Being woman : Good, Bad &Ugly

Being  woman : Good, Bad &Ugly

I meant to say this since long, but somehow didn’t know how to gather by thoughts around the hypocrisy of the society we live in. Let me first list down the triggers behind this write up in chronological order:
• Jiah Khan suicide case
• Harvey Weinstein case
• The whole #metoo movement
• The extension of it to India.
•  Some observations in day to day life
So where do I start and more importantly why do i start?
I will address the why part first. Humans have a tendency of dealing with everything  beyond the comfort zone - Ignore and hope it take cares of itself. Doesn’t work.
Ours is a society of juxtapositions, where we have women like #sunnyleone who managed to maintain her dignity even with her background in adult movie industry and then we have women like #rakhisawant with no credibility.
Lets go west, The people who voted for #Obama  belonged to the same nation that voted for #Trump.
We have decent men maintaining a dignified silence and we have men like singer  Abhijit saying bullshit.
Point is to be aware of this juxtaposition.
To be aware that there were victims and there were harassers and there were mute spectators.  And there is a media which will portray it in juiciest way possible for TRPs which actually is the saddest part of this whole equation.
When any issue arises, we deal with it to come out on the other side as a stronger, better society. But in this information age, everything is saleable- emotions, pain and above all harassment. What it finally leads to is diluting the issue at hand.
So what is the issue?
The way I see it, its an issue of dominance. Of one gender over other only because they feel the other gender is weaker- in position, social status or physically maybe. And the other gender has 'allowed' them to think so, to adhere to the age old norms created by society. A norm which goes into victim shaming. Mind you I am not naming the genders, because somehow in this situation, women at least joined the #metoo movement because they had a community, men who were harassed may never get to the point of sharing it in open for the fear of being ridiculed. I think that’s sadder that they won’t get a voice.
I have to accept here that I am not mature enough to feel the pain of the victims here. What can I do however is to call a spade a spade.
Isn’t there something fundamentally wrong with a society that dictates that job safety comes over human safety? Why would someone choose to remain in a unsafe environment only because it can cost them their jobs, careers and integrity?
And the integrity of the harassers remains intact? Society fails here not the victims.
Mind you, we are still talking about showbiz, so we are the ones idol worshipping the so called celebrities.
How many times have we remarked that, "Yes, I have heard of media reports that so and so person is a womaniser... but who cares.. I admire him for his acting talent!!" A person cannot be segregated into fragments to love. One cannot be blind to the grey areas. Hitler had great regard for art, remember!
This brings me to point no.5.
India has two buckets to place women in..and are evident in Bollywood movies- Hero ki maa hoti hai and behen hoti hai... maa wears sarees and behen wears salwar suit with dupatta... low cut blouses are for the heroine. So respect is also distributed based on the yards of  clothing on the body.
Love +Respect equation is missing. Its either/ or. Another reason for social evils like gaslighting and emotional abuse in relationships. Remember English Vinglish? How many men truly love and respect their wives at the same time?
Let’s move to our workplaces, statistics says that women are interrupted more often while speaking than men, ridiculed more often for their opinions. And  spoken over. The science of it  relates it to voice pitches of men vs women.
Then let’s move to the sexism of the society more so in workplaces. There is great study done by Dr. Peter Glick on benevolent sexism, which is exact opposite of hostile sexism.  It talks about  behaviour by men which appears subjectively positive but  is damaging in long run. It’s about reverence of women only in mother  and child caring roles. How many does it happen that a woman's dress and skin is rated more than her brain? The question of how you manage kids may seem like caring but is a form of benevolent sexism. Viewing women as more compassionate and gentle and men as more aggressive can penalize women who are assertive, leading people to deem them "bossy" or "too harsh."  Its pretty simple actually, for men who treat women with respect, the feeling is reciprocated and you would see it in the eyes of women, that they feel safe in your company. Again by science, women are intuitive and can see beyond the facades of pseudo feminists and masochists. The simple fact it comes down to is  to  having mutual respect.
None of the relations irrespective of genders can survive if this basic essence is missing.
A snide remark is violating respect.
A sexist comment is violating respect.
An unwanted hug is violating respect
Suggesting a makeover to a woman to grow in organisation is violating respect.
Anything that makes the other uncomfortable is violating respect.
Above all, allowing it to happen is the greatest violation.
Irrespective of genders, as a society if only mutual respect is given priority, it wouldn't disintegrate and we leave this world a better, safer place for everyone.

