Not that bad... (much worse, really)

The week after I watched Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's testimony on television, I purchased an anthology of essays edited by Roxane Gay, Not That Bad (Harper 2018). The subtitle of this book is 'Dispatches from Rape Culture,' and I thought I would find more ideas, insights and words that I could then bring to the everyday work I get to do with Prajnya on gender-based violence.

It has taken me more than two months to make my way through this powerful book. In small part, this is a function of my life, but largely, it is because the essays are so powerful, so disturbing, so heart-breaking that you really cannot binge-read. They are also inspiring in their courage and exactly as I hoped, have left me with insights and words that I think will find their way to things I say and do in training sessions and workshops.

The essays--and I am using this word to describe what are mostly first-person testimonies, because they are written in the spectrum of styles that 'essay' covers--are almost all by survivors, of all genders, and include a couple of essays where the writers reflect on whether or not they gave consent. Through almost all the essays, the deeply internalised stigma attached to the experience of violence is expressed and sometimes rejected.

I am going to share some excerpts here, for several reasons. First, I don't think I can summarise. Second, I want you to experience the power of the words, and maybe go read this book. Third, there are people out there who cannot afford this book and will not have a library from where they can borrow it. This is not meant to undermine copyright or sales, and I do hope lots of people will read this. Women should read this because it will resonate so strongly, as most of us live with the experience and all of us with the fear of sexual violence. Men should read it to know what that really means in our heads and in our days. And yes, the book is full of potential triggers, so if you think you will be sensitive to them, tread cautiously (these excerpts are for you too).

The idea that what happens to us, is not so bad, is so deeply ingrained that it stops survivors from seeking help. If you survived, that's already not so bad, is it?

"At least you weren't killed. At least you have access to medical care. At least you have insurance. At least you have wonderful friends. Because the ones who tell me this are my friends and my teachers and the social worker and the doctor, I hold their words and outstretched hands even though my anger is mounting and I want not to be touched. 

These days, I speak few words, and I certainly don't have the vocabulary to dismantle what's been forced on me by people called safe. I don't have the breath to say: No, I will not be grateful for my rights. I will stand with two feet on this earth and I will always say thank you when somoene does something kind and sorrt when I've done something wrong and never outside of that. And, yes, I am furious that I am pulled between poles of gratitude and apology--both of which are violent erasures. 

Thank goodness I wasn't killed. 

I'm sorry I'm so inarticulate. 

I can't name it then, but I feel the words at least eroding my voice. I sense that "at least" marks an end to the story I'm supposed to tell, that I'm supposed to say something gracious in response--"thank goodness"--or else nothing more at all. "At least" curbs my telling too much truth. It's a blunt instrument wielded to club a reckless retelling into submission. The story ends here. But the truth is, I have no story--nothing I can corral into a coherent narrative." (Claire Schwartz, pages 35-36)

I found this extremely powerful: "pulled between poles of gratitude and apology--both of which are violent erasures." The week I bought this book and even when I picked it up to read in December 2018, in India we were witnessing a cascade of #MeToo revelations, that began with women in media and then spread to some other fields. Most of the women encountered the stock responses: Why now? Why not earlier? Why did you continue to work with this person? Many of the experience reported were not rape as traditionally defined (vaginal penetration without consent), so really, they should have been grateful, people seemed to be saying. Gratitude for that, and apology for upsetting the apple-cart.

Ally Sheedy in her essay mentions Hollywood's #MeToo moment in 2017. She writes:

"This isn't about naming names. I don't have enough for a lawsuit, but I do have enough for a broken heart/ spirit. Nothing will change in Hollywood. Some men will get careful. Some men will pretend they never behaved like predators and wait this out. What's so disheartening is knowing Harvey Weinstein's sick actions will be addressed (finally) and yet the entire culture and context for his sick shit will remain in place." (pages 112-113)

Just four months after India's season of revelations, hardly anyone has been punished, and some are already being gently rehabilitated into public life. The defamation cases filed against the women who made the charges--those remain.

How commonplace sexual violence is, is something women at least know intuitively. This exchange in Stacey May Fowles' essay underlines that, but also makes me wish we could so sensitize doctors, counsellors and nurses in India so that they would respond to survivors with sensitivity.

"When I finally managed to splutter out "something bad happened to me," she just knew. 

Without saying a word, she slipped a small square of yellow paper across the desk toward me. It was printed with information about the rape-counseling clinic.  

I was struck by the ease with which she provided me with the contact, as if she'd done it hundreds of times before." (page 279-280) 

A counselor says to Fowles, "Every one believes there is suffering worse than her own, that they should be strong enough to cope without me." It's not that bad, why seek help? And if it were that bad, how come you are alive to seek help? How many Indian, Southasian girls can go to a doctor or a hospital and get help, leave alone expect sensitivity? We have tried in a small way to change this, but there is such a long way to go.

So Mayer writes about words, enjoyed and deployed as weapons of control (page 136). She titles her chapter Floccinaucinihilipilification and quotes the Oxford English Dictionary definition: "The action or habit of estimating something as worthless." Gaslighting, sealioning, lollipopping, Cordelia-ing and mansplaining--she gathers all these words into this suitably long one (page 137).

