Yessir, ji madam.

What does it mean to respect somebody? Is personal expression integral to respect, or must it be enacted in socially acceptable terms to be meaningful? Is it possible, within an institutional setting, to eschew existing socially acceptable expressions of respect and create another vocabulary; what sort of consequences would such an experiment entail?

I ask these questions in the context of a seemingly innocuous conflict I am faced up with: the use of first names while addressing those senior to me. The terms ma'am and sir make me uncomfortable, as do, indeed, all terms that require me to address persons as positions. The fact that ma'am and sir have such evidently classist roots does nothing to endear them to me. But they are seemingly ubiquitous. When I began referring to a university professor by her name to my parents, my mother (a teacher, herself) chided me several times about being disrespectful. My mother, however, was also the person who would come back fuming from work, disgruntled by the superficial ways in which students sometimes ritually enact respect <cue: "good morrrning ma'am"> but do not mean it in any kind of depth. Whenever I've conversed with anybody about the rationale behind sticking with terms like ma'am and sir instead of simply calling people by their names, respect has been central. I thought, therefore, that it would likely be useful to unpack the idea of respect, a little bit, to make sense of the confusion in my head. As always, the confusion is deeply personal and to do with a month of intense agonising about the ways in which I wish to negotiate working within institutions. This question of names, positions and respect speaks to, in many ways, the bigger questions one is always faced up with, while trying to, simultaneously, work within a system created by others and remain one's own person.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines respect in two ways that are relevant to this post:

1. A feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements
2. Due regard for the feelings, wishes, or rights of others

The second, I think, we owe to all human beings. Some would say all creatures, but being non-vegetarian I am a little unsure of my footing on that debate: can you respectfully kill? But if we view ourselves as engaged in the messy business of living, then is killing for food part of healthy (and essential) competition; in which case, is respectful competition, enough? I'm not sure. Anyhow, for the mean time, we'll run with it being essential that we be considerate towards the feelings, wishes and rights of all persons. I do not think position or seniority has anything to do with this understanding of respect. Should someone higher up in terms of educational qualification, seniority, age, status deserve more consideration by virtue of their position, than a person say at the foot of the same ladder? I should think not. In fact, we call that expectation of greater consideration, which folk who're at the top of the ladder tend to have, 'entitlement' and we tend to wrinkle up our noses at it. This cannot, then, be the respect that is spoken of, when we think about why we use ma'am/sir.

The first definition is evidently more complex. A feeling of admiration is something that is deeply personal; for instance, I do not admire all my professors, even if they've all got the same educational qualifications or are at the same position in my university. This reminds me of something rather cliched that my parents often said to me: respect is commanded, not demanded. If I am told to refer to a person as ma'am or sir as a symbol of respect for their position or seniority, it sounds to me like a demand, though a fairly hollow one. I can address a whole horde of people as ma'am or sir, but respect (as in, admire) maybe two of them. What value should one attach to that symbol then?

If I were to decide to address somebody as ma'am/sir, perhaps I would be enacting a well-worn socially acceptable ritual of respect. But I think something else is at play when institutions make it mandatory that persons in particular positions be addressed in particular ways. In those settings, I think the use of ma'am and sir is used to reinforce authority and create a sort of distance between the two persons involved in an interaction. It serves as a means to constantly remind one of the power imbalance that exists, and to reify it. It is of little wonder, then, that the military is one context within which the practice is most rigorously observed.

Does that make the requirement unequivocally problematic, I don't know. I can see why it is important for certain sorts of identities, especially, to set up that distance and to assert authority. A brahmin man can afford to be pally and on first-name basis with his junior colleagues yet be able to assert authority when required. The same behaviour from a woman in the same position would likely result in a certain familiarity on the part of the junior colleague, and could well lead to the woman's authority being undermined. The examples of differential readings of and responses to similar behaviour can be multiplied. The point is that this overt assertion of a difference in positions can sometimes be a person's only tool towards being taken seriously in that position. What does one do, then?

