Tuesday 10 December 2013

Tuesday 20 August 2013

The Shitstorm That Is 2013

I haven't blogged in ages. I don't know if I can anymore either.

I've had one of those years. One of those years that you feel you can't really write about and do any justice to, that you rhetorically ask yourself what the point would even be.

I've been kinda frozen this year. Haven't written, haven't painted, haven't got on my metaphorical cardboard box like I usually do and said, hey guys listen up I have something to say. It was quiet, like folding a paper in on itself, so quiet that nobody really noticed.

I think I'm blogging about it because writing to an imaginary audience used to be therapeutic. So maybe it'll help. Even though every part of me is writhing in protest against the idea of sharing this with people.

I think the first blow and the only one that mattered was the racist movement back home. I am so sick and tired of hearing about it and talking about it so I'm not going to now. I will say only that it altered my perception of reality, and that that can be very uncomfortable. It was like being told your mother is actually a cyborg (except not even remotely as cool), there was so much incredulity and doubt, and then the recognition of this thing you'd been blind to, but had been there all along, hiding inside your own house. I think I'm still in shock and will be for a while at least.

Some other crap happened around this too, nothing phenomenal. Just the usual stuff that you mustn't be a whiny bitch about. I lost some very close friends. The children I used to teach at a slum were relocated and their education neglected, because nobody cares. My belief in religion has wavered like never before. These things happen, it is the way of the world (or at least those are the words you say to try and make sense of it). I guess in a sense, I grew up this year. I'd been living in a state of naivety housed by certain unshaken beliefs about reality and purpose and the goodness out there, and the bubble had broken and I'd seen that no, things can be horrible and senseless too.

In my first week in Sri Lanka during summer holidays, I was on edge. On a bus to Kandy I looked around and wondered if there were any people in it who hated Muslims. I was afraid to look people in the eye when I was strolling through Bamba. I stopped enjoying social outings. I was taciturn and irritable with my parents. I spent weeks at my grandmother's because I felt safer there. Most importantly I couldn't talk to anybody about it, or didn't want to. I was hypersensitive, like something had created a wound but the scab hadn't grown over it yet.

When you see things things you wish you hadn't, when ignorance is literally bliss and the opposite is torture, but you also know opening your eyes is inevitable, I think the most important thing is to not let it dominate you. I'm not talking about seeing your friendship fall apart or not getting cake on your birthday, I'm talking about seeing a fourteen year old rickshaw-driver get fifty rupees a day to support his homeless family, seeing women being attacked for nothing short of having a vagina, seeing crippled children lie on the pavement of a crowded affluent street, seeing people proud and shameless about their hatred, and seeing the smiling complacency in everybody else, which is uglier than all of it put together.

The important thing is to be able to shut your eyes and take a time-out. To listen to a song or listen to somebody making a joke or telling a story, to divert yourself, and block everything out for a while. Then tackle the bad stuff in short spurts in-between. It's important to not indulge in your own feelings, they are not as momentous as you think. It's also important to realize you're still learning, that you don't know everything yet, and probably never will, so maybe your conclusions are all wrong and so there's always still room for something new, that nothing is fixed so it makes no sense to fret over what can and probably will change.

I'm babbling.

Anyway, maybe I'm a glutton for punishment, but I'm glad sometimes. Not because 'light at the end of the tunnel' or 'you come out in one piece' or anything, but because shitstorms are fascinating things. You don't really know what's coming your way, you don't know how you'll get over it, or if you will, and that not-knowing is a great feeling. I think it takes balls to face the unknown and the uncertain, and if the whole thing is worth nothing else, at least there's that freedom you possess in making the choice to keep your head up and confront it. 

Sunday 16 June 2013

Happy Father's Day.

So it is the day that all our feeds are filled with status updates and cheesy posts about our beloved fathers, and cafes and restaurants proudly advertise discounts in the name of Father's Day on page 1 of the Sunday papers. 'You're my role model', goes one update gushing with emotion, while another one goes 'You taught me everything I know, I'm so proud of you, dad.' What do those of us who don't feel the same way about our dads say on Father's Day?

Happy Father's Day, dad. Growing up I had to listen to you losing your temper a lot, I learnt my first swear words from you at age ten because you were yelling to nobody in particular about something stupid like the curry at lunch, it wasn't cooked well. I used to run to the garden and lie on the grass and stare at the sky because the house was too noisy with all the shouting. It was years till I realized you were so angry all the time not because of anything or anyone in your present, but because of things and people in your past. It was years before you realized that yourself and finally calmed down.

Thank you for not being a perfect dad, for being far from perfect actually. It taught me very early on that people and experiences are not ideal, and that's what life's about, being OK with that. It made me a very strong person because you have to be to survive that. It taught me incredible empathy because I learnt you were a product of bad things that had happened to you before I was even around. And that taught me that we mustn't ever let our bad experiences define us, we're worth more than that.

I thank you for the genes, because I probably I owe my artistic inclinations to you. Thank you for the jazz music playing on your stereo and the water-colour paintings in your drawing book that I loved to look at as a child. Thank you for changing; I love you for becoming a better, kinder person, and I appreciate how hard breaking that cycle must have been for you. Thank you for leaving fruits and a vegetarian cookbook on my table the other day when I said I wanted to be vegetarian, I know random little acts like that is how you love people because you're not the best at expressing yourself.

You're not the best dad in the world and I'm not proud of everything you've done. But I've become who I am because of who you are, and that is worth a lot of love and praise. 

Friday 24 May 2013

Anna Karenina & 21st Century Asian Women

This post is for the movie-buffs, the theatre enthusiasts and especially for my female readers.

In my last semester, we studied an essay by Tolstoy, which inspired me to go hunting for a few of this Russian fellow's books at the Delhi Book Fair. I found Anna Karenina, one of his most notable pieces of work, an intimidating three-inches thick. It is a story about a Russian aristocratic woman of the 19th century, married to a politician, and her rise and fall in St Petersburg society as she finds herself entangled in an extramarital love affair.

I know this is usually considered the Cardinal sin in bookworm-society, but I am going to say it anyway: I enjoyed the movie better than the book. Cue the collective gasp.

In a time when Hollywood is constantly churning out 3D-overkills that assault the senses, or comic-book-themed remake after remake, or endless stupid sequels - I realized I had not seen a great movie in a very, very long time, and since the 90s I'd say the number of truly great and original cinema productions are few enough to count on my fingers. Then I watched Anna Karenina yesterday.

I'm going to try to hold back on spoilers in this review because I'd hate to give you too many details - I want you to watch it and experience it for yourself. But I will say that the movie was beautifully executed: it was a movie, pretending to be a play. The characters walked on and off a great wooden stage, fake screens were put up and removed to change scenes, the soundtracks were in the style of extras walking through the scenes with trumpets and accordions, spotlights dropped on main characters to cue a dramatic moment. Anna Karenina the movie may have had its storyline borrowed from Tolstoy's book but as a whole, the movie is in a league of its own; it is a different experience from the book entirely.

