in the chain of transmission and an only effective way to trace the contacts and treat a whole cluster, for the patient herself, this diagnosis often challenges the basis of her relationship with her husband. For some of them, the moment is shameful only because the doctor is now party to the ‘secret life’ of her husband.

‘He is a good man’, they say defensively. But from their tired wrinkles and fading courage, one can say they do not believe in it themselves.

A quick look at the male OP at the same department reveals the man’s side of the story. Though the men walk in confidently and talk of their symptoms with relatively more ease than the female patients, one soon gets to see that this confidence comes from their ignorance of the consequences of their sexual behaviour. Within minutes of being pronounced infected many a big, burly man breaks down and slowly tells the doctor of the woman he loved before he married, the woman he sees regularly when he is away from home, the commercial sex worker whom he met ‘only once’ and sometimes even the affair with the same-sex-lover that he has kept hidden from his wife.

Their reasons always fall under two categories. ‘My wife is not cooperative’ or, ‘I stay away from home for long hours, sometimes days because of work’. Brought up to believe that sex is a man’s compulsive need and compliance, a woman’s marital duty, most of these men do not see the need for fidelity in a marriage where the wife is not always responsive. Add alcohol and drugs to the situation and they easily spend the night away.

‘When he is home, he forces me to have sex. How can I say no?’ a woman once said.

‘Does he use a condom?’

‘He does not like to’.

It is as simple as that. As far as she is concerned, the argument is over.

Within the four walls of the doctor’s room, stigma sometimes lowers its guard and the diagnosis leads to other startling confessions. Women, who claimed to have a day job, a husband and children sometimes revealed their own ‘other lives’ at night.

‘He paid me well’, one woman said. ‘That is how I educated my three children. My husband is a drunk and my day job did not pay enough’. She looked around the room for empathetic gazes and then slowly added, ‘Don’t tell my son. He will murder me’.

She meant it.

At around ten every morning, police constables drag in young women.

‘We picked them up on the roads last night’, they say as they instruct the girls, now dressed uniformly in the clothes given to them by some government-run or aided home for girls, to sit down in a line. They do so, very obediently. Some look scared, some confused and others angry and hostile.

‘They have to be checked for infections before they are actually admitted to any home’, a professor once explained.

‘Who are they?’ we asked, the first time we lined up for a class in the department.

‘Ask them yourself’, she said.

On eliciting the case history, we came to know that most of these girls were between thirteen and sixteen years of age and from Andhra Pradesh. They all told the same story.

‘I was given away to a man a few months ago. He came here to work. Last month, an uncle came home and told me he will take me to my husband. I boarded a truck with some others and came here. I do not know why I have been brought here. I do not know where my husband is’.

‘What is his name?’

‘I do not know’.

Yes, they are the young victims of trafficking. Most of them have no parent, or only one surviving parent. All of them were given away ‘in marriage’ for money. But they will never say so.

One girl, ‘picked on the road’, told us her real story.

‘My mother sent me out with a man’, she said. ‘That is how my mother earned her money. I was asked to do the same to educate a younger brother’.

Was she scared?

‘The first time, I thought I will die. After that I did not mind’.

Is she afraid of the infection?

‘Is it AIDS?’

Yes, everyone knows of this killer disease.

‘No’.

‘Then it is okay’, she says shrugging her sixteen year old shoulders.

So was she beyond the stigma?

 ‘My mother has taken tablets without anyone knowing. I can do the same thing. No one needs to know’.

No one will. For all I know, her mother and she will keep the secret. They will sneak in and out of the five doors of this department, unseen and unsuspected. That is what the stigma has taught them. As long as they remain unseen, they are okay.

One lesson we took home that day – if we fight the stigma, we might win a battle in the war against these diseases.