The Spectre of Rape

August 2013: Why women are always looking over our shoulders.

If I were a man, I might even prefer Delhi to Mumbai. I’m serious—in this city, I miss Delhi’s roads, space, parks, infrastructure, cleanliness… the works. But Delhi is a gendered experience, and, as a free-spirited woman, nothing makes the misogyny of the average North Indian man from the Cow Belt and patriarchal Punjab and Haryana worth it. When fear of rape and personal safety become overriding concerns, it shackles you; traps you in the golden cages of your cars, houses, society, familiarity; enforces the protectiveness of a male friend or relative who must escort you home after every night out; occupies some part of your brain in thoughts about safety all the time; changes your dress, your demeanour, your personality. It impacts your career: when I took over as the Editor of India’s leading décor magazine when I was 24, the learning curve was steep, the work unrelenting. I’d consistently come home past midnight in public transport—and know that, were I in Delhi, at some point my parents would have said enough, the possibilities were too dire. Even for less ambitious women from more conservative backgrounds who find self-worth and liberation in regular 9-5 jobs, Mumbai’s culture, transport and male mindset in general are way more conducive.

My friend Jordyn says that, with my personality type, I cannot live in a place where my race, gender, religion, etc are factors in my way of life, my freedom to do what I want to do, say what I want to say, go where I want to go—my freedom to be. I guess he is right, and I am destined to live my life in liberal, cosmopolitan cities. In India, Mumbai it is.

So when someone, anyone, gets gang raped in the heart of this city in the daytime, it shakes me to the core. I’m not pseudo-nostalgic about some idealised Bombay that was once safe—I have read Sohaila Abdulali’s account of being gang raped in 1980 in Chembur by four men, and the other rapes that have made the headlines since. Nor am I so naïve as to believe that only the rapes that get reported actually happen, or that Mumbai is any more or less safe than it has been before this recent incident—the main accused in this recent case has admitted that the gang raped others, including couples and rag pickers, in the same spot, who never reported it. And, besides, rape is often insidious, not always so dramatic or newsworthy. Nonetheless, when it’s in your face, it reminds you of the fragility of your gender, of a unique fear that plagues one half of humanity far more than it does the other. To quote feminist poet Marge Piercy: “Fear of rape is a cold wind blowing/ All of the time on a woman's hunched back./ Never to stroll alone on a sand road through pinewoods,/ Never to climb a trail across a bald/ Without that aluminium in the mouth/ When I see a man climbing toward me.”

The Blame Game

As always, political reactions range from blame and disempowering of the woman, to her mollycoddling. On the one hand, we’ve had the usual ‘Women are weaker, should not be out at night/alone/in unsafe places/in inappropriate clothes’ spiel, on the other hand is Home Minister RR Patil’s utterly preposterous suggestion that female journos should have police escorts when in secluded places. (To underscore our female-is-weaker-than-male sexist conditioning, MNS’s Raj Thackeray recommended Patil be sent bangles, to suggest his feminine inefficiency in governance.) Either way, these reactions put the onus of her own safety entirely on the woman, not addressing the responsibility that men have in this matter—as though men are enslaved by their maggotted desires, unwilling and unable to control them.

There is also the usual political bashing of ‘Western Culture’ that has contributed to women’s lib in a great way, but surprisingly little of the ‘rape culture’ that is creating these monsters out of men. If anything, ‘Western Culture’ (or the homogenous entity it is believed to be) empowers women, giving them agency, individuality and control, and therefore, rights and respect. If anything, it is this culture that has the potential to squash the entrenched patriarchy that allows Indian men to see women as weaker and worthy of subjugation. It is this liberation (and, of course, socioeconomic might) that enabled the photojournalist to come forward where the rag pickers couldn’t.

The sooner we, as a culture and its police, politicians and public administration, change our sexist mindsets about the ‘weaker sex’, put the onus of rape on the man and not the woman, and stop short-changing victims in the law, the sooner we will have (maybe not less rapes, every society breeds monsters) more reporting, sensitivity, outrage and justice for the ones that do happen.

We are called a city of survivors, a city where people will dust themselves off and get to work before the dust from a bomb blast has even settled. This little 22-year-old, faced with the uphill task of recovering from being brutalised in the worst way, shows she is made of great stuff: “I want to join duty as early as possible,” she says from her hospital bed. Cheers to that, and to her other wish that the five perpetrators get the strictest punishment at the earliest.

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An edited version of this column appeared in Governance Now in August 2013.

Muslims & Majority/Minority Mindsets

August 2013: Most of us will never know the subtle and not-so-subtle discrimination this minority faces in India and the world over.