My favourite scene was when Anna - now openly in an affair with the young military man Vrosnky, now openly cuckolding her politician husband who is considered a 'saint' and 'the savior of Russia' - is seated in her box at the opera. The music suddenly drops, the dramatic spotlight hits her face, the heads of the ladies in the hall are all turned towards her, and among the hushed whispers as they point and stare are little loud snippets of conversation as one aristocratic lady after another commits character-assassination. Anna can only bite her lip and burn beneath the caustic stares and the glaring spotlight.

The best part about the movie is the fact that none of the actors, at least to me, are extraordinary. Keira Knightley, Jude Law, John Cusack, and the rest perform suitably, but are ordinary in their performances - and that allows the dramatic stage-styling of the movie to do half the work; powerhouse performances along with the dramatic format may certainly have ended up in overkill, and the focus on any one actor's performance would have taken away from the movie's success in drawing out the theme of the story (more on that soon) with such precision.

Now what does any of this have to do with 21st century Asian women? Readers of the book probably already know, but for the rest of you - the book and the movie, in very distinct ways, address the issue of loveless marriages. The movie is a treatise on the arranged marriage based on 'wealth' and 'family name' -- a phenomenon still common to people today predominantly in Asia. That society has a lot of parallels with a 21st century Sri Lankan or Indian one: the patriarchal power system, the restricted sexuality of women, the commercialism of the marriage arrangement. The microscope plunges deeper into the issue as it focuses on women in this complex cultural setting. There are three relationships running through the length of this 19th century Russian tale: and two to me are most significant in this discussion -- the one in which Anna has an extramarital affair, and the one in which her brother has an extramarital affair. Tolstoy chooses to have these two tales running parallel - to show us the obvious differences, between a man who has an affair outside marriage, and a woman who does the same. While Anna must face the growling monster of St Petersburg aristocratic society, that condemns her for her loss of virtue (19th century slut-shaming) - her brother barely gets even a rap on the knuckles.

Some people might say the whole point at the end of it is that 'hey, women should have the freedom to have affairs outside marriage too!' but I think that's over-simplifying it. I think the movie is doing less to preach about what should be the ideal, and is doing more to simply show us the ugly underbelly and the chaos within a society riddled with hypocrisy and gender bias. The scenes reach a climax as Anna's children, both by her husband and her lover, are pulled into the mess. At one point her husband threatens with divorce - which he predicts will result in inevitably 'driving her to the streets' (Anna's brother meanwhile continues undisturbed in his sexual liaisons outside marriage). At another point, when Anna is settled down with her lover, she is racked with guilt and insecurities, because she knows she has done 'wrong' - she is a woman who has 'acted against god' by breaking her wedding vows, and the society around her is a constant reminder of it, and she clings on to Vronsky, constantly expecting him to leave her, for her upbringing has taught her that a woman who has done what she has done is wretched and undeserving of love and happiness.

For women and especially for women who think of and discuss female issues, Anna Karenina the movie is an absolute gut-wrenching must-watch (and of course, get the book too, though like I said, that would deserve an entirely different kind of review). What is the nature of individual human freedom? How far do society's norms have the right to play a part in it? What is 'duty' in marriage - duty to one's children, to one's spouse - and how does it interact with 'love'? Is love superior to duty or vice versa? And the most important topic of all the questions posed in this story - the agency that women have over their own lives, and the traps laid out by women and men of our own society today (and once upon a time in Russia) to desperately keep women from exercising that agency. As opposed to simply throwing around the very over-used statement 'give women equal rights and freedom!' - Tolstoy, this movie, and its contextual release in the 21st century, may inspire you to look beyond the rhetoric and see just how complex and intricate our system of gender bias is, how many layers there are to it - political/ religious/ cultural/ economical - and to truly begin to strategize on how best to dive into the deep quagmire that is organized-oppression, and start cleaning up this monumental mess we have allowed to fester. 

Friday 10 May 2013

Pants Are So Passé

As I rummaged through my daily dose of rubbishy Facebook/blogosphere news, it struck me, upon seeing several images of today's top fashionistas and world renowned celebrities, that I had been living under a rock for years, as the revelation suddenly hit me: are pants a thing of the past?

If the idea comes as a surprise to you, you should be ashamed of yourself for being so damn retrogade. From Gaga to Madonna to Jessie J, style icons are proudly sporting the new pantless look.

 


Had I, then, along with the pants-wearing conservatives around me, been living in a backward world these past years, blind to the growing cult of progressiveness that pantslessness represents in a new world order? I had to find out.

I had to get to the bottom of this.

I searched the city for a forward-thinker, for a person who was not afraid to look society and the world in the eye and say 'HEY MAN. I'm not wearing any pants!'

I finally met one: Raj, the old hobo at the end of my street (who has occasionally been accused of throwing betel nuts at pedestrians and yelling at pigeons, but they used to call Einstein a madman in his time!). I asked Raj what pantslessness meant to him, what kept all of society from embracing it as the future, who was his inspiration?

Raj looked me right in the eye, and he told me he did not wear pants because he did not like pants. He enjoyed the airiness of his boxers, he said.


I asked him if the airiness of his boxers was indeed a metaphor for the freedom that the openness of his mind now experienced. He looked at his feet for a moment, and saw some pigeons nearby and ran away chasing after them.

The profundity of the interview was overwhelming.

But I wasn't satisfied, my research was not complete. I wanted to talk to a pants-wearing conservative, and ask them: why do you wear pants? Why are you shackled by these bonds of old conventions? What is keeping you from pantsless freedom?

I approached a few middle-aged women with these riveting questions. One told me she wore pants because otherwise it was too cold (ha! a likely story!), another made a sound of annoyance and walked away muttering expletives (a predictable response from the deluded, close-minded sheep of our pants-wearing society), and the third said to me, 'can you stop this silly nonsense and go and study' (surely an attempt at diverting my attention from my tabooed investigation into the earth shattering phenomenon that is pantslessness! - no matter that the third was my mother).

The search for answers continues. In a world that is slowly gravitating towards eventual pantslessness, led by the wardrobe of obvious forward-minds of the arts and music industry... Are pants, really pants? Or are pants, so much more than they seem?

I never met Raj after that day. Perhaps he is out there now, at this very moment, somewhere... pantsless... And free, truly free.  

Sunday 5 May 2013

BANANAS

Hey, internet. Long time no blog.

Probably because the past two months have been more or less crappy, which has turned me into a bit of a sourpuss, which in turn makes me post really jaded humourless crap like my last blogpost.

So I'm going to stop being a little bitch now and shan't bore you with the details of aforementioned crappy events. I'm going to look at the bright side instead.

Bright side #1:
I am going to eat prawns in 14 days. 



ZOMG I love prawns, don't you? I haven't eaten prawns in five months! Because I live far away from the shore, in Delhi (where only rich people can afford prawns at super fancy restaurants where they 'import sea food'). But I'm flying home in two weeks (PRAWNS!), which is like a million bright sides by itself.

Bright side #2:
I'm not puking my guts out anymore.



I was, a few days ago, because when the weather in Delhi changes in Summer, it's so bad that it makes people literally sick. But I'm getting better.

Bright side #3:
I have the awesomest flatmate in the whole world. 


