Cold SnapDragon

On Defining Who I'd Like to Be

2012-01-28T17:48:00.000Z

At the end of yet another year...

I once dreamed, many years ago, of being a woman comfortable in her own skin, happy with herself. In the dream, I was somewhere in my early thirties. And every time since then, when allowing life to defeat me has seemed like a viable option, that’s the image I’ve gone back to, to give myself reason not to be defeated.

And as the years go by, I find that I’m becoming the person in the image, even if it’s not been happening quite as quickly as I would like to. This isn’t the first time I’ve written about growing older, but each time I’ve written about it, I’ve written as a different person. Not always the person I’d like to be, not even always a person I particularly like.

This year, however, is exceptional for me. For the first time ever, I’m approaching another year with little sense of dread about who I am, or exactly how my journey is going to end. As always, I don’t have the answers to either question, but for a change, I don’t feel inadequate for not having the answers. I find that I no longer need to have the answers to feel complete; I only need to accept that I don’t know. And that I have done.

Leaving aside what I don’t know, what I do know — or at least what I’m beginning to understand — is what I want of life for myself. When you’re younger, goals tend to be defined by societal and familial expectations. It’s only as you grow older (and work yourself into a position where you are reasonably comfortable telling the world and its dog to take a hike) that you begin to define your own goals, your own priorities. And they may not resemble those which the world would define for you.

Mine don’t; not any longer. I don’t want a lover or a husband or children or a fabulous job or an incredible bank balance as ends in themselves; I only want myself — to be my own person. I’m not sure that sentiment lends itself to easy elaboration — I don’t not want any of those ‘things’; they’re just not the focus of my being. All that I want is to feel happy about myself. Nothing more, and nothing less.

The last year, and, in particular, the last few months have been interesting for me. (I use the word ‘interesting’ in the same way that the Chinese supposedly curse people by hoping that they live interesting times.) I’ve loved, and I’ve lost: health, people, desires. The result has been that these few months have made my define my one requirement of life —feeling happy about myself — as nothing more being necessary, and nothing less being acceptable.

When I think of relationships, I think of love, passion, commitment, trust, kindness, reciprocity, enthusiasm, and of ‘a life worth being storied’, to use Charles Warnke’s words. The whole nine yards. I want it all, or nothing at all; nothing less will ever be enough for me. I’m not willing to attempt to ‘compromise’, to pretend that I don’t register things like being told that I happened to step into the path of someone only looking for sex, to attempt to convince myself that it doesn’t matter if I’m not loved as long as I love. It does matter. To me.

When I think of children, I think of a line in the film script of ‘Eat, Pray Love’: “Having a child is like getting a tattoo on your face; you kind of want to be fully committed.” I’m not committed to the idea of having a child, let alone children; I don’t have the financial resources to be certain that I would be able to care for a child. And unless I do — or, possibly until I do — children are not going to be a part of my life, and perhaps not even then. Not my own children, at any rate.

By God’s grace, nosy acquaintances apart, I’m not in a situation where I need either a man or a child. For that privilege, in a country where the value of a woman is often derived entirely from her marital status, I am incredibly grateful; it gives me the ability to focus on myself.

And when I think of myself, and what I’d like to become, I think very much along the lines of becoming, in my own way, like the Wrinklies who were, as Emily Rapp says, “Women who led rich lives full of meaningful work, deep and lasting friendship, sex when they wanted it, time with the beloved children of their family and friends, conversations about politics and art and literature, culture, travel to remarkable destinations where they did not journey as unconscious tourists but as guests in people’s homes and hearts. Despite these full lives they owned their own time, they owned their days.”

I don’t yet know what the future holds. May be it will include the traditionally accepted and expected family, may be it won’t. It doesn’t matter one way or the other whether it does or it doesn’t. All that does matter to be is that I become entirely my own person, and that I’m happy with myself. I’ve already lived a number of lives in the one life I’ve been given, and although I’m not yet the person I’d like to be, living the life I’d like to live, I know, with relative certainty, where I’m heading.

Relationship Dealbreakers

2011-12-13T16:02:00.001Z

#JustThinking: The problem with a #DealBreaker is that love can completely change the equations; what you thought would be one just isn't.

Nonetheless, a compilation of #DealBreaker tweets listing what mine are:

Ok, so, the #DealBreaker list for me: You assume the worst of me, and you make me afraid.
Every conversation feels like a cross-examination. And every letter feels like a plaint / WS. #DealBreaker
You don't make me laugh when I want to. And when I do laugh, it's only coz I'm thinking of the ridiculous. #DealBreaker
You're always unavailable; and will stand me up so that you can spend time with some actress whom you WILL tell me all about. #DealBreaker
I wind up not knowing who I should be when I'm with you; and who I AM is never enough. #DealBreaker
Your politics are different from mine. ie you're a right-wing lunatic in my eyes. #DealBreaker
Your attitude to religion is differs from mine, & u apply scripture so literally that all I can think is "Dude, wrong century" #DealBreaker
You have absolutely no sense of time management, cannot show up on time, and expect compassion for your failure to read a clock #DealBreaker
You advertise information which should remain private. #DealBreaker
You have no time for my friends but expect me to have all the time in the world for yours. #DealBreaker
You like Eminem. You think Dan Brown's work is the epitome of literary endeavour. #DealBreaker
You don't like Beatrix Potter, or Asterix, or Winnie the Pooh. Or claim to be too grown up for them. #DealBreaker
You claim to love to cook but plonk yourself on a sofa and NEVER cook a damn thing. And you HATE my food. #DealBreaker
You think I'm being over-demanding when I'm ill and want you around, even if it's only to get to a doctor. #DealBreaker
You complain if I shop. You don't like it when I don't look well done up in the way only a LOT of shopping can achieve. #DealBreaker
You actually think that you are required to solve problems, and have no idea of how to listen to me vent. #DealBreaker
You interpret every single statement of my being unhappy with anything as a personal allegation against you. #DealBreaker
You don't know how to defend yourself unless it involves whitewashing yourself by slinging mud all over me. #DealBreaker
You say I'm a brilliant lawyer, knowing that I don't give a damn. Or you pick on my brains and refuse to acknowledge doing so. #DealBreaker
You have no conception of people not agreeing with you, and don't know how to handle it when they don't. #DealBreaker
You do not know the joy of a good fish curry, or realise that it's the single most important thing in my life. #DealBreaker
You do not get my need to categorise, file and separate. Or that I don't care that it makes me like Monica Gellar. #DealBreaker
You're full of yourself, and don't get why I'm unimpressed by all ur work-related commendations, and care mainly about just u. #DealBreaker
You have no idea of how to laugh at yourself. #DealBreaker
You think that fuschia is a actually a colour a man can easily wear and pull off. #DealBreaker
You can't tell the difference between religion, ritual, spiritualism, and tradition. And assume that I equate them too. #DealBreaker
You keep talking about not being sure about how I'll fit into your life, without realising that you need to fit into mine too. #DealBreaker
You compare me to your mum, and I always come off really badly in that comparison. #DealBreaker
You love seeing me in insanely high heels, then complain when I can't walk as fast as you in them, and slow you down. #DealBreaker
My having a job is more important to you than it is to me. #DealBreaker
You expect me to be two different people: one in front of your friends, another for your family. And don't get that I'm just me #DealBreaker
Final #DealBreaker for now: You don't know the difference between being childlike and childish, or realise that I appreciate only the former.

What I Love About Delhi

2011-12-11T16:26:00.000Z

The Delhi100 hype got me thinking of Delhi.

Thinking of MM Kaye write of seeing ND's foundations being laid as a child, wondering why anyone would want to build in such desolate place.
MM Kaye wrote of her childhood in India (and a world we will not see again) in "The Sun in the Morning". Loved its content, loved its title.