Someone asked me many years ago whether there is discrimination in India. While my first reaction was to say no, I realised that, in actual fact, I would not really know—because, for all intents and purposes, I am the privileged majority. Apart from being a woman, which hasn’t been debilitating in my sociocultural environment, on paper I’m Hindu, and upper caste to boot. I’m pretty and fair, educated and speak English. What discrimination would I face? For me, the world is an oyster, a fair meritocracy sans hurdles that I cannot cross. This, I take for granted.

But this is not how life must appear to those who are pre-judged for their names and their attire, and are racially profiled every day, all the time, and by everybody: the uneducated, the System and the classes alike. As soon as my last domestic help realised that the delicious phirni had come from a Muslim friend on Eid, he refused to eat it and said, “Main un logon ka khana nahi khaata.” Most Muslims who travel internationally will tell you that that ‘random security checks’ at airports aren’t really random—ask Shah Rukh Khan, who was “detained at the (US) airport as always” last year. Try renting a home in Mumbai as a Muslim—it is bad enough for families, but for a bachelor it’s near impossible. At my previous office, a colleague re-joined a day after he’d quit because he couldn’t find a rental home close to his new workplace in Andheri, and travelling to and from his parents’ home in central Mumbai wasn’t a viable option! My former landlady, Hindu married to a Muslim and bearing his surname, had kept Muslim tenants before us. She describes having to battle the housing society to let the family stay: I’ve heard her use the line “All terrorists are Muslims, all Muslims are not terrorists” to defend them and her own family time and again. And recently on Eid, Himalaya Mall, one of Ahmedabad’s five biggest, decided to charge Muslims, and them alone, a Rs 20 entrance fee; while a sign outside a shopping centre in faraway Texas said, ‘No Muslim Parking… Your car will be towed’.

I’ve never had to feel these things. But Sahil, my husband, whose name is of Urdu origin, will never forget his encounter with a fellow holidayer in the UK a few years ago. While his family was in the room, he decided to explore the hotel and neighbourhood, where he met an older man, also from Mumbai. They exchanged names and not much else, and Sahil didn’t think much about it. Later, he found his father, who has a Hindu name, in conversation with the same man. “This is my son,” he told the man. “Oh,” the man said to Sahil, “I’m sorry I didn’t speak to you. I thought you were Muslim.”

I come from a completely secular family. My Dad was a non-practicing Hindu; Mum goes to church once in a couple of months. Asked what I am, I’ve always said I’m neither—not Hindu, not Catholic, I’m apathetic agnostic. I can say with absolute conviction that I have no sort of religious prejudice—if anything, I’m uniformly and collectively disdainful of them all.

Given this proclamation, when I went through my phone book to send Eid Mubarak messages, I was surprised at how few Muslims I know (and, ask yourself, how many do you know)? As such a major minority, they have had a disproportionately small representation in the 11 mainstream educational institutions I’ve attended up to my Masters, as well as in the companies I’ve worked for and in my social circles across cities. Instead, a great many of the carpenters, upholsters, painters, labour, etc that I work with, in my alternate career as a set designer, are Muslim.

I generalise, I realise, but my intention is to call out the fact that this discrimination is detrimental to a whole community, a vast number of people. In covert and overt ways, deliberately or subconsciously, they are systemically, culturally and personally denied easy access in to mainstream life and resources that we take for granted.

Admittedly, I’m not as immune to subconscious stereotyping as I’d like to be, though I am constantly on the lookout for any seeds of indoctrination. It is a well-documented fact that 9/11’s biggest and most unfortunate legacy is the demonising of all Muslims by American politicians and people, and the media worldwide, and the associated discrimination. A few years ago, I found myself driving in a small lane in a Muslim part of town at 8.30 on a Friday evening. Men in white kurtas and topis returning harmlessly from their prayers surrounded my car. I was terrified—partly because mobs of men scare me, more so because these were Muslim men. And I was ashamed and full of self-loathing.

It made me question whether my (in)tolerance of religion is really as uniform as I’ve always said it is. I wondered how I—with my logic, and belief in the individual beyond pigeonholing—could allow myself to be preconditioned against a huge percentage of people by society, culture and the media. But we all are, aren’t we?

And then we wonder why Muslim people seem to carry a chip on their collective shoulder, are in parts defensive and offensive, and why they choose to remain wary and sequestered. While we can argue the chicken or egg question without ever reaching a conclusion, we cannot deny the role we, the majority and the media, have played in creating this chasm. Or the responsibility we bear to bridge it.

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An edited version of this column appeared in Governance Now in August 2013.

