Dammit, will you bloody FIGHT?

Featuring one of the most powerful posts I've read in quite sometime. The author is a friend and colleague.

Dammit, will you bloody FIGHT?

By Pallavi Ail

When I was 14-years-old, I was attending a school about 20 kms away from home. I used to travel to school by train with my elder sister.

One day, enroute home, I was waiting for my sister on the railway platform while she purchased some chocolates from a vendor. The platform was crowded, as usual, the way it is supposed to be at around 3 p.m. on a weekday.

Suddenly, I felt someone pinch my ass. I turned around immediately and saw a guy right behind me, reaching out again.

I saw red. I acted completely out of reflex. I stamped on his foot and swung my water-bottle in his face. I started clawing his face with my untrimmed  nails, all the while screaming abuses. I kicked him, throwing all my weight on him.

People stopped and stared. My sister came running back, but didn’t help. She stood calmly, while I kept a strong grip on the guy, screaming. By then, some bystanders came to their senses and tried separating us.

(Later, she told me — she wanted me to learn to fight. “That’s the only way to deal with this,” she tells me even now)

My sister then walked up and said we wanted to go to the station master’s cabin. Couple of people in the crowd caught hold of the guy’s collar and dragged him there. We registered a complaint and my mother was called.

From the second my attack began till the end, the guy was shaking. The smirk which he wore while trying to touch me was replaced by absolute fear. He was crying and saying, “I didn’t do anything.”

I was 14. And I didn’t possess the Amazonian physique I have today. Maybe I didn’t cause any physical damage to that creep. But I am pretty sure, I scarred him psychologically. That he would have thought twice before trying to pinch any other schoolgirl’s butt again.

Yes, I am hellishly proud of myself. Extremely, in fact.

I.DID.SOMETHING.

 ———-

I don’t know what’s the ratio of actual rape to other minor molestation cases, an example of which I outlined above. But, I can safely assume, rape must constitute a fraction of overall sexual harassment cases.

Every Indian girl was been pinched, caressed, touched, add all the verbs you want. Every girl. I dare you to find a single girl who has not been sexually harassed.  But how many of those sexually harassed girls retaliated?

I have realised from 26 years of being a female that majority of all harassment incidents occur in public. These perverts are cowards. They don’t want to be seen. They get their high on moving quickly through the crowd, handling as many females as they can.

I have also realised that majority females shudder when touched, feel dirty, feel like ripping their skin, etc etc. AND KEEP THEIR MOUTH SHUT. Do you have any idea how powerful you are? These guys get terrified even when you turn around look them in their eyes. They don’t expect that.

Remember, these people don’t get their kicks only from touching you. They get it because they feel powerful, they feel as they touch you, you cower: terrified, scared, hapless. They feel they own you, your body when they do that. That’s the source of their perverted pleasure.

So what do you do? You  bloody fight back.

The last couple of weeks I have read innumerable statuses and tweets and blogposts on the following topics:

1) The government needs to enforce a death penalty for rape

2) Rapists should be castrated; chemically or otherwise

3) Indians need to change their attitude

4) Indian mothers need to raise their sons properly

Here’s my opinion on each of them:

1) The government needs to enforce a death penalty for rape

Death penalty doesn’t solve anything. Do you know that even murderers are not awarded death penalty outright? Even if the legislature amends the law and introduces a death penalty for rape, it won’t be that simple. They will introduce exceptions like “intention to commit rape” and “premeditated rape,” and the worst of the lot “rape of passion” — wherein the defense counsel will examine whether the rape was “instigated.” Want to hazard a guess where that line of questioning will go?

Now you will get angry. Why should there be loopholes like this? Why can’t it be simple and straightforward? Rape is rape. Rape is committed, hang the guy. Take a deep breath. Every law has an exception, because every incident has one too. Like rapes, there have also been cases of consensual sex, where the sex is later fabricated as rape. Yes, you will curse me now; but like no rapist should go unpunished; no innocent guy and his family should also be subjected to a draconian law which has no safety lines.

