The man from Melbourne.

He began by asking for directions.

So many of them do that, that I almost didn't bother to turn my head towards the voice. And yet, it is not a nice thing not to give somebody directions, even if they are strangers, male, and even if it getting dark and you're walking alone.

So, I stopped when he said, 'Excuse me, do you know this area?'

'Yes. This is Lajpat Nagar' and I walked on.

He fell into step beside me.

'And where does this road go?'

'Lajpatnagar market in this direction, and if you go in that direction, there's Jangpura.'

Yet, he did not leave my side.

'And so... do you live in this area?'

I sighed. Any moment now, he would want to 'make friendship'.

'No.'

'So... do you live in Delhi.'

My first instinct was to turn on him, tell him to get lost, not to follow me, yell at him. But one corner of my mind was asking me not to. Yelling would only confirm fear. Besides, perhaps, yelling was not called for. Relax, you can handle this. R.e.l.a.x.

Walking at a regular pace, I quickly swept the lane with a glance - some shops still open; some people still around.

He spoke again. 'So... where are you from?'

'Here.'

'Oh? I live in Australia.'

I suddenly wanted to laugh (but didn't). He was speaking in English, with an accent that bordered on American. The sort of accent I've heard often in Jaisalmer, mostly in the mouths of waiters who work in hotels frequented by American tourists. What did he hope to achieve by telling me where he lived, anyway?

'In Melbourne,' he offered.

I didn't say anything.

'So...where are you from?'

'Here.'

'Where are you going right now?'

'Home.'

No need to be rude. Just say 'no' nicely, if he asks.

And he asked. 'Would you like to be friends?'

Well, at least, it wasn't 'I want to make friendship'.

'No.'

'No?'

'No.'

He kept walking beside me. Still, I told myself, there was nothing to be afraid of.

He said, 'But I want to be friends... I like your hair.'

And I couldn't resist saying, 'You choose your friends on the basis of hair?'

'Er, no. I mean, I like everything about you... your walk. Your looks.'

The accent had dropped off entirely by now. I've would've asked him his exact street address and phone number in Melbourne, but this was not the time. There were no rickshaws or autos in sight and I was beginning to worry.

'Do you work here?' he persisted.

'Yes.'

'Where are you going?'

Silence.

'Can I walk with you?'

'No.'

Still, he continued to walk with me. And still no rickshaws to be seen.

'Why you don't want to be friends?'

Silence.

The last few shops were downing shutters. The street was deserted.

'Can I have your phone number?'

'No.'

Just when I thought there was no alternative to fury and bitter words, an auto appeared. And the man from Melbourne, melted away.

Lest we forget

Poetry, it is said, is called into service when other, words fail you. When newspaper reports, essays, stories, conversation itself fails. Poetry speaks the unspeakable.

Gujarat. Five years ago, it turned into a word for which I have no words. Now that it is a time to remember, lest we forget, I turn to poetry. Hindi poetry. Or call it Hindustani poetry. There is a collection of poetry in two volumes, titled 'Das Baras - Hindi Kavita Ayodhya Ke Baad', a compilation of contemporary poems about the identity, about poetry, about writing and speaking up, fear, denial, love. The tragedy is that you could easily replace 'ayodhya' with 'gujarat'.

(Am putting up two poems; I can find no English translations on the web, and so am attempting rough translations myself. Let this be my way of remembering.)


Against Forgetting - by Manglesh Dabraal

Not the first, always the second
Second life, second light, always the second darkness
Because I am the second, not the first, each time the second
The first is always absent, always forgotten
The first is always lost, always missing, shifting places
I am the second, in the memory of the first, always taking his place
The first is always pulled down, destroyed
I am, like the remaining rubble, the second
The first is burnt, dead, always a corpse
I am the second, rising from the ashes of the first
Answering to the rollcall in his stead I am, I am, I say
I am the second, a foggy shape of the first, a feeling of the first
For I am not the first, but the second
The scream of the first, the grief of the first, the love of the first
An eternal calling out to the first, a second.

----


No poem is mine - by Bodhisatva

They wanted to measure
the depth of my eyes
with a trishul
my heart
with a spear.

They say
I must not love and
I must set my home alight
like a diya and perform an aarti
for them
and I must sacrifice my wife and kids to them
and sing their praises.
They say
I must salute them. Or
even better, not say anything at all,
give up my tongue in exchange
for the badge of life
and go about, happy. Or
better still, dig my own grave
and settle down in it
along with all my dreams.

They are dear to Khudaa
They are beloved to Bhagwaan
They are pure.

They make offerings to the sun.
The sun becomes theirs.
They bathe in the Ganga
The Ganga becomes theirs.
They run the country
The country becomes theirs.

I am asking, over and over
sleeping and waking, they keep calling me
an outsider
Does that make me one?

They want me to leave
my land, my possessions
my full moon
my sown fields and
the country dissolved in my blood.
They want me to say
that the Ganga is not mine
this country is not mine
But then,
the sunshine is not mine
the full moon is not mine
and
no poem is mine.

He, who weaves.

They opened the door reluctantly. I stepped inside the house hesitantly, prickling with the knowledge that I am not very welcome. Siddique sahab was aware too, but pushed ahead anyway. 'They need to speak up. Their ideas of diginity are secondary to the battle for survival.'

But how hard it is! Half-remembered stories came back to me - about the landed rich of the area who grew so poor that everything in the house was sold, and there was nothing to eat, but the old man of the house would still step out in his sherwani. Of people starving to death but nobody knowing because they would not speak of it.

It is not easy to speak of hunger. Especially for those who once had enough. The weavers of Varanasi once had enough. Now, they describe their handlooms as a sort of living grave.

The analogy is curiously fitting, you realise, when you see a 'workshop'. The looms are fitted into a hole in the ground. Take away the loom and it does look like grave.

The ground floor of the home of the Ahmeds had once been a busy place. There were four looms. There were employees. Nizam Ahmed took his sarees to the mandi, where customers and traders from near and far awaited the weavers. They were paid on the spot. Then, somehow, things changed. The 'mandi' no longer existed. Traders began to claim that the benarasi saree no longer sold. There was no demand. They could not afford to pay so much. The weavers, pushed to the wall, began to accept lesser and lesser. The sarees that once fetched them Rs 1500, now go for Rs 600.

The Ahmeds had shut the workshop up for the day when Siddique sahab knocked on their door, but they unlocked it for us to look inside. One loom had been dismantled long ago. Two lay silent as death. Only one was still strung with anticipation, looped with silk and silver and golden threads.

The son, Riyaz slipped into position and started work. The father brought out a bit of graph-paper on which a design was printed. This design can be the border or the 'booti' of the saree. The more elaborate the border design, the harder the weaver has to work.

I was somewhat awed to see what it takes to actually make a saree, a zari border, the simplest booti. The loom was strung and overhung with what looked like cardboard streamers with holes punched into them. Turned out, these bits of cardboard represented the border design. Imagine that each pixel on the design graph had to be represented in a linear fashion. Thousands of dots go into a pattern. Thousands of holes have to be punched into cardboard and strung together, and finally attached to the loom, with thread passing through the holes at the appropriate places. It takes weeks to just set up a handloom, if you're going to create a new, exclusive design. (This part of the contraption was invented locally, it is said.)

The hard work begins much earlier, though. Silk has to be acquired, skeins organised, rolled into spools etcetra etcetra. This too takes weeks, and is usually done by the wives and daughters of the weavers (it goes without saying that they are not paid and their labour is never taken into account).