Dance Mumbai Dance

July 2013: Celebrating the Supreme Court’s decision to squash the ban on Mumbai’s dance bars, and what it represents…

After 10 years away, I returned to my beloved Mumbai in December 2005, shortly after the state government’s ban on dance bars came in to effect. They were very much a talking point then, and continued to remain in public consciousness through their eight-year ban, recently lifted by the Supreme Court.

It observed that the Maharashtra government’s decision violated bar dancers’ right to livelihood and was ill-considered, leaving many jobless women with no option but to turn to prostitution. Besides, allowing women entertainers in establishments with ratings of three stars and above is classist and breeds inequality. In the end, it is the triumph of the right to earn over moral policing, of practicality over autocratic bureaucracy… but, inherently, it stands for so much more.

With this ruling, the Apex Court has delivered a body blow to the cultural imperialism and misogyny that has been the bane of this once liberal, cosmopolitan city, and the Bombay Police (Amendment) Act of 2005. We have bred the draconian Dhobles wielding their hockey sticks with impunity, seen a dip in women’s safety, and observed the growing chasm between the haves and have nots, all this against the backdrop of increasingly risqué cultural fare dished out via aspiration-inspiring Bollywood. We are a confused bunch, led by thoroughly confused politicians, trying to negotiate changing sociocultural paradigms, the old and the new.

Moral policing is NOT the way to do so. For one, who determines what is moral or immoral? Who draws the hypocritical line that allows heaving bosoms in film songs, at stage shows, award functions and upmarket venues, and disallows it in dance bars? More importantly, does moral policing extend only to sexuality, and that too, female sexuality—and not to those who allow illegal, substandard buildings to come up and collapse, those who rob our coffers, those who poison poor children’s mid-day meals. Clearly, morality is subjective, but I believe that, in the grander scheme of things, there are far more important ‘immoral’ issues to tackle than female modesty. Really.

Aside from the moral policing issue, I think the ban on dance bars has robbed Mumbai of two of its best characteristics—a semblance of women’s lib and socioeconomic parity. Simply put, an expensive city needs double income homes, and women here have needed to work—virtuous, gharelu ideals for daughters, sisters and wives be damned. A society with working women tends to foster education, liberation, equality, empowerment, and safety and respect. Disallowing thousands of adult women from practicing their trade, immoral though it may seem to some, has taken us back a few steps. If the government believes that bar dancing is “derogatory to the dignity of women”, well, so is treating these dancers like dependents without rights on their own bodies and choices.

And it’s not as though this ban eradicated bar dancing altogether. A ‘lucky’ few continued to dance in sleazy underground ‘orchestra’ bars, more vulnerable than ever before for plying their illegal trade. Others were compelled into prostitution, while a few have managed to make successful career changes, like the famous Sweety of Grant Road’s Topaz bar who is now a make-up artist.

What I have always loved about this city is its lack of classism and respect for the individual beyond the family, history and wealth they come from. Though Bollywood is turning dynastical with this new crop of star children, strugglers throng to the ‘city of dreams’ like they always have, and any one of them could be the next Shah Rukh or Dhirubhai. No dreams, big or small, seem unachievable—but, seemingly, watching women dance has been reserved for wealthy men, and performing live has been reserved for those few women who can land gigs at three-star venues.

The ban was clearly politically motivated, and it seems to have backfired in more ways than one. Eight years on, it is deemed unconstitutional and imprudent, without a thought for the repercussions. Not only have the dancers and bar owners suffered, but it is estimated that cash-strapped Maharashtra has lost out on Rs 24,000 crores of excise revenue and licence fees. And yet, at the time of going to press, Home Minister RR Patil is reviewing legal options, and blusters that the ban will continue despite the Supreme Court’s directive.

Instead of fighting what is sure to be a losing battle against the country’s laws, I wish he, and others in public administration, would read up on American psychologist Abraham Maslow’s significant 1943 theory on the hierarchy of needs, and apply it to governance and social construction in India—and the third world in general. Maslow classified humans’ emotional needs as Physiological, Safety, Belongingness and Love, Esteem, Self-Actualisation and Self-Transcendence—from the most basic, to the most advanced. In India and other developing countries, many are still deprived of the absolute basics—food and water. Safety and security—of body, employment, resources, morality, family, health and property—are a long way off for most, particularly women. Instead of seeking to control evolved concerns like culture and morality, the government should focus its limited resources on securing the basics for its citizens. In this case, its ban on ‘immoral’ dance bars has actually deprived thousands of food, and the safety of their bodies, employment, resources, family and health. Okay, forget Maslow: I wish they’d just follow our Constitution, which is rather progressive for the most part.

