The Person I Judge the Most...

It took a while to admit to myself that I didn’t loathe the idea of love—when you grow up in a space as academic and judgmental as I have, you’re wont to pretend like the lesser emotions of human existence ricochet off you, for you are Saran-wrapped in higher, intellectual ideas. You can’t allow yourself to feel or ponder things as base and plebeian as 'romance' and 'love' (two things that sparsely have anything to do with one another), because you need to be busy contemplating the noise in silence or writing a paper on how pointless the writing of papers is.

Working with this life-brief, I often found it hard to admit to myself that I liked certain things, or felt a certain way—I would categorize and box them up under the labels ‘liking ironically’ ‘pop culture research’ and ‘silly, vapid thoughts’ and cart them off far back into the deepest recesses of my mind. I felt thoroughly disappointed by myself if I made it through a romantic comedy without a snarky comment or seven. If I didn’t dismember the tepid plot-points and overflowing nausea-prodding romance at regular intervals, I was just like ‘all those other girls’, watching and hoping for the Obviously-Going-To-End-Up-Together couple to overcome their quirky little non-obstacles and end up together.

I found myself constantly measuring myself up to some invisible benchmark that had been set by myself, for myself, when I hadn’t been looking. I was terribly pleased with myself for not taking to ‘trashy’ cinema like Transformers or The Terminator (though it’s a minus five in most relationships, I’ll attest to that—boys like girls who like watching cars turning into clunky metal stragglers that disrupt the town’s lifestyle). I smiled to myself at being able to call out various TV show and film plot devices well before they happened, fancying myself an auteur. I would revel in little things like working in a see-and-be-seen profession and never doing my eyebrows, or not owning any designer clothes. Those were things that didn’t matter—they were tantamount to vapid and superficial, and it was something I was fiercely intent not to be.

I found myself being grateful that I organically enjoyed French cinema, that I could devour boundless Capote novels (I still think he wrote too few), and that I could taste the difference between cinnamon and nutmeg in a dark chocolate soufflé. I was glad that I vehemently hated Chetan Bhagat of my own accord, subscribed to feminism in it’s purest, most non-negotiable form and thought the Kardashians were essentially spray-tanned tubesocks with an attitude problem and anatomically incorrect arses (except Kendall, she seems less heinous a crime against humanity than the others).

At the same time, I was deeply embarrassed about certain aspects of my personality—there was this constant fog of uncertainty that clouded my judgment about them—should the veil lift, how will the world see me? Will I be less intelligent, less interesting, more common, more ‘basic’? Was it okay for someone with a Masters in film to watch bad, Bollywood dramas without hiding behind the smokescreen of ‘doing it for a paper’? Was it problematic that I had a Justin Bieber song on my phone, and I panicked at the thought that someone might hear it filtering through my earphones? Was it normal to be so afraid that someone might find out that for the brief period of 12-14 years of age, I read a fair few Mills and Boons (which even in this burst of honesty I will insist are formulaic, derivative and a goopy enough puddle of glub to drown a small cat) and actually didn’t mind them at the time?

The average person reading this may either not understand what the fuck I’m on about—or relate completely. My heart goes out to the latter (which I can only hope are a scarce few in number), because we’ve been living a lie our whole lives. And the strangest part is, the one thing that causes unease with lying in normal circumstances—the all-pervading fear of getting caught by someone—isn’t in play. Suddenly, there’s an aspect to this elaborate life-ruse you hadn’t quite counted on; being found out by yourself.

If you tell a lie often enough, a part of you starts to believe it—it becomes as organic as the truth because the two are such routine guest stars in your narrative. In much the same fashion, when I tried to convince myself certain things were ‘acceptable’ while others were ‘not’, I did a reasonably good job. I began to indulge the ‘intellectually dissident’ aspects of my life in secret—I would watch a rom-com like a God-fearing teenager would watch girl-on-girl; with shame, guilt and a healthy serving of self-loathing.

This seeped into everything I did—I found myself growing overtly defensive of my life choices when people would say ‘you’re too good for this’, and I’d smile and try to make my choices sound feasible and worthwhile, all the while wondering ‘am I really too good for this?’ I didn’t know which reality was more terrifying—that people disapproved of my decisions because they believed I deserved better (and inherently was better), or that, one day, the façade would unravel in one fell swoop and they’d realize I wasn’t, in fact,  better at all.

I got so wrapped up in the idea of myself, the lines started to blur. I had been a different girl in school, at Christ, during my masters and in my work life—and it was hard to decide which version of myself was most like me. What could be termed 'evolution' was something I kept thinking of as trying on new skins. At some point, I wasn’t sure what I liked, and what I aspired to like.

It was in the little things—I felt like wearing a pencil skirt was a betrayal to the version of myself that wore sneakers and carried a backpack. When I started going to the gym, I felt like a hypocrite—in my glory days as a pseudo-Marxist in college (too frightened to let my inner capitalist monster rear it’s ugly head), I had called the gym a ‘corporate cesspool of sweat for worker drones’. Now, years later, working in a glass temple that reeked of corporate smarminess, drops of my perspiration were adding to said cesspool, and I hung my head in shame about it to myself, hoping this drastic change would go unnoticed by spill-over counterparts from That part of my life to This part of my life.

