Feminism and Everyday Life

There are confusions galore in my mind. And I don't mean it as a rhetorical statement. There are confusions about womanhood, sisterhood, activism, epistemological reasoning of the word "feminism" and the practice of the movement in everyday life. How much is too much and how much is too little? Are we standing up to the movement- rethinking, re imagining, renegotiating the territories charted out by feminists? Who were the feminists anyway? And where are they now? And no, please I don't mean the tight-fisted, big bicep, burlesque woman and neither do I mean the flag twirling activist fighting for labour reforms. No. That makes me cringe. It makes feminism too limiting. I am not sure I am going to go in to the double bindedness of Spivak, where capitalism is an embedded necessity within the movement. Where are we going from here and why this sudden talk of feminism?

I have to admit- I must have written and re-written this blog umpteen number of times- never quite satisfied with the result of my own thought process, wondering if feminism can be thought only in "opposition"- to men. It amazes me how fixated we are on men- men have the jobs, men have the rights, men are ruling us, men control my life, men control public spaces, men control law and order..arrgggh! Terrifying, but true! I was and am still disillusioned with this "us" VS "them" categories, as if men and women are 2 distinct categories, never meant to live together. As though, gender inequality is the most naturalized norm that we should be able to take in. It exists- just as air does.

So, in a way the Men Say No blogathon did take me by complete surprise. I was asked to write about how men can rise up against violence. It seemed like one of those uncomfortable moments in a gender seminar when a lone man's voice will say "But men too are beaten by their wives. Men too can suffer violence, but without ever speaking about it." Agreed. But how many? And even if this introspection isn't about pure numbers, do men stand to gain from standing up against violence? Do men even know what accounts as violence? I don't intend to be a man hater, but I really doubt if any man would even remotely be questioning the norms of violence.

Consider this. Much of our imagination of a particular kind of violence (for instance rape) is drawn from popular media- of a single woman being surrounded by a gang of men and being molested, beaten up, harassed- you name it and all forms of physical violence will be visible. This is how we therefore "imagine" rape to be. In a manner of speaking, this is no different from a rape trial case unfolding in court (read: Mathura rape trial), where "consent" is open to interpretation. Submitting to violence may not involve any consent- but most narratives of violence will like us to believe so. I just lay the example of rape- but this could be the scenario in any kind of violence. And it doesn't have to do with physical power or about being the weaker sex. It is about the root of violence- not force, but coercion and often, there can be a fine line of divide between them.

I first met Ashaji while writing my novel-- a long, complicated, at times confusing family saga that Indians are famous for writing. Ashaji is a common character - an elderly maid who works in a 9 year old girl Radha's house. Here is what Radha notices one day:

"I had reached the door of the basement. The leopard mask was settled on my head and I had to quickly come up with a plan of action. What would Sasha have done in such a situation? I remembered Sasha telling me once, Radha, never forget- go for the kill but save your skin. I decided if Ashaji came out of her room, I would pretend that I had come to get my piggy bank.

I knocked on the main door of the basement in my attempt to be polite and then threw it open ready to yell out her name but stopped short. I had expected the plastic pig with the glassy eyes to be smiling up at me from the little space I had wedged it into. But the piggy bank was gone and all that remained was the empty cave, lined with silvery wisps of cobwebs. All my coins. My years of saving had disappeared. I could see the lizard flitting around yet again.

I sat on my haunches and felt the cold ground beneath me. I bent down and pried my hands inside the gap, thinking that the pig had perhaps been knocked over accidentally by Ashaji’s clumsy feet. My face was so close to the ground that I could smell a faint phenyl that had been rubbed on to the granite floor in the morning. My hand went deeper inside and I could feel the rough edges of Dadi’s wooden closet scratch against my bare arms. And instead of a pleasant ring of the coins, all I heard was a rustling sound. My ears were pressed against the wall that separated the closet from Ashaji’s room. The sound repeated. Of things being moved around. Of things rubbing against each other and then settling down into comfortable positions.