And here, the young weaver's son sits, legs dangling in the mud floor. His fingers work swiftly, his eyes rarely the fabric that he creates, line by line by line. With a sort of awed fascination mixed with a tight-rolled terror in my heart, I watched. The endlessness of it. The spool moving from right hand to left and left back to right, the wooden loom making a dull racket, as rhythmic as a heartbeat. It would be easy to slip into a sort of trance here. And line by line by line, the fabric is created. Silk thread seems to be melting under his fingers. He pauses just an instant, replacing the silk with silver, then gold, then silver, then silk. And while I am talking to his parents, his grandmother, while I am listening to them speak of families mixing poison in roti and feeding it to hungry children, of widows of suicides making a barren living by cutting off the tiny rough edges on the underside of the embroidered fabric, of weavers not yet taking to crime of any sort - except one incident when a man snatched a bag of food from a passerby in the market - my eyes and ears stayed with that live loom.

And Nizam Ahmed was saying - "This saree will take us 15 days to make. I know I will not sell it for more than Rs 600."

Saying that it is not that the weavers don't want the market to change. "Tell us what the demand is like and we will meet that demand. Tell us what the international market wants, what people in Bombay and Delhi want. We will make it."

And Siddique sahab was telling me of how, when he visited weaver families and stayed overnight, they would often ask him to go and sleep in a neighbour's house. It took him weeks to realise that he was being sent away because the family had no food and so, sent him to the house that could provide dinner for a guest.

And I was wondering - how hungry do you have to be, before the hunger becomes official?
Weavers - about 5 lakh of them - living like this. And this family is better off than many others. In rural areas, artisans have simply taken to lifting mud at construction sites. Weaving brings nothing. There is nothing to weave.


But I am glad I came here. Glad that I was given a chance to see what six yards of Banarasi means. Glad that I can finally see the hope and time and blood and skill that go into line upon line of expensive weave.

I do not buy benarasi silk, and if I did, the temptation to buy cheap, to beat down the price would be great. But ever since I walked into that workshop, my attitude to clothes has changed. I can do with one good Benarasi saree; nobody needs fifty. If it cost me a month's salary, I'd happily pay up; I now know that it is worth every paisa.


I've begun to wonder if our inability to judge the true value for things has something to do with the fact that we don't have a clue about how they're made. We don't see fields. We don't have the stain of soil on our toes. We don't look at the sky with aching eyes and have terror sieze our soul each time cloud passes us by, each time the earth develops another crack. We don't know how each fibre is drawn out of our fingertips as a wheel turns between our knees. We don't know how yarn must be rolled over and over and over until the wrist turns into a numb machine, and we don't know of the pleasant shock of having one inch of silk and glittering thread forming suddenly a border, in such glamourous contrast to the cardboard festooning our heads. We don't know how things are made.

And so we stand at bazaar stalls, haggling about why a pair of leather jootis costs two hundred rupees, haggling about why a dupatta should cost three hundred, haggling about how a painted wooden doll can cost one hundred.

I wonder how much we'd think these things were worth if we had to make them ourselves. I wonder what price we'd put to a silk saree if we were born into the Ahmed household in Varanasi.

A personal LoC

A line of Control. A dress. A word. A slut.

It is not an easy admission to make, but I have used the word 'slut' whilst referring to another woman. And I have regretted using it.

In fact, I regretted using it within ten seconds of it having escaped my lips. It wasn't about what she wore. I wore less. It wasn't about make-up. She used none. In retrospect, it was about anger, and a shade of envy.

This is about four years ago. I was sitting around with a couple of young male friends. They were talking about the difficulty of getting girls to attend parties. They asked me, half joking, if I could get them through to some girls.

And stupidly, sanctimously, I shrugged and said, 'I don't know any girls who'd go out partying with strangers. Well, maybe I know one. She's a bit of a slut.'

The boys reacted unexpectedly. They exchanged glances and one said, 'Shhh. Don't ever use that word for a woman.'

My humiliation has rarely been so complete as it was in that instant.


What had been going on in my mind? Did I disrespect girls who went out with boys too soon? But I too have hung out with men, when introduced through other friends. What did I disrespect about the girl?

It took years for me to figure out what and why. I envied the girl a little. She did what she wanted. She seemed not to be afraid of being judged by her family or other people like me. It is a different story that a lot of her recklessness and defiance was rooted in her fear of being judged by her own city-bred peers, of not 'fitting in' in glamourous circles. But I did not judge her because of her fears; I judged her because of mine.

There was another reason why I was so flippantly moralistic. The man who shushed me had not been paying enough attention to me. And I craved his attention. I wanted to win his approval, somehow. To show that I was better than those 'easy' girls he hung out with. After all, all my life, I had been told that men like girls who play hard-to-get; that they respect girls with the hands-off approach.

Unfortunately, the effect was opposite to the one desired. But the good thing was that I was immediately chastened, and flung into (a miserable soggy pit of) self-reflection. Here was a man I liked and, in an uncomprehending, instinctive fashion, respected. And whose respect I may have lost.

I began to think about why I respected him - not because he partied, not because he swore and provoked and argued. Perhaps, because he was one of the few men I'd met who was neither awkward around me, nor aggressively friendly. He seemed to ask nothing of me and never crossed any lines - physical or social. Never once did I fear either him or his morality.


Never again has the word slut crossed my lips, or even my mind.

In fact, when a bunch of us journalists were outside a restaurant, an acquaintance leaned over and whispered - 'See those girls? They're sluts!' - I was surprised.

The women being referred to were in tight jeans, skirts and halter tops, lots of mascara, no male escorts.

I asked, 'How do you know?'

'It's obvious.'

I simply noted that the clothes were very smart, and considered asking them where they shopped.

'See! They're waiting to get picked up,' she continued.

'Are they?' I said, in a deliberately bored voice, and turned away.

A retraction

About two years ago, I had said some things about provocation (in a post titled ' Provocation', which then led to some very provoked comments).

I go back to it now because I have rethought the sexes, gender, bodies, public space, and also because, I was asked to think of 'crossing lines'. When it comes to clothes - attitudes, lifestyles, whatever - what amounts to a line crossed?

With reference to clothes specifically, back then, I had said that bodies - male or female - attract attention, and often admiration. To quote myself, "We do not like the way this admiration is expressed. But that is something we have no control over. There will be whistling, song-singing, comment-passing, the works...And yes, I don't think we have a right to stop this expression of admiration."


Two years later, I apologize. I no longer believe that. I especially retract 'the works' and that last sentence.

I believe (I think) that there is only so much we can do to control other people's reactions but we can try to change the reactions, the public space, and the attitudes that lead to unpleasant reactions. And we have every right to seek such a change, albeit as non-violently as possible.

At this point of time, I no longer believe in any fixed rules with reference to women's bodies and men's reactions. There was a time when I was conditioned into thinking that the responsibility (and fault?) for these reactions lay with a woman. I no longer think so.

I continue to have very mixed views about what exactly harassment is and whether irritants like comment-passing, whistling, song-singing, staring should be classified in the same bracket as pinching, grabbing or otherwise touching without permission.

I am aware that most of the time it is not worth my while to react violently to any of the former and that I will invariably react with a spontaenous burst of violence to the latter. However, if I was fifteen, and being followed by a man who kept passing comments that seemed threatening or intended to humiliate, I'd feel differently. I now recognize that language (singing, commenting etc is part of a public, gendered language) is a tool of aggression and dominance, a tool of power play. If somebody calls your mother a whore, and you beat him up, most people would understand perfectly and stand up for you. If some random man on the street calls you a whore, and you feel insulted by it, and beat him up, I would understand perfectly (even if I don't think that there's anything wrong with whores).

I still don't wear certain clothes in public. And I recognize that this is not always because I respect other people's sensibilities but because I am afraid of them. Afraid of what they will do to me. I do not wear spagetti-strapped tops to the local market or a backless dress in a rickshaw, not because I'm concerned about how I'm affecting the men out there, but because I'm afraid that if some blighted idiot decides to insult me or touch me without my permission, I will find myself isolated, and humiliated even further by the idea that the fault was mine.

I stand by what I said about us wanting to attract admiration, and wanting it only from certain men/women and not from others, and that class and race are huge factors here. But I retract what I said about being prepared for the impact our bodies have upon these 'others'.

