racism

i am currently working on a project for a foreign client. my team has mostly brown people, with a sprinkling of a few white people as well. most are very nice, but one specimen quite often makes me feel murderous.

for the ignorant white person who comes to india
(aka: why i'm wary of white criticism, aka: how you give other white people a bad name):

scenario 1:
you come here on work. you work with your brown colleagues and genuinely have a very nice time. you think quite a few of them are very intelligent and very professional. but you see nothing wrong with doing this:

you've all gone to a coffee shop together. you have to wait for your order longer than you like. so you start whining after the first 5 minutes, and your script is : "man... that's so inndia. you would *never* find something like this happening in *WonderfulWhiteCountry*!"

yeah. that so totally india. didn't you know it's how all indians are? slowness and inefficiency are hardcoded into our DNA. you say you don't mean us by that? i see. we look like what to you? fried sausage? we're part of inndia too.

scenario 2:
you perceptively ride down the obvious manifestations of colony mentality we still have and express withering contempt for the people here who suffer from it. then you dont wonder for one minute why people put up with your constant bitching about the country, climate, water, food, government, place, work and other subjects in the universe without questioning how you get away with assuming the prerogative to be ill-mannered, loud-mouthed, proudly and insistently insensitive and ignorant and always complaining.

people put up with that because you're white. because brown people have heard this crap for a long time from white people. the next time it bothers you so much that the place around you is immersed in colony culture.... remember to also be profoundly grateful that it is, because otherwise, people may even pull you up or take you apart when you deserve it.

scenario 3:
you're opening up to your brown colleague about the huge row you had with your boss and how he was acting like a sexist and judgemental shit over your social life. said brown colleague explains that we are still a patriarchal society (i'm beginning to lose belief that there is any society left on the planet that isn't). said b.c. explains that the guy is an arse that way, but you may find him professionally fair to you however personally unfair. you yammer on and say man... this would never happen in *WonderfulWhiteCountry*. you don't get judged for this shit. it is all so lousy only in india.

cough. yeah. in there's no sexism, no patriarchy in *WonderfulWhiteCountry*. and to top it, it's "indianness" not "patriarchy" that just bit you in the ass. your brown colleague happens to be a brown feminist. she happens to also identify herself with that indianness and that culture. you just wiped her clean out of the picture. because in your books, patriarchy isn't something that is also there and that seeped into brown culture, no.

indianness = patriarchy. it's so lovely to have your existence erased.

scenario 4:
you're wailing about the way you just saw people at work behave with their superiors. you label that so inndian and of course, that that isn't the way things work in *WonderfulWhiteCountry*. guess what, if you bothered opening your eyes, you may notice that there are quite of your colleagues who don't behave that way. that your own team, is remarkably bureaucracy-free. that your brown boss happens to be a singularly neat character who doesnt expect, want or demand that fawning of you or other brown colleagues.

scenarios ad nauseam:
you crib about corruption here, and how everything only gets done if you pay a bribe...and then you ask all your brown friends if they will write your thesis for you - and you're willing to pay well.

you call your "friend" home, and all the way to your house, you keep insisting that you're not rich. you're just a poor white student. before she has even stepped into your house, you hurry into explanations of why the rent you're paying isn't half as high as it would normally be, and how poor you are. what were you expecting? to get mugged by the envious, coloured savage?

all these gems of from someone who can be quite nice otherwise. it's really sad to see someone casually smack a culture, a whole people down without a second thought. wake up. there's simply no excuse for ignorant racism.

and it's not the burden of the coloured person to have to educate white people out of their racism.

the third world isn't your toilet.

sex and PG

through college, i kept talking to women who would sooner tell their parents they were going to jail for eternity, than that they had a boyfriend. parents were - and i think for the most part, still are - generally considered a cross between gorgons and medieval purists.

this is for them (the women!) and because this troubles me:

(before my mildly delayed honeymoon)
m : ma, i kept saying i wanted to go to the gynaecologist before we left for () no? i went in the evening.
ma: ah okay. good.
m : i wanted to go because whenever we had intercourse it hurt a lot for me, and i've heard that some women have this extra thick hymen and stuff, so i just wanted to check with the doctor.
ma : oh...
m: and she said i was normal only, but that it would pain the first times anyway. and that i had to remember to keep my hips down
ma : and relax. thats the main thing. she would've given that lubic gel no? its a lubricating gel, so it helps to reduce the pain.
m :yeah.. she said i was getting very tensed. i'm scared of pain ma!
ma: dont worry... the first few times are painful, but not killing! it's very sensitive in the beginning because you're not used to it no.
m: i felt a little awkward about discussing it with you..so i went to the gynaec first. but this is so nice ma, to be able to talk so comfortably!
ma: yeah, see, i'm not the kind who would bring up the topic... but if you ask me it's not like i feel embarassed to discuss it or something. i assumed everything was fine because you didn't say anything earlier. :)
did you have time to pick up the gel? shall i get it for you?


lingerie tends to make my feminist skin itch. a lot of the designs and patterns of stuff you see seems a little objectifying and not quite merely only about harmless frilly stuff. but i'm not getting into that right now. what i did want to share, was this conversation with my father:

pa: listen, why don't you buy something nice? do you have everything you want? i'll take you to any shop you want to go to. have a nice time... this is very special. sure you'll have sex a million times again, but you'll always look back and remember the first time.
and keep an open mind okay? both of you will keep hesitating and feeling awkward, so reacting strongly may make him think he's horrified you, or you him. did you buy condoms? don't get pregnant as yet. get used to each other first.


before someone dismisses these as memoirs of a freaky family, let me assure you that my parents had set rules for me which were as strict (or sometimes a little more so) as those set for other kids. i had a 10 o clock curfew for getting home up to when i got married. i have never been to a night show. i have never been to a discotheque. until i was 22 i didn't drink alcohol unless my parents were present. contrary to possible expectations, it wasn't an awfully oppressed life! save the curfew, the other two didn't bother me. there were things that i did wish for more freedom in, but honestly, for this kind of support and relationship.... it was all totally worth it!

those "sassy" babes

i chanced upon an edition of that gem of a magazine, India Today.

"smart and sassy" said the cover page, showing a young woman. the story was ostensibly about how women are making it big in the corporate world. india today is india's largest english magazine, so i think it's a fairly representative visage for that fuzzy beast called mass media. i want to dissect the representation made by them now.

first, have a look at a couple of recent editions which have featured men on the cover page.



(from indiatoday.com)

and then, the current issue:


(from indiatoday.com)

let's see, famous actor... think of the face.

a cricket coach who was murdered ... how do we recall the person? face.

representation of powerful women ... strike a pose, display that groin. obviously a woman's intelligence, power or drive to succeed all lies centered in her crotch. therefore it's completely relevant if not absolutely vital to include a splay-legged display of it when discussing her abilities.

it makes you freeze to realise that it's easier for the media to portray a dead man as a person, than portray a woman as something more than a "body".

i don't know about you folks, but i'm yet to see a woman posture like that in a board-meeting, or even in a team meeting. wow, how realistic a pose. so that's what women do at work - stand like they're about to launch into a quick tea-break version of moulin rouge.


(from allposters.com)

using a chair in a cabaret act is almost cliched now. in 1972, liza minelli made a movie called "cabaret". the poster of the movie less blatantly highlights the woman's groin than this supposedly non-sexualised depiction!

also, how many women have you seen waltz into office dressed in the finely embroidered ensemble that this one has on? can you imagine getting any work done dressed like that? is it even remotely practical? the only thing you could comfortably do with an outfit like that, would be to sit in an air-conditioned glass case. someone's been suffering an acute attack of woman-are-decorative-elements.

finally, the most obvious idiocy. "sassy"?

sassy

• adjective (sassier, sassiest) informal, chiefly N. Amer. bold and spirited; impudent.

impudent of the little girls to walk into an office and get noticed? ooh, they're being spirited in the presence of the Big Male In Charge, huh? the word drips condescension. so that's a really bad choice of words, mr editor, even if the reader didn't know that "sassy" is an americanised corruption of the word "saucy" which happens to have certain specific connotations.

saucy

• adjective (saucier, sauciest) informal 1 chiefly Brit. sexually suggestive in a light-hearted way. 2 chiefly N. Amer. bold, lively, and spirited.

