Classrooms of Another Kind

We stared in stunned silence, our squabbles silenced by the building we were looking at. It was a large hall – if one could call four walls topped by a crumbling roof a hall. There were spaces for doors and windows, but no doors or windows. The tiles on the roof had fallen off with disuse. A fire in its indeterminate past had blackened the inside walls of the building and sent out wings of black soot from the gaping door and window spaces. No doors, no windows, no water, no electricity, no rooms, no furniture. And obviously, no bathrooms, definitely no. Lonely and neglected it stood a little away from the main village which stood  spread out on the slope below. We had walked 13 kilometres carrying our knapsacks, our kitchen utensils and provisions of food for the next 3 days to reach this crumbling, fire blasted solitary building on an isolated forgotten, forest covered hillside in Chhotanagpur. It was to be our home for the next 2 weeks. This was the first semester of my post graduate course in rural development. And in class, we had been told that these ‘rural camps’ would be the most intense and constructive learning experiences of our lives. That ordinary people and their lives were the best class rooms one could have. For the first few hours that October evening I may have made the mistake of thinking that this godforsaken  place and its people, could never serve as a classroom. But I never made this mistake again. ( I also redefined 'godforsaken'.)
In the years that followed, as I navigated the exciting and unruly world of rural development, I often returned to that building - in my imagination. Such wanderings of the mind were triggered by workshops and discussions on 'emerging frameworks' 'feminism and neoliberal govern mentality' and 'the intangibles of content'. My body would remain at the table as my mind returned to that abandoned building in Chhotanagpur. And I would remember how in the first 24 hours there, my life had changed forever. And how so much of what I knew including my feminism started from that building. Our professors had been right. The 4 rural camps (all of which included accommodation as mentioned above) changed my mind and vision for ever. Since this blog is about men and women, I shall focus on how this influenced my understanding and interpretation of feminism. Feminism was not part of my course on rural development and I began to read feminist literature only years later. But by then, the women that I worked with and for had already taught me much. And so, whenever theory, concepts, frameworks were argued about, what I would remember was what the women would say. And so, instead of sharing the round table discussions with you( you may wander away, as I did) let me tell you what the women said.
What women said: on the very first day of our rural camp, we were sent off individually to mingle with the villagers and establish a rapport with them. The morning having brought with it that special magic of Chhotanagpur, all our exhaustion and disapproval had vanished. I stepped out smartly and came up to a solitary women harvesting a field full of crop with a 'Hasua' (a locally made sickle) with a baby strapped to her back, Chhotanagpur style. She was friendly and  happy to talk till she discovered that I did not know what crop she was harvesting. At first she was incredulous, then sorry for my parents because they had a daughter as stupid as me, then summarily dismissive of me - Everyone repeat, Everyone knew this crop was Marua. The Hasua was waved in the direction of the waiting harvest. If I didn't know that, I had no hope in life and was not really worth her time. All this was delivered with one hand on hip, the other dangling the Hasua, pity and dismissal in her eyes and the happy baby beaming at me from behind the mothers back. Distraught, disbelieving, and all my pretensions of being intellectual and academic fully and effectively shattered on that half harvested Marua field, I climbed back up the hill, humbled and frantically re assessing myself.
What I learnt: The good fight is fought on fields of Marua, in household courtyards, under the neem trees, on the steps of the temple, on the local bus service and unfortunately behind the closed doors of our bedrooms. The more equal world we feminists seek is fought for and won and lost in front of and with our colleagues, friends, lovers, spouses, parents, relatives and very often with our children strapped to our backs. And what gives me knowledge and power is what I fight with. One feminists tool may be feminist ideology and theory. Another's  may be the knowledge of Marua and the skill to harvest it with smiling babies clinging to you. One needs to know which to use where and that each are powerful tools on their own.

