This in in response to @NameFieldmt's (twitter) blog post titled Gangrene (Click to open it in a new window)
I get why 140 characters were not enough for once for the girl who does not blog. This is heavy stuff. Many have felt that you put into words what they felt. I am one of those as well. I was a silent observer when this unfolded. I knew everything was going to die down in a matter of weeks if not days. Nothing was going to change. I felt numb and hopeless and detached even. I did not retweet nor respond. I was just letting it all wash over me because I felt everything was pointless.
I too have been touched many many times, starting at the age of 8. I’ve probably forced myself to forget stuff that happened before that. At 15 I begged my dad to drop off and pick me up from tuition as the bus rides were getting increasingly unbearable. I did not want to be the girl who constantly called attention to herself by yelling at the guy who would push against me no matter how much I moved away, and having the conductor stop the bus to throw the guy out. My middleclass dad took out a PF loan to get me a two wheeler. That was the best gift he ever gave me. But how naive I was imagining that I was finally free. I did not anticipate the dhupatta pulling and even shoulder touching even while riding it. It seemed girl on a scooter in a small town was just even more provocation. In college I finally had enough running away. The guy who tried to touch during this glorious ritual called ‘ragging’ got a piece of my mind and promtly got suspended for a semester. I was the college pariah and the proud recipient of ominous rape and death threats from ‘gangster’ seniors. But interestingly they all stayed about a foot away from me even while threatening to rape and kill me. The pepper spray I carry in my bag now has yet to see its day. But I have no doubt that I will be touched yet again. I have no hope. Not when it comes to the state of women. Not in my lifetime. But then again I watched Cloud Atlas yesterday and there was this sequence about an early salavery abolishment activist, a white guy. His FIL is a slave trader This is what they have to say.
FIL:
” there is a natural order to this world, and those who try to upend it do not fare well. This movement will never survive. If you join them, you and your entire family will be shunned. At best, you exist as paria, to be spat on and beaten. At worst, lynched or crucified. And for what? For what? no matter what you do, it will never amount to anything more than a single drop in a limitless ocean.”
The activist:
“What is an ocean but a multitude of drops?”
And again later in the movie a woman rises up to speak for her kind and the atrocities of society against them. She respresents a rebel movement. The rebellion fails and they are all killed. When interviewed before her death on why she spoke out despite knowing for sure that this was going to fail. She says: “If I had remained invisible, the truth would stay hidden.”
Even though it happens to all of us, it remains hidden. Protesting, ranting, tweeting, making it political even, may not amount to anything. Not today. May be not even in our lifetime. But I realized that the truth is revealed, a little more louder this time. Louder than the time when Sarika Shah died. May be it will eventually get loud enough. Our voices and rants are just drops in a limitless ocean. But what is an ocean but a multitude of drops.
I decided to speak today after reading your blog post. I understand your anguish sister. But something feeble inside me makes me believe all this may not be futile. May be our daughters or their daughters will reap the benefits of our rage and ranting.
I get why 140 characters were not enough for once for the girl who does not blog. This is heavy stuff. Many have felt that you put into words what they felt. I am one of those as well. I was a silent observer when this unfolded. I knew everything was going to die down in a matter of weeks if not days. Nothing was going to change. I felt numb and hopeless and detached even. I did not retweet nor respond. I was just letting it all wash over me because I felt everything was pointless.
I too have been touched many many times, starting at the age of 8. I’ve probably forced myself to forget stuff that happened before that. At 15 I begged my dad to drop off and pick me up from tuition as the bus rides were getting increasingly unbearable. I did not want to be the girl who constantly called attention to herself by yelling at the guy who would push against me no matter how much I moved away, and having the conductor stop the bus to throw the guy out. My middleclass dad took out a PF loan to get me a two wheeler. That was the best gift he ever gave me. But how naive I was imagining that I was finally free. I did not anticipate the dhupatta pulling and even shoulder touching even while riding it. It seemed girl on a scooter in a small town was just even more provocation. In college I finally had enough running away. The guy who tried to touch during this glorious ritual called ‘ragging’ got a piece of my mind and promtly got suspended for a semester. I was the college pariah and the proud recipient of ominous rape and death threats from ‘gangster’ seniors. But interestingly they all stayed about a foot away from me even while threatening to rape and kill me. The pepper spray I carry in my bag now has yet to see its day. But I have no doubt that I will be touched yet again. I have no hope. Not when it comes to the state of women. Not in my lifetime. But then again I watched Cloud Atlas yesterday and there was this sequence about an early salavery abolishment activist, a white guy. His FIL is a slave trader This is what they have to say.
FIL:
” there is a natural order to this world, and those who try to upend it do not fare well. This movement will never survive. If you join them, you and your entire family will be shunned. At best, you exist as paria, to be spat on and beaten. At worst, lynched or crucified. And for what? For what? no matter what you do, it will never amount to anything more than a single drop in a limitless ocean.”
The activist:
“What is an ocean but a multitude of drops?”
And again later in the movie a woman rises up to speak for her kind and the atrocities of society against them. She respresents a rebel movement. The rebellion fails and they are all killed. When interviewed before her death on why she spoke out despite knowing for sure that this was going to fail. She says: “If I had remained invisible, the truth would stay hidden.”
Even though it happens to all of us, it remains hidden. Protesting, ranting, tweeting, making it political even, may not amount to anything. Not today. May be not even in our lifetime. But I realized that the truth is revealed, a little more louder this time. Louder than the time when Sarika Shah died. May be it will eventually get loud enough. Our voices and rants are just drops in a limitless ocean. But what is an ocean but a multitude of drops.
I decided to speak today after reading your blog post. I understand your anguish sister. But something feeble inside me makes me believe all this may not be futile. May be our daughters or their daughters will reap the benefits of our rage and ranting.
1 comment:
Hello. And Bye. Thank you very much.
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