I’d like to believe this phenomenon was fresh, but the day I dared to let myself really examine it, I realized I’d been a fraud for quite some time. Cloaking myself in the veneer of a certain charade, of the kind of person I had, for some set of reasons, started to respect, I had begin to enact the role I had cast myself in. I respected the idea of a woman that liked poetry, that wasn’t hurt by men, that found simplicity abhorrent. I respected certain tenets of an atheist ideology, I respected women who understood and stood the principles of feminism, I respected women who chose career over having a family. 

There was no right or wrong, but over time, I had waywardly grown up with this cast-iron mould of an ‘ideal person’ and, instead of acknowledging that there were some qualities I possessed and some I didn’t, I feigned ignorance enough to convince myself I was all the things I thought highly of. When it came naturally to me (the works of Dorothy Parker, reading the New Yorker), I almost felt like patting myself on the back for ‘getting there’ without trying. In other cases (watching Splitsvilla on the down-low in the gym I once spoke such ill of), I felt cripplingly let down by myself, almost as though I were cheating on someone.

Even now, after acknowledging the faux skin I’m living in, I feel like all I have done is figure out it’s there—shedding it could take years...maybe it’s not even possible. But I keep trying to trace back my own roots–what do I really know about myself, I often wonder? What do I really care about? What would I do with my life if fear of judgment weren’t cock-blocking me? Do I really like/dislike something, or do I feel like I need to?

It seems a bit self-indulgent, sometimes, in world that keeps on spinning with more ‘pressing’ problems, to even give this idea thought—and then, I can’t help but muse if it's actually self-indulgent, or seems it because of the construct I’ve created? It’s scary to get out the shovel and start digging because I don’t know what bones of my personality I’ll find—questioning what the hell you really are is possibly the most destructive thing a human being can do; the one thing most people cling onto for dear life is their sense of self, and to give yourself the third degree about if you ever had one unearths some frightening revelations—and even more frightening mysteries.

What things about myself do I know for sure? Am I the same as I was three years ago? Have I changed? Have I changed because I wanted to, or out of pressure? Where is this pressure coming from? Who is this girl I’m trying to be? What the hell makes her so special?

I feel like I’ve opened a can of worms that was gasping for air, and I’ve never been so pleased with the insect-riddled mess around me. Everything is in shambles, because at a point where I thought I knew everything, I realize I might know nothing and that cripples and delights me in equal parts. 

And maybe, this time, when I rebuild from scratch, I’ll come to terms with who I am even if she doesn't measure up to what I thought I'd be

“For Use By Married Women Only”

Yeah, 'Oh dearie me'.

It’s an impressive, rigorous effort women (and a fairly progressive collective of suits in advertising) are making; to break down all the stereotypical negativity that festers like flies around the idea of ‘the period’. Whether it’s a campaign that tears apart the simultaneous usage of the phrase ‘I’m down’ with having your period, or companies like High Tide—a box that sends you everything you need, from panty-liners to pain relief gel, to get through your period in peace—have been conceived by a man, the notion of it being this cursed, taboo monthly monster is fast dissipating. It’s quick and heady progress, the real stalwarts of the journey having coming about only in the last couple of years or so.

However, amidst the laudable headway we’ve made is one little factoid that always pisses me off royally (call it PMS. Lulllzz. Except, don’t. Ever). Because while the thresholds of temples are being crossed by women on their period—and rightly so—and period cramps have finally been recognised as a legit enough medical condition for several companies to realize it might render an employee unable to work (it’s called Dysmenorrhea, for further reference), we’re still ludicrously backward in one little part of this endeavour to surge ahead.

Tampons. What the FUCK, guys?

The Indian attitude to tampons, in our current climate of understanding and change, seems as ill-fitting as Kim Kardashian at a Fellow Sufferers of Low Self Esteem Convention (This isn’t real, but if you’d like me to found it, just say the word). We bandy on and on about how attitudes to sexuality need remedying, pronto.  And yet, the tampon stands in front of the firing squad of Indian society for it’s mere existence.

What, in the Wild West, is considerable a convenient—and more widely used—alternative to the ‘pad’ (which, in my VERY PERSONAL VERY HUMBLE DO NOT ATTACK ME opinion is an archaic concept regardless; Tampon convert since 2012, thank you very much) is, in India, almost a non-option.

While in countries across the globe, a local department store will display with gay abandon the proud array of tampon types—wide, slim, cardboard-applicator, plastic-applicator, NO applicator (go rogue, ladies!) cheaper, mid-range, expensive and luxurious—the scope on this side of the grass is nowhere near as fist-pumping and embracing about them.

Here, you get ONE brand. That makes TWO alternatives—the ‘Do you bleed a lot?’ or ‘Do you bleed two hours less than a lot?’ And discounts aren’t really offered on the real price you have to pay—hypercritical scathing from a 60+ shopkeeper, the person you will have to awkwardly ask for a box of these, whilst trying to slip it in between asthma medicine and Chloromint, like a smooth operator.  

In my head, I often equate tampons with a tiny box of judgment missiles, spewed at me with a sous army of disparaging, glare needles.