What women said: A wonderfully articulate woman in the rural backwaters of Khulna, Bangladesh had once told me, “They say men are unimaginative. That they can't think of new things. They can't work hard.  I always remind such people – that is not true. See how creative they are - how many ways men devise to abuse their wives. See how much of hard work it is – every single day, getting up in the morning, having to decide – today how shall I harass my wife? How shall I beat her? How shall I create chaos at home? Shall I throw her out today? Or just shout at her? Shall I pull her hair? Or shall I just say nasty things to her? And even after all this, people think men are dull and lazy.” As an afterthought she added, “Tch, tch.” And spat out her ‘paan’ juice.
What I learnt: The perpetrator is consistently evolving, and working hard. Therefore the protestor must constantly evolve and work hard too. Hence - feminism is a movement, not a revolution.  Challenging and changing the system therefore happens slowly, brick by brick, through simple, mundane daily activity and behavior patterns.  It does not work on a one time upheaval, after which I can retire. And so I learnt that if I was to be a feminist, I could never to give up. Never stop. Is it exhausting? Yes. But you could always stop to rest awhile and at that caravanserai, meet interesting women like the Lady of Khulna....

What women said: A young woman leader in Jharkhand,  was a great believer of bringing separation, abandonment, divorce cases to the panchayat and resolving them in public. When I asked her why she did so, wasn't a divorce a private issue? She looked at me thoughtfully and said "Think."
Puzzled, I said, " Well it does appear to be what most people - "
She cut me off with a "hmmmph" and glared at me. "Don't talk about most people if you want things to change. Most people are donkeys. I say, divorce could be private yes, but only if a marriage is also private. Now, if a marriage sees the participation of the whole family and community, divorce also should, should it not? Divorce, after all is one of the logical extensions of marriage. If everyone was feasting with me in good times, they have bought their tickets and boarded the bus. They have to be part of my tough times. That responsibility is theirs as much as mine."
What I learnt: Feminism in practice is best based on arguments that are logical, rational and compelling. Weeping, wailing, raving, ranting, screeching, sympathy, acing the martyr act - all of these may work to attract attention. But once attention is attracted, we must have something relevant to say. Personally I would be happy only with the argument part of it, all the other things exhaust me. But how can I take away the joys of others? For myself, I stand in solidarity with a grass roots women's rights group in Jamtara (Jharkhand) who argued with their local mosque that if it allowed the system of triple talaaq, they should  rule that triple the contract price should be given to the divorced woman by her divorcing husband. What was the argument of this women's group? - That the rule of 3 should apply to everything. The local priesthood had been stumped by this gem of an argument, as was I. But they got their way, and in the end that's what matters.

What women said: A women's rights activist from the grass roots of my beloved Chhotanagpur was often offered alcoholism as an explanation of domestic violence. And told that her women's rights group should work on removing alcoholism, then domestic violence would easily disappear. And I was never tired of her response to this. First she would confuse them by asking he group how many of their freinds and family drank regularly and how many of their drinking freinds/family had domestic trouble. As the weakness of their argument began to present itself to them, my freind would launch her final attack - "And now," she would ask, " If alcoholism gives rise to violence, how many people in the drinking corner, on the way back home and inside the home does the alcoholic man beat up?"  No one but the wife? Yes, she thought so too. Did the group have an idea why the wife stood out in this alcoholic haze? Yes? Ah, she did too. And then, having got the group to the foot of the stairs, she'd start pushing them up, one difficult step at a time.
What I learnt: The root cause of the problem should drive feminist thinking and praxis. At the end of the road of every patriarchal system lay one common principle - women are secondary to men.  Anything else was an aside. A drunk man beat up his wife only because he saw her as secondary to him. Not because he was drunk. And so, if we wish the break down this system, feminists need to focus on equality, not necessarily prohibition.

And so it went, my Feminism of the grass roots, learnt in that language. What interested me the most was the depth of wisdom of my teachers. And the extent of their often amused contempt for the men they knew and saw. As in one animated, angst ridden discussion on how violent our world had become, one of the older women in the group said it applied only to the men. Only the men had become violent, the silly creatures that they are. And we asked -  the women weren't? No she said, women were not as silly as the men. They did fight their battles though, they had more honor than the men. Her tranquil reply to our agitated questions was "Termites" - you can't see termites. You can't hear termites. You can't count termites. And the outsides of the furniture they attacked was left untouched. Yet once the termites got at it, everything was emptied out from inside - everything  broken and eaten and digested. The woman smiled to herself in satisfaction and I can still see her moving her hand in a circular motion, fingers outspread, saying, "All gone! All empty inside!" - as she said it," ander sey khokhla!" And hence, armed with my battle mascot, the Mighty Termite, I ate and digested my own demons, learning much from my Mighty Teachers. That would be material for another post though.