2) Rapists should be castrated; chemically or otherwise

I confess. Castration is a punishment I have literally screamed from rooftops for rapists. But will it deter possible rapists? Maybe yes, maybe no. India banned amputation and punishments in same genre, post-independence.

I am trying to be realistic here. Will castration ever be a punishment for rape? NO!! Because, while it is an option of the passionate, it won’t even be considered by cold-hearted, practical legislators. Punishments like cutting hands, feet, etc have a dead-end. Tomorrow if the accused is actually found to be innocent, then what? There is no overturning of the sentence. He is handicapped — for life!

3) Indians need to change their attitude and;

4) Indian mothers need to raise their sons properly

Seriously? Ok, take a deep breath again. And read the following sentence very slowly, absorbing each word in, muse over it very very slowly and then answer.

Do__you__think__men__will__change__their__attitude??

Do you actually believe that taking into account the volume and scale of the protests, perverted jerks will introspect and think “Oh, I am a bad, bad person. I resolve I will never touch any girl again.”

Yeah, right!

Do you also believe that male-centric, narrow-minded, orthodox establishment will change their mindset? Do you think that people will stop asking “So what was she wearing?” “What was she doing there at that time?” “Why was she with a guy?” etc etc

No, they won’t. Maybe 20 years down the line, when we are the “elders,” it may wane (I highly doubt that too, because majority Indians live in villages), but what about now?

WHAT ABOUT NOW?

NOW, WE FIGHT.

And this is not vigilantism. This is pure self-defense.

Next time you are pinched — turn around, yell, punch. You don’t need to know self-defense. I didn’t know self-defense when I was 14, I don’t know it now. Use your nails, your fists, use that 5-kg handbag which you tote around.

Look the goddamn pervert in the eye. Show you are not scared. Show him touching you hasn’t degraded you, but it will damn well cost him.

Now if EVERY girl does this, every girl “names and shames” the guy, do you think that they will have the guts to touch every girl? No, they won’t. They will be unsure, they won’t know whether the girl they are reaching out to won’t get them thrashed by an angry mob the minute the girl starts screaming.

There is still the chance that you will be accosted at night, when no one is around. Maybe 4 or 5 guys will try to overpower you. Maybe it is your most powerful punch, but the guy is huge. I don’t have solutions to these. This will happen, it won’t disappear overnight.

I am talking long-term solutions here.

Yes you can put up a “this is a pathetic country” status, you can tweet how your heart bleeds for the victim, you can “hang your head in shame” about everything. All that amounts to NOTHING.

You actually think you will honor her memory by doing that? She fought, dammit. Time for you to fight.

Stop cowering under your stupid sense of “modesty” and “what will people say.”

Its easy to say and not to practice, you say?

If you believe like I do that your body belongs to you, that its yours to fiddle with, then please respect it first. On what grounds do you say that “people won’t respect my honor, if I scream out?”

It will be a tough start. Many times, you will cringe, other times you will just try to forget and move on. DON’T.

If you can hold a placard, if you can post a status, you can SCREAM.

Start yelling.

PS- Link to the original article: http://mobiusmusings.wordpress.com/2012/12/31/dammit-will-you-bloody-fight/

Rape and TRPs

So there was a rape. You know which rape I’m talking about. 

A gang rape.

Bang in the national capital.

In a moving bus.

That went undetected through a police check point.

The victim, a 23-year old girl, was thrown out of the bus into a wilderness. She sustained critical injuries and had to have her intestines removed.

All through this, the social media, which includes me, posted a gazillion outrage messages and pictures, and signed petitions.

The social media came up with several ways to threaten a potential a rapist, ranging from capital punishment to barbed tampons.

I share things, I know what’s happening, but I, a print journalist, have not read a single comprehensive news article on this. Shame on me. I know.

And I admit I know too little. Courtesy, the news channels, to a large extent.