So Mayer's essay compares rape to colonialism, calls them "kin" (page 140). She writes:

"...I learned the blazing insight that rape was not an act between an individual and an individual, hidden in a dark room... Rape was and is a cultural and political act: it attempts to remove a person with agency, autonomy, and belonging from their community, to secrete them and separate them, to depoliticize their body by rendering it detachable, violable, nothing. (page 140) 

...When we talk about sexual violnce as feminists, we are--we have to be--talking about its use to subjugate entire peoples and cultures, the annihilation that is its empty heart. Rape is that bad because it is an ideological weapon. Rape is that bad because it is a structure: not an excess, not monstrous, but the logical conclusion of heteropatriarchal capitalism. It is what that ugly polysyllabic euphemism for state power does." (pages 140-141)

Michelle Chen also writes about the politics of sexual violence in her essay on the violence experienced by women who are displaced or in flight. "The place where sexual violence is most readily weaponized is the one where other social instruments have become unhinged: the interface between two societies. Sexual domination, a familiar pillar of every nation-state's culture, fills the liminal spaces opened by mass displacement." (page 191) As Warsan Shire wrote in her poem, Home: "and one prison guard/ in the night/ is better than a truckload/ of men who look like your father."

In the final essay in the book, Elissa Bassist lists all the reasons why she stayed in a violent relationship and did not think of it as 'violence.' This is one of the most heart-breaking essays in the book.  She says, in more powerful words than I could summarise that she stayed because she and her boyfriend were both a product of their milieu, which is misogynistic and violent. She closes the book by saying:

"Because worst-case scenario is murder.

Oh, because it wasn't that bad." (page 339) 

We become accustomed to the language of violence, the culture of rape. It is us, as we know ourselves. 

"Violence in a family comes down through generations: long before my father (finally) left my mother, her father left her mother, and her father's father left my great-grandmother... 

Sometimes by mother tells me stories about her father, or stories about my father. They are not mine to repeat. "I want you to know," she tells me, as if she feels guilty for explaining our history to me. I am amazed at how much violence we can contain--internalize, suppress, hold on to, narrate. How much we can swallow and still survive." (So Mayer, pages 132-133) 

Women who speak about the violence they experience, who name their assailants or harassers and who express anger are accused of making trouble. Speaking about their experience of violence, several of the survivors writing in this book talk about how this feels.

"Forgive the abuser. The only solution for female anger is for her to stop being angry. 

And yet, when Jesus flipped tables in the temple, his rage was lauded. King David railing to the heavens to rain fire on his enemies is lauded as a man after God's own heart. An angry man in cinema is Batman. An angry male musician is a member of Metallica. An angry male writer is Chekhov. An angry male politician is passionate, a revolutionary. He is a Donald Trump or a Bernie Sanders. The anger of men is a powerful enough tide to swing an election. But the anger of women? That has no place in government, so it has to flood the streets." (Lyz Lenz, page 164)

Amy Jo Burns writes: "The truth no one told you is that, in order for a good girl to survive, she must make some things disappear." (page 167)

This includes the memory of violence, the name of your harasser, the resultant trauma and every one of those inconsequential details from that consequential moment--what you were wearing, the colour of that vase, the food on the table, the light in the room. As Dr. Ford said, “Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.” We never forget, but we must. It wasn't that bad, after all. 

The gift of thinking visually

I am primarily a word person. Having said this, I notice images. I love to play with design software. Photography is a special pleasure. And many museum visits in the last decades have diminished the exam anxiety-tedium-tension that many of us Indians grow up feeling around art. I even have photo blogs (yes, although some are secret and some I simply don't share).

Nevertheless, when I come here to write, I do not think about illustrations. I think about topics--when I am struggling, that's usually where I start and meander. I think about arguments or points I want to make. I think about structure. I do not think, now which picture can I post along with this?

I just started using Pinterest with a view to understanding how it can be used. Apparently it's a good way to direct traffic to your blog. But it needs an image. This is what has got me thinking about thinking visually.

Forget illustrating blogs as if they were picture books, one of the niftiest new ways to communicate is the infographic. A friend writes notes as if creating an infographic... brilliantly! I would like to do this. I can do posters. I can write factsheets. I can create presentation modules. But I cannot think like an infographic creator. How I wish I could! And no, it's not the software, because design programmes will do that for you--it's thinking through an idea visually.

Or maybe I can do this. In the meanwhile, I should probably find an illustration for this post... on the other hand, this is not a post for which I will be drumming up traffic anywhere. 

The thing about lit fests...

...is that they also seem to become society events.

I love books and the city where I live is home to a literary festival. I should be excited and rushing to hang out all the time, right? Instead, I only go to the sessions that feature friends (and there are always several of those) and run back as if escaping from an evil dragon's lair.

I often wonder why. I see people I know so I could have company. There is food. There are toilets, presumably usable. So why am I unable to linger?