Here’s a compilation of #WhatIloveaboutdilli tweets:

Friends, the kindness of strangers who've often become friends, the anonymity, the recognition, work, insanity.
The loudness, always having almost everyone in your face, knowing exactly where you stand virtually all the time.
The rudeness, the lack of almost all finesse, & the consequent inability of most people to do anything behind your back
Long walks in an old city, bumping into history routinely, taking monuments for granted, knowing that museums exist.
Being able to live well on a shoestring budget if you're smart, having tons of free cultural dos at embassies etc.
Each time I go to the Delhi High Court, that first glance of Humayun's Tomb in the distance always makes me feel lucky to live in this area.
India Gate used to be the roundabout nearest to my place. Always left me feeling lucky to be there esp with the NGMA, Pandara Road at it.
Winter afternoons reading on the lawns of Humayun's Tomb, eating oranges. The dargah next door. Lodhi Gardens nearby.
Old men taking care of monuments who are almost always willing to talk to you about the city that once was.
Street children who make time to spend with you, regale you with tales of their lives, and leave you in awe of them.
Antique dealers who tell you about all of their wares, even when it's abundantly clear you can't afford to buy a thing.

Find the #WhatIloveaboutdilli tweets interesting; different people's experiences of the city even if ½ the guys can't go beyond "hot women".

Sexual Consent: Exploring the Personal

2011-12-01T16:12:00.001Z

Writing about sexual consent is never easy. Enthusiastic and articulated consent, of course, is clear, as is enthusiastic and articulated refusal. Between those two ends of the spectrum though, lie an entire range of possibilities which run through many shades of grey, and which touch the legal, political, religious, social, and personal spheres.

It is precisely because those spheres exist, and because they intersect, that any academic account of sexual consent must necessarily be nuanced, to satisfy the demands of a multitude of disciplines, some of which may be entirely inconsistent with each other. And therein lies one of the greatest challenges which those people required to deal with consent, from a disinterested position, face: to find a way in which to reconcile a number of often divergent theories on consent, ranging from those addressing personal healing (if need be) to the legal attribution of culpability (if so required).

Personal accounts of consent to sexual activity, though, do not suffer from that particular restriction: all they need to do to be accurate is to remain honest to themselves. While this requirement, in itself, sounds like little enough, once unravelled, even at the most superficial level, it emerges that such honesty is anything but simple, even if only to oneself. It relies not only on lived experience, memory and emotion — all tricky in themselves — but also on social conditioning and religious teaching.

Each person's story is a distinctly individual story, with there being no certainty that one person’s perception of the grant of consent under a particular set of circumstances being the same as that of another person. The safest course of action is, obviously, to ensure that one always obtains explicit consent from one's partner. Unfortunately, though, explicit consent may not always be enough. The grant, even of explicit consent, could easily be dependent on underlying conditions which find their foundation in one’s upbringing and religious beliefs.

Consent obtained within the confines of a committed relationship may, for example, be entirely dependent on the relationship in fact being a committed one, and any breakdown of such the underlying condition could easily vitiate the perception of granted consent having any legitimacy at all, in the mind of grantor. And once the non-personal is applied to the personal, depending on the circumstances, (and the century!), such a change in perception would, in all probability, either be seen as morning-after regret, or a culpable breach of promise.

Coming back to the personal though: underlying conditions often dictate whether or not consent is granted at all. And for better or for worse, conditions relating to underlying conditions such as commitment and religious sanction (possibly through marriage) invariably involve a host of factors: among others, duty, the desire to please, submission, fidelity — unsurprisingly, all drawn from religion and upbringing. And it is all too easy for these factors to result in the (possibly unintentional) application of coercion.

A perceived or communicated or even simply possible failure to honour either duty or fidelity may all too easily result in the grant of consent solely on the basis of wanting to avert such failure. And should the relevant underlying condition itself be negated, it necessarily negates the consent granted consequent to it. What is left, then, is nothing but sexual activity without legitimate consent, although possibly with willingness.

Sex without legitimacy, unsanctified by commitment or love or sacrament, is shunned by both religion and polite society. Sex without legitimacy belongs to worlds not spoken of in polite drawing rooms. And consent obtained in relation to it is easily questioned in the mind of the grantor especially in cases where the illegitimacy was unclear at the time of the grant.

Each person’s story is different. Perceptions vary wildly. And there is is no such thing as unquestionable consent in questionable circumstances.

Also see: The Validity of Advance Sexual Consent

Responsibility and Privilege

2011-11-12T06:04:00.000Z

What’s amazing about societal privilege is that it allows a person to bypass many of the restrictions which bind those without it. Whether privilege is good or bad is another debate altogether. The fact is that it exists, in forms and in ways which we may not consciously be aware of.

There’s privilege by way of race, caste, education, languages known, socio-economic background, gender, health, and religious affiliation — and that’s a list that’s just by way of illustration. These different forms of privilege intersect and interact with each other in ways which sometimes make one their beneficiary, and which can seem grossly unfair to everyone who doesn’t benefit from them, especially since many of the existing forms of privilege have very little to do with individual merit.

On the contrary, many forms of privilege often have to do with the circumstances of one’s birth — the family one is born into, the degree of darkness of one's skin, and one’s gender, for example. And within each form of privilege are nuanced strata. The intersectionality which makes a brother more privileged than his sister, even if all other factors are otherwise equal. The intersectionality which ensures that a brother continues to be more privileged than his sister, even if she is more educated than him — all other factors being equal.

Privilege is hard to deal with and difficult to understand. Each form has its own value, and the value of each form can vary dramatically both on a macro scale such as within a culture, and on a comparatively micro-scale: within a family, for example. To know that one is privileged is to recognise that others are not, to recognise one may have been placed in an extraordinary position where many of the societal rules which apply to others simply do not apply to one.

Consider just one of the most “basic” requirements in India — for women anyway: the requirement of marriage. Societal rules may make no room for a woman not in a marriage whether because of not having been married at all, or because of having seen the end of a marriage regardless of its cause — death, divorce, or separation.Nonetheless, the requirement of marriage is considerably diluted by a number of factors including having an education, a source of income, and a high-quality support structure.

Despite this dilution though, it is still extremely unusual for a woman to feel no real pressure to get married from anyone within her own circle; to be able to say without blinking an eyelid that she will not marry unless marriage enhances her life.

To find oneself in a situation of extraordinary privilege can be overwhelming. To know that you may belong to an extremely small minority which enjoy such privilege can be humbling particularly since, with that knowledge, also comes the corresponding knowledge that there are many who don’t enjoy it, who have no notion of such privilege.

The receipt of privilege is rarely attributable to the person who receives it; more often than anything else, the receipt of privilege is a natural consequence of societal structures and mechanisms in operation. To benefit from privilege in itself is rarely the “fault” of the person who receives it, but to abuse privilege and leverage it against people who don’t have it is.With privilege comes responsibility: the responsibility to recognise that one is in fact privileged, and to not use one’s own privilege against others or in competition with others who do not enjoy it.

On Feeling Old and Dated

2011-11-11T07:31:00.001Z

Reading a personal narrative about the Internet being a reflection of cultural irrelevance for someone at the age of 28 made me think of my most recent round of interaction with people who are much younger than me — and who were not law students in a professional environment, although they were studying law.

I felt old, and inadequate, and completely excluded. Not because, I suspect, anyone was actively trying to exclude me, but simply because I couldn’t for the life of me understand what was happening around me. I didn’t relate to things which were obviously normal for them. I certainly didn’t “get” them — and believe me, I did try.

They were fun, and seemed nice, by and large, although I can’t claim to have known them well. Somehow, almost their entire modus operandi seemed alien to me though. They showed up in a hotel room at late at night — I have no idea what the time was, I was already asleep. What I do remember is that Question 1 from one of them was whether she could intern with me, and Question 2 involved a discussion on getting pot, while drunk in the middle of the night.

I went back to sleep — to the best of my knowledge, the pot plan which had left me horrified wasn’t followed up on. I left in the morning, much disgruntled and in much physical pain, needing to deal with medical issues, work, and family.

The following day, the law students were still there, and I didn’t understand why, although truth be told, I suspect that what really put me off the moment I saw the first one was that she was wearing the tiniest shorts possible with a jacket longer than her shorts, making it look as if she was wearing nothing at all below her waist.