After having watched a few visuals of it, I must say, I’m thoroughly disgusted.

I’m not saying it is overdone. I’m saying it’s so overdone, that I don’t want to even think about the entire episode or read any articles on the same.

Incidents like these put me in a state of quandary. I’m a journalist. Our kind earns their bread and butter by covering such news. 

But displaying large-sized fonts of OUTRAGE! NATIONAL SHAME! VOICE YOUR OUTRAGE on the screen, leaves me wondering what the channels are trying to do.

Yes, a channel needs TRPs. It needs ad revenue. That’s just good business sense. I embrace it.

But forcibly stoking the emotions of the public, instead of telling them what's happening currently, that's just greed.

Calling the mother of a rape victim, and bombarding her with questions like "So, did your daughter ever recover from the trauma?" borders on cruelty. 

What could the news channel possibly be thinking inviting a mother over for the show? A sense of drama spikes TRPs, understood. But this? It’s just plain insensitive. But who cares about insensitivity, when you're earning a couple of crores, right?

And then, there are the ubiquitous debates that have turned into loud shouting contests. For whose benefit, I beg you.

The guests barely get to share their expertise on the issues. Moderators hop from one guest to the other, leaving them bewildered, and rendering us plain confused.

Debates are intended to inform the audience of the current state of affairs, start a thinking process and encourage discussions, not whip the audience into a state of frenzy.

A little information, always was and always is a dangerous thing.

With a large, visible platform like Facebook and Twitter, we run the risk of letting half truths seep through large portions of the population.

For example, someone posted a status that a new law, requiring capital punishment for committing a rape, would not help the situation, because women can’t be trusted. Why? Because four of his friends were victimized by the misuse of dowry harassment laws.

And quotes from a news channel, dubbed  “the national TV” were used to close the argument, which by the way received over 250 replies, consisting of outrage and nonchalance alike.

Do you see what’s happening here? The debates on TV channels are supposed to provoke thinking, and encourage discussion, and not leave us feeling empty and helpless at the state of affairs. 

It’s our kind’s main duty to inform the public. Not dramatize, but inform. Not hold trials on TV, but simply inform. And let the public come to a decision. And we’re failing at it. 

The channels have little information to share. And that's what stumps me. They showcase shows that earn maximum ad revenue. So how come there aren't enough reporters hired to feed information into the system?

And so, what they display, is what they talk, is what they repeat. It’s not information overload, it’s just good-old fashioned spam.

Everything is dumbed down. The information is not served on a platter. But the appropriate reactions to it are fed to us, with one giant spoon.

All of which goes to show something is really rotten at the core of the system.

We seem to be failing in that one sacred duty our profession demands from us- To inform, without dramatizing the situation for the sake of TRPs.

Failing miserably. Every step of the way.

She sat in front of her computer, typing away furiously.

She wrote and cried, wrote a bit more, bit her lip, clawed at her face, but she continued nevertheless.

She shook, she shivered.

Dabbing her eyes with a tissue; she tried to let her mind rein in on her emotions. She took a deep breath, moved back and forth on her chair.

You can do this, she repeated to herself, while touching her keyboard fondly.  

The shivers returned. 

She was a writer, and an accomplished one at that. Words opened new worlds for her. She believed in their power to drive change, to drive her into a new story. She also knew the fatal power they had. She had used them, far too many times, with heaps of success.

She decided what they meant, what they conveyed. 

When the letter arrived today, the words, her one true friend, suddenly seemed alien to her. They were neither charming, nor blunt. They were just a scramble of letters, threatening to push her into the unknown. 

She realized the meaning of her words would change. She knew her view of life would change. A new meaning, a new form. Her imagination, her means of sustenance in this dark world, would be stuffed into a tiny little corner, overshadowed by what would come.

She had made peace with the discomfort over the last twenty years. What she did, earned her enough money to keep her going for a lifetime. She enjoyed her work and lost days together, immersing herself in it. 

