GIRL TALK
Girl Talk
There’s nothing like girl talk between former tomboys.
It’s dreams and drama
and nostalgia and world dominion
and yearning and alliance and fireworks
all in one.
Be a girl.
At least once in your life.
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Style 101
I want to explain that by ‘alter you’, I mean alter who you think you are. You are not your body. You are not a number. You are not a colour. You are not a race. You are not a name. You are not a country. You are not a label. So who are you? Find out and your skin will fit.
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Storm Warning
Storm Warning
Every warning is also a plea
But some of us hear an invitation
I know walking into you is dangerous
But in my failing, will be your healing
And that’s dangerous for you, isn’t it?
I did warn you. Don’t warn me off.
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Spring-Cleaning For The Soul
I’m surrounded by question marks, in the shape of expensive gifts from you. I’ve discarded the funny, the cheesy, the lighthearted lines like you’ve done our laughs. But what about the Parisian box of songs? La vie en rose may as well be a life of thorns. I don’t like looking at the gold memento anymore. It makes me wonder if all you were out for, was another gold rush of emotions.
I’m sitting in a gigantic suitcase full of question marks that you’ve left behind. What shall I pack? Can I just put them all in there or should I send them back? My house isn’t big enough for all the feelings I have about these things.
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3AM Maneuvers
3AM maneuvers
Our waking moments in bed were fraught with clumsy moves and clunky negotiation. But at night, long after you’d fallen asleep, I would listen to you breathe.
Do you know how many trips I took around the bed, to judge AC draft & sound? I would fine tune air and sound and light to give you perfection in sleep that I never seem to be able to bring to your waking hours.
The nights after we’d fought the worst, you’d snore the hardest, while I lay awake, failing, even in your sleep.
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Welcome To The Friendzone
Here’s something that came to me in the middle of a shower, turning up almost fully formed and demanding to be set free from my brain. I spilt the words onto my computer, edited it on the run and read it right off my screen on stage. The last time this happened, it turned into a piece that has become my calling card.
This thought has been in my head for years now. I’ve already written it as a blogpost before. Misogynist whining masquerades as desi poetry. But this piece showed up in my head just last week, whatever be its backstory and I had fun giving it life.
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The Zodiac Signs As Feminist Women
Aries: MARD TEREKO DIKHATI HOON DARD KUTTE KAMINE
Taurus: No, that’s not nice of you. Behave now. Let’s eat, smile and sleep. Discrimination? KILL! zzzzzz
Gemini: Internalised misogyny is problematic but there’s something to the Prince Charming fantasy as long as I can be prince but rescue me..
Cancer: I don’t know, it’s raining and I’m sad and I have to run the company. I hope my boyfriend brings me flowers or I’ll have to take the flower shop over.
Leo: Equality? Yeah sure whatever. Put it next to my prime rib served on a silver platter and maybe I’ll look at it after my nap.
Virgo: The birth ratio is alarming. We also need more funds to set up counselling for battered women. And vaccination drives.
Libra: I’ll talk to you after you’ve dressed up in designer threads and played some Mozart. By then I’ll probably have taken over the world so goodbye.
Scorpio: You dare? Hmm… *darkness falls* *toofani raat sex tere saath* Everyone found dead.
Sagittarius: Equal rights is obvious, why are you such an idiot? Sorry, I didn’t mean to idiot-shame you. Chal, let’s go drink.
Capricorn: Here’s my contract. We already agreed on equality. Thank you for confirmation. I’ll send you the bill at the end of the month.
Aquarius: Feminism? Oh right, the 70s thing. Sorry I haven’t kept up since I got on that Mars mission.
Pisces: Here’s water for Gemini to drink, Aries to wipe the blood, Scorpio to wipe other things, Sagittarius to hydrate, Cancer stop crying.
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*If you liked this post, you’ll want to follow the Facebook Page. I’m Ramya Pandyan (a.k.a. Ideasmith) and I’m on Twitter and Instagram.
Lipstick Under My Burkha: Not Feminism But A Revenge Saga Against Men
I watched the much talked about ‘Lipstick Under My Burqa’ earlier this week, the first movie I’ve paid a ticket to go watch in the theatre all year. I’m not so sure it was a good decision. All week I’ve been pondering the discomfort I feel with the film. Wasn’t it supposed to make me, the Vocal Feminist, very happy? Well, it didn’t. I found some clarity in my thinking after reading this article (‘Lipstick Under My Burkha Is Bold But Not Feminist‘).
The story told me that women had problems. I knew that already. So? Does it lay them out in a nuanced way? Let’s see – marital rape, slut-shaming, moral policing. Okay, complex issues, further complicated by the tangle that is gender politics. The bedroom, women’s bodies, our relationships with each other are fraught with so much power play, so many sensitivities that there’s room for a really nuanced story.
Okay, we need to talk about the men in the movie. Why, you ask? Because neither patriarchy nor feminism exist in an isolated world of only women or only men. Both are upheld by people of all genders. Everyone is impacted in some manner by the conflicts inherent in these systems.
Four stories with a woman at the center of each. Let’s meet the men in each one’s world.