The dilemma of a working woman

As you grow older, you realise that certain things or rather certain people don't deserve a response. We create less drama as we grow older and possibly wiser but at the same time we demand the same from people, to be reasonable. So it was easy for me to ignore certain comments made by a celebrity wife inspite of being a working woman. I don't expect a twenty something whose only achievement probably is marriage to a celebrity to have the maturity or realise the struggles. It's probably unfair of me to make this statement too, I am no one to judge someone else's life.

But this also made me do a root cause analysis of the whole scenario. I have certain Observations and I list them as I go ahead

1. Written vs. Verbal :
We live in an Information Age where written and indirect communication has somehow become very important. The ancient Greeks and Indians laid emphasis on verbal communication. Ram-Leela was performed in front of live audiences so the reaction of audiences was instant. All our epics were transferred in form of recitations and there itself is the difference. Today it is easy to hide behind a pseudonym and write nonsense. Just read the comments section of any post on any internet media. It is filled with at least one fool who thinks bullying is okay, using cuss words unnecessarily is okay, judging strangers is okay. It is simpler to write hateful words than to say them. That alone is not the problem.  Try saying the same words to a person on face, a little something called basic decorum stops us because the reaction would be instant. You could read the disappointment, fear, hurt on the other persons face. And that is one of the problem of this internet age. We say things we don't mean.
2. Feminism:
It has slowly transformed from being a powerful word to a word with negative connotation. Open any of the Facebook so called humour pages and you will find memes of sexist humour and memes making fun of the idea behind feminism. My favourite being the graph that relates feminism to body weight and ugliness. Question is who is to blame for it? Patriarchy or pseudo feminists? What is worth fighting for? I have my own idea of feminism which may differ from the said celebrity wife and I have the maturity to give her time to mature. I have the maturity to accept that at 20 I had totally different set of beliefs. I am a firm believer that feminism is not only needed for women but if we really want to bring about change it is a gender neutral phenomenon.
3. Responsible media:
I really have been harping about this. There are a thousand news channels who want to run 24 hours and need something to create a hue and cry about. And that's where unimportant people and issues get importance. Why should I care about what a celebrity wife thinks? Why should I care about how the so called top comedians fought mid air? It's the media which ingrains that I need to care to feed their TRPs.
The click bait sites are another story. "Ten reasons why feminism is a hoax.#6 really surprised me" and I am tempted to read what #6 is. It's all a capitalist world feeding on our reactions, our emotions.
4.  So now question is which battles do I choose to fight?
I can choose to not react to celebrity drama and media hypes.
I choose to not click the numerous clickbaits.
But
I choose to react to every moron I meet in real life who thinks feminism is a word misused by women for their own good.
I chose to react to every woman who misuses the word.
I chose to react to patriarchal women who judge other women.
I recently overheard a conversation where a school principal was lecturing parents about spending more time with kids in an effort to explain why their school wasn't organising summer camps for two hours a day. The argument was that today's parents need to invest in kids or a kind of new generation will emerge who won't care for the parents back.
I choose to react to such people because the future of the kids is in hands of such people.
I chose to educate them that no parent ever on the face of earth is careless enough to not spend quality time with their kids. Working women are balancing work, home, finances, cooking and million other things but no person has the right to judge and lecture any parent on what their parenting style should be. We grew up with working parents and turned out fine.
And I have only one answer to every person who believes working women are neglecting their kids and will payback when the kids won't be attached to them. And the answer is -that every parent should raise independent kids who don't grow up to be dependent on parents for choosing their shirts for the day.  The kid didn't choose to be born to you, we chose to bring them in the world so it's our responsibility to not burden them with the expectations we have of them in regards to our old age. If I am raising my kid right, she will grow up to be a decent human being. That's all I should expect.
In conclusion, to all working women out there and all homemakers and all parents who are raising kids, chose what you react to and chose your battles carefully.