Why, are they handed out, you ask? Why can’t you just sashay past the scented phenyl bottles, mammoth puffy bags of cheeseballs and Sexy Man deodorants and pick one up yourself? Why can’t you just ring the local Modern Bazaar and have them casual toss in a box or two with your bulk order of Bourbon biscuits and Kitty Litter?

Oh, that’s right. Because you don’t get them at stores.

Tampons, a product that's so niche and under-used in this country are, in parlance with the fact, incredibly under-available. You can only pick one up at a chemist (hugely under-stocked with any women, or chill-looking men—basically anyone you’d prefer to interact with about the matter, instead of aforementioned crusty shopkeeper ‘uncle’, and are thereby not at liberty to pick one up without announcing it. EVER.
I wonder, perhaps, if in this moonwalk of progress, we’ll have to start providing prescriptions for it, in due time.

The idea of having to ask a bloody chemist for a box of tampons is galling for three chief reasons (IMHO).

The first, I do not need this man to know I’m on my period. Sure, my inflated, cartoon-esque PMS with full-on screaming, quickly switching to crying, and smashing boxes of PediaSure in the shop will probably tip him off that I’m PMSing, but I shouldn’t have to part with this information should I not want to. Sorry, but that’s my prerogative.

The second, is that it is an automatic admittance to these strange men, leapyears away from my socio-cultural wavelength, that I have (or am continuing to have) sex. Because, while you can use a tampon even if your hymen is in pristine condition, it’s statistically unlikely that you will. The process is made smoother if you are ‘sexually active’ (a detestable—but fully apt—phrase. Sorry, anyhow). 

I don’t know how much I would care—the little, feminist bird in me, beating against the shackles of my ribcage thinks I shouldn’t care. It yearns to be unfettered, and scream from a ravaged four-poster about how I do it, I like it, and I get it all the time. But as much as it might be in my list of freedoms to be open and vocal about sex, it is also my prerogative to dispense of this information as I see fit. If I want to blog about it, great. If I want to toot my own horn (only figuratively, thank God) over cocktails with my friends, don’t mind if I do. However, if I want NOT to let this possibly whore/Madonna complex-bred man know about my sexual whereabouts, that is as much my right.

It is the same fuel of indignation about that right that brings me to my chief issue with tampon treatment in this country.

So, in a random bout of boredom, I decided to examine the little sheaf of ‘How To’ paper that comes in the teensy tampon box. Amidst instructions, directions and cautions, I caught a little line that ran so deep into the cesspool of our cultural mire, it was deplorable.

“Product for use by married women only”

Thanks, tampon peeps. The idea that the sole producer of this niche product that actually allows for a woman to bleed monthly in peace without sticking a mini-diaper on the ALMOST ALWAYS too skinny crotch-strip of underpants (who are these pads made for? The BFG?) feels the need to add this socio-political coward of a disclaimer is quite disconcerting.

God forbid we should say ‘sexually active’, a phrase, in this case, that I prefer despite it’s notorious parental-lecture-esque badge value, because at least it doesn’t propagate the equating of ‘having sex’ with ‘being married’.

There’s a part of me that (albeit disparagingly) understands. How, in this nation run amok with moral police and Shiv Senazis does one simply put the idea out there—even if it’s in something as clinical as Directions For Use—the idea that someone (anyone) who’s having sex can use a tampon. But naturally, the form should be used to subliminally suggest that using a tampon whilst being unwed is an idea so unfathomable, ‘we daren't put in on the packaging.’

An article on India Today shows the shocking results that India is the leading country statistically when it comes to unprotected sex.

“As many as 72 per cent of sexually active young people across the country have had sex with new partners without any protection, an international survey says. At least 40 per cent of the youth polled in India say they had problems accessing contraceptives when they needed it, while 36 per cent said they knew a close friend/ family member who has had an unplanned pregnancy. Nearly one-third of them got wrong information about contraception from friends.”

Another survey by IPAS, India (an international NGO working on increasing access to safe abortion services) mentions that, according to their estimates and calculations, unsafe abortions are killing a woman every two hours in India (which is approximately 4000 deaths a year). A Lancet paper in 2007 said there were 6.4 million abortions, of which 3.6 million or 56 per cent were unsafe. IPAS has calculated this based on the latest population and crude birth rates (CBR) which peg the number of induced abortion at 5,007,932. It’s safe to say that amount has probably increased exponentially over the last nine years.

A survey conducted by Lady Hardinge Medical College (LHMC) found that STD cases had jumped from 1 to 4.9 per cent over the past four years, with diseases ranging from Viral and Bacterial STIs, HIV, Molluscum Contagiosum, Cyanea Acuminate, Herpes Genitalis to secondary Syphilis, where, from the test group of over 1,000 people (mostly teenagers), two of the teens had partners with high-risk behaviour in the form of multiple sexual partners. Seventy-five per cent patients had used barrier contraceptives during their last sexual intercourse while the rest had a history of unprotected intercourse. Three boys had indulged in sexual activity with commercial sex workers and the doctors said that, "Five of the 15 males (33.3 per cent) gave a positive history of homosexuality."

All madly, madly disturbing facts.

