Planes in the blue sky

Planes in the blue sky
they roar or silently sometimes
but pierce through clouds
that are heavy. They rain.
Planes flying away or
landing close by
roll a hum heavy in my chest
for a land far away.
There must be taxis plying
yellow black and white.
Planes in the blue sky;
fly, and there they lie
my anchors in the blue sky.

The Rainbows of Facebook

There are more rainbows than rain this season, at least in Delhi. If not umbrellas, we have multi-hued filters to put up on our faces in our parallel digital lives. There’s enough reason. Congratulations America.

There are at least few who deem equal dignity as a given. While our land laws and leaders look astray, our courts interestingly walk backwards. However, netizens look bright and have taken to the cause. So what trended this week was an avalanche support for the LGBTQ. What also got tweeted (by the Prime Minister) and hence trended was #SelfieWithDaughter. Simple smiles that started in Harayana caught attention and how!

But that’s the thing with it. Trends fade away. And the social network ones even faster. My Facebook friend-list is retreating from a rainbow trip. The two picture frenzies of the week have little in common. These are campaigns in support of equality, campaigns to correct gross imbalance in our society. However, we might miss how these are rather imbalances in our social thinking. I wonder how much a profile picture change would help. Cynics have taken their lines too. Not discounting it being at least an iota of positive energy if nothing else, campaigns remain after all, just campaigns.

Since most of us communicating and interacting here have moderate to heavy internet lives, we see a sea change in the world around us. We see fathers from an acutely gender-skewed state Harayana putting up pretty pictures with their daughters. With terrific circulation over social networks the mainstream media picked them up. But we forget in a celebration that only a mere 19% of our population has access to the internet. The larger set of our society knows no selfie with their daughter nor paints their faces with rainbows. The root problem is deeper. The prejudice penetration is way more than the internet penetration.

Even with the lovely folks in all support for the much discriminated LGBT community, I wonder how many understand the cause they colour. I’ve come across few with their coloured pictures who say they’ve heard about it; though don’t know what BTQ stands in LGBTQ; but it was cool to update the picture. It won’t be difficult to find people who believe homosexuality is unnatural (forgetting whatever’s in nature is natural), to the extent of calling it a disorder, or a gross choice made by deviants in the society. In fact there are voices that say homosexuality is a trend, some sort of fashion that has come up recently in India (many adding, from the West). Wonder where our all accepting, all respecting, all celebrating Hindu myths have gone missing. From disowning to ostracising to brutal tortures or discrimination are few reactions, very frequently meted out to people identified as not straight, or normal as they’d say. The very idea of being repelled by a homosexual makes it an imbalance difficult to assume being corrected at large with Facebook being painted bright. The severe ripple effects are a far idea to be dealt with at this stage, even for the daughters of India.

Many educated well-read friends and family do not wholly understand what homosexuality is. And maybe they are not to be blamed for there is no education or an attempt to understand the complexities of genders and sexualities. Even if a proud rainbow filtered display picture person does understand, our social DNA usually prompts a reaction of shock, heartbreak, denial or discomfort if a close loved one steps out of the closet. It holds true for being in any of those several closets.

The PM endorsed #SelfieWithDaughter. A person well versed with the social media, I imagine must have access to volumes of information – scientific, historic and mythical to make an attempt to understand what alternate sexualities are. But perhaps that precisely is the restraint – the misplaced stigma to even make the attempt. Whatever happened to @narendramodi tweeting away #LoveWins.

Having said that, Facebook looked gorgeous with smiling fathers and pretty daughters and rainbows splashed all over it. They are a good talking point to start with and that’s precisely what we haven’t done yet – talking.     

I must drop the song

First showers at last
See how they tumble down,
Out and far, all that was heavy
and swollen and pregnant
with months of heat, cries at last.

How it’s nothing new, never,
and just a repetition every year.
Yet so piercingly fresh the pour
brings along, every season all blue
and grey some new and little old.

Parched poor pensive, no more
It pops up surprised, having waited
and so sure. Look, the window’s wet;
Springing sprightly singing, smiles
sighing smiles? But what a somerset!

It’s a routine well learnt
Sighing and all sung.
The wait’s vain, a wetting wont.
A welkin’s cheek and one here
washed, in a wonderful song.

Ha! The sun is setting.
… The blues drip.
There’s also an orange.
Wait, hey!
I must drop the song and go get drenched.

Why in love?