He's not even three yet, but he can play my tabla set like a pro, and we have deep philosophical conversations (Me: But what if the universe is just the physical manifestation of our collective conscience, man? Him: *giggles and runs away*) and he enjoys throwing my hairbrush at people and repeating my name to remind me what it is in case I forget (he yells 'SHABAAAAA' when he sees me, which is close enough really).

Bright side #4:
I am a big fat nerd.



My attempts at 'exam preparations' were derailed lately with a full-on return to internet-style procrastination, whether it's Facebook or this blogpost or just lulling about on Cracked or xkcd, I have failed to muster the energy to give a shit enough to study. But I took out my books today to help a friend with her exam preparations and discovered that I already knew my material despite the lack of formal preparation, because the dork is strong in this one.

Bright side #5:
I have a debit card and access to Amazon.

OH SHI- you know what that means. (I'm sorry, mother, but you should have known better than to trust me with a debit card and the interwebz). Yep, time to get some randomass cool shit that isn't available in this here part of the world. Got my eye on some amazing pop-up books lately.


Bright side #6:
I met Johnny Depp at the market. 



And we did a choreographed dance together after which I asked him why he wore those stupid hipster glasses which obscured his beautifully chiseled face. Then I flapped my arms and flew into the sky while making bird noises. Well I dreamt all that, but still. It counts. 'Cause it was amazing.

Bright side #7:
I'm going to hug this in two weeks.



Caesar has turned into an asshole, he doesn't like being petted anymore, and he only comes near you when he wants food. But I don't care. He's SO FLUFFEH I could die.   

Friday 5 April 2013

Concrete Jungle

Months ago I watched as somebody confessed that she had killed her baby by placing a wet towel on its face. A few weeks ago a friend told me she was harassed on a bus for being Muslim and everyone watched on. Last week a teenage friend of mine told me she'd just been to the clinic for an abortion. Today as I walked home at 10.30PM in Delhi, I had my finger tight on the trigger of a can of pepper-spray and flinched every time a vehicle passed by.

Is the world getting weirder to live in or am I only just beginning to notice its true colours? 

Tuesday 26 March 2013

SIGN for the Rights of Minorities

There is a dire need to speak out against the recent uprising of hate speech and hate acts against minorities in Sri Lanka.
It is our collective silence that allowed our nation's past crimes against innocents of minority groups to prevail.

Don't let it happen again.

Click Here To Sign The Petition demanding from the Government of Sri Lanka the rightful protection of minorities and their rights. 

We need a large number of signatures to be able to take this petition to the Office of the President's Secretary and have our voices heard, and make them acknowledge that as citizens of Sri Lanka, we demand that Government action be taken against perpetrators of hate acts and hate speech, and Government action be taken to protect the rights of minorities.

Thursday 21 March 2013

A Modest Proposal

The number of unmarried women in South and East Asia has been gradually but surely rising at a worrying rate, and it has become the cause of much justified perplexity and angst of the older womenfolk (see Aunties) of our communities. And who could blame them? Indeed they have the right to be concerned, for unmarried women only become burdens on their families, disrupt the social order held together by the family unit, and cause general discomfort for everyone with their 'liberal' dismissal of traditional culture. One might suggest that we solve this big problem by re-thinking certain conventions of ours: the tedious arranged-marriage process of forced unions and dowry, the intense pressure placed on women to marry within a limited time-span, patriarchal culture that keeps many married women socially, financially and mentally stunted, the many ridiculous trivialities and superficialities involved in the act of the 'marriage proposal' -- but then let us be realistic, re-thinking and re-structuring these conventions would require a tremendous amount of effort and ruffling-of-feathers, not to mention it would be highly counter-productive in the greater scheme of a family's earning of wealth via dowry.

- which is what, ladies and gentlemen, brings me to my modest proposal.

To make the process of arranging marriages for the South or East Asian woman all the more befitting, transparent, and efficient - for this will probably oil the system and make it run smoother - we need to package it better. Advertising is key. Why do we stick to just tepid newspaper advertisements in the Classifieds that ask for a 'good, fair, pious girl with xxx acres of property'? We need to be more specific, judging from the concerns that Aunties have regarding these women they are considering for their sons. It would not be too much then, to expect a more detailed and accurate advertisement: 'We want a good, pure girl (i.e. hasn't had sex before or at the very least hasn't told  anyone about it if she has), who can cook and clean, who will obey her mother-in-law, and who has at least a bungalow or a 50 acre plot to her name because we plan on taking that shit and using it. We are willing to buy her for a compensation of no less than 2 lakhs worth of gold, preferably in the form of jewelry, clothing and dinner-sets, plus a cow or two as a security deposit.We want only a girl of our race, class and caste, so please don't kid yourself by imagining that your wealth alone can get you into our family (unless of course, you want to add another cow to the deal, then we can negotiate).We don't want any fatties or blackies, and we don't like plumpy faces or crooked noses or bad teeth, so please send five photographs of your skinny, tall, fair daughter taken at different angles, to our email address ASAP and we'll get back to you after reviewing; please also attach her dental records, blood test results for any disorders or hereditary problems (because we require her uterus for baby production), and any other relevant documents. Send copies of certificates declaring her qualifications as well, because if it works out we need to xerox those and send it to all the neighborhood Aunties to rub it in their faces.' 

Surely, with such detailed specifics included in the advertisements, the unmarried women who seem to fit the extensive preferences of certain families stated in these ads, may contact them immediately with little chances of failure. Such explicit demands made of women will also encourage the women with plumpy faces or crooked noses or bad teeth to fix themselves, for their own good - to bleach their skin and stop eating so much and look prettier, and then get married for it too - it's a win-win situation!

The second stage of the traditional marriage arrangement involves that of the meeting of the man and the woman - the woman is made to dress up for the boy and bring him tea and biscuits as he and his family survey her and judge whether she is good enough to enter the family. Many a family waste so much time at each of these proposals, as they go to one woman's house and it doesn't work out (because the woman's skin wasn't fair enough - the photograph in her email was Photoshopped) and they are forced to visit another woman's house, and so on. To lessen the tediousness of this process, the man's family may simply make a list of the women who fit the criteria, from the emails received - send out a mass email to the families of these women, and call them to what I shall term a Live Bride Picking Contest. Yes, it is as exciting as it sounds. All the women who have passed the basic tests - that is, the virginity test, the caste test, the blood tests etc. - will arrive at the scene, and be placed in a long line. Each woman, dressed to the nines, may be surveyed by the man and his family as they walk from one end of the hall to the next - while also studying the sign-board held in each woman's hands, which shall specify the following: Price (in Rs.), Property to my name, Number of cows you'll get, Shelf-life,Special talent (this can be a convincing tagline that adds a touch of distinct allure to each woman's appealing qualities - for example one woman's board may say 'I can make amazing biriyani for you' while another says 'Mad ironing skills').

The second round of the Live Bride Picking Contest (the first being, surveying of face, teeth, feet, sign boards etc.) shall involve the talent round. Here, the contestants will have to display their talents of worth: for example, one woman will offer the man's family a sample of her cooking, another will show skill at engaging in conversation with the Aunties of the man's family ("yes, Aunty, of course, Aunty, you are so right, yes the price of vegetables is so high these days"), while another who is perhaps more inclined towards theatre may enact a moving dramatic skit that features her skills at taking care of many babies, her husband's needs and her face and body at the same time, while still making time to engage in conversation with her Aunties about the price of vegetables. The judging panel will consist of the man, his mother, and some Aunties whose relationship with the man is a bit obscure (his mother's cousin's father's cousin's daughter's something something..).