And all the time that the students were there, they smoked, endlessly. The place gave me the impression of a shady bar, partly because it stank, and partly because my throat and lungs stung and I couldn’t breathe easily — I am allergic to smoke.

It isn’t so much the details of what happened though — it’s that at every single stage, I was stunned. Right from the first moment I heard the internship idea. It’s possible that I simply belong to another generation (mentally, anyway) or that my own circles do things differently or, simply, that I’m as stuck up as it gets.

I understand leveraging connections, I understand using contacts to get internships and jobs. It’s what all of us do. I don’t understand meeting someone for the first time though — without knowing who they are / what they do — and having your first thought be “And how can I use this person?” To my mind, it represents a manifest lack of interest in the person you’re seeking help from as a human being, and it’s not something I understand. Intellectually, I can see how it could be interpreted as being a go-getter, or some such thing, but once again, emotionally, I don’t understand it.

People are important to me, not for what they are or what they can do for me, but just for themselves, as themselves. In fact, truth be told, I don’t have the faintest idea of what a lot of my friends do professionally — they’re just people, and they’re friends. And yes, when I need help, I will ask around, and reach out for help, but I’ve never once made friends with anyone based on potential use, and I don’t think that it’s something which most people I know do. And there’s a part of me which wonders whether there’s simply a generational gap there in the way in which one approaches others.

Other things are pettier. They don’t have to do with possible generational gaps, although they may be related to cultural differences. The attire, just for example — I will speak out for the right of a woman to dress exactly how she wants to. That doesn’t mean that I believe that a woman should necessarily exercise all that comes with the right. I believe that the right not to be sexually abused is independent of attire. I believe in not choosing attire on the basis of shame. I also believe in modesty, and not walking around (in India, at any rate) looking as though you’re wearing nothing at all waist-down.

I don’t believe that being sexy is about displaying in public all that you’ve got, although if that’s what makes you comfortable, I’m willing to support your right to dress like that... but I don’t believe that supporting your right also requires me to like your exercising it. I’m judgmental like that. And, yes, to an extent, that is probably cultural — I wasn’t brought up in a world where the human body, male or female, was ever up for display.

The world I was brought up in was full of formal clothes, truth be told. Offhand, I can’t remember a single adult I knew as a child wearing a T-shirt, for example. It was all always shirts, saris, salwaar kameezes, blouses, long skirts. Now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t remember jeans either. The only time anyone wore anything less was at the swimming pool or some such place. It wasn’t about either shame or modesty, it was just the way things were done. And it’s still what I feel comfortable with.

That being said, to be honest, there is also a strong element of insecurity involved. Young beautiful women make me feel insecure. I’m neither, and the second I see one, I mentally compare myself to her, and I invariably find myself falling short.

And then, finally, there are personal preferences in the equation, which I suppose are entirely independent of both generational gaps and cultural differences. I like my privacy. I have issues with space. I don’t like people getting too close unless I especially want them there. I would not, for example, be able to be intimate with a man on one side of an unlocked door with a number of people only feet away on the other side of the door. That’s just the way I am, even if it’s a reflection of my being disconnected with normality and what’s entirely acceptable.

It may make me old, and dated, and entirely culturally irrelevant. But it’s still me. I’m not sure I want to change it. Unfortunately, there’s a part of me which feels the need to apologise for who I am.

Clothes, Comfort, Confidence

2011-10-27T11:38:00.001Z

It would probably take a psychologist to speak of the relationship between one’s state of mind and one’s clothing style with any degree of authority. So, at the outset, here’s the disclaimer: this text isn’t academic in any sense of the word; it’s a personal narrative about the journey, from the time I was a teenager, to finally being able to choose clothes based on my own preferences.

It’s a sea-change from the time I first became especially conscious of clothes. At 15, I loved dressing up, and wore everything loud and weird you’d expect a teenager to wear, except while playing at being grown-up; I had beautiful silk blouses, pencil skirts and 80s-style high heels (all hand-me-downs from my mum) for those times.

By 17, I was playing at being grown-up all the time — and, no, that wasn’t voluntary, but it’s another story. Unfortunately, or possibly not, my version of living life involved following an array of dubious conclusions drawn from scripture which dealt with everything, including what I wore: the restrictions regarding adorning oneself with jewellery, the prohibition relating to revealing skin, the mandate to practice “modesty” which — being 17, I suppose — I failed to differentiate from “shame”.

Two years later, by 19, I lived life in long sleeves, Chinese collars, turtlenecks, and long flowing skirts, which had earlier caused a cousin to comment that she thought I should have been born in Jane Austen’s time —my favourite author then. The clothes, by then, had little to do with playing at being an adult: I was one, and neither did they have much to do with religion: I stopped believing that God would judge me on the basis of what I wore, or that He’d stipulated what I should wear. The shapeless, flowing garments were, I now suspect, an attempt to shield myself from the world at large.

And over the course of the next ten years, that’s exactly what I did: shield myself using clothes. Make myself invisible. Hide bruises, when required. And be inconspicuous. Or at least that’s what I tried to do. That isn’t the way it always worked out: intertwined with wanting to hide, was an extremely intense lack of interest in what I wore, which made me stand out, in a way. The clothes were clean, always, and they were also the same, always. I spent years in black. Years too, wearing out a minimal number of sets of clothes, which I’d wash and wear, as predictably as clock work.

I wasn’t interested in spending the time to dress up for other people — I believed, and still do believe, come to think of it, that people who judge you by your attire really aren’t be the kind of people you should be around. And I wasn’t interested in spending time dressing up for myself — on my list of priorities, dolling up didn’t rate especially highly, or so I told myself. While that certainly wasn’t untrue, it wasn’t the whole story either, I’m certain. Looking back, there’s very little doubt in my mind that not trying to dress up had to do with a lack of self-esteem, having no sense of self-worth, about finding it difficult to “measure up” , about never really feeling as though I was “good enough”.

It’s only now, when I’m close to entering my 30s, that I feel more confident about myself, that I have only the last vestiges of shame associated with having the body that I have, and that I feel comfortable in my own skin. I still don’t care, most of the time. I still essentially believe that dolling up is a complete waste of time and energy. But I do know that I can, if I want to. And I do, sometimes.

I don’t choose clothes based on religious precepts or shame — or based on “practical” requirements like the desire to cover bruises. I wear exactly what I want to wear — and, no, that doesn’t involve wearing anything that stereotypically sexy, ever. I find that that’s not what I want, which is the crux of the matter for me: clothes are now beginning to become about what I want. They’re not an escape mechanism, neither are they prescribed by external factors. I get to choose, and I’m comfortable enough to say, “Fuck off,” when confronted with what I don’t want.

Of SlutWalks and Stereotypes

2011-07-04T23:50:00.008Z

Delhi is apparently having a SlutWalk. A city which displays a tendency to treat all women as sluts, regardless of age, attire or figure is apparently having a SlutWalk. Unsurprisingly, the Walk has been at the receiving end of a great deal of flak whether it be from persons who can’t conceive of what would possess women to want to organise a SlutWalk to start off with, or from persons who are avowed feminists and think that a SlutWalk is inappropriate for India.

The first question is, of course: Do we really need to reclaim the word ‘slut’ in the manner contemplated by a SlutWalk? Unfortunately, there are no easy answers to the question. The attempted reclamation of the word could be deeply problematic, just as the attempted reclamation of the word ‘nigger’, attendant with all its historical and social implications, has been deeply problematic. That being said, the word ‘slut’ is an attention-grabber, particularly in a society which simply does not use the word ‘slut’ in polite conversation. And considering that the whole point of a SlutWalk is to highlight an issue — primarily that women have the right to not to be assaulted regardless of their appearance — perhaps the use of the word is nothing more than good marketing in this context.

