I haven’t watched Homi Adajania’s Cocktail but from what I hear, it achieves something no different from the message sent by goons of the so called Hindu Janajagrana Vedike on Saturday who raided a resort in Padil, and thrashed and slapped girls for partying in “indecent clothes” and consuming, alcohol. Deepika Padukone’s Veronica was not thrashed literally maybe but was, am told, broken down… mind, body and soul in a film that packages moral policing in glossy, fruity colours and ultimately in the defeatist sub-text of how bad girls can find trouble but not love. So this group of men barged into a place called Morning Mist Home Stay at Padil and reportedly did what they did to protect our culture. I wonder, if the women were wearing sarees, would they have been spared? Just like Draupadi was? When she was almost disrobed in a royal court full of impassive onlookers? Who was to blame for what happened to her? Because we like to do that in this country. Blame the violation on the violated. Aah, we did, didn’t we? We blamed her for laughing at Duryodhana when he slipped and fell at Indrapratha. If only she hadn’t. Because you don’t expect a man to forget that kind of a slight now, do you?
***
And why was Sita, the epitome of sacred Indian womanhood abducted? She did not ask for it just like women in Delhi don’t when they are abducted in moving cars. Oh right, she crossed the Laxman Rekha. She should not have. No woman should. And this Laxman Rekha could be the hemline of a skirt, the door of a pub, the glass ceiling at the office, the gotra, the caste, the religion she is born in. She has no say in what happens to her body. Who touches her. Who rapes her. Because she is a consumable. Never an individual with a volition.
***
Yet, this is a country where a Lakshmi Sehgal captained the women’s wing of Azad Hind Fauj or Indian National Army. In trousers. Where we have had female warriors like Laxmi Bai, astronauts, police women, pilots and sportswomen who did their life’s work without worrying about the politics of Laxman Rekhas.Who are these people, some even entrenched in the hegemonies of power who want women to do without cell phones, life partners and even clothes of their own choice, who accuse rape victims of being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Like they did in a story recreated on Sony’s Crime Patrol where a single mother unwinding with her friends in a pub was accused of inviting rape because decent women unlike her, did not get divorced or talk with men they did not know over a drink late at night.
***
There is something insidious about the way violence against women is justified and contextualised and overlooked. Not surprising then that one of the biggest heart throbs of Hindi cinema is a hero infamous for beating his women. A Kannada superhero arrested for battering his wife was uproariously supported last year by his fans. A recent compilation of film songs and movie lyrics would throw up words like bitch, whore , jalebi bai and madam malai and most film songs like I wrote way back in 1993, objectify women, dehumanise and reduce all them to a body part, a heaving cleavage, a swinging posterior and a gyrating waist. Just a nudge and a pinch away.
So at one level, we want women to stay at home, cover up,not fall in love or have a drink in the bar and on another, we turn them into pieces of meat being flung to a pack of lions to the beat of Sheela Ki Jawani or Jumma Chumma as it was all those years ago or raping, hounding, assaulting or stalking them. We are not unfamiliar with the idea of Ardha Narishwara and Shiva and Shakti and yet in the same culture, we do not have a male version of terms like Pativrata or Suhagan or Vidhva or Randi. Men are free of labels. Of generalisations about morality, sexuality and character.
***
Women however must either hide from or submit to the male gaze. Is there a third option? Our cinema, our politicians, our moral policemen convey that there isn’t. Can the men and women who do nothing when assault unfolds before their eyes, change something? Starting with themselves? Tall order that. Always easier to blame the system than the fact that we too are a part of it. That with our silence, we too endorse the mass disrobing of girls who could have been our daughters and sisters. Could have been. But they are not, so we watch a blurred face on TV and look away. It is not a face we recognise. Atleast, not yet.
***
i think there is a reason for not having a male version of terms like pativrata, suhagan, vidhwa n randi. I think there is something common in all these terms.All these terms reflects dependence of woman on man, rather one man, a faithful and loyal wife. All these words were originated before pill-revolution era when a woman had to bear and rear her so many children alone and was completely dependent on a man economically. Taking advantage of her biological handicap, this male oriented society made all social laws laws n conventions according to male nature and convenience making woman suffer. And she will keep suffering unless she is ecomomically independent.
We need to change our roots and a woman has to be economically on her own
the blood boils. frustration rises. but who do i punch? there are such zealots and i have but two fists.
only thing i can hope to do is not stand for injustice and raise my child to not stand for it either.
Brilliant write up. It touched and moved me, or perhaps i should say, nudged and pinched…