The trouble with demanding the use of sir or ma'am, though, is that I feel it reduces two people to two positions. There is something impersonal about the use of these terms that pushes aside the softer, caring parts of me. In essence, I feel that with me, personally, to insist that I address somebody as sir/ma'am is to ask that I enact respect and recognise authority, while reducing my ability to actually be considerate and compassionate. I have found, interestingly, that each time I have connected with somebody senior to me, I've found a way by which to refer to them by their names or by nicknames that they accept, and worked around the sir/ma'am conundrum. But that is not always going to work; there are some people and some organisations that treat their norms for addressing people as non-negotiables. Being faced up with one such situation, I have been wondering about what I should do, and how I should process this.

I've come to realise two sets of things: first, that not every disagreement between my personal preferences and an organisation's norms, irreconcilable as it might be, threatens my fundamental values and second, that while standing dramatically firm and true to oneself is often valorised, most meaningful engagement happens in the grey area of give and take. I would be taking myself a little too seriously, if I raised every conflict situation to the level of a moral dilemma. In this particular case, then, if somebody insists that I refer to them as ma'am/sir, I'd do it, to the extent that the insistence does not in any which way quell democratic speech within the institution. Perhaps I will learn, with time, to use the terms shorn of the negative connotations they carry for me, and perhaps then I will find it easier to see the person, despite the stress on the position. Or perhaps those who insist on creating that distance will just have to live with the fact that while they gain something in doing so, they also lose out on a range of possibilities in the process, if that means anything to them in the first place.

If I ever have somebody junior to me working with me, though, I know I would be happy to have them refer to me by name. And, knowing my proclivity towards bluntness, I would probably also not hesitate in giving anybody who took that as license to be disrespectful, a piece of my mind. I am also sure that if I ever run an organisation, it would not welcome essentially gendered terms like ma'am and sir. But these are castles in the air. Right now, I've got to go back to figuring out whether, when you want to say belonging to ma'am, you can say ma'am's or you must use madam's. All help on this front would be welcome. :) 

full disclosure

I had a friend. Whom I loved very much, perhaps a little blindly. Many things should have told me that it's foolhardy to trust someone that implicitly, but I soldiered on, regardless. This friend meant a lot to me, sometimes she gave me the courage to be myself, sometimes she stood up for me when nobody else did, and sometimes she didn't. She's in many way the anti-thesis of me: gorgeous, smart, articulate, and an immense amount of fun to be around. I think we had fun together, though I do not know what her take on that is (I can be a dreadful bore). But, hidden amongst all the being-tight-buddies-ness were these sudden moments when she wielded the power to make me feel like as small as humanly possible. I didn't have the language to describe what I felt, until I read this article, recently. She, it turns out, was incredibly adept at 'jellyfishing', a concept described thus:

"The thing about Rebecca is, she's a jellyfisher. You have a conversation with her that seems all nice and friendly, then you suddenly feel like you've been stung and you don't know where it came from. You'll be talking about jeans and she'll say "Yes, well, if you've got cellulite jodhpurs, you're best in something really well-cut like Dolce and Gabbana"- she herself having thighs like a baby giraffe—then smoothly move on to DKNY chinos as if nothing had happened."

Each time I brought it up, I felt silly and a little stuffy, because I was taking offence at what was ostensibly a joke, or a lighthearted statement. I guess jellyfishing hurts you when you're insecure about yourself, and she seemed to have the unnerving knack of picking at my deepest insecurities. I do not know whether she did it deliberately or she didn't even realise what she was saying. What I do know is that it hurt, and despite my raising it as a concern several times, it didn't stop. It was something I could deal with alright, when I was happy and engaging with the world around me. But this one time, when I was low, working on depressing material (district court rape judgements), and feeling entirely alone in the world, I think it broke me. And I always thought that was an incredibly dramatic phrase, until I literally felt something inside me snap and understood what it meant. I figured I needed to get away, and I did; you know, for all the hungama people make about break-ups, the whole losing a friend, one who has possibly seen you through several break-ups, thing cuts just as deep, if not deeper. I didn't just lose one, I lost three (and I don't even know why). At one shot. And it felt like my world was collapsing around me.