The final contestants that get through will enter the final interview round, where they will be subject to the grueling interrogation and scrutiny of the Aunties of the panel. Here, she will be psychoanalyzed, everything from the tip of her hair to the mole on her neck will be questioned, and she will be poked and prodded too as they check her specs i.e. if the Bride is supple, her hips are wide enough for child bearing, etc. They may even throw surprise questions at her, to throw her off guard, and discover her weak points (such as, 'What is the name of the fourth cow that your family is offering us to get us to marry you!' - and it will be likely that the correct answer is 'But we gave you only three cows!' but the less clever Brides will be flustered by the directness of this question and probably burst out in desperation 'Betsy!' or 'Kusuma!' and be disqualified from the round).

I do concede that my proposal is indeed perhaps too ahead of its time, and that we must wait for an epoch during which men and women realize the futility of the civility and dignity that they attempt to wrap around their traditional conventions - and that it is time to embrace the brutal market forces that truly determine our very holy matrimony. However, should we decide to put my suggestions into motion, I would imagine it evolving into a gigantic, invincible industry, perhaps if we expanded it through the use of TV, radio adverts and billboards (I can see it now - a picture of Kareena Kapoor smiling demurely in a wedding choli as the words next to her burn in neon: "Get Brides now at Brides R Us - pure and fair, brand new, ranging in all prices; buy one, get a cow free! Discounts available this Valentines.")

Some may confuse my explicitness with cruelty and inhumanity, but my dear reader, nothing could be further from the truth. I have only taken what we respectfully and reverently put into practice today and I have extended it further, fleshed it out to its full extent and glory, and I can assure you that our interests as a society today will only be maintained in the propagation of my proposal. Indeed, Aunties shall receive their wish of so easily and conveniently finding beautiful and appropriate Brides for their sons, women will no longer have a choice but to give into a mass commercial industry screaming for their participation, mothers will have a new occupation of perfecting and training their daughters at an early age so as to put them ahead in a competitive market, and girls will no longer be a burden but a boon to the wealth of families! And to think I could not have dreamed up this magnificent plan without nurturing it from the foundation of our oldest and most respected traditions? 

Saturday 16 March 2013

Comedy Central In Delhi: A Review

It's been a long time since I donned by Judgey-Cap and judged a band or artist or event. I like how people sometimes leave heated comments on my blog-reviews of things, as though I'm obliged to answer to some mighty Review-Overlord before posting my views; this is a personal blog, people, if you find my criticism totally biased or wildly inappropriate, please mail your complaints to P.O. BOX 921-NOBODY-CARES. As per usual, if you have been following the typical trajectory of my blog post reviews, I shall begin with a riveting prologue.

It was a warm Saturday afternoon. It had been one of those slow humid weeks during which one desires to do nothing but spend time in the most offensively unproductive ways. I had impulsively booked a ticket at the beginning of the month for this Saturday to Comedy Central's first show in Delhi - Sugar Sammy Live. I didn't know who Sugar Sammy was, or why he had such a dodgy stage name, but I love stand-up comedy, and I love Comedy Central, so that was that.

Decided I had to do two things before leaving: 1. buy some stationery for college work 2. get my email-ticket for the show printed for entry. I had one hour. I got the first part done but the second task proved tedious: my landlord's computer had chosen today of all days to be an unresponsive piece of shit and shut down on its own (because we all know how electronic things secretly hate me).

So I took a rickshaw to the market to find a cyber cafe. Today also happened to be special-flea-market day, so there's lots of traffic and the roads are teeming with people. It's already 6 - I was supposed to be at the metro station on my way to the show at 6. I stop every five minutes and ask for directions to a cyber cafe, to no avail. I finally find one, it's almost 6.30. I sit down and try to log on, and Gmail suddenly goes all 'SECURITY CHECK' on me and asks me to enter my recovery email address. Simple enough right? I enter my email address, and it rejects it, and I can't access my ticket.

F U, GMAIL. F U.

It's 6.30. I finally type out my email address with a typo, and it accepts. I don't even-

So I print it out and I'm finally on the way to the metro station in my rickshaw. It's a little past 6.30, ok maybe I can still make it on time. Suddenly I hear a loud thwack in the rickshaw. I don't pay much attention to it, because I live in India, and things on the road here make unpleasant noises all the time. But I look down and I find YELLOW GOO all over my seat. WHAT IS THIS MADNESS.

It finally dawns on me as I see a motorbike speed away that some evil spawn of satan had thrown an egg into my rickshaw and it had exploded an inch away from me and the back of my dress was all eggy now. I'm mumbling 'Are you fucking kidding me' as I try to extract the eggshell from my clothes. A friend had warned me about the people with the eggs - it's an old Holi custom here - so this whole week is going to be war, and I need to make a trip to the egg section of the supermarket myself. At the station, there's another mix-up as I take the wrong metro train to somewhere else, and have to run back and take the other one, and all along I'm like, this day just keeps getting better and better. I finally get to my destination's station and hop into an auto and tell him 'the FICCI Auditorium' and we're driving and he doesn't know where it is, and I'm all, NNNNNGGGGGG, until finally he figures out where I'm supposed to go. 'Oh don't you know anything, madam, it is not F-I-C-C-I,' he corrects me, smugly, 'it is Fikki auditorium!' (it seems auto guys aren't big on abbreviations.)

Anyway, screw-ups and egg attacks and all, I arrive at the venue at 7.45pm. The show was meant to start at 7.30. But for some awesome reason they decided to postpone it to 8, and I have time to make a detour to the washroom and get the egg out of my clothes. Before Samir Khullar (Canadian-bred Sugar Sammy's real name) took the stage, we were treated to the extremely likable not to mention hilarious Mumbai based comedian Tanmay Bhat. I tried to recreate some of his jokes on this post but really, you cannot do justice to good comic material in a review, it's like trying to type out a tune of a song. Suffice it to say that he was outrageously funny, and I would love to attend a show of his own.

I have to say, though, I was perhaps expecting too much when I went to watch Sugar Sammy - firstly, because Comedy Central, the people who brought us Jon Stewart of the Daily Show (aka the love of my life), were literally hosting his act, and secondly, he's got a series of impressive accolades to his name. You could see he was nervous in the first half of the show. He started warming up with some jokes that he'd already used, word for word, in previous acts, which annoyed me because I'd already heard them on YouTube. I remember chuckling appreciatively at the most, and then not really laughing at all as he rehashed the geographical-significance-of-the-penis joke that should have been patented by Russell Peters.

But the show was for two hours, so I was hopeful. There were some good moments, like that time he picked on Valerie from the audience, from Kentucky, who Sammy thought seemed outraged at having been picked on. 'I'm an American citizen goddammit!' he mimicked. And that time he made a reference to Boyz 2 Men and that one guy in the band whose job it was to say 'hey, baby, you've hurt me real bad, now listen to this song...' at the beginning of the song and we'd never hear from him again. He picked on audience members a lot, about their names, the places they came from - and it seemed that that was mostly what his comic material was made of, he had nothing else. When he didn't have that, he'd revert to a random race or sex joke that was a paler construct of a Russell Peters joke.

