It's not patriarchy, it's technology!

Women's equality has a new champion these days - laundry people.

Everybody from detergents to washing machines of late have been advertising themselves as the new liberators for women's cause. Cheer up ladies, because technology has finally evolved to a point where your well meaning husbands can man up to the super tough job of putting clothes in a washing machine.

*Waits for orgasmic round of applause to die down*

Yes, in case you were wondering, it was only our forefathers' primitive technology that prevented men from sharing the load. That, and your own bloody high standards. As accurately depicted in the ad where the husband shares how he graciously offered to help out after the couple had a baby, so that the wife could go back to work. Awwwwwww....

But the wife, grateful as she was, could not take him up on his offer because... Of the bloody detergent that just didn't do its job right! Because we all know a woman's hands are fitted with special detergent glands, shooting extra detergent like spiderman shooting out webs from his wrists, and so when the detergent doesn't work it's only Laundrywoman, the original superhero who can save the day. This, by the way also explains why so many women have to give up on their career once they start a family. IT'S THE BLEEDING DETERGENT!!!


Speaking of women's magical hands...

So cheer up girls, now even your dad can share the load, as the poor darling always wanted to but was constrained by the lack of powerful machine-special detergents in his generation. It had nothing to do with a patriarchal sense of entitlement, and his belief that women are somehow better at laundry is totally accurate and the scientists at Surf Excel have secret labs where women's hands are harvested in pods to extract their mojo to make better detergent.

So now you have detergents that actually work, detergent with mommy's-hand-mojo... Now if only you had a machine that men could operate...

And voilà!

There now. So ladies, if your husband refuses to do the laundry, it's not his fault you've just been using the wrong machine, or no machine, or the wrong detergent. So go out and fix it.

If technology is kind to you, you'll soon be blessed with unisex gas stoves, unisex chakla-belan and vegetables, and the day will finally come when the good men at home will be able to help you with all the difficult duties that at present cannot be cracked without estrogen, and the world will be an equal place!

*wipes single tear rolling down left cheek*

Aisa Yeh Jahan - The conundrum of being earnest

Ever so often, a film comes along that you really, really want to like for all the things it does right... or all the right things it sets out to do. Aisa Yeh Jahan, the first Hindi venture by writer-director Biswajeet Bora is easily one of those.

The film addresses some important issues that don't often find voice in mainstream Hindi cinema very often, and wraps it in a heartwarming story with children at its gooey center. And it serves it all with a generous dose of some stirring Euphoria music. All that, with solid performances by grown-ups Palash Sen, Ira Dubey and Yashpal Sharma, and of course the kids - Kymsleen Kholie in an astounding debut as 12-year-old Pakhi and Prisha Dabbas as four-year-old Kuhi - these are reasons enough to stop reading this bloody review and go watch the film before the weekend is out. Oh, and the whole carbon-neutral thing. Fact of the matter is, small, well-meaning films like this one rarely survive the weekend, carbon neutral or not.

Aisa Yeh Jahan tells the story of a nuclear Assamese family in Mumbai - middle aged couple Ananya (Ira) and Rajib Saikia (Palash) with a four-year-old daughter Kuhi (Prisha) and her pre-teen nanny Pakhi (Kymsleen), brought in all the way from their native village in Assam.

Ananya is ambitious beyond her means and forever struggling to leave behind her humble roots and blend in with the cosmopolitan crowd of the city. Her aspirations are understandable  - wanting to quit a thankless job right after she figures out a way to own that elusive 3BHK in Goregaon East (yes, they're that middle class). And the lengths she would go to achieve her ends make for some easy laughs at first, before driving you to worry for the husband and child caught in her schemes. Rajib in contrast is better educated and well-adjusted in this milieu, but couldn't care less about city life, his heart set firmly in his little village. He gets a perfect in the film's first, imminently hummable song Sautela Sheher.