For a year, I refused to acknowledge the existence of any problem. I laughed with other friends and acquaintances about how lazy I am, and how hard it is to get me out of my bed. But I could not express to them the absolute torture of lying in bed, listening to an alarm ring endlessly on, but not be able to will myself to get up and turn it off. I withdrew from friends, because I felt drab, and boring, and whiny, and being around people just seemed like too much effort. Nothing excited me: not the papers I was writing, not the events happening on campus, nothing. But I went through the motions of daily living, because my ego could not come to terms with admitting to feeling so hollow and fragile. I had been hurting myself since I was around thirteen, and just when I thought I'd finally got out of that phase, it all began again. I never cut myself; prolonged, invisible pain was more my forte; I'd bludgeon myself with something neither too blunt nor too sharp, until I bruised, or sustained a surface cut. Sometimes I'd sit in class, squirming in pain and discomfort, and those would be the only things I'd feel; every other emotion and sensation was a strange haze. Sometimes days would go by, without me getting out of my room (except to go to the toilet) or meeting anyone. And the more I pushed people away, the more they, well, allowed themselves to be pushed away, I guess.

Is it depression, if you've steadfastly refused to go to a psychologist and the only word you have for what's in your head, is your own? Maybe it isn't. But this one day, as I sat somewhat talli in my room, idly contemplating suicide and thinking that jumping off the hostel roof is kind of daft, 'cause one would only break bones, not die, I realised I had a problem at hand. I didn't feel like I deserved to live, or that there was any need for me to. I'd lost count of the number of nights I'd fallen asleep sobbing for no reason whatsoever, and woken up with sticky eyes and a blocked nose. And I decided to damn my ego, and talk about it to people who mattered to me.

That sounds a whole lot easier than it really is. How do you explain things to people when you don't understand them yourself? If you're even remotely aware of society around you, how do you justify your completely irrational, and self-absorbed, anguish in the face of the relative comfort and privilege of your life? How much can you whine about how tatti you feel, without boring the person before you to tears? I've never really talked about my emotions and insecurities with many people before, and now that I'd begun, I felt like a dam had burst and I simply could not stop. At around the same time, a friend and colleague got drunk and asked me why I pretend to be super-human all the time; why can't I be vulnerable. Does somebody have to 'show' vulnerability to be granted the right to be perceived as a human being? Aren't we all vulnerable, by default? But the deal with feeling as fragile as I did, then, is that pretending to be super-human is no longer an option. Somebody I am working with made a passing (and lighthearted) remark about the demons inside my head being a cherished addiction. And, to my intense surprise, I found myself furious and hurt at the same time, railing against him in a reaction that was grossly disproportionate to the remark. For days after that, I dreamt of hurting myself and they were pleasurable dreams, you know, the sort that said, "Go on, Ninni, do it; you need to feel the pain; you deserve the pain." in the most lulling sort of tone. Once, I woke up and did just as the dream suggested. I hated the effect that one little statement could have on me. I talked about my reaction to it, with a trusted friend and my parents, who unanimously called me a drama-queen. I sort of agreed with them, and felt sheepish. When you think about it, though, it puts you in quite a bind, doesn't it? If you don't express vulnerabilities, you're pretending to be super-human; if you do crack when you're feeling vulnerable, then you're a drama-queen. Ab karey bhi toh kya karey?

But people can be so immensely beautiful. Sometimes, support comes from the most unexpected sources, and in such doses that you wonder what you've done to deserve it. People who wake you up in the morning and wait outside your room until you pick up your lota and go to the loo. People who're willing to work with you despite knowing that you're as whiny and prickly as humanly possible, and little bit clingy. Old friends who tell you you're not alone, and they've been in your place too, and that things get better. And as I talk to people and am honest about how I feel, I realise that there are just so many others who've lived through this in the time that I've known them, but we'd never really have spoken about it until I brought it up expressly. Having refused to talk about it for a whole year, myself, I can totally see why. Describing things in your head can be a very risky venture: people have the annoying tendency to tell you to 'stop being lazy', 'get a grip on yourself', and that it's 'all in your head' (well, duh). Perhaps some part of this is because we do not talk about things in our head the way we talk about fevers and loosies, and more conversation will dispel myths regurgitated by people who mean well. And for those who resist your gentle nudges towards sensitivity, send 'em a copy of 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' with “of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real,” highlighted in neon pink.

---

Was that an abrupt ending? Well, sorry, I ran out of things to say and the energy to attempt to say 'em well. Maybe I'll revisit this post later and end with a flourish. Maybe I won't. Meh.