"sexually suggestive"? well, knock me down with a feather.


also posted on sthreeling

hutch: a study in contemporary corporate-sponsored racism

a recent hutch advertisement caught my eye. it seems to me a brilliant study in how to perpetuate racist stereotypes, so i'd like to discuss it here.



you can almost imagine the ad agency's pitch to the company. "can't sell your product properly? damn natives can't understand english?" or "damn natives too stupid to understand your procedures? spell it out for those brown savvidges". voila. a charmingly animated ad campaign. it probably had to be animated so they could plead who them?, racist?, awww, come on, cantcha take a joke? we didn't mean no harm. how very subtle!

the storyboard: shot of customer - sorry! - brown savage, complete in stereotyped details like war paint on either cheek, and a loin cloth. (there's also a very interestingly conspicuous absence of brown savage woman!) brown savage evidently doesn't understand company's contorted payment procedure. enter two not-quite-white-but-getting-there smarties, who show the savage how to do things. exit brown savage happily yelling as he swings away on the trees.

dumb savage still can't figure how to talk english, benevolent company offers customer care in *savagespeak*. two n-q-w-b-g-t smarties to the rescue again. savage repeats the happy-tree-swinging routine.




the advertising company handling hutch's ad campaigns is ogilvy & mather (india). an agency which, presumably, has indians working for them. i'm quite sure that these very people look into mirrors every day and do not see a "savage". so it is truly appalling, that they think that a savage is a coloured man, clad in a loin cloth and swinging from trees. talk of total cognitive dissonance!

it speaks volumes for how effective colonial conditioning has been, and how it continues to dominate the way we think. any system of discrimination is most effective when the subject starts internalising the discriminatory notions. so while it's awful enough to have a seemingly liberal white man write racist literature and be praised for it, it's a different set of worries and fears to see people beholding themselves through a racist lens and hating themselves.

use your power as consumers, people (especially those of you with hutch connections) - call and tell 'em racist ads aren't cute.

(we can take them up on the shades of sexism-sizeism from the second phone call.)

mohanty, spivak, where are you?

one of the main purposes of feminism is to help the community of women come together.

the production of knowledge is one of the important aspects of the first world-third world divide, something that also eventually becomes very gendered, making it a critical issue in the third world feminists' agenda.

every time i read feminist theory about third world feminism, i invariably find references to mohanty and spivak as the primary voices of indian feminism. i find it incredibly sad that they too seem to have followed the first world custom of exclusive knowledge production. i've hunted quite a bit and for a while now, and not found one of their papers available for free online. what is the point of sitting abroad, trying to make a point about how the third world feminists lack access to mainstream feminist theory and knowledge - and denying access to those very arguments?!

its very frustrating and sad that we have more access to white feminism in india than to ours, especially with everyone tripping over themselves to say at the first opportunity that they're doing progressive work, socially relevant work, but "imnotafeminist"!

indian feminism... you're sorely needed!

perspectives

i think one of the nicest things about the eastern cultures, is the way they show how one can use cloth for self expression - from sensuousness to businesslike sharpness. with mass media extolling minimalistic (or a lack of) clothing as the only way of making a statement or expressing an attitude, this photograph is such a terrific case for the other side! its supposed to have won a photo of the year award (2005).

its also a very simple non-academic explanation of how even if the west sees certain things as being victimising (like veils), they could have a completely different connotation locally. theres is such a happy, upbeat tone to this picture - who said anything about oppression or loss of identity!





i unfortunately dont know the photographers name. if any of you do, please do let me know! :)

science and the state

emergence and development of new technologies can make human habitats disease-free, happy, more intelligent, increase longevity and human capabilities in the years to come.

- president apj abdul kalam
source: the hindu, page 8, november 23, 2006

so much for the simple claims of science. so much for substantiated claims of science, eh? that was a "scientist" speaking, one who is the pride of the country, not to mention merely also the institutional head.

that was a neutral, not-all-politically-loaded statement - especially considering that it was made after the government decided to suspend all bt seeds and decide whether or not to permit them only after they were able to test it properly. that was something that didnt happen the first time around because while the seeds were still in the labs, monsanto quietly sold them to indian farmers in the black market.

what was the man thinking of!

for a scientist, the statement was totally ridiculous, not to mention thoroughly unprofessional. for one who happens to be the president of a country, its again absolutely unprofessional and unethical for him to peddle monsanto products (i mean... monsanto?) like this.

this is the technocracy in india. first that we chose a scientist to lead the nation, not based on his diplomatic skills or social awareness or political performance, but simply for the reason that he headed the nuclear program (incidentally the same one whose scope hes mutedly lamenting today.)

one aspect is that the best way to stifle and silence a person is to institutionalise him. by making kalam the president, the concept of the "hindutva" bomb was cemented. to question his work or ethics, is to question the state and therefore anti-nationalist. since kalam wears the presidents mantle, he cannot openly wail or criticise the program. and if the expert on the subject says its a Good Thing, that's about the official final word on subject. the conscience of science is effectively killed by politicising it.

there's another, more scary aspect. which is, that we as a society have completely bought the claims of technocracy and scientific supremacy. that we stand in such awe of technical expertise and the western model of development that we are ready to blindly follow the dictates of any person who can give us these, or any person who even just claims the ability to do so. kalams presidency is a measure of how technocratic a society we are, and the power we have given to science.

"the basis of advanced technology is innovation and nothing is more stifling to innovation than seeing one's product or ruled out of consideration on flimsy premises involving public world opinion." (emphasis mine)

- dr. harold agnew, los alamos laboratories weapons division.

when science is so closely linked to the state, you have eugenics - a politically touted scientific conclusion of being the superior race, dubious hiv trials in poor developing countries, the us refusing to "believe" in global warming, and so on. and each time, each act is justified by science for the politicians. the claims of science under the technocracy are illuminating. each scientific "breakthrough" promises everything from a happy, healthy life to immortality. naturally, since they are of such (unquestionable) service to humanity, they may use whatever means they wish to, to reach their ends.

power in our time has more intelligence in its service, and allows that intelligence more discretion as to its methods, than ever before in history.

- conor cruise o' brien

that reputed, trusted scientists like kalam can pack such agenda when they speak in innocuous gatherings like a convocation of a sports center, is worrisome and frightening.



brownskinspeak, feminist issues

abuse of male privilege

i had made a list - a list of the unearnt, undeserved privileges that i have as a well-to-do brahmin woman. i hoped - almost prayed - that some men at least, after reading that, would make a list of the gender-bestowed privileges that they have.

because this is what happens when a man abuses his male privilege and uses it to hurt a woman.

every time some guy says "but i'm a nice guy!" and expects to be trusted implicitly, i want to bury him in the mound of "nice guys" who do hurtful, vicious, unthinkingly dumb things.

no man has ever introduced himself to me, or any woman of my acquaintance, saying "you know what? i'm not a nice guy, i do bad things. so please don't trust me - treat me as an aberration in the world of nice men". pretty much most men consider themselves nice people. "nice men" who happen watch porn, leer at women, "eve tease", or exploit vulnerable women and children sexually.

more than dealing with god, i find that dealing with men is a daily act of faith, with more immediate repercussions if i misjudge. each time i let myself be seen in the company of a man, i know its a risk. i know if anything happens to me, that fact - that i was With A Man - will be the first excuse to humiliate me and pain me further.

men know this almost better than women. the man who abused me was a father of a nice little girl. every father and husband i know has taught his daughter and wife to never trust other men. my own father says every single man is guilty until proven innocent. im sure my husband will, with the same concern for my safety, say the same thing.