I started to get up. At that very instant, the distant flickering of the streetlight faded away into blackness. The fuzzy patch of light on Dadi’s closet door that had been my only companion slid down and disappeared into the floor. The throbbing noise of the ceiling fan that spun in Ashaji’s room groaned to a halt. I stood in the black basement, my heart pounding against my chest, as though struggling to run away from the darkness. A sliver of wind crept in again and cooled my neck. Something stirred and my hair ruffled under the slight pressure. My palms turned clammy as an ominous voice slithered into my head.

Have you ever heard the wind howling when it travels through the valley? The gardener at our hotel in Nepal had once asked me. He didn’t wait for a response. Listen to it next time. It is giving a warning that the yeti will be coming out from its cave tonight. There are no yetis in Delhi, I reasoned with myself. I wanted to hum a tune that would make my fear go away. I reached out my arms to find my way in the dark, but my palms hit against a cold block of solid. I could feel the plaster crumble and imagined them floating like snowflakes on to the floor.

I jerked my head towards a source of noise behind me that sounded like a piece of Velcro was being jerked away from its hook. I wondered if she was layering her legs with wax and pulling the cloth away from her skin. There was a scratchy gasp of breath. A clearing of a scratchy throat followed by more scratchy sounds like dry heels and dry palms rubbing against each other, trying hard to remain warm on a cold winter night.

Sasha had told me that lately Ashaji had started waxing her legs and since she wouldn’t get time in the day, she would do it at night.

“Well, how do you know?” I had asked her.

“Well…,” she had replied, “your Ashaji was asking my didi to get a big knife for her along with a big jar of wax and scissors. I heard them whispering to each other. And get this…your Ashaji kept saying ratirbela, which means nighttime right?” I nodded a yes.

I could see a possible connection between Sasha’s story and the objects of the coconut room. It all made sense. The deflated duffle bag with that lock on it. I imagined mounds of human hair rolled into balls. Maybe Sasha’s suspicion had been correct all along. Or maybe Ashaji had fallen asleep and the rustling was simply of her sheets. But how could she have fallen asleep before me? She just couldn’t fall asleep without giving me food.

A car revved in the distance. More rustling and a soft hissing noise floated out from Ashaji’s room. The car started and moved away. A beam of light entered through the vertical bars of the window. Three lines of soft light shifted from the ceiling to the floor to the closet onto my chest, paused for a second on the door to Ashaji’s room and then everything turned black again. A mosquito buzzed close to my face, as if it had been blindfolded and was trying to estimate my presence. I whispered in the dark Aasshhaa..

Something rustled. Something hard knocked against the door. A scratchy voice groaned in pain. A sound of thin giggle about to escape was smothered down by a scratchy Shhh. Like feet sliding on gravel and blowing up dust. Sasha always slid on the gravel path and was punished for it. Where was Sasha? I wondered if she would be asleep by now.

A deep moan escaped Ashaji’s throat. A long, dull wail. Like those women in old black and white Hindi movies, beating their chest mourning over the death of their husbands at the funeral pyre. All of a sudden, the ceiling fan began to gnaw at the air again, suppressing the drone of the mosquito and Ashaji’s cries. The streetlight gave reluctant flickers. A yellow light swelled up and floated out of the crack at the edge of Ashaji’s door. It carried a whiff of Ashaji’s coconut oil.

The scratchy voice cleared its throat and murmured. It sounded like a string of phish phish to my ears. I inched towards the door and an overwhelming metallic smell filled my nostrils. A cracked sole was bent at an odd angle. A bare leg, scrawny and brown, covered with fuzzy hair moved in and out of my vision. A brown foot finally paused. The scratchy voice was gasping for breath. The greenish-black toenails twitched, basking in the fullness of the harsh yellow light. Their blackness was unmistakable. I inched towards the door. It had to be him. The Missing-Tooth-Plumber.