But now, at this point in life, she wasn't expecting it, and honestly thought she wasn't in need of it. But she couldn't refuse it. She had to do it, not for herself, but for her family, who raised her and loved her.

With little time on her hands, she made her choice. With a new found resolve. She decided to have the surgery the next day.

Tomorrow she would see strange things, as a stranger in an unseen world. 

She stilled her shakes. 

She went back to writing. One last time. One last story on her braille keyboard.

Glut - of several kinds

If one had looked down to the earth from outer space on July 31, both North India and parts of North America probably showed thick strokes of black, although  for two very different reasons.

That day, India played host to the world’s worst ever black out, while elsewhere in the west, companies were setting fire to their share of natural gases, a byproduct of excessive oil drilling in certain parts of United States.*

When oil is pumped from an oil well, natural gas also is recovered. While oil is stored, natural gas is processed and the remnants, which are unusable, are ignited using gas flares.

The flares, orange in colour, evolved into thick serpentine smoke above the Americas, and on the other end of the globe, life came to a halt for about 600 million Indians.

Typical gas flares Image courtesy:Wikimedia

At the outset, the two issues have a common denominator-lack of infrastructure.

Grid failure in Agra brought life to a standstill across 21 states in India. Excessive use of electricity by states, fuelled by transmission losses and lower production, failed the grid.

There’s barely enough for the Indian states to get by. Nuclear power plants are being set up, much to the dismay of the locals and environmentalists. Precious time in the parliament is lost over debating energy issues.

Spanning wide away to the west and rewinding to about six years ago, natural gas and oil was thought to be in shortage in United States. People then learned to drill horizontally into shale formations (Shales are sedimentary rocks, rich in petroleum and natural gas), by pumping sand and water into stone structures to release the trapped fuels. This new technology helped tap oil and natural gas in the previously unexplored areas.

Availability rose, prices fell, storage houses maxed out, while flaring rose to an all time high.

According to an article by David Fessler, about 100 million cubic feet of gas gets burnt everyday at Bakken shale formations, at the northern part of United States. That’s enough to heat up 5,00,000 homes.

He also says, “Burning that much natural gas spews about two million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually. According to the Times, that’s as much as 384,000 cars, or one moderately sized coal plant, throw off.” Read the article here

Pipelines and processing plants haven’t been able to match up to the speed of extraction. Oil prices have been falling, with U.S. crude touching a three month low of about $77 per barrel.

Indians continue to pay sky high prices for fuel, thanks to the complicated pricing system, which I honestly do not have the energy or patience to understand.

I work at US timings in India; spend time getting to know their resources, while spending ours.

While we’re talking about energy, lets also talk clean energy—solar companies. Incidentally, U.S. companies are shifting away from clean technology. Chinese companies are producing them at a price the U.S. companies cannot hope to compete with.

If I sound patronizing for the American companies, you should know I have no special affinity for them. But I do care when the clean tech stocks fall, because that’s equivalent to raising a red flag to all those who would want to invest in a cleaner tomorrow.

On one hand, investors are pumping money in oil companies, which are burning gas away by the second while on the other-they’re taking money off solar companies, which could pave way for a greener tomorrow. On a third hand, if there is one, India is.. well you know what’s happening in India.

Life,world, earth, nature... thy name is paradox.

*Parts of North America and other oil fields in the world, would have (probably) shown thick black smoke since quite some time anyway

Stumpd

There were three of them.

“My favorite car is … Esteem,” a girl, the eldest of the three said.

The younger ones, a girl and a boy, watched her in awe, stumped by her brilliance.

They didn’t know how to top her choice.

Why? – asked the little girl, attempting to understand how god could give her all the good ideas.

"Because I like how it looks..!" the eldest replied.

The boy was silent.

Next day, the girl, the middle one, walked into the hall, where popular Kannada serial starring Sihi Kahi Chandru was running on TV.