'Anybody from outside the country here?' he asked. I clapped at him, bracing myself for some rich humour at my expense. 'Oh Sri Lanka! That's great.. and what's your name? Shifani? That's a beautiful name,' and he made a joke about there being no electricity in Sri Lanka, stalled a bit, realized he didn't have anything else, and quickly switched gears and moved on to some anecdote about South Africa and AIDS. He asked for any Muslims in the audience later on, and I clapped again, and he made a light joke about how I'm probably *in secret voice* not allowed to be here, and how Muslim girls think you're married to them after talking to you for five minutes, then one about the 'talaq-talaq-talaq' custom and then how he could never date a Muslim girl because they want you to raise their kids Muslim - and he'd be damn suspicious of his son if his name was Mohamed, 'daddy I want batteries!' 'what the fuck for? show me your passport!' Save for the last joke, which was pretty funny, I was disappointed. I was looking forward to being made fun of by some bigshot comedian, but then to be fair, 'Sri Lankan Muslim girl in Delhi' was perhaps way too obscure a demographic to easily poke fun at.

Sammy picks on race and sex, and those are the ideal topics to pick on when you're a comedian because everyone in your audience can relate - and laugh - but where Russell Peters has creatively-constructed original material, Sammy falls short (at least today). We've already heard enough penis jokes and jokes about Indian parents and arranged marriages - we want to hear new material now. I also felt like he wasn't self-deprecating enough, because self-deprecating humour, something Tanmay and Russell had enough of in their acts, is what makes a comedian instantly likable on stage. At some point in the second half of the act, I got bored and my mind wandered, as in, there were little gaps of stagnancy in the act as opposed to consecutive hit-after-hit, which would have been ideal. Where Russell has more material, more structure for that material and therefore hits the nail straight on the head, Sammy seemed to be searching for material, almost seeming to have not prepared anything solid beforehand and picking random anecdotes from here and there the way an ordinary funny guy would do around the water cooler at work - which though is still funny, lacks the heightened humour and precision of the ideal stand-up act.  He could also benefit from making more use of his impressions - for example, one thing that is so freaking hilarious about Russell's acts, are his impressions of Indian parents, the pure comedy in his facial expression alone. I feel like Sammy could be really, really funny - if only he put some effort into it. Also, I keep comparing him to Russell Peters. Why? Probably because Sammy is yet to carve out a niche distinctly his own, to create his own unique trademark as a comedian, the same way that certain Indian marriage/parents jokes are Russell's trademark.

Anyway, Sugar Sammy's a comedian, and I have only love and support for all comedians, mediocre or not. Plus one would assume they only get funnier with age and experience. Here's to hoping this is the first of many Comedy Central stand-ups I have the honour of attending and lol'ing at. And hopefully next time I won't have eggshell on my clothes on arrival. 

Wednesday 13 March 2013

I'm Just A Little Unwell

Just got back from the doctor's, folks, it seems I've been diagnosed with chronic Lethargycitis, an ambiguous disease whose source and symptoms are being explored yet. 

Commonly enough, the disease shows itself in its extreme form in people after periods of vacation, as the body reacts negatively to being thrown back into mundane work routine. Symptoms so far, in my case, include the following. You may want to check yourself as well (before you wreck yourself, homeslice). 

1. Lying in bed and staring at the ceiling for hours, contemplating all kinds of fascinating things, such as, I wonder how that misshapen splotch on the ceiling appeared, when I turn my head to this angle and look at it, it kind of looks like Winnie the Pooh dancing with Piglet. 

2. A distaste for even the most menial manual chores, including that of cooking, and therefore a relentless penchant for dialing the KFC hotline and ordering burgers, fries and the occasional chocolate pie. 

3. Restlessness from boredom, often resulting in finding oneself seated on the sofa and incessantly flipping through cable TV channels, and then finding nothing to watch but 'Packed to the Rafters' and thus curling up into a ball and mumbling expletives about the stupid plot and about why there are no black people on the show. 

4. Showing a sudden enthusiasm to start working, making a list of pending assignments on the white-board, making markings on the calendar, mentally setting out deadlines, staring at the list happily, and then collapsing in a heap on the sofa five minutes later whilst dialing KFC. 

5. Spending hours online pressing Like on stupid pictures and watching a very amusing YouTube video on loop of a baby monkey being given a bath

6. Getting a call from a friend to come hang out at this awesome new place, telling them you're sorry but you're really busy - hang up and go back to lying in bed and staring at the ceiling. 

7. Contemplating doing something at least remotely productive. Contemplating this. While doodling on your hands with a ballpoint pen.  

8. Leaving aside six assignments to write a blogpost about a fictional disease to justify your behaving like a useless fat shit. 

So yeah. It's chronic. Doc recommended a lot of bed-rest, said I don't have much longer to live. In case you feel bad about that and stuff, you know where to send your sympathy food. And your YouTube links featuring ridiculously adorable animals. 

Thursday 7 March 2013

Sri Lankan Terrorism

If you have not been living under a rock at the bottom of the ocean for the past couple of months, you've probably already heard about the recent tension growing in Sri Lanka over an official movement rising against Muslims. I'm not going to talk about what it might mean for the country, or go on a tirade against the government or against Sinhalese supremacists, because honestly I don't know enough yet about politics or our country's history for such an impressive critique.

What I will say is that I am genuinely frightened. 

At first, I thought it was nothing, or rather that's what I wanted to believe, that it was just a small group of radical extremists who would soon be quelled by the majority of rational minded individuals that I wanted to believe make up most of Sri Lanka. Then I heard about a mosque or two being attacked. Then I heard about 'secret meetings' attended by about 500-1000 'true Buddhists' who believed Muslims were a threat to the country. Then I heard about friends of my friends who were posting anti-Muslim hate speech on their Facebook and starting up online groups against Muslims. 

All along, I could hear my mind expressing its denial about it, saying 'no, it's fine, they're still a minority, if the rest of us are just vocal about our resistance and use the right amount of media, this thing will die out and we can forget it ever happened.' This is probably because all along I've been buffered by a circle of friends, online and off, Muslims and non-Muslims, who have been constantly expressing their revulsion and intolerance towards these anti-Muslim sentiments. While so many people around me were complaining about how their Sinhalese friends had suddenly 'turned' into intolerant racists, especially on Facebook, I (fortunately) could not say the same about a single friend of mine. But there is a whole other world outside my little social bubble. 

Every day I hear about someone getting a new chainmail forward, someone starting up a new group, someone receiving a racial slur on the street - little tidbits of anti-Muslim feelings, only tidbits but together they form a big ominous shadow of some scary monster inside my head whose growl is getting louder and louder. Is the fear from my imagination or is it reality? I can't tell for sure. Right now, parallel to this is a counter-movement of people writing features in the newspapers, starting up online campaigns, setting up real life projects, to bring the communities together and to try and fight this thing. The numbers on either side are vague - nobody knows who is 'winning'. The government meanwhile has said that it is 'looking into it' and Muslim representatives in the government are 'in talks' with the Prezzy who himself has allegedly asked Bodu Bala Sena who is supposedly behind all this to put an end to it - not that any of that, at the end of the day, sounds very reassuring at all. 