women are taught, as a policy decision, to mistrust men, but are expected to make a "personal" exception for every single male who chooses to enter their lives. questioning any man provokes "righteous" anger. a woman is expected to automatically wipe her mental slate clean and start from ignorance all over again.

she is confronted by two choices : compliance or refusal. either way is a hard way.

in compliance, the more she walks away from her lived experience, from all the knowledge that she has developed from first principles, the more the rift between her resolutely rose-tinted world and reality. and reality has a way of catching up and giving you a nasty jar if you try to leave it behind. a woman conscious of the rift rails against the social order that expects her to be such a hypocrite to herself and others. a woman who doesnt perceive the rift eventually falls into a dark painful abyss.

so there is the other option. to refuse to wipe one's mind blank. to face the blaze of anger that will surface each time a man's code is studied. this is a choice that especially most women who have undergone abuse make. to always warn ones self of the danger of trusting blindly. of unquestioningly accepting someone's word about their morality. (oftentimes, not even an open, explicit claim, but an implied one which is much harder to disprove or analyse because of its chimeral nature.)

it is both hurtful and infuriating to repeatedly have to make this tradeoff. and to be judged after being put in a situation that doesnt offer healthy choices in the first place.

were i a man, i guess i would want to crucify each one of my kind who sustained and reaffirmed such a screwed up social system. collective responsibility, while distinct from personal responsibility, has a way of hitting home.

I am not an angry girl
but it seems like I've got everyone fooled
every time I say something they find hard to hear
they chalk it up to my anger
and never to their own fear
and imagine you're a girl
just trying to finally come clean
knowing full well they'd prefer you
were dirty and smiling

- Ani DiFranco & Tracy Chapman

also posted on sthreeling.


my life , feminist issues, brownskinspeak

unveiled insensitivity

i read many feminist blogs, several of which often teach me new ideas. recently there was all that hullabaloo about jessica valenti meeting president clinton, and being assininely maligned by another pseudo feminist blogger about the way she appeared in a group photograph which was taken.

i came to know of the whole thing a little late, not having followed the blog world too closely for a while in between. i was glad to see that several people had taken up the nasty post and crucified it. good going. great going.

but hang on, quite a few blogs i was reading, expressed a sentiment like "yeah, left to [whomever], they'd have us wearing burqas!".

i'm not a muslim. i do not live in a country where i have to wear a burqa or headscarf every day. but i do find that rather insensitive a remark. what gives one culture the right to keep referring to something in another culture with such scant respect?

equating it to our wearing a dhuppatta in india, it is one thing for me to criticise the men around me who insist on my wearing a dhupatta to cover the silhouette of my breasts. i am protesting against their claim that that if i do not wear a dhuppatta, i deserve to be harassed. that they can think they own my body and dress me the way it suits them.

that does not mean that i am saying that i will always refuse to wear the cloth. i am merely saying, that i will wear it when i want to. i do think that sometimes it adds elegance. sometimes i want to wear it to be able to cover my head against our scorching sun when i wait at a bus stop. to wear it simply because i want to feel the texture of the cloth touching my cheek. that's my business.

i would not take kindly to a westerner labelling my dress as retrogressive, and viewing my whole culture as simply one skewed gender equation. i also would not take kindly to being made the Other while the westerner, ignorant of my customs and culture, criticises me by his/her standards. i do not think it is "supportive" to have a western woman criticise my culture, when she alienates and seems to look down on all of us who live by it.

it may seem inexplicable that i want to wear the clothes i do. frankly, i find miniskirts as hampering as a woman from the west may find my madusar. and i do not think that wearing miniskirts liberates me, makes me modern or leads to an intellectual revolution, so thank you very much but i am happy and comfortable being fully covered. i do not think it cramps my style. if i am not sorry for myself, you have no call to be either - i do not want to be forced into the role of the victim and receive someone's condescending pity.

protesting against the stoning of women who do not choose to wear a burqa, supporting them in their right to choice, helping them assert that they are not dolls to be dressed by men around them as they wish, is different from ridiculing or being contemptuous of a garment of their culture's.

please show a little more respect for other cultures - whites have colonised many of our countries for long, and have caused much bloodshed. dont tread on our cultural sentiments (however inexplicable they may seem to you) with your hobnailed imperialist's boots. white cultural hegemony is not as apocryphal as some of us would love it to be.


brownskinspeak

why undeserved, why unearnt?

i decided to make the list in the previous post because i had some ideas. i found myself learning some more as i actually waded through the painful exercise.

one of the things that caught me by surprise and brought a wry smile to my face, was the fact that i could come up with more than 20 things for the list of undeserved, unearnt privileges of being well-off. it contrasts sharply with the mere 10 under the "upper caste" category!

being a brahmin is a relatively small issue in my urban, metropolitan world. i am more affected by the global caste system based on wealth, than by our traditional one based on ancestry.while the caste system of money is equally savage and brutal, i realise that im still privileged to be able to say that that is the main caste system that affects my life. because for so many people - dalits, the indigenous tribal groups - caste is a daily, life-threatening, livelihood- depriving, degrading reality still.

i, in my relatively well-to-do state, have no right to pass the judgement that traditional casteism has ended. very simply, because it has merely ended in my life. there are still many lives whose continuing suffering cannot be swept aside - their experiences are still valid and real and should not be denied.

i make this point so emphatically because it is this same sort of prosperous arrogance which prompts us to make several comfortable assumptions, like that sexism has ended. that discrimination against people of colour has ended, that violence against women isnt really such a problem any more.

so many of the things i listed as privileges actually seem so fundamental - after all that list was only about the right to live with dignity, with a sense of well-being. we all should have such lives. the point was not to go on a guilt trip.

why do i still call those privileges "undeserved" then?


the word "privilege" (in the context i used it in) is defined by the oed as:

• a special right, advantage, or immunity for a particular person or group.

somewhere, somebody is paying the price for my clean, decent, comfortable life. for my life of dignity. someone is living in such poverty that they are doomed to eating rats. in order for my city to be clean, for my health and welfare, there are people doing things like scavenging human excreta. [1, 2, 3]

there are so many such "someones" that their poverty has been institutionalised. the global and traditional caste systems combine to make them suffer in a way that almost baffles description. e m forster once remarked that a catalogue of horrors defeats its purpose. he was speaking of the holocaust. this particular catalogue of horrors is a way of life, and has been so for decades.

i worked briefly in a corporation school for girls. the children who came were mostly children of maidservants. many of them had dropped out of school at some time because their families need extra hands to work and bring home food. being girl children they were the first casualties. but they still had the courage to come back and try to learn - and it wasnt a romantic "Genius in Poverty" story either. it was a struggle on all fronts. the girls would commute by bus, rubbing shoulders with the occasional "english medium school" junta. listening wistfully to the fluent jabbering in english, wishing from their souls that they too could speak like that. for the younger ones, it was the pure thrill of being able to do something cool, for the older ones, it was the cliniching factor in getting a job. for heavens sake, a simple thing like well-shampooed hair was a Luxury to be longed for!

and after a childhood of unfulfilled wistful longing like that, they will be promoted to an adult life of continued deprivation. bonus: getting to see their children grow up in possibly worse circumstances.

what system of evaluation exists, according to which i "deserve" my life - and these people theirs? - none.

making that admission is a critical step forward. if i, as a privileged person deny that i am enjoying advantages that i havent earnt, or if i imply that somehow i have in some way earnt or merited these advantages, i am bullshitting myself to feel comfortable. and my persistent and cowardly denial is at the cost of several lives.

i am also lending my implicit or expressed support for the psuedo (not to mentioned absolutely ill-defined) standards that "elevate" me thus. i am ratifying the socio economic system which grinds other people down.


brownskinspeak

undeserved privileges

i've been coming across so much stuff on the issue of unearnt privileges and discrimination.

to put it very briefly, even if i personally do not subscribe to a derogatory caste system and the supremacy of the rich, i still benefit in some ways because these social systems exist. i have privileges that someone else is probably paying the cost of.

im starting this thread with the list of privileges that i see in my life which i have not earnt.

the unearnt privileges of being in the "upwardly mobile" section of society :

1. i've had a complete schooling. it's not expected of me to drop out of school to do the housework or take up a job.