Blackened with oil
Red with some vermilion.
Bells hanging big and small
With a huge hum or a tiny tinkle.
They cling to the walls
Inside and out
Wrapping each other, in stone
And in love.

Red with some vermilion
Blackened with a lathi
God! You chose your neighbour!
Your misplaced ideas of rights and duty
Forgotten that beardman's principles
Of modesty? You,
Wrapped in fabric - some passable decency
Oh! But why in love?

Pink! Let's stereotype
But colors others too you must fancy.
Your fancies; please don't cite
The sculpted ancient temples of yore .
One says, you man lie next to a man
You be stoned. What love, warring leaders of faith
Are together
Wrapped in ignorant prejudice they forget, sermons of
Touch only in love.

God belongs to them
Temples books and the priest
Guardians of faith and being
So much for love
Incarcerated
It must stand behind bars
And hate
Roams freely on the street.

Once in a while I smoke

I light up a cigarette.
One off the pack that you left
It makes me sick,
and it always has.
But habits have a difficult death;
For you, to quit
and me, to feel you close.

Once in a while
is it that I light a cigarette
Once in a while
is it that I take that route
Once in a while
why, is it that I see you close?

And for the taste
you left with me,
But I sip some liquid
as I smoke
I see that bottle of wine
you left uncorked
it is just for your taste, that I lit a smoke

Once in a while
I know, I asked you to quit
Once in a while
I faltered and lit along
Once in a while
for you, I carry some fire to the port

May be to finish that bottle
or just help me quit
its unhealthy you know-
this habit and the one to smoke.
Either way, it makes me so sick.
But I promise not to light, for
you are the remedy and my reason to be lit

Once in a while
Is it that I light a cigarette
Once in a while
Is it that I take that route
Once in a while
just to feel you close
Just, just to feel you close 

Twenty love poems

Twenty love poems and a song of despair
Gone over a thousand times every layer
My songs once dived chasms within
My words today, fall short and bare.

it used to be in the ripples blue and green
Or a drifting yellow leaf for the breeze to do
The pen lies wasted today
and the blank paper just stares, with nothing to brew

There’s a grey ribbon of smoke and a cigarette burns
It burns me within for you won’t light it again
The day smells of good coffee, mine, but my songs
they only hum, to a whiskey lullaby in vain

Clouds cast a colour to the white sky and
I dreamily gaze into the open from my pigeon hole
Some colours of passion I’d waited for, but
the clouds remain such grey, such is my dole

Its only sighs as I engage with myself
what a poet whose songs are half sung?
Few memories, yellow sheets and a rusting nib
Am left with just twenty love poems
and plenty songs of despair

The 2 million and a 100 crore club!

“Bhai agar bore ho raha ho na to novel padh lio. Sahi hai ekdum… “
“wohi jo tu uss din padh raha tha?”
“haan... chaar ghante mei khatam kardi… mann hi nahi tha rukne ka.”

Three, tall in their early twenties hung from the handle bars in the yellow line of the Delhi metro from Gurgaon to Delhi. Bags slung at their backs and earphones dangling from big Samsung phones, the trio discussed of how one of their acquaintance (batch-mate/friend) is exceptionally rich. Oh! And the novel was Half Girlfriend.

September, last month, India Today did a cover story on Chetan Bhagat. Aroon Purie, the Editor-in-Chief confesses how after having ‘path-breaking personalities’ from the pool of Indian literature graced the cover of the magazine at different points in time, the particular week’s choice is slightly ‘unusual’.

Rather unusual is his popularity then if the Editor passes the word ‘unusual’. 5000 copies were considered to be a bestseller in India. Bhagat’s latest – Half Girlfriend was launched with a massive two million copies countrywide by Rupa. The numbers surely are in such disarray. That is his popularity. One of my friends; he hadn’t read a book in his life till he graduated and stumbled upon five point someone quite later in its cycle at the bookstore, pulled me back as I scanned the books in one of the many sprawling-on-the-floor book stalls in Connaught Place for a copy of Caravan.
“Arre bhai, yeh Chetan Bhagat ki nai book aa gayi na?”
(Chetan Bhagat’s new book is available, right?)

That was a September evening, almost a month before the launch of the book. Full page ads had spread the word. The same friend on a different evening dragged us for a movie. I had resisted, in vain. Nonetheless I had quite a time in the theatre. Not very surprisingly, if you have good company you can enjoy a movie – either immersed in it, or laughing hysterically on the very fabric of the film. We chose the latter, the two of us, but the one who dragged us was quite happy watching Singham Returns; a 100 crore club film? The movie indeed was hysterically hilarious, but what makes it such for me is my liberty to stand somewhere and watch it from there. Oh! And that somewhere I’d even agree at times to be called a platform – The movie’s for the masses.

