Delhi Gang Rape - Video of protests at India Gate

This is a short clip edited from a 7-8 min video I shot of these two bravehearts standing up to the Delhi Police all by themselves on the evening on December 23, 2012 at India Gate in New Delhi.

An unprecedented mass outrage followed the brutal gangrape and assault on a 23-year-old medicine intern by six men in a moving public bus near New Delhi's Vasant Vihar area.

Indian national dailies variously called the rape victim Nirbhaya (which means fearless), Amanat (which means something trusted with you for safe-keeping, the colloquial reference is usually a person or thing entrusted to you by God and so, which needs to be protected and loved till death) and Damini (called after the female protagonist of a Bollywood film who fought single-handedly to get justice for a rape victim).

Nirbhaya was announced dead on December 29, 2012 in a Singapore hospital. Doctors at New Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital said Nirbhaya was someone with an unusual willpower and inner strength. Being a doctor, Nirbhaya precisely knew what she was going through, and perhaps knew it was a losing battle she was fighting. Still, she kept about her calm, poise, dignity and presence of mind in spite of bearing unimaginable pain, Nirbhaya recorded a police statement before her body could no longer keep up with her will.

The government's immediate response - if it can at all be qualified so - was of apathy, blame-game and a complete disconnect with the ground realities of molest, sexual assaults and rapes that Indian women face every single day.

Chief minister Sheila Dixit refused to meet a group of protestors that sought an interaction with her outside her residence. Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said they understood the nation's pain because "they also had daughters." To this lame talk, the most staple response of all young women protesting at India Gate, including that of Kritika (seen in the video) was: "Have their daughters ever travelled daily in a public bus? Waited for an auto at night? Look who's talking!"

Lt. Governor Tejender Khanna, under whose authority lies the Delhi Police, was vactioning in the US when India was boiling. He reportedly had to be "called back" (which gives us a ground to assume that he did not voluntarily curtail his trip) to take charge of the situation after a public and on-television blame-game by chief minister Sheila Dixit. Khanna returned to Delhi only on Sunday night, December 23, 2012. On Sunday evening, police constable Subhash Tomar collapsed after reportedly being roughed up by a mob protesting at India Gate. Tomar was announced dead on Tuesday morning, December 25.

Delhi Gang Rape

First, chief minister Sheila Dixit's obnoxious refusal to hear out protestors' anger about the Delhi Gang Rape.

Now, Delhi police lathi-charge and use tear-gas shells on people rallying against the crime and seeking tough laws.

We need a new satyagraha & a new independence movement against this insensitive, impotent governance.

#DelhiGangRape

Sheila Dixit URL: http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/furious-delhi-takes-to-streets-blames-cm-sheila-dikshit-govt-demands-end-to-rape-culture-watercannoned-by-policemen/1047556/

Lathicharge + Tear gas on protestors URL: http://news.xin.msn.com/en/regional/police-tear-gas-delhi-gang-rape-protest

Pallavi Purkayastha

How in the world did he think he could get away with it?

Pallavi's attempted rape and consequent murder has shaken me in an unprecedented way.

Ever since I can remember, I have been let down by my country's gender apathy and gender hypocrisy. This is a country where, instead of swiftly deciding in which public park the rapist should be castrated or the molester stoned, abused women instantly suffer character scrutiny. The common counsel to avoid eve-teasing is "to dress decently." Here, attire or lifestyle is justified as an "invitation to rape."(1) (2)
I live in a country where women are respected only in grandiose theory. Chauvinist escapisms abound. Let's face it: India is no country for women.

When was the last time you tolerated being groped in a bus, on the street, in the train?

When was the last time someone shove his dick in front of your face in a crowded bus and have the audacity to smile in your eyes?

When was the last time you collared your molester and made a scene?

When was it that you gave up fighting because you realised molestation in some form or the other is a daily affair?

How, you wonder, is your silence relevant to Pallavi Purkayastha?

Well.

Men in this country, whether they stare, grope, rape or kill, they are becoming used to getting away with it. For Pallavi's sake, the next time you are abused, don't take it mute. Scream. Shout: NO.

Female Foeticide, Beed's Dr. Death and motherhood

He reportedly fed the aborted foetuses to his pet pack of dogs. So did a lot of "doctors" in the area.

No. Don't emote as if you were to puke and leave this page. No, not yet. You and me, we have gotten into the habit to conveniently blindfold ourselves to the wretched-ugly-gory facets of life. Hold on just a minute more, please. I promise you won't puke.

