Conversations on the phone

The father and I just had a chat on the phone, while he was waiting to board a flight back from Bombay to come home, during which I tried to articulate a lot of what's been bothering me for a while now. We both rambled, and jumped from topic to topic, so I can't quite present the whole thing. Snippets that I can recall, in no very clear order are presented below. Oh and if you haven't seen Ishaqzaade but plan to and don't want spoilers, avoid the third snippet, which pretty much gives away the main "twist" of the movie.

Baba: What did you think of the Satyamev Jayate episode yesterday?

Me: Wasn't bad. I broke down while watching it, of course. Thrilled they're finally talking about CSA, and SO awed by how brave and incredible the survivors were to come and talk the way they did. But I wish Aamir Khan wouldn't lead the conversations so much. Let the people articulate things their own way na, instead of saying "so what you mean is this...?".

Baba: Hmmm. Some of the folks I met here saw the show. People don't seem to have liked the show much. 

Me: Yes well, from what I see on twitter these days, people like to be cynical because they seem think that's what's expected.

Baba: People seem to be worried "intelligent actors will now be determining government policy."

Me: But... he's not going into policy. He's stopping at spreading awareness. Which, yes, could be a complaint, but at least he's spreading awareness. Who said this?

Baba: Oh, the educated folks of Bombay. And fool editors who print such letters to the editor.

Me: Yes well, your reform is never going to come from the educated folks. They're too busy try to convince themselves and everyone else that everything happens in other homes and classes, not in their own.

Baba: Come on, that's not entirely true.

Me: Oh come on, not to take anything away from the tragedy, but one hit-and-run happened in Gurgaon, and people are organizing silent marches to protest because they knew the persons involved. How many such incidents happen with people the "educated people" don't know, and who organizes marches for them?

Baba: But then the question is, which one will hit? And make the point?

Baba: I hear all the "young MPs" were absent from the 60th anniversary celebrations in Parliament yesterday.

Me: I'm impressed the old folks showed up.

Baba: Who's being cynical now?

Me: But that's the thing no? Where do you see hope? Our politicians are useless, social reform is not happening, so what do you have that you shouldn't be cynical about? But I'd like to think my cynicism is not because I feel I need to be, but because I can't help it!

Baba: Mindsets need to change.

Me: But where do you start? We just came back from seeing Ishaqzaade, and yes, the crowd was horrible. You know what I hated the most? There's this scene where the lead pair has just slept together, and he's walking away from her after informing her that he only pretended to fall in love with her because he wanted "revenge" for the slap she gave him. There's a woman crying on the screen, Baba, and the men in the audience are hooting with glee. What do you do with such mentality? How do you begin to change that?

Baba: I think we should completely avoid the PVR in Sahara Mall. The price difference isn't worth it.

Me: Well, yes, but again, how does that change things?

Me: Did I tell you about the FirstPost article where the writer wondered why the women who'd been forced to have abortions continued to agree to have "conjugal relations" with their husbands?

Baba: Does this writer have any idea about what India's like?

Me: Uh huh. So there seems to have been such uproar that the editors took down the article and apologised, saying they are aware all women don't have that option.

Baba: Well, at least they have some sense.

Baba: Well, I have to switch off now. So you're going to Delhi in the evening? By metro?

Me: Yep.

Baba: *silence*

Me: Chill na, if I get late coming back, I'll take a cab.

Baba: Oh, okay.

There was more, a lot of which I can't put together coherently. Heck, I'm not sure this was coherent. I went to the mother to chat after I ended the call, and her first words, as happens rather frequently, were: You're worked up again. Now what?

I told her a bit about the conversation and she wanted to know if I was upset because there are problems, or because I don't know what to do about the problems. 

There's a good question to ask myself.

My Tuppence on the Delhi Slutwalk

My twitter timeline and GReader feeds have been flooded by one issue over the last day or so, and I'm not talking about a certain baba's antics. Delhi's gearing up for a Slutwalk it seems, and the reactions are varied.

There's cynicism, there's support, there's wisecracks. There's a number of women who have blogged about their experiences in the streets of Delhi in an attempt to explain why, even though they may not necessarily agree with the entire concept of a Slutwalk, it is needed. And there are those, mostly from other parts of the country, who are wondering how "Dilliwallas" will react to this walk. You know, because Delhi's the only city in the country where men are scum. My own friends are questioning the name of this walk.

It's not that these kind of events haven't happened before in India. Blank Noise has been organizing activities that emphasize the concept of "I never ask for it" for years now. But this Slutwalk seems to have caught everyone's attention in a way they never did.

Is it the name? Why? Because people, most people, think a slut is a prostitute? The original meaning of the word, when I had looked it up in the Oxford Dictionary at the age of 14, was "a dirty, slovenly woman". Over time, it's come to be used to describe women who are sexually promiscuous. And that, as we all know, is to be severely frowned upon. Because it's fine for Ranbir Kapoor to have as many flings as he wants - it's after all material to be used for jokes at the Filmfare awards - but if Deepika Padukone goes on to another boyfriend, she's labelled a gold digger and all sorts of other things. And not just by men, dear Lord no. It's the women who can be cattiest about such labels.