Actually, it's the people. In two ways. First, lit fests seem so much about being seen at the lit fest that they don't seem very bookish. They strike me as being about the clothes, the greetings and the air-kissing (okay, the last may be an exaggeration in this town). To be fair, there are also hundreds of quiet book-lovers who sit patiently in the galleries, waiting for one panel after another to speak. They must be the heart of the festival, I am sure.

Second, it's the people. The book-lovers I have known have by and large been introverts, and to be around so many milling, gushing social people when you could be alone with a book, just seems wrong. This is what happens to me. I get that 'alone in a crowd' feeling and I also want to run away really badly from the very same crowd and be truly alone.

Lit fests also sell themselves as places to hear ideas but the reality of scheduling is that the sessions are short and there are too many speakers. You rarely hear more depth than you would in a blurb because there just is no time. How frustrating that must be for writers, unless they have been forced out of their shells into these appearances. But then, can you imagine what a bore it would be without that discipline--with some speakers (I won't specify gender), holding a microphone makes time stand still. Depth or discipline? I think I'll take the latter, thank you, and make a quick escape into my own head.

I wonder whether the money spent on promoting all those books actually makes a difference to their sales. But that's not my problem. The festivals and launches certainly benefit the people who make banners and sell snacks and so on, so someone still does well.

And let's not forget the main reason I go--to see the old friends who fly down for one day to do their session before jet-setting off. This year, I am away and I will miss seeing the people I only see fleetingly before and after their festival appearances. I will miss the odd coffee, every other year, with a Twitter friend who has published a book. I will not miss deep conversations because those do not happen in the rush from session to snack to session to brief selfie schmooze to session.

Anyway, that's my two-paise worth which does not matter. 

Cross-currents

I have been looking at the sea and listening to conversations about democracy.

As my mind wanders, I notice that the waves, even in low tide, do not come in a single direction. They come from different places, moving in different trajectories. When they come together, they sometimes merge. Sometimes, they bump into each other--oops!--and then they flow away along their original path.

There is constant motion, in low tide and high, and an inner swell that suggests that something is always brewing. And yet, storms are still rare enough to be events. Day after day, hour after hour, the waves just keep coming, doing their work without fuss, without pause.

Everytime I look at the sea, it inspires me with its quiet, tireless endeavour. A little envious, I wish I could bring the same quality to my work.

And as I listen to people talk about democracy, I think about those waves that despite not moving in the same direction, still do not stop the ocean from going about its business.

Dilli Dur Ast

(An old rant parked in the Drafts folder, posted today.)

Dilli Dur Ast. True for all lesser Indians.

One reason it was easy to write about secessionist movements with an open mind was that I did not grow up in the capital city. I grew up in Bombay, watching Delhi kids get every fun opportunity; Delhi roads improve on each holiday, and Delhi get all the hype--acutely aware that we paid more tax. Even when I was in school, I knew that.

Growing up in Maharashtra, with stories about Shivaji's rebellion against the Mughals, resentment towards the imperial centre was part of one's inheritance. The story of Shivaji's alienation and isolation in the Aurangzeb darbar captured the non-Delhi Indian's continuing daily alienation in so many ways. Early encounters with Delhi bureaucracy (mainly in libraries) reinforced that. I love that story; it rings so true.

Today, living in Tamil Nadu, everyday a stubborn-if-irrelevant holdout for the idea of India in the face of an almost isolationist, Tamil-only nationalism, I watch how this continues in every sector. After starting the NGO, I realised that all the funders are Delhi-based, and so one had to go to Delhi to meet them. Even so, Delhi organisations seem to have first dibs on funding. But that's one thing, and since we do not have FCRA, it quickly became irrelevant to us.

Now, I watch with varying degrees of irritation and resentment--varying with how hot Chennai is mostly--the Delhi-centrism of my colleagues in the social sector. When statements for 'Indian women' and the 'Indian women's movement' emerge, and have been drafted entirely by a small cluster of Delhi women; when they acknowledge each other's work, while loads of others remain invisible and unheard; when they nominate each other to this and that... it seems the rest of us do not exist. Sour grapes? Envy? Resentment? Check all of the above. But remember the kernel of truth somewhere within: Delhi is so far away that we only start to count when we move there or stand with them. On listservs, social networks or other platforms, we can only speak for the exotic and distant, never for India.

I want to say, I am not really from Tamil Nadu because I did not grow up here. I inherited Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and India, so don't put me in a box. No matter how clearly I speak, I feel like I have to shout to be heard. No matter how prescient my writing, it has to be written by someone from Delhi to matter. (And I am not even raising gender here, that cross-cutting, all-crushing reality!)

On a panel on nationalism many years ago, my colleague presented a paper titled with a quotation, "I have seen India, and it is us." The paper was about UP politics, but really it is in Delhi and around Delhi-ites that I have remembered it most.

Yes, Delhi is today far more cosmopolitan than when I was growing up, and the truth is that some of my best friends are Delhi-ites, even though they might prefer to think of themselves as Delhi-based. But the Delhi charter continues to say to others, "Oh, you're there?" in a tone of surprise. Is there really life beyond the Yamuna and the Aravalli? Non-Hindi speaking life?