So, it has been reported that Dr. Death and his wife (Dr. Sudam & Dr. Saraswati Munde of Maharashtra's Beed region) had an ultrasound and abortion factory that they ran with the help of local goons and corrupt officials. For years and years. They continued butchering even after a sting operation by a local NGO.

It required a woman to die on the operation table (there might be more cases like this, suppressed) when she approached the couple to discard her four-month-old foetus. The woman's family refused to file a complaint and the police decided to (after being pressured and shamed into it by some activists, I suspect) file a suo-motu case.

Because I feel nauseous even as I remember those articles, I will simply link those at the end. But as I have more to say, I request you to read on for another small minute. Please.

My mother cried after I was born. She was scared my grandparents would be upset with the birth of a second girl child. Ridiculously unfounded fears. I know for a fact that my paternal grandmother would never entertain such a sick idea. May be mother herself wanted a baby boy, because when around I was 10, she asked me if I would like a baby brother. I took no second to scream "No!!!" with my wide-eyed disbelief. That was the end of the discussion.

I am glad I cornered her once and demanded why she cried on being told it was a girl. She didn't really say anything as a direct response. But I remember her silently telling me some other time that once when she went for a regular ultrasound checkup when she was carrying me, a woman was waiting to get her female foetus aborted. My mother looked deeply sad and shaken as she recollected that day.

In her typical quiet and mysterious way of withholding herself physically but coveying everything with her silent gestures and eyes, she said, "I would never do that."

Wait. Does that mean someone suggested that mother check the sex of the second child, abort, if it was a girl?

The good news is I am alive. And I am angry. Because millions of pretty, sweet, kind, funny girls (girls are all that and more) like me have been killed even before they are born just because they are girls.

That brings me to motherhood. If and when I become a mother, I want to make up for the harassment I piled on my mother for being the nastiest brat one can ever manage to be. It seems a rather humanely impossible task to be as gentle and patient as she was with a child like I was, but I will try. Baby boy or baby girl. Mine. (Correction: Ours)

End of story. See, that was quick. And no puke.

Now go catch up reading on the doctors who reportedly doubled up as butchers. And puke.

Articles in the Mumbai Mirror, India Today , and read Maharashtra steps up fight
Related essay I wrote for NYTime's journalist and my professor Michael Powell's class.

Raghubir Singh: Catching the Breeze*

Photo taken in Hathod village, Jaipur, Rajasthan

The first reaction is disbelief. It takes time to absorb the simple, delicious freedom in the backdrop of an impoverished Indian village. Two teens are touching the sky. A faithful old Neem tree and a trustworthy jute rope is all it takes to forget that they are women.

As they race against wind, their neighbors, siblings and friends find no novelty in the dizzying heights these women have reached. They look disinterested, as if they cannot determine what makes this trivial breather so interesting to a city man.

But this is as high as the two women swinging on the makeshift swing will perhaps go in their entire life. For Hathod, in Rajasthan, India, is a village where strict caste and class rules still apply. Someone else – the society, their husband, or their in-laws will soon begin to dictate the heights they can reach.

Raghubir Singh took this photo in 1975. The girls, from an assortment of ages between three to thirteen, perhaps even their young mothers, might have yearned to go to schools. Their parents might have entertained the idea for some time, too. But, in such villages, where Hindu women of certain castes are still expected to follow the purdah system, dropout rates are high.

There is no money to buy the books and the shoes, teachers don’t teach, schools have no functional toilets or water, or if everything is in place, the nearest high school may be miles away. Public transport is often undependable, certainly risky for young girls. They do give it a try though, some brave ones. Many daughters walk their way to school, their parents grudgingly, but not without some faint beam of pride, allow. But it doesn’t last long, this pursuit of the dream of a better life.

After months of juggling dreams with duties, girls give up. Because they no longer have the energy to cook, clean, milk the buffalo, and take care of their armies of siblings after coming home. These are the tasks girls cannot wash their hands off in a household with a single earning member. Or sometimes parents cannot afford to teach more kids at a time, and the privilege of education is then is given to the male children. But these women are lucky. At least they are alive.

The government and the citizens (often even well-educated, so-called modern families) systematically ignore India’s female feticide epidemic because of misplaced cultural preferences, socio-economic factors vote-bank politics and illiteracy. According to Census 2011, Rajasthan has a sex ratio of 926 girls between ages 0 to 6 for 1000 males in the same age group. India’s overall sex ratio is 940.

