Some like Jack and Some like Jill

On Monday, December 11th, 2013, the Supreme Court of India overturned an earlier judgement of the Delhi High Court dating July 2nd, 2009 that had declared Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code unconstitutional with respect to sex between consenting adults. In short, the High Court of Delhi had in 2009, given a verdict against the archaic Chapter XV1, Section 377 of the Indian Penal code that criminalizes sexual activities seen as "against the order of nature", including acts of homosexuality. This is a section of law dating back to 1861 that the High Court in its wisdom had understood to be intrusive and impinging on individual freedom, especially in our times. The Supreme Court held that amending or repealing Section 377 should be a matter left to Parliament, not the judiciary. The reaction to the Supreme Court's order was along expected lines. The gay and transgendered community was shocked, appalled, angry and pained. The keepers of India's morality were happy, joyous, vindicated and triumphant. I am shocked, appalled, angry and pained. I am not gay.

I have known many gay people in my life. They are all decent, law abiding and tax paying people of their respective societies.The apparel and fashion business gets more than its fair share of gays as do other creatively centered businesses, so, being a part of this world threw me in the company of many such people. At first, I was awkward, even wary. It wasn't so much about their sexual orientation as it was about my inability to arrive upon my own reactions to them. Soon, my awkwardness gave way to disinterest partly because I am fiercely private and I value other people's privacy as much as mine and partly because I found no difference between gay people and straight people. I mean, I had no interest in the sexual orientation of my straight co workers unless it fell in the realm of occasional teasing about a potential love or lust interest. Soon I was able to make the same banter with my gay co workers too. In short, the oh-my-god-they're-gay moment came and went with the blink of an eye. Along the way, I've met many men with husbands and women with wives, partied with them, partaken in their family gatherings and enjoyed being a part of their lives. Never once did it occur to me or them that we were in a social relationship "against the order of nature". But it seems that Supreme Court could neither come to terms with this alternative sexuality nor could it completely kill the issue of acceptance of homosexuality for all times to come. While it overturned the earlier order of the High Court, it still left an opening that rests the fate of homosexuals regarding their very entity with the Parliament of India. Till then, indulging in homosexual acts is a culpable offense. So, we have almost 50 million new criminals in our country overnight! The thought of two men or women having sex just shakes the very foundations of our society it seems!

Debate upon debate on news channels has gays saying that it is humiliating that they are now going to legally be criminals. I believe that the Supreme Court order had more to do with coercing gays to disown their sexual preference and be counted amongst straight people rather than criminalizing them. The latter is the intended and arrived consequence of lack of capitulation by the gays. It is almost as if someone thought that by making homosexuality culpable, homosexuals would submit silently into a false identity of heterosexuality. Post 2009, many people got the courage to confirm their homosexuality. There was now a law that legally and constitutionally gave them the freedom and the protection to acknowledge and confirm that. I wonder what will happen to all those openly gay people now. Will their employers fire them for being criminals or will they have to give affidavits that they do not indulge in anal or oral sex since both are now illegal. How then are homosexuals supposed to have sex? Or does the Supreme Court want them not to ever have sex for all times to come because they are gay? Is this a punishment on top of a threat? What happens to heterosexual people who indulge in anal or oral sex? Can husbands and wives now take each other to the local police station because one of them wanted oral sex and the other refused? The stupidity of it all baffles me. The Supreme Court wants red beacons off from cars. The reasoning is infallible. It is a symbol of power mongering by people who ride rough shod over others and their use disrupts and threatens the common man's life. How does my neighbor having anal sex in his or her bedroom disrupt my life? Does it cause traffic jams? Does it give rise to inflation? Does it abet infiltration from an enemy country? Does it prevent Lok Pals or Vishaka Committees from being incorporated? 

You really cannot and should not attempt to calibrate love. There is no meter to judge its longevity, purity, intensity or power. There are homosexual couples who have been in loving relationships for decades. There are homosexual couples who have been and are raising children. They cry when either falls ill. It hurts when one dies on the other. They buy groceries, decorate their homes, help their kids with homework, attend PTA's    They have fights. They sulk. They kiss and then they make up, or not. What part of any of this looks like it is"against the order of nature" ? These are real people and like real people, some are nice and some are not. Some contribute immensely to their social surroundings, others do not. Some make great friends and lovers and others do not. Some make great parents and others do not. Some are responsible for creating the gay stereotype that has further fueled the prejudice against them. Effeminate men and masculine women are not mascots of the homosexual community. But nothing warrants them being criminalized. The heterosexual world does not realize what gut wrenching pain and sadness the homosexual community in India must be feeling at this time. The time for sympathy is over, This is now the time to empathise.