It is now possible to commute to Delhi, going in the morning and coming back by the end of the work-day. But is it possible to communicate with Delhi--with official and non-official Delhi? I am not sure.

Delhi is still too far away from all of us. And this is a rant from someone who has Delhi connections and can speak Hindi. How must this feel for others? What are the ramifications when this alienation comes from a federal system in a centralising political culture--for language and culture, for finances, for political autonomy? We all know the answer.

Too much work, and for what?

This morning, I had reason to reflect on how many factors conspire to keep women from professional success. A health crisis in the family has kept a colleague from the office for a few days now with no end in sight within the week. She is conscientious and no doubt this is adding to her stress.

All women work, whether at home for no pay or outside for pay, and that their workload never diminishes is even a saying ("A woman's work is never done"). But when women go out to work for money (because why else would she want to, right?), nothing shifts at home. She retains primary responsibility for the household, for care duties and for the family's social and ritual obligations. When I was young, I used to despair about women who took leave for 'nombu' or for someone's naming ceremony. I don't so it still irritates me when it comes up but now I realise that this is part of that double burden.

In the absence of the joint family, with families being scattered and more women remaining single, care duties are not shared. In an  crisis, there may be absolutely no one else that a caregiver can call on even to sit with a patient while she pays the bill or gets medicine. If she is a midcareer or senior person, it would take an extraordinary organisation to adjust its priorities to her emergency and even then, they may not always have a choice. The expectation is that women would perform their duties excellently at home and outside.

What a huge burden and source of stress for the woman! Already raised in a society where she is taught to be her last priority, in a crisis, she is alone. Having taken leave for the crisis, she may not have the choice of taking leave to take care of herself.

Why then would women take on work in the public sphere? Why would they volunteer? Why would they do political work? Why would they contest elections?

When men make those choices, they are lauded for their public spirit, and the waves (of family members and their expectations) part to make room for the social activist or political leader. By and large, while men in political life serve society, an army of domestic supporters serve them. But who takes over care duties from women? This is one reason that those who advocate the greater inclusion of women in politics are also advocates for care work support, either through allowing budgetary allocations for it or setting up social support systems.

In India, the government and NGOs set up Self-Help Groups (SHGs) everywhere and we have high expectations of women in these groups, especially those with leadership potential or those who get elected to leadership roles. But these are women who often live in localities where there is no infrastructure so getting water or getting to use a shared toilet take time and energy (not to mention planning). They go to work after that. They run their homes, trying to make sure that their children go to school, eat well, do their homework and stay out of trouble. On top of all this, which is already too much responsibility, they are expected to attend SHG meetings on time, carry out the activities and deliver results. We do this in the name of empowerment but really, how unrealistic and inconsiderate. There have to be kinder roads to empowerment. We must find them.

Since the morning, what I have really been thinking about is the way in which we think about work. At work and in politics, our traditional way of assessing work, achievement and success is predicated on patriarchal household arrangements. A man goes out to work, focuses on the work, gets stuff done, and returns to a domestic sphere where one or many women have taken care of maintenance and care work, and everything is set up to support his work outside. Of course, this is in return for his outside earnings that pay for household expenses. The point here is that it is this arrangement that determines how we expect people to work and deliver.

Unless women get the same level of support at home, this is completely unrealistic. And cruel.

Today, many HR firms specialise in helping women find work, even after a long break, and in mentoring their start-ups. But even here, I hear leaders speak about how women must (not as in do, but should) balance home and work responsibilities. A management school leader proudly told me that he plainly advises young women MBA students that they must prepare to balance both responsibilities. Others talk about how family support is important--but in the sense of permission and not shared household work. Women are ridiculously grateful to men for any little support they get and a good man is still one who does or who will 'allow' his wife to work outside or to study.

When will this change? Really, when? Until it does, women are going to carry an unfairly large burden--for themselves, for their families and for society.

The Art and Power of the Letter

I love letters. I love writing them and of course, I love receiving them in any format. Letter-writing may be my favourite writing genre.

***

I have written letters all my life.

My great grandfather's postcards, we like to say, kept the family together across the distances they traveled once they moved from Burma. Anna would write to every household on an open postcard or inland letter form--nothing more ostentatious--and share news of every other part of the family. The news could be that the little child in one had been admitted to school or that another household had vacationing guests or that an in-law's family was about to have a wedding. There would be birthday greetings (often poems) and reminders. In the absence of even telephones and certainly incomes that would have made calling possible, the little card kept every one in the family informed about everyone else's joys, sorrows and struggles, creating a support network ("Come, stay with me and look for a job") or a prayer circle, whatever each could offer with love.

Anna's letters were precious, and now fifty years after his death, finding one that mentions you warrants celebration.

When Anna came to stay, children were encouraged to draw or write a line in his letters. We were encouraged to write to each other. And our parents initially sat with us and showed us where to write, where to draw and where the address went.

Some of us (I'm thinking of you and me, Supriya!) took to letter-writing like fish to water. We wrote to each other every week. Initially, these were simple letters, often listing queries about the whole family like a list--something that we learnt from Anna. As we grew older, they listed other things--books and songs, for instance--and began to include school news and of course, secrets. The envelopes got thicker and were marked 'Confidential.' They were despatched with such regularity that stores selling pretty stationery did brisk business with us. A twenty-sheet quarter-sized pad was basically two letters!