"My favorite car is Esteem!"

The eldest scrunched up her face. “You cannot. It’s mine.I chose it yesterday already,”she said.

“I don’t know, I want it too,” the younger girl despaired.

The youngest boy joined in the conversation. “I want Esteem too,” he said.

Two against one. The eldest knew she had to do something.

“Why? Why is Esteem your favourite car?” she asked them.

“Because I like how it looks!” both said in unison.

“Naa ..That was my answer.Cheating!” the eldest said.

“aaa..ummm.. I know I know,..” The two young ones came up with random phrases; looked up at the sky with big round dumb eyes until they realized they truly did not know the answer.

The eldest smiled and explained “I like it because it looks is run on petrol and petrol smells so nice.”

“Ah.” Stumped again! The two kids go back.

Next day, the younger girl sees a black jeep on the road and tells her sister. “My favorite car is jeep! You can smell more petrol in jeep. Aaannd it’s black! My favorite car is the best!” she beamed proudly.

The boy, sensing new development, half falling off his cycle said, "Mine too!"

The eldest smiles. “Esteem is not my favorite anymore. I have new best favorite. You can have it if you want, "she says to the boy.

The boy, confused between jeep and Esteem, again looks up, big eyed, hoping for a solution.

The younger girl meanwhile challenges her sister. “Why? How come? No way is your car better than mine.”

The eldest smiled, contented with her smarty-pants-answer.

The boy, in shorts, meanwhile, is still figuring out what to choose.

“Pss..My favorite jeep is black in color” the little girl offers.

“Oh!” That seemed to clear up his confusion. “Okay.My favourite car is black jeep,” the boy announced. 

The two triumphantly look at their elder sister. 

The elder drops a bomb. She smiles and says. “My vehicle needs no petrol.”

“Ha ha ha..” the kids guffaw.. “You can run esteem on water? Ha.. hoge le … no chance!”

“Is it black?” the younger girl questions suspiciously.

“No.”

The boy turns away disinterested. What is not black isn’t interesting, he decides. But still hangs around for the eldest's answer.

“Then?”

“I don’t need petrol.. I can run my vehicle on air!” she proudly announces.

With no hint of a prank on her face, the two kids make a horrified there’s-something-in-the-world-I-don’t-know expression. The defiant girl looks up at her and asks, “What is this vekcle (she couldn’t pronounce or know what a vehicle was back then)

“I can ride it without a license. I don’t need to spend money on petrol, can your “black” jeep do that?,” eldest prodded.

The boy comes back to join his sister in her dumbfounded expressions. They look at each other gloomily and look down.

“My favorite vehicle is a Cycle!” she happily says.

Realization dawns.

 Another day, another challenge, we will win, the kids think.

Besides eating-pooping-sleeping, the younglings had to now think of newer ways to beat their sister. Phew, life’s hard; the girl thinks and goes to sleep, skipping her usual poop routine at bed time. “I have to think. I will not do extra work I won't poop,” she declares to herself and drifts away to sleep. 

Looking at Aradhane from the periphery

This new avatar as a journalist has me questioning a lot of things I previously took for granted, things that I thought was fairly basic and fundamental.

For example, consider the aradhane. 

Yesterday, Aug. 5, 2012, was the third day of the Raghavendra Swamy aradhane. And I visited three mutts (a temple of a different kind)- I insisted on visiting one of them, something I would never ever do previously- just so I could understand the logic behind grandeur of it all. More on that later.

Let me give you a little bit of intro- This was 341^st aradhane(anniversary of his cremation in Mantralaya).  All mutts celebrate the festival with pomp and show; most of the mutts I’ve visited over the past also serve a free meal (read elaborate lunch).

The number of devotees that throng mutts is enormous.

On a personal note, I have never been excited by religious events. At best, I can call myself secular. I’m happy to live my set of opinions on god and religion. However, I do like them for one reason, it gives people, a reason to celebrate and be merry. I look at the faces of people and enjoy, while all the religious folks bathe themselves in the customs and traditions of it all.