This juxtaposition of an old-world order against the brisk day-to-day reality of the big city is a running theme in the movie. Caught between the two is little Kuhi, at times sharing her father's and Pakhi's fondness for nature, and at times getting caught up in the trappings of city wealth - at one point, an iPad takes over her attention from a humble plant she had just begun to cherish. A part of the first half is spent in the idyllic old village in Assam, and the camera keeps reminding you of the contrasts. Tiny apartment vs large estate. Dirty stream vs serene river. Dancing amid concrete buildings vs dancing in the fields. Drinking in a pub vs drinking under the stars.

A mango sapling named Pom, improbably growing out of an old dustbin in the city apartment's balcony comes to symbolize that constant push-and-pull between opposites.

At the beginning I mentioned the film does a lot of right things. The environmental message is only one of those. It also addresses the theme of alienation faced by North Eastern Indians in their own country quite deftly (except for one  in-your-face outburst) by making it a story about North Eastern people - I don't remember the last time we had Assamese protagonists. That may of course have something to do with Bora himself being from Assam. At the screening* I attended, Palash mentioned that Rajib is an outright stand-in for Bora himself. The story also goes beyond the issue of casual racism directed at Pakhi to delve into her own longing for home, something anybody with provincial roots and living in a big city can relate to. Yet, the message here isn't to demonize the city either, rather to embrace it as a new home and strive to make it a better place.

All of these things drip of earnestness. As is often the case, the earnestness does not entirely translate into great filmmaking craft. The film juggles with many threads, that somehow don't come together very convincingly towards the end. The whole subplot about Kuhi becoming a child model feels very forced, and rather hypocritical when you consider that the artiste playing Kuhi might have gone through the same grind to land this role. I'm also not very comfortable with Pakhi's arc - we are let on her back story, how she lost her father and Rajib's parents shipped her off to work for their son in Mumbai. Why her new guardians, even the good-hearted Rajib, choose to keep her uneducated and servile, is never addressed. That they come to her defense when a drunk friend makes some insensitive remark, and refer to her as 'beta' or a member of the family doesn't make me feel better. Rather, this highlights the deep-seated status quo concerning the treatment of domestic help in India. There is also a disturbing suggestion early on that this girl is given to expect an occasional beating at the hands of her employers. Whether all this is done to draw attention to a serious issue, or if the director does not see the problem, remains unclear.

As good of a performance the adults turn in, and as much of a delight Ira Dubey is for every second she gets on screen, I wish the grown ups had receded a little more into the background to hand over the show to the kids. While Kymsleen leaves nothing to be desired in her portrayal of Pakhi, Kuhi who undergoes the most conflicting arc remains something of a cypher. Her shifting loyalties between nature and glamour are never quite explained from her viewpoint.

And that was one viewpoint I would have really loved to explore in this story.

* The film got its first-ever screening, a low-key premiere of sorts, at Lost The Plot, a very endearing rooftop bar-cum-cinema in Aundh, Pune. The director, producer, and some of the cast members appeared to interact with the welcoming crowd, and we enjoyed the film over rounds of drinks and good food, with a nice view of hills in the backdrop. LTP is the brainchild of one Nikita Naiknavare, and the team has been doing some commendable work in bringing the film club experience to a bar near you. If you are in Pune, do pop in for an evening, even if you don't drink. Here's to more such venues in cities that have the right kind of audience looking for the right kind of bar.

Why no good TV?

In her latest piece for Newslaundry, my frenemy* Rajyashree Sen fondly reminisces on the hugely popular Mad Men, and on what makes the show great. And then she goes on to… compare it with Indian (read: Hindi) TV shows. Without taking anything away from the points she makes in the article - which you can read here - as of 2015 pointing out the poor quality of television content in India is a lot like saying there are potholes on Mumbai roads. Great observation, Sherlock!

These days it seems anyone writing an opinion piece on Indian TV shows has pretty much the same thing to say - it was good in the 80s, somewhat good in the 90s and then Ekta Kapoor. Yes, we get it. A certain kind of daily show hijacked prime time television and we all bleed for Buniyaad. Why is nobody talking about why things are the way they are? It’s no rocket science - the reason is glaringly obvious, and so is the solution.