What’s two million minus five thousand? Who filled up the numbers? One is this graduation friend of mine, I know three more from graduation who have read either all or at least one of Bhagat’s previous books. One of them has ‘graduated’ to reading Khalid Hosseini now.

His works are not complex, subjects not deep enough and the linear formats lack layers in the characters. But that does not mean they could be less entertaining, one of the prime purposes of a novel and that also means catering to a segment, a massive chunk, which was by-far not written for. Movies are slightly opposite in nature in the country. We had the melodrama and the masala that catered to the masses, as much as I would not want to use the word, and few films, now growing in numbers and popularity – the once art house movies or now experimental cinema. The moment the word ‘masses’ is used it straightaway gives the other little segment, the classes, a little high creating a problematic dichotomy. There sure is segmentation of audience, but not for one set to commit this:
“I always judge people, excitedly, when I see them reading in the local train. And I judge them again when I see them reading Durjoy Dutta.”
That was my colleague over the phone.

Singham Returns is an important movie. The villain gets beaten up for being nasty with a woman. Hero No. 1, Govinda’s super hilarious blockbuster does the same yet is troublesome. After the goons are thrashed the woman is reprimanded for being out of home alone late in the night. Ajay Devgan’s Singham sequel works because it speaks what needs to be spoken about – corruption, social issues, communal harmony, respecting equality of sexes in the language that those spoken to understand – in humour, melodrama and insane action. Bhagat’s ‘five point someone’ too speaks to those who read it religiously. Dispelling the north-south divide and the stereotypes, 2 states should work well. Why should the boy be interviewed in English for his entrance in DU, would a Hindi speaking chap be a lesser economist or a historian? His latest Half Girlfriend is important for it picks on the language class divide. The millions who pick up his books or watch ‘crass’ cinema convey an essential economic, social and a political message, that stands a chance to be overlooked.

It’s a separate debate whether to credit Bhagat to draw in the millions into a reading culture, and foster altogether a breed of new writers. His writing for a segment is deliberate or is that his natural flow? May be he’s just a very sharp marketer of his own work, coming out with his first novel priced at a precarious Rs. 95. But sometimes credit pours down as serendipity – He’s a reckoning point in the Indian publishing industry. The critics mock at his number titled books and the numbers in millions – his fans essentially know not who the critics are. It’s just a matter of who has the last laugh. And much unlike its movie adaptation, Two States was quite a breeze of laughter on a four hour bus ride some years ago.          

PC for MC Mary Kom

In a single sentence – not so terrific yet so very important; and important in so many ways. That’s the latest Mary Kom starring Priyanka Chopra. Nothing goes past acute scrutiny and outright verdicts passed by a million judges on smart phones. And perhaps this is one.

Its problematic, the production and the casting. It’s well debated why not Lin Laishram (played the role of the boxer’s friend and auditioned along with many other Manipuri actors) but PC for the MC biopic. Why, PC, irrespective of her skills, or not, looks nowhere close to a legend who’s story is being told? It’s troublesome because the movie is peppered with the quintessential bollywood melodrama. While many from the region and beyond would really not want a masala film dished out on someone who’s made us proud. May be it is cultural imperialism, may be sheer formula to mint money on a pressing story.

Nonetheless, it is an essential film. To start with the business of films, it made news that Mary Kom could not be screened in her home state. Something that should have been taken notice of a decade ago, it has pushed the envelope, rather late though. Those oblivious would read up on why it won’t be released in Manipur, shall be exposed to what grips the state and its situations.

It is an important movie because nowhere in the past has the north eastern culture, language and presence (however namesake and stereotyped at worst) made for a full throttle bollywood flick consumed by millions of the ‘mainland’ Indians. We conveniently club it as North Eastern seven sisters.

An inspiring story for millions, even how not very impressively scripted, reflects on few important themes - the sordid state of sports and its politics in India, the dreams and the passion to realize them among the youngsters, the woman who breaks the moulds thrust upon her – for her to be an individual and not being bogged down to roles we otherwise justify prescribing to her – a daughter, a wife, homemaker and a mother. It’s a beautiful story of an ever so doting and supportive spouse – husband or wife. It makes it an important story to be told.     