I welcome the relegalising of bar dancing. Like my opinion on pornography and prostitution, if the police does its primary job henceforth, one hopes that these women will be better protected than they have been in the past. If the Maharashtra government believes that dance bars fuel prostitution, it should work on better policing, not banning them altogether.

Patil has accused those who support dance bars of having “double standards”—we wouldn’t want them in our buildings or bar dancers in our families, he says. He may be right—many years ago, when a friend was dating the owner of a dance bar (during the ban, mind you), I remember teasing her about the origin of the sweat-soaked money he lavished on her. Nonetheless, an evolving society and a government with more important things to achieve must allow adults choice, and safeguard them, whatever their choices may be.

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An edited version of this column appeared in Governance Now in July 2013. It won the Laadli Award for Best Feature (2013-4).

The His-story of Sport

July 2013: The sexist sidelining of women in the Wimbledon, and sports in general, is just a slice of life.

The recently concluded Wimbledon kicked up two storms on the sexism front: BBC Radio 5 Live’s presenter John Inverdale’s comment on Marion Bartoli’s looks—or apparent lack of them, and the headlines about Andy Murray being the first Brit to win the cup in 77 years—ignoring, it would seem, Virginia Wade’s 1977 win.

I kind-of buy the arguments in defense of the first-Brit-win headlines—that headlines are about brevity (and elaborations are reserved for body copy), and that a men’s singles’ win is different from a women’s singles’ win (and even a doubles’ win, which Brit Jonathan Marry won last year). What this does not explain away is the inherent sexism of language and in sport: that male is the assumption, notice how ‘women’s’ will always be specified, headlines’ brevity requirements notwithstanding. It’s no wonder, is it, considering language has evolved with society—socioculturally, sport is akin to battle, and men have been doing it long before women were emancipated enough for this public display of strength, adrenalin, sweat and ‘masculinity’. In this light, I question Susan Sarandon’s much-publicised recent assertion that feminism is an "old-fashioned word": while the alternative ‘humanism’ she proposes is idealistic, it is a long way off as long as language and his-story are as gender-biased as the word.

More disturbing are Inverdale’s comment and his later justification. As Bartoli reached out to hug her father after her win, Inverdale mused about whether he told her when she was little that, since she isn’t (as gorgeous as blonde, tall, beautiful) Maria Sharapova, she’d have to “be scrappy and fight”. Disparaging comments about Bartoli’s looks have also flooded the Twitterverse, with hashtags such as #ShesADude, #NotAWimbledonBabe, #Whore, #Man, #Whale, #Fatty, #Slut. What?! What does the way a tennis player looks have anything to do with his or her sport?

Well, apparently, not his—no one is dissecting Andy Murray’s pasty unattractiveness or the enormous nose that dominates his face, let alone the size and quality of his privates. But it is certainly important for her. In sport and other arenas of life, the explicit dissection of the female body—hair, weight, breast size—and sexual desirability through a prevalent cultural prism of sexism is par for the course. Alongside whatever other achievements she has to her name, a woman must also attempt to fit in to predetermined ideas of beauty and sexual desirability, and be targeted for both, meeting the requirements and for failing. In the corporate world, notice how bitchy office gossips will wonder whether a (usually attractive) female colleague has slept her way to the top, undermining her feats by discounting her as a ‘slut’. As a woman in the public eye, a sportsperson (not an IPL cheerleader, mind you) is apparently responsible to please the aesthetic of all the people, all the time—and Bartoli is paying her price for failing to titillate the male gaze. She’s black-haired and muscular, not the glorious blonde legginess of Anna Kournikova or Caroline Wozniacki. Seemingly, these women fulfil “the attributes of natural athletes” that Inverdale is referring to in his equally offensive apology—as though winning the Wimbledon isn’t enough.

Dustin Hoffman understands. In a video that went viral this week, the actor tears up describing his experience playing a woman in the 1982 film Tootsie. The first time Hoffman saw himself in the mirror in full makeup as his character Dorothy Michaels, he says he was shocked that he wasn't more attractive, that this was as beautiful as he would be as a woman. This is when he had an "epiphany" and truly understood the meaning of female beauty. “Talking to my wife, I said, 'I think I am an interesting woman when I look at myself on screen. And I know that if I met myself at a party, I would never talk to that character because she doesn't fulfil physically the demands that we're brought up to think women have to have in order to ask them out… There's too many interesting women I have not had the experience to know in this life because I have been brainwashed.'" We are a culture brainwashed by gender-based stereotypes, where women are judged on their appearance in all arenas of life, relevant or not; and for men, looks are incidental.