I think that men have a right to 'look' if we happen to be in their line of vision. But they do not have a right to assume that a woman is available (even if she is stark naked), or open to insults, or that she will appreciate their admiration and attention. Unwelcome attention will simply provoke defensive-aggressive behaviour. And every woman has the right to define her own boundaries of (un)acceptable behaviour, and to defend those boundaries as she sees fit.

Apologies to the sisters I offended by my opinions earlier. I stand corrected, and wiser.

He, who ferries.

His name I know well. He repeatedly told me - Ramji - and repeatedly told me not to forget.

I'd only wanted to get away from the shore, not a guided tour. But the boatman was determined, now that he'd struck a deal, to give me the complete package. At all the ghats, each nuzzling the next, he'd tell me the name, the name of the king, queen, pundit or merchant who'd financed it. The information slipped off my ears like water off his oar.

At one point, he mentioned Narad, the mischief-making god.

'A couple should never take a dip together at this point. If they do, they're sure to fight. Narad makes sure.'

At another, he told me the whole story of Raja Harishchandra. I listened as if I hadn't heard it before.

At yet another, he stopped and ordered that I take a palmful of water and sprinkle it over my head. Every few ghats, he'd direct me to fold my hands in prayer, at the very least.

At one point, he used the phrase - 'our Hindu brothers...' and caught himself.

He asked my name. I told him.

He repeated - 'Naini, is it?' and I did not bother to correct him.

Then he wanted to know about my brother, my mother, my father, my work, was I married, why not, and why was I in a white saree?

Exhausted, I turned his questions round on him - how many years has he been a boatman, what did his father do, will his son do the same, are his daughters in school, why was the eldest married so young?

When the talk showed no signs of ceasing, I asked him to let me take one of the oars.

With no hesitation, he agreed, making space for me and spreading his red gamchha so my saree wouldn't get wet.

And finally, there was silence.

Except that he clicked his tongue impatiently each time the oar slipped from my hands, and made encouraging noises whenever it seemed like I was finally getting the hang of it. Fifteen minutes later, the wind was against us and my muscles were protesting.

'This is hard work,' I said.

He cocked his head and stopped rowing for a moment, as if thinking this over.

'Yes, I suppose it is.'

The minute I returned to my passenger status, the commentary and questions started again. He was saying something about a curse by Shiva, so that there must be an eternal pyre, some loved one turning to ashes, forever, at a certain ghat.

And he was also admonishing me.

'Didi, next time you come, you must come with Jijaji.'

'Yes.'

'Don't wait any longer...time enough.'

'Yes.'

'And when you come with Jijaji, make sure you ask for Deepak Maajhi. Actually, my name is Ramji, but the boat belongs to Deepak Maajhi.'

'Yes.'

'Didi, shall I tell you something? When I first saw you, I was a little worried. Especially when you said you wanted to be alone. We get suspicious because people who want to go alone will often jump off the boat. And you... in your white saree... I thought...'

'That I wanted to commit suicide?'

'Hehe, no, but we worry. We're poor boatmen and the passenger is our responsibility.... you must not wear white... Once, there was a man - must be ten years older than you. He also wanted to go alone. I took him, and at the end, he was so pleased, he promised to buy me my own boat. He gave me a phone number and asked me to call up after six months.'

'Did you?'

'It has been only four months. I will call. My own boat will cost Rs 30,000-35,000.'

'Didi, you will not forget my name, will you? You will remember Ramji?'

'Yes, I will.'

He, who asks nothing

I didn't ask his name, but now, I wonder. In Benaras, this man was unusual. He was one of those who had a chance but didn't ask for my name.

It ought to be easy - anonymity in a city of millions, which also has millions of visitors, domestic and international. A city used to faces of all colours, tongues of all timbre, wardrobes of all vintage. Why should it care what I am called?

My silence is precious to me. Especially in strange places where talk is no obligation, where there are no acquaintances, when I know I must listen and talk and listen and ask and listen all through the next few days... Why should the town care what I'm called?

But in Benaras, they all ask.

Starting from the garrulous pre-paid auto-driver at the station, who wanted to know not just my name but my surname, my address, my work-place, my knowledge of Delhi's roads, my family, their names, etc. In exchange, unasked, he offered little factoids about himself - his name, the number of years he spent in Delhi, the number of siblings who live in Delhi, their addresses, their professions, his parents, his parents' sickness, his return to Benaras, the kind of car he used to drive, his philosophical take on old parents and responsibility, his kids, their exams, his plans for the summer, holidays in Delhi and Mumbai and if he can afford it, Goa.

After numbing me suitably, the auto-wala tried taking me to a different hotel. I insisted that I already had a booking.

He wanted to know how much I was going to pay per night.

I told him and he clicked his tongue and offered to get me a cheaper deal.

I protested and insisted that I had a booking.

He began to insist that I look at the alternative hotel.

I refused.

He insisted.

I pointed out that it wasn't right - to get someone to make a reservation and then not show up.

He said he'd get a commission if he brought me to the other hotel.

I refused.

He sulked.

Too bad, I thought, and went on to where a booked room awaited.

Later in the evening, at the hotel, when I expressed a desire to visit the Annapoorna temple, the travel desk summoned this rickshaw-wala.

All he said was, 'sixty rupees' and didn't speak again until we reached the place.

A constable blocked our path, saying rickshaws were not allowed into the lane. I got off and started walking, but within a minute, the rickshaw was at my side again, asking me to sit.

I asked him how he got past the cop. He told me - by paying ten rupees.

Outside the temple, he waited while I pushed through the two-way crush of the narrow Vishwanath lane and when I returned, too soon, he asked if I wanted to go to the ghats.

'I don't know... Is there anything nearby?'

He pointed towards the Ganga.

Nothing to do and a little daylight still clinging to the sky: I stepped down to the ghats and was swallowed by a sequence of cries and whispers in three languages - all offering to sell something, ask something.

I wanted to sit alone, in peace, but there seemed to be no way of escaping except into the river. A boatman beckoned; we struck a deal so that I would not have to share the boat.

The rickshaw-wala saw me go, and said nothing except that he'd be at the stand (a parking lot for cycle-rickshaws).

When I returned - having recounted my name, birth-place, family details etc to the garrulous boatman - he stood waiting at the shore.

He asked if I wanted to wait for the maha-aarti.

'Is it was worth waiting for?'

He shrugged. 'People come to see it.'

I sat down on the steps. A boy stopped by, selling tea in tiny kullads, as small as diwali diyas, for Re 1. He asked me my name. A boy of about twelve came up, selling booklets. He asked me my name. I sighed, and told him. A young man of about twenty parked himself on my right. He asked me my name. I smiled, and did not tell him.

Noticing a protective shadow hovering on my left, I turned to find the rickshaw-wala standing there, making no attempt at conversation.

I told him he could sit down if he wished. He did so.

A few minutes into the aarti, the smoke got too much for me. I stood up and followed the rickshaw-wala out to the stand and rode back in complete silence but for the rough sound of wheels rumbling over stones, through potholes, and the swishing of the pedals in the dim dusk.

Back at the hotel, I paid him almost twice the amount agreed on. He accepted with a wide smile. And did not, god bless him, ask my name.

Another book, another contest

A must-read, and a please-acquire book. And not just because I was included. These are 21 stories written by South Asian women under 40. I'm particularly kicked about the fact that this anthology breaks several stereotypes about 'women's writing'. There's a graphic short story, a detective story, an internet story, a prostitute story (except there aren't any hearts of gold), a tender killing story.... Worth reading.

And

A FLASH FICTION CONTEST

Toto Funds the Arts, Delhi Chapter, invites entries for its flash fiction contest. The winner will get a cash prize of Rs. 3000 and two runners-up will be awarded Rs. 1000 each. A public event will be organized for the winners to read their stories along with an established author.