The gorgeous Vikram Seth wrote a poem called 'Dubious". It goes like this..

Some men like Jack
And some like Jill
I'm glad that I like
Them both, but still

I wonder if
This freewheeling
Really is an
Enlightened thing

Or is its greater
Scope a sign
Of deviance from
Some party line?

In the strict ranks of
Gay and Straight
What is my status:
Stray? or Great?

Can you feel the protagonist's pain? Can you understand what he is saying? What sort of existence does he have that he is forced to question whether he is even enlightened? Will he reach his intended greatness only if he is straight? If he is not straight will he be a stray, a castaway from his own potential god given greatness in life?.

The worthlessness of women's woes!

While discussing the latest sexual impropriety bomb that has been thrown at us by Tarun Tejpal's antics, I wrote in an FB thread that independent of the Indian Penal Code or the revered and feared IPC, there should additionally be an "Indian Penis Code". This organ is the source of so much trouble that it deserves its very own code! Bemused, my dear cousin Nidhi, a former journalist herself, said, "Didi, men think they are born with an additional fundamental right". I agree. This is the right that they think they are exercising when they are raping 2 year olds or throwing acid on the faces of girls who do not want them in their lives or claiming, as Ram Jethmalani did, that Asaram's victim had questionable integrity because she wanted a good life! This is the right that they exercise when they physically and emotionally abuse women who they know, sometimes women who are in their lives, contributing immensely to their success. And why do they do it, because they are men, and they can.

November 25th, is the International Day for Elimination of Violence Against Women. Ironically, this was the day that the doctor duo of the Talwars was found guilty of killing their daughter Arushi. It was also the day that Tarun Tejpal sought anticipatory bail for a depraved sexual assault he mounted on a female employee. It was also a day when a the debate about a woman being stalked by one of India's Prime Ministerial candidates gained momentum, On a personal level, it was also a day when someone very close to me was being counseled by a legal entity to return to her matrimonial home. This, despite the fact that she had been evicted from it and was forced to fight a trumped up case in court only because her matrimonial relatives wanted to teach her a lesson for not capitulating to their vulgar expectations.

We are in a state of social frenzy.  Despite the fact that all kinds of egregious things are happening to women, our society is, in fact, increasingly vocal of its refusal to accept things lying down. This is not a good time for you if you are a sexual offender or an alleged sexual offender or a misogynist or stupid enough to be found out as one. No one is willing to take this rubbish lying down anymore. Then, there is our refusal to accept the sheer arrogance of men when dealing with women. Tarun Tejpal believed that in recusing himself from office for a period of 6 months of repentance, self flagellation or whatever he would have us believe he was going to do in that time period, would somehow absolve him of a crime and protect him from its punishment. For the life of me, I cannot understand how an intelligent man like Tarun Tejpal could tender an apology with a timeline of 6 months! If you have assaulted a woman, no matter how convinced you are that she wanted the assault, your apology should read that you are quitting till the matter is resolved by due process of redressal. If he was thinking that people in general and his eager-to-make-a-kill journalist fraternity in particular would ignore this and not come down on him like a ton of bricks, he is either a naive man or one convinced of being carried through purely by the dint of his fame. If there ever was "an awful misreading of the situation', it would have had to be this. And then, there is the sheer and well established audacity of the Narendra Modi - Amit Shah duo in pretending that they did nothing extra constitutional in extra constitutionally spying on a woman with whom it seems "saheb" was enjoying exchanges of warm and fuzzy messages and with whom it seems "saheb" had fears of being caught in a compromising position on a CD!

It makes me sick that a young 13 year old Arushi Talwar's character has been and is still being shred to bits but some people. I am not a lawyer, but I believe that a victims sexual history is of no significance to justice being served to him or her. Say, for a moment we believe that she was in fact caught in a compromising position with a much older household help. That would, in fact, tantamount to rape and for that she certainly did not deserve to be killed. Her parents have been found guilty when, in fact, there is a very good chance that they could get relief upon appeal on the basis of benefit of doubt. There are two people dead here, one a girl and another we still call a "servant" in 2013. I’ve heard people say she’s better dead than alive or else her parents would have lived in shame! Bottom line, the poor girl is dead with her character bludgeoned as her body was. Who cares whether she gets justice or not as long as salacious reporting and gossip mongering keep the wires hot! It’s just a 13 year old girl,