A Unicef report says fetal sex determination and sex selective abortion by unethical medical professionals has today grown into a Rs. 1,000 crore industry (US$ 244 million). The act that targets doctors and technicians who offer illegal ultrasound tests gathers dust in legal jargon, social connivance and corruption. Till May 2006, as many as 22 out of 35 states in India did not report a single violation of the act. (1)

While they were waiting for medical science to catch up, they devised other ways to kill their infant girls. My grandmother told me that in olden days, a euphemism was used to identify people who killed their newborn girls. Gujarati for “Doodh peeti kari,” roughly translates to “We started feeding her milk.” This essentially meant a newborn girl child was drowned in a big cauldron of milk.

In India, if a girl is lucky to be born, she becomes a woman sooner than in any other part of the world. Till then, they let her swing on a tree and touch the rainbow.

Gauri Gharpure

* This is another assignment for Michael Powell's class, Writing about life along the poverty line. I loved this homework, it was to select (or shoot) a photo of a neighbourhood / person / process and write about what emotions, ideas and issues the image evokes. This piece is my interpretation of the visuals, it is personal, and may be completely different from Singh's rationale for taking the photo, or being drawn to the scene.

Links and References:

1) The Preconception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques Act: UNICEF India: http://www.unicef.org/india/media_3285.htm
2) http://f56.net/kuenstler/raghubir-singh/raghubir-singh/
3) Raghubir Singh: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raghubir_Singh_%28photographer%29
4) International Humanist and Ethical Union: http://www.iheu.org/female-foeticide-in-india
5) Census 2011, India: http://www.census2011.co.in/states.php

A Punch on the Left

So you talked about equality, Sir;
As you puffed that cigarette in roundabout whirls.
So you talked about the hungry, abused and the oppressed, Sir;
As your wife fried bhetki after bhetki*.

You snubbed her right in front of your comrades
For you insisted "Women must know their place."
So much for equality and social rights, Ha!
Your woman has lost her voice...

Your arrogance was pungent and sorry,
But your comrades perfectly understood the necessary dominance,
They nodded as you commanded your wife back in the kitchen,
She retreated hurt and hounded, sought solace in her sacred space.

Sir, your hypocrisy is shocking, your doublespeak commendable:
How beautifully chauvinism and culture blends in your town
How intriguing is your politics, how stinking is its stink,
Orwell was right when he conceived the idea of doublethink.

How about first bringing the revolution
you propose for the landless and the needy
within the precincts of your feudal patriarchal regime?
How about letting your wife vomit the words she has eaten up all her life?

So much for your suffocating talks of ideals and equality,
So much for your sham of decency and morality;
You can fool a thousand others who think like you,
But you cannot fool a million others who will still see through.

So much for what is gone,
So much for what is left.
As the ballots are counted, manipulated, maligned,
I just have this to say:

I don't understand politics, but I was brought up in equality;
As a woman, I am disappointed in the way you live your ideology.
Don't try it on me, your wife you could snub;
But I am made of stronger stuff.

West Bengal socio-politics.

*Bhetki : An expensive freshwater fish popular in West Bengal and Eastern regions of India

Related articles : And I am thrilled

The Good Governance

Remembering Bhagat Singh and Tagore's Tota Kahini

Learning

Today was a day full of learning. Learning to deal with emotions of people close to you, learning to empathise with emotions of those you have just met. Learning in many different ways.

My calling is such that puts me in touch with people from varied backgrounds. Today, I met three special women. All of them strong in their own special, God-sent ways.

It will take time to digest what I heard at the first meeting. Evening gloom has set in and I wonder what might she be doing now in her dingy room? She would most definitely be in the same pain she walked in when I first saw her...


This is a pessimistic song by the 13th-century poet Amir Khusro. Sad that hundreds of years later, at some point in time, most of us may have had this thought.

Attempting to translate part of the song:

You have done this once, don’t do so the next time;
Don’t make me a daughter again.
What is this fate that each girl gets?
The ones she believes her own turn out strangers instead…
She leaves her father’s abode, her mother’s bosom
To become an innocent bird caught in snares;
Only to be counseled at the top of it all:
“Don’t complain.”
Discarded like a child throws away a new toy after his fancy flies,
Where do we go?
You have done this once, don’t do so the next time,
Don’t make me a daughter again.

If I have the same parents and the same friends, I would like to be born a woman again. May be even if that's not the case. But does she, in her dingy room, think the same?

Translation (C) Gauri Gharpure

The unbearable randomness of being

The colours life has shown me in the past one year... From the muddled, matt, stinking colours of grime and grey, from the hopeful light green colours of a new-born leaf, from the vivacious red of a newly-married woman's sindoor, from the promise of the pink and orange of a satisfying sunset, from the bright yellow of laughter, from the white of the blank wall staring me in the face, yes, I have seen it all. White, let's talk about the white of the wall that stared back at me as I lay thinking about nothing and everything all at once. White conceives within it the entire sphere of colours and thus, emotions. As I lay thinking, blaming, hoping, loving and forgetting, that white created a thousand different possibilities that future was to bring for me. And I gave in to the unbearable randomness of being*.