After all, more subtle attempts to highlight virtually the same issue, such as the Blank Noise Project have not garnered anywhere near as much publicity. And whether or not one agrees with the use of the word ‘slut’, what is undeniable is that people are talking about SlutWalk — even if only to denigrate it. Considering that it is dialogue which must precede substantive change with regard to any issue, having the event spoken about cannot adversely affect the purpose of the SlutWalk. This is particularly true since the average person, while talking about the problem, would be hard-pressed to assertively opine (in a polite drawing room, at any rate) that women thought of as sluts should be assaulted, regardless of what he or she may think of the SlutWalk event.

And at the end of the day, what matters is not so much debate about the use of the term ‘slut’ in SlutWalk or the propriety of having a SlutWalk in India at all, but raising awareness about the underlying problem. And a problem there certainly is. Clothing is just one aspect of it; possibly the easiest aspect to speak out about. Almost every woman in Delhi will tell you that clothing is not dictated not just by the weather and the occasion, but also by what should ideally be extraneous considerations. The time. The route. The mode of transport. Whether or not one is accompanied by a man. The destination.

Most of it is common sense. If you plan to travel into central Delhi in an auto for dinner, you would be well-advised not to wear a skirt. Trousers would probably work, but that would be as ‘modern’ as you would be able to get. Unless you were willing to brave the looks your attire would likely get you from men, and not just arbitrary men on the street.

But if you were travelling via/into the lonelier parts of Noida, you’d probably be best off in a salwaar kameez complete with a dupatta. It wouldn’t matter if your ultimate destination was a 5 Star hotel. The aim would be to reach in one piece, and get back just as safely. And it is simply common sense to do what you can to realise that aim.

To spend a considerable amount of time every single day wondering about the ‘safety’ of your clothing is not, by any standards, an insignificant problem. It may not be a problem of the same intensity as bride burning and dowry deaths but that does not mean that it is not a problem on the same scale, the same continuum of issues. Bride burning and dowry deaths — possibly the most often quoted examples of ‘serious issues’ — are primarily a manifestation of the lack of value and respect which Indian society accords to women, as well as a manifestation of its willingness to treat women as commodities which are both easily replaceable and easily interchangeable.

It is this same lack of value and respect which is pivotal in enabling men to judge women, whom they may not even know, whether on the basis of clothes or conduct, and in legitimising violence against women based on such judgments. This is particularly true in the case of those women who are deemed to fall short of a golden standard. A standard which few living women can ever hope to attain partly given that notions of what a ‘good woman’ should be are inextricably linked to mythological figures like Sita, whose virtues are extolled and whose faults, if any, are whispered.

Women are rarely treated as beings who are imperfect but who are also more than the sum of their flaws. Instead they are categorised. Good or bad. Not good and bad. In addition to which the average woman is unlikely to be valued for who she is — individuality barely registers. If valued at all, she is likely to be valued for what she is: a mother, a wife or a daughter. And appearance is undeniably one factor involved in determining the category to which a woman belongs.

It is categories and stereotypes which abound when it comes to violence against women. And it is stereotypes which have also framed much of the criticism against the SlutWalk. The organisers are young, they are reportedly rich, they are privileged, and they do not understand the nuances of caste and class in Indian society. SlutWalk is non-inclusive (even though its name has been changed to Besharmi Morcha), and it is inappropriate in light of more serious problems. Never mind that those more serious problems belong to the same continuum of problems. And never mind that not every event and not every movement need include everyone all the time — women are not a homogeneous mass, and different women do have different concerns, even if all of those concerns are manifestations of the same or similar underlying problems.

Women in this country undoubtedly face massive problems. Healthcare is appalling. Domestic violence is normal. Workplace harassment is generally brushed under the carpet. Equal pay is virtually unheard of. But these issues do not, in themselves, decrease the validity of other problems faced by any one section of women. And that isn’t even the case as far as SlutWalk is concerned: it is doubtful whether any woman, regardless of socio-economic status, feels entirely safe particularly on Delhi’s streets. It’s another matter that she may feel even more unsafe at home.

And, without commenting specifically on the organisers of SlutWalk, being young, rich and privileged does not disqualify anyone from either speaking out or from understanding the issues involved in any problem. Age does not guarantee wisdom (or even a modicum of common sense) of itself. Also, public perception aside, money and privilege are no protection against abuse. If not anything else, one only needs to look at sex ratios from the census: GK, one of Delhi’s most monied neighbourhoods, has one of the most skewed sex ratios in the country. Being conceived in rich and usually well-educated families is not even enabling many would-be girls to be born. And while those who are born may be familiar with Gucci and Givenchy, that does not mean that they have the slightest familiarity with either security or stability.

To assume that a woman from a rich and privileged background is unfamiliar with violence is insupportable, and to assume that she is not even capable of understanding the issues involved because of her background is beyond ludicrous.

There is little doubt that violence against women is often legitimised by the use of stereotypes. Wives require ‘correction’. Sluts ask to be raped. Prostitutes cannot be raped. It would appear that it makes little sense to fall back on stereotypes to refuse to validate, or at least constructively acknowledge, an attempt being made to highlight issues of violence against women.

(Of SlutWalks and Stereotypes by Nandita Saikia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 India License. It was first published at ColdSnapdragon.)

Frozen Cheese Cake

2011-05-21T10:25:00.003Z

Ingredients:

1 large packet bland biscuits
50 gm (approx.) butter
20 gm gelatin (Blue Bird) & 1 small cup water
¼ teaspoon vanilla essence
200 gm sugar
4 egg yolks
A little milk
500 gm curd
500 gm fresh cream

Method:

Powder the biscuits and mix the powder into the butter. Spread the mixture on to the bottom of the cake tray. Leave it in the freezer for 1 ½ - 2 hours.
Lightly beat the cream and curd.
Mix the egg yolks, sugar, vanilla essence and milk, and double boil them. Set aside till cool (room temperature).
Dissolve the gelatin in 1 cup warm water. Set aside to cool completely.
Mix the cooled egg-mixture, gelatin, cream and curd, and pour over the biscuit base in the cake tray.
Set in freezer for at least an hour.

Remains fresh for up to 2 days in the fridge.

Types of Gourds

2011-04-21T19:45:00.002Z

English names and their Assamese equivalents, I think.

Ash/Wax/White gourd : Lao bishesh / kumora (winter melon)
Bitter gourd : Tita kerela
Bottle gourd : Jati lao
Ivy gourd : Tendli / Kunduli
Pointed gourd : Potol
Ridge gourd : Jika (ridged luffa)
Sponge gourd : Bhul (luffa)
Sweet gourd : Ronga lao (pumpkin)
Teasle gourd : Bhat kerela

The Art of Possibility

2010-12-15T12:08:00.002Z

I finally read this book by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander, and loved it. I loved the humour in it, the empathy, and the message of living in a world of possibility.

My favourite passage in it though was one where Ben Zander said:

"…I once had a distraught young tenor ask to speak to me after class. He told me he’d lost his girlfriend and was in such despair that he was almost unable to function. I consoled him, but the teacher in me was secretly delighted. Now he would be able to fully express the heartrending passion of the song in Schubert’s Dir Winterreise about the loss of the beloved. That song had completely eluded him the previous week because up to then, the only object of affection he had ever lost was a pet goldfish."

It reminded me of a music teacher who once told me that regardless of how much technical ability you have, you are unlikely to be able to play beautifully as a child because you would (hopefully) not have experienced pain.

The Validity of Advance Sexual Consent

2010-11-09T09:12:00.001Z

Cross-posted at at LawMatters.in.

The validity of “advance consent” is an issue which is being determined by the Canadian judiciary. Advance consent has been held to be invalid only in recent times. Throughout history, advance consent was recognised by both law and society, the most visible example of which was the “advance consent” which a wife granted her husband during the wedding ceremony, and which lasted till death (or, in more recent times, divorce) did them apart.

What is interesting though is that, this time around, the issue of advance consent has not arisen in the context of orthodox sexual practices but with reference to practices which many people would find anything but orthodox. The Canadian courts have been called upon to determine whether a woman who allegedly consented in advance to erotic strangulation also consented to being sodomised while unconscious.