What are they so mad about? That the Muslims want to eat Halal meat? I've heard that a lot of this has its roots in false education - a lot of people, for example, don't even know what Halal means. It isn't a code name for some big bad plot to take over the country, it's just a simple religious ritual that takes place when  an animal is killed for food, where a prayer to God is said and it is killed in as painless and as fast a way possible. If the problem is the fact that the animal is killed itself, then take it up with all the meat-eaters in the country, not just Muslims, but Burghers, Tamils and Sinhalese too. What bothers me is that we have not really done much to deserve such an anti-Muslim panic - some say Muslims are 'demanding' Halal certificates from certain restaurants or that they are labelling everything 'Halal' and unjustly taking control of the market by catering to Muslim customers - but these sound like such poor, ambiguous reasons for such an extreme movement as one that is spewing hate and intolerance and extolling racial supremacy.  

I want to believe that Sri Lankans as a whole will not allow anything bad to happen to the Muslim community - that there will be enough media pressure, protest and hopefully some semblance of government intervention that can keep this at bay. But for the first time in my life, I'm terrified. A friend of mine said to me, 'There were countless innocent Tamils who faced extreme racism, were killed and displaced for years now - nobody spoke for them, so what makes you think anyone is going to stand up for you?' A friend got a chain-forward today that was supposed to be a dumb joke - it was an advertisement (nice Photoshop job I might add) of a 'Halal condom', that was 'dipped in Zam Zam' and 'would keep Satan away during intercourse', and the package was titled by an Arabic 'In the name of Allah the most Gracious the most Merciful' which I have been so accustomed to seeing on the covers of the Qur'aans we grew up reading from. I don't even know if this is part of the anti-Muslim hostility spreading in the country, it very well could just be a teenager's random prank in bad taste and could have nothing to do with it at all, but it scared me. I asked my friend if he said anything to the person who sent him the email, my friend told me he didn't and that it wouldn't make a difference anyway. 

What I am afraid of is - if this does turn into a thing, and there is an active group walking through the streets and asking Muslims to leave their homes or else - will anybody stand by us and defend us? I know so many Sri Lankans do not approve of this thing, but none of us 'approved' of the cruelty that the Tamil community has had to face either, did that stop them from receiving it? 

When I'm back home in May I want to be an active part of the movement that is removing misconceptions about the Muslim community and trying to battle this thing by promoting national togetherness, maybe even try to convert it into a strong collective media program that can rally the masses against it. A lot of people say I'm just being naive though. I get 'Racial conflict is an awkward thing to talk about on a mass media level, nobody's going to allow you, it's bad for the country's image' (exhibit A: I hear Ras Ceylon's pop song about Sri Lanka 'healing' after its civil war 'Heal Lanka' has been banned from the airwaves). or 'The government isn't doing anything to actively put an end to these racist groups and their meetings so they are probably complacent about it, they're not going to intervene and stop the shit from hitting the fan.' or 'This animosity has been going on since ever, a sequel to our last civil war that has been a long time coming, they won't stop till Sri Lanka is a pure Sinhalese nation.' 

But then if I'm being naive, what's Plan B? Sit and wait and hope for the best? Terrorism to me has always been this thing on TV, with the soldiers with the guns and the dramatic pictures of children crying and homes half destroyed, even in our last civil war it barely touched me in my little suburban Colombo bubble of comfort, save for the checkpoints and reading in the papers about a bus that exploded. For the first time I feel like it has crossed into my house, because as we sit here and wait to see how this will unfold, I can sense in me and my family a vague feeling of foreboding, and terror. 

Sunday 17 February 2013

Shit Happens (A True Story Of How)

Indian cities are famous for their gypsy-slums.

They are groups of people below the poverty-line who come from villages in search of better prospects. They are got hold of by contractors, who put them to construction work in a certain area, in exchange for a minimum wage and legal permission to temporarily situate themselves in make-shift plastic homes on the side of the road, before moving them again once their work is done. The children are shuttled around like this forever and end up uneducated and put to labour in their early teens. Instead of moving these families every few months or so however, the contractor sometimes allows them to stay in exchange for regular 'monetary incentive' (ahem), as has been the case with the cluster of families living on the pavement in my neighborhood.

They have been asked to leave immediately. The children's exams are in March though (some of the kids from the slum go to a government-school nearby), and if they leave now, they'll have to repeat their academic year all over again at the new location the contractor assigns them to - that is assuming there even is a school there, and that there are people around to even enroll the children, and that the location does not pose bigger problems than education to worry about.

So my friend and I, who have been teaching them once a week for a while now, took to our neighborhood today, with a Petition in hand. We asked the people of our neighborhood to sign the Petition, which requested the 'Mukhi' or the Head of the district to allow the slum community to stay put till March, so that the children can complete their academic year, after which they would leave. Some doors were slammed in our faces, but many (much to our surprise) smiled and gave us their signature. 'Do it for the children, sir' - who can say no to that? 

But our elation was short lived. We walked around from 10am to 12 - and we'd gotten 32 signatures already. Maybe 20 more would clinch the deal enough for a case of appeal with the Mukhi. My landlady calls me now. 'There's a problem - get here fast' she says. We go back to my apartment and she and her husband are grave. 'We have got many complaints from the neighborhood about your Petition to allow the slum people to stay - you need to stop it right now'. We soon find that it is the people of this neighborhood themselves who had complained about the slum in the first place - and had demanded that the Mukhi have them evicted. The 'paid guest house' that I live in is apparently not even properly legal, says my landlord, and if you annoy our neighbors with your campaign they might call the police and they might come here and put us all in a lot of trouble. Please think about it, you are causing too many problems for us and for you. That slum is a pollution in our neighborhood and the children are thieves, please stop this at once. 

I told them I was ready to remove myself from their apartment immediately if that was what they wanted, and that I was going to the Mukhi with the Petition whether they or their friends liked it or not. 

An hour later we were with the Secretary Head of the neighborhood, the Head of the 'Association' that had demanded the eviction of the slum community. We had come to his house in hopes of some kind of negotiation over the eviction - after all, the people of this slum had been living here for years and had literally paved the pavements that these people now walked on - couldn't they allow them just one more month just so their children could finish their year's education?

The answer: no. 

The Head who asked to look at my Petition then promptly confiscated it. He made several angry phone calls, exchanging flustered remarks with his outraged neighbors. He said he was calling the police to get my illegal paid guest house in trouble for this. After some sensible pleading on my part and the part of his wife who could see we didn't mean any harm, he invited us inside and called up two other main members of his Association and we had an impromptu meeting. 'There has been rampant crime since that slum came into being,' they explain. Little children are trained to steal things and break windows, just the other day I met a little boy thief who had been trained by a teenager at the slum, says one man, and did you hear about that incident the other day, when somebody from the slum had tried to kidnap a child from the road? And the inmates who are released from Tihar Jail nearby also find refuge at this slum. And the Bangladeshis, they have moved into it as well, they are all criminals. 