We need to kill the daily format.

Cover me up quick!

Last year during the FIFA World Cup, I toured Brazil for a month with my husband. Since coming back, I've developed the subtle art of slipping in a Brazil anecdote in to most conversations. Like during a chat about office attire, I mentioned how cool and liberating it was to roam around in my shorts everywhere in Brazil, even in public transport. There was the whole body image thing - in India, even in a place like Mumbai, only girls with perfect bodies wear skin-baring clothes. The heavier girls and women, like me, favor long shapeless outfits that modestly cover the butt. In Brazil, women carry themselves proudly, wear comfortable clothes, wear their hair pretty. Rubs off on you.

And then there was the.... absence of staring. Wearing shorts in the sweltering heat seemed like a very natural, sensible thing in Brazil. Nobody cared if your thighs were showing. I mentioned this to my colleagues, as a very practical matter of dressing as per the weather. And one colleague contributed this little gem of wisdom -

"You try dressing like that on public transport here in India, and you'll be raped before you reach home."

Yeah, this isn't about Brazil or fashion - this is about rape and victim-blaming. But I had to slip in Brazil in that conversation.

Anyway, here, in no particular order, are things I've heard/read over the years.

Woman in my office, in the wake of Delhi gang rape:
 "You should see the way those women dress. What else can you expect?"

Senior (female) in my college, spotting me on walk back to the hostel:
"What the hell were you doing on that road? You'll get raped and come home crying."

Prominent Godman (now behind bar on rape charges) on Delhi rape victim:
"Should have called them Bhaiyya, pleaded with them."

Random well-meaning older woman, commenting on my dress:
"You should be more careful, you know. Apni izzat apne haath mein."

My mother, about the center spread in fashion magazine:
"These are the women who provoke."

Amitabh Bacchan (cop) to Zeenat Aman (complainant in eve teasing case) and 300 random extras (party guests):
Badi Khoobsurat Haseen Ek Ladki
Jawani Ki Dhoon Mein Chali Ja Rahi Thi
Fakat Naam Ko Usne Pehne The Kapde
Ajanta Ki Moorat Nazar Aa Rahi Thi
Koi Manchala Usse Takra Gaya
Mere Doston, Kuch Karo Faisla
Khataa Kiski Hai, Kisko De Hum Sazaa?

Question on Quora:
Rapes in India: Are we hypocrites when we say girls can wear whatever they want, but we keep our wallets in front pockets as a precautionary measure?

My friends, the first time we watched images of Mangalore bar assault:
"Come on, the TV channel will hyping this now. I'm sure this is not the complete story. Those guys must have found out something about these girls."

My friend in class 9, about Navratri in our hometown in Gujarat (they used to dance till the dawn before the time constraint laws came in):
"I can never imagine my mother letting me go out like this. I mean aren't these girls' parents worried?"

Guy in my class, when I confessed I'm sometimes nervous walking home alone because some of our senior girls got harassed recently:
"See, 'normal' girls don't get teased or harassed. It's only when girls try to be something more..."

Girl in class 8 to another girl who had picked a fight with one of the guys:
"Just calm down and don't mess with the boys. You never know what they could do to you."

Renowned female gynecologist in book on women, 15 to 65:
"End of the day, it's the women who suffer and bear the scars."

Senior (male) colleague, on the Tejpal scandal:
"Well I never take these stories on face value. You don't know what a scorned woman is capable of." (I told him the longer version of the story, the version not reported in mainstream media. He took his words back.)

Rajyashree Sen on Newslaundry, about American girl's article on her traumatizing experience of India:
"I’ve lived on my own in Mumbai and Delhi ever since I was 22 years old. It’s not that anything untoward has not happened to me because I’m blessed and born under the right stars or safe because I don’t have red hair, blue eyes and white skin. It’s because I’m very careful in the way I behave and dress in public, on the streets. This is the price you pay for living in India – especially as a single woman. You must be constantly vigilant."