Random. Life is random. When time freezes and you have no hope left, you stare at that blank white wall and cry. And as those tears sparkle in the light of the bulb, as they soil the book you are attempting to read and make the pillow uncomfortably wet, you are shaken back into a mortal existence of money and materialism in spite of all your precious, sacrosanct emotional turmoil. "O, that book cost me Rs. 395!" And "O, I hate sleeping on a soggy pillow". The triviality of such mundane worries that can find precedence in your life even in the time of some profoundly disturbing moments makes you smile. Trivia remind you to take it easy, to go with the flow and keep the faith.

Unforgiving. Life is unforgiving. Your past is etched in iron, it won't change. The person you were shall be, safely frozen in the abyss of time. It's up to you to be the person you want to be. Lock your past and lose the painful key for tomorrow is another day. And tomorrow will be better, tomorrow you will be better. Life is unforgiving for a reason: it wants you to be your best every single waking moment, every single sleeping moment.

Loving. Life is loving. No matter what past did to you and what disasters you inflicted on your past, life still loves you. It calls you ever so softly, ever so warmly, inviting you to live. As I write this, I remember a friend from college who killed self. Jumped into a river after parking his bike by the highway. His body was fished out some days later, all eaten up by fish. If I were to meet him today as a ghost in that rotten body, I would slap him tight. He had no right to go. Life was waiting. Don't go. Even if you think no one loves you (and you are grossly mistaken there if you think so) life loves you. Life is loving, don't go.

Colours. Let's get back to colours. The colours of songs, of lyrics, of those words written by strangers hundreds of miles away just for you. Let's talk about the colours of hope, of wait, of denial and of shy acceptance. Let's talk about everything in between life and death, day and night, you and me. Everything happens for a reason and it is not our business to be Sherlock Holmes to get to the bottom of that reason. Leave reason be, make your own poetry in free verse.

Woman. Let's talk about being a woman, a lover, a mother. What would this world come to if it were not for the feminine? What the world were to be if it were not for our tenacity to soak pain and indifference, digest unfairness and inequality, gulp down chauvinism and abuse with a smile that hides it all? All the violence, sex and massacre- both physical and emotional- would multiply many times over if it were not for those sacrificed women who kept on taking blow after blow for only one reason: their gender and the paramount expectation of strength that comes with their sex.

Today, I am happy. Tomorrow, I shall be so. For I have moved ahead from fantasizing the mushy colours of the rainbow to accept and respect the lovely colours of life. Matt, dull, glossy, vibrant, hopeful, mauve and pink, red and blue, beige and golden- all colours are mine today. I am sinking in the unbearable randomness of being.

-Gauri Gharpure

Title inspired by Alexander McCall Smith's book 'The Unbearable Lightness of Scones'

Freedom fighter dies at 106

Ganga Ba Patel, a freedomfighter and staunch Gandhian till the last day of her 106 years, died at 6.30 am on Sunday.

Ganga Ba was close to my mother's family. "I have never seen her in anything but white khadi clothes. Nor do I remember seeing her wearing any ornaments, not even a bindi. And she was always a skinny woman, never have I ever seen her put on weight. She walked a lot, always walked to our house, even till recently. She ate extremely simple food, without any spices. At her house, we were always served buttermilk, milk, rotlo* and such stuff. Whenever we went to her house, she was always busy doing physical work, be it milking cows, cleaning up the yard. Afterwards, when age made this difficult, she was always alert and supervising the household chores", says Miki Desai, my maternal uncle.

Gangaba's husband and my grandfather were close friends. When her husband was jailed, Ganga Ba's interaction with the Desai family grew and she soon became an integral part of the extended family. She also grew very close to grandfather's mother, Hari Ba.

"She was the 'grand old lady' who could tell anybody anything. She called my father by his name, Chandu. She could tell any man what she wanted to, be it my father, my uncle, us when we grew up. She could call us and ask us to shut up, or do this instead of that. She spoke a lot about women, how important it is for them to be strong and independent," says Miki, his recollection of the strong woman taking him back to his ancestral home and people in Nadiad.