You’re currently wondering why, exactly, I’m on this tangential rant about abortions, unprotected sex and STDs instead of harping on a bit more about social freedom and #womenslib. Or, if you aren’t wondering why, then clearly we’re on the same wavelength and should probably grab a drink sometime.

It may seem a bit far-fetched, but I believe it’s in subtle nuances like this line, “For use by married women only”, that the rot runs deep and starts to fester. While the idea that only legally wed women should be having sex is something a country like our tries to perpetrate, the reality is so shockingly disparate it's both shameful and unbelievable.

People so clearly in the dark about sexual how-tos and what-to-nots are doing things wrong, haphazardly and dangerously, because they do not know any better. Preaching of the abstaining-until philosophy eliminates the idea of choice—and creates all the calamities that come tumbling after it. It creates a situation where people are getting diseases (often terminal or catastrophic ones), or having to take drastic measures like an abortion, which, even if you discount failed-contraception related pregnancies and the incredibly sad female foeticide, is still an astronomical figure.

While sex education is a naturally-assumed prerequisite in western schooling, it’s in the nascent stages in this country—so nascent, in fact, it’s barely visible. It’s rise was even being blatantly obstructed by our own Health Minister, Harsh Vardhan. “In his 'vision' document for Delhi schools, Vardhan, himself a doctor, has said, "So-called 'sex education' (should) be banned." His website—drharshvardhan.com—also states the need to integrate value education with course content and put strong emphasis on exposing students to India's cultural relations,” said a TOI article, while the minister remained unavailable for comment.

It is this very notion—that sexual freedom somehow disturbs the pristine waters of our ‘sanskars’ that has brought us to this apocalypse of epidemic after epidemic. Because, really, there couldn’t be a vicious circle drawn with more geometric precision—try to cultivate a culture of sound, stable people (because their values are in place) and wind up with people that put their bodies and lives through immeasurable torture, rendering them anything but sound and stable.

The real kicker is that there is this unseen, undetectable moral force determining what we should and should not subscribe to. Sex post-marriage, permissible. Sex pre-marriage? See you in hell, girlfriend.
And you know what? All that gruesome info above may be unnerving. But it does confirm one thing for sure.

People in this country are CLEARLY having sex. 

They’re having sex young, they’re having sex wrong, they’re having sex perilously and regularly, in marriages, before marriages, outside marriages. We're running through the entire gamut of sexual options, and we’re so averse to acknowledging it, we still have the gall to put repulsive and grotesque statements like that one on the merchandise we buy of our free will.

The change needs to start so fast and much, it’s formidable. If we continue to tell people they shouldn’t use tampons unless they have husbands (‘Lesbians? What are those things? Are they from Lebanon?’) and believe that  "Condoms promise safe sex, but the safest sex is through faithfulness to one's partner. Prevention is always better than cure,” (another gem from our buddy Harsh Vardhan), we’re in trouble. The idea that it’s so widespread is daunting, but the phrase ‘one step at a time’ springs to mind.

Let’s start by reprinting that manual, shall we?

That Girl At The Party

So, I thought I'd renounce writing fiction for a while, because I haven't felt, recently, that I could it give it the time (and do it the justice) it deserves. But I took a swipe at it anyway. Any encompassing comparisons to The Devil Wears Prada will not be well-received. In any other regard, critique away.

***

She was still trying to find a position for her legs. “To look poised, you must feel poised,” her grandmother had often told her, but her grandmother was speaking from Pedestal du Poise—it was like a fish teaching a giraffe how to swim, and being confused because it wasn’t happening organically.

The air had that freesia-infused scent that these events often had, intermingling softly with the body odour of the nouveau riche, a fairly distinct strain of fragrance from the old-money crowd because of the underlying notes of desperation. The alfresco restaurant (or 'Bar and Kitchen, as they're now known as) was swarming with 'masquerading-as-20-somethings' that wore practiced smiles, a voice two octaves higher than usual, and dresses that clung too tightly.

“I can’t believe they’re serving Absolut? I’m SO not drunk enough for Absolut!” spouted a skinny-jeans-and-corset-donning socialite, who’d probably have traded down said Absolut if she’d been footing the bill. “God, I swear. I heard these guys are making people wear paper bands because they’re so afraid a couple of randoms will come have a drink. Oof, yaar, so cheap!” said a designer, notorious for underpaying his staff, on the odd month he deigned to pay them at all.

It was a people-watcher’s Happy Sunday. If she could’ve played wallflower and coalesced with the fancy ricepaper from Zhangjiajie while sipping her Cranberry and (gasp!) Absolut, she would’ve. But here she was, playing imposter again. She excused herself from the grip of a pushy ex-editor giving her a liquor-tinted spiel about ‘Drivers these days!’ and beelined for the bathroom.

She walked into the loo (the kind with couches and potpourri), and, since noone was there, decided it couldn’t do too much harm to stare at herself in the mirror for a little bit. Her reflection was passable. If some wandering neophyte had caught a glimpse of her, he would’ve been well-fooled into thinking she belonged here.

She looked the part—and would’ve played it with crackerjack dexterity if she hadn’t made her start regularly advertising her ignorance. In turn, even the nuances and nuggets of skill and information she had accrued in her time there were now treated as novice babble.