2. it's a very normal, acceptable thing for me to do my masters, maybe even a phd.

3. though a woman, i can wear jeans if i want to, wear my salwars without always adding the dhupatta. and it wont be stomped on as hard by the other people in "my" world.

4. though a woman, i can go out on a social visit and return late in the evening or even in the night.

5. at my age, i dont have to do half the physical labour that a much older but poorer woman has to do.

6. when i'm seeking specialised help for a financial, legal or medical problem, i'm treated with courtesy. the people in charge don't treat me with scant respect because they're doing "Charity".

7. no matter how plainly dressed i am, i can enter virtually any restaurant, pub, hotel, office or shop without being stopped because i dont look like the "right crowd".

8. i can afford to think of taking vacations. of taking a break from work. of reporting sick for a week, without wondering how my children will eat.

9. i actually pay much less than a person living in a rural area for water, electricity, sanitation, medical care, food.

10. i live in a part of town from where hospitals, provision stores, restaurants, and my workplace or educational institution are not horribly far.

11. if i find it too harassing and unsafe, i can better protect my person by choosing to not use public transport.

12. i live in a house where i can turn on the tap to get water enough for my needs, without having to fetch it from miles away.

13. i dont have to stand for hours in a queue, forced to skip work that morning, in order to buy rice and dal for the family.

14. i am aware of my fundamental rights as a human being, and as a citizen of this country. at least in theory, im encouraged to also believe i have a right to demand that these not be violated.

15. if i am in trouble - i have an an asthma attack when im not at home, i know i can confidently approach anyone for help. they wont shun me because i look "dirty" or unkempt. shopkeepers and dhobi wallahs have come running up to check if im fine even before ive asked for help.

16. when i have an accident, the cop generally speaks to me with respect.

17. i studied in an english medium school. i will never be disqualified from getting a job because i dont know english.

18. i can afford to set apart some time and money for exercise if i want to. forget enrolling in a gym or learning yoga - i can set one hour aside to go for a walk.

19. people are quicker to help me when they see me carrying heavy loads.

20. fewer people question my spending on non-essentials to lecture me on my economic priorities.

the unearnt privileges of being an upper caste woman

1. sometimes my maid is upset seeing me do jobs she considers dirty or too strenuous, that however she thinks its ok for her to do.

2. my maid and i subscribe to the same religion. she will never have the access i have to our philosophical treatises or scriptures.

3. my religion as it exists today puts me down for being a woman. but it hails my caste. it belittles her for being a woman and for being from her caste.

4. dowry isnt as big a problem in my caste.

5. my caste encourages us to be educated. i can look at my culture and find backing for the pursuit of knowledge.

6. my culture believes in telling me the reasons for symbolism in my religion. it doesnt order me to blindly obey.

7. i will never be ordered to carry garbage, human wastes, dead bodies or do any such labour because of my caste. i probably wont even have to resort to physical labour of any kind for a living, however poor i am.

8. i can customise my religion to suit me, and gather enough knowledge to defend myself against being branded a heretic if i so wish to.

9. im automatically assumed to know more about some things, for no reason other than belonging to the caste i do.

10. i can trace back my lineage to men who were greatly respected and hailed as spiritually evolved people who contributed significantly to my culture. (but sadly, only men.)

privileges that i have as an upper caste, well-to-do woman:

1. a lot of the freedom that i am deprived of, i can at least dream of fighting for and achieving. my family is progressive, and has the luxury of being able to think about the world at large. to philosophise and choose its way of life for a large part.

2. i can choose to study a course for purely academic interest even though it may not be recognised in the job market. it will not be a severe blow to my parents, or considered a waste of their investing in my schooling.

3. i initiate the woman-to-woman bonding sessions with people from my maid's background. and i am at a definitely superior position right from the start without having done or said anything to earn it - even if the other woman happens to be telling me something i didnt know.

4. i can disagree with my menfolk on nearly any fundamental issue with less potential threat to my person.

5. its easier for me to leave an abusive relationship. i at least know vaguely where i can find help and support. and i really have much less to lose.

6. the concepts of privacy and sexuality exist in my life.


so. what does your list look like?


Related: why undeserved, why unearnt?


brownskinspeak, my life

HSBC : a study in dangerous stereotyping

seen the HSBC ad that's on TV now? a breath-takingly bad one. i was chatting with someone recently about how pervasive media stereotyping is,and why it IS a big deal, and this seems to me a prime example of the same.

at surface level, the HSBC ad is totally banal.

the opening scene is of a stereotypical geek (yes, down to the glasses) peering through a telescope at planets. i guess he is generally supposed to make us draw the brilliant conclusions that :

1. he has no social life and therefore presumably no social skills
2. he is weak - he's sniffling and has poor eyesight, and therefore an object of contempt
3. he is unattractive for the above reasons and incapable of being liked or socially accepted.

our geek makes way for the Cool Dude by lamely retiring to the loo. enter cool dude. he checks his watch, swivels the telescope around to watch his idea of a heavenly body - the next door Babe (who, surprise surprise, happens to be stripping). hmmm. the last time i checked, a guy's spying on a woman like that and noting her movements and daily schedule was called "Stalking". or "Obsessive psychologically unbalanced behaviour".

i wonder if HSBC really meant to say "HSBC : the friendly neighbourhood bank for voyeurs". i wonder if they really meant to create a stereotype for stalkers to normalise them and make their actions seem commonplace and acceptable. i shall magnanimously doubt it, and just think them absolute blankety-blanks.

the more you dig below surface level, the more the ad stinks.

for one thing, it strongly upholds the supremacy of the male gaze. male gaze is a feature of patriarchy wherein the male has the right to stare at and objectify the female. the male has the right to intrusively behold the female, to mentally unclothe her and to "assess" her as merely the sum of physical features, and to subject her to evaluation according to stereotyped notions of beauty and attractiveness. the female, as the subject of the gaze, anxiously tries to come through the evaluation as best as she can, and is under pressure to try and make herself as attractive as possible since her evaluator is more executioner than judge in spirit.

and HSBC upholds this? interesting. not only that, but it announces its eagerness to serve such "different" people better. so what if the person being pampered is a stalker or a voyeur. so what if the service is at the cost of a woman being harassed and stalked.

even if i were a man watching the ad, i would still feel furious. the ad comprehensively insults male sexuality. it reduces the entire complex range of sexual reactions, stimuli, sensations and emotions to one trigger - the sight of some random female body. at which cue, men are supposed to mechanically have an erection, and there ends the sexual experience. what are they are supposed to be, zombies with a penile knee-jerk reaction?

again, one wonders if HSBC really meant to imply these attitudes. what were they thinking?

(pictures of the storyboard from aqencyfaqs)


brownskinspeak, feminist issues

the dignity of labour

"You! Take this file upstairs to accounts."
"Hey! - Bring me another one."
"That's all. You can bring the cheque."
"I need this serviced."
"What the f--- d'you mean you can't let me in in these shoes?!"

This is the age of the consumer alright - the one with the manners of a pig. There is already a dignity in labour. We just happen to strip it away from the worker when we treat him/her like dirt.

A person's dignity has two facets: recognition by self and recognition by others. When we refuse to treat people decently because we happen to be the ones "in power" we're the ones robbing the job of dignity - not the waiters, sweepers, peons, bathroom cleaners or maids themselves.