It is sad to read that we need a big star for the movie to be sellable. But if a Priyanka Chopra (or others of her ilk in the industry) draw more people to experience a story then why not. It’s a debate of a movie being fine art versus being a medium for mass communication. Discounting that very few would actually be a piece of fine art communicating to the masses, for this story of a heroine, our pride, I’d rather opt for the latter – a story to be told to many.   

The boxing star’s struggles against hurdles of all forms, the distance at which the state and the region are need a voice. PC’s Mary Kom might not be the most convincing voice but it’s good for starters.

The last hug

What’s in the last hug that eyes well up and your forearms flex so much, tightening over their shoulders that you don’t want that embrace to end?

Is it in the last hug, hurriedly made, for a lifetime, on a railway platform or by a waiting auto that you embrace all that has ever been, packed in a single memory unit?

Or what is it with the last hug so mandatorily made that you forgive and apologize and apologize and forgive all your mortal errors made?

What is it with the last hug that it suddenly occurs that you won’t rest your head on their lap while pushing space for your bum on a crowded bed?

Few things won’t happen ahead in time with few people, even if they be around, is it in the last hug that encapsulates it all that pretty place posed for, provided for?

Is it with the last hug perhaps, even through a season of teary farewell that you seal your love?

What is it in the last hug and the trickling tear, the promise of meeting you?

Is it with the last hug that you for one last time push a part of yourself into them; grab a part of them to keep – a prized souvenir?

Or has it been, whatever that has been for us to be such, such tight and teary in our last hug or is it that last hug that we live whatever we’ve been, making us whatever we’d be?

Pickle Jar

It was a strange evening. But how strange could it get from any other evening? The big golden ball was floating on the far west end of the river; perhaps slightly leaking. Its molten gold blended with the deep blue of the lousy river. The bazaar was buzzing, tourists swarming the little old quaint part of the city. She drew the curtains over the first storey quarter where she was, leaving the window slightly ajar.

“Diamonds?”
Her head swung back as her eyes looked over the stove for the voice. Shaking, her quivering lips made some sound, “It’s an illness.” She reminded herself.
“There’s no one here. No one said a word. It’s an illness that I hear words every evening.” Only boiling water gave company to her noise. Yes, one could hear the electric din from outside the window. She poured some in a chipped china cup and added little spice from a jar. “It’s an illness. There’s no one here. There’s no one bringing diamonds.”

She wasn’t all alone. There were visitors. Mostly foreigners, men fair from faraway lands. Few told her stories of their places; few spoke of their stories of her place. Few did not speak to her. She spoke to none. As soon as the sun disappeared in the lazy lilting blue waters, she lit the half melted candles in the corner. Electricity has always been a trouble. This was routine and she hummed it away in songs that no guest identified. The hum though was indeed a melody, the only sound in the sleeping street given company by the clinking bangles she adored.

She’d stopped examining her visitors now. It did not matter to her. All that she examined was the direction of the wind sitting at her window. “Next summer,” he said. “Diamonds” he said.”

Days drudged by, months moved into years. The winds have changed their ways and returned. They’ve made her routine and she is disciplined. The muffled noise dies with the dying moon and the waking bazaar drowns her wails. Prayers all forgotten, confessions to a starry night guest all poured, she weeps; weeps till she falls asleep or till the sun travels his tour over the city to the river.

Once few years ago, the room used to be lit well, an old stereo played some popular songs of the time. She used to talk to passersby when she stood at her window, but she rarely shows her face now. Long ago one remembers, a muffled echo from the green tinted window as the day broke, “Now, don’t take my nights away.”

It’s a strange evening, and a tall young man from distant land has come to see her. His eyes brim with excitement and his words, endless.

“The food really did not suit me. What do they put in it? All I could manage doing that day after the fort was camping in the loo.”
Something lifted her drooping eyelids and she curved a smile for him.
“I pray and bless the lady; she poured some hot soup and gave me some bread. Pickle she said was something I would not have had tasted my entire life. What a lady she was. What do they put in that pickle?”
The winds had changed perhaps, “I would love to give you some, but the pickle jar has been empty for three summers now.”

A naked confession so easily made. The response so piercing.
“Really? Don’t worry. It’ll be summer in a month’s time. I’ll bring good pickle for you this summer.”

It was a strange evening again, as strange as it could get behind the green windows. It was a beautiful evening a tourist remarked as he clicked away the melting sun.

