Where do I stand?

I have been thinking over the past few days if to write or not about the issue regarding the documentary made and then banned on the Nirbhaya gang rape. A lot is being written. But I chose not to write coz I felt by writing it I would make it real. I didn't want that.

Probably I was running away from the truth. I still wanted to believe that India as a country and as a society has moved a bit forward. That I, being a modern Indian women who wanted to give back to the society was gaining some respect in the society.

Today while browsing youtube I stumble across the original documentary, India's Daughter : Indian rapist BBC documentary Delhi Nirbhaya full HD 

And as I watched, I felt very insecure. I was not getting scared of being raped...I was insecure about my very existence. 

Who am I?

I tried writing that in the first line of this post but I kept deleting my words. I wrote I was a "Girl", then wrote I was a "Indian Woman", then shifted to "Human". But none of the letter made any word that I was secure with. 

I am a human being and I am of female sex. Yes, I don't have a penis and do have boobs.

But never in my life before have I wrote this about me. I have always wrote I was a film maker. A thinking individual. An artist. One who wants to do for the society. 

But which society? The same society where a lawyer says, "We have a beautiful culture. Woman have no place in this culture."- is the society that I want to work for? 

Or do I belong to the society of that mother who knowing that her son has raped someone so brutally still cries and says that the government forced her son to commit suicide. Or maybe I belong to that wife's society where she refuses to believe that her husband should be given a death penalty for his crime against another woman. She rallies for her husband saying by hanging him the rapes wont stop. She says then the government should kill her and also her son along with her husband. Which society do I belong in?

Worse still I see a rapist sitting and telling that by giving the death punishment, the government was sending a wrong message- now the rapists would surely kill their victims after raping them, earlier they used to ONLY rape them.

Infact there are more choice for me to belong with. I could choose from a society of by standers standing over the writhing naked body of two human beings refusing to help OR the squads of police who stands tall still and says that Delhi is a safe city. India is a safe country. But all options are just..... I don't know the word..... maybe there isn't one for the kind of desolation, isolation and humiliation I feel being India's daughter.

By the time I finished watching the documentary and started writing the blog the video was pulled down. It has been banned in India. But why? Are we so vain in our false notion of our culture that we don't want to see whats going wrong? How can we just sit by seeing our own daughters suffering like this?

I keep fighting with my mom saying that I am in an industry where I can and probably will get late to reach home and I blame my mother for being conservative and orthodox in her view. But which mother won't be scared if this is the country I live in. Where I am not looked upon as a fellow human being but as "food" [That is what the convicted's lawyer called women on roads to be.]. 

I don't know if we are moving forward or are we rolling back! You can call me a feminist and probably I am...but this fight is for all of us...humans....

Cinderella's satin...

My mother has been a single mom and done a pretty commendable job at that I guess. If Ma reads this statement she might think that I am running a fever or something and can rush with a thermometer inquiring if I had temperature. But jokes apart, she had actually done a commendable job. 

My beautiful Ma

We share a very weird relationship, a bitter sweet, stretchy, probably even a bit brittle- but a strong relationship none the less. We have kind of grown up together. She was working when I was born but she came to her own self along with me. 

I had a tough time growing up. Never really liked the fact that others had both parents while I was stuck with one. But somehow never really blamed her for it. On the contrary, I grew up very fast..somehow always understood her and her limitations.

Ma with white hair. She hates it. I love it.

I remember moving out of my Dadu's house and shifting to Ma's office quarter's for the first time. It was a big day for Ma, her first big step. I remember the kitchen consisted of a kadai, a khunti, a handi, 2 plates and a kerosene stove. Apart from these the only other thing in the flat was a mattress. I loved the mattress, it had mickey mouse drawn all over it. That was OUR first step. She was scared and I knew it but we figured it out together. We survived.

Me and Milky at Salt Lake quarters

I don't know if my mom would agree or not but I was very conscious of her limitations. Very conscious to protect her. She was my mom and I liked being hers. But in the process of growing up with her I somewhere lost my childhood. A lot summers and a lot of winter has passed and Ma and I have had our own share of high and lows. Our relationship had been like a rubber band. We stretch it with our nonsensical baggage but then time bangs us back together. We survive this too.

Few years back for a special event I needed to buy dress material so we went to New Market. Both of us hate shopping (Yes, we are a special lot!), so we just hurry through the process. So walking fast towards the shops, suddenly I realized that my mom was not following me anymore. Knowing her habit of getting stuck at some shop just gazing at something I traced my steps back. Like I expected she was stuck in a shop but strange choice at the kind of shop it was. It was a kids' clothes shop. She was stroking a white Cinderella satin dress with a nostalgic smile. I tried calling her from outside but she was lost in the dress some how. An expectant sales man stood at her tow hoping that she will buy it. The sales man very courteously escorted me in understanding that it was my mother. 

I had no clue why she was in this shop. I elbowed her. She looked up to me as if in daze. I inquired why was she looking at a kid's dress. She smiled. Then stroking the satin folds said, "Remember, you loved this kind of frocks when you were a kid. At that time I didn't have money to buy you such expensive dress but now I have, but look at you- you have grown up." She just looked on at the dress with such innocence. 

There are few moments in life when you want to say a lot of things but words seem to elude you. This was such a moment for me. Never really spoke about this with Ma. But today I choose to write it. Coz by writing I make it real. I make our surviving real. I make us real.

She probably couldn't give me a lot of things and probably she faltered at quite a few steps but what the hell, who doesn't! I am here and I am pretty proud of myself and that's all her work so, she probably couldn't give me Cinderella but she taught me how to reach for my happy ending.

Yes Ma, I have grown up but a white satin Cinderella dress....who cares what age I am.....I would always love it!