What’s heartening that Inverdale’s and other misogynists’ attempts to reduce a role model for achievement, for emotional and physical strength to a base scrutiny of her body and sexual attractiveness have not been completely successful. Riding a wave of support, Bartoli has flicked away comments about her looks with dismissive dignity: "I am not blonde, yes. That is a fact." She reiterated: "Have I dreamt about having a model contract? No. I'm sorry. But have I dreamed about winning Wimbledon? Absolutely, yes." No, she’s #NotAWimbledonBabe, she’s a Wimbledon champion. And that’s all she needs to be.

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An edited version of this column appeared in Governance Now in July 2013.

The Deaths We Won't Hear Of

June 2013: Last fortnight, I wrote about Jiah Khan’s high-profile suicide. Here, I talk about another suicide, a story of quiet desperation that will never make headlines.

Robin started working with our family—my parents and I—in Delhi in the early 2000s, an earnest and smart 16-year-old boy from a poverty-stricken family in a small village in Bengal. Not to be immodest, but our family has always taken care of help as well as these guidelines being issued for ‘Compassion Day’, and Robin moved cities with us—first to Chennai with my ex-husband and I, then to Dehradun for my father’s palliative care, then with me to Mumbai when dad died, mum moved to Australia and I got divorced… and finally to Hong Kong with my Aunt Alice and Uncle Romi in 2007. Here, he earned upwards of 30,000 bucks a month, making him a veritable success story in his village, a young English-speaking, Facebook-ing mover-and-shaker NRI, buying land, putting his three siblings—one brother and two sisters—through school, and breaking the vicious cycle brought on by generations of poverty. Earlier this year, when Alice and Romi moved back to Australia, he returned for a holiday before starting another job in Hong Kong, where he’d like to stay.

A few Saturday mornings ago, I awoke to a flurry of cross-country/continent phone calls—Robin’s younger sister had set herself on fire, and was critical in hospital. And this is how and why he says it happened.

A couple of months ago, Robin’s older sister was being harassed in college. When he went to “sort it out”, the siblings were beaten by a gang of goons (30, by his account). So when his younger sister, studying in the 10th standard, got recurrently 'eve teased', she didn’t tell the family. Probably thought: what’s the point? Instead, when one of the boys tried to hold her hand on the street, she came home, doused herself in kerosene, and set herself on fire. And, despite the best treatment his dollars could afford, Jharna was dead a few days later.

There are so many things wrong with this tragedy. To start with, although one reads about such things, it is hard to imagine being in circumstances so disempowering and lawless that you’d get harassed in college and on the street, and your family beaten up with impunity for seeking redress. It is hard to fathom just how socioculturally important a woman’s ‘virtue’ is, or being so indoctrinated with the burden of ones own ‘virtue’ that being 'eve teased' and touched would lead to self-blame and suicide; a far cry from the topless FEMEN protesters ‘Still Not Asking For It’ who represent the way one thinks. It is hard to reconcile with the horror of this society, this system and this situation; hard to empathise with these protagonists.

But this is reality.

Incredibly, as if this recent trauma wasn’t enough, local priests have been preying on this beleaguered family: Jharna’s ghost is apparently haunting the village, and only an expensive pooja will get rid of it, you see. The family will pay, for fear of being ostracised.

What’s worse is that Jharna’s death will remain unacknowledged, just like scores of other women’s. The media will never tell her story—unlike Jiah, Jharna was just another young girl. And Robin isn’t going to file a police complaint in the interest of communal peace (the men who 'eve teased' her are distant relatives in his small village: one is an unmarried 36-year-old who apparently ‘loved’ the teenager), particularly because he’ll leave for Hong Kong soon. In measured words he tells me, “Didi, the fight for justice is long and hard, Ma-Baba mein himmat nahi hai. And who knows what these people will do to my old parents if we pursue them.” Though he’s angry (“Maarne ka man karta hai”), he’s also stoic and reconciled—“Our family is destroyed, what will we achieve by destroying theirs now? What’s done is done.”

Since much before the Delhi Gang Rape, us armchair activists have been discussing feminism, equality, female empowerment in our living rooms and fancy cars, in our high-brow English columns, while living free, independent, liberated lives ensconced in little bubbles. Our battles are against glass ceilings, for ‘evolved’ feminist concerns like judgement-free promiscuity, maiden surnames and independent choice. When I hear stories like this one, I can’t help but wonder at the frivolity of our elite concerns, in light of the female infanticide, dowry harassment, education and social discrimination, marital rape, etc that less privileged Indian women, the majority, face. I am reminded that there are so many Indias, so many realities, so great a divide between ‘us’ and the nameless, faceless, voiceless ‘them’. And that, for the aam aurat, there are far more basic battles yet to be won. 

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An edited version of this column appeared in Governance Now in June 2013.