Isn't it interesting that it's the same demeaning tactic we use to put down women? Society is often consistently barbaric!



my life, brownskinspeak

the chameleon's clothing

my family talks a lot - about any and every thing. seriously, im a little hard pressed to come up with a topic that would be considered so taboo as to be excluded from our discussions! and im extremely glad that we are so open with each other.

recently in one of our addas, we got to discussing a farce that's played out every weekend at a huge clothes shop nearby. high-school kids upwards, droves of women come with boyfriends or in giggling gaggles to this place. they all enter conventionally dressed (the debate really took off when a relative said "modestly, decently dressed"!) and leave wearing the hip-est, tiniest clothes. since the place is open really late, they go on their outings, stop by again later, change back and then head home.

i know for a fact that most of my peers do not talk to their parents about a lot of things they do. its not because they are simply uncommunicative, but specifically because they will be refused permission, and even refused a hearing or reasonable discussion. i think that's where the real trouble lies.

naturally ideas change as we live through myriad experiences, but i think by around 25, we each would have evolved a way of understanding and analysing the world around us. whether with respect to abstractions like "society" and "morals" or more concrete subjects like what to study and whom to marry, we have in place the foundations of our personal politics. for some of us, this structure hardly changes in adulthood from the ready-made one handed to us by our parents for our youth. for the rest, there's some serious revamping if not absolute demolition and rebuilding!

i am very interested in personal politics and so deliberately discuss 'em with quite a few folks. i find more and more, that some fundamental ideas seemed to have radically changed from my parents generation to mine. not rocket science, is it? it is but natural that ideas of the young and the old should be different. it happens with every generation. i think the need for communication between us assumes all the more importance then. a lot of stuff could be (and is) brushed aside as just the "generation gap".

i regard that cliched business with growing unease. frankly, i think it is becoming a collective stereotype - in its name we're discounting a little too much too easily! as a society, each day we are accepting more things as "normal" with growing unthinking complacency. we have normalised violence against and abuse of the vulnerable, accepted sexualising our children, yawned away murders and wars... basically accepted bullshit with bovine indifference.

but all that isnt new again - each generation has been born into a dirtier world, so relatively speaking, youthful rejection of the corruption of ideals has been a given. yes, there has always been the majority that has suffered angst and then outgrown it (like pimples) to form the staple of our social structures, while the minority railed on in frustration all their lives. so yes, im perfectly willing to listen politely when im told by an elder person "i was like you when i was young and then i grew up and learnt that this is how things are".

bully for them.

but that doesn't mean that young people have to subvert their right - and responsibility - to think for themselves! for one thing, i frankly think that even a jaded or very cynical attitude is perfectly alright in adulthood, if the person has arrived at it after having lived with fresh and pure ideals in youth. (if you dont have fire when you're young, whats the point in being alive?!) if after all the raging against the dying of the light you're tired and burnt out, who with any compassion can deny you your cynicism?

i have a deep respect for people like my mother - she has some pretty old fashioned ideas about conduct, ethics, society and societal responsibility and so on, and does she live by them! i admire her integrity: if she scorns modern morals, she doesnt on the side play by dirty modern rules because they're easier. if she doesnt think much of the way we're handling familial responsibility, she quietly bears the yoke of her more demanding code.

ive seen too many people forbidding their womenfolk to wear "revealing", "indecent" clothes but then heartily admiring heroines in movies who are nearly nude. what message are we sending younger people? too many adults complaining about the lack of patriotism in the younger generation, and then bullying them towards careers in foreign multinational companies. or in a different tone, trail-blazing parents, who've slaved for their family's prosperity and taken several risks, refusing to let their children choose anything less the most conventional, mainstream lifestyles! our society is quite hypocritical.

many of my contemporaries have thought long and hard about how they will bring up their children. i know i will expect mine to question economic imperialism, gender roles, first world and skin colour politics, to be socially aware. who is to say that some of our confines are not because of our parents' ideals? - they probably are!

rather than blind obedience, i think understanding the rational foundations of ideals is more constructive. for instance, while i may respect my parents' experience, their wish to shield me and do what they think's best for me, i would also reserve the right to re-examine and change politics. the world (well, at least india!) has suddenly changed so drastically in the last few years, and the pace is only increasing. children are thrust into a very "adult" world with "adult" problems, and hardly have a proper, complete childhood.

i look at the kids currently in school, and already i can't relate to their lives at all. my generation certainly led much less complicated lives in some ways. children are exposed to sex, alcohol, violence, substance abuse, status pressures by a more powerful media at a much earlier age.

its to be expected that some coping measures would have also become outdated. i cannot imagine enforcing my rules upon them because my generations experience is vastly different. i can however explain the situations i've encountered and how and what i learnt, but i don't think it would be right to order them to live by my experience.

for example, in my parents time it may have been good parenting to try to shield the child from abuse. i think now however, the danger has escalated to a degree where not discussing the issue with the child is positively a disservice - i want to teach my child that such a thing exists, and more importantly, self protection and how to cope with it if it does happen.

i think we will be able to deal with issues with like that (or the standard bug bear - sex education!) only if we do question and try to work out the reasons why. some situations are unique and are fabulous learning opportunities, but much of what is set down for us to follow is based on the conclusions drawn by the person who was in that situation. it may help to know the end result, but the process is of more use. so yes, it may seem like we're questioning a lot of things and being rebellious, but its critical that we do so.

this can either be met with hostility, contempt and/or indifference by the adult world - in which case we would be alienated from it - or the adult world can use its wisdom to teach young people the important questions to ask, teach them how to build thought structures.

of course it is demanding a lot from adults. for one thing that they'll be secure enough to admit that they may have made mistakes, to concede wisdom to youth as well (something that our culture emphatically does not do). it takes much courage to do so especially if the person is a figure of authority like a parent - there is great pressure on parents to be all-knowing and perfect. and yes, it also requires that we (the younger people) be less brash, less brutally contemptuous or dismissive of seeming irrationality, and of course, much patience!

but i think it may be worth the effort, because otherwise, like those folks at the clothes store, we'll have to keep changing skins. we'll continue leading double lives, never really knowing the other person despite living with them and (ostensibly) being close to them. and that, doesn't make for a very genuine relationship, does it?

i'm reminded of a lovely CSNY song written by Graham Nash.

Teach your children

You who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a good bye.

Teach your children well,
Their father's hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picks, the one you'll know by.

Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.

And you, of tender years,
Can't know the fears that your elders grew by,
And so please help them with your youth,
They seek the truth before they can die.

Teach your parents well,
Their children's hell will slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picks, the one you'll know by.

Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.

my life, brownskinspeak

ethics and allopathy

ive often made references to allopathy's unsavoury ethics. let me explain (again) that first, it is the system i attack : at an individual level, people are often inspiringly wonderful - i personally know of a few very ethical and compassionate allopathic doctors who put patient welfare before allopathy every time. i deeply respect their effort and ability to heal people, as well as their ethical integrity and their courage in handling conflicts between loyalty to the system and to the people they heal.

i think such doctors are healers in the most basic sense of the word - they are so gifted, that even within allopathys rotten framework, they manage to work their miracles. which brings me to the second point on my agenda. why is the system still important then?

well, because the system isnt really structured with those of exceptional ability as its primary focus. the system aims to address the average elements (if not the below par) - the average doctor in this case, with an average sense of ethics, and average knowledge. the system is supposed to lay down guidelines when such people are in sticky, potentially complicated or dangerous situations. just like the protocols to be followed in an emergency treatment. if a system has gaping loopholes, or is inadequate, or even worse - is unethical, then the chances of these "averages" making mistakes or being unethical increases, and puts the people the system should be protecting, at much greater risk.

when i was working within an allopathic framework, it was maybe easier for me to examine issues with more detachment since i wasnt a doctor (and therefore not someone who would have to pledge blind loyalty). when i underwent training in medical ethics i had several questions. many of the questions were based on very specific trends and events - landmarks, in fact, in allopathic history and bioethics.

unfortunately there are so many instances i could think of to discuss here. for brevity’s sake, i’ve shortlisted two studies. one is the Tuskegee syphilis study, because I think it provides an excellent example of how corrupt the system can get, and how ostensibly “unrelated” social factors have a major influence. it offers a perspective on how serious the issue of medical ethics is. the second the study is the thalidomide disaster. the sort of loopholes that even i, an inexperienced layman can find are so many. also, this disaster underscores the importance of informed consent, something that i think is treated a little too glibly, and not given the consideration it deserves, especially in a country like ours.

