The subject of gender equality and empowerment for women has remained a burning issue of this decade. In view of the recent release - ‘Pink’, a court room drama featuring Amitabh Bachchan, Taapsee Pannu, Kirti Kulhari and Andrea Taring in pivotal roles, the issues have been stirred up once again. And I must confess, there are rarely films that give me goose bumps while sitting in the theater. It is very normal with many though. Some weep, some growl and some even hurl the choicest expletives to the screen! I can't recollect when was the last time I experienced something remotely close to all this and I, in an unpremeditated spree uttered those two words in a hushed voice like I just did last evening. And there you go! In colloquial Bengali it is literally ‘Gaye Kaanta’ (Cold shivers).
A lot of people have found “Pink’’ overrated – repetitive –
so on and so forth! But I ask – haven’t they in that case missed some of the
most important points? Isn’t it exactly the need of the hour? Do we not keep
repeating ourselves harping on the same old point until it is established and
implemented? Why do the majority shrug off from the bitter truth? Why can’t we
be intrepid about accepting the vices that dominate our outlook and the environment we are brought up in? Is it so
onerous to receive and comprehend such a powerful message that grips you
through and through without making it ear splitting? The girls and their
unfortunate circumstances in the narrative are bound to remind every woman about the day to day challenges that she has to perpetually face.
She has to get up, get dressed, shine away and conquer her place in a
world that still abides by and is blindly submerged in an ocean of unwavering
feudal ideologies. "Wahan mat jaao" (Don't go there), "Woh mat karo" (Don't do that), "Us se mat milo" (Do not meet that person), "Yeh mat pehno" (Don't wear this),
"Shaadi kar lo" (Get married) – ultimately everything zeroes down to "Log kya kahenge" (What
will people say). A woman’s character has been an endless matter of discussion
and debate specifically in the light of Indian culture. Culture as we call it,
the dynamics are based on a primitive mentality and self loathing commandments,
that are palpably man made. Yes man made. Pre-decided and superimposed by an
irrational and patriarchal belief system that refuses to open its eyes to any sort
of deviation. As the persona of Deepak Sehgal (Mr. Bachchan), defense lawyer
for these damsels in distress rightly addresses and echoes the perennial
problem of conventionalizing a woman’s character and thus labeling her as either
‘good’ or ‘bad’, one knows how the ticking off the clock ascertains a woman’s
character to date.
‘Witch’, ‘Rebel’, ‘Whore’, ‘Characterless’ – let me
put these in much more audibly dogmatist terms – ‘Dayan’, ‘Baagi’, ‘Veshya’,
‘Manhoos’ (Inauspicious) – the list of name-calling goes on. And the worst part – women, as a race have been defending themselves for long and carrying these so
called tags in the market for society to determine their price. Having
lived in Delhi, the capital of India as a single working girl for four lonely
years, I know what it takes to go out on the streets alone in the night. What it
takes to stay out late and cross over those treacherous areas such as Uttam
Nagar, Tilak Nagar and Dabri – well known for being registered on cases of
sexual violence, abduction, kidnapping and even domestic abuse. I remember my
days residing in Dwarka, and I chose this location purely on the basis of
minimizing the distance from the airport as I was working with the airline.
There were torrid summer nights when the only respite from long hours of load
shedding was to step out of the residence and stroll around the streets in
lookout for a glass of chilled Mango shake and a bit of fresh air. Covering 200
meters from the working girl’s hostel till the point where our Mango shake
bhaiya used to be sitting with his fruit cart, was a test of a lot of things
for us girls. There were prying eyes as we walked around in shorts and spaghetti. Once it so happened that our gang of five had to hold each others’
hands tight and run for our lives in the dark as we found a group of loungers were following us. Wary of their possible ulterior motifs, we couldn’t
have taken a chance because this is the same area where we had been hearing reports
of incidents involving theft, eve teasing and even knifing that were frequently
taking place in broad daylight. I’m sure, if we have to go by the misconstrued
guidebook apprising us of women’s safety rules according to the Indian mindset,
some sunshine should probably reduce the percentage of people raising their
brows at women in comparison to those who loiter in and around pubs, discotheques in the dead of night, and consecutively
drop “hints” of their availability to the opposite sex!
I come from a country that is driven by a lobby of half
literate leaders, and I do shudder at their misogynist views – “Should rape
cases lead to hanging? Boys are boys, they make mistakes.” Well, these sons make
mistakes and the wombs of their mothers fret in eternal guilt and shame. Every
time we save a rapist, we commit a graver crime. Every time the honorable
front runners of our nation pour scorn on how our girls must not board a
private bus uninhibitedly at night, we make it tougher for our
sisters, mothers and daughters to move around freely. Every time women are
chastised for the length of their skirt, we declare how their existence is fraught with danger and their security at stake. But who cares?
"Ladki ho." (You're a woman) "Izzatdar gharane se ho." (You're from a respectable family) "Achhi ladkiyan aise kapde nahi pehenti." (Good girls aren't supposed to wear short clothes).