Jiah: Self-esteem, Suicide & Suraj

June 2013: Making sense of this heartbreak nonsense.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’d gladly have read about something else, something of more enduring importance, than Jiah Khan’s suicide and its aftermath. Instead, the story of this 25-year-old has dominated national news, and we’ve all vicariously watched the saga unfold, put her life and personality under a microscope, read her very personal suicide note and tsk-tsked about her tragedy.

Before her suicide note was found belatedly, her mother and the media placed most of the blame on her failing career, a little on her break-up with Suraj Pancholi, son of actors Aditya Pancholi and Zarina Wahab. Since its discovery and her description of heartbreak and pain, poor 22-year-old Suraj is behind bars for abetment, domestic violence and whatever else.

There is no doubt Jiah was in love. There is no doubt the relationship was tumultuous, the break-up was a bad one and Suraj behaved like a jerk through both. To be fair to him, when one analyses Jiah’s suicide note past her impassioned pain and our own haze of pity for the recently departed, she wasn’t blameless in the tumultuousness of the relationship. There was psycho-type clingy behaviour; emotional blackmail (“After all the pain, the rape, the abuse, the torture I have seen previously I didn’t deserve this”); game-playing (“I never met anyone with Karthik, I just wanted you to feel how you make me feel constantly”); hyper-sensitivity (“It hurt me so much that I waited for you for ten days and you didn’t bother buying me something”); drama (“No other woman will give you as much as I did or love you as much as I did. I can write that in my blood”); and one-sided blame for the pregnancy and abortion. Was she right to expect an out-of-work 22-year-old, clearly not finished with sowing his wild oats, whose “life was about partying and women”, to marry, have a baby? What about his right to choose who to be with, and when?

Nonetheless, none of this should have been cause enough for Jiah to take her life, or for Suraj to be considered an abettor. As much as I empathise with a 25-year-old who felt her life wasn’t worth living, there is only one person who caused the suicide: Jiah did.

What was Jiah Khan without Suraj Pancholi? According to her suicide note, she had “nothing left in this world to live for after this” and “nothing to lose”. With a little more self-esteem, she would have realised that life is greater than the sum of its parts—that love, break-up, a low phase in one’s career aren’t worth committing suicide over.

Particularly this love-shuv business. Didn’t she get the memos? That one can live a full life, with or without love, certainly with or without marriage. That we must look past our Cinderella Complexes and rom-com-ified reality to see love is not the be-all-and-end-all of life. Neither is it a cakewalk, ever-exciting, hunky-dorky or permanent. That modern singles should look for someone to compliment his/her life, not complete it, let alone subsume it (“I lost myself in loving you”). That break-ups can be painful, during which some people can take the ‘all’s fair in love and war’ adage quite literally. That there is no taboo in being single (or even dating a string of people, until someone right sticks, or doesn’t), and that being single is infinitely better than being in an abusive relationship. Hell, why would you even want to be in a relationship with someone who cheated on you, abused you and treated you the way Suraj treated you? And, instead of calling the cops on this “torturer” (does he get this from his dad?), you then kill yourself over its end, when the cerebral in you should have been celebrating? Where are your brains, where is your self-esteem, woman, I ask again. "Power is being told you are not loved and not being destroyed by it," said Madonna. Where is the power that should have lay within you?

What worries me is that suicide is known to be contagious, especially to highly susceptible teens. There must be some gullible little girls out there who glorified Jiah’s achievements, as meagre as she thought they were. She debuted opposite Amitabh Bachchan, for heaven’s sake, and starred in a blockbuster opposite Aamir Khan! She had time to regain lost glory, she was only 25. Unlike Britney Spears and other troubled stars’ well-documented descent in to chaos, there were no chips in her public image, though it may have lost a little sheen. What message have these little girls received from the suicide of an apparently happy, successful-ish star? Particularly the despair-filled suicide note, that I'm not sure her mother should have released to the media.

A traditional stereotype of a heartbreak-based Madhubala-esque tragic heroine is now reinforced: even someone like Jiah could believe her life was not worth living without the love of a man, however abusive. And even she, a modern, ‘liberated’ woman didn’t seek help—family, friends, counselling—when she clearly needed it, so how does one encourage a lovesick teenager to reach out?

I have been watching the comings and goings of the Pancholi house from my balcony, replete with police and media. Fortunately, at the time of going to press, sense seemed to be dawning, and the case of abetment against Suraj will probably be dropped. On the assumption that he just wanted to break-up, not have her die, this makes sense: he’s behaved mean-spirited and badly, but certainly not illegally. The domestic abuse charges might stick, to prove a point, though they will be hard to prove in court. 