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Dissent and the feminist dictionary

A time of protests. Which in a state of democracy, all must participate. But I cannot yell - a bit of trouble with the thyroid. And besides I hate being yelled at so I shrink from shouting at others. Can't say nasty things either. My hostel room mate from school still maintains that I am the only black spot in her life - as her room mate and best friend I did not learn either to drink, or to swear. And yet, as a feminist, as a single parent bringing up two daughters in a city like Delhi, as a Bengali, leaning heavily to the left, I must contribute, I must give advice. Let me choose my first identity for this post - that of a feminist, and share with the protestors a few words, re-defined by the feminist experience. Here you go -
Dissent:   a difficult word in a dangerous place.  So when you use the word, be prepared. Do not, under any circumstances, expect love and affection, bonhomie and understanding. Drink some Horlicks, put a tube of Boroline in your pocket and prepare for arrest, assault and worse.  Here, I must admit to having limited experience. Us feminists have not got as far as dissent. We are still in a difficult place with the idea of consent you see. So if you are cleverer and luckier than us and can get to a less dangerous place with dissent, we’d be very willing learners. We could still help with the experience of assault though.
Secular, unlike what you may believe is a very limited word, with a marked tendency of closing doors instead of opening them, if you are not careful. Being secular involves only one of our many identities as active citizens. But it seemed a good word to use and so we feminists signed on to it. As soon as we did we discovered to our dismay that now everything in our lives from science to sex would be interpreted through this one identity. And worse, we got labeled as being grumpy because we are apparently never satisfied – even with the good things in life. Our advice on this one – choose your causes carefully. Sometimes, when you choose to stand facing the sun, the shadows, instead of falling behind you, wrap themselves around your ankles and yank back. And instead of standing strong, you find yourself face downwards staring at ground zero.

Sedition, to quote an unforgettable English teacher of mine, is like shot silk. What you see depends on which angle you are looking from. Shift your position slightly to the left for example, and you’ll find that what seemed decidedly green now looks saffron. Feminists have occupied this space for a very long time. There seem to be very few things in our wish list that do not seem to be anti state. Looked at one way or the other, in one country or the other, everything we are or do has some time or the other been or is anti state. Voting, not voting, marrying, not marrying, divorcing, having a child, not having a child, having one child, having seven children, having a child outside of marriage,  working, not working, working full time, working from home, emigrating, not migrating, staying in the house, not staying in the house, wearing clothes, not wearing clothes, wearing certain kinds of clothes, standing for elections, not standing for elections, having a mobile, not having a mobile, being a porn star, not being a porn star, drinking alcohol, not drinking alcohol, loitering, not loitering, - this list could go on. We have been to jail and worse for most of these. Our advice on this one – look for the fabric and not the colours on the fabric. The fabric holds the inequality, the colours are the conspiracy - meant to blind you to the real thing. In India, dowry was long seen as a cause of discrimination and violence against women. In East Africa, exactly the opposite practice of dowry – bride price was perceived as the cause of violence against women. And in both places, it was always the brides who faced violence. The colours shifted, yet the inequality remained the same. And yet, in India, feminists spent years of very hard struggles to change laws and attitudes towards dowry - only to realise that we had been looking at it from only one angle. In these times of eternal access to information, look carefully at all the colours before you say ‘sedition’.

Freedom: the toughest journey in the world. Do not assume that you will get it free - the price we pay for freedom is the highest we can imagine. Do not assume that you can get there alone - others are essential to your freedom, including, never mind your existing outrage against them - your oppressors. Do not assume that freedom is a place you arrive at - it is a process and as soon as you sit back and relax, you slip back to where you started. Do not assume that freedom is a public idea that sits outside of you - it upholds very clearly feminism's belief that the private is public - you cannot champion for freedoms that you yourself do not practice. Do not assume that freedom is about violence and angst only - it is about peace and tranquility, respect and dignity, and quite often grace and laughter. I have never seen a photo of Aung San Suu Kyi without that flower in her hair. Our advice on this one - if you want freedom, get ready for a never ending journey, not arrival - this journey does not have a destination.