Submission Guidelines

1. You cannot be older than 30 on June 1, 2007. Include a statement confirming your date of birth and that the story is original and unpublished.
2. The contest is limited to young Indians residing in Delhi and NCR. No NRIs, please.
3. Only one submission is allowed per person.
4. The story cannot exceed 500 words.
5. Entries can be either sent by e-mail to tfadelhi@gmail.com or by snail mail to:

TFA Contest, D/377 2^nd Floor, Defence Colony,

New Delhi 110024.

6. The deadline is 20 April 2007. Please mention your name and contact details separately, not on the entry itself.

She, who provides

Benaras.

Everything I thought it might be, it seemed to be. But who knows... I did not go out much.

Except that one evening, for someone told me that the city's patron goddess is Annapoorna - the grain provider. The goddess of food. And prosperity. But no prosperity or happiness is possible without food, after all.

And I was here to investigate hunger, after all. It was only fitting that I look up the goddess that fills bellies, for someone told me that nobody sleeps hungry in Benaras. Its holiness was built, he said, upon the hunger of those who flocked here, knowing that here, the virtous, the freshly-rid-of-sins were anxious to give.

I wanted to look up this mother-goddess. Perhaps, because it is so hard to understand what has gone wrong - has she stopped providing, she who provides?

I went prepared for security stress. It has been just over a year since the blast at the Sankat Mochan temple and anyway, you get frisked and your bags get searched almost everywhere you go, these days. So, I took nothing but some money and my phone. However, after a half-hour rickshaw ride, a ten rupee bribe to a cop (paid by the rickshaw-puller, without my knowing), and a fifteen minute walk down the narrow Vishwanath lane and reaching the entrance, the police said - 'Phones not allowed'.

And suddenly, the desire to see her was gone. Annapoorna, I'm sure, would understand.

A book, a book!

Finally, it's out there.

Update: It is definitely available in Landmark bookstore, Gurgaon (and in Chennai and Mumbai, I hear). I spotted it, unfortunately, under 'Quotations', right next to 'Psychology', instead of in the poetry section. It made me fret, but I felt foolish about fretting personally, so got a cousin to get the shop assistants to correct the mistake. But in case anybody goes there and can't find the book under 'poetry', you know where to look.

Dilli mein raat bhar baarish, phir se

When words begin to curl up in the corners, and meaning begins to drip off the blurry edge, you know it has rained all night in Delhi.

Adhchini, Gurgaon... the words patter with a sweetness, a slippery clayey texture that hadn't been there before. And to your ears, 'gurhganva' is firm, a vagabond word with tight calf muscles and a checked vest. Gurh-gaanv-aa. Gurhganva. The word is like the sweet, heady smell of the first light shower on a hot afternoon in a dusty town.

But that is left behind. In Devnagri, the word asserts itself firmly on the metal chest of a bus - 'gurhganva'. Not Gurgaon. Not glass. Metal. Rust. Rain.

Over the awful rev and roar of Dilli's sarkaari bus, there is a sound like a cross between a tyre bursting and a string of firecrackers muffled in cotton. There is such a blinding flash that for a minute, you think there are cameras around. Then you look at the sky. At ten in the morning, it was like before dawn. Dark and full. There is no threat, just a certainty. Firecrackers muffled in grey wool sky.

The bus driver changed the music from haryanvi folk to trance. The sky roared. The music hammered down as hard as the waters.

With each little lurch, water filled up in the ridges of the windows and spilled. Spilled.

All thoughts slipped and spilled into each other. All shades of green turned melty through the refractive window-seat. The word 'subz' floated through your head. That's the shade. 'Subz'. That it is not a shade, is meaningless. All meanings are melting.

The driver changed the tape again.

Ae door ke musafir, humko bhi saath le le
hum reh gaye akele....

I look at him closer. Wet hair. Plump. Joking with the boy-conductor.

The gear-stick is covered in scrunchies. Girls' hair scrunchies. An entire rainbow of them. Red, pink, blue, lilac, green, neon. A sticker of five film actresses in a row, holding up filmfare award trophies, with a little ditty below:

"Titli udi, bus pe chadi, seat na mili
driver bola - aaja mere paas; titli boli - hat badmaas."

In felt pen, there's another curliqueing bit of text: 'Love is God'.

And Rafi sings:
"Mere haathon mein tera chahra tha
jaise koi gulaab hota hai..."

Orange, velvety flowers have falled into a heap of fallen yellow leaves.

In the nursery, potted flowers stand ruefully straight. Resigned to the battering of the night, but all the fuschias, scarlets, pinks are coloured a deeper shade, as if a drop of meloncholia has fallen into their pollen hearts.

... jaise joi gulab hota hai...

Outside, the puddles are deep. A girl in pure white lifts up her salwar half-way up her calves. Her friend, in rani-pink, follows. They stop and look at each other and their smiles stretch from horizon to horizon.

Titli udi...

The auto-driver slows down near Nehru Park and his head is turned so that he's looking at the grass, and he takes his time rounding the roundabouts.

You breathe. Each breath is crisp and wild and slow. You shiver and think: This air does not belong to now. It is the air of February, and has been dragged back, howling and lashing, by the crackling skies of a strange hot week in Delhi.

Dilli ke is lamhe mein, kisi ko koi gham nahin hai. Raat bhar, din bhar, baarish hui hai.

And there is no sorrow possible in a moment that does not below to now.

A quiet kind of heroism

Once you've put into writing the truths that have hammered your life - your commutes, your streets, your nights, your finances - into a spreadsheet of fear, you're changed.

You take a solitary walk all around a PVR complex, and you get a cup of coffee on a night so cold that the mists rising from your lips and the cup mingle and waft into a drizzle, and you look for an empty bench and when you find it, you sit and gaze into the hazy throngs of young people - up and down, arm in arm - knowing that curious stares are hemming you in, but you sit, hands wrapped around a toosweet-toohot cup, unhurried, because you'll be damned if you can't do this; a stranger with big moustaches heads towards your bench but when you fix your eyes on him, he changes direction - for you sit bang in the centre of the bench, feet stretched, head at rest, in a wet bubble of falling night-sky - and you go on sitting there, looking at nothing, spotting a familiar boy hurry past with an unfamiliar girl clinging onto his arm, and when the coffee is gone and the sky is still, you get up, toss the cup in the trash-can, breathe deep, and walk away.


[Blank noise blogathon entry, 2007]

Born (not quite) Free (but getting there)

On an impulse, I went. I had not yet received a brief, or permission, to cover this exhibition. But because the teachers - Mioi and John - had come to invite me personally, because I was surprised by the deceptive joy, the intimate ache of the photos (photoshopped out of all symmetry, unfortunately), I went to the Indira Gandhi Centre for the Arts.

It was almost closing time, the watchman almost didn't let me in; the few boys playing ball in the lawn did not understand my language; feeling foolish, I nodded and smiled until Mioi arrived.

They'd brought some musical instruments along. Drums. And long lathi-like sticks with ghungoos attached to one end. When I looked curious, they put on an impromptu performance for me. Mioi and one of the students, Jayaram, picked up a lathi each, a thumping took up my heart, and they danced. Dhhum! and chham! Teacher and student facing each other, smiles too wide to be mere performance, eyes squinting with the fun of it, Mioi quickly growing breathless, laughing.

There's a lot I've forgotten about the Born Free School (Bangalore) and the exhibition they brought to Delhi last year. But the dhhum and chham and those smiling eyes... I often re-live those. And the thing John said, about this country. 'Everything - everything! - is poisoned with a little shot of child labour'.


Here are some of the things I wrote about the students at the Bornfree Art School, rescued child labourers themselves, who have undertaken a pledge to free other working children. [I no longer have the photos but here's linking to a site, with pictures of some of the people I'm referring to below]



Eleven-year old Jalalli used to be a cowherd once. Though he now studies the arts and does not need to mind cows for a living, he retains a fondness for all things bovine. That much is evident from his choice of photographic subject: cows; but since the project was supposed to focus on child labourers, Jalalli ended up capturing child-cowherds on camera.

