The Subtle Art of Running. Away.

I first found my feet when I was little

With little desires and little patience and little power

And I ran I ran out of shame and guilt at being a burden

While still being right there, pesky little me

But I was overjoyed to find this joyride of anger, pain, disappointment, expectation and I hopped on

I’ve had my sneakers on ever since.

Such depth in this well of death of mine the more I run I run deeper inside of me

Much treasure in the dark I see

I can see people out at the edge, smiling lovingly

I suspect they can see some of me too

It’s hard to tell I can tell

If I’m circling up or down

Everything that you can see

When I strip away everything that you can see

my clothes, my shoes

my skin, my feet

my bones, my blood

my soul, my sleep

I see you

waiting for me, 

by the little stream

in the summer sun, 

by the shade of the tree

looking up at me

with you shiny eyes and your daring smile

calm

at peace

whispering to me

washing away my suffering, gently

looking straight at me

far beyond everything that you can see

A note to the "Normal"

When I was in IIT Delhi, I once distanced myself from a close friend because she was a smoker. At the moment, I thought she wasn't normal, possibly weak or addicted or depressive, and hence found myself weary of her and judged her.

Well what a shocker, turns out lots of people smoke. Sigh.

I'm writing this to everyone who feels normal, but different at times. This is to everyone who feels like they are a bit more than what they are socially accepted for.

In IIT Delhi, I would often see men holding hands while walking and wonder what that meant. I remember feeling that maybe they're gay, maybe they want to be, but having this strong sense that it must mean something. I only got to hold hands with girls who fancied me, so it had to mean something! I distinctly remember feeling uncomfortable around it.

The hostel "LAN" kept many of us occupied for most of our time there. It was a world full of movies, music, games and porn. Lots and lots and lots of porn. It wasn't unusual for someone's routine to include 6 hours on the LAN everyday, and masturbation was a popular hobby. Now that I work on gender and am frequently part of debates around the impact of pornography, I look back and can only remember boys being open about it, talking about it, enjoying it and exploring. I can't remember any dark or malicious conversation.

The best kept secret on campus was homosexuality. There were constantly rumors and jokes and jibes around people being gay or doing it with another boy (my stories are largely limited to boys) but I never met anyone who talked about it generally or openly. I once walked down the stairs at my hostel, Jwalamukhi, and was greeted excitedly by some friends with news of a couple of drunk boys having done it in the corridor. In about an hour, a friend from Goa had messaged me saying that he heard this in a rumor. There was no more mention of this.

There were a lot of normals on campus, some talked about, some not but often a lot of them explored. IIT's inability to connect its students with the wider world had the advantage to create a bubble where judgement and discourse was less prevalent. The counter side was that "IITians" were generally seen as abnormal by people outside of IIT. 

I've recently thought and learnt a lot about how different sexual behaviors and identities came to be; and for the first time I feel like I have a perspective towards all that was happening with me and around me. The perspective unfortunately is just this, A LOT OF THINGS are normal. There is nothing that is "more normal" or "as God intended it to be". The divisions between what is okay and what is queer have been created at different points in history by very human forces.

Also, different things mean different things to different people. Holding hands may be flirting to me but it can mean friendship or a sense of security to someone else. So I've learnt to make lesser assumptions and ask more open questions. 

Also, watching porn is okay. Believing that porn is a manifestation of what I'll experience in the world is naive. Fantasizing can be okay. Masturbation can be okay. Different people do different stuff sexually. That's just it. 

But I don't just mean to talk about sex - I mean to say that there are very strong notions of normal floating around - "must do MBA abroad", "must be straight", "must hate books" - feel free to ignore them and be your own normal. 

The Truth about Women's Safety

The increased spotlight on "women's safety" is personally and intellectually very disturbing for me. I work on gender based violence prevention and I'm one of the creators of a technology for personal safety and increasing reporting of physical and sexual violence. Our technology- "Pukar"- is often misunderstood as a tool for women's safety.

What's wrong with that? Women should be safe. Women are unsafe. Women's safety is clearly a relevant agenda. True. Hmm.

Let me try and explain why I feel its tricky. Let's try and think about some of the solutions to women's safety that we're coming across.

A couple of adolescent village girls in Haryana were molested on their way to school last year. A group of 6 villages got together decided that girls were unsafe on their way to school and something needed to be done. They decided that the girls should no longer go to school. Safety? Tick.

A very common solution is a list of do's and don'ts.
I'll add an example at the bottom but some of the common ones include -"you're very vulnerable on a street at night (read: don't go out at night)" , "carry a pepper spray, alarm, stun gun, taser, a man (read: you're weak and dependent)", "constantly inform us of where you are, or better still, we'll call you ten times a day". There are various kinds of such messages, the most powerful and restrictive ones being those from the family. How is any of this contributing positively to the woman's rights? She can't go out, has to depend on men and weapons, has no privacy. But safety? Tick.

A very well educated and well intentioned IPS officer once proclaimed at a public event - "The measure of a country's honor is by the safety of its women and we must at all costs ensure it for the empowerment of women" and that was followed by thunderous applause.  I find this very very problematic. I think if my country's honor was attached to my safety, people would force me to live my life in a vacuum chamber. And I think that's happening to a lot of women in India. I think women's empowerment is not their safety but their right to choose otherwise. By placing the onus of women's safety on the whole society and placing it front and center as a socio-political agenda, we've taken a huge chunk of power away from women. Oh, but safety? Tick.

A friend of mine said this about the Uber rape case in Delhi - "While its completely wrong for anyone to get raped, she should have known better than to fall asleep drunk in a cab at night in Delhi". A lot has been said in the Lok Sabha, in the press and by various leaders about how women are responsible for exciting violence, so I'll skip those references here. There is a link below in case you want to read.

In its current form, women's safety is a moral agenda, not a social one. Its no wonder that women who experience any sort of assaults are first screened for moral discrepancies before being deemed victims or survivors. The focus of the work is not on promoting women's sexual rights and agency, or their mobility but on protecting the honor and dignity of the family, community, village, country. The light at the end of tunnel cannot be just a safe woman; it has to be a free and independent human being with undiluted decision making power. Also, if we directly take up women's sexual rights then not only will we be able to cover right to no harm, but also promote their independence and agency.

References-

• http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/6-haryana-villages-decide-not-to-send-girls-to-school-to-avoid-harassment/1114700/ 
• http://saisaonline.org/writers-corner/women-security-safety-in-india-dos-donts1/
• http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-all-you-need-to-know-about-gurgaon-rape-case-and-uber-outrage-2042179
• http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/anti-rape-law-insensitive-remarks-plunge-the-lok-sabha-debate-to-a-new-low/1/258605.html