There are several pertinent factors. Firstly, the woman’s story was not always entirely consistent. Secondly, there appears to have been a history of domestic violence involving the woman and her partner, and as such, the validity of any consent she gave, assuming that she did in fact give consent, may not be beyond question. Thirdly, even assuming that she did give consent for one act, it is unclear how consent for one specific act could metamorphose into consent for other acts as well. Finally, considering that consent in these circumstances cannot truly be considered to have been granted if it does not also include an opportunity to withdraw consent, it is unclear whether it would be possible to give consent at all for an act such as strangulation – after all when one is being strangled or is unconscious, the withdrawal of consent is not an option.

Clearly, therefore, to voluntarily engage in acts which leave one incapacitated would require the grant of advance consent. However, blanket recognition of advance consent presents problems in itself. There are, of course, the “standard” issues which the recognition of advance consent has presented throughout history such as the non-recognition of acts such as marital rape as crimes. In addition to this, there are also echoes of that historical legacy which are heard today. This could be in the form of “non-consensual consent” where women consent in advance to an activity, and consent to having their partners force them to engage in it later even if they don’t want to do so at that later time. Alternatively, it could be in the form of pseudo-legal documents such as “abuse contracts” where women consent in advance to being abused.

There is little doubt that there are circumstances in which advance consent runs contrary to our current socio-legal ethos. However, if advance consent were to be considered to be entirely void, it would make it impossible to perform certain acts within consensual relationships, and could, in effect, regulate relationships between consenting adults – which, too, in today’s socio-legal and cultural climate would, inter alia, be considered to be an unacceptable violation of the right to privacy. As such, while the issue may seem to be relatively clear-cut at first glance, a closer look reveals that it is anything but clear. The recognition of advance consent could make women vulnerable to abuse. On the other hand, non-recognition of advance consent could make illegal certain acts between consenting adults which are of an essentially private nature, and in which the law would not generally interfere.

One solution would seem to be draw out lists of circumstances in which advance consent could and could not be recognised. However, this too presents its own problems: primarily, how would one determine to which set a particular case would belong. For example, if advance consent was given within a relationship marred by domestic violence, could it be considered to be “real” and, consequently, valid? Or would the possibility that the advance consent was not voluntary make it void? It is unclear whether there is any way in which to differentiate between circumstances in which advance consent should or should not be recognised. Universal recognition could, however, adversely affect the safety of many, and universal non-recognition could adversely affect the freedom of some. Whether safety should supersede freedom, or freedom should supersede safety, is ultimately a value judgment which would manifest itself as a matter of policy.

(This post is by Nandita Saikia and was first published at LawMatters.in.)

Links via Feminist Legal Forum:

The background: http://www.nationalpost.com/todayspaper/Autonomy+Abuse/3756825/story.html
Trial decision: http://www.canlii.org/en/on/oncj/doc/2008/2008oncj195/2008oncj195.html
Court of Appeal decision: http://www.canlii.org/en/on/onca/doc/2010/2010onca226/2010onca226.html
Sentencing decision: http://www.canlii.org/en/on/oncj/doc/2008/2008oncj624/2008oncj624.html

Your Name is Justine

2010-09-30T06:46:00.007Z

A film about the attempts of young woman sold as a prostitute by her boyfriend to hold on to her sanity and her identity as her captors attempt to break her. Her name is Mariola, but the men who buy her inform her that her name is Justine.

The film, shot in Luxembourg, is set in Berlin, and has its dialogues in Polish, English, and German. It begins with Mariola's boyfriend, Artur, suggesting that they travel to Cologne, Germany from Poland to visit his family. Before the trip, he takes pictures of her including one with her grandmother with whom she lives.

Moriola lies to her grandmother saying that there is a group which will be taking the trip. Her grandmother asks if Artur is a part of the group, and when Mariola confirms that he is, her grandmother remarks that Mariola's mother trusted blokes too much. Before she leaves home though, Mariola leaves a letter for her grandmother letting her know that there is no group, and that only she and Artur are going on the trip.

At the border, a guard asks Mariola whether she is Russian, possibly in recognition that many prostituted women are Russian. However, she says that she is from Poland, and after checking her passport, which by then appears to already be in Artur's custody, he lets them through. Artur claims that he wants to spend the night in Berlin at a friend's place because Cologne is 600 miles away, and convinces Mariola to agree. When they reach the "friend's" apartment, a woman with a baby greets them. It's clear that Mariola is uncomfortable but Artur convinces her to stay, and then, when a man portrayed as the woman's husband comes home, Artur sells Mariola to him along with her passport, her address and a picture of her grandmother.

The last scene in the house appears to be one of the woman who let Mariola and Artur in attempting to quieten the baby as three men rape Mariola. Thereafter, her captors begin to condition her to be a prostitute.

What was surprising was that the version of the film I saw had a UA rating. I'm not sure whether that was because the film had nothing explicit in it or because it had been edited so as to make it "suitable for family viewing" as is done so often in India. If it was edited, so as to sanitise it, I can't help but wonder if the edited film could have been considered to remain honest. And if the film had been edited so as to detract from its honesty, and its ability to portray reality, I'm uncertain whether it is ethical to sanitise what is the experience of thousands of women merely for the sake of making the gruesome palatable for public consumption.

Furniture

2010-08-04T09:02:00.007Z

There's a difference, it appears, between buying furniture, and admiring furniture; one that goes beyond the the fact that the former may involve considerable expense and the latter need not. Being one of those people who loves looking at furniture, and who can spend hours drooling over a chair or a table, it came as something of a surprise to me that being crazy about design in no way qualifies one to buy furniture. Thankfully, I am not thinking of buying any – should I ever have to furnish anything, I’m quite sure I would first want to have some form of basic knowledge of carpentry, and of jargon used by shopkeepers (in Delhi).

Going into workshops, it seems clear that it doesn't take much to convert a piece of insect-eaten wood into a piece of furniture which looks like it's made of good wood to an untrained eye. Teak is rarely teak. Assam teak seems to be some form of plywood. Particle board is what furniture in many of the fancier shops is made of. And furniture in my favourite haunts (including flea markets) may cause even the perfectly healthy to develop asthama.

Somehow, that has not even marginally deterred me from spending time around furniture; I tell myself that it doesn’t matter that I know nothing about wood — after all, I’m there to enjoy design, not to check quality.

What somehow bothers me though is that many contemporary-classic pieces — perhaps they’re called “neo-classical” — look supremely icky to me. I can’t, for example, stand brand new knobs on what’s clearly a piece inspired by furniture from the 1930s, and much prefer pieces from tiny shops than large chains which all sell the same genuine-looking piece.

At this point, I’m reminded of an episode from “Friends” where Rachel stocked the home she shared with Phoebe with pseudo-antiques. As long as Pheobe didn’t know, she loved the pieces. When she found out, she hated the idea of mass-manufactured “antiques” – that, though, was before she got addicted to buying pseudo-antiques.

It's possible that I'll ultimately go down the same road. For now though, I refuse to move away from flea markets. After all, I'm perfectly poised to "enjoy design" without having to worry about fleas.

Nine Lives

2010-07-02T16:36:00.001Z

William Dalrymple narrates his search for the Sacred in Modern India in this book. He speaks not so much of the role of religion and the sacred in the lives of the urban middle class, but of the lives of specific persons who represent various ancient traditions in India related to the sacred. And through their stories, he examines how the sacred has adapted itself to survive in modern -- or at any rate, contemporary -- India. The book is structured in a similar manner to the Canterbury Tales, and in it, the author speaks of the lives of:

a Jain nun;
a male theyyam dancer belonging to a lower caste in Kerela;
a devdasi;
a Rajasthani bhopa who sings the sacred Epic of Pabuji;
a lady fakir at the dargah of the Sufi Saint Lal Shahbaz Qulander; and
a Buddhist monk, among others.