the syphilis study.

the study subjects were 399 african american men with latent syphilis and 201 men without disease. they were enrolled based on a survey/study conducted in 1930 on venereal disease control. this study identified macon as having the highest prevalence of syphilis amongst the six southern states covered.

in 1933, the us public health service in macon county in Alabama started an investigation to study the disease progression when left to itself, without active treatment. tuskegee was a rural settlement, consisting of a high african american population. it was poor, with a high rate of illiteracy, and insufficient medical care. the incentive to enroll in the study was free food, medical care and burial insurance. the men were told they were being treated for “bad blood” and thereon exploited by the study investigators.

this study lasted for 40 years and featured only sporadic clinical re-examinations as and when a public health physician happened to come to tuskegee. when the study commenced, there was no known cure for syphilis. when during its course, penicillin was discovered as a cure, it was withheld from the participants.

it was not mere oversight either that denied these men treatment: in 1942 when the assistant surgeon general came to know that some of these men had been called for medical examination before enrollment in the army (for this was the time of bloody international conflicts as well), and been directed to undergo treatment for syphilis, he took action to “safeguard” the study. the macon county selective service board was supplied with a list of 256 names of men under 45 years of age to exclude from the list of draftees to receive treatment.

the rationale given for withholding treatment when the cure was discovered, was

"...Such individuals seemed to offer an unusual opportunity to study the untreated syphilitic patients from the beginning of the disease to the death of the infected person. An opportunity was also offered to compare the syphilitic process uninfluenced by modern treatment, with the results attained when treatment had been given.”

the study was exposed only in 1972. by then a 100 men had died due to syphilis related complications, and 28 because of syphilis. at 40 wives had been infected, and 19 children had the disease at birth.

8 months after the study was abandoned, a case was filed against the institutions and people involved for $1.8 billion dollars. a civil rights lawyer, fred gray, took up the case and demanded $ 3 million as damages to be paid to each living participant and the successors of the deceased participants. the case was never tried, and the us government made an out of court settlement whereby each survivor got $ 37,500 and the heirs got $ 15,000.

im sure you do not need me to point out issues about patient confidentiality, physician’s ethics, racism, the deliberate and utterly irresponsible use of the trust vested in the public health authorities, basic human rights etc.

if this sort of thing seems a one–off, freak disaster, I would only request a closer look at recent incidents like this one where columbia university medical center doctors assisted glaxo smithkline in a study to administer trial medicines for AIDS on 3 year old children, in an orphanage in no less prominent a place than new york.

lets move on.

thalidomide.

recap

in the 1950s thalidomide was sold as an over-the-counter drug in Australia, japan, Canada, brazil and Europe. it was supposed to help with several ailments, including morning sickness during pregnancy. it was so popular, it was around the third largest selling drug in Europe. the drug was manufactured by a german company which declared that it was perfectly nontoxic, lacked a hangover effect, was nonaddictive etc.

the german company, however, did not have any human safety data for it. knowing that the fda would require this information, in 1959 (19 months before submitting the drug to the fda for approval) the American distributor of thalidomide approached private physicians and recruited them to distribute the drug and report their observations to the company if they felt it was necessary.

by 1961, European, Australian and a few American doctors reported that children of mothers who had been treated with thalidomide were born with severe birth defects. before thalidomide was pinned down as the cause, over 8000 infants were born of whom several were without arms or legs.

post thalidomide, there was a bit of a flap about need for human data and informed consent for administration of a study drug.

loopholes

when the fda received the application for thalidomide, it was given to dr.kelsey, a newcomer, as an “easy” case. if dr kelsey’s team had not communicated with the company within 60 days, the company could assume that the drug had been approved.

the medical officer handling the case could either call a pharmacologist, or handle it themselves. fortunately, dr kelsay chose the latter option. the pharmacologist found that there was not enough data on absorption, and also that toxicity studies had not run for an adequate time period.

the application records consisted to a large degree, of german reprints with English translations. (this translation and back translation process still has several loopholes which make it extremely easy to misrepresent data).

the chemist happened to have been educated in german, and so was able to fluently read the application material. she found errors in translation. she also found problems with the manufacturing controls.

several of the sweeping claims made about the drug, its toxicity, potency, absorption and so on were watered down and eventually altered in the data submitted to the fda.

the fda team did not know that the drug had already been marketed in germany as a paediatric medicine. it had also been sold in Britain but had been eventually withdrawn because of toxicity in humans.

there was a shipping strike, and so the team didn’t receive several foreign publications in time because mail was delayed. they did fortunately manage to get one publication on time, which described related cases of severe peripheral neuritis. the fda then took that up with the manufacturer.

manufacturers' and study investigators' claims about drugs proposed for studies often sound like sales pitch. when reading the transcript of the NIH FDA conference on thalidomide, this caught my eye.

The very severe adverse effects are very clearly a detriment to some of the investigation that has occurred. It's particularly important, then, that one look at the potential benefits, and that these benefits meet a higher standard, I think, a standard that will remove the onus of the very severe adverse effects that occur.

there is also a reference to the informed consent template used by the investigators, which opens up new avenues of worry and fear.

there's an informed consent document that's being used for research purposes. So most of the investigators who are doing research with thalidomide probably are using this, or some form. (emphasis added)

after all that, thalidomide continues to be explored as a means of curing prostrate and other cancers, leprosy, physical deterioration in AIDS, obesity etc. hmmmm.

so yes, this sort of background is my frame of reference when i speak negatively of allopathy.

brownskinspeak, feminist issues

thinking aloud about BNP

be warned, this is stream of questionable consciousness writing because im thinking aloud here! :D


what i heard being said amidst the blank noise

"i feel so much better knowing that i'm not the only one"
"oh my god! it happened to you too?"
"our experiences are so similar"
"i could relate to every word.."
"suddenly, every woman i know seems to have been through this"

is there a doubt? of course it happens to almost every one of us. yes, the world can be (and often is) that unsafe and vicious a place.

we are taught to dismiss it. these things arent to be discussed. arent worth spending time on to think about.

"this is the first time i'm saying this"
"i've never spoken about this before"
" something that i've never forgotten about though i've discussed it with anyone"

disassociate. treat it in a third person context. philosophise as a coping measure: "it happens. thats the way life is". "so im stronger for the knocks ive taken". you amputate any emotion that reminds you just how personal it all is. but then it happens again, only, to someone else this time. and then we allow ourselves to acknowledge the fury.

"i felt so furious reading that"
"god! i could kill him for doing that to you"
"that creep!"

when it happens to somebody else its easier to be furious?

interesting.

maybe, to acknowledge that our society is filthy, unfair, and our social systems hurtful and wrong is easier in the third person. because if you start feeling angry about what happened to you, you get commit yourself and get too emotionally involved in a problem without a foreseeable remedy. you run up against massive elements which are beyond your control, so your anger is frustrated from seeking a constructive outlet. and you cannot live daily with a growing anger that has no release.

so .... shut out what you face from your reality, and try to continue with life.

the more we willingly accept the divorce between reality and personal experience, the easier it is for the social dictates to be imposed. for it to be imposed that women should be cut off from their experiences. they mustnt speak about them, mustnt have changed for them - you cannot be an angry woman, even if youve been attacked. you cannot be hostile or aggressive. must continue to be meek and docile.

who would not be irrational if they had to reject everything their own minds told them, to accept an arbitrary external authority? of course it doesnt make for logical thinking. "women are illogical". because we teach them to be so.

i feel a new surge of gratitude to the articulate, courageous and clear-sighted feminist authors. much of their literature is about speaking about these amputated, quarantined issues. because they too often couldnt say "i" and "my" they used a third person medium of a highly complex, very real character to give voice to the women of that era. we hear our silenced stifled thoughts in those stories.

the right to independent thought and reasoning needs to be fiercely guarded and treasured.