Mental health #2

#WorldMentalHealthDay

I am not an activist or an article writer to motivate the seemingly normal people to be open to issues of mental health. All I have is my stories. I hope it connects.
1. It’s never the external factors, it’s the inner turmoil and how a person chooses to deal with it. Remember Chester Bennington of #LinkinPark
2. There is no profile. A person can mask it really well, so don’t just go about profiling someone as suicidal or not.
3. It’s the 21st century let’s be inclusive in spirit not because it seems cool. Be it #mentalhealth #LGBTQ or anything that was below the carpet decades back.

#letstalkmentalheath

I have been contacted by people, stating that why did I kill the main lead. That too in a grotesquely manner. I am not an activist or an article writer to explain, or to motivate the seemingly normal people to be open to issues of mental health. All I have is my stories. I hope everyone who wrote to me, get their answers.
1. It’s never the external factors, it’s the inner turmoil and how a person chooses to deal with it. Why else would Chester Bennington do what he did? Or #AnthonyBourdain
2. There is no profile. A person can mask it really well, so don’t just go about profiling someone as suicidal or not.
3. It’s the 21st century let’s be inclusive in spirit not because it seems cool. Be it #mentalhealth #LGBTQ or anything that was below the carpet decades back.

Chapter 12
———————-
Past Closure
———————-
“It’s funny how memory works, “ Abeer continued,lost in thoughts, “I cant remember now what the fight was about.” He pinched his nose trying to remember and then gave up with a sigh. “ I had gone home, which always was a difficult time for me, but I had to.” He paused deciding to continue or not.
“Pakhi did tell me about your relationship with your mother.” I supplied to make him comfortable. He was surprised and said so, “ It wasn’t all too bad,” he justified before continuing, “You ask me about that day and trust me, I don’t remember anything else about that day except how it made me feel. I still shiver at the memory of seeing her in the hospital.”
I chuckled and he noticed.
“That’s not what I heard.” I accused again but he maintained his composure.
“Obviously, you have a different version of the story than me, I can only tell you what really happened and maybe then you can go back and check if Pakhi told you the truth.” He waited for me to respond and when I nodded he went into a reverie
“ I had been out of touch with Pakhi for a month I guess, the reason was that I had gone home. And my home wasn’t a pleasant place to be, it was a place where I was constantly reminded of my failures and I avoided talking to Pakhi when I went home because I didn’t want to take it out on her. It was my way of separating the good in my life from the hell that home was.”
He got up at that and took the framed sketch made by Pakhi down, he caressed  the hair of the girl in the sketch as he spoke, “Pakhi told me that this girl was her, always looking out of the window, waiting for me to come back.”
I winced at that, which Abeer didn’t notice as he still was looking at the sketch.
“She wasn’t home when I returned and when I called, her brother picked up and informed me about her being in the hospital. Everything after that is hazy, I just remember I was sitting next to her bed and she was lying there all pale and weak.”
“And then you slapped her.” I was losing my patience.
He didn’t deny. “And then I slapped her.”
He repeated, not regretting it, “ She was everything for me, and I couldn’t understand how could she value her life so little and do such a thing.”
“Because you made her feel unimportant.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be like that, I wasn’t supposed to be this important.” He explained.
“You were to her.” I replied ,”then.”
“I didn’t know that, I wasn’t used to be important to anyone. I didn’t  even know how to process my emotions when I saw her like that and so I reacted. I turned into this angry person who took it out on everyone including her and her brother only because I was hurt.”
“That’s your explanation ?” I asked sarcastically and he nodded as if it was the most logical explanation ever.
“Next day I returned to apologise, but by then she had already made her decision and she asked me to leave her forever.”
“Which you did?” I asked and he shrugged.
“Did it ever cross your mind, to check how can a person who did something extreme one day for you, turn the next day to throw you out?”
“It did cross my mind, and I begged her for another chance. Promising that I won’t screw up this time, but she was adamant.”
“And it was easy for you to give it up than do pursue?”
“Trust me nothing was easy, but I am glad I left, clearly we were bad for each other and I am happy that she has a happy life with you.”
I didn’t react.
I was no closer to getting the answers I desired. “ I don’t think I can come around to justify people who give up on their dreams or their life.” I thought out loud and this time Abeer laughed. What I said was an extension of my own struggle to deal with Pakhis departure.
“Is that how you think of her, yugaant?” He asked me and I didn’t reply.
“Or us?” He asked again and I was ashamed of myself for even voicing my thoughts.
“Trust me Doctor, it takes a lot of strength to do what she did. Physically hurting an unknown person is easy, even mobsters and other lowlifes do it with ease because you yourself don’t feel the pain, having the strength to do it to yourself is derived from a lot of pain. Pain which becomes insurmountable.”