*****


None of the people quoted above is a rapist, to the best of my knowledge. But sure, let's ban the documentary. What was it the rapist was saying in the video, again?

*****

Bonus - 7 politicians whose rhetoric beats that of Mukesh Singh:
http://www.thepoliticalindian.com/indias-daughter-documentary/

Open letter to AIB

Dear Ashish, Tanmay, Khamba and Rohan,

I have been debating whether or not to write to you for the longest time - after all, we are not friends. You guys don't know me, and I don't know any of you personally. I'm just a fan, a fan who didn't show up for your Big Night because the ticket prices were too steep. I kept meaning to catch the video on YouTube until it was taken down, and then I couldn't watch it (and I would never, EVER watch an illegally streamed copy online, 'coz that would be, you know, illegal).

So what business do I have writing to you, pretending familiarity? And then it hit me - AIB is no longer the obscure podcast I used to listen to at work, pretending to transcribe interviews. AIB is Big. AIB is Famous. I can write an open letter to you guys now, because apparently open letters are quite a thing now.

So here I am, a fan who does not know, and perhaps now, will never know (because I've still not seen the video, pinkie swear) what all the fuss over the Roast is really about. I do know your comedy.

I hold the dubious pride of having known AIB Before They Became Famous. I latched on to Ashish Shakya's HT column before there was AIB, before he even started with stand-up. I watched the first video he posted online of his stint at an Open Mic evening - "Speaking of assholes, I'm North Indian." Over the years, I have followed the growth of adult stand-up comedy in India, always meaning to catch a live show in Mumbai, and religiously tuned in for every update from AIB.

So it was totally, absolutely unsurprising for me that your show was filthy. What actually surprised me in fact, was how dumbstruck it left a lot of people, the fact that a bunch of comedians can get up to a podium and make lewd jokes. Not that I'm a fan of dirty language in my own interactions with anyone - I still get a big adrenaline rush if I so much as let the f-word erupt from my mouth, and when I do it, I do it deliberately, calculated for effect. The f-word does not come naturally to me, not as part of everyday conversation.

But it always felt natural to your comedy. What surprised me more than everybody else's distaste at the content of your show, was the sudden realization that I had been consuming all of this content for all this while without remembering to get offended. And I'm usually quick to take offence. Maybe it didn't affect me because of the inherent understanding that the language of your productions was always just part of the package. I just took it as another layer of the humor, like Mehmood in a 60's comedy speaking in a faux-Hyderabadi dialect, hoping that everything would sound funnier in Hyderabadi. Or like Navin 'Pehchan Kaun?' Prabhakar always talking like a Bar Girl. Or like Munnabhai prefixing each of his pop-philosophical pellets with "bole to...", because everything sounds funnier in bhai-boli. Or like PK speaking in Bhojpuri, because how funny would it be if an alien meted out generic opinions on earthlings in a Bhojpuri accent?

My point being, I always took it for granted that the language was just packaging, and rather beside the point. You guys are performers, and every performer has a persona. And I was always fine with it, because I agreed with the point you made. Okay, not always agreed with everything, but I have at least appreciated the earnestness of your opinions, and the fact that you have never taken the lazy route to dish them out.

In all of the material I've seen coming from any of you guys, whether on your blogs, twitter, YouTube or the original podcasts, you've never accused people of agenda beyond facts in public domain. You have never been degrading to women that I remember of. You have always backed your opinions with facts, not platitudes. You have never posted any sleazy shots of women. You stood on the right side of the Deepika-Times tussle, and took a stand against victim-blaming on the issue of rape. And you have always made yourself the butt of your own jokes more than you did anybody else. The worst sexually explicit image I've seen coming from you has been of four guys having a group orgy. Just the four of you.

Those are the things that matter to me, the gaalis and sexual innuendo notwithstanding. And perhaps you checked some right boxes for a lot of people in the film industry too, to enjoy their support the way you did. Which is perhaps why so many actors, directors and assorted industry-wallas have been so generous with their time to work on your videos, laughing at themselves along with world. This is what has set you apart from other comedy channels on YouTube. The fact that the butt of the joke was in cahoots with you.