Baba and my uncle had gone to meet Ganga Ba at her residence around March 2010. Ganga Ba had stopped walking her usual long distances, but was as alert as ever. "She had a very mischievous smile and was in perfect control over the household," remembers my father about the last meeting. Before this, they had met Ganga Ba about five years ago at the funeral of a grandmother from the extended family. At 100, Ganga Ba had walked about half a mile to attend the ceremony, talked with everyone concerned in an astute, attentive way.

I do not have any memory of meeting her. But would love to believe I have met her. As a child playing somewhere with dozens of cousins in the sprawling backyard, running about without a care, only to be caught in the spindly hands of an old lady.

"Eyy chhokri. Koni baby chhe?"** Ganga Ba may have asked, her commanding eyes twinkling with mischief.

"Nayana ni". I would have said and run away...

Yes, I would like to believe I have met Ganga Ba.

-Gauri Gharpure

* Rotlo- Thick roasted bread made from pearl millet
** "Eyy girl, whose daughter are you?"
"Nayana's".

Year-end post 5: Sharmila Irom

I read a powerful, passionate piece on Manipur's Sharmila Irom. She is fasting for ten years now to demand the repeal of the AFSPA- Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act.

You will find details of the misuse of the special act in this Tehelka article, but let me tell you something I remember.

On the desk, we selected stories from North-east editions of TOI published a day before for our early edition. I distinctly remember the stories following the killing of Sanjit Singh and a pregnant woman. The follow-ups, the spate of protests, police rebuttal and anger, violence went on for months. My job made it necessary for me to read through all these stories, select and present it to readers in the districts of West Bengal. Ironically, we did not have enough space in our main edition to include even these culled, subbed versions of North-east mayhem. These stories, the continuous stream of violence and unrest in a part of my country unsettled me extremely. Some editions were so moving and so screaming for attention, it seemed as if our early and late editions too should have more space dedicated to this very real, sad and on-going conflict in the country. But no, the paper has a set pattern for various reasons.

Sharmila Irom, to me, is the epitome of feminine gentleness, strength and gumption. I have been hearing about her ever since I was in high school. She's the same frail woman, defying age and medical science with her grit. Ten years, the article says, has finished her. On a physical level, that is. It is something in her steeled psyche, something in her beliefs and goals, something about her consciousness that's keeping her alive. Sharmila, I want you to see the end of your battle and I pray. May 2011 bring you what you want.

Sharmila's protest is dignified with its silent, subtle plea for attention. We read about her, get moved and forget about her for a year or two when again her frail face catches out attention in a daily. It is then that we realise that we have moved on, but this woman is where she was. Alone and hopeful.

What Sharmila wants is not a qualified, select request. If her decade of going without food and water were to shame the state into concrete action, it would send a poignant message to both parties, the armed forces and the rebels, to give peace a chance.

Sharmila on Wikipedia

Photos of Sharmila

Can widowed women wear gajra?

Lijit shows interesting statistics of searches that land people on my blog.



Can widowed women wear gajra? (Gajra = small floral garland worn in hair)

Several questions come to my mind when I come across similar seemingly trifle choices that are burdened with societal or religious stereotypes. I had written a post on the subtle social insistence of Nirmamish* food for widows in Bengal in some educated, forward families even today, in a post titled The Politics of Food. Now, when I read the keywords of this search, I asked myself:

1) Who is this reader?

2) Whom is he/she trying to find the answer for?
a) A relative b) Herself?

3) Why does the person seek an external justification / denial?

4) Who is qualified to answer the controversial 'Can' of the question?

a) Religion? b) Society? c) Family? d) an unknown blogger like me???

5)Is there any specific mention in a religious text to deny a widow such trivial pleasures?

6) If any such mention has been interpreted from the texts, is that fair? Or still applicable in the present context?

6 a) Can't human rationality question certain antiquated religious/societal diktats?
7) What significance do flowers and a gajra carry in an Indian woman's life?

8) Do flowers convey any specific romantic or spiritual message that makes daily life more enjoyable?

Many of the above questions are subjective and will have a different (and justifiable) solution each depending on each individual's set of beliefs... My concern is what happens when we stop making distinctions between personal thoughts and societal parameters. When we are unable to pinpoint our real feelings about a certain issue in juxtaposition to the 'accepted' social or intellectual norm...

Let me try and understand the rigid regulations imposed on widows in an early social context. Imagine India in the 1800s.

Girls were married off before 10, became mothers as early as 13 or 14. The British, whatever their imperial oppressions may be, did try and modify some such counterproductive social structures. I was shocked to read that Lokmanya Tilak vehemently opposed the progressive 1891 Age of Consent Act arguing that the British had no business interfering with an accepted "Hindu" practice. Today, intercourse with a 10-year-old girl is considered an unspeakable, loathsome crime.