In 1975, Supriya's family came on a holiday to Bombay. Her father saw my interest in international politics and suggested, perhaps partly in jest, that I write to heads of state expressing my views. Children did these things and were encouraged to in those days, and I would say it was a bigger deal because there was no ready Internet directory where you could get an address or an email, and no ready amplifying social media. One purchased aerogrammes, and hand wrote the letters, and wrote an approximate address and sent them off.

With Sab's help, I drafted several such letters and shot them off that summer. I do not remember what I wrote--there were no draft files or copies--but the letters expressed a hope for peace and e international friendship and asked for a penfriend from that country, usually. There was some hits and misses, but I will be eternally grateful to Sab for giving an 11 year old a sense of agency in world politics. Long after this batch, I continued to feel free to share my views with heads of state and government. In the era before blue ticks for this and that, you wrote in the spirit of the Gita--it was what you had to do, and whether someone read or acknowledged your letter was not your problem.

Anyway, the best outcome of these letters was that within three years, I had about 13 penfriends from around the world. Can you imagine how many letters I got to write and received in a month? My parents subsidised all this world peace work without ever looking for an 80G tax discount! More than forty years later, I am so grateful I still have three of these people in my life. As for the others, some lasted a few letters, some a few years. Two, I still wonder about: Martine from Marseilles who wrote poetry and Scott from Birmingham. I sometimes Google them but with no luck.

After my first stint in the US, where I lived in the International Living Center at Syracuse University, I came home with an even larger circle of international friends. I started that American practice of holiday letters. But soon it became too expensive--too many people in too many parts of the world. Too many letters to xerox and too much to post. The letters eventually stopped when I went to graduate school again.

By this time, we were beginning to use email. Between the workload in graduate school, penury and email, anyone who was offline somehow just went off the radar. One thought of people but it got harder and harder to write a letter and post it. I still list people I want to get back in touch with--like Masumi, my closest friend from the ILC--but decades, not years, have passed since our last exchange and I wonder where I will find her.

Many years after his death, I started writing postcards to the whole family like Anna did, but after a couple of years, I stopped because I moved away for graduate school. I started the same practice over email but times had changed--no one replied, but everyone expected to receive a letter with news of others but without giving away their own updates (privacy!) and when I complained, I was scolded, "Don't you do this for your pleasure? You cannot have expectations of others!" True enough, but the one-sided correspondence wasn't giving me pleasure so I stopped.

I write email messages everyday. They are letters but one composes them so quickly and tersely, that they share information and instructions but rarely, thoughts. Some people still write long, thoughtful email messages and when they do, I appreciate that but sometimes, it stresses me out because I think I will not have the time and bandwidth to respond in a similar way. I postpone the reply and finally forget about it. With WhatsApp, I find the communication with my cousins is easier but even less literary than an email!

In recent months, I have been thinking a great deal about the art of the letter and also, its power as a medium for thought and action.

***

I have always liked to write letters and just as much, to read them. I was fortunate to stumble upon some amazing examples in my formative years. I borrowed the Holmes-Laski letters from the British Council Library in Bombay, and while I may now understand some of the content better than when I was an undergraduate, I devoured them anyway, copying down passages here and there (where is that notebook now?!) to preserve. During my Diplome Superieure course at the Alliance Francaise, we read Madame de Sevigne's letters, including the brilliant "Lettre des epithetes." In school, we read many of Nehru's letters to his daughter, and later, I read Nehru's letters to Chief Ministers and Congress leaders. I gravitated towards collections of letters all the time because people wrote so much in their letters to each other.

They discussed ideas and thoughts. They used the letters to explore feelings. The letter was not just an instrument but a medium most versatile.

In recent months, I have been reading Rajmohan Gandhi's collection of essays on the relevance of Gandhi. As I have read them, I have reflected on how I can relate personally to his life and ideas. But I have also marveled at how prolific Gandhi was. To start with, I am awestruck by how much he fitted into a single day and at his disciplined lifestyle. He took care of himself and others around him; he fitted routine activities like spinning and the prayer meeting into the day, never letting them be derailed; he met people and discussed truly important things; and he wrote.... articles for various publications including his own, journal entries and letters. We have a library full of his words because he wrote honestly, thoughtfully, extensively and substantively. We see the evolution of his thinking transparently because he wrote with candour.

As 2019, I am looking to write more and the worldly advice I am getting is that one should be paid for one's writing. I agree. One should be paid. But my heart, if truth be told, is drawn to Gandhi's way. Where the words are the journey, and you share them here and there, as you can. No doubt, he would have liked to make money for his writing too, but not doing so did not stop him. Every opportunity to write was an opportunity to think and express, and therefore a step on an inner (and therefore, outer) journey.

None of this other stuff matters. In the simple, humble everyday act of letter-writing, far greater people have found a platform with so much potential--and so much power. Maybe I should re-learn something from them.