Jiah said Suraj destroyed her life. In her death, she has seriously impacted his—young still, his name will forever be associated with this tragedy, replete with the judgement and/or pity. Spoilt star child or not, unless there’s a serious psychopath hiding under his stoic exterior, he’s shaken up, both about Jiah personally, and the police and media aspects. Let’s just let him go.

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An edited version of this column appeared in Governance Now in June 2013.

DINK, Forever

May 2013: Like us, more and more Double Income No Kids couples today are choosing to stay that way. Why, and why not?

Shortly after we hit our first wedding anniversary, the questions started. First, it was family, asking us for the euphemistic ‘Good News’. Then, it was ‘just curious’, well-meaning friends: “When are you guys planning kids?” Soon, Facebook too jumped on the bandwagon, and has started targeting me for maternity wear and baby product ads. To its intuitive algorithm and society alike, recently married plus over thirty equals wannabe mommy.

Maybe not. When we tell people that Sahil and I don’t want kids, most are gobsmacked, others are more curious; and all want an explanation. So here’s ours: I don’t really like kids (Sahil does, but others’), and neither of us wants the responsibility. We love our full, chaotic lives; we’re workaholics who socialise like we’re 21 and travel at whim. We’re impatient and self-involved. The idea of a tiffin-school-bus routine at 6 AM makes us baulk. Plus, there’s the daunting expense. We like being Double Income No Kids and involved pet parents.

When I recently spent the day with a childhood friend who is now a full-time mother of two under-fives, I was further convinced. She’s a beautiful, patient parent, catering to their every whim, a high-stress 24x7 job that leaves her with not a minute for herself. As we walked around the park pushing the stroller, one eye on her son playing, she said, “When friends tell me there’s family pressure to have children, I tell them this is something they should do for themselves, no one else. If you’re going to resent your kids for the five-six intense years and a lifetime of responsibility, don’t do it. You’re bringing up human beings.” And I was thinking: being a favourite aunty is one thing, daily parenting is quite another.

There are counter-arguments to every pro-child argument. I don’t buy in to this idealising and romanticising of pregnancy and the motherhood myth, and don’t see parenting as ‘the most important thing you can do with your life’. Unguaranteed eternal love and support in ones old age for a lifetime of responsibility does not seem to be worth it, neither is there undisputed evidence that kids ‘bind’ couples together. Legacy, family name are inconsequential issues (an auto driver I had a long conversation with in Delhi said I was shunning my "duty").

No one is genetically perfect, and eugenics isn’t fool-proof anyway: remember the anecdote, variously attributed to Nobel Prize-winner Anatole France and dancer Isadora Duncan, playwright GB Shaw and Duncan, and even playwright Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe. She, the beauty, apparently said to him, the brain: “Would it not be wonderful if we could have a child who had your brains and my beauty?” His reply was, “Yes, but supposing it had your brains and my beauty!”

One could argue that our sex drives naturally exist for procreation. But I believe we must evolve psychologically and socially beyond biology. We’ve taken the first step: most of the sex we have is for pleasure. The second step is realising that the human race does not need to produce more young; if anything, our race is under greatest threat from an exploding population, and its impact on the planet. Is a desire for ones own young important enough to leave a carbon footprint as large as a life?

To my mind, the only compelling argument is evidence that the woman’s body needs to give birth to fend off certain cancers and other diseases.

These are our reasons. In what could be a sign of impending demographic change, I know three or four other similarly inclined educated, urban couples, whose reasons vary from not liking kids, to not feeling mature or wealthy enough to have them, to a whole combination of arguments listed above. One couple, married over 10 years, talks about how its childlessness is assumed to be a problem, not voluntary. Pushing public-private boundaries, people have asked them if they’re undergoing infertility treatment and put collective social pressure on their personal lives. “They cannot fathom that this is what anyone would choose or that this is a choice we have the right to make.”

We all know people who should never have become parents, whose kids you cross your fingers for. I am reminded of lines from my favourite poem, ‘Right To Life’ by Marge Piercy. It is pro-abortion, and focuses on the wellbeing of both mother and child: "Every baby born has a right to love/ like a seedling to sun. Every baby born/ unloved, unwanted, is a bill that will come/ due in twenty years with interest, an anger/ that must find a target, a pain that will/ beget pain." If there was less pressure and obligation, if saying you don’t like children and want none wasn’t treated like abject blasphemy, if having children was treated as a choice and not an assumption, if childlessness wasn’t presumed to be a medical problem to be treated with pity, perhaps more people would see having children as a lifestyle decision, much like having a pet. They would ask themselves if they’re each ready, emotionally, financially, if child rearing is right for them, not just the indoctrinated, unreasonable, socially ingrained "bacché toh karne hi chahiye" statement I got from my domestic worker.

