Friday, December 13, 2019

Froggy Style...


So the furore over Priyanka and Unnao seems to have petered out and the brouhaha aborted. As is norm. Until the next Buzkashi is thrown into the field for the media and junta to drag around that is.

Opinions were strewn like a farmer sowing paddy and in Priyanka’s case, they were rather over shadowed by the end meted out to the perpetrators.

Of all the rinky-dink offered freer than condoms to sex workers, I’d like to sum my two-cents too!

I firmly believe that we tripped over ourselves in the rush to ‘allow’ our women privileges and forgot the poor bystander of a man holding lauda in hand wondering WTF.

I’m borrowing heavily from the paper published by Pennsylvania State University authored by Audra Hixson and Dr. Peggy Lorah, titled “Power and Privilege”.

A proverbial frog in a well has no awareness that it is in water because the water has always been there. It only notices the water when it is taken out of it, and then what it notices is the absence of the water, not its presence. (Spoiler alert! – the frog is the protagonist of this narrative)

We live in an environment that is infused with power and privilege where personal power often relates directly to levels of privilege. which we are unconscious of really, to us it’s the norm, it’s what was always done, what we know and is part of our DNA, pretty much like the frog! Take away the power and privilege and voila we flounder since we’re now made aware if its absence… it’s presence always goes unnoticed. Mais c'est comme ça.

Privilege exists when one group has something of value that is denied to others simply because of the groups they belong to, rather than because of anything they have done or failed to do. (Johnson, 2006, p. 21)

With this privilege comes personal power (did Spiderman same something along the same lines???) that has societal acceptance.

Power is better understood via familial and employment structures, parents have power over their children because they can set rules and dole out consequences and rewards regarding those rules. Like teachers over pupils and bosses over subordinates, husbands over wives ( largely) you get the drift.

We know that worldwide, approximately one in five women will be the victim of rape or attempted rape (UN Millennium Project, 2005). We also know that one in three will have been physically abused in some form, including beatings and the coercion to have sex (Heise, 1999).

I do not  have the statistics for women in India, I’d like to believe they are way higher.

The vast majority of these assaults are committed by men, a male in our society has power over any woman based on the reality that a woman knows that the perpetrator is likely to be male. A man may never assault or harm a woman, but the prevalence of violence against women by men automatically gives him power based on his gender leaving the woman less power as she is unable to  exercise the same freedoms as a man based on fear of being assaulted. Going out alone after dark is only one example of this dynamic.

Only rarely will a man go beyond acknowledging that women are disadvantaged to acknowledging that men have unearned advantage, or that unearned privilege has not been good for men's development as human beings, or for society's development, or that privilege systems might ever be challenged and changed. (McIntosh, 1998, p. 95)

Women are more likely to see domestic violence, workplace harassment, and wage discrimination as major barriers to their quality of life than men are owing heavily to the power and privilege associated by gender.

It may well be that a man is aware of a woman’s situation and yet might attribute it to her character rather than the environment she lives in.

-          She wore ‘revealing’ clothes and ‘asked’ for it
-          If a woman smokes, drinks, is gregarious: she’s giving signals that she’s game

Much of the privilege and power that men have over women in our culture today is unearned power. It isn’t just the man, a woman herself is the enemy of her own sex. Indian women largely support patriarchy and are brutally judgmental about their ilk.

To draw a conclusion, Milind Soman (sigh!)… ages ago when asked about the most definitive moment that changed the course of Indian society cited the advent of Satellite TV into the average ‘sitting duck’ Indian’s home that insidiously permeated and clawed into our psyche.

While I watched M.A.S.H and Remington Steele (sigh again!)… the Mangy world was enthralled by ‘Bold & Beautiful’ and ‘Santa Barbara’ as I imagine was, most of urban India.

Not to digress, but women of my generation began the advent into awareness… varying from career choices to sexuality and yet had to live with the truth that we were ‘underprivileged’ and  ‘powerless’ purely based on the fact that we had tits and a vag.

We grew daughters to whom we imparted in a convoluted and flawed manner that ‘you could be who you want to be’… if you followed certain ‘societal’ norms. A crying shame really.

Change is not like an orgasm, quick and fleeting. It’s a long drawn process much like foreplay.

Yes, it would be great if men recognized the ‘power and privilege’ they were born into by virtue of the phallus and testicles so as to enhance self-awareness of the bias.

More importantly it would be to educate the generation of boys yet to be men to share this inheritance with their women and for women to step away from ‘accepting their troth’ and believing that true freedom comes when we uplift each other, underwired bra fashion and abort froggy style!


Friday, November 29, 2019

Fail yours...


Three years ago we won the ICDC Debate contest of the Division in Toastmasters. Today, we were Runners up, which technically means that we lost.

So the sham philosopher in me preaches that the best learning arises from a loss. Damn I’m frikking ‘woke’ in that case considering that loss is my current posse.

But not. I’m a sore loser.

With things that matter. With the who that matter and the ‘it’ who matters.