Of 'the common man' who refuses to shake hands with me. :(

Yesterday, I started bleeding, as women of a certain age are wont to do every month. I groaned inwardly, because, well, menstrual cramps are a bummer, but also because the next day I was to go for a public meeting about a problematic land regularisation scheme relaunched by the Telangana government and then catch a train to Bangalore after that. My immediate reaction was to think, for a tiny little while, whether I could somehow wriggle out of the meeting, postpone the trip back home and just snuggle into bed with my fluffy blanket for a couple of days.
With that came a flash of anger at myself. 'Menstruation is normal,' I thought, 'it's not a bloomin' illness! You can't simply renege on all your commitments once a month for the next two decades! What kind of feminist are you! What kind of work ethic is that!' So I squared my shoulders <ow, cramp> and thought about what I'd need to take to be completely prepared for the obstacle course more commonly described as a woman's search for a toilet in a public space. Sanitary napkins: check. Toilet paper: check. Bag with a roomy external pocket in case there is no dustbin: check. Newspaper: check. I booked an OLA cab ('cause while exercising this option is evidence enough of privilege, OLA is the only one I could possibly afford) and spent a restless night in my local guardian's house, too afraid of staining her sheets to be able to sleep peacefully.

I went for the meeting with a male colleague. I was the outsider in every sense of the term: language, expertise, the works. What I didn't expect was that I'd be one amongst five women in a gathering of, at least, two hundred and fifty people. So when the president of the organisation that was conducting the meeting shook hands with only my male colleague (we both met the president for the first time, together) and discussed the woes of the 'common man', he meant it literally. The dais had eleven chairs, all for men. Not one woman spoke.
At some point in the meeting, I realised I needed to go to the loo. Trying to be considerate, I went around all the seats instead of cutting across someone's line of vision. I needn't have bothered. Eyes followed me through my entire journey. To be intensely scrutinised as you trot towards a toilet is an incredibly discomfitting experience. I kid you not. But in the embarrassment of the moment, I had failed to focus on something more central to the entire woman seeking toilet experience: the toilet door. It was locked. Ladies: locked. 'Maybe they just lock their loos by default,' I thought, hopefully. Men: open (and in use). They had two toilets for men, both open. Perhaps they got it opened when they went to use it? So I went to a woman who was working in the kitchens adjoining that area and asked about the ladies' toilet. She shook her head emphatically and asked me to use another toilet that didn't have any gendered labels attached and was, presumably, for the staff. Or perhaps it was Ladies' toilet No.2, minus the label? Either way, I entered and shut the door, only to be subsumed within an all enveloping darkness. So I opened the door again, looking around, bewildered, to find no sign of any switch, or even a bulb for that matter. There was no cistern, forget a flush. No lota or any sign of flowing water. No hook, and most definitely no dustbin. I stuck my phone between my teeth, with its flashlight on and pointing downward, tied my bag to the door handle, fished out the toilet roll and stuck it under one arm, and changed a sanitary napkin with the other hand, trying hard to drop nothing and keep my salwar from turning the same shade of brown as the floor I was standing gingerly on. I rolled up the used napkin, covered it in plastic and paper, and stuck it in the outside pocket of my bag, because where else? I left that loo feeling like I'd accomplished a major acrobatic feat, and wondering at women who deal with this, and worse, every day, for all of their lives. This is by no means a new or startling experience; it's normal for any woman who treads paths outside the mall-restaurant-theatre-club-home circuit, but I think it hit me harder because it happened at a 'public meeting' about a seemingly progressive concern that affects, in the view of the organisers, 'the common man.'

The meeting raised several interesting legal and social concerns, but when someone asked me what it was like, it took me a while to be able to articulate any of it because the overwhelming sensation it left me with was that I wasn't part of the public for whom the meeting was called. I was an aberration, that people did not know how to deal with. Ladies weren't expected there; neither were women who lay no claim to being ladies. And oddly enough, common though such exclusions are, it hurt. One wonders, is it because women don't occupy such spaces that men do not know how to behave in their presence, or is their discomfort/hostility the reason why women do not show up for such events? Obviously, the answers are far more complex (and it's evident that both these processes feed into each other), but I do wish that just once in a while, a man would stick his hand out towards me and introduce himself; and that the Ladies' toilet would be unlocked for 'public meetings'.

an unusually happy election post.