Usha buaji/Rosy is surrounded by male tenants/nephews that she keeps in check with stern looks and words. How do these men deal with an older woman who wields financial power over them? Add further nuance with one of them being a Muslim burkha shop owner – how does he deal with his home and livelihood hanging on the decisions of an older, uppercaste Hindu woman? There’s also the key male character in this story – a young lifeguard. He’s nice looking, he’s Haryanvi and he responds to phone calls from an unknown woman propositioning him. Uh, that’s it.
Rehana Abidi is an impish teenager who works at her father’s burkha shop and moonlights as a Led Zepplin humming, boots-wearing, beer-chugging activist collegegoer. How does her father rationalise letting his only child study in a co-ed college while swathed in a burkha? How does he feel about the scantily clad Miley Cyrus poster on his daughter’s wall (flimsily hidden under a towel)? What do the classmates who undoubtedly see Rehana’s daily burkha/ripped jeans metamorphosis make of her spurty activism? Why does the cool stud, Dhruv, find her interesting (apart from her being the only girl in Bhopal to know ‘Stairway to Heaven’)? Do they talk about anything other than music, drinking and making out?
Shireen Aslam appears to work in a world of only women. Her colleagues are all women, her customers are
women and she’s not shown sharing a scene with any man other than her husband and her three sons. Somehow with all this, she manages to be the ‘top salesgirl’. That’s a sales job and I don’t care what you’re selling, you can’t NEVER meet or see men. What is her husband like? How is he coping with losing his job? Does he appear defeated and indifferent to whatever else goes on (which explains why he doesn’t seem to be looking for another job)? Is he charged up, angry and driven (with enough energy to openly date a mistress and appear to enjoy it)? How can he be both? That’s not character nuance, that’s Jekyll-and-Hyde.
And finally, the story of our enfant terrible Leela a.k.a The Bad Girl who is sleeping with a photographer while trying to kickstart a business and also survive an engagement with a good Indian boy. Who’s this fiance? He’s going to keep her in a tiny room overlooking the train tracks, in a house bursting with people. But he’s also buying her mother a house. How does he feel about the financial comittment he’s undertaking? And wouldn’t he feel a lot more entitled to his fiance’s time, attention and worshipful devotion? Hey, that’s how human beings think. Alright, never mind him. How about the photographer boyfriend? Does he love our girl, does he not care? Is he using her, is he feeling used? Does he contribute to the business set-up and if he doesn’t believe it, is mere sex enough motivation for him to follow her around? And if that’s so, why does he refuse to sleep with her later?
Once more, let’s list out the men of Lipstick Under My Burkha:
- Irrationally hot-headed dependent (tenant/nephew)
- Boyfriend photographer prone to irrational rage, jealousy, ego trips and indifference
- Slow-witted, corrupt government officials
- Brainless hunk lifeguard who scatters words and smiles without abandon
- Socially awkward virgin fiance who assumes his fiance is one too
- Featureless colleague of husband who blabs to the wife about her husband losing his job
- Distant, oppressive father who frowns menacingly more than he speaks
- Abusive, cheating, absent father-husband
- College cad who dumps his pregnant girlfriend, seduces an underage girl and dumps her at the first hint of uncoolness
The first two are caricatures of irrational men whom the women constantly bully. 3-5 seem incapable of functioning as intelligent adults. 6 & 7 are not really people but blank walls with vague faces. The last two are versions of the all-dark MONSTER. Do any of these men sound like actual human beings?
I’ve heard the cry of ‘But this is a story about women!’.
This story is not set inside a women’s bathroom so why is anyone not female such shit?
That’s no more an accurate depiction of women than it is of their worlds or the men. Feminism is not about villifying men. It’s not about deifying women as long-suffering and showing the metaphorical middle finger to the world (only under the burkha and behind closed doors). It’s about respect and rights for every human being, regardless of gender or other qualifiers.
Slotting men so narrowly amounts to discrimination and what kind of feminism is it, which discriminates? As a woman, I am personally offended. I live in a world that treats me in problematic ways, yes. But I am not so weak that I need to believe that every man is a monster/imbecile. I’m offended by a narrative that tries every storyteller’s trick to define me as a victim. It turns the fight for equality into a revenge saga against men and that is offensive.
What’s worse, having adequately established the ‘See, women’s lives are HARD. Men are so horrible.’, the story closes. Like the article points out – in a cramped room, the women huddled together sharing a surreptitious cigarette and pointing a middle finger. Behind closed doors. What’s the point? Feminism was never about glorying in woe-is-me, any more than it was about hating men. Feminism above all, through its changing definitions, has always been about hope for a better world. Lipstick Under My Burkha offers none of that and sits back to have a smug, self-satisfied smoke at having put down the men. Note: Victory over men, not over patriarchy and what kind of victory is this?
Does this movie show us a single man that is not a cardboard stereotype? Any human characterizations of over half the world’s population? Any realistic depictions of the perpetrators-parallel victims of patriarchy? Any conflicted human beings troubled by the gender double standards while struggling to keep up with the changes wrought by feminism? Any angst at all in any of the men who seem to drive the women’s lives? Even a hint, a flicker of support, compassion, consideration for anyone? Any guilt, regret, confusion over how to express it? Huh?
There’s the problem. It’s not feminism if it’s looks, sounds and tastes like a revenge saga against men.
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*If you liked this post, you’ll want to follow the Facebook Page. I’m Ramya Pandyan (a.k.a. Ideasmith) and I’m on Twitter and Instagram.