So dejected was Raja Ram Mohan Roy when his reformist articles in Sambad Koumudi were booed down by the powerful Brahmin lobby, that he gave up publishing his newspapers. Though he was monumental in getting the *Sati ban implemented in Bengal, the practice continued for many years to come.

Every society hides skeletons in its closet. Because of the grace of social and religious sanctions on many immoral and unfair past practices, we are uncomfortable discussing the injustices meted out to Hindu widows. In my understanding, food restrictions for widows were meant to restrain a widow from eating 'tamasic' food that might rekindle her worldly desires. Drab clothing and tonsured heads served to make her look as unappealing as possible. Seclusion ensured that she was not violated. All these measures to safeguard a vulnerable woman from the lust of society and predators even in the immediate family invariably failed. And so the *Sati system. There is logic in each of this restriction which is a consequence of the previous. But in general, all such restrictions boiled down to this : One less mouth to feed, one more woman to manipulate. A simple solution was widow remarriage and this reform took gargantuan efforts by a brave few to be socially relevant.

Jyotiba Phule and his wife were ostracized and abused when they tried to educate girls in the mid 1800s. And yet, the seed of reform Jyotiba and Savitri sowed was instrumental in slowly removing orthodoxy from Maharashtra's lower and middle-class, as opposed to the state of affairs in Bengal where intellectual stimulation, debates and reform largely remained a prerogative of the elite.

Discussed above was a larger picture of society and how it dealt with widows in the 1800s. Coming back to 2010 and the specific question of wearing a gajra. In those times, a widow thinking of wearing a gajra would have been beaten black and blue. My surprise is that you, my dear reader, are prodding the question almost 200 years later, in an age virtually suffocated by individual freedom. What is wrong with you??

Let me put it thus: Flowers, kumkum, colourful sarees, ornaments are all a woman's means of expression of happiness, vitality, joy and hope. Mirra Alfassa even believed that flowers are a means of delving into a divine, spiritual nature. When a woman is widowed, it is but natural that her grief causes her to reject these on her own for the immediate period of loss. But should her initial expression of sorrow continue to dominate her life ever after? Who has the right to decide what manner of grieving is suitable and accepted for a widow? Not me and you, not at least in this time and age.

Regulation and restrain is central to a civilized society that must function smoothly. But equally important is freedom of thought and deed. A woman is infinite times more vulnerable than a man and so she needs infinite times more understanding and support from the society. Within the ambit of the topic of this post (gajra or not) I think it's high time that we shake ourselves off from the hangover of irrelevant social and religious codes of conduct.

If you ask me, yes, a widowed woman can wear a gajra. For even if she is a widow, she doesn't stop being a woman. And like my father once said, to look beautiful is a woman's birthright...


* Niramish: Food made without onion, garlic and non-vegetarian ingredients

* Old custom of a widow immolating herself (with consent or forcefully) on the pyre of her husband. As many as three Sati cases were reported in India after 1987, the latest as recent as in 2008.

Edited to add on October 10, 2010

Have you seen Water (2005)?

An attempt by Canadian filmmakerDeepa Mehta to portray the inhumane restrictions on Hindu widows in this film met with stiff resistance from Hindu political activists. Following violent protests, the filming was banned in India. The production was delayed for five years. Mehta persevered and shot in Sri Lanka instead of Varanasi. Lisa Ray, John Abraham and Srilankan child artiste Sarala Kariyawasam essayed the characters beautifully. The result was a poignant depiction of stark, painful reality that many wanted to ignore like an ostrich.

What I want to say is this: Our religion is too open, beautiful and vast. Acceptance of such bitter truths won't in any way reduce its glory..

Stop Senseless Slander

Just read the article on Aarushi written by Masooma Ranalvi in Outlook dated July 28, 2008. Masooma, mother of Aarushi's close friend has voiced with precision and passion the serious pitfalls of scandalising media coverage.

The callous depiction of the Aarushi murder case brings to light how the police and the media have become hand-in-glove accomplices in the road to slander.

Repetitions in the form of the same visuals, leading questions, questions that encourage drama and speculation, sexed-up discussions and debates about murders and crimes on prime time news- we seem to be blood-sucking vampires drooling on the gory and the obscene to a majority of production houses today, isn’t it?

And then there’s this angle about the callousness of police.

What kind of investigation is it that fails to find a dead body from the crime scene and discovers it the next day. (The first short brief I read in The Telegraph was that the girl was found murdered and police suspected the house-help, assumed he had fled after committing the crime)

I fail to see the reason why the police feel compelled to hold press conferences and shed light on what they think would have been the modus operandi, speculate about alleged killers on air? Why they can't mind their own business without light, cameras and action.