I looked for a closing quotation for this blogpost and found this, by Haruki Murakami:

“How wonderful it is to be able to write someone a letter! To feel like conveying your thoughts to a person, to sit at your desk and pick up a pen, to put your thoughts into words like this is truly marvelous.” 

How wonderful, indeed! 

The writing treadmill

Every now and then, I promise myself I will write everyday. My work routinely involves writing so by this promise, I mean that I will write with purpose and with focus, and then, to make myself accountable in some way, I say I will blog. So I must sit, have some thoughts (harder than you think!), compose them and produce them in a place to which I can point my three faithful readers.

It is really hard to create the quiet space to do this and frankly, what is the point, because there is enough evidence that we hardly read as much as we write these days? That question looms ever-larger in my head these days as I redefine my work-life as centering around words.

Writing everyday is to my chosen professional (non-NGO) identity as a daily workout is to an athlete. Without that discipline, any work I undertake--an op-ed, a book chapter, a report--all are that much harder to start. With a daily writing routine, once I have an idea in place, things move fairly smoothly.

But even in this treadmill exercise on the blog, I find I don't always have a topic in mind. That is when the post is about writing, usually. I have a thousand posts and articles in my head and always beautifully composed and full of meaning--but virtually none of them get written. In the gap between the idea and my arrival at the opportunity--time, space, quiet, implements--to write, they have vanished. So, I write about writing.

Writing to keep a promise is like walking the treadmill on a day when you have no energy and the music does not help you find a rhythm. That is me, today, trying to catch up already on the sixth day of the year on a writing backlog.

Written. Check. Over and out.

On grief

A year ago, I woke up and reached for my iPad to check the time, and perhaps to spend ten minutes delaying the day. I opened up Facebook and read about the death the previous day of a beloved Uncle. My uncle, Abdul Qayyum Khan, is (was) my penfriend-turned-brother's father and also for some time, my primary correspondent. We met only a couple of times but especially after my father's death, in my heart, in my life, he was another parent and a well-loved, loving elder. About an hour later, we received a call from a cousin. My Chitti, my mother's younger sister, best friend and alter ego, had slipped away from us. The family is still reeling. Youngest child of her parents, she seemed to be a large part of their heart, and in her absence, some life has palpably gone out of her siblings as well. We had barely recovered, when my (oldest cousin) brother left us. He had been ill with Parkinson's for a long time but for us, he remained first and best, to be admired and emulated for reasons that changed as we both grew older.

January 2018 was a truly horrible month.

I want to write about these three people because they were each wonderful and irreplacable in my life but it turns out I have no words even now.

Instead, let me write about grief. Since my father's death in 1995, grief has become an important filter in my life.

Appa died suddenly. When someone does that, you really have to wonder about the meaning of life and what makes something a good life. In his life, I found the following answers: Life is meant to be lived fully, and in the moment, and a good life is one in which you give as much as you can, maybe more. I was grieving when I did my field research in Sri Lanka, and I always say, that along with words that people spoke, I heard grief that they left unspoken. Grief hears grief.

And so grieving teaches compassion. You know that there is one perfomed reality and one that is just under the surface, triggered easily and unexpectedly. For instance, walking into a newspaper office to do an interview, the smell of ink from the printing press undid my composure. I was interviewing a woman editor and spent the first ten minutes sobbing in her office. And I don't cry easily. I know that each of us carries pain and anxiety and fear and all kinds of things within our neatly groomed performance exteriors. Because I do.

Grief teaches perspective. I can read a hundred posters that tell me everything is transient but when someone just dies, you know well that it is. And a thousand small issues just fall away. What so and so said; whether the prose is perfect; whether the blouse matches... whatever my issue... what remains is the quality of the life lived and the love that the person has invested in the world. All the three people I lost last year loved and gave of themselves generously and were thus loved in return.

Alone on my campus, I went to a counselor because I needed to be in a place where it was safe to feel whatever I felt. After all, one feels grief long past ritual and official mourning periods and sometimes anniversaries just go by but on all other days, you drag grief around as if it were heavy hand luggage in a large, crowded airport and your flights were indefinitely delayed. The counselor shared a beautiful metaphor with me that I will share with you here: Grief is like a diamond, multifaceted. You look at one facet and make your peace with it, but the light catches another and you start over. Sometimes what you see will bring joy and sometimes terrible sorrow. We have been experiencing this since last January.

The bottomline is that as unfortunate as we are to lose people we love, we are very lucky to have had them in our lives in the first place. Their lives are a gift we receive regardless of how deserving we are, and their deaths leave us with another gift--grief. Grief unlocks spaces in our heart that we would not otherwise know existed.

Is it possible to feel gratitude for grief and anger or disappointment that we did not have more time with these wonderful people in our lives? I suppose so, because it simply is. Like the reality that they are not, any more, and yet, sad as we are, our lives keep moving.

Down came the rain and washed the spider out

I am at a workshop where we are discussion sexual violence on Indian campuses. At the end of a long day, we watched the documentary "The Hunting Ground," which shows how common sexual violence is on American campuses and how tortuous and almost impossible the quest for justice.