We shook our heads at him. No, we had never seen or heard of this 'crime mafia' that had apparently been slyly working within the slum. These men were in their 40s, and they had lived here long before we had, they said. They knew how things worked. We like the intention of what you are doing, they said, we love to give to poor people too, and it is a good cause - but we need to look at our community as well. Those children come and crap on our pavements, they steal little things from cars, they do not live in proper hygiene, their tents are an eye sore, they said. 'What about the children then?' said my friend naively. Their contract expired ages ago, they still have not left when they should have left more than a year ago, they replied. 'And what about the children?' They need to leave if we are to live here in peace, we cannot tolerate the crime, it is the reason we have posted security guards here and near your College. 'And what about the children?' I am taking your Petition, and even if you had taken it to the Mukhi, he will only listen to us in the end because we are the Association, I understand your feelings but nothing can be done. 'Is there anything that we can do, maybe arrange a meeting among the Mukhis, since your Assocation has that power, discuss some kind of attempt to stabilize these people's lives, maybe get contractors to mind the children's school routines when relocating them?' A long, silent pause. Beyond our control, beta, he said. 

We were shown the door. 

As we broke the news to the father of one of our students in the slum, he showed no expression on his face. He was used to it now. He nodded silently as he sucked on his cigarette. His wife smiled a wan smile. They would all move tomorrow. Where? We don't know, it's up to the contractor, she said. 

I saw Ajay, a tiny 5 years old, skipping towards us in the distance, followed by his friends Sachchu and Sonam. They were grinning and dancing and waving, with all that beautiful childish innocence, not knowing that the world really didn't give a shit about them. My heart just broke into a million pieces. 

Why do these things happen? Is it the contractor's fault? The Mukhi's? The affluent classes of people who feared the 'thieves' and 'criminals' born out of the desperation of poverty? Is it my fault, that I didn't push hard enough? Maybe if I had written up another Petition and got signatures from another block? Would it have made any difference at all to the Mukhi who is happy as long as the Association is happy? Would it be worth the police getting involved and ruining my landlord's business and evicting all my apartment mates? (poetic justice eh?)

All over the fact that they could not wait one month so some children could write an exam. Because, what, their lives were in danger at the hands of these big bad criminals disguised as the most docile and down-on-luck folk that I have ever met? 

Some people would say it is easy at this point to say 'fuck this shit' and throw your hands up and give up. On the contrary, I find that extremely hard to do. At least now I know something about how the system here works, whose interests are being maintained, who is dropping things in whose pocket and where. You need to really get to know your enemy to hit him where it matters. We lost Round 1 but I just heard the bell go off for the next match. 

Monday 4 February 2013

Race To Kiribath Mountain

I was standing in the middle of a two-way road at 8.44am, with my hands in the air, asking God WHY? WHY can't I find a single empty three-wheeler on this road that can take me to the Kiribath party Independence Day gig at the Sri Lankan High Commission in Delhi.

I looked at my phone, it was now 8.45. It would take half an hour to get there, I had planned to get in a three-wheeler at 8.30 and be there in time for the event at 9am. But the really important part of the event - the kiribath - would be served at 9.30am (and sources told me that the kiribath does not last for long once served). If I could just find a three-wheeler now, maybe I could get there in time. I looked around frantically, every three-wheeler in the growing traffic around me was full. Phone said 8.50.

For those of you who are wondering what the hell is up with Shifani and kiribath, it has been a long, ugly, winter-infested month in India and I have been living on KFC burgers and I need food that doesn't come in a paper bag ok? (also, kiribath is da bomb.)

After crossing over to one side of the road and flailing around in a panic a bit, an empty three-wheeler finally rolled by and I jumped in, "TO THE KIRIBATH PARTY, BATMAN!" I commanded, to which the driver responded with a confused grunt before stepping on the accelerator.

I typed out a text to my loyal comrade Agent Pterodactyl who was already at the location: "I don't know if I'll make it in time... Read carefully, this is no joke: SAVE me a full platter of kiribath AND lunu miris! The fate of the world depends on it!" I stared at the phone screen a moment. And then added "and save some halal chicken if they have that too!" and pressed Send.

Traffic was cruel. It had no consideration for my plight as I stared out at the trees and pretended I was in a really sad but dramatic music video. I pictured the kiribath that I may not get to savour, after eons of painful waiting (heard about it yesterday), and shed a tear. Ok not really, but still. And then I got a text message from le comrade:

"It looks like we're running on Sri Lankan-time today, people haven't turned up yet..."

YES. THERE IS HOPE.

The turbaned driver speeds up as the traffic thins out and I'm thinking, perhaps fate is not cruel after all... And then the driver stops on the side of the road and mutters a profanity, the engine seems to have died. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

He tries to start it up again twice, thrice, and fails. I'm dying. Then he opens up the motor-area which is located in front of him, and lights a matchstick. I can't see much now because his body is blocking my view but I can smell the burning and see the reflection of the flame on the plastic interior. "That doesn't seem right," I'm thinking, "but then again, if he lights this shit up and we explode, it would be a fitting end to my kiribathless morning".

I don't know what he did with the matchstick and the engine but it worked. Pterodactyl texts me again: "Speech is still going on... come on, you can do this, Shifani!" We race through the boulevard of embassies, asking for directions along the way. It's already 9.35.

Finally get there and run inside, past the guards and past the Buddhist monks who seem to be leaving already - flushed in the face, I see some friends. "THE KIRIBATH-" I exclaim. And I am soon comforted, as I am told that I've arrived precisely at the moment that people are beginning to enter the Refreshments lounge.

I held up the line a few minutes as I heaped up cake after cake of kiribath and ladel after ladel of lunumiris onto my disposable plate. Tasted like victory. Victory and lunumiris. 

Monday 14 January 2013

Recovering From The Colonial Hangover

Today, this French professor guy came to college and talked to us about Comparative Literature - and how he thought Indian literature was an excellent starting-point and viewing-glass to look at world literature, and how the Euro-centric approach to literature was a failed one.

Two hours later, my Indian lecturer in class commented with a snide smirk, that it was funny how 'those who colonized us and told us their books were superior to ours were now coming back to tell us how great our own literature is'. I immediately told her that that sounded ridiculously racist. She replied with a laugh and said she was only returning the favour. We all laughed it off and the lesson began.

But this really got me wondering about the continued modern repercussions of our old colonial rulers. Will we ever get over it? Must we? How did we manage to get over something as magnanimous as the enslaving of an entire nation, of an entire culture, of the great big colonial bully pissing on his new found land to mark his territory? - did anybody from the British or Spanish governments ever really apologize for it? But even if they did, what good does an apology do after what's done is done? The English Queen's lovely crown still has jewels stolen 'procured' from colonial conquests all over the Indian subcontinent - but then again, what does it matter today?

What's done is done and what matters is we are colonized no more, right? Every now and then though, you see some remnant of the old days having seeped its way into today, some modern interpretation of the White Colonial Master's supremacy lodged in the brain of his Asian subject who after centuries of being told so, has now himself started believing that his Master is indeed superior.