The aradhane is, to a large extent, a carnival for the elderly. Just like I sit with friends and compare notes before the exams, the elderly (atleast in my family) compare notes on the sweets served, the bhajans sung, and the benefits volunteers receive across different mutts. And the fervor is even more pronounced in my family- not just because we( excluding me)  are sworn devotees .. but also because we happen to be direct descendants of Rayaru(aka Raghavendra swamy). Yeah, blue blood and all..Go figure! The middle name Beegamudre should point you in the right direction.

On Aug. 12, I sat through 10 minutes of comparing notes on food and the niceties of the event in my cousin's home.“Oh, nam matha(mutt) dalli haygreeva kanri.. Fruit salad oo hakidru,” mom beamed proudly, as if it was her family function. “Also...” (I tried to translate this for the benefit of non-Kannadigas... sorry... I cannot..! It’s impossible!)

Unfortunately, she was interrupted by another family member, who was busy recalling some funny incident that involved an aachar (priest) and a volunteer.

Before that could end, another started on how nice the previous day was, which was cut short by who they met in the event... It was at this point I decided to sneak away and troll on Facebook. Much simpler you see.

Anyway, in one of the three mutts I happened to visit, an achaar was narrating a purana( a story--specifically glorifying rayaru).

“Who, here is poorer than he was at that time.”

My reaction- errmm..Duh! Several millions! What with all the inflation and all! And back then, when rayaru existed, the economy was much better that it is now. People dealt with gold, like they buy rice now!

I became a bitch for facts when I became a journalist.

Sure, he was poor. He went on to inspire people and do great things. No one’s contesting that- but making a statement as blatantly misinformed as that, I thought was thoroughly off putting.

He made several other statements.

“Who here, faced more difficulties than he did?” and several rhetoric questions basically aimed at glorifying him. I have nothing against the glorification. But delivering such a misinformed lecture to everyone –I wouldn’t recommend him!

 I was even more mesmerized with the crowd’s reaction. Every single syllable out of the priest’s mouth the devotees gulped down. I walked out of the hall after thoroughly rolling my eyes at the ignorance of everyone around.

In the main hall, people were busy praying- getting prasada in plastic cups, dropping wads of cash into the hundi( the bigger, religious version of piggy bank) and I stood in the middle of the crowd wondering how much plastic, water, and electricity went into this three-day fest.

 I quickly brushed the thought aside because I knew, there are several events around the world, which consume far more resources and waste more than half of it every single say. At least this event gave hope and renewed faith in people’s lives, gave them an anchor to align their lives around, no matter how exaggerated the claims made by the aachar were.

That afternoon, I was left alone by my family, amongst a sea of devotees to eat food.

Surrounded by two ladies, well past their seventies, eating the most traditional food I could get my hands on, on the most holiest (supposedly) of days, I got invited to hang out at a pub in the evening.

I gave myself the most tactical face palm, involuntarily guffawed, much to the annoyance of the pious aunties..and realized how random and warped my life is.

PS-- A request to all the devotees... read--extensively! Question what the priest says. Reaffirm your faiths with facts! He is not your encyclopedia.. Religion is much more than bowing your head to the elderly and trusting the priest to dictate your way of life. Discover.. Because religion and life are more colorful than one can imagine!

Then and now..

    A year ago, I wore purple and black.

    Today, a year later, I wore purplish black.

    A year ago, we were together, but boundaries were abound.

    Today, we're miles apart, but the boundaries have faded away.

    A year ago, every feeling, every reaction was distinct.

    Today, I was one big pickled bag of feelings.

    A year ago, my goal was clear--broadcast it would be, I had decided.

    Today, I work in the field of convergence.

    A year ago, I was on the terrace, thinking, I'd miss every moment of the ten months to come.

    Today, I look back, and I know I couldn't have been more right.