“ You are the psychology expert right?” He asked me sarcastically but I sat there with my head hung low. “ it’s easy to say that you dislike certain people, but difficult to go and understand them. All you have seen is the scar and formed an opinion, that day I had seen the seriousness of her actions, and it scared me. It wasn’t an attention seeking gimmick Doctor, it was a serious attempt gone wrong fortunately.” He went on lecturing me not realising the passion with which he was defending Pakhi.
“People don’t commit suicide as a reaction to their external environment, Doctor, people do it because of the battles they fight everyday within.”he pushed his finger at his heart while saying that and his eyes welled up for what he said next, “I have not spend a single day in peace, since I left Pakhi, not because I am hung up on her, I am grown up enough to know that she made a decision to be away from me. But because , I failed her. I failed to understand what went on inside her even after spending so much time with each other.”
I didn’t have the courage to admit that I failed Pakhi too, so I just sat there listening to him taking it out of his system, noticing that he had resorted to calling me Doctor, but I had to rush past these trivial thoughts and concentrate on the task at hand. Pakhi.
“Do You now know?” I asked him directly.
He shrugged. “All I know now is that, we got together very young with a lot of expectations from each other and when they weren’t fulfilled, it messed up with our heads. I was distant as I was dealing with my own problems not realising that she wanted to be a part of it. In trying to protect her, I damaged her. You know how it’s said that a bird struggling it’s way  out of the egg is part of its strength buildup? And shouldn’t be helped as we risk crippling it? I tried to handle her with caution and messed up pretty bad. She felt alienated by me.” He went on and on, gathering his thoughts.
“She is better off without me” he repeated conclusively. “Maybe It wasn’t about me at all, it was just who she was then” he smiled to himself, “Well that’s what I tell myself, when I cannot sleep at night.” He concluded and looked up at me.
I was still not able to connect the dots of the whole puzzle this was. I had an image of Abeer when I visited him, I always knew he was important to Pakhi and in meeting him, I was hoping that he would have all the answers, but he didn’t seem to.Even if he did, his answers were sounding superficial to me. or maybe he was just entertaining me.
I decided to play a little to get what I wanted from him.
“Frankly Abeer, the reason I walked into your house the day before after I saw your sculpture was because I was intrigued. Pakhi told me everything about you when we first met, and I was intrigued then too, I had not heard of such passion. And that time I attributed it to the sensitivity of artists. The raw emotional appeal that’s identified with them. Like I have read about the paradoxes of artists,Pakhi was like that- openly brash and bold in public, but still shy and emotional in her own way.”  I unknowingly used the past tense but he didn’t notice.
“But she changed with you?” He asked attributing my use of the past to the fact that I was talking about Pakhi as she was then, when I met her.
I nodded,lying again.
She hadn’t changed. She had just learned to mask herself better. A thing I realised after she left me.
“Similarly, I had an image of you. An elusive brat who didn’t care for the world but focused on his art. That’s how Pakhi portrayed you.”
He laughed.
“You are the psychiatrist, you tell me.” He challenged.
I had no answer.
He got up to put the sketch back on the wall, angling it perfectly, moving it by millimetres till he was satisfied that it was perfectly positioned. He then wiped the edges of the sketch for nonexistent dust with his sleeve. And I noticed his movements. Apart from the way he carried himself, the overgrown salt and pepper hair, the stubble growing on his chin and the relaxed way in which he dressed, there was nothing in fact relaxed about him. I looked around the immaculately decorated room.
It wasn’t a room of a man who didn’t care. It was a palace waiting for its queen. Everything was at its rightful place and his relaxed demeanour was in fact him waiting.
I had a short pang of jealousy as this realisation hit me. In the mean time he was back at his place, sitting opposite me and looking at me with a self assured smirk.
“ Why are you so sure that, she will be back?” I asked him and he didn’t flinch, he wasn’t surprised, he just smiled and within seconds the assertiveness of the first day I met him was back. At that moment, he didn’t care that I was Pakhis husband. For him, we both had an understanding, where he finally understood that I had deciphered him.
“Why are you so sure that she won’t be?” He threw back at me. “She asked me to stay away and I am holding my end of the bargain. I won’t ever interfere in her life. If today you call her up and ask me to talk to her, I won’t. I promised her that. I will wait for her permission to invite me back in her life. But that doesn’t mean that she won’t be back on her own.”
I sniggered at the information I had withheld from him. Right that moment, I had two choices, one to keep him waiting forever and second to end his misery. I wasn’t sure that he would be able to handle the reality, still I decided to go with it. He had just minutes back assured me that he was a grown up.
“You told me, your end of the story, Abeer, I said getting up.... “let me tell you my end.”
He folded his hands and looked up at me, waiting.