Even if the word slut did mean prostitute, so? Does that justify sexual harassment? I worked as an HR consultant; if we chose to say no to working with a particular organization, they couldn't force us, right? So if a woman, who makes a living by having sex with men - for whatever reasons - says no to a man, and he forces himself on her, why should that be justifiable in any way?

Why is a Slutwalk needed in Delhi, of all cities in India? Do I need to chronicle incidents, the way this woman did? The groping at age 12, being stopped by a car two lanes away from my house, the numerous incidents in DTC buses? The comments on my own blog five years ago, by two men I consider friends, that a woman wearing a mini-skirt gives the impression that she is inviting men to try their luck. This post on Desicritics, some years ago, that outraged me and prompted me to write this post in response. And for the menfolk who express their concern that men in Delhi won't understand this event, look at your own cities. A friend was flashed on Pali Hill in Bandra. Those cops who started this entire movement, by using the word slut in the context of the women who were raped, were in Vancouver. Isn't that supposed to be a first world country or some such thing?

Don't tell me this mentality is about city or state or region or country. It exists all over the world. And I can guarantee that this Slutwalk will do absolutely nothing to even change this mentality. As someone tweeted yesterday, "When slutwalk happens, no one will think of the real victims. Just like no one thinks of animals during naked PETA campaigns." The last thing on any bystander's mind as they see a mass of women parading on a road is our right to tell them to keep their hands to themselves.

But there is the faint hope that maybe some men will be affected, maybe some women will change the way they view other women, maybe some folks will stop blaming the survivors of sexual abuse/harassment. And if this Slutwalk achieves even this much, I'm all for it. Oh yes I am.

UPDATE:
I realised, while discussing this post with the BFF on gtalk, that I never actually articulated what the Slutwalk is about, really. And why I'm not completely enamoured with the idea, even though I do want it to have some positive impact. So in her furious but very articulate words:

who even fucking says slut in india
no one even knows what it's about
IT'S ABOUT RECLAIMING THE WORD
IT'S ABOUT CONSENT
IT'S ABOUT NOT VICTIM BLAMING
IT'S ABOUT BEING ABLE TO WEAR WHAT WE LIKE
so after this will rape stats go down?
will all the sex-starved indians suddenly start respecting women and do all nahi nahi ma-beti jai-jai
and will indian women now start catching buses from DK in fishnets?

There you go then.

Midnight musings

Where do you draw the line?

Between critiquing and criticising?

Between being brave and courageous and fighting lost battles?

Between choosing to leave with your head held high and being an escapist?

Between being realistic and being cynical?

Between being committed and being enslaved?

Between choosing what is right and what right for now?

Between loyalty and practicality?

Where do you draw the line? How do you decide?

How?

Believe

You can't blame people for being cynical in this day and age. Our politicians are crooks, the protectors of the law are no better, you can't do well in life unless you choose to take shortcuts, our favourite actors prove they're complete twits (literally) by joining twitter - what is there to make you feel good about the world? Really?

I’ve been guilty of it oh-so many times in the past. Despite being pro-Obama during the 2008 US Presidential elections, the day after he won, when a colleague mentioned that he seems to be “clean” I remember looking at him and asking him “But how do you get where he has by being completely clean”? I don’t any of us are capable of believing that the biggest successes came the “right” way.

Occasionally, however, you come along an overly cynical comment, which either makes you wonder the author is either trying too hard to sound cynical because y'know, it's the done thing, or whether he/she is simply blinded to anything else.

Exhibit A: A tweet during yesterday's World Cup match between India and Pakistan, where we were nicely thrashing the visiting side:

Seems almost like a fixed match, no? #hockeyworldcup

To which I responded "Why think that? Just enjoy the fact that our guys did a good job no?". And called an optimist for my pains. An optimist. Me. Gah.

Exhibit B:

Rehab, whose blog I have recently discovered (as in, some hours back), put up this post about a month back about Conan O'Brien's farewell speech where Conan essentially talks about how he hates cynicism. And there is, on that page, the following comment:

you should never take to heart what a guy who makes millions an hour tells you.

of course, he would advise against cynicism.

note: cynicism is not equivalent to pessimism.

My issue with both these comments was their refusal to acknowledge the message behind what they were observing, and look for hidden, darker messages. India can’t play so well, the match must be fixed. The guy earns millions, who is he to talk about the softer emotions?

But then again, I’ve been guilty of this as well. A friend and I were recently discussing a series of blog posts a fairly popular tweeter puts up – on her gratitude for various things in life. I was wondering if it was just me who though that far from sounding beautiful, the posts just ended up sounding preachy and priggish in nature. My friend, as it turned out, agreed with me, but I still wonder, have we completely closed ourselves off from acknowledging niceness, for lack of a better word, in people?

In our angst against “the system”, in our frustrations at our lot in life, in our tendency to hide our love and gratitude for near and dear ones, have we completely lost the ability to allow for the fact that others may not be the same way?

I get that there are times when we look around and see utter darkness. But does that mean we stop waiting for the light to come back? Is it so hard just to believe?