While there is little doubt that it has been written primarily for Western audiences, with its comparisons to not just Chaucer but also Homer --- comparisons which would fall deaf on the average Indian ear --- what is interesting about the book is that it isn't centred in either urban India or rural India, but in the in the metaphorical wasteland which lies somewhere between the two. And as such, it is set in an environment which the average Indian person may not easily be able to relate to although the book seems to give the impression that this is what contemporary India is all about. Perhaps this idea of ancient forms of the sacred mutating to survive in a modern world is what the idea of India being the land of elephants, myths and magic has evolved into?

The book also deals with the interaction of modern (rich, urban) India with traditional (poor, rural) India. For example, it narrates the story of a bhopa or folk singer who sang for the so-called elite in their elite settings in urban India but died without access to healthcare in rural India, his brush with the elite notwithstanding.

Although "Nine Lives" does in fact deal with the sacred in "modern" India, it doesn't do so by looking at the usual manifestations of the sacred in modern India --- the daily pujas and other rituals which millions of Indians perform at home, the software engineer who takes days off for a darshan or audience of/with a religious leader, the working woman who fasts endlessly to "obtain" a husband. Instead, the book focuses on the manner in which ancient manifestations of the sacred have survived in contemporary India --- often a manner with which the average contemporary Indian is only minimally aware.

Artemisia Gentileschi and Agostino Tassi

2010-06-06T13:34:00.004Z

Artemisia Gentileschi was raped by Agostino Tassi, 'an artist her father had hired to teach her perspective'.

Technically, she was not on trial. stood accused of raping her. ... Artemisia, however, was the one who was tortured to see if her story would remain consistent. The authorities used thumbscrews, tied cords around her hands and pulled them tight, which would be agonizing for anyone to go through but for a painter held a special horror. Tassi was not tortured, though his testimony was so contradictory that the judge told him repeatedly to stop lying. Artemisia was also subjected to a public examination to determine whether she had in fact been a virgin before the rape.
Source: Artemisia Gentileschi: Artist and Rape Survivor

The story has somehow always haunted me: true, today no authority (one hopes) would torture a woman who made an allegation of rape. There are, however, far too many instances where people whether they be healthcare providers or those involved in law enforcement who do, nonetheless, engage in the contemporary equivalent.

Even in the most uncontroversial cases, cases where they are not even required to take any action because the person victimised chooses not to, there is a class of people who will, regardless, take it upon themselves to confirm the validity of the woman's story. That confirmation could take myriad forms: asking questions repeatedly to confuse the woman, informing her that her lived realities are invalid, discussing in her presence the likelihood of her lying, making it impossible for her to pursue legal remedies by creating impediments.

What's sad is that Artemisia Gentileschi's story doesn't seem alien in today's context. Neither is that of Agostino Tassi, her rapist. "Tassi originally denied the accusation, stating, 'Never have I had carnal relations nor tried to have it with the said Artemisia... I've never been alone in Artemisia's house with her.' He later claimed that he had visited the her house in order to safeguard her honor."

The trial in relation to which he was not tortured ended with his being convicted of rape in 1612. The trial took seven months and, "it was discovered that Tassi had planned to murder his wife, had committed incest with his sister-in-law and planned to steal some of Orazio's paintings. At the end of the trial Tassi was imprisoned for one year."

One year of imprisonment (apparently). Nothing more. He was, however, probably prematurely pardoned, and therefore remained imprisoned for only eight months after the conclusion of the trial.

Privacy: Content Centric to Control Centric

2010-05-16T17:23:00.001Z

"Devastated but Don't Ask Me Why." That's a status message I saw on a social network, and it once again made me think about the nature of privacy.

Despite obviously being willing to share information over the Net which we may not have been willing to share over coffee, we still demand privacy. We exhibit facets of our lives, and then inform people that our privacy should be respected. And while that's entirely understandable: privacy should be respected, what often seems to happen is that people volunteer more information than they ever should if they want to keep something private, and then demand that others delve no further.

Take the case of the status message -- if you choose to inform the world that you're devastated, perhaps you should not also require people not to ask you questions in the same breath. Yes, you do have the right to privacy, and you have the right to refuse to answer questions, but if those two rights are important to you, why on Earth would you leave a message up for all of your "Friends" on a social network to see saying that you're devastated? Unless of course you do want them to ask (? themselves) why you're devastated.

Although that's perhaps got something to do with the changing nature of the way in which we view privacy. There was a time when certain subjects were private. Nowadays, it is not certain subjects which are "private" -- what defines whether or not a matter is private in our eyes is not its content but our willingness to share the infomation, to control whether or not that information is made public. If we choose to make it public, it certainly isn't private even if it involves the most intimate details of our lives, but if we choose not to share it, it is private even if the "it" involves mundane details of what we ate for dinner.

Opportunities for Women in Prison

2010-04-14T13:47:00.006Z

including candle-making...

I came across this post a short while ago which talks about "Opportunities for Women in an Indian Prison" and thought that it was an amazing idea. Then I read the story...

They're talking about women working in fields, and about teaching them such skills as candle-making, and screen printing. I love the idea of an open jail, but somehow, I'm not quite as enthusiastic about it as one might expect to be.

Partly, that's because I know what the climate in Yerawada is like, and unless these women are used to being outdoors, I'd hate the think of what the effect of working on farms would be for their health. At the moment, and for a large part of the year, being outdoors for extended periods of time is simply not wise. (And depending on the time of year, "extended periods of time" could mean 45 minutes.

The article does not speak about what sort of protective gear the women would be provided (if any), and I can somehow picture a situation where women would "choose" to work outdoors just to get their sentences reduced.

And as far as the indoor skills being taught are concerned, the two which have been mentioned in the articles are candle-making, and screen printing. Really? And that is supposed to help women convicts start a "new life" after their release? The last time I checked, neither candle-making nor screen-printing were lucrative career options in India, except, possibly for the super-rich person who could create a brand name for him/herself, and sell products at exorbitant prices.

That, I somehow doubt is something which the average woman who's in jail would be able to do. So by teaching her a skill which may not actually enable her to support herself (much less her child(ren), if she has any who depend on her), the State may well be putting effort into teaching her a skill which would leave her in poverty; effort which could probably be better expended in teaching women in jails skills which they would be able to use to earn reasonable amounts on their release.

Reporting on the Need to Reform Child Abuse Laws

2010-04-13T11:05:00.004Z

The Indian Express has published an article entitled ‘Need Act to bring child abuses under one law'. All said and done, there’s an element of truth in that – laws related to children are contained in so many diverse laws and rules that it is virtually impossible to be constantly aware of all the laws which relate to children. Among the many laws and rules which contain provisions which deal specifically with children are the Indian Penal Code, the Cable Television Network Rules, the various labour laws, and the Contract Act, the Juvenile Justice Act, and the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act.
With reference to Child Abuse though, the applicable laws would probably be Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973. Section 377 of the Penal Code is an antiquated provision which was enacted during the Raj, and which is simply not designed to deal with child abuse. It is, instead, designed to criminalise homosexuality by making so-called “unnatural acts” criminal. This Section has, nonetheless, been used to prosecute offences involving child sexual abuse simply for the lack of a more appropriate provision under existing law under which to do so.
There have been proposals to restructure sexual abuse law to make child sexual abuse a separate offence. However, the proposals in their current form do not appear to be entirely free of loopholes, to put it mildly.
What got to me in the Indian Express article, however, was its introduction. It began by quoting someone who said, “Neglect is of greater concern than abuse,” which left me rather confused because, to my mind, neglect is a form of abuse. The rest of the article seemed to clarify that the “neglect” referred specifically to the neglect of complaints of child sexual abuse, which, in itself, is an entirely valid point.
The reason why this bothered me is that, it seems to me, that if one is advocating change in the law, or writing about it, it is important that all stakeholders / interested parties / the media use precise language all the time – clarity right from the outset about what the law needs to do, and what exactly the law needs to address, would probably help to ensure that the “finished product” i.e. the enacted statute would be as strong as possible.

Witty Women

2010-04-10T00:38:00.002Z

In 1750 Elizabeth Montagu said:

"Wit in women is apt to have bad consequences. Like a sword without a scabbard it wounds the wearer and provokes assailants. I am sorry to say the generality of women who have excelled in wit have failed in chastity."