Mental health #1

I made a bucket list when I was 23. It's hidden somewhere on a blog I used to maintain. If I remember the list, it had certain things that were important to a 23 year old me and included things like visiting the Effiel Tower and learning French etc. What was not a part of the list and still a dream was to see my favourite band perform live. I have grown up with the heart touching lyrics of linkin park. And I would be honest here, like every middle class Indian I grew from Bryan Adams, Enrique to finally graduate to linkin  Park. And I have this habit of always checking their tour schedule in a hope to see them perform live. Even my phone has the songs recorded from live performances. There's a different energy to live performances in my opinion.
But all of this became immaterial a few days back, as the lead singer of #LinkinPark , Chester committed suicide and selfishly I was angry. I was angry because I suddenly felt empty as if a life goal was snatched away from me. With fresh reports pouring in and all sites picking up the news, it's almost there on my feed everyday. And I have just one question why? LinkinPark would reply with "I don't know why". I fucking named my blog after the song. And all my close friends know that there are two things I force on every acquaintance who gets close to me, 1. Linkin Park 2. Fountainhead. So I somehow tried justifying my anger as a fan. Even if they find a new singer and they go on. It's not the same. Now that I have sufficiently taken out my frustrations at the news. Here's the bigger question in front of all of us. A famous, rich man who was loved by many and who had a wife and six children, was lonely enough to commit suicide!
There is a bigger force at play here. And we in India, where mental health isn't even addressed need to think about it more. The cure of depression in our culture is get married. And you are not supposed to be depressed post marriage. If you say it aloud to someone, you are looked at with crazy eyes. Why would someone married with kids be depressed?
Chester's suicide is an indicator of how facades are deceptive enough and how somehow the demons of the past keep haunting you. That's what their official statement said. He was a man who found fame and money by singing about his demons and his battles with his inner demons but never really overcame them.
What I want to say here is that, find compassion to people around you, maybe someone really is silently asking for help and maybe you could be the person to save someone's life.
There's this image around Hollywood celebrities of drugs and self destruction. But deep down aren't we all humans requiring care and love in whatever form possible? There's this image around Indians too, we are too full of life to even understand the implications of words like depression, post natal depression, bipolar syndrome etc. In our mind these are all big words coming from west. Nothing could be wrong with the brain. But in reality we all need to start embracing these definitions, if not for diagnosis then for support system.
The last loss of a person that affected me this much was someone closer to me and it's not very much me to be effected by a stranger whose music I loved. But it did. Because now I have the maturity to understand that a suicide cannot be blamed on the person who took that drastic step. The society that pushed that person to take that step is at loss too.
So here goes my tribute to the  person who helped me grow from an idealistic, romantic teenager to a practical woman:
Give me the strength of the rising sun
Give me the truth of words unsung
      So rest your head
      It's time to sleep
     And dream of what's in store
The body bends until it breaks
And sings again no more