 

The Spider

That terrible terrible twig,
for god’s sake stay, still.
But it just won’t.
What a lovely green bush
with flowers that smell antiquity
and nectar that beckons many.
It was exhausted by now
and sat beneath the big leaf.
What a terrible pretty twig
Just won’t allow it to weave its web;
And it sat beneath the leaf, lovely
and wondering.
How soon is it to look beyond
to another bush? Or it thought,
to web across and watch
in delight that twig;
The spider.

Starry Nights

It’s starry and so bright
with the moon
up, up and so large.

Its glow, such a charge
the wolves celebrate
and owls party.
There’s music if you will
and woo! That dance
as you wish.
Fire fierce but no fear.
Oh! Except that one
One fear of the day;
the dull dull next day
the dreadful coming dark day

My heart, Oh! You mine

The ring you’d put Oh! love mine
still sits so pretty, here, on my finger
then why do I fear, day and night
why do I worry for days while its night?

My heart, you mine, still lies there
somewhere with you, you my lullaby

I sit by the curtain Oh! Love mine
Dusk comes by and stays at last
the flickering candle melts, finally
I sigh, and the curtain still plays by

My heart, you mine, still lies there
may be by your bed, you my lullaby

The moon is up and the stars all out
few fall and while few make a cosmic war
it is trust that the moon has, as it stays
it is flirted and swirled alive by a dashing star  

My heart, you mine, still lies there
perhaps in your jacket, you my lullaby

The war ends and the sky glitters
warm winds embrace and kiss
the moon glows and its man smiles
and his restless dog sleeps now Oh! Christ

My heart, you mine, still lies there
is it in your closet, you my lullaby?

Birds are chirping, I chose to ignore
the sky is fading I fear opening the door
It shall again be day and I shall again be afraid
standing and staring, clutching the curtain stretched

My heart, you mine, still lies there
should be on the desk, you my lullaby

You’ll be gone and vanished in air
I see you around but it must be my glare
I hear you speak but I do not
you are there, perhaps, or perhaps not

My heart, you mine, still lies there
check behind the cabinet, you my lullaby

The candle I light and watch the sun
I wait for moths to flirt with it and you know
in day it’s a rarity. Sometimes they do come
but now am not even sure if they are

My heart, you mine, still lies there
I wonder where in your house, you lullaby

The candle I see is fighting with the wind
its flame reaches nowhere but its rim
Does it weep in the dripping heat?
The day sun is just such a browbeat

My heart, you mine, still lies there?
Or, is it dusted out, already, you lullaby?

I wait for the night and the stars all day
I wait for the moon to give it a miss.
She promises and assures herself
but as the they twinkle she slides out

 My heart, you mine, still lies there I hope
once, I remember, you kissed its head, you Oh! Lullaby

The flame goes off and the stars war with her
the heavens must know what happens to the moon
she glows by their side, kisses a few in their falling stride.
The curtains flow, and I know I shall, clutch it tomorrow. Tight!
Quite tight!

My heart, Oh! You mine
my heart, Oh! You mine,
Do not know if you misplaced it,
or do I conjure this crime

Touch me not

That pile of pebbles
which stands firm and rock.
That shimmering green creeper,
that’d climb up and mock,
O! It’s a decision well made
and my rage so fairly paid.
That lovely deep blue lake,
still, as the crocs it hides
or the light blue sky untouched,
untouched a sheet one glides.
You’ve already caused pain enough
that my love shall bear till the cuff.
It doesn’t happen your way
and it isn’t even the routine – Oh! The damn highway

Don’t you just give that smile
I warn you. Yes - my love, I sigh
It’ll all account to zero -
the fuming, my puffing and the cry.
Touch one at the bottom
and the pebbles come tumbling down.
Touch not that creeper it shies away;
your soft still face while I frown
Is a drop in it and it ripples in craze -
The lake. Or a flight across its stillness
leaves in that azure sheet a glistening trace.
O you say not that polite word
I warn you. Yes – my love, I sigh
Touch me not; I’ll fall back in love I cry.

Hope.

Falling
and feel it is beautiful
Falling off the cliff and
it feels wretchedly full

It was there, the least to say

It was and was celebrated.
In the zooming speed
things often get slipped
or water evaporates in the heat
naphthalene balls sublime over a season
But it vanishes too, I did not know
Love, disappears –

Evaporated, sublimed or slipped away
I do not know.
There isn’t a word
nor is there any sound
Oh please, mundane is all

There isn’t that shine in the eye
or even that eye that meets mine.