The girl in the spotless glass had stark red lips, the colour of blood from movies with high production value. Her dress was black, cut in a style she wouldn’t have chosen off the rack, but worked for her body. That body went to the gym now, so it worked with more outfits than it had two years ago. She was wearing nude flats—or what she'd called ‘beige’ before this place had happened to her—and her undomesticated hair and eyebrows were the only things that hadn’t been moulded to fit the tenor of the evening.

It felt odd to recognise herself in much the same way she would an acquaintance she saw regularly. There was that surface familiarity—with a vague, egalitarian air to it—she knew that face like she knew lots of faces she ‘knew’. 

Her eyes darted instead of focusing—it had become the norm, nowadays. She could never fully absorb that image in doses longer than seconds. People wouldn't understand if she said she minded what it had become—"But you look so much better in your Facebook pictures," they'd decree.

If one skipped down past numerous ‘Load More’s perusing those pictures, one would find a cornucopia of photographs with a girl making faces that could hardly be described as ‘poised’, her template Fabindia shirt changing prints, colours and states of disarray. A world-weary bra-strap, fraying at the seams, often went rogue and peeked out at her collarbones (for extra glamour).

Her shoulders were always cut into by thick, black straps that would reveal a pregnant fossil of a backpack if turned to profile. The hair, still a riot of curls, had lost the thin halo of frizz it once had. Scrolling back upward, that hair found itself lopped shorter, then untamedly longer, then frozen at a length that ‘worked’ (this word was an inextricable part of her livelihood now—things and their most laudable qualities were quickly pared down to this phrase). And her clothes had ‘evolved’ from college-girl clumsy to middlingly urbane.

The chubbier, grimier ghost of her former self slow-clapped in awe at the size 25 waist and the semblance of cheekbones she now possessed—the very notion of those things had, in retrograde, seemed unfathomable. Yet here she was. Something she’d never imagined she’d be.

Photographable.

It didn’t seem right.

Her phone began to buzz with reckless abandon, throwing the thin, marble counter into frightened turmoil. The summons from her couture-clad-clan had begun. Her eyes swept over the gilt-framed mirror. The uncharacteristic black dress looked uncharacteristically good, and the ‘nude’ flats and red lips played their parts in the charade flawlessly.

Only one, ill-fitting bra-strap played peek-a-boo on her left shoulder.

As she slid her finger underneath the thin strip of fabric to tuck away and conceal it, she felt the roughness of jagged fabric—chewed on by her kitten to contribute to it's waning life. She realised how close the strap was to giving away and dropping the facade of her breasts being in perky place. The idea, itself, was scandalous.

She smiled at the thought as she sauntered out.

My Brand of Feminism

Damn Straight.

In my office, at the women’s magazine I work for, I’ve often been branded a ‘flagrant feminist’ (an idea I find entertaining given that I work in a space that’s about as ‘by women, for women’ as it can get). This tag comes with some degree of respect, some degree of amusement—and even a modicum of disdain.

But I find it’s because my idea of what a feminist makes is too far out for many folk to grasp. It‘s ‘too much’, too insanely full of ideals that many of the people I know would rather not commit to. It makes people stare at me with awe and, often, with complete and utter flabbergasted-ness, and makes them check some of their sentences with the prefix “I’m not a feminist like you are…” meaning that their brand of feminism fell short of mine, in some way, shape or form and so I might judge their comments to come from my pedestal of feminist upstanding.

But that’s the thing—what the fuck is feminism? Who decides if I’m more feminist than the next person? Should feminism be allowed to be a choice for a woman? Should it not, like breasts and PMS, come naturally in the time with which you process it? And...does my proclaiming that come across as aggressive—a trait people associate with ‘my brand’ of feminism?

When I hear people cloaking their sexist expectations in the quick guise of the words “I mean, of course I’m a feminist, but I love me a guy who’ll hold the door open for me…” I wonder if, even though the notion of this term is a touch free-flowing, shouldn’t it NOT be okay for people to just emblazon the label of “Proud Feminist” on their chests, with the addendum of a million ‘exceptions’ in the fine print?

So, perhaps, even though there will be more eloquent definitions and by-laws than my own, I thought it might be wise (for my own clarity, more than any other purpose) to lay down some tenets of ‘my brand’ of feminism:

1)   The idea of equal pay for equal work is something I champion thoroughly. However, in a world where this goal comes to fruition, it should no longer be okay for the man to pick up the tab on dates, because, you know, 'that's just, like, the way it's supposed to be done'.

2)   It’s HORRIFIC that women, after the trauma of being raped, have to go through sickening abuse at the hands of the police, and of society. That the lengths to which she has to prove she isn’t lying is another, heart-breaking ordeal. That she’s treated not as a victim first, but as a suspect. It’s also horrific when a woman who hasn’t been harmed in any way realizes that this is the easiest route to ruining an innocent man’s reputation and life in one fell swoop.

3)   It’s absolutely okay for women to want to run their lives with exactly as much freedom as men. It is, indeed, our right to walk the streets late at night, to study till whatever age we want and not get married till we’re 45 or EVER, just because we feel like it. We just can’t forget that this means that we can’t not know how to change a tyre, or deal with property brokers or learn some expert-level MMA to save our own lives because, you know, that's why we have men (cue many LOLZ). 