The protestor may well ask, am I arguing for a world where dissent, secularism, freedom, is difficult and so should not be striven for? I argue and work for exactly the opposite, brave protestor – a diverse, equal, sustainable, exciting, dynamic world where everything is an equal partner in Life. This post is only to remind you that we are far from there, that the road there involves a lot of ugliness, that you stand where you do because millions of others have fought all their lives for your freedoms and that the journey, though well worth every battle, is a long,  weary and often lonely one.  There is no quick fix to get there, no free lunches. And finally, our advice on this one- as the feminist adage goes - you cannot destroy the master's house with the master's tools. We need many new tools to make the world a better place. And new tools need new ideas, new friends, new investments, new languages - work on these, they make the journey worthwhile. Don't waste your time on sloganeering - a feminist friend protesting violently in a group against the Miss India contest outside the contest venue overheard a nearby group of boys wondering why this group of women were yelling. One of them explained seriously that maybe they had not got tickets to the show, like the boys. Another boy said wisely that my friends group  was yelling in anger and sorrow because they weren't chosen for the contest. Needless to say, my feminist friend has worked very hard on new tools, cut down her sloganeering and redone her wardrobe.
I trust this set of protests will contribute to this body of learning. And one day we shall become a better people. The world a better place. In strength, support and solidarity.

What does Mr. Gupta do?

A primary principle of patriarchy is to keep women busy. Always somewhat puzzled and exhausted by this constant need for women to be doing something, I have tried to promote the need and use of solitude for women. Often to be violently opposed by the women themselves. If they did not find enough to keep themselves busy with there were always the social obligations. To me these mostly seemed to consist of incomprehensible  events in the lives of indeterminate relatives. Even in a family as unusual as mine, I reluctantly conceded that the men had a slight edge over women in escaping social obligations.

I found souls in solidarity, yes, but they were few and far between. A college professor swept aside our interest in jewellery saying if we were clever enough (she was) we should be able to see through the fact that jewellery and other such 'ladies business' are designed to keep women's minds busy with silly things so that they will not claim power. At that time I was willing to make that immense sacrifice of not going to Chamba Lama any more, but was not clear what power really meant, so I wisely decided to wait. Later in life I found that Chamba Lama did not interfere with my access to power. But I found my professor was right in a hundred other ways about the silly things and power. And I found that every time I or any other woman decided to move away from the silly things, we faced a battle of sorts.

Even within her home, any such deviation by the woman invites apprehension, anxiety, suspicion - depending upon what kind of family yours is.

"Ki rey, all alone on the roof? Why so sad?"

"A few minutes to rest by yourself? Sciatica, again?"

And then, what if these battles are fought outside the home? I found, as I went along that the experience of these battles was the experience of power. And that these battles were fought with the strangest of weapons.

One of the advantages of belonging to an eccentric family was that as one grew older, one became entitled to one's own peculiar eccentricities. When we were younger, eccentricities were limited to those already established by parents, uncles, aunts, older cousins, grandparents, etc. but I was older now and entitled to my own. And so, around the time I turned another decade and announced my intention of travelling  solo every 6 months, my family took this proposal with pragmatism and interest. Not so the rest of the world.

Besides, I was in India. Indians, as a people do not travel alone. In recent years, it has become acceptable for men to travel alone for work. In the very recent years a minuscule number of Indian working women have attempted this Unindian task. But these too are linked primarily to work related travel. And hence its acceptance is tinged with sympathy for the woman whose unforgiving job takes her away from the safe and happy confines of her home and family.

Used to fielding questions about travelling alone on work, I quickly found that acceptance for travelling alone for leisure invited sympathy, an unhealthy curiosity, puzzlement, or direct attack - depending upon who your co travellers were.

If I naively explained that I was travelling to Place X for a break from my everyday life and had always wanted to see Place X, co travellers would nod and smile,

Ah, I was on holiday! Travelling with Mummy and Daddy?

Not exactly, no, I was the Mummy now and -

Aha, travelling with the children then?

No.

Oho! Travelling with the Daddy! (Twinkle in eye)

Again, sorry, but no. No Daddy in the picture, you see -

At this point the expressions would become either embarrassed or stern and either way conversation would become stilted. And I was usually left to myself - which was the point of my solo travel anyway. There have been times on trains, buses, airplanes, where escaping my co travellers is physically difficult, the intense curiosity of my co passengers has cut through my usually formidable reluctance to engage.