His photographs, and those credited to dozens of other former child labourers, are now part of 'the History Expedition', a traveling exhibition put together by the Bornfree Art School, Bangalore. The school combines art and activism. Rescued child labourers are slowly brought back into the mainstream fold of education, but the process is initiated through art - through music, dance, theatre, sculpture, crafts and now, photography. Some of the crafts were also on show. Baskets and decorative bamboo plates were covered with prints of ancient terracotta coins. Several of the products carried short stories like the ones from the Panchatantra, except that the stories had been edited and rewritten to avoid derogatory references to people or animals.

The History Expedition is as much a cross-country documentation trip as it is an exhibition. About 15 children and five adults wove their way across Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Goa on bicycles and on buses. 4040 kilometres, 3000 hours of film, and 25,000 photographs later, they had seen just about every form of child labour conceivable - from child prostitutes to stone-crushers, four-year-old housewives to cotton-pickers.

A photograph, titled 'sweet violence', shows a young girl making sugar in Bidar. Another, titled 'Haya!' shows a smiling boy whipping himself to collect money. 'Dead dolls' captures a row of albino baby girls, made to sit on the street like live curio exhibits, while passersby threw coins at them.

A little girl, bare-chested, carries a heavy statue of a deity on her head. Two children pose as scarecrows in a field. A gaggle of pre-pubescent girls with mangalsutras round their necks, drawing water from a well. A child selling spider-man masks. A faceless figure holding up a sickle against a deep, blue sky.

It is hard to believe that the pictures have been created by mere children who have probably never touched a camera before. Colour and expression have been captured with truth and often, with a sense of fun that might have been impossible in the hands of an adult. There is little attempt to dramatize the agony of the toiling children; there are more smiles than screams, but the whole picture is unsparing.

Muniyappa, a former ragpicker, commented on one of his own pictures where he found a six-year-old water-seller, crying. "The only water she has, is the tears in her eyes." Muniappa was very upset when he met the girl, who would walk three kilometres everyday, barefoot, to fetch water, which she could sell for a mere Rs 5.

John Devaraj, an artist who founded the school and accompanied the children to Delhi with the exhibition, pointed out that the photographs were as much about the artists as the subjects. "Our artists are all former child labourers. What you see now is the victims writing their own histories through other child victims."

Jalalli, for instance, went from suckling milk straight from the herd's udders, to being bonded to a tea-stall owner in Bangalore - not because his family had incurred a debt, but because a software engineer, a regular customer, disappeared without paying a Rs 100 bill.

Prashanth, a fourteen-year-old, has been taking pictures of water in brilliant hues of yellow: but look beyond the spectacular colours, and you notice child-fishermen. Prashanth himself used to sell flowers once, but life was no bed of roses. "The owner of the flower-shop used to hit me with a pair of scissors. Each time I made a mistake, he'd hit me on the back of my hands. So, I ran away and became a ragpicker".

Devaraj laughs as he recalls the nickname given to the boy. "They called him 'brass-boy'. He would steal anything made of brass."

Jayaram, a teenaged boy whose body is marked with scars and other signs of violence, shyly admitted that he used to steal too; in fact, he stole from the police! Laughing, he chose his words carefully, "I worked in a bar and restaurant first, and then, well, you could say that I worked with the police." Actually, he would pilfer bullets, which he would sell by the kilo, for their metal content.

Although Jayaram has been in lock-up before, he is rather proud of his most recent arrest. While taking the photo 'Dead Dolls', he and a schoolmate, Raju, were arrested by the police. They were handcuffed and paraded through the streets. But Jayaram feels vindicated. "This was the first time in my life that I was handcuffed for doing the right thing."

These young artists are acquainted with the dangers of challenging the adult world that employs children, and taking this road trip has taught them what they didn't already know. For instance, they found children working in puffed-rice factories where sand has to be heated at temperatures of 1400 degrees. Many get hurt and some, like thirteen-year-old Tariq Ali, die. Similarly, the silk industry likes to employ small children, who are used as cocoon cooks, more or less.

They also discovered that Bangalore, which likes to call itself the 'rose capital of the world', employs hundreds of little girls to pluck about 2100 tonnes of roses, everyday.

In Bijapur, they found - and photographed! - a policeman roughing up a child prostitute who appeared to be soliciting clients near the Gol Gumbaz. These girls were neither rescued nor rehabilitated, but simply driven away each evening by baton-wielding constables.


The pictures in the History Expedition are poignant but the subjects do not beg for sympathy. There is a heart-breaking note of defiance in their smiles, their happy acceptance of the moment, their trust in the camera. Perhaps this has to do with the fact that the photos were taken by children like themselves. Yet, the photographs evoke outrage and bewilderment at the sheer scale of the problem - it appears as if there is not one single industry or product that does not involve children.

Devaraj was unsparing in his critique. "The bricks in your house, the milk and sugar in your tea, the roses you buy for your wife, computers, other gadgets, the kumkum on your forehead, the puffed rice in your bhel-puri, bananas, tomatoes, spices, silk - everything is poisoned with a little shot of child labour."

Demand and Supply

A comment on my last post prompted this question: why should we expect the world (the world of manufacturers- advertisers, at any rate) to care about women's intellectual/sartorial/physical/financial needs, as long as they can induce us - through promises, false or...well, legal - to buy what they're selling?

In an ideal world, this question would have been different. In an ideal world, manufacturers of cosmetic products would not tell lies, and nobody would try to suppress research. But this is not an ideal world and profit is god.

In such a world, should the simple rules of demand and supply apply?

If there was, for instance, a huge demand for child sex workers, would it be acceptable to allow their supply? What if the children themselves agreed to be sold: maybe they're poor and hungry?

If there was a surge in the demand for, say, shark meat, and sharks were endangered, would it be acceptable to hunt them until they disappeared?

If all children want to learn, but not all have family resources, should we simply cater to those who can afford to pay?

If there's a famine, should only those who can pay, eat?

Demand and supply are not sacred, in my opinion. If manufacturers or suppliers or even buyers lack a conscience (for the lack of a better word... call it a moral compass, a set of ethics, a soul, whatever) we have to act in ways that lead to minimum damage for most people.

Some may argue that it is unfair to compare famines with women's magazines. I can only quote Steinem, again. The art of behaving ethically is to act as if everything you do, matters.

To come back to women's magazines and advertiser 'inserts':

Do advertisers have the right to dictate where their ads will be placed?
I'm not sure.
Do they have a right not to advertise in magazines that have fashion advice for non-supermodel-sized women?
Perhaps.
Does that mean that one has to look elsewhere for funding?
Yes.
Is it okay to expect that women will pay higher prices for 'niche' magazines with something other than nauseating articles about the charming benefits of brazilian waxes?
No.

Magazines (all media) are information. Are a source of knowledge, a shared cultural space and a reference point and a means of opinion formation and are - however lightly - looked up to as a source of truth.

Just like it is unethical to suppress news - no matter how unpalatable it may be to advertisers or readers/viewers - it is unethical to suppress a certain kind of reality. Even if it is something like the need for different sizes to suit different shapes. Or the fact that you age, get wrinkles and die. The constant suppression of myriad realities leads to distorted reality. It is not for nothing that anorexia needs psychological treatment. The victim no longer has any sense of truth about his/her own body. Large numbers of women no longer have any perspective on shape because they are force-fed a constant visual mush of super-skinny women.

Should we assume that all women who want an alternative will find it?
No.
I still have not found one. There was a time when I no longer found Femina and Cosmo amusing, and wanted other magazines - something that was about women, and not cars or sports or celebrities. I still can't find an alternative.

Am I willing to pay for an alternative? Yes.
Steinem brought out Ms magazine, for instance.
But do I have access to it? No.
If I order imported magazines, will I be able to afford them? No.