Wretchedly torn and split apart

That baked ground parched off water

For what is patience for an expectant?

Beyond those nine months!

Torn and beyond a stitch?

Well patchwork should work.
But the tailor must speak.
His scissors should work.

Hope. She’ll conceive again

Hope. The clouds might return some season

Hope. Those eyes might meet and shine.

Hope. Those words shall go beyond mundane
Hope. Hope stares but not now

Without that guard

Yes, O! Once bitten
and even Love is twice shy.
But what is shyness

If patted to comfort?

Media Policing

“Delhi gang-rape case: Would have burned my daughter alive for premarital sex, defence lawyer says” in bold letters headlined Times of India on the 14th of September 2013. The battle lines were always drawn fine and clear and the agenda, if one might want to call it, was clear. The case doesn’t end. They refuse to bury it. Refused when she succumbed in Singapore, refused when the convicts were nabbed, refused when one was put in juvenile home, refused again when the sentence was pronounced and now refuse to bury it when the defence lawyer passes his defence. And maybe this is one agenda that none have qualms with the media setting in. In fact, there comes a sharp remark on the other establishments of the country for failing in what they were supposed to do.

Pick up any newspaper any day and you won’t fail to miss at least a few ‘stories’ on sexual assault, harassment, molestation or even rape. As for statistics, National Crime Record Bureau says two women are raped in India every hour. Double in a decade. What is appalling that now it’s out in the open, which otherwise I would appreciate, but an open that’s far scarier than truth. Has the society degenerated? Are we crumbling by the day? It is tough to answer that. And perhaps even intensive research might fail to resolve the proposition. We have evolved as a society, have become far more open. Is it because many more cases are now reported that we feel we have stooped much lower? Whatever the case may be, the baton is with the media which is running a tireless lap fighting for half a lot. If, today’s newspaper, September 16^th headlined black flags for Akhilesh in Muzaffarnagar, right next to it on the front page is “4 year old raped in school bus.” Page 4: “Step-father held for torturing 3 year old girl.” Page 5: “No jeans or noodle straps: Karnataka to women employees” with an insert of Times View slapping the incident. Same page, number 5: “Mechanism to monitor child abuse cases.” Page 6: “Man abducts toddler, run over by train”, a Mumbai story where the police is now probing whether the girl was sexually assaulted. Page 7: “Robbers brutalize woman in Una dist. ...Insert coins, currency note in private parts.” This again has an insert: “Jawan held for rape attempt in train.”

These are reports in one newspaper on one day. If this wasn’t enough, the world media keeps a vigil right here. Many argued of the steaming up the issue, yet what remains is the account of what happened. “The story you never wanted to hear” – Michaela Cross, a US student on an exchange program to India, had her blog creating ripples across media around the world and dire consequences in India. All news channels and papers picked it up, wrote about it, spoke about it, discussed it and called in experts. But what came about it? Is this the first time a report as such has been released? Remember Scarlett? The much stretched case of Scarlett Keeling, a British teen, brutally raped in Goa and buried 5 years thence after a prolonged case between the British foreign office, Scarlett’s mother and the Goan  authorities, passing the buck as usual and in the process maligning the character of a fifteen year old girl. The first reports that surface are clear and bold: “British teen raped, killed on Goa beach” Mumbai, March 02, 2008, Hindustan Times. And then with the probe initiate the media’s agenda of setting thing right. In another case of the same bucket, Indian Express: “German girl rape: Goa minister’s son still at large” Panaji, October 15, 2008.

Rewinding in history a little might set the frame right. January 23^rd, 1996, a 25 year old law student, Priyadarshini Mattoo, was found raped and murdered at her house. And the time it took for her culprit to be framed guilty? A decade! On October 17, 2006, the Delhi High Court after a tedious and much profiled hearings, sentenced Santosh Kumar Singh, the son of a police inspector- general, guilty on both counts of rape and murder and later sentenced him to death. The case is of much significance as the 1999 acquittal of Santosh Kumar Singh led to massive public rage and outcry. Public pressure increased much so after the acquittal verdict of another murder, Jessica Lal case, where a politician’s son, Manu Sharma, was released, despite the incident occurring in the presence of dozens of people. NDTV led a campaign then fighting for Jessica. Priyadarshini’s case too caught the heat and public demonstrations accentuated the media pressure and turned the traditional lax pace of monthly hearings to day to day trail and a judgement was reached in 42 days. Santosh Kumar Singh was found guilty.