Minds change, mistakes happen, so maybe we’ll end up having an adopted or biological child or two. But I ask Sahil if we’ll wake up one morning, past my childbearing years, and want a child. “We can always adopt then,” he says, matter-of-factly. “Genetics are a funny, unpredictable thing anyway.”

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An edited version of this column appeared in Governance Now in May 2013.

Spoil Sports

May 2013: An analysis of women, sports and gender issues in India.

Three months ago, I resumed playing badminton after an 18-year sabbatical. When I last played, at 12, it was one of the many sports I played thanks to my Naval Officer father who encouraged—forced—three/four hours of play on me every day. On days we’re not shooting or I’m not meeting a frantic article deadline, my spouse and I reach the gymkhana a little before the start of the adults’ slot, as the kids are finishing up their 3-7 timings.

Bucking the trend in this predominantly sedentary country is a group of about 20 boys that plays regularly. These eight to thirteen-year-olds are all madly passionate, and some are rather good, shaming me for my lack of stamina and flexibility. In this age group, I have seen just one little girl playing, a dismal 5% of the bunch. 

Since April, I’ve noticed a whole herd of 15-year-old girls, abject beginners who’ve never played a sport before. They’re here just after their boards, often prompted by their parents, to lose the weight they gained during the intense preparation months (or maybe always had), in anticipation of starting college. Ditto on the tennis and squash courts.

This, and the recent IPL have got me thinking: what is the role of sport in Indian women’s lives, and the role of women in Indian sport?  

The gymkhana where I play is in, arguably, one of Mumbai’s most fancy neighbourhoods. Kids here are wealthy, go to upmarket schools and many go abroad for further studies—society a far cry from a stereotyped India, it would seem, where girls don’t play with boys and help their mothers with household chores after school, if they even go. Yet, few play sport, and exercise is only prioritised for weight loss and to look good.

Looking good also seems to be the only way in which women can participate in the IPL, whether to become a female commentator or a gyrating cheerleader, team-owners and their wives notwithstanding. Young, busty women have peppered this spectacle for its six seasons, knowing little, asking inane questions, providing—and expected to provide—nothing but glam and risqué interludes to the ecosystem of this sportainment.

If the media reflects society, and society reflects the media, we—a country in the throes of introspection about women, and their rights and roles—are stuck in a vicious never-ending cycle of misogyny and chauvinism. Through a medium that reaches far more people than Mary Kom’s boxing win or articles about her inspiring story, these PYTs offsetting the brawny boys on the field and the brainy ones in the commentary box reinforces traditional sexist gender roles. Who are we making our role models and what gender roles are we propagating? 

It is these gender roles that make scores of young women believe that their bodies are only valuable for their aesthetic appeal, and sport and exercise is only for weight loss—health benefits be damned. I also remember reading an article by the father of a girl who died of bulimia, who blamed his ex-wife for causing her deep-seated self-esteem issues. The wife would, apparently, serve her daughter only skimmed milk and son regular milk, as ‘girls must be slim’.

I have, no doubt, been one of the victims of this misogynistic vanity. Many factors conspired to make me quit sports at 12—my father left the Navy, and I moved far from the sporting culture and facilities of the military. I ballooned, and spent my teens and twenties on one diet after another, sporadically dancing and walking, with weight loss being my sole agenda.

And this is me, who has been able to analyse the media’s influence on my body image and knew all the other, more important reasons to exercise. I also continued to get my fair share of attention, even with the excess weight. But that was just intellectual understanding. It is not until a few years ago, under the influence of my friends, sports-loving Sowmya, who has the healthiest body image I know, and Jordyn, a fitness trainer who believes in ‘wellistic wholeness’, that I embraced the idea of loving my body for itself, and for the starring role it plays in my life and lifestyle. No media can convince me that one-size-fits-all or that I am only as good as my body looks. 

Far before weight loss and beauty become overriding concerns, parents should put their girls on courts and on fields, and counter the misogyny in our sports and other entertainment. Because for me, a relapsed sports addict, playing for these two serotonin-infused hours every day is about many positive things, including feminism and individualism. I’m in the hallowed male bastion of sports (and I’m playing, not being eye-candy). Fitness as opposed to weight loss alone is a greater, more wholesome body-view than the media propagates. And, there’s the most important factor: if it is my life’s agenda to never let my gender come in the way of living my life, so too with my health and fitness. My body should allow me to leap with the wind in my hair and dance until the sun comes up; withstand a genetic predisposition to heart disease and diabetes; or run and fight for my safety.

So should yours and your daughters’.

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An edited version of this column appeared in Governance Now in May 2013.