Tarun Tejpal decided to be sanctimonious. Then he took the time tested route of blaming the victim. He somehow 'misread' the situation not one but twice! You pull down a girl's underwear and she says no. How depraved or drunk on your own fame do you have to be to assume that it is some girlie style yes instead! If you do the same thing again, you are not misreading signals, you are simply signalling that you are a sexual fiend! I have always liked Shoma Chaudhury. She conducts herself with so much gravitas, honesty and conviction that she sets herself aside from most shrill imbeciles parading as journalists.  For her to do this young victim of Tarun Tejpal such disservice can only mean two things, either that she hoped like hell to save Tehelka from this implosion and took a series of calculated missteps or she really is as much a victim of an ideology that "women are simultaneously victims of themselves as well as victims of men.." I don't know why women keep saying with pride that they are feminists! What a stupid adjective! All women are feminists. We all want to be equal to men. In fact, if men were not the "other" half and it were orangutans or beavers, we would want to be treated equally to them as well. Dignity is a universal thing. It is not vis a vis something or somebody. Where is the feminism in not having an in house committee for dealing with sexual harassment as per the Vishaka Guidelines? Where is the feminism in saying there are two sides to a sexual assault? And exactly where is the feminism in endorsing that Tarun Tejpal has somehow taken the higher ground in resigning for 6 months? Feminism is a state of mind that should manifest itself in commensurate action.

And now, to the great "Loh Purush" of India, Narendra Modi and his blue eyed thug, Amit Shah. Narendra Modi is supposed to be a celibate man only because he has not been known to have been in a relationship with a woman. Of course, if you dig deeper, chances are you will find that the public domain contains information about him having been married at some point. This self imposed celibacy has somehow added to  his perceived machismo. But along comes a story that is as horrendous as it is horrifying. Stalking an object of your desire through state sponsored tools, without necessary authorizations or approvals, especially when the person being stalked presents no danger to the safety of the state, is shocking. The impunity with which it was done and is now being dismissed, is even more shocking! What is shameful is how the girl's father was interjected into the story. While "saheb" wants his voyeuristic eye on the girl, the father, most likely at the arm twisting of "saheb', now says that he had asked for surveillance on his daughter to protect her. What a joke! What is she, an object to be alternately coveted and controlled? Whatever the pathetic explanations, it is a damn shame to see the nostril flaring Nirmala Sitharaman and dead pan Meenakshi Lekhi pretending that nothing illegal was done here! Lekhi, especially, should know better. She is a lawyer. But the suspension of common sense and common decency even from women, is all too forthcoming when it comes to crimes and transgressions against women!

And then my personal grief gets added to all this. The tragedy with women like me is that we remain agnostic to the gender debate because we have been raised gender agnostic. We remain unfazed by the fact that we are far more successful than our husbands at the time of our marriages. We marry men less successful than ourselves in the belief that this disparity means nothing. But we soon find out that our “lakhon ki salary” is being discussed in hushed tones in our matrimonial households. Our husbands are being asked where our money goes. They are too emasculated by their mothers, to ask directly at first but when they do, it turns into allegations of whether we are giving money to our parents and siblings! All this while ignoring the fact that it is OUR money and we are free to give it to a monkey with scurvy if we like! The question is, why are we not directly asked for our money by our husbands and their parents? Why do a song and dance about not being concerned but then getting ulcers thinking day and night about where our money goes? The narrative soon heads into the gutter with our fathers, brothers, unmarried sisters etc being victimized, all because our matrimonial family cannot digest the fact that we do not hand over our cheques to our mothers-in-law on the 1^st of every month! But the audacity of it all is that our matrimonial families claim they want nothing from us! And yet, we have to pay for our own keep. Our in-laws never return a single gift given to them at the time of the marriage or thereafter but yet, they claim not to “want” anything! Our mothers-in-law never ask their sons to contribute to the running of the house, but as soon as a daughter-in-law is added to the family, these mothers-in-law cannot digest how their “ghar ki laxmi” can eat, sleep and be comfortable in the house without making some sort of payment for enjoying the same comforts that all the other people are enjoying! If you want our money, just ask for it! It is that simple. But don’t pretend to be holier than thou. Don’t use our money to increase your loan taking abilities and create assets unless you have the decency to put down our names as part owners of the assets. Even if you are paying the EMI’s yourself, realize that without our added income, you would not be able to take a loan and build your assets. Don’t ask us to pay half or “commensurate” contribution to the running of the house and then pretend that it does not amount to a monetary contribution towards the household only because you’re paying mortgages on the assets that you have accumulated ONLY BECAUSE, our joint salaries could facilitate so.

It is tough enough being a woman. It is a miracle that so many of us survive, what with people wanting a perfect son in the womb instead of a daughter. We have periods that drain our energy every 28 days and in some cases, make us murderous or suicidal. Our egg reserves deplete all through our adult life till, in some cases, we’re left with too few to make babies with. Then there are menopause issues, osteoporosis issues and I haven’t even started talking about the rapes, dowry deaths, insinuations and professional ceilings to success! Give us a break, will ya!!