"Welcome to WHITE Ceylon", says the caption beneath. "We are proud to present an innovative new day spa focusing on luxuriously skin whitening rituals to pamper guests from head to toe." 

I did a double-take when I saw this, because it's so goddamn in your face that it's almost funny. WHITE Ceylon, because Brown Ceylon is too bourgeois. It's not just this place that I point the finger at, but countless, countless others - in Sri Lanka and predominantly in India. Every day, there is a new advertisement on TV here in Delhi, informing men and women of some new amazing product can make them look whiter - and therefore - more successful, and awesomer in general. And why are they getting away with selling racism in little pink tubes at the supermarket? Because that's exactly what the masses want. Being dark skinned is bad, in India and in Sri Lanka; you can hear the tone of disapproval in an aunty's voice when she goes 'oh you have grown dark...' or the compliment in someone's voice when they say 'you've become fairer!' 

It's such a sordid affair. I remember telling a friend once that Colombo sometimes reminds me of this properly fucked up rape victim, who after having been assaulted by her colonial abuser day after day and year after year, and being told again and again that she is worthless and he is better than her, begins to believe it. Later she grows up but you don't get over that kind of trauma easily, so instead she starts dressing like him and behaving like him, because the years of standardized abuse has ingrained in her the idea that the person she truly is - is not worth being, and like a child who associates 'parent' with 'protection' at an early age, she associates power and success with her colonial abuser because those are the things he projected in her presence for centuries. The woman's got a serious identity crisis, you see. 

Anyway, my weirdass allegories aside - I think this is a serious issue that needs to be addressed ASAP. Because we need to get over that shit. It's all connected - our love for fair skin, with our love for emulating Western clothing, a Western lifestyle, a Western accent (like someone cleverly commented under an album of a premier event by Spa Ceylon's WHITE offer: "oh look, it's a bunch of brown people who want to look white!") . And I don't think we can just throw it all away, and suddenly wear reddha-hatas and everyone burn all their English books - that's just silly, and globalization has even made some of our Western universality relevant - but there needs to be discussion about it, campaigns, forums. Because as long as a Sri Lankan man looks up in awe at the white man who has come visiting from England (and believe me, I have seen these looks of worship not just among the working class but even and especially in the faces of the upper middle class as they are greeting some foreigner to their gala with their lips puckered to kiss his white posterior) - national 'Independence' may as well have never happened at all. 

Wednesday 9 January 2013

Rape: Clothing Matters

Let me start off by stating the most obvious: rape is nobody's fault than the rapist's - and the death sentence for a rapist is letting him off easy, if you ask me, he should be castrated first. Choosing to pin a woman down and physically and emotionally violate her, to take from her by force, is the worst crime a man can commit and it takes an utterly heinous mind to make that choice, and honestly when someone goes 'oh maybe it was because of something she did' as though it was a justification of the act, I just get all:


Having said that, I realized something important today while talking to a friend in college. We were on the lawn soaking up the faint afternoon sunlight which is so rare this winter, and we started talking about what we could possibly do if hypothetically three men tried to attack one of us while we were walking down a pavement.

I live in Delhi - so this wasn't exactly the 'if you were on an island in the middle of nowhere'-sorta hypothetical situation. Women get raped all the time, women were being abducted and attacked in this city long before the infamous gang-rape case was blown up by the media. Because we were talking about what-we-could-do in reality, it all came down to real preventive measures. My friend raised the issue of clothing.

At first, I reacted the way almost every woman in my social circle would react to this - a woman should be able to wear whatever the hell she wants, why should clothing ever factor into a possible rape situation? The problem is with the man - it's with the culture - it's with society's mindset - it's with the law - etcetera etcetera. She agreed with all this too.

After a long discussion however, I came to realize something that hadn't occurred to me before. When it comes to real life preventive measures, and trying to make yourself least vulnerable to an attack - clothing does matter. Firstly, I am talking strictly in Delhi-terms here, because the problem is very real and current here, the stats are such that most girls I know feel there is easily at least a 40% chance they could get attacked on the way home today. Second, I am talking of rape by a stranger, not domestic issues. Thirdly, please don't confuse this notion with the notion that 'if women dressed conservatively, they wouldn't get raped' - these two are different notions, entirely. The terrible ugly bottom line is that women will get raped, and one woman would have worn a short skirt, the other a long unflattering gown, one would have been married, the other single, one may have been a teenager, another a child, another an old lady, one would have gone out with her boyfriend, another with her girl friends, another alone -- and rape would have had no logic and made victims of them all. 

In the same vein, I think that though we can never reduce our vulnerability to these animals in the streets to a minimum zero level -- there are still precautions that, if you're lucky, could reduce your chances, at least by some degree. A psychologist (I spoke to one in particular, for a sexual-harassment project I was a part of) suggested that psychologically, a very drunk man (whose sexual desire is consequently at its peak... FYI, drunk men make a considerable percentage of rapists), or a man in search of forced-sex - in several cases, looks for an easy target: meek individuals, easy to overpower, and whose clothing looks easy to rip off (this last point along with other pointers is making the rounds lately on a popular Facebook post), and he also stated that little or scanty clothing can heighten and enthuse this drunk or violent, horny man's perverse cravings. 

Now, this is obviously not an ideal solution -- far, far from it. You could dress like an ugly hobo and just bump into the wrong crowd - and because these animals are senseless, they could just rape you for the fun of it. There is no easy escape - and in the long run, the main root of the rape problem is made of societal mindset, culture and patriarchy. Fixing these problems is the ideal solution. But this is not an ideal world. It's end-of-days shit when children are being raped and women are gang-raped and others watch and do nothing. So till we, one day, hopefully, manage to tackle the true heart of this issue - it is important not to blind ourselves from reality with rhetoric. It's true that it does not even make sense to try to curb the potential victim's actions instead of the criminal's -- but shall I tell you what else doesn't make sense? The fact that Jyoti, the young medical student got gang-raped in a bus, and her male friend was attacked by iron rods - the fact that apparently (according to my Indian colleague), some of these men here in India, are more prone to sexually attack a woman because she is travelling with a man - a boyfriend or husband, because it suggests she is 'open' to sexual behaviour. 

Till we manage to cage these animals, I think it is a very stupid thing to do to kid ourselves into thinking that wearing a low-neck blouse and small skirt and travelling by foot in the evening -- or even in the daytime if you're in a high-rape-rate city like Delhi -- does not at all affect your chances of being attacked by a horny, drunk savage or a group of them. Yes, it is completely fucked up that we - the women, should ever have to reassess our clothing, when the real problem comes from these rapists. But till we find a way, God help us, to get rid of rapists, to communicate with these wild, horrible creatures - don't be foolish. Don't be foolish enough to throw caution to the wind and think you are doing a great thing by exercising your freedom and liberality by wearing little clothing when you don't have to, in a city where girls fall victim at random every day. This is definitely no guarantee, and certainly not the fix to the rape problem, but it is a temporary preventive measure. I think this is a good wake up call for all of us, a necessary jolt to our repugnant society's senses: How did we get here? To this point where our daughters must wonder if their sense of wardrobe is more or less likely to attract rapists?