So failure is my best teacher right… let me attempt to list down my learnings.

Life owes me nothing.

Irrespective of how much I invest, be it faith or emotion or sheer drudgery of chores… life dishes out mindlessly it seems, of what it deems fit.

Often quite the antithesis of my deepest desires.

Giving does not necessarily means that you will receive.

Patience does not translate into victory.

Love is not a lofty emotion that guarantees reciprocity.

This path you walk is solitary.

Effort no matter how deep and definite is not a formula for success.

And insidiously the desire to sink into the calm obscurity of defeat beckons invitingly.

Tentatively I test its tepid waters.

Oblivion’s embrace is welcoming, comforting.

Hamlet’s immortal question runs on loop in my head.

I want to shrug, like Ayn Rand’s Atlas.

The quagmire threatens to envelop.

Dimly in the distance as I flail I see beloved countenances of the pair that sired me, the pair that I begot and the pair that sustain me. My Alpha and Omega, unrequited.

From those murky, convoluted and turbulent waters emerges faith somehow…

That I’m a Phoenix… not Icarus.

I will emerge from the ashes and not burn.

That Scarlett was right… tomorrow is another day.

That the bane of my life are indeed it’s boon.

Faith as tested by Christ's famous disciple... is mine.

Tuesday, November 5, 2019

Fail, Falter, Fall... Fervently

Fall or autumn, as used by speakers of the English language to describe the season has thus far been for me an idea I had heard of and seen visuals of via media and not in person.

It has been a subject I romanticized about in my posts, poems and proselytizing eons ago without having the perspicacity of the real McCoy. 

Again a life lesson, that I have the tendency to shoot off my mouth on topics I have neither expertise or authority on. Sigh. Motor mouth. I could probably use this as an excuse for my bulk, it’s all those words that I’m forced to eat... and rapidly! Karma’s turnaround time is indecently rapid. 

The trees are pregnant with leaves in brilliant hues of red, yellow, pink, brown, maroon, mustard, purple, cerise, amber. Each trembling tentatively, I know not whether in anticipation or trepidation and my wild imagination demands that it’s the former.

As I tread on the kaleidoscopic carpet of dead leaves, my thoughts wander to the reason behind the season. 

By all accounts Fall is the beginning of the end, the harbinger of rot and decay, the living metaphor for death. 
Autumn is also the ‘Fall’ from grace, productivity, health, abundance and life itself. 
The wasting away sustenance and vibrancy of the spirit, the crumbling of set orders and the annihilation of existence. 

The end of the old order. 

With it, visions of the immediate future loom in 4D. 
Tomorrow’s sky is overcast with dark looming clouds and the sun fights a losing battle as it fights to permeate light through. 
Tomorrow looks lonely, desolate and desperate. 
Tomorrow sadness will be the cloak of comfort and no matter how merino the wool, I will be chilled to the bone. 
Tomorrow is the winter of my existence. 

I allow myself to wade through murky waters of self pity and melancholy and as I’m mired in the quandary of my own design. A state I could revel in like a pig rolling in muck. 

And when I’m depleted and quite frankly enervated by all the lugubriousness and thoroughly disgusted by the trajectory of my thoughts, chicken me berates self and I feel the Phoenix in my soul draw strength from the awareness that I may well be alone but I’m enough unto myself. 

I turn my gaze to the inevitable spring that must loom in the horizon, the hope that ‘springs’ eternal beckons gently and I allow myself the luxury of dreaming of a season that will bring a new version of me who, my fervent desire is, will be a better, refined and exceptional version of the current joke. 

“Spring drew on...and a greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that hope traversed them at night and left each morning brighter traces of her steps."
–Charlotte Brontë

I fail, falter, fall... fervently and I think that’s quite alright. 

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Hen... pecker


Ok, so the keeda is running amok these days and since the avenues for expression are rather limited, I will resort to the English language and the words that make me think. 
Henpecked for one.

Henpecked is defined as, ‘(of a woman) continually criticize and order about (her husband or other male partner). Synonyms: browbeaten, downtrodden, bullied, dominated, nagged, subjugated, oppressed, repressed, intimidated, ground down, without a mind of one's own, tied to someone's apron strings, under someone's heel.

Living in a multicultural environment and conversing with people of different nationalities, most being non-native speakers of the English language I’m constantly amused by the words used by Indian speakers. Henpecked is common jargon used superciliously.

Quite different from ‘cuckolded’ which means ‘a man whose wife has sexual relations with other men’. While both words are derogatory towards a man, I would think henpecked is the lesser evil.

The female version of both words are ‘cockpecked’ (I know… I know! The wiring in my head is running amok with puns) and ‘cuckquean’. Quean incidentally means hussy or prostitute.  
Now comes the quintessential question… why aren’t these words commonplace?

Going by statistics, I’d think that these words should have a wider representation. Interesting isn’t it that when a woman is ‘cockpecked’ (aiyyo! this word, this word!) the man is considered the epitome of manhood, alpha if you please and when she is ‘cuckqueaned’, the man is simply being a man! Nature of the beast and all.