Forced into a situation where I must choose between the crap the advertisers want me to see or no magazine at all, I take the latter. Do I think it is right?
No.

As a consumer, I would much prefer it if advertisers simply had no control over editorial content. As a consumer, I expect this, actually, from non-fiction media.

The advertiser does have a right not to advertise at all, or to specify the size/length of the ad. But I am not convinced that the advertiser should have a right to decide what sort of article the ad appears next to.

Does this require that media and marketers re-think the way they do business, or that media reorganise its formats, and develop a common code or something?
Yes.

From a media perspective, I know this is very, very hard to do. But I also know that, often, we buckle not under pressure, but because of our fear of pressure. That we don't even put up a fight.
Is that a done thing?
In my opinion, No.

A female voice

Gloria Steinem. Second-wave feminist. Famous feminist.

I hadn't attended any feminist lectures before. I hadn't been to any feminist conferences and I wasn't so sure why I wanted to hear Steinem speak. But when I heard she was here and speaking, I wanted to listen.

And not just listen. I wanted to see her too. The staff at the auditorium told me, and a few other women, that there was no room; we'd have to sit outside and watch a large television screen. But we coaxed, cajoled, complained and insisted that there were reserved seats for us. Once inside, we just squatted on the floor.

Gloria Steinem. Tall, slim, seventy-two. And yes, beautiful. And yes, funny.

She said, that she always thought there ought to be sign outside universities like Yale and Harvard, saying: "Beware. De-construction ahead."

The funniest bits, of course, were the times she quoted from her famous essay, 'If Men Could Menstruate'.

"Men would brag about how long and how much.

Young boys would talk about it as the envied beginning of manhood. Gifts, religious ceremonies, family dinners, and stag parties would mark the day.

To prevent monthly work loss among the powerful, Congress would fund a National Institute of Dysmenorrhea. Doctors would research little about heart attacks, from which men would be hormonally protected, but everything about cramps...

Generals, right-wing politicians, and religious fundamentalists would cite menstruation ("men-struation") as proof that only men could serve God and country in combat ("You have to give blood to take blood"), occupy high political office ("Can women be properly fierce without a monthly cycle governed by the planet Mars?"), be priests, ministers, God Himself ("He gave this blood for our sins"), or rabbis ("Without a monthly purge of impurities, women are unclean").

[Do read the whole hilarious piece.]


That evening, she was speaking about gender and censorship - the many, many ways in which women's voices have been censored out of sight and mind and discourse.

We know how terrible women's magazines are, don't we? How they mess with women's minds, self-image, etc. How they can make you believe that if you aren't skin and bone, if you can't keep a man, if you don't use foreign brands of make-up, if you can't afford to wear a 3000 rupee shirt, you're worthless.

But the worst punishment such magazines mete out, according to Steinem, is that we grow contemptutous of each other other, because we are led to believe that other women want these things. Which is not necessarily true. She told the crowd about how advertisers in the US dictated content through their 'inserts'. Little notes, clauses almost, that tell the editorial staff: "Must not appear with depressing articles" or "Must not appear in an issue with large-size fashion".

Think about that. Advertisers insisting that not only will they use images of super-skinny women, but that they want nothing to do with any sort of clothing, or word of advice or attitude that may be non-skinny. That is censorship too, isn't it?


Steinem made me think from new angles. Like she herself had been made to think. She had always assumed that women talk more than men (because that's the stereotype.... there are jokes about women not being able to sit quiet, a roomful of silent women being the joke), perhaps, because talking is women's way of expressing themselves, perhaps because other forms of self-expression were denied to them? That is what she thought, until she came across research work that concluded that, contrary to popular belief, women talked LESS than men. In fact, the study found that men talked more about everything, including subjects of female expertise, like child-rearing.

Why did the opposite view prevail, then? Perhaps, because, female talk "was measured against the expectation of female silence." When you say 'more', who decided 'more'? Who decides 'women talk too much'? Probably the many generations of men who were not used to listening to female voices at all.

While on censorship, Steinem spoke about the politics of channeling (where a person claims to have access to spirits, and writes down whatever the spirit says). It seems that most women were channeling men. One of the more famous instances being that of a Columbia University professor who claimed to be writing as Jesus dictated.

According to Steinem, very possibly, these were women who had things to say, but would not be taken seriously, perhaps, but if they claimed to be speaking for famous men, they were listened to, and very possibly made successful. Few men have claimed to be speaking for female spirits. The only exception seemed to be a gay man who channeled the writer Gertrude Stein.

The other, murkier side of censorship is buried in problems such as trafficking. While all efforts are directed at stemming supply, almost nobody talks of stemming demand. For instance, people may argue about legalising prostitution, but nobody seems to think it is a good idea to fine the customer, or to discuss his role in the process.

She spoke of the revolutionary act of translating, of language and exile, the censoring of the oral tradition.

She spoke of how battering men behave like addicts and that asking a man to 'control' his aggression is like telling an addict he can have a little bit of heroin.

She spoke of the campaign to attribute an economic value to all care-giving, at replacement value, and the possibility of making such services tax-deductible and tax-refundable.

It was a joy listening to her and I could easily have sat there listening another hour, had she the time or energy to go on. Many other things were said, of course, but these are some of the things Steinem said that stayed with me:

"We are encouraged to give birth to others before we can give birth to ourselves.

Terms such as 'sexual harassment' have been given to us by the feminist movement; before that, it was called 'life'.

The art of behaving ethically is to act as if everything we do, matters."

That, above all. To act as if everything you do, say, don't do, matters.

Giving it back

Last year, around this time, I first started speaking up about street sexual harassment.

Thanks to Blank Noise's blogathon, many women's ghosts began to be exorcised - talk about it, get angry about it, start fighting it.

This year, another blogathon has been announced, asking bloggers - male, female, all - to speak up again. But not just about 'victim' experiences. Talk about how you fought back.

From the blank noise blog:

On the morning of March 8th, 2007, share with us a story (or two, or five or...) of fighting back?! When did you flip a situation so you could resist, when did you give back as hard as you got? When and how did you choose to confront? When did you become an Action Hero?

To participate:
1. announce the event.
2. blog your story
3. email us about it and we will link you right away!
email blurtblanknoise@gmail.com (with the subject titled: Action Heroes Online).

Spread the word.

Thumb impressions

Sarojini Nagar market. Thursday. 15th Feb.

I'd been here only two days before: getting new curtains, socks, sunshine, weird banana split. And here we were again, carrying a map, pens, pamphlets, letters saying 'Dear Stranger....'

It is a little awkward - street actions in places where we also hang out. Abby mentioned the awkwardness last time at PVR Saket, after we gave out letters to strangers, wore red reflective tape on our chests, forming a 'KYA DEKH RAHE HO?' and then, we calmly sat down at one of the open-air eateries and proceeded to order.

It felt funny. To go from 'action hero' to ordinary. To go from staring back, confronting the non-existence of the lone woman, even in 'okay' places like PVR.... to sitting down, eating. As if nothing had happened. As if, handing out folded letters to strangers was an everyday thing for us.

We'd got used to disappearing soon after the intervention, heading out for coffee, a drink, dinner. Heading away... Why did we not stay on?

Because we had, mentally, separated our own personas? - our aggressive, blank noise persona, and our normal, relaxed-on-guard passive persona?

Did we need to change that? Perhaps. At Sarojini Nagar market, again, we did.

We began with sitting at a small restaurant where we formed a little pool of bemusement as we spread out a large map of Delhi, stapled it onto a sheet of hard chart paper, wrote 'Harassment Hot Spots' along the edge, brought out an ink-pad and pens, folded letters, ate rasmalai, waited for others, and returned to the same place later.

The plan for the evening was to mark out each area of Delhi where a woman has been sexually harassed. At the same time, we were doing a variation on the 'dear stranger' theme. Instead of handing out testimonials of harassment to men, we gave a hand-written format to women, asking them to fill in the blanks, and then give them away to others.