freewheeling

the blank noise project blogathon triggered many thoughts in my head as i read each post. directly or tangentially, id like to explore some of the things that i noticed. im starting with a simple thing (its mid-week! :D) - ive lost count of the number of men who said "oh my god. i didnt know being a woman was like that". at the same time, someone mentioned how while it was understandable that women be suspicious of men at large, not being trusted is unpleasant when you're a genuinely decent guy. and so two trains of thought chugged side by side :-)

what makes a woman trust a man? in these times of escalating violence and crime, i suppose its something every woman spends time to think about at least once - you know, to sort of evolve a thumbrule for herself. i know ive come back to this question several times, because every time i get to know myself better i realise what i worked out so far wont quite do!

i guess we start out with the readymade axioms laid down for us - never trust strange men, blah blah. sometimes sudden potlums of wisdom are tossed our way - i still remember distinctly the time when out of the blue, my friends mother popped into our room to say "m___, never trust an older man. a guy your age only knows as much as you do. he can never hurt you that badly - beware of older men. theyll muck around with you emotionally, and thats much harder to recover from". ok, after meeting a revolting man who was 35-ish, with an adorable little daughter, i am wary of older men. in concept, middle aged men still give me the heebie jeebies. sure, there are exceptions - some of em are such terrific people... but what price misguided faith in mankind?

to establish context, by trust i do not mean discussing your most private problems, i mean simply the opposite of steeling yourself against a possible attack of any kind.

as far as ive observed from the women i know, there are these basic ways of dealing with this trusting a stranger business -

1. every man is suspect until proven innocent
2. no man is suspect, until he does something to make you uncomfortable
3. suspect or innocent according to some evaluation system. - who vouches for them, the company they keep, relationship with them and so on.

ive been down all three roads. while yes, its really awful for nice guys to be looked at with ill concealed apprehension and clubbed with the schmucks, its pretty hard for the user of such a system too. you just cant ever relax! all the time your systems are on high alert and you have to be watchful. if you happen to be an open, confiding sort of person, the worse for you.

there's also a twist possible to this, like "i will treat you as a nice guy - please prove my depressing conviction, that men in general are horrible, wrong". if the person does turn out to be not decent - its shatteringly disappointing. you feel so bitter!

if you trust every man on the other hand, youd obviously get hurt mighty soon and quite a bit. so scratch that option too.

whats left? well... the who-does-this-guy-hang-out-with does work to an extent, but you soon run up against a wall. men often have friends that theyre perfectly comfortable being with, but those friends are not meant to be introduced to women they know. so now you have to do an fbi sort of digging into the persons association with your friend... a subtle, "hey, i met this friend of yours" isnt always picked up by all men. so what, youre supposed to ask "hey, that friend of yours - is he sleazy or is he ok?". er... this is usable on some occasions, but mostly not!

sometimes we also each use personal detectors. i go by instinct quite a bit. i rationalise - if they work in this field, if this person likes them, they must be ok. i definitely go by hair - i know for sure when someone's touching my hair whether theyre ok or not! i feel awfully sick if someone shady touches my head. i judge when im being hugged. i judge when i see how their eyes wander when were out. i judge by the books and movies and songs they listen to. and i know damn well that none of this is unique – most of us women do it.

you make constant people assessments and evaluations every moment, without missing a beat on anything else. its not like theres a "case closed" either... there are very few men whom you can declare permanently safe - most are for the moment. for the circumstance. for the crowd. because youre as street smart as you are. because someone knows where you are or at least with whom.

being able to juggle such fine tuning with everything else and still functioning as a reasonably psychologically healthy person is, i think something to be respected and appreciated on one hand, not merely to be made the butt of "women are" jokes. on the other, its also food for thought that such paranoid behaviour has eventually become so normal – so common place and everyday an affair.

its complicated being a woman in a male dominated order that condones violence and harassment. if we didnt prove ourselves equal to the challenge every single day, we wouldnt be around, intact, for too long.

bloody diamonds

because the story of the bushmen's struggle for survival and protection of their ancestral land should be heard, remembered and repeated to as many people as possible.

a hearing organised by the united nations on july 31st and 1st august 2000 conducted by the security council committee officially acknowledged the link between the trade of illicit stones in sierra leone, and the trade in arms and ammunition. in december 2000, the un general assembly passed a resolution whereby (hopefully) the sale of these stones would be curbed, and a system of certification of origin would be established so that only clean diamonds would be traded and no more lives would be lost.

but even before the sale of the stones, this is the account of how some of them were obtained in botswana - what follows is a condensed version from the meticulous documentation of a group that does outstanding work in standing up for the rights of tribal people - survival international.

to start with.... what does the government of botswana have to do with the de beers mining corporation?

• Diamond mining in Botswana is controlled by a company called Debswana (ie. De Beers Botswana), which is owned on a 50/50 basis by the government and by De Beers.

• Many of the directors of Debswana are senior political figures in Botswana. For instance, the deputy chairman of Debswana, Dr. A.R. Tombale, is the permanent secretary in the Botswana Ministry of Minerals, Energy & Water. Another director, M.L. Selepeng, is permanent secretary to the president of Botswana. Another director, TC Moremi, is permanent secretary at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

• Diamond industry sources call this "interdependence" and a "mutual beneficially [sic] relationship model". [...]

• [..]As the Financial Times says, "Anonymity is paramount in the diamond trade. The industry is secretive to the point of paranoia... Contracts and written codes are virtually unheard of." Discussing its plans to explore for diamonds near Debswana's Orapa mine, the mining company African Diamonds stated, "Ground geophysical surveys suggest that some of the kimberlites [diamond-bearing rock] may be bigger than reported by De Beers."

• De Beers keeps the price of gem diamonds high by severely restricting supply. As The Times has reported, "The company has vast diamond stockpiles, but keeps prices high with a tight control on the supply line." [...]

(From their report dated 16 June 2005)

a timeline of what has been happening so far -

early 1980s -
a diamond deposit was discovered in Gope (a bushmen community)

1982 -
de beers entered into a joint venture with falconbridge to evaluate the potential and worth of the deposit.

1986 -
the minister of commerce and industry announced that the bushmen would be relocated from their rightful land in the central kalahari game reserve, but did not initiate any action as of then.

1996 -
the formal evaluation of the mine was completed.

1997 -
enforced evictions started. the xade bushman community, which was prospering with a school, clinic, airstrip, hospital and water well, was completely removed. it was called a "coincidence".

within another two months, another "coincidence" : anglo american (which partly owning de beers) sub-contracted a company nepcal to ferry mining and drilling equipment to Xade and other destinations in the reserve. when asked about this, anglo american first denied any knowledge of its activities within the reserve. in 2002, they admitted to drilling two exploratory holes in the reserve in 1997 - one near Xade - but said they had had no contact with bushmen (who had already been "moved" away). concerning the contract with nepcal, the company said they had "not been able to verify beyond doubt the existence of such a contract". (?!)

june 2003 -
the ghanzi district commissioner claimed that "some prospecting companies had discovered diamonds in the area [of Xade]", and that anglo-american had been granted a concession for exploration in 1997 near Xade.

1999 -
mineral exploration camps were set up within a few miles of Molapo, a major Bushman community within the CKGR.

2002 -
more enforced evictions of bushman communities, including Molapo, removed in their entirety. government officials destroyed another water borehole in a bushman community, forbade all hunting and gathering, and emptied all the bushmen's stocks of water.

in 2005, Surivival stated that almost the entire CKGR was being explored for both diamonds and precious metals, with the prospect of further encroachment into the CKGR by mining activities being highly likely.


the sale of illicit diamonds bankrolls several corporations and rogue military factions. the money they make from these stones funds gun-running and related trade in ammunitions. there has been horrifying violence, torture and suffering because of the stones the UN politely calls "conflict diamonds" and others more frankly call "blood diamonds". the killings for these stones went on for several years, until the international community was forced to take notice of survival's refusal to be silenced as they persevered for justice, campaigning

" a diamond is forever. bushmen are not."

the man for their daughter

"we are not a very conventional family. our daughter has studied ______ . she is well-read, and is very interested in the arts. she is currently working in ____"

the gaggle of relatives got to work, aunts busily ringing up each other's uncle's, daughter-in-law's, co-sister's brother and other obscure connections to Spread The Word. the uncles took life easier, sat in several acquaintances' houses and over cups of piping hot coffee, dropped a a word in the Right Ears in meaningfully hushed tones. naturally the friends had Been Told as well.

the phone rang. an excited self-appointed deputy on the phone.