Some days, the work of changing the world seems too hard to contemplate. Where do you begin? With laws? With institutions? With attitudes? And yet, how do you not keep at it?

And what you do in one place comes undone in another, in an endless replay of Insy Winsy Spider. In this sector, most of us are tired and overstretched, unable to quit and struggling to go on.

This tired blogpost merely marks my attendance here on the third day of the year, to keep a promise to myself. 

Walls women make, walls that keep women inside

The most amazing thing in the news in the last 24 hours has been the Wall of Women across Kerala: Vanitha Mathil.

In case you are like me and you are sometimes so absorbed in something you miss big headlines, here are some links to catch you up:

• Vanitha Mathil Wikipedia page 
• Tweets about the Women's Wall
• Women's wall in Kerala today: All your questions answered, Indian Express, January 1, 2019.
• Lakhs of Kerala women form 620 km long 'renaissance' wall, The Week, January 1, 2019.
• Reactions (News Minute)

The day's action culminated in the entry of two women into Sabarimala. 

Should women be excluded from anything? No, no one should be excluded anywhere. Having stated this, I have always thought--(1) why would I want to go somewhere where I am not wanted? and (2) what is the meaning of 'going' anywhere if the divine is everywhere? But I do understand this particular struggle is about fighting exclusion and it is about challenging taboos that are deeply embedded in our hearts and minds, and consequently, lives. 

Today, as the temple authorities closed the temple to purify the premises after two women of menstruating age had visited, many have equated menstrual and gender-based taboos to untouchability. They have a strong point. 

But what boggles my mind as I write this is the mobilization of so many women. They came out to uphold their right to enter a temple and either politics or faith brought them out to the streets. It is so hard to get people to come to anything, to take a public stand, to join a protest, that just the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of women is intrinsically remarkable. 

What will happen after this? Joining a protest is exciting and it's empowering. Will these women join in other protests? How many will become a little more vocal at home? How many will encouragowering to feel that you can make a difference when you get together in large numbers--large numbers that are possible because you joined. How many of these women will continue on to take pae their daughters to learn about public affairs and to take a stand? 

What a magical opening to the year in a country declared 'no place for women'! How can we sustain this mobilization and draw the same women into other critical political and policy conversations?

Women forming a wall make an impressive picture. How do we break the walls that keep them from seeking public activism on a regular basis? 

Reflections on Leadership

Yesterday, I handed over the everyday running of Prajnya to someone else, to begin my own departure from the organization I founded. I have always believed this to be necessary to the organisation’s growth, not to mention my own. In these almost-15 years, I have had a great deal of opportunity to reflect on leadership and I would like to write down some of these thoughts.

***

At a recent discussion about teaching leadership, it occurred to me that the best leaders are actually citizens first and foremost. Leadership comes from their willingness to step up and do what is needed without waiting for someone else to do it first or along with them.

It is not rote citizenship, the kind that drags you grumbling to a voting booth. It is not about the sense of entitlement that has you complaining with the expectation that someone else will fix the problem. It is ownership of the problem and the solution. The consciousness that one is responsible for both, I think, is a key element.

This is why, to my mind, being self-aware and by extension, aware of one’s privileges, such as they are, are key features of a leader’s attitude. That constant self-examination or introspection must surely be necessary. This is something about Gandhi that I find very admirable—that he was self-aware and able to be honest about what he saw. “Change begins with me,” is sometimes attributed to him and whether he said it or not, he seems to have lived it.

Conscience-driven citizenship is leadership, I think. When you act because something is right or insist on doing things the right way and not the easy or common or convenient way, that is citizenship and leadership. To not take the short cut and to insist on following the right path, is good citizenship and leadership. This is true whether the context is some official process or a decision that must be made or a social media debate—the need to do the right thing is good citizenship, and therefore, leadership.

Because this path is hard, it is necessarily courageous. It is courageous because sometimes one may take an unpopular position or a position apparently inconsistent with what one’s team or party or family thinks. It is courageous because one has to find the ability to express oneself, and then to defend oneself in increasingly uncivil and even vicious, times. It is courageous because a conscience-driven choice may mean one has to wait or forego some opportunity or access—or personal benefit. It may be that one is constantly defending the decision and that is both wearying and demoralizing. Courageous citizenship is to stay the course patiently, and to speak one’s truth calmly, over and over and over again.

Compassion and care are crucial traits of citizens, and therefore, leaders. If self-interest is said to have brought us into political communities, there is a dimension of collective interest in that. If I uphold the law in your interest, I set a precedent in my interest. Universal welfare that initially benefits you, will surely also benefit me. Traffic laws meant to prevent me from being mowed down, will also keep you safe. But a good community and a good citizen will go beyond that instrumental reason.

To feel for others, to care about deprivation and injustice, to seek to include and to want to help are impulses that lead to good, compassionate citizenship. Discussions about gender justice at the workplace often start and stop at instrumental reasons like company reputation and costs, but the reality is that justice will take root when we are moved by compassion and persuaded by conscience, rather than a cost-benefit analysis. Compassion is good citizenship, and certainly, leadership is not possible without compassion—you may be able to enforce your writ but people will obey you not emulate, follow or love you.