4)   Women need to be considered on par with men at the workplace—in every way. If you worked as hard as a male colleague, it wouldn’t at all be fair that you be passed over for a promotion because the clients would “just be more comfortable with a man at the head of the (conference) table.” But this same claim in life cannot come from the kind of space where women use “period pains” when they don’t have them to get out of work because, that’s something a male boss can’t question because it makes him uncomfortable and out of line.

5)   We need to realize it’s not okay to crib about women’s rights in public forums and social media, but change sides like the flick of a switch when it comes to real life. We have to make a noise, even if its more inconvenient than ‘just letting it go’ when a passerby on the street grazing your ass with his hand, or if a man stares at your chest throughout your bus ride to work.

6)   No woman is asking for it. Ever. Period. No exceptions. If she is naked with a “Fuck Me” sign in glitter across her breasts, she is still not yours to touch. You need her permission, always, always, always. You also need HIS permission. The idea that you can stick your tongue down a man’s throat, or press your body into his, or grab his crotch do not become okay because, well, he’s a man and they never say no. They can, they do, they have every goddamn right to. It doesn’t make it any less assault because you’re a woman. It makes it worse, because people will cry when you talk about YOUR ordeal, but laugh when he brings up his.

We need to have the guts (not the balls, *she sidesteps carefully*) to know you have to earn the right to be called a feminist, because it doesn’t come in the exact size and shape you want it to. It's like a degree, an education. You don't decide you want to be a lawyer and become one by telling people you're a lawyer. It takes commitment.

It means not asking a man to give up his seat on the bus, in the section marked ‘ladies’, because even though your legs are aching like hell from running around all day, you know being a woman is not a handicap.

It means paying your way through life, in kind and in cash, because no one else is responsible for you but you yourself.

It means understanding that being a feminist is a beautiful thing but, just like life, there will be parts of it you don’t like, that don’t work in your favour. That don’t allow you free drinks or half-days at work or the luxury to feel up any man that takes your fancy.

It means realizing that you are NOT a victim—not of society or gender. Not anymore. It’s believing that your playing with a full deck—that you are not handicapped, underprivileged; that you are not the underdog. You are in the game, and you are a full, strong contender. It means taking the time, the pain and the fight to correct someone when they tell you you can’t do something. It will be the very opposite of easy—it will often be unpleasant and sometimes even take a few tries. But that daily struggle of carving a tunnel to other side with the nib of a ball-point pen, and making a dent every time you try—that is feminism.

Or atleast, you know, 'my brand' of feminism.

The Age Of PC

I’ve always found it a dubious occupation—being an old soul in a Y2K existence (the fact I call it a ‘Y2K existence’ probably proves my point). But the one thing that truly and profoundly frightens me is the delicacy with which we need to co-exist with people in this new-age world of social tip-toeing.

I’ll explain. A friend of mine once said something that started this train of thought, and this train’s been running parallel to all my sentient activity for the last three years since he said it. A simple enough declaration—“I don’t like him (another friend in question). But I’m afraid if I don’t pretend to, people will think I’m homophobic”.

This unearthed a great, big tumble of scary realities to me. The friend in question was gay—and wildly popular with the exception of with this other friend—and it seemed to him that displaying his natural aversion to this person would make him seem like he had an issue with his being gay. It’s this kind of hazardous proposition—expressing a dislike for someone and the assumption that it’s tantamount to that one ‘glaring’ aspect of their personality—that calls for political correctness.

With the looming possibility of nasty Tweets and Re-tweets, and flagrant social-media shaming, is it possible to express any opinions without a fear of social judgment?

I started to examine this friends social resume under the magnifying glass—and I realised how faux some of his friendships seemed. Not from his side, though—he seemed to have a connect with the people I’m talking about. The people, however, seemed to gush over him just a little bit extra, love his outfits a little too much, think everything he said was just a little too golden. And it all seemed a little too much like…overcompensation.

The fact that we live in a world with so much access and liberty has tabled the idea of ‘free speech’. I mean, sure, you can freely love something that’s socially acceptable. But to not love it is to reek of intolerance—even if it actually hasn’t come into the equation at all!

Look at the two friends I was referring to—X doesn’t like Y. Y happens to be gay. But X dislikes Y regardless of him being gay. He could be straight, or hate Thai food or he could be Thor in sheep’s clothing—X still wouldn’t like Y because Y just…isn’t his sort of guy. But, in the tip-toeing terseness in which we all currently exist, to declare that X didn’t like Y would instantly be interpreted as an attack on Y’s sexuality. “Dant-dant-dant-SILENCE! No explanation NEEDED!”

This led me to wonder exactly how often we filter our opinions through the sieve of social correctness before we let the world access them. The myriad thoughts that might enter our head before we make our opinions known on any subject under the sun—If I say I like the fact that boyfriend came to the airport to pick me up, does that make me un-feminist? If I say that I thought the shoot-outs in Die Hard were cool, does that make a look like I’m a pro-violence, gun-toting fascist? If I say that I’d really like a new phone for my birthday, does that make me a vapid, hollow materialist?