I now hear that you have been accused of insulting people - I thought that was the idea. As a contrast, another channel posted a sketch featuring a duplicate Raghu Dixit along with the real Ayushmann Khurana. Raghu was the butt of jokes. Did any of the writers, cast and crew see what was wrong with this? You guys, you had Raghu on your panel to take all the trashing in person. That's the difference.

And funnily enough, a certain respected actor disappointed at you for the content of your show has, just like me, not seen the Roast. Well neither have I. But I have seen your other work. And I can swear upon my honor that you guys are anything but violent. Pinkie swear.

Love,

A fan.

P.S. Not sure if I need to mention this, but I completely and wholeheartedly support AIB, no matter what the outcome of all this madness. Be safe and be strong.

About the Women Against Feminism movement and why it is a good thing

First of all, a brief history.

So this happened:




Which led to this.

Then someone did this and made my day:



Meanwhile, this girl:



grew up to do this:

Naturally, someone responded with this:

And it goes on, with stuff like this, this, and more.

So now that you're up to speed, I'll tell you why as a feminist, all this Women Against Feminism (WAF) business really warms my heart.

First of all, let's take the general grouse everybody - WAFs, chauvinists, orthodox people and men at the receiving end of radical feminism - have against the F word: feminists, they say, in protesting the injustice against women often swing to the other extreme and get unfair to men.

WHAT? Feminists aren't always fair? That... is... so....;

true.

Yeah, there are men-haters, there are women who either in their zeal for service to a true cause, or meanness of their heart, or as a vent against the terrible life they've had, or maybe because they were dropped in a vat of man-hating potion as babies, err too much in the other direction.

Basically this guy with boobs.
Image courtesy: www.comicvine.com

At least I believe there are. I live in a country where a lot of women have never heard of feminism, and the idea of equality between the sexes would be alien to a lot of men as well as women. So the discourse on feminism that I have been exposed to has been substantial, based on some unfortunate realities. I haven't come across a feminist who wants to go about neutering all the men in the vicinity just for the kicks.

I'm making a POINT, people!

But my heart goes out to the men who have suffered blatant prejudice, hatred and abuse just because of their gender. To them I say, "Welcome to the club. We know how it feels."

No, I am not trying to justify the wrongs of the radical feminists on the basis of centuries and centuries of injustice meted out to women. The unfortunate fact is that every social and political movement in history tends to overcompensate the injustices it sets out to fight with equal and opposite injustice. In A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens views the French Revolution through the intimate lens of a family that finds itself on the wrong side of the class divide both before and after the oppressed classes rise in arms against the aristocrats. Without taking away from the pain and struggle that the revolutionaries had to go through to steel themselves for such a massive uprising, the novel draws focus on how innocent lives get crushed in the battle between the classes. And this was a century and a half before 'collateral damage' became part of popular vocabulary.

In India, caste and religion today have become political identities vying for the biggest piece of the power pie, while the people in whose name the wars are fought continue living under conditions unimaginable to anyone who can read a calendar.

The examples are endless, although none of that justifies that someone calling themselves a feminist should expend their time and energy to add more misery to the world. That is not what feminism set out to do.

The story of social and political movements however, does not end there. The pendulum of social justice keeps swinging until we arrive at some semblance of balance and equilibrium. In Indian politics, this should mean a Utopian future where caste, religion and language no longer define who you are and what is possible for you. When that happens, and I'm one of those optimistic fools who believe that such things can happen in the world, caste-based political parties, reservations, honor killings and stupid politicians will become redundant. It might be a very boring future, because comedians may then have to make jokes about food, but then I'm confident we'll have invented new social evils to keep ourselves amused.