I was once asked very early in such an interrogation after I had replied to a few questions in monosyllables, as to

"What does Mr. Gupta do?"

My interrogator in that train  compartment was a middle aged, balding shiny shoed man, his waist barely contained in his belt and his pompousness barely contained in his behaviour. Realising I was travelling alone, he turned cocky, insufferable and raised his voice slightly when speaking to me, as one would do to a naughty child. He had been staring at my every move and listened intently when the ticket checker looked at my ticket and checked past me, as they often do - "Malini Gupta?"

This had prompted the man to ask what Mr. Gupta did. He was leaning forward, eyes gleaming, avidly curious and bent on getting what he wanted. At this point I had a vivid vision of the hundreds of questions tumbling about in his head that he wanted to ask me - each question wanting to get ahead of the other and all tripping up on his tongue.

Unwilling to let this moment go, I leaned forward, grinned and said in a voice slightly louder then his, that Mr. Gupta had a fisheries business but I suspected he was actually a gun runner as he had been to jail twice. For the east of the journey a hush would fall over the coupe if I as much as changed my position in my berth. I carefully listed these weapons.

There were other times that there were no opportunities for either entertainment or weapons research. On one such occasion,  a long train journey across central India, I settled in to my side berth in a near empty compartment. After a few happy hours of solitude a large group boarded the train, filling up the compartment with shouted conversations. Of this naturally Bengali group, a set of garrulous, luggage bedecked, fully socked and shawled ladies marched into my little space. One of them proceeded to occupy my berth and made a subsequent attempt on my mind. I had to share my berth with her till night time, and retreated to one side, looking out of the window or reading my book. My reluctance to talk she promptly assumed to be sorrow at having to travel alone. I was aghast at her intrusion and assumption but she was on the warpath already. She told me in a voice quivering with righteousness that it was dangerous for a woman to be alone. My reply that a mob could be equally dangerous, she swept aside ruthlessly.

I was sad, she said, and that was why I was opposing her.

I was happy, I said, and that was why she was opposing me.

She was unmoved. The dangers a single woman faced were from her own mind, she said.

Not from the minds around her? I asked pointedly, but it went unnoticed.

I should have been able to take it in my stride but her fervour of conversion caught me off guard. She lectured me on 'improving' my mind- read books on the lives of good women, amulets, charms, astrology, ashrams. I was intrigued by the ashram and asked her how the ashram could help. Because it would help me fill my mind with correct thoughts.

At other times, I would have argued through this. But this time I was tired, I didn't want to explain myself. I wanted nothing but to be left in peace to read my book. The last thing I wanted was this fervent, aggressive person stamping around inside my head. And so I spent a rough night, desperately side stepping her advice, her horror of my solitude and her inability to listen. At dawn, exhausted, immeasurably irritated I crept out and opened the door of the bogie. I sat down on the steps  and lit a cigarette. The smell of the cigarette, the clickety clack of the train soothed me. I looked out, breathed in deeply of the fresh day, watched the hills and forests slip past and assured myself hat the world was larger than the lady's mind.

Click. The door opened and the indefatigable warrior peered out. Seeing me sitting on the steps she started to speak but caught sight of the cigarette in my hand. Her eyes went from the cigarette to my face and back to my cigarette. Her mouth snapped shut, eyes went blank and she retreated without a word. I sighed and stayed sitting for as long as I could. By the time I went back to my berth, she and her companions had left to join their larger group in the next compartment. The accoutrements of battle were diverse, I reminded myself.

What I found interesting was that though most people were curious about my travelling alone, sometimes irritatingly so, mostly people were puzzled. But as yet, I have never found this to hamper my experience, besides having to answer a few questions that people should not ask in the first place. And so, along with my own experience of travelling alone, grew my understanding of what I was expected to be as a woman my age, exactly how much of that I was not, and how I chose to deal with that gap. Over the years, it has truly been a journey of discovery of many kinds. One that I would recommend to all. Try it. You might find some good stories to tell, some innovative weapons of war. God knows guns could do with a rest.