Every statement, every comment is simply a plethora of naked text to be read into. There is no such thing as an ‘innocent’ remark. It is always deemed laced with meaningful nuance and socio-political undertones that speak to whether our character is ‘acceptable’ or not.  You could be branded a ‘sexist’ while trying to order Chinese food, a ‘racist’ while trying to find a bus ticket in your bag or ‘frivolous’ while watching a film with headphones on in an airplane. There is no dearth of unsavoury labels waiting to flag you as you go through the game of tag that life has recently become.

And so, in this era, I feel a certain degree of envy for obliviousness. When a man blatantly makes an ‘anti-Dalit’ or a sexist remark, I loathe him entirely for his thoughts, but envy him deeply for the freedom he gave himself to express them. I’d never have the balls to say that, I think, and then I wonder how anti-feminist it is again to associate bravery with ‘having balls’.

In an age where we so carefully and cautiously live in an effort to ‘check ourselves before we wreck ourselves’, I wonder if freedom of speech even exists—and counts–if you end up being your own Censor Board. A system clamping down on what you ought or ought not to say is simply cause for the romance of rebellion—but when it’s self-inflicted, what fight is there to fight?

I will now to proceed to leave you, and constantly second-guess putting this blog post up for all the damage it might do because hey, I made a comment about envying the self-confidence of sexists.

On Realising I’m A Bitch

The Mothership

I’ve always imagined I was the kindest person in the history of time. It has broken my figurative heart (and hurt my literal feelings) every time I’ve been casually labelled a ‘bitch’ by someone, in passing. As if it were nothing but a mere assessment of a character trait—and a terribly natural one at that.  But…I couldn’t possibly be! I’m delightful!

 I have a colleague who, very proudly, declares that she once took a quiz to find out what ‘kind of bitch’ she was. Her results said she was an Alpha Bitch, and she professed it with great fervour and satisfaction, wearing it like a badge of society’s vote of confidence. I couldn’t understand. Was being a bitch currently in style?

I’ve often been told that I must cultivate some degree of ruthlessness to succeed in this ‘cut-throat world we live in’. I’ve watched pop cultural favourites in horror where XYZ steps all over her sick grandmother to cut a business deal and/or trades his girlfriend in as a sexual favour because it means owning a hotel (Okay, perhaps this is all mostly from Gossip Girl, but I’m sure there are other, higher-brow examples out there that don’t quite come to mind as easily.)

The idea of this seems galling. It leads me back to that big, looming question that has spurned ever so many indecipherable philosophy doctrines and bad, loosely psychotherapy-premised shows—‘But what is the meaning of life?’ For me, I suppose when I shy away from unleashing the full can of worms that’d be the answer to that question, the sentiment would veer off a touch from Sartre’s ‘Hell is Other People’ and arrive at ‘Life is Other People’.

It seems simplistic, perhaps, but apt. I can’t think of a single thing about my life that cannot be measured in people.

·      The friends I have, and the company and support they provide on a monthly/weekly/daily-nightly basis.

·      The people I work with, the ability to make it through the day seamlessly and without debacle, to prove my worth as a working individual AND as a human being.

·      My family, and constantly exhibiting the fact that I love them, so they are secure in the knowledge that their daughter loves them/cares about them.

·      My boyfriend, and taking decisions every day to be a different ratio of bad girlfriend/ good girlfriend (aka myself/ attractive version of myself).

·      The miscellaneous, but important, cast and crew of my life (The cleaning lady at the gym, the old classmate I run into every time I drink at Summerhouse, the landlord) whose opinions possibly matter most because they see me from a bird’s eye-view.

I digress, but there is a modicum of method to my madness. This off-track diatribe about people being the essence of existence ties in with my theory. If people are the very core of the apple that is life, then how is being a bitch a marketable quality? It seems odd to revel in this label (something not exclusive to M’Colleague here), to treat it like it is a saleable characteristic that will ‘take us far’ in life. Take us far I’m sure it shall, but it seems a touch hollow to be a widely-feared CEO at a soul-guzzling mega-corp and not have anyone that’ll grab a drink with you on Fridays.

But this realisation, I’m afraid, is not the centrifugal force that drives this verbal onslaught. The sad realisation is that despite my accidentally-Buddhist world-view, coupled with my inherent knowledge that I am the golden-est of all hearts that ever has beat, is the fact that I am, in reality, a bitch.

I never saw it creep up on me. I went about innocently, doing my thing, assuming that since I know what a soft and gentle spirit resided in my otherwise unprepossessing frame, people would automatically know it as well. Never could I have fathomed there was truth to the statement ‘Oh, you’re such a bitch’ uttered off-handedly by a friend or compatriot. ’They’re mistaken,’ I would tell myself, claiming plausible deniability because, heck, I saw no signs of it.

Until, one day, I heard myself saying the words “well, what can you really expect of her. She can’t even spell ‘brooch’”. It hit me like a tonne of bricks in action replay—what a goddamn bitchy thing to say! It then came to me in a discomforting cascade of flashbacks—I had always said things as such and their cousins. Whether it was ripping people apart for their inadmissible grammar, or their obsession with a shallow little somethin’-somethin’ like shoes (see? There I go again), I’d always had a standard I’d expected people to meet. I just hadn’t realised quite how I was treating the people that fell short of this self-erected yardstick.