Bhanwari devi’s case is yet another example of endless pages of pain and humiliation. Allegedly gang raped by five men from her village Bhateri, 55 km from Jaipur, in 1992, she fought with an undying courage and commitment for justice. It is a story of brutal shocks and trauma and harassment and humiliation that refuse to end with the act of rape. She is shoved away from one police station to another, from one hospital to another for examining marks of being abused. Absence of female representatives in the medical or police departments and being asked to leave her ghagara (skirt) at the police station as evidence she was forced to walk back in her husband’s blood stained turban for 3Km at 1 in the night. Abandoned by the family and the village she fought for her dignity. October 2, 1992, Rajasthan Patrika, carried an editorial ‘kroor hadsa’ (Brutal Incident). This was followed by innumerable Hindi dailies from Rajasthan and the national ones covering her case. The case caught fire in the media and justice delivered, such that women’s organizations propagated the view that she attracted the ire of her rapists because of her work. Numerous such organizations filed Public Interest Litigations in the Supreme Court under a group name of Vishakha. The judgement of August 1997 gave basic definitions of sexual harassment at workplace. Bhanwari devi received much support nationally and internationally - United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing , invited her. In 1994, she received Neerja Bhanot memorial award for extraordinary courage and commitment and in 2002, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot allotted a residential plot to her and a grant of Rs.40, 000 for the construction of her house there.

Getting back to the defence lawyer’s curt remarks on the 14^th of September 2013, the much saddening and one of the most high profile, sordid cases of rape – that of a 23 year old physiotherapist intern in New Delhi was beaten and gang raped, brutally, in a moving bus, on 16 December 2012. The case caught attention nationally as well as internationally. The Delhi police was questioned and mass protests held across the length and breadth of the country. The media fought for her relentlessly making the case of prime importance. India’s daughter, as was the sobriquet or Nirbhaya as she was called by many news agencies fought for her survival, while the country prayed for her for over a fortnight. She was airlifted to Singapore. The media followed her there and guns were pointed towards the mute Manmohan Singh government. Sections of the media elaborated that the move was to avoid the uncontrollable public fury if the girl gave up within the country. News agencies across the country – vernacular and English were onto it and fought for her justice. One of the fastest cases solved, the four accused have been sentenced to death recently. In fact a Justice J S Verma committee was appointed by the central government to suggest amendments to the criminal law to sternly deal with sexual assault cases. The Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance, 2013 was promulgated by President Pranab Mukherjee, on 3 February 2013 which provides for amendment of Indian Penal Code, Indian Evidence Act, and Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 on laws related to sexual offences. Had the media not reported and set its agenda in such aggression, it would have passed by as any other rape, reported daily in a daily’s page 6.

The cases are endless and so are the perpetrations. If it is not rape it is daily harassment and molestation that women and girls take it as a given that they’ll go through in the country. 14^th May 2013, Ghaziabad, a woman is slapped by male police officers for allegedly drinking and being in an obscene picture inside a car with a male companion, thrashed on camera, taken to the police station in the middle of the night in the absence of a female constable. So much so that a neighbourhood woman comes in and slaps the girl in police custody, while all this is being captured on national TV cameras, the boy from the car is standing pleasantly without being spoken to. Huge TV panels are set for the night on every TV channel and the clip is repeated over and over again. Many might pull a sharp remark on the sensationalism in the media, but it was this discussion that questioned the police and its duties, police forgetting its Indian Penal Code and the fundamentals of survival – right to be, freedom and expression. 

The agenda is right there, rightly set and right on track. How well are we delivering upon it, is yet to be seen. It needs persistence and involvement from all sections of the society.

You hear that patting?

You hear that patting?

That with the rolling thunder in between?
You smell that wet brick?
That mixed with the freshness of green?

I try listening to her

To what she wants to say

To what she wants me to hear

Her laughter, shrieks, cry or dare

 She comes, announces and lets

Everyone know of her being there

She talks of all she cared to hold

For long before being bare

Relieved and light

Heaving sighs she would leave

Drenching all, would she sometimes

Thank me with her colours and some sheen

Just that tears do not pat

And the moist eyes do not smell

Otherwise speak both together

And speak their rhetoric well

Smoke

It makes me sick. Slightly sick. Sometimes.

I wonder what is wrong and what is right. Conventionally, yes am being foolish and horribly stupid. But then what is right and what is wrong - the socially constructed rights and wrongs?