Conscience-driven, compassionate and courageous citizenship is constantly seeking to make things better, and sometimes, especially when resources are limited, one has to be creative and resourceful to find the thing that one can do. Citizenship is to not say, “It’s too difficult or costly,” or, “How can we make a difference?”, it is to find that one thing that we can do, and do it. That is also leadership.

Standard images of “leaders” depict leaders as those who stand at the head of a room and talk, sometimes delivering homilies and sometimes instructions. But in fact, I think, leaders are those who walk into a room, take stock of what needs to be done, and start doing it. Others follow that example and that is leadership. Leadership follows from exemplary citizenship.

***

Over the years, the Prajnya Archives have put out two calls for photos of women in leadership roles. In the first one, we defined leadership as ‘making things happen.’ In the second, we defined it as ‘the citizen next door.’ These crowd-sourced projects had the worst response and got us wondering about the relationship women have with leadership.

This puzzles me especially because in another part of my life, I spend a lot of time thinking about getting women into politics and especially into legislatures. Through academic study, I have learnt to list many reasons why, on an average, women only make up 10-15% of legislatures.

But working with women and girls, I am coming to the conclusion that the problem begins deep in our hearts. It is two-fold; first, it lies in the way we define leadership, and second, it lies in the way women typically view their work.

If leadership is that head-of-the-room, everyone saluting when you pass thing, then women rarely have that. Not being seen as the ‘boss,’ itself then becomes a reason for not being the boss or not feeling like the boss. When you redefine leadership as citizenship, then women start to become visible.

Women are active in Residents’ Welfare Associations, in Parent Teachers’ Associations, in charity work and in professional organisations, often handling finances, logistics and public relations. Even if you confine them to the private sphere as home-makers, they budget, manage money, make allocation decisions (“Politics is the authoritative allocation of resources,” is a classic definition), build team spirit, resolve disputes and make policy decisions that balance need with aspiration and pleasure—all tasks that leaders must perform, as Prime Ministers or Presidents!

Patriarchy says that maintenance work within the home is a woman’s job, and women do the same work outside the home, it still has the same tag. They do it because it needs to be done and if it is neither remunerative nor glamorous, it is their job to get it done. The work is invisible and unpaid, and there is no special appreciation most of the time. Even when it is glorified and women are praised for their care work, it is naturalized rather than recognized for what it takes. Women internalize this and when you ask them to self-identify as leaders, it is hard for them to do so. They simply do what is needed.

How do we change that? How do we give them the confidence to see themselves as successful leaders? Women often consider themselves unqualified for political office, although male counterparts are also just as untrained or unlettered. Perhaps the teaching of small skills will create that confidence—teaching people what they know instinctively and just putting a structure and label on it. This may be a way to help adult women, but we still have a chance with every young girl that we meet. To treat her as a person, a thinking human being with capabilities and inner resources; to take the time and make the effort to listen to her; and to instill a sense of infinite possibility in each girl—it is actually easier to do than to write!

***

What does a leader look like? Based on my reading and observations over the years, here are some qualities I would list (in no particular order) as essential to leadership.

• ·       A leader is honest, first to herself and then to others. This means, a leader introspects and has the grace to be corrected and the fortitude to accept and be open about mistakes.
• ·       A leader is the first to get to work (on herself or the task at hand), works ahead of everyone and harder than her team. You cannot ask people to do things you will not do, and this was Gandhi’s message. There is no task that a leader will not perform within the team. Every expectation that is held up for the team must first be met by the leader or aspiring leader.
• ·       A leader is ready to learn—new facts, new perspectives, new skills—and knows when to seek the leadership and guidance of others.
• ·       The leader is not “the boss”—and to borrow from old political science textbooks, is merely first among equals and that by virtue of work, not entitlement.
• ·       Praise, warmth and encouragement, openly and generously given, are stock in trade for a good leader, while correction and criticism are discreetly delivered in low tones.
• ·       A leader is disciplined. I think more and more about that Indian ideal, ‘control over the senses,’ which also includes control over anger and lust.
• ·       A leader is perceptive and sensitive to others in the team (and beyond). She listens to what people tell her and she also pays attention to what they don’t say—Are they moving slowly? Are they quick to anger or tears? Are they struggling with something? Being sensitive to the needs of colleagues allows a leader to create optimal work conditions.
• ·       A leader is forgiving, and is able to patiently give people a chance to learn from their mistakes and grow.
• ·       It is a tight-rope between running a disciplined ship and creating enough space for people not to feel suffocated, and a leader must be able to renegotiate that patiently every day.
• ·       There cannot be an endless recall of past errors and if something cannot be corrected, there should be a way to change the situation that is not soul-destroying to the other person.
• ·       Leadership is humane.
• ·       Good leadership speaks softly but does not need a stick.
• ·       Leaders do not seek leadership; they do what needs to be done and others follow.

I am reminded of Kenneth Boulding’s Three Faces of Power—destructive, exchange and integrative. You can force people to obey you but not to embrace you as a leader. You can buy compliance for a while. But it is the heart that inspires allegiance and bestows leadership, isn’t it?