The day we start changing this clichéd theory and grab the
bull by its horns instead, our sons shall buckle up no matter where the frills
fall – the knees, the mid or the upper thighs!
It was summer 2013, and I was in no mood for marriage. My
heartaches, my career, my freedom, my independence – all this was then latched
on to a city that was singled out as the most crime prone and perilous for
women. Yet all of this was more precious to me than getting tied down by
conjugal duties and a kind of immobility too. It would have probably impounded
me as a part and parcel of the whole package – I thought. My parents were
definitely ready to ring the wedding bells for their only audacious and
disobedient daughter. While I came flying down to my hometown so that I could
see my ailing grandmother, the news of me being home bound began spreading like
wildfire. I fondly remember a very dear relative of mine spilling some
unsolicited advice to my mum on phone about getting me hooked soon as the safety
scene for women in Delhi went from bad to worse. No wonder she was one of those
overtly concerned "rishtedaar" who would be ever ready to promptly extend her
sympathies and persuasively go on to console even if the marriage falls apart
in next few hours. Having said that, she will motor mouth her expert opinions
which pretty much aligns with that of our former chief minister of Haryana, to
whom, the best way to prevent sexual exploitation is to draw inspiration for
getting our daughters married early. Hence, we need to “learn from the
past.” “In the Mughal era, people used
to then marry their girls to save them from Mughal atrocities”. Perhaps they both (My rishtedaar and the CM) could envision the then political milieu as pitiable enough to take resort to
such absurd solutions and call it a truce.
The heated argument in the court over girls partying and drinking that
engages the post intermission sequences from the movie pops up several questions
that still remain unresolved. Just like these girls in the movie, many of my
friends, their friends and their sisters who are open minded, friendly and
prefer living life in their own terms, are misunderstood for being “available”
to random men as an object of sexual pleasure. Sharing a drink, a dance floor
or having dinner together doesn’t necessarily mean a woman is ready to let go
off her dignity. Even with her smile and a casual pat on a male friend’s back it
doesn’t imply that she is inviting a pack of wolves to plow between her thighs wide
open!
But alas! We live in a society that still condemns women for picking up
the glass in front her father since she can NOT afford to become a “bad girl’’ but
these doomed male chauvinists of the house can unhesitatingly keep up the
rituals of ceaseless deprivation, chronic oppression and unrelenting abuse of their
female counterparts in the family, as they are the “good” ones with all the
virtues intact in them despite such irreparable damages. It must be fetching them
the supreme power to withstand all forms of subjugation, bigotry yet
maintain the brand name of a piece of priced property possessed by these
monsters and masters of orthodoxy. There is a superabundance of such instances that mirrors the
image of our women in contemporary India. Every day is a lightning bolt of what
one “should” and “shouldn’t” be doing. Ironically, certain pre-conceived
notions run in our system that defies all logic and justification. I have left
India two years back, so the faintest of moderation in the thinking process
isn’t something that is going to catch my sight (I doubt, in reality, there will
be hardly any.). But there was a time many of my female friends who worked at
night shifts in the beginning of their career and were thus looked down upon as promiscuous. I was even warned by
respectable elders of the society to stay away from such girls of
“questionable” character. They worked in Call Centers – some of them did so to
support their families financially, some simply craved the taste of
independence. What I could never decipher was the trumped up discourse on
morality that these preachers of considerable sanctimony claimed that my
friends were lacking. Sadly, these self-appointed role models of our generation
are like inchworms, infesting us slowly and gradually with their garbled and
remorseless doctrines of what an ideal woman of unsullied modesty must behave
like. Needless to say, that includes not touching alcohol, veiling oneself head
to toe, avoid any physical contact with the opposite sex so that it doesn’t
appear as a “license” to the male hegemony of the community to take her
for a ride. Her chastity, her consent and her body parts may then very well become
mere commodities waiting to be ravaged - scarring her soul and making her ugly
for life.
I can’t resist myself from letting a couple of more cats out
of the bag as I have been no exception, but barely a perishable constitution of
flesh and blood – susceptible to these radical and lopsided societal pressures and judgments prevailing
far and wide. Once I met a guy at the Café Coffee Day in Delhi for the purpose
of matrimonial alliance. Arranged by the
families of course, we were supposed to interact with each other in order to
figure out the most essential aspect – if the idea of coming together is at all
going to work. Little did I know – Mr. Right with a moderately good
personality, enviable degrees and commendable achievements in his profession of
an academician was coming to see me with an already prefixed mind to tie the
knot. As opposed to him, quite skeptical about how this meet was going
to turn out, I wanted to keep it discreet. Over a cup of coffee he wanted to
know if I drink and if I party out late with my friends. Also, if I had
boyfriends! My replies were
unapologetically thrown at him in affirmative. I was 27 and I wasn’t what he was expecting me to be! TA-DA! Looking
at his washed out reactions I only asked him two questions that were left in my
kitty. First – What is he looking for in his prospective life partner and
second – who all are there in his family. To which, he conceivably chose not to
respond to the former and straightway plunged in to the latter. He told me about
his elder brother, who had to file a divorce from his “unscrupulous” wife.