He said he isn't causing harm to or he isn't disturbing anyone.

“And you?” I asked.

He smiled. “It’s one’s free will how one wants to be.”

“The emotional pain you cause to others? Hurt?” I persisted.

“People should let people be. Go find your peace.”

Since then am on my way, trying to find it everywhere. Here and there, in theories and examples, in learning and fables, in myself and in him, in rejections and acceptances. I haven’t. I haven’t really found my peace. All I could manage to find is disrespect and insult.

I delivered his love two months ago. And the belly is almost level now. And his love delivered, consumes my energies day and nights. He does love me much. And we do plan to plant yet another seed. But it’s been four years and I have not been able to find an iota of that peace.

May be to accept him doing it, accepting it altogether is the ‘correct’ frame. I must accept it as okay. I have started hiding. Secretly and covertly, when he is out, sometimes in the loo, sometimes when he’s fallen asleep and sometimes when he isn't up yet. Sometimes I even share with him, jokingly, making fun of it. Sometimes. I feel sick. Slightly. Sometimes. I might be horribly stupid, but what is right and what is wrong?

I have taken to smoking so as to accept him smoking. My love, my peace. Smokes.

Agnipareeksha

 May be it had to come as a part of my course, an assignment. However here it comes. Bases the 1996 Deepa Mehta film, Fire. 17 years on, and hardly anything seems different.

Desire brings ruin, they say. But I desire to live.

Who sage does not desire to live? And then what are humans if they desire to live? Who has the authority to limit this desire unless I harm? Even He did not have the right to kill this desire once I’d passed my agnipareeksha.

Deepa Mehta’s astounding story on a simple, yet complex for intransigents, Fire burns and still smokes today. “It’s a sin in the eyes of God and man,” says Ahok (Kulbhushan Kharbanda). And it would be foolish, yet saddening to expect any lesser Ashoks today than then. The 1996 movie strokes those sensitive nerves that have mostly been avoided, those on homosexuality.

Radha (Shabana Azmi) and Sita (Nandita Das) are sisters in law, two women with tales of their own; two women wronged in their own right; two women (practically) unmarried to their husbands; two women who discover love, sadly in the societal structure, discover it in each other. Sadly, because Sita confesses that there’s no word to describe their relation. Hindi hardly provides a word except samlaingik for a same-sex relationship which is barely common usage unlike the English translation.

“Women without husbands are like boiled rice, bland and unappetizing” and pat Radha replies, “I like being boiled rice.” However Radha would want to be independent, a woman’s life boils down to being around her man. The gender rules as they are in India, and in many parts of the world, revolve around men and their fancies. While Sita’s husband Jatin (Jawed Jaffery)is candid about his romantic affair with another woman, he goes unquestioned by everyone in  the family. Ashok under his esteemed swami’s directives pledges of celibacy for he’s told that sex’s sole role is reproduction and Radha couldn’t reproduce. Her role is reduced to supporting him in the endeavor. The men have their right to work upon their whims and fancies. The women are ordered and constantly reminded of their ‘duties’ towards their husbands – be it helping them resist temptations or fasting for such who hardly make a marriage to their wives. Leave alone the rights of men and women with alternate sexualities.

 

Duties delivered upon, ironically are all forgotten or made null upon the revelation of fundamental truths. For all her life for a ll her devotion that she took care of her, cleaned her, bathed her, dressed her, fed her, her mother in law, all that Radha gets is spit in her face. 

Radha and Sita, contextually are two women whose fate met no justice. And interestingly the two names have been used for the leads. Two women worshiped for their love, devotion and purity. Ironies in India that despite chaste, women are required to answer and clarify. It’s fascinating to the extent that the names have been reversed for the two characters. Being a Radha to Ashok, bound by love (duty), she ends up taking the agneepariksha. While our Sita waits, waits for her love. Love has its way through fire.

What more is the desire to live, after all, than the right to?

At the seas together

Been standing there for long
before the seas
seas, vast and endless
distances vast and endless
facing them
smiling, or just glaring
distances between us
waiting to sail
sails to be set free
for what dents? standing still
facing the seas
the two
standing still

Waiting together

Photo Credits: Kanav Bakshi
http://www.facebook.com/kanav.bakshi?fref=ts

for that sail together

through those greens and that froth
to rescue over the blues and the chops

sailing together for a while

sailing together till there is time

for they'd stand still again

still, staring at the sands so fine

or the vast seas, 

your and mine