Gone are the days when the crime departments did their own work and the reporters did their own news briefs that were small, crisp reports and nothing more.

As of this date, there still isn't a set of laws framed expressly to control the audio-visual media. Could this be the reason why nonsense goes on the Indian television so effortlessly?

Talking about censure, yes I do feel very strongly that a free press that head bangs callously in each and every aspect of personal life need not be applauded and celebrated as the living symbol of 'freedom of speech'. Of late, hasn't the Indian television gotten a bit too free? A section of it needs to be leashed, and leashed firm and proper. And soon.

We need news to keep informed. For thrills and frills, we might as well read cheap detective novels, thank you.

We attended this guest lecture from a person from CNN-IBM. I still remember his sly smile when Jyoti asked him 'Sir, do you seriously think there is a need for 24 hour news channels?'

I guess that question sums it up all.

The Politics of Food

We are treading on controversial grounds. Yes. I announce so and throw my hands up right before starting to write this piece. But write I will, however controversial (or obvious) though it may sound...

For the Bangla community, lunch is an occasion in itself. Never before have I seen being served course after course of veg and non-veg items with that typical laid back attitude. You will be served bhaat* in huge quantity along with a generous serving of dal and other vegetables, only to be reprimanded later if you don't eat enough of maachh , mangsho and chicken in the next serving accompanied by another generous handful of rice. Then there's the chutney to round up the meal and finally a mishti. Delicious. Nothing controversial here. So let's proceed.

Now imagine there's a widow in the group. Generally, there are at least two or three widows in a party, however big or small it may be, and that's a personal observation. So what happens? Just when the tables and chairs are being pulled for the lunch, someone starts calling, "Niramish? Who's niramish? How many? O, three. Fine, we will set the tables here".

For a moment, at least for me, there's a sudden thud in the festive mood. I have been pondering about this niramish business ever since I was a notun bau, even perplexed at times, at this accepted, sometimes even seemingly advocated practice of niramish for the widows...

What's niramish? For the uninitiated, it's vegetarian food, ideally even without onions and garlic. A person may be even vegetarian by choice, by the virtue of growing up in a certain environment or values. But the niramish that I am discussing here is not that sort of vegetarianism. You know, a woman becomes a hardcore vegetarian overnight in these parts of the country. Even today.

Once your husband is dead, consider your taste buds dead too. And make no fuss about it. You are expected to be that ideal wife forever and 'prove' just what a control-freak eve you can be in the absence of your dear husband.

So when, after growing up as a hardcore non-vegetarian (yes- I read somewhere that 95% of the people in Kolkata prefer non-veg food) for a good forty fifty years of your life, could be more, or could be unfortunately even less, once you are a widow- you are expected to give up on the kind of food you grew up eating. Maach, Mangsho and Murgi. Let's not forget eggs and seafood and such alike. The Bengalis seem to eat anything and everything with gusto, but for the women, unfortunately, there could be a sudden fullstop.

Do taste-buds die with the death of the husband? Is it essential to give up on good food to prove you are a good widow? What is behind this tradition of Niramish in Eastern India? Are we really a progressive nation or we prefer to ignore things right under our nose? Am I biased or common sense just doesn't hold true these days?

It's matter of choice and assertion then. I have seen at least two widows who prefer not to follow the seemingly idiosyncratic flow of thought and ideals. And this time, I also heard a gutsy lady ask another rhetorically, "Hey, they served the chicken pakoras first and then the vegetable chop, both cooked in the same kadhai. Now don't tell me they changed the oil"...

I guess that sums it all. I could go on and on about this, but then, it's a matter as simple as that of choice- unduly complicated by the burden of age-old practices and a politics of discriminatory behaviour.

I have written what I have witnessed; understood and argued relying on some very basic common sense- just like the one the lady demonstrated above. There are other important issues of personal choice, preference and the right to enjoy life to the full- as an individual and not as someone's wife, mother or daughter-in-law.

What's important is to speak up, perhaps more importantly, at least let others speak up and stand for themselves if you yourself don't have the gumption... In matters like these, it seems sometimes that a woman is a woman's worst enemy.

What do you think? Bangla bhayro and bonro, a special invitation to you to comment...