Diversity

We are living in an age where this word is the key to success. Its a key to sound inclusive, to portay equal opportunity.
Diversity is about equal opportunities, It is about appreciating the differences. Diversity is giving voice to all the different opinions on the table.
Management books say that diverse organisations are stronger because they appreciate the diversity. Women in workplace at higher positions are appreciated because they bring a different insight to the business. But if we twist the whole meaning of diversity in order to fit in at a global level, if we say only the right things, if we become followers instead of trailblazers, the whole point is lost. Diversity does not mean I  cannot see the race, gender, or other visible traits of a person when I see them. It does not mean that I reject the regional or cultural heritage of people and accept them on the table to act as clones.
What it means though is that I SEE THEM and I APPRECIATE THEM. I GIVE THEM A VOICE. I say to them that " For me the world looks blue, what colour do you see? Maybe together we can agree its purple or red!"
I take the insights from their diverse heritage. That is true diversity on all fronts - be it gender, region, race or sexual orientation. It is to recognise, accept and appreciate. It is about equal opportunity based on merit and not merely being blind to the diverse aspects.
Sadly, the word is reduced to a chapter in Management books, a legislative compliance in companies and a totally flabbergasted middle management and employees at ground level. Diversity is not about accepting substandard talent to fit a quota and it surely doesnt end with hiring.
Dont hire a unicorn and then cut its horn and make it forget how to fly!!
ACCEPT, APPRECIATE & LET IT FLY
Thats the true aspect of diversity!

-----(c) Dixy Gandhi

Smile some more

I have been a big fan of Marvel since the first ironman movie I guess. So imagine my excitement at the first Captain Marvel movie.The first superhero movie with a female lead by Marvel (Well in my honest opinion, Marvel always has been risk avoider. DC got it perfect with Wonderwoman, but thats for another day).
I would imagine the first solo film to be of the black widow, but guess she still has to pose some more  in tights with her rear facing the camera for marvel to trust and invest  some money on her.
Even Captain Marvel comes only after the build-up of Infinity War, as collateral 😊
So thats the premise, apparently someone on twitter used a photo app to make Brie smile more in the first-look posters of the movie. Isnt that so nice of the man, to remind her to smile while fighting the bad guys. She in turn replied with an Instagram post of all the Avengers smiling. Apparently, only the men can sulk. Girls should smile more.
Some days I wake up willing to ignore all the stupidity and double standards around me, but some days it just gets too much. The sadddest part is that I know nothing will change. There will always be an justification for patriarchy. No speeches by Chimamanda Ngozi Amichie will be taken in right context, the answer will always be you cannot generalise. Women will always be judged for showing emotion (she is using her tears) or not showing enough emotion( she is being a cold bit**) , for drinking too much (Ahh..thats what these pseudo feminist are like)  or not drinking at all (old school) . For how they dress or how their skin looks over their brains. One cannot just have it all. Not to forget the mansplaining!! Seriously! I am a mechanical Engineer with masters in English but please do explain me the functioning of a DC motor or how to pronounce a word right.
And its only so much one can take with write-ups like this termed angry.
Yes, I am angry, but while I cope with this anger, let me smile some more 😊