For feminism, the idea of Utopia is a world where your gender does not define what is possible for you. Sure, men will still not be able to have babies, and women will still bleed every month, but beyond the actual biological differences, the forced differences between genders, based on qualities perceived to be feminine or masculine owing to centuries of conditioning, those would be gone. Women will fix their own cars and men will wash their own cups. And feminism will become a meaningless term.

The reason I think WAF is a good thing is simply that I see it as a sign of such a future becoming a reality. If you read through the reasons some of those women are citing for not needing feminism, you'll see that feminism has done its job for them. One woman - I couldn't find that image at the time of posting this - wrote a lengthy sermon on how she treats her sons and daughters equally. The lady in the video above argues that her grouse isn't against the dictionary definition of feminism, but how it actually manifests in the lives of those around her.

This is all very good, for three main reasons: 

1. Like every important social movement, feminism needs to be closely observed, critiqued and held accountable for its actions. Denying this right to anyone, however enlightened or ignorant they might be, goes against the grain of feminism. Also, if some women do not want to associate with a certain label, it is their choice and they are under no obligation to educate themselves on the subject. If they change their mind however, we'll always be right here, quietly burning our bras.
2. At the very least, the WAF movement has sparked off a debate on feminism as it stands today. It is a good opportunity to redraw focus on some of the real issues that make feminism a necessity. Also, if there is the slightest truth in any of those accusations, the feminists may want to take a step back to reassess their priorities and perhaps distance themselves from supporters who may be harming the cause by citing feminism in the wrong context.
3. But most importantly, the very fact that there are women, however few, however hated by the Internet, who really, sincerely think they don't need feminism, who feel they have everything they want in life and don't need to fight for anything, who take their voting rights for granted, who have never known a world where their intellectual capabilities could be judged on the basis of the kind of genitals they were born with... then hurray! Mission accomplished. May I live to see a world where feminism becomes a joke, where its real function will have been fulfilled long ago.

As of now, we live in interesting times. There are more and more male feminists - I know some of them right here in India. There are women standing up for men, and since they have the platform to do so, I take it that these women have received the education, financial freedom and intellectual choice it takes to upload a YouTube video. This may be true only for a tiny number of women in very few countries, but it is happening. The pendulum is swinging back, and it is slowing down near the middle.

Mumbai diaries #1

I'm going to Pune for the weekend, so this morning I came to office with a huge bag containing the week's laundry. Don't judge me, my washing machine is still in Pune and my bathroom here is still confused about its job description, so it keeps pouring water on the outer side of the door. Till ol' bathroom figures out exactly where I conduct my business, no clothes are going to get washed in the Mumbai apartment.

Anyway, since there was no way I was getting anywhere near the local trains with that bag in hand, I took an auto. The autowallah was in a chatty mood, talking now about his home town in UP, then about more cost-effective ways to live and commute comfortably in Mumbai. At a signal under a flyover, we both watched a family of under-bridge dwellers, the mother grooming the girls in fine little dresses to mark the occasion of Navratri. There were other kids about, mostly toddlers, some of them nibbling on biscuits presumably given to them by one of the more charitable passers-by. The youngest, a boy less than two years old was toddling around naked, biscuit in hand. This he offered to one of his sisters, sitting pretty in a princess dress, a tiffin container in her hand decorated with a picture of the Goddess on a bed of marigold petals. Wary of the burning incense sticking out of the container, the little guy tossed the biscuit in it for his sister to eat. The gesture seemed to offend the young lady, who quickly tossed the item on the road, where the baked treat remained, ignored by a brood of homeless kids.

Watching all this, a quick giggle escaped the autowallah, who sagely tells me, "there's someone watching over every one of us. They (the homeless family) will all have eaten something by the end of the day."

Remembering a little incident with a Marathi autowallah some days ago, I asked him if he and his fellow migrants still face problems from political goons here. No, he said, 'those guys' had all cooled down, and now they were all living happily together. He further told me that he voted for the Shiv Sena during the last elections, because he respects Uddhav Thackeray, who comes across as a level headed, educated man.

P.S. By the way I've moved to Mumbai. Working for (what else?) a magazine here.