"i found someone! you have to call them right away!"

"really?" - scramble for pen and paper - "tell me...."

"they're an excellent family, veryniceboy"

excited cooing

"he works in ______ , an MNC - gets a very good salary"

cooing gives place to "oh, nice. ok.."

"he doesnt smoke"

"oh... "

"doesnt touch alcohol, not the partying kind and all.... veryniceboy, not religous but traditional. and its an excellent family".

the paeans were sung, the receiver was replaced.

she turned to her husband who had come up to stand beside her expectantly. "he's a Very Good Boy. doesnt smoke, doesnt drink, very traditional."

they stood looking at each other in silence.



finally she wailed "how do we say no? i dont want someone like that for our daughter!". he nodded in exasperated agreement, "i'm also allergic to Very Good Boys... my son-in-law had better not frown at me disapprovingly if i want to have a beer some evening!"

this is really how aunty and uncle hunted for a husband for their daughter - this couple has always been Unique, but i think they surpassed themselves this time :))

lessons learnt on 29C.

dedicated to the blank noise project (the more i roll that name around in my head the more i like it!).

the harassment of women is our sexist culture is an old problem thats sadly still in existence. in india, its all the more open and violent with so many of us packed tightly together. all of us women are given The Talk after the first time we are groped : "no, i know you didn't do anything, that's how some men are. forget it. and from now on, hug your file to your chest to shield it, and dont make eye contact with any man on the road".

i for one, hate being helpless, so im simply focussing on what we women can do for ourselves - basic self defence to use against harassment.

(NB: please understand that im not advocating general violence and a free-for-all. you will have to use your discretion and make situational judgements about what you're comfortable doing.)


* * *

29c was my daily bus ride in college days. its one of those ultra crowded routes (like 1) which really brings out the flavour of the term "over populated"! after getting pinched, squeezed, felt up, having my kurta ripped (that was a new one - didnt know theyd get that violent), i figured it was time to do some serious thinking.

id learnt martial arts in school for 8 years, and so i figured that i was pretty safe on the bus - that i could protect my person if needed. i got a rude shock when i realised that fighting in a bus was something i was totally unprepared for - for one thing, nice civilised tournament rules are crippling in street fighting, and for another (especially in buses), youre talking a serious lack of space. all those graceful sweeping chops and soaring kicks are out of the question when youre more or less on tiptoe because the place is so packed.

so my sister and i sat down and chatted one day about these bus encounters (ah. female bonding...!) and these are the things we thought of. im extremely pleased with this bunch of ideas because
a). it doesnt matter how strong your opponent is
b). it works in those cramped buses
c). you neednt be a weight lifter to pull this stuff off

so here's presenting:

lessons learnt on 29c

1. if you dont like violence, swearing is good. the more fluent and artistic (/ anatomical) it is, the more attention it gets. yell. stop the bus. ask the conductor to make the guy get off the bus.

being made to get off a bus between two bus stops is bloody irritating, that too during the morning rush to work/college. so for sheer pestilence value if nothing else, i think this would dampen these guys interest in harassing women as a way to pass time.

also, even in an actual fight, if youre close to your opponent, coming right up to the face and screaming at the top of your lungs momentarily stuns and (understandably) unnerves the person. feel free to then kick opponent, one numbers, duly stunned.

2. use those heels. several of us kill ourselves tottering around in heels, lets give those wretched things at least a moments justification for existence. bend knee, lift foot and place very, very hard on his foot. the nice thing about this one is that you neednt even bother wriggling and turning around to face the slime. (if you like subtleties, dont let that smile of pleasure cross your face: be as wooden faced as these sods generally are.)

3. alright, so youre unfashionably sensible, or a 6 footer - no heels. use the elbow. clench your fist (i find it helps call up more power quickly) and drive your elbow backwards into the guys ribs, stomach, groin, throat, wherever. it will seldom hurt your elbow, and quite often will leave the other person winded and in some pain, though not serious. again, you dont need to be able to turn around for this one.

4. bite. i can understand this option being distasteful to many because come on, who wants to touch a guy like that, let alone put some of him in your mouth?! but if you can bring yourself to do it.... bite chunks out of offending hand.

5. do carry a safety pin - or better yet, that pronged thing that tailors use to remove stitches. its horrendously sharp. jab, puncture, poke. a pen, a sharp pencil and other simple objects can also be really handy.

we hear a lot of tripe about the weak soft female body and the Invulnerable Strong Male body: now the following ideas are more militant -

6. the adams apple is so beautifully framed in the throat. make use of it. punch, rather than jab. jabbing looks more classy, but is actually trickier business. when punching, if youre aiming for a more widespread impact, make contact with the flat, finger part of your fist. if its the more localised, more painful effect: use the knuckles. beware though, if you really ram the throat, you could get the wind pipe.

7. it doesnt matter what sort of a beefcake the guy is, the pinky is very easy to break. hes putting his hand well within your reach when hes feeling you up - take hand, keep bending the little finger back - it will snap. this is bloody painful and should quench his thirst for further encounters with women. it will also bruise the brutes ego : imagine having come off so badly in an encounter with a Mere Female. sheesh, the ignominy!

8. poke the eyes - easy to do and it hurts like hell.

9. if you have the space to move enough for a punch, punch the nose. it breaks quite easily, and even if youve not broken it, you can cause blinding pain without doing a serious injury. and you dont need phenomenal arm power to be able to do this.

10. this needs space, but it definitely features on my list: a solid sweeping kick between the legs. note: sweeping kick - dont bend your knee, cos if you do, you need to get much closer, plus it needs better aim - something that may be difficult given our potholes. depending on the power used, a kick like this could leave him doubled up clutching his crotch, unconscious, or sometimes - it does happen - dead from shock of acute pain. so you want to be really careful with the use of this one.

now. that sounds like a very happy list i know, but theres also more stuff to consider...

1. are you a person capable of violence? i wouldnt bank in blind faith on being able to kick, punch or fight dirty. the sad truth is that most of us women arent (we're too strongly conditioned to be "nice"). so if you just arbit assume you can do these things and then find at the critical moment that you cant, it will let you down big time. please consider very carefully how violent you are, how much you can bring yourself to do, if you can handle the consequences of violence.

2. please consider the unpleasant but very possible situation of there being a gang of men. you may be able to topple one guy. do you have the fighting skill to take on many? in such a scenario, many times if its not a really big issue, it may be better to stay non-physical but use the legal option, or verbal option, or vocal optional (ie, scream like hell)

3. i do not recommend weapons. anything that is capable of being used as a weapon (except your own body), can be grabbed from you and used against you. i know some people carry penknives and jazz, but i really dont think its a good idea at all. guys on the street are seldom armed, so why introduce a dangerous, potentially lethal element?

4. when you do these things, and especially act in control, the other men around who were simply shooting you knowing, lewd looks when they saw what was happening, will get hostile and try to intimidate you. they will start yelling and telling you how you had no right to do whatever it was that you did.

stay cool. most men find it extremely unnerving to be confronted with a woman who can keep her voice low and stare into their eyes returning look for look. this i will swear by. explain calmly that the moment they stood by watching what was happening to you without raising a finger to help, they lost the right to interfere. now they can just take a hike (and no, you neednt be that polite about it either! :D)


so there it is - self defence for the streets. i hope that helped :)

blog-a-thon 2006


ps: thank you j. , for being an encouragingly bloodthirsty sounding board and reminding me of the stuff i had left out! :))