Yes, I always smile at doormen and yes, I always get up for older people on the bus—but is that enough? Have I been so caught up believing I was nice that I’d forgotten to be? I can’t help but wonder if I’d gotten it so wrong that my real self and ideal self were that far off that I wasn’t at all in touch with who I had become over time.

And if this were true, if I had been an undercover bitch for ages now, was it even possible to revert to my former state of niceness? Was there a cure for the deep-rooted snark that had infested my sterling soul? Could I successsfully shake the nasty, or…

…or should I just be taking the ‘What Kind Of Bitch Are You?’ quiz, grabbing a label and owning it?

#Hatergram

While I was pumping iron at the gym this morning (not really, I was on the treadmill, but ‘I was running on a hamster-wheel this morning’ doesn’t quite denote swag as much), a friend who's planning to go to Europe for a shoot next month, mentioned stumbling upon a woman (online, in the name of research) she knew who’d been there recently.

Hoping to find sweeping landcapes turned into cutesy Polaroid-style photographs with captions like ‘Majestic Gstaad’ and ‘Breathtaking Berlin’, she found only pictures of said globe-trotter pouting amidst various locations. While the clear labelling was indeed, handy (Me in Prague! #duckface. Me in Barcelona! #duckface) the futility of the exercise soon dawned on my friend, who realised that, to this woman, the big sell of every gorgeous European hotspot was that her pout had now been Instagrammed there.

I couldn’t help but wonder how deeply social media has affected our life goals (another friend of mine would have been likely to interject at this juncture and say #lifegoals—case in point). This woman had just traversed the borders into what was once, deliciously foreign land (and is now simply status quo for anyone whose been anywhere), and through all her experiences in Europe, hadn’t been able to spare a photograph for the place itself.

Going back to the old-school era (in my mind, tucked fondly into a happy crevice) when we took our little Nikons to Adlabs after our limited reel of 36 snaps was full up, and waited days while spools of negative turned into the contents of albums titled ‘Goa Holiday’ and ‘Nani’s Visit 1997’—I remember how, even then, when we lost a couple of soldiers to over-exposure, or having left the shutter down, we’d still have two or three pictures entirely sans people,…just to capture the space in which all those memories took place.

Having that space arrested as a whole, on it’s own piece of glossy photo-paper meant that we could insert all the memories we hadn’t finalised on film, instead of filling the frame with one specific smile, or one specific awkward group hug.

Now, however, the capacity of the average iPhone or Android phone or whatever your techno-poison of choice, is unlimited. Fill it brimful with unending bathroom selfies, and dump onto desktop when the phone sends it’s disciplinary ‘memory-full’ warning. Using a camera is a photographer’s game—whip one out in a crowded bar full of lycra-and-laced up ladies, and those click-ready smiles turned to confused ‘excuse-MEH?’ faces.

But even then, in daily flurries of picture-taking, no one really stops to photograph a space. Not on their travels, not on their everyday tos-and-fros from office-to-filler-time-entertainment to-home. People can only claim a space if they push themselves into the frame, and it’s not worth claiming if it can’t be advertised.

Enter Instagram.

I’ve already garnered a plethora of hatred for my refusal to partake of this over-indulgent fad. ‘Why aren’t you on Insta?!’ many whinge, encouraging me to join it by telling they will be able to tag me in drunken photos of myself that illustrate particularly how unattractive I am, and how incapable my face is of a proper smile (if you’re thinking of Chandler from F.R.I.E.N.D.S. that would be accurate, yes). I realise that in this day-and-age (forgive me for that awful phrase. It’s been used more times than that F.R.I.E.N.D.S reference, I know) not being on Instagram is a veritable sin. It makes me stuck in the past, detestable especially being a weed of the current crop (basically, 25 years old).

But my issue with this desultory portal is really quite simple—it takes away from experience. It changes every event, gathering, coffee break, drunken night, moribund weekend of viral fever, and 3 a.m. work session into a ‘photographable moment’. One might argue, ‘So what? It’s nice to remember the little things!’ However, I have had conversations with friends where pieces of a night together have dropped away from memory, or little experiences have been missed because they were too busy taking red-lipstick selfies with the bartender. Between the incessant phone-flashes and the inebriation of too many gin-and-tonics, they barely remember being there.

But hey, there’s a picture that proves it on Instagram.

I come across as full of loathing, too irate to move forward with the times. I’m not, not really. I’d be a hypocrite if I was, because I, too, have taken selfies with some bartenders in my time (okay, regular photographs. I can’t be sold on the selfie thing still). But this obsession to show the world you’re having a good time often precedes actually having a good time. Flipping through my best friend’s Insta account, I found happy pictures of her on nights where I know she’d been crying her face off not 20 minutes before that picture was taken. The façade of a good time supercedes everything—‘If it’s not on Insta, it doesn’t count,’ says a popular meme.

I suppose that must mean I don’t count. Oh well. I’ll just have to work with anecdotes about a girl’s night in instead, and hope that people don’t ask for documentation to prove the 12 stages of relaxation I went through that evening.