Source: English Society in the Eighteenth Century by Roy Porter through Woman of Experience

Writing about Africa and India

2010-04-07T13:17:00.000Z

and the invisibility of the middle class...

There are two pieces I read this afternoon about Africa. The first was a piece with instructions on "How to Write About Africa" and the second was a piece which asked whether the anti-poaching activists, Mark and Delia Owens, went too far in their efforts.

Together, the two pieces made an interesting read. The piece on writing about Africa talked about all the stereotypes which must be spoken of when one writes about Africa. It spoke of the "need" to write about Africa's starving millions, about the corruption of government officials, about the great wilderness, about the amazing wildlife, but never about the individual African who may lead a life of absolutely "ordinariness", who may be a middle class person whose life is not full of unspeakable suffering, torn apart by strife and civil war.

The Indian version of such a piece would probably talk about writing the importance of writing about India as a land of mystery and magic, a land of extremes with its maharajas and their fabled jewels on one hand and its teeming millions which starve on the other. It would speak of the pantheon of Goddesses and the deplorable condition of Indian women – I remember once reading a French text book which described Indian women as “battered, submissive and illiterate.” It would probably mention the lack of the comforts of “Western living” and the wonders which Western influences have had on the country. It would almost certainly talk about seeing elephants on highways, and would probably say something about Indian wildlife. While talking about wildlife, and possibly forests, it would state that it is de rigeur to talk about poaching and the ignorance of the Indians which has lead to environmental damage.

What would often be missing from the narrative would be the Indian middle class. A class that is not starving, whose lives do not involve such things as suicide due to crop-failure, who live perfectly ordinary lives, and who are far removed from the splendours traditionally associated with India’s rich and its riches. This is a class whose lives are possibly comparable to the lives of corresponding classes in the West with their concerns ranging from healthcare to house loans.

The life of this middle class probably isn’t especially interesting from the point of the view of the Western consumer: there is nothing in the life of this middle class which is vastly different from what life in the West would. The result being that the West would neither be able to pity or to envy a person from such an alien middle class, which, as it turned out, wasn’t too different from its own. There would be no tales of diamonds or polo matches or palaces; neither would there be any tales of poverty or starvation or illiteracy.

Perhaps it is because the life of the middle class is so ordinary, it is often ignored in pieces about India. That, however, doesn’t change the fact that it is the middle class which forms the a large section of Indian society.

Pioneer Settlers in Nebraska

2010-04-01T06:24:00.001Z

"A Lantern in Her Hand by Beth Streeter Aldrich" is the story of Abbie and Will Deal, fictious pioneer settlers in Nebraska. Written in much the same style and tone as books like the "What Katy Did" series, the book, now a classic, despite being rather old-fashioned, is incredibly touching, and manages to protray emotions, describe characters and narrate events far more clearly than many contemporary novels manage to do despite being explicit. Perhaps it is the restraint in "A Lantern in Her Hand" which makes a difference coupled, of course, with the talent of its author.

The book focusses on the life of Abbie Deal from the time that she was a child till the time that she died. It isn't a happy-go-lucky book with a feel-good ending but a chronicle of a woman's life in that era. It tells of her falling in love with and eventual marriage to Will Deal, a man who chose to move to Nebraska because land was inexpensive there although he believed that the land was good. It tells of how she herself was less than enthusiastic to shift but that she lived in an era where if her man shifted, she would, of course, do the same. Although it also mentions that as much as she loved her mother, and siblings, and home, her love for them was less than her love for Will.

Life in Nebraska was anything but easy for many years. Crops failed year after year. The rains didn't come. Grasshoppers became abominable pests. Money was short. And it sometimes took great strength of character to keep her love for her husband intact and distinct from the lack of material comfort. Will Deal is described as a man who says little but feels deeply. And Abbie is described as a woman duty-bound, but one who did not truly seem to feel bound by duty.

"A Lantern in Her Hand" speaks of Abbie as a mother, as a daughter, as a daughter-in-law, as a mother-in-law, as a grandmother, as a friend, as a wife, and, finally, as an individual, although all her wants and needs and desires as an individual were invariably subsumed by the deamnds of one or other of the roles which she played. She gave up music and art as a young woman for her husband, and as an older woman, she made way for her daughters. To her, motherhood was about love first and duty second although she never seemed to preach about it.

By the end of the book, it is difficult to feel anything but much respect for the woman who, fictitious thoguh she is, seems just as real as those women who have lived not merely in the pages of a book.

Note: The entire text of "A Lantern in Her Hand" is available online.

A Good Read

2010-03-16T07:56:00.003Z

I just read a post on Puss Reboots about the kind of books the author likes and it made me think of what kind of books I myself enjoy. The first thing I realised, much to my embarrassment, is that I haven’t been reading very many non-legal books recently. When I do read though, these are the factors which influence what I pick up (in brief):

I like books which are easy to read like ‘The MouseDriver Chronicles’ by John Lusk and Kyle Harrison. I don’t like ‘high brow’ books which take me ages to understand; if I wanted to read books which were virtually incomprehensible, I’d stick to reading standard legal texts.
Human rights interest me and I read a large number of books related to them but, even here, I’d much rather read books like ‘The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex Trade’ by Victor Malarek which are well-written and accessible rather than academic papers. In addition to this, I read books which tell personal stories such as ‘The Stoning of Soraya M.’ by Freidoune Sahebjam and ‘Prisoner of Tehran’ by Marina Nemat.
I usually enjoy books which are classified as literary fiction such as ‘The Remains of the Day’ by Kazuo Ishiguro which I fell in love with.
Large doses of slang usually turn me off and I don’t enjoy having to read about someone who swears all the time unless the author has something interesting to say or needs to use such language because of the plot as Martina Cole does in her books.
Soppy, sentimental books are sometimes just what I need after a long day. I love simply being able to stop thinking. I don’t particularly enjoy entirely predictable romantic books. I enjoy books like ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’ by Philippa Gregory.
If it’s pulp fiction, I’d rather stay away from books in which the nicest characters die (as they often seem to do in Arthur Hailey’s books): if that’s what I wanted to read about, I’d pick up a newspaper.
Anything that makes me laugh is a good read as far as I’m concerned.
I find it difficult to relate to science fiction and rarely read it.
Long descriptions bore me. No matter how good an author is, I don’t want to have to read through a three-page description of how furniture is arranged in a room.
I require books to make me feel something, anything.

“If you’re a person who loves Alice Munro and you’re going out with someone whose favorite book is ‘The Da Vinci Code,’ perhaps the flags of incompatibility were there prior to the big reveal.”
--- Sloane Crosley

I've always believed that you can learn everything you need to know about a person by looking at their bookshelf. The problem with that though is that (a) they may not read at all and (b) even if they do read, they may not buy books because they're on a pro-environment paper-saving binge, because they can't afford them or because they're miserly.

I read about people deciding whether to spend time on a relationship because of the other person's taste in books the other day. As I read the write-up, it seemed a little far-fetched to me but a few minutes ago, I began to think of it after I almost unsubscribed from a blog which reviewed a novel which I'd like to read called 'The Palace of Illusions' by Chitra Divakaruni by saying that although it's 'not as good or as strong as Dan Brown’s ‘The Da Vinci Code’, it’s still very much worth reading'.

Judging people by their taste in books isn't something I thought I did, but when I read that sentence, I almost unsubscribed from the blog. Dan Brown. Strong?

I've enjoyed reading Dan Brown's books but his writing is hardly great literature. If it weren't for the subjects he's chosen, I'm sure he'd be just another novelist in the list: John Grisham, Jeffrey Archer, Arthur Hailey, Stephen King.

Thinking about it, I realise that if someone told me that their favourite author was someone I didn't think too highly of, I'd write the person off. Never mind that my own favourite authors are Beatrix Potter and A A Milne.

I somehow believe that a person's tastes and choices reveal who they are with far more clarity than any of their assertions ever do. And those choices are not restricted to what they choose to read.