The metallic smell revolted me- the smell that rose from the lock that guarded the main gate to my house. The metallic smell laced by a bland odor of rust. The rust caused by the sweat dripping through the rough beard on his cheek. The dangling jowls with the thin cheeks would shake with laughter, revealing a hollow mouth, a missing front tooth, a red tongue with beetle nut stains. A constantly moving jaw, chewing tobacco. Something or someone banged against the door.

I could see her head rested against the wall. Ashaji’s face was visible through the door as a perfect half moon- one shaggy eyebrow, one half-closed eye, the fleshy lips parted. The face moved like a half moon shifting and gliding between clouds. Her legs wide open, curled over his back. Her brown chest rolled into her brown belly making her look like a solid block of clay. Her belly rose and fell. I saw his hands slide up her legs, up her thighs. His bare back looked like a solid mass of stones, caving in upon her. Her long hair had been let loose. I had never seen it like that. He tugged at it, pushing her head back towards the wall. Her head hit the wall and her bangles rattled. Ashaji moaned in pain. His teeth dug into her skin.

My throat started feeling dry. It was an intoxicating smell of utter dryness. Of stones mixed with dry earth. Dry earth mixed with metal.

Sit like a lady Radha. Good girls don’t sit like that Radha. Cross your legs Radha. Pull your frock down Radha. Dadi, Ma and Ashaji would say whenever I curled my legs around the brown wicker chair on the porch.

She lay on the thin mattress, writhing in pain, her legs wide open. Curled. The stubby black toes, pointed towards the light. A nylon rope dangled above her feet and brushed against the bare skin. My hands were clenched into a tight fist, stuck to the sides of my body. I didn’t want to touch the walls. My stomach growled. Suddenly I felt angry that she had forgotten to serve me dinner. But they were naked. Horrifyingly naked. Oh god! What was she doing? You should never see naked people, Sasha had said. Because naked people kiss. Have you ever seen naked people, Sasha? Yes, on TV. My father didn’t know that I was hiding behind the curtains in the living room. He thought I was studying. It was so funny Radha. One girl and one boy with golden hair. They were making noises. Their lips were touching and then their tongues. I felt that the plaster would fall off from the walls and then the fragile walls would come crashing down and give away my secret.

On the opposite wall, I could see the flowered kurta that she had been wearing in the morning. The peg pierced through its neck as a thin piece of her cotton under frock dropped down from my sight. There were harsh whispers. The coconut-tobacco smell was making its way through the spine of the door and the brown gap. He rocked on top of her like a toy out of control, holding his hand across her mouth.

I looked down at my feet. I had forgotten to wear my slippers. My foot hit a sharp-edged object. It inched forward to hit the door. A furious rustling followed. I slipped into darkness, away from the view of the door. Missing-Tooth-Plumber coughed. Ashaji said in a soft voice, “Kaun?” I felt the rough grains of dust and mud nested in the gaps of my toes and the curve of my feet. A car honked outside and the beam of light re-entered through the vertical bars of the window. A circle of light was coming my way. From the ceiling, on to the wall and it was about to land on me, catch me by my neck.

I ran, as fast as I could, through the door, up the stairs, through Ma and Baba’s room, into the safety of my room and bolted the door. I sat on my bed for a long time, looking outside the window at the starless sky. A lump of fear was pounding against my throat. My chest was starting to pain from the sudden sprint.

I wanted to cry when I realized I no longer had the leopard print mask with me. Her moans rang in my ears. I went and checked the bolt again. I was afraid he would come and get me too and dig his fangs into my neck, just like he had done with Ashaji."

What did Radha watch that night- an act of consent or submission, both or neither? I am not sure and it may not be important, but it is amazing how a discussion on men has turned towards women. This blogger still remains a skeptic about "men saying no"-- but, hopefully some thoughts have been thrown open in this meandering discussion with a figment of imagination thrown in.

This Blog post is part of the Men Say No Blogathon, encouraging men to take up action against the violence faced by women. More entries to the Blogathon can be read at www.mustbol.in/blogathon. Join further conversation on facebook.com/delhiyouth & twitter.com/mustbol