Interesting no, cock and cuck, peckered and queaned. How phallic the fallacy. 

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Me no pause...

I was asked whether I would choose to be reborn as a woman if I believed in reincarnation and mindlessly I said, of course! What do you think!

As always motor mouth sprints like Bolt before the brain can actually assimilate rational thought.
Struggling with menstruating once in two months and then twice a month, chafed thighs, volatile mood swings, hot flushes, bloating like a decomposing corpse, copious weight gain… would I still answer with the same nonchalance?

I know I am on the brink of the dreaded menopause (yeah I said it and it’s not a dirty word, except when the men in question pause when you’re almost at the apogee) and I’m morphing into a creature I do not recognize.

While traditional stereotypes are not who I aspire to be, I mean, Sita and Esther… good for them but they do not titillate my twat, I’m pretty clear of who I do not want to be!

I do not want to be jaded and vitriolic, disenchanted and inorganic, defeated and bummed out as I grow older.
I do not want to believe that the flush of my youth has ended and I have to behave ‘like a lady’ and act my age, I mean, even my body is telling me that apparently.
I do not want to quit yearning for adrenaline rushes, sinful blushes and some action behind the bushes.

Then again, the very question gets my panties into a knot, being reborn as a woman. WTF. Interesting though, the religions that do believe in reincarnation edict that being born as a woman is some sort of a punishment as the souls refines itself through karma and towards nirvana.

Bad karma apparently leads a soul to be reborn as a woman and is an obstacle towards attaining moksha. Forget the panties, my gut just did a Korbut flip and include the bloody uterus percolating crimson too, it just jiggled like hooters sans silicon. You get the drift.

No matter how excruciating the cramp and agonizing this teetering on the brink of mania, I’d do this over and over again. Be a woman that is.

Not extolling the virtues of womanhood, penning this has been exhausting enough and one could give free reign to their bent imagination.

However I will say this, I love the fact that I can allow myself to feel deeply with the core my being and experience emotions that at times threaten to sear me as well as embalm. To girdle my loins with steel while sporting a gossamer garter. To walk away from the unnecessary drama and watch life go by as I chill with  some hooch. To nurture and nourish, protect and cherish and sponge away the blues of those who are mine.

Yup, coming back as a woman. God help us all. I'm on a roll...

Me no pause...

Sunday, February 24, 2019

Hype Oh Crite...


Hypocrisy is considered by some to be the eighth cardinal sin of man. Being consistently evil is in some ways better than being inconsistently nice. Inconsistency is thought to be the hallmark of a man of weak character, of one who cannot decisively control his own actions - Mendel Adelman.

I confess I'm hypocritical too, a trait I'm trying my best to minimize.


The current been in the bonnet is the poor unsuspecting ‘bindi’, if I'd known it would cause so much trouble, I'd have tattooed one on my forehead by now. Bindi is a coloured dot worn on the centre of the forehead, originally by Hindus and Jains. Bindu is considered the point at which creation begins and may become unity. It is also described as ‘the scared symbol of the cosmos in its unmanifested state’ - Wikipedia.

When one of the girls who married into my family said she loves my bindi’s and used to wear them before she got married, I asked her what stops you now and she said ‘I’m not allowed to wear’. ALLOWED??? Seriously!!!! By who exactly and the poor girl mumbled something incoherently.
When I narrated this to someone in the family, she says, “I hope you didn’t encourage her”.

I was ‘reminded’ that Protestant Christian women from my family and church in Mangalore do not and should not wear bindi’s as it is against our culture. Now that I am defying the traditions that I was so carefully brought up with, I should be mindful that I maybe encouraging other women in my family to follow suit and this is a cardinal sin (oh we have an entire glossary of sins that yours truly indulges in freely, if excommunication was allowed I’d be first in line for my ‘misdeeds’).

Twenty five blood vessels burst in my head simultaneously and before I could explode I was told, “You married out of the community so we don’t tell you anything but don’t encourage our girls to wear it, if her husband doesn’t like it, she shouldn’t”.

I’m astounded I’m still alive, really. The pressure in my cranium was immense and I asked the woman in question, “how can you even say that? Did you not tell me a week ago that you are not allowed to do the little things you like since your husband doesn’t ‘allow’ it? And did amnesia make its way into your being so quick… talk about double standards.”

Needless to say, our relationship is strained thinner than gossamer strings. I’m only lamenting on the many experiences we are shut ourselves from because of our hypocritical attitude. Women cry foul about subjugation when its themselves they are talking about but when its other women, especially younger women, ‘culture’ and ‘tradition’ are used like Damocles sword and chastity belts to reign them in.

We do not need anyone to clip our wings and shackle us, we do so ourselves dear fair sex, quit then the needless whining about 'equality', it's never going to adorn the portals of your abode as long as you are Janus faced.

When you say you're done with servility and would like some civility, can you please sit down, shut the f*ck up and practice consistency in speech and actions.

Oh come off it… hippo critters!