About 'The Palace of Illusions' from Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's site:

"Relevant to today’s war-torn world, The Palace of Illusions takes us back to the time of the Indian epic The Mahabharat—a time that is half-history, half-myth, and wholly magical. Through her narrator Panchaali, the wife of the legendary five Pandavas brothers, Divakaruni gives us a rare feminist interpretation of an epic story."

Read the first chapter at randomhouse.com/doubleday/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780385515993&view=excerpt

Experiences in Delhi's Buses

2010-03-10T10:54:00.005Z

Somehow, travelling in buses seems to offer one, possibly not a greater insight into the lives of people, but at least a much wider view of the lives of people than travelling by any other means of transport does in Delhi: the metro is too crowded to do anything other than try to stay alive by ensuring that one has enough space to breathe in it, and cars, along with other forms of private transport, for obvious reasons, make it next to impossible for one to see beyond the end of one’s nose (while travelling, anyway).

That being said, it isn’t always clear that the sights which travelling in a bus are sights which one would actually want to see, nor are the experiences which one has necessarily those which one would want to have.

In the last twelve hours, I’ve seen in buses, a man with an awful wound on his leg – his skin had peeled off and the wound was white in places. It seemed pretty clear that he hadn’t had access to good medical care, if at all any medical care; God knows, I’ve never seen a wound like that on a middle class person or anyone higher up on the socio-economic scale.

After that, I found that there was no place to sit down on the bus. There were some seats reserved for women, and I asked a man sitting in one of them to get up, and give me the seat. He wasn’t pleased and said so in no uncertain terms, on the top of his voice, to everyone within earshot. And there’s a part of me which sympathises with what his sentiments: he said that he had paid for a ticket too and that he shouldn’t have to get up just because the seat was reserved for women.

Ordinarily, I don’t think that I would have asked him to get up but I was feeling ill and tired, and I wanted to sit down. It seemed so much easier to tell the chap that he was sitting in a seat reserved for women, than to try explaining that I didn’t feel well especially considering that I didn’t look unwell at all. I wouldn’t want to try telling anyone that I wasn’t feeling unwell unless my being unwell was clearly visible for fear of encountering disbelieving looks and protestations pointing out that I didn’t in fact look unwell. If there was one stereotype that I would love to see changed, it is the stereotype that people who are not well or who are not abled-bodied for whatever reason must also look unwell or disabled at first glance.

Of course, it didn’t really help that the Women’s Reservation Bill has been in the news, and the very idea of reservations for women in any arena whether it be in law-making bodies or in buses is not something which many men (at least among those I know) are especially enthusiastic about.

Finally, I spent what felt like hours sitting next to a woman sobbing her heart out. She was holding a baby and I have no idea of what she was upset about – she didn’t respond when I asked her and I ultimately figured that it’d be kinder to give her what space she seemed to want. She seemed to be alone while she was sitting next to me, but when she got off the bus, it wasn’t alone. Some man, who I assumed was her husband, tapped her on the shoulder and the three of them – man, woman, and baby – got off the bus. I was left wondering why on earth he had left her entirely to her own devices all the time that she was crying.

I’m not entirely certain what to make of travelling in Delhi’s buses.

Medea and Criminal Liability

2010-03-01T06:45:00.010Z

Euripides' Medea has defined the modern perception of her. Some time ago, the Teatro Instabile Di Aosta presented, in Delhi, a contemporary revisiting of Euripides' Medea in a play based on the texts of Euripides and Pasolini revolving around “discriminations and forbearance, power and revenge, and the meeting of two extremely different worlds; the one that is logical and rational, and the other one that grapples with the possible reality of mythology and ritual,” as the brochure said. The performance was meant to portray the universality and power floating in the story culminating in the “terrible decision that Medea comes to as a result of her painful suffering.”

Her “painful suffering” was the suffering which her husband Jason inflicted on her by being unfaithful to her and marrying Glauce, a princess to further his political ambitions. He justified himself by saying that he could not pass up the opportunity to wed a princess, and Medea was, after all, a barbarian woman, never mind that she was a barbarian woman who'd given up family, home, and homeland for him. He ultimately, apparently, planned to "unite" the two families -- his family with Medea, and with Glauce -- and turn Medea into his mistress.

Medea's "terrible decision" was the plan she decided to execute to revenge herself on Jason -- she killed Glauce (and, Glauce's father, Creon) using a poisoned dress, and killed the two children she had had with Jason in order to spite Jason and cause him as much pain as possible, or so one interpretation runs. Whether or not she should have been held accountable is debatable though.

Jason had supposedly remarried so that he could have children with Glauce. And when Glauce and his father-in-law were murdered by Medea, he apparently rushed to find the children he had had with Medea so that they would not be subjected to revenge because of their mother's act. It could well be argued that one of Medea's aims in killing her children was to spare them death at the hands of her enemies.

Then again, by killing the children, she effectively killed a part of Jason. And perhaps that was the ultimate revenge: Jason wanted children, and she not only deprived him of the possibility of having children with Glauce but also killed the children he had already had with her. To kill the children for a reason that was anything but altruistic would involve viewing the children not so much as individuals in themselves but as extensions of their father, which perhaps could be understood given that contemporary Greek society was intensely patriarchal, and viewed women mainly as breeders and chattel.

Contemporary Athenian law also allowed a man to marry and have children by a citizen woman while keeping a foreign woman who was not a citizen, in this case, Medea, as a concubine. And as far as divorce was concerned, all a man had to do was formally repudiate his wife, and send her back to her father or other male guardian with her dowry. There were two reasons who this did not apply to Jason and Medea though: firstly, Medea had contracted her own marriage, and as such, she had no one she could be "returned to". Secondly, Jason had sworn to be wed to Medea before Zeus and Hera, and as such, by divorcing her, he had in fact, broken an oath to the Gods.

Whether on not Medea is, or should be, criminally culpable is an open question though lying on thoroughly ambiguous moral ground. Medea was obviously distraught at the time she developed her plan for revenge. The murders were premeditated to the extent that she did not commit them on the spur of the moment. However, she developed the plan at a time when she was quite obviously not emotionally stable. And the duration of the time from when she first conceived of the plan to the time when she executed it was short.

In addition to this, there is the question of provocation. In law, if a person commits a crime in consequence of being provoked, their criminal liability could be diminished to the point of being non-existent. It isn't clear whether Jason's conduct would be viewed as "adequate provocation" to cause Medea to commit multiple murders -- presumably, it was not unheard of conduct at the time the play was written -- although it would be difficult to argue that Medea's committing the murders had nothing to do with her being cast off, and banished. She lived in a society in which she seems to have had no recourse to any form of justice, as a "barbarian" woman she was especially disadvantaged, and being exiled would have left her in an entirely hopeless position.

Medea states in the play that she knows her own mind, and that she knows that what she is doing is wrong. However, given that the act which seems to have spurred her to commit the murders is her banishment with immediate effect by Creon, Glauce's father, it is unlikely that she did actually know her own mind.

She managed (by being manipulative) to get a twenty-four hour grace period from Creon, during which time she both planned and executed the murders. Jason arrived to meet her after Creon left her, and insulted her. It was in these twenty-four hours that she planned and committed the murders. In the play, she is simply not decisive with regard to murdering her children until the last possible moment.

Medea unequivocally states in the play that she is an autonomous individual -- an assertion which in itself would have been questionable especially given that women were subject to the rule of men in a very literal sense with little autonomy of their own. Perhaps in the way that Glauce seems to have been little beyond a pawn in the schemes of her father and Jason, and who died because of those schemes.

Medea, however, managed to thoroughly subvert Jason's schemes, and escape the consequences of her actions. At the end of the play, she is shown escaping in a chariot provided by the Gods -- leaving no doubt of whom they supported. She speaks in a voice which is reminiscent of that used by the Gods, cold and distant. Driven to murder by Jason, she is ultimately far removed from emotion itself, it would seem.

Image: Medea by Sandys from WikiCommons