We started thumbing the map ourselves, before approaching other women.

"Excuse me, ma'am, do you have a minute?"

"Hi, listen, we're trying to do something about eve-teasing."

"Suniye, ek minute, please?"

"Ma'am, would you please look at this map?"

"Have you ever been harassed?"

"Ma'am, will you please..."

"Half a minute?"

"Aapko kabhi kisi ne pareshaan kiya hai? Badtameezi ki hai? Jise hum chhed-chhaad kehte hain?"

"Kahin bhi? Kabhi bhi? Yaad kariye..."

"Ever? Never? Anywhere... in the bus? On the streets?"

"Really?"


The first ten minutes found us rolling our eyes at each other, reining in the impulse to shake these women hard.

Most said: No.

"No. I have never been eve-teased/ I don't recall any incident/ I'm not from Delhi/ It doesn't happen in my town/ I'm too large/ I'm too aggressive/ My face is so forbidding that nobody dares."

Really?

"If somebody tries anything, I beat him up."

"So somebody did try something?"

"No."

Really?


"No idea. We only travel in cars." Or "I only go out with my husband."

"What about sisters? Daughters?"

"No."

"What about when you were younger? In college?"

"No."


Really?

We rolled our eyes. One would think we were the only freaks around who'd spent half our lives being harassed.

But what made it really frustrating was that every woman who was accompanied by a man, turned to look up at him. In confusion, for permission, to gauge whether she should speak or not?

"Have you ever been harassed?"

Look at man.

"Have you been felt up, followed, commented upon, touched against your will, brushed against?"

Look at man.

"Will you please put a thumb-print on the map?"

Look at man.


But we didn't snap - "What're you looking at him for? We're asking you!". Or - "If it happened, would you tell the man in your life?" Or even - "Do you think that, if eve-teasing happens, the girl is asking for it?"

We re-structured the conversation.

"Nowhere? Not even in buses?"

Slowly....

"In buses, of course. But it does happen in buses, doesn't it? That sort of thing is normal."

We asked them to mark out a bus-route. That, for some reason, was easier for them.

It was also easier to deal with younger women. College-goers, or those who hung out together, without boyfriends/husbands/fathers in sight.

One girl was particularly angry; she thumbed Gurgaon a dozen times. "Oh, everywhere in Gurgoan", she said.

Another inked Noida. Another said, "In busy markets. Here, in fact!"

There seemed to be a blue north-centre-south axis. The Delhi University (north campus), Chandni Chowk, Connought Place, Nehru Place, GK-1 and 2, Lajpat Nagar, Sarojini Nagar were hotspots.

There were funny moments too. More than one man wanted to thumb-print the map; as it turned out, because his wallet had been stolen. We had to explain that theft is not really our area of concern.

One conversation was particularly interesting (and particularly long). A woman (late thirties? forties?) with a man, began by denying she'd ever been harassed. (After looking at the man, of course).

"Nothing happens to me. You see, I've taken a self-defence course."

"You have? Did you ever get to use what you learnt?"

"Yes, I did."

"When? Where?"

"There was once this man..." (pause, turn to look at man)

"Yes?"

"In a bus. I elbowed a man. Just like I'd learnt in karate."

"What was he doing?"

"He was behind me."

"But what was he doing?"

"Nothing happened as such. Because I know self-defence."

"Was he doing... badtameezi?"

"Yes. So I elbowed him in the middle."

"Good for you. Would you put a thumb-print on the map?"

Badtameezi. Bad behaviour. Easier to deal with. Eve-teasing. Easier to deal with. Sexual harassment?

It does not happen to us. No.


The learnings from the evening were huge. As blank noise interventions go, this was the first time we had to explain ourselves. We were not standing up, mutely challenging a public space. We were not making a statement. We were engaging.

This was the idea. Mapping the city. Getting women to fill in the blanks - create their own letters to strangers, based on their own experiences. Involving them in ways that is not possible if they only look at us.

The first thing we learnt was something we'd forgotten: that it is taboo to talk about what has happened to you. That many, many women still fear the accusation (or the assumption) that they were responsible. There is, perhaps, a culpability associated with sexual behaviour, even if it isn't your own.

The second thing we learnt was that it is easier to confront, harder to draw out, engage.

The third was that even those who were hostile, were intrigued. We ran out of pamphlets and letters quickly.

The fourth was that we needed more time, more volunteers, more maps.


While we gathered round a bench later, talking about what we'd just seen and what frustrated us, a woman came up to us.

"So what will this accomplish? What are you trying to do?"

"To stop what we call eve-teasing. So many people said, 'it happens; it's normal'. Our point is to establish that it is not normal. It is not right."

"But you cannot change men's attitudes."

"We can. We can change women, at least. So that we stop putting up with it and enforce a change.... would you like to put your thumb-print on the map?"

Grinning, she held up her thumb. It was already inked blue.

Cross-posted here.

Chai as self

I've been told that those who do not love themselves will never be able truly love anyone else (although they often do/say things that wins them the love of others, which may then persuade them that they are lovable). Those who do not treat themselves with respect, will find it hard to truly respect anyone else. They will respect things, instead - the money one makes, the clout one has, the accent one speaks in, the contacts one boasts of... But take away all of this, and what do you have?
A person. Who deserves to be respected just for being that. A person.

And those who do not love chai do not know what it is to treat a brew with respect. With a genuine interest, curiosity, and no prejudices based on package, brand or price.

For, chai needs to be loved just for itself.
Not because it is fragrant, flavoured, exotic, from new trees or old.
Not because it can bring you relief, respite, anti-oxidants.
Not because it is strong, or mild, or just right, or vaccum-sealed.
Just because it is chai and chai is good (unless it has been treated badly).


A true chai-lover loves chai in all its colours and ethnicities, regardless of whether it can accomplish something for you or not. North-hill darjeelings or south-hill munnars; Chinese or Bangladeshi; Pakistani or Indian. In your heart, they all have a place.

For you must experiment. It is like discovering one's own moods. It is like discovering how deep your own capacity for tolerance, sweetness, change, patience is.

Chai reveals itself over time, over years. Like you don't really know what you enjoy doing, until you've done it, you never know what brew you'll take a fancy to. You might spend ten years sipping sticky-sweet tapri chai with enough milk in it to sate a new calf, but then you might go to a Chinese restaurant where they keep your (tea) cup full, and your heart might expand just a little bit with your stretching horizons.

Like you may spend ten years swearing by ginger, and eschewing elaichi, and adding only three tablespoons of tea to a large mug of chai, and that's that. But then, you might move into a new place and your flatmate might have bought a pack of chai masala and you might begin pinching a pinch, now and then, and as the spice floats up your nose, you will know that you've just been seduced by a stranger. Whom you're going to go on seeing, now and then, though you're still awfully committed to ginger.

Like you may dislike the tea-flavoured milk the villagers in Punjab serve you, but after the fifth, sixth, seventh, seventeenth cup, you will smile at the memory and wonder if you should attempt something similar at home. Because, things grow on you.

Like you never know where you'll end up, in chai or love. But if you're brave, you'll have something unique. Like my flatmate who, at university, used to start with an attempted chai, discover that it wasn't quite working, and end up using the chai in a pancake batter. Chai pancakes... ever thought of that?!

Perhaps, not everybody's cup of tea , but the thing with tea is, it doesn't need to be everybody's. It just needs to be yours.


Chai 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

A separate section for the ladies

A string strung across two trees. Half a dozen calves strung to the string. It is momentarily eerie. Almost as if the calves – child-bulls – were threatening to commit suicide. But they're only chewing the cud, waiting to be sold.

These are probably prize calves, from racing stock. Probably from the tough bulls racing up a storm barely half a kilometer away, at the Grewal Indoor stadium in Qila Raipur. Racing outdoors, though. Two bullocks were yoked together with a slim plank of wood trailing behind, attached to two motorcycle wheels. It wasn't unlike the two-wheel chariots I remember from Hollywood periodicals.