*Bhaat= RiceDal= A thin lentil preparation
Maach= Fish
Mangsho= Any kind of meat, referred to mutton in particularMishti= Any sweet dish
Niramish- Vegetarian food, ideally without onions and garlicNotun bau- Newly wed daughter- in law
Pakoras= An Indian deep-fried snack
Kadhai= A deep vessel, normally used to cook food or for deep-frying
Bhayra and Bonra= Brothers and sisters (information courtesy- constant political rallies :)

Death Sentence for Santosh Kumar Singh

The news is enough for a lot of emotional brooding over. A reason to rejoice, even for strangers like me sitting miles away.

Some news spread like wildfire. Some gain momentum slowly. This case, throughout its proceedings, perhaps witnessed a mixture of both the phenomena...

While the aquittal on December 3, 1999 was met with dismay and shock, nothing much ensued immediately. It took time to wake up the citizens of India from their indulging luxuries, their safe coccoons of existence and peep into the system which had gotten stinking rotten.

But wake up, they did. One whisper to another, then muffled discussions, then furious debates, slowly people found a voice whose existence they had forgotten. They shouted, not caring if they were heard or not. Shouted their shouts of frustration. It was necessary to spit out the years of meek tolerance and mute witnessing of injustice...

Jessica Lal, Priyadarshini Mattoo, or Nitish Katara. On the face of it, these are just three names, of the innumerable number of people who are murdered or raped in India. But they are different because the victims' relatives did not give up. These cases have managed to wake up a nation and compel it to seek justice.

I want to pay tribute to the families of all the three deceased above. Had it not been for their committment, had it not been for their perseverance, their sorrow which they resolved to turn to their strength, I would not have been able to see today the Judiciary bending down to a public outrage. I would not have seen the retrial. I would not have gotten elated hearing the news. I would not have been touched.

I have learnt one of the most important lessons of my life through Priyadarshini's father. If you want something, you don't get it merely by wishing it. You'll have to slog for it and be prepared to stumble upon all the unseen, but almost certain obstacles on the way. But most importantly, if you want something dearly and are certain it's right, the most conscientious thing to do is to go ahead and try.

It's a moving paragraph when Atticus tells Jem and Scout in 'To Kill a Mocking Bird' :

"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do."

It is because of such courage of Chaman Lal Mattoo that we can manage to see a brighter side of the judiciary.

Gauri Gharpure

Life or Death for Santosh Kumar Singh...October 30 The Red Letter Day...

It's October 29, 2006. It's a stale, redundant, selfexplanatory lead.
But I repeat: it's October 29, 2006. So what...

I'll tell you what.

A family somewhere is huddled up in anxiety. Remnants of sorrow are mingled with flakes of hope. They would love to be optimistic. But they might have learned to fear the feeling. Being optimistic is risky these days. It can also be devastating. It was, on December 3, 1999, when Santosh Kumar Singh, a rape and murder accused was acquitted. The conscience of a nation was rocked.

The Priyadarshini Mattoo case might have limped up to the courtroom, fought a galant battle and finally glimpsed at justice. From December 3, 1999 to October 17, 2006. That's the journey of justice. A haggard, effortsome, unrelenting journey.

There's a strange anticipation in me when I write this blog. I fear this anticipation, for I hate not getting the anticipated. I anticipate, with all my willforce, that Santosh Kumar Singh is ordered to be hung to death.

I assume that the reader knows about the case. Priyadarshini Mattoo was raped and murdered on January 23, 1996 in New Delhi. Evidences pointed to Santosh Kumar Singh, but these were smothered by power and influence. Period. The Delhi high Court, on October 17, 2006 pronounced him guilty of murder and rape, and is expected to read out the sentence on October 30.

I have a few questions to ask.

Have you wondered how Santosh Kumar Singh managed to go on to become a practising lawyer? (Who were the people who trusted him with their cases)

How did he manage to get married? (!!!)

How his friends had the gumption to rough up the media after the October 17, 2006 conviction?

Having pondered over the above questions, it seems there are a large majority of people to whom 'right' or 'wrong' and 'conscience' do not exist. And the rest, perhaps a minority, have to be preprared to struggle against this gamut of negativity.

When such attitude and arrogance survives in our country, I cannot dare to call it a 'civilised' nation or attempt to bask in an illusion of security. We, as a people, are in an urgent need to be more sensitive. Sensitive to corruption, senstive to rapes, murders, political scams and all the innumerable news which we assume unaccountable and irrevocable. Sensitive, because the bad things in life are not always benign.

Cynicism has, sadly, become a fashion statement for many. People may not be satisfied by 'one' such stray verdict against powerful and rich accused. They are granted their intellectual brooding over.

October 30, 2006, for one, might prove instrumental to fuel up strength in some more weak, haggard bodies to stirr up another long battle, just to get a glimpse of justice. The battle has begun...

Gauri V. Gharpure