On being asked how her scruples weren’t right, he enlightened me with some of
her character traits that the husband could unmask only after marriage. There
was a charter of strict ‘NO’s that came in to view and assuredly, this anonymous woman was my savior –
- In the first place, she wasn’t a virgin and lost it to her teenage boyfriend in school which was well concealed from the husband.
- She was working in a bank and had to often attend parties with her boss and colleagues. Once she was spotted alone in a car with one of her male colleagues who was dropping her off home safely. Interestingly, it was just two of them in the car and they weren’t caught kissing or doing anything “unscrupulous” for that matter.
- She occasionally drank and wore "low neck blouses" when she attended these parties. This was taken to mean that she was open to other men for relationships outside wedlock and that pretty much sums up her immoral actions and impurity so to say.
- Last but not the least, she had the grit and candidness to say “NO’’ at times to sexual intercourse on being exhausted after a long day’s work, which her husband took to be an unpretentious indication of her floozy character and multiple ongoing affairs that presumably made her lose interest in the marriage.
Well, we winded up in another ten minutes as I knew it wasn’t going anywhere. We were different, so were our perspectives. Period. But
that didn’t solve the problem. On the hind side, I became more reluctant to
explore alliances and talk to people to find the right match for myself. I could never
understand who selects the parameters of what a woman should wear, eat or drink and what category she falls in according to her acts and deeds – a demure and angelic
homemaker or a reprehensible hooker! Regardless of what your identity is and
how the society perceives you, you still remain a woman. And yes, under and
below the virile. Who cares at the end of the day all of your spirits
are caged in the same skeleton but while sheathed in your beautiful skin –
sometimes White, sometimes Pink, sometimes Yellow, sometimes Brown and
sometimes Black – you are carved with slightly unique features. That separates
you from the rest of the tribe and empowers you to recreate and bring life on
earth. Until we realize this, the road is bumpy. Like it has been for someone I know
very closely.
She wasn’t aware that she, like many, didn't have the right to say “NO” as well.
She was only seventeen – happy-go-lucky, smiling, polite and ambitious about life. Her
amiability and smile was misinterpreted as her gullibility, therefore exploitation was easy. She was abused by her thirty three year old private teacher. As she shared stories about
her school and classmates with him, sometimes how the competition over grades
took a toll on her, he thought she willingly confided in him, which she did. But she was completely alien to what was in store. He started touching her
inappropriately and one day she expressed her disgust. Though she had the
conviction to fathom this was wrong and mustered courage to say “NO” – she was not
only exploited time and again, but also threatened that her results shall be
unsatisfactory in the absence of his guidance. This, obviously shook her up as
the final exams were knocking on the doors. This went on for quite a while but
one day, she made up her mind to share her plight with her granny, whom she was
very attached to.
Goes without saying, she was apprehensive of disclosing
anything to her parents, who, she assumed might hold her responsible for all
this – why she delayed informing this or her friendliness was the cause behind
the trouble she had got in. And the worst – what if she doesn’t get hold of
another equally accomplished and efficient guide to help her sail through the
next few years? The evening she had planned to unravel this horrible state of affairs to
her granny, she was forcefully kissed by her way heftier, stronger, and
intimidating mentor, who didn’t dither from pressing himself hard against her
and it choked her to death. She had only kissed her first boyfriend the previous
Valentine’s month and nothing could have been more terrible than this. She has been carrying the burden of this unpleasant memory all this while and her parents do not know
anything more than this man going absconding after this incident. She had to change
her tuition and came out clean with flying colors in her finals. Having known her personally, I can say she’s doing
brilliant today. But the shock and trauma of being compelled into something she
clearly said “NO” to haunts her even now.
This is the story of every girl today and we can’t do much
about it. Every other girl child is abused behind closed doors during her
adolescence, teens, sometimes even during her infancy which she can’t remember at times. One needs to reconsider this entire anatomy of gender bias, social
imbalance and prejudices that are predetermined immediately at the time a
female child is born. She is thereafter subjected to bear with and carry out
the norms and ethos laid down by her neighborhood, her village, her state, her
nation and even her folks. Nobody bothers if she’s approached by a serial
killer, a terrorist, a thug, a drug lord, the CEO of a multinational company or
the most duplicitous dharmik baba (religious leader) of the era. What disturbs
everyone is from where she gathers the strength to refuse being victimized and
how is she going to exercise that unseen and inestimable force to fight the
evil out once and for all. This is the riddle we need to unscramble for ourselves and that’s what makes us who we are. It’s not the shade of our lipstick, but the verbal assertiveness, it’s not the
designer purse hanging from our wrists but the invisible sword in our hands. It’s not our high
heels but the standards we set for ourselves to walk freely, proudly and unfalteringly.
It’s time to have eyes front, heads up and shine away. It’s time to go Pink and
kiss our chicken-hearts goodbye.