The jockey has a tougher time. At least, it looks tough. Can't be easy balancing with your feet on a narrow ledge between two wheels and your torso thrown forward on the slanting plank of the yoke. Imagine that you're half-lying, face down, hands busy with reins or a chaabuk.

One pair of bulls took a tumbling somersault in one of the races. They were a determined pair, though; within seconds, they were back on their feet and raring to race again. Except that the jockey had fallen off and the bulls didn't wait long enough for him to catch up. Besides, they were disoriented and didn't know which direction to run in; they ended up running in a diagonal across the track, with the jockey in hot pursuit.

I never saw the indoors of this indoor stadium which hosts the annual 'rural olympics' in Punjab. I wasn't there for the sports anyway, but because of the elections. Qila Raipur is a constituency and this is a good time to be at the sporting event because there are many people from various districts. I was there to speak to them, to talk politics. To hold up a straw, so to speak, to see which way the wind was blowing.

The first old turbaned gentleman I tried talking to spoke a dialect of Punjabi that I was, well, more unfamiliar with; I could barely make out his name and that he was from Toor. The second one told me he was an athlete; in the fifties, he had won second place in the district 100 metre run. An ex-army man and two-time sarpanch now (the first time, his wife won as sarpanch, which he said, was the same thing as him winning), he's making a football stadium in his village. To prevent the youth from being corrupted by narcotics.

The third one didn't say much. He was 92 years old (born 1915, as mentioned on his i-card from the Punjab Association of Veteran Athletes) and intended to participate in the next day's race for veterans. The old regulars were a little sulky about the changes in the sporting event. There was a time where the crowds were three times thicker. When there were no chairs and everybody squatted in the dust. When there was no 'security', no policemen keeping the crowds in line. When there was no loudspeaker and no running commentary and no sponsors. Most of the spectators couldn't see the 'entertainment' (songs, dances, acrobats, gymnasts) because at least twenty photographers and camera crews blocked the view. Also, because of the determined young men holding placards saying Parle-G insisted on positioning themselves right behind the performers, so that the sponsor's name was in each and every frame of the cameras.

I had just begun to talk to a couple of elderly farmers sitting on a parked scooter when a small crowd gathered around. This is not unusual; I'm used to crowds gathering around anybody with a notebook or a camera in most places. But this time, it felt unusally unpleasant. Our conversation was interrupted by a stocky, high-spirited sardar who'd been in one of the races. He'd won the first round and was aggressively conversational. I asked him if he was having fun. He said he was and so was everyone else and then he laughed. For some reason, the whole crowd burst out laughing too.

I turned to look all around me. For the first time, I noticed that it was all men. Not a single woman or child. And they were all laughing. A sliver of anger shot through my head (causing an immediate headache that lasted the whole day).

The anger had been simmering for the last few minutes, actually; ever since an anonymous hand touched my backside; anonymously buried itself into the crowd. For the last few minutes, I had been trying to tell myself that it may have been an accident. But the anger was waiting to take over from denial.

The bullock-racing sardar went on with the fun theme. How some people found fun in bulls, some in horses, some in kabaddi and some in watching... everybody had their own 'shaukh'. This caused another burst of laughter from the crowd.

I turned to ask the people on my left – what was so funny?

Another round of mirth, but less sure of itself. Some of the younger boys broke away from the fringes of the crowd. To my right, a young man spoke up. Began to answer the questions I was angling to ask; he seemed to know why I was here, and what to say.

Instinctively, he sensed my anger. As I stepped away, he apologized indirectly for the crowd. "There are no positive-thinking people here, madam. All negative-thinking. I think you should go inside and watch the races."

I told him I was not keen on the races. I needed to talk to people.

He told me that there was a separate section for the ladies.

And there's always one needed. Isn't there?

The unexpected garden

Jallianwala bagh... I had not expected to want to visit it.

Just like I do not wear white khadi to show support for Gandhian thought, just like I do not use prayer to reaffirm faith, I do not usually visit martyr-memorials to remind myself of the freedom struggle. Overt nationalism makes me uncomfortable; as if we were trying to prove a point about our self-worth. Besides, patriotism leaves me with strange questions (What is a legitimate nation? Are we a legit nation? Are we the nation we promised ourselves we’d be? If we have failed ourselves, do we have the right to de-nation ourselves? Why/why not?).

But the taxi driver, on the way back to the hotel, pointed out the sign; Jallianwala bagh, he said.

And I asked him to stop the car.

I had not expected to find that particular song float through my head...‘aapki baat, baat phoolo.n ki’…

But I had not expected to find flowers either. Flowers were the first thing I saw in the bagh (it really is a bagh now, though there was no garden at the time of the massacre. What was called Jallianwala Bagh was simply a space, about five and a half feet lower than the surrounding streets, with houses all around and only one narrow entry/exit, and was almost a dump, used occasionally for meetings and public gathering. The land was bought off at least 34 different owners, after 1920, to build the memorial, and later, the landscaped garden).

I went through the same narrow entry/exit, where General Dyer had once led his troops, past the spot where the soldiers knelt to fire, past fading geroo-coloured walls which neither beckoned nor imposed, past a sign mentioning timings – different, for summer and winter – where I noticed that I had only a few minutes to look around.

Rows upon rows of flower-pots. Snap-dragons, daisies, pansies. Yellows, purples, whites, pinks. A rose-patch. Neat hedges.

And constant music. Patriotic filmy songs. As it happened, the one playing right now was apt - ‘is mitti se tilak karo, ye dharti hai balidaan ki; vande matram…’

I had not expected to be moved.

Perhaps, it was not the song. Perhaps, it was the amar-jyoti (eternally burning, courtesy Indian Oil) that stood trembling before me. Or, I before it.

Perhaps, it was the late winter afternoon and the setting sun and the five white-bearded men sitting on a stone bench, all in a row. Perhaps, that was why I had gooseflesh.

Or perhaps, it was because of the now-covered well that I couldn’t see the bottom of, from where 150 corpses were pulled out. One shudders a little near it: the air is cold there; the very smell is cold.

Or maybe, I was moved because of the kites. Almost every tree had a torn kite stuck it its branches. Some dead trees. Many dead kites. Maybe, it was the sad poetry of it.

But I had not expected to struggle with awkward tears.

There is a little museum inside, full of portraits and explanations. Dr Kichlu and Dr Satyapal, already old men both, who were arrested and deported. Their arrests were what sparked off the protests that led to the Jallianwala bagh meeting.

But I spent the most time with Ratan Devi’s portrait.

Ratan Devi, widow of Chhaju Bhagat, who had gone to the meeting at Jallianwala Bagh. When the soldiers opened fire, Ratan Devi began to worry, to cry with fear. Her husband did not come back. She decided to go and look for him, although there was a curfew from 8 pm onwards. Once inside the bagh, she found his body and she asked her sons to bring a charpai, to bring the body home.

But it was already 8 pm. Her family did not show up. One after another, she asked people to help her carry the body home. But nobody was willing to risk their own lives, to bring home the dead.

Ratan Devi decided to wait there, not willing to leave her husband's body lying there alone. She thought herself lucky when she managed to find a bamboo stick, so she could keep stray dogs off the body. Where she sat, there were injured people. Still alive. Writhing in pain. Three men. A buffalo. A twelve-year old boy.

She asked the boy if he was cold. If she could cover him with a shawl or something. The boy asked for water. There was none to give.

All through the night, she sat there, guarding a dead man, listening to the dying. There she sat, until half past five in the morning, when her family showed up with a charpai. And she said - what she went through, that night, only she knew or god did.


Outside, the dying sun allowed itself one last burst, glinting against the silhouette of a woman sitting on the grass. All I could see was a shock of white hair on a faceless old woman and the sounds of screaming, running children.

I had not expected that.