For the longest time, we didn't hear of the possibility of a woman becoming the Student Bar Council President in NALSAR. It was an unthinkable. Our first election, we heard that the men were being made to conduct internal elections in the 'Boys' Hostel' so we tried to do the same in our own hostel. It failed miserably because several of us felt that this curtailed students' right to contest elections, and nobody was really making us do it. So we didn't, and felt rather pleased that a principled stance won over the clearly politically expedient one. The next morning, we went in for the elections; the men came in with their candidates fixed (and their proxy candidates fixed too), and we spoke of fair democracy. Needless to say, all the eight representatives we had that year were men. This was, we were told, expected. Seniors I respected told me to stay out of politics in NALSAR: it's dirty, and there is no way you can make a headway into Boys' Hostel politics.  

Why were the men in our batch pushed, in this incredibly organised manner, into selecting candidates and voting purely on the basis of gender? Why did anybody have such hold over them? And why was this not the case (thank goodness it was not the case) with the women? Why did men replicate the model they themselves had found oppressive the year before? And why, when stories of assault, threats of harm to come, slander, harassment were an open secret, was the administration (then) absolutely uninterested?

The first thing I figured was that the administration, an evidently patriarchal one, was not uninterested, it was deeply interested in keeping status quo going. That meant permitting elections to be rigged so you had a SBC that was in your pocket. It's easier to be letting a university run down to the dogs when its students don't protest against it, isn't it? 

The second epiphany happened as I noticed the manner in which first year students greet seniors differently, based on gender: there is always a "hello bhaiya" from men to men, there is no such system with women. This is a hierarchy that is built into the manner in which men are accepted into the fold in NALSAR. It is a hierarchy that plays an incredibly important role in elections conducted two weeks after students get to NALSAR, especially where any other measure of candidates is absent. 

The model was replicated year after year, albeit with some inclusion of women at the committee level as the number of women students increased (thereby increasing the risks involved with women running internal elections, as the class of 2013 did, once), for the simple reason that it worked for those it served -- there was deal making (and breaking) amongst men (even if the subject of the deal was a woman candidate), it was easy to rig, and figuring out the way 40 voters would vote (and threatening them with violence if they did not vote according to what was asked of them) was a whole lot easier than actually running a campaign on a manifesto. Running an underhand smear campaign against rival candidates, in the cosy comfort of hostel rooms, in situations where the probability of the rival doing the same to you were minimal (especially if they were of a different gender) was simpler than discussing ideology or policy inclinations. 

Things came to a head with the last elections, with men muscle-flexing and openly threatening juniors while elections were being conducted, and with defamatory statements being made with pride, in the electoral college. It was, frankly, a depressing election, personally and for the institution. The University needed to decide for itself -- was it going to tell those who were effectively being rendered voiceless by the system that they should just learn to play the dominant set at their own game, knowing all the while that the game in question is premised on coercion (for junior students) and horsetrading? Or were we going to rework the manner in which elections happen in NALSAR?

A committee was set up to review the Constitution (elected committee, open to everybody's candidature, etc.) and draft a new one. We did that, and then opened it up for debate. Parts of the debate were truly insulting, parts were saddening, but what it did do is throw open the question of representational equity for the entire student body to consider, publicly. If women were viewed as equal political beings in NALSAR, then why was there only two women who'd ever held any position in the Executive Council in the SBC? Were there other prejudices at play? Caste? Region? Religion? What exactly the CRC's draft constitution said is a subject of another post, but these conversations I think, were integral to the manner in which these elections worked out.

For these elections, a transitory Constitution was put in place. It had direct elections for the President, indirect elections for all other Executive positions, and it introduced the concept of manifestos. The Executive was expanded to include a President, a Vice-President, a Treasurer, two General Secretaries (one male and one female) and two Joint Secretaries (following the same formula). As a Constitution, one has several problems with it, especially the fact that it (incomprehensibly) has four secretaries and three other Executive Council members, but it was definitely a change for the better.

Several things mark these elections out as being different from those held in the recent past. First, they were preceded by three days of debates on electoral politics in NALSAR, where all students were welcome and so first year students did not enter a system entirely devoid of context. Second, the question of representational equity was on lots of people's minds, especially women who wanted to create their own systems which aren't oppressive but can still bring in results. Third, the elections happened a good month after college re-opened, giving first year students ample time to settle down and find their bearings. This facilitated an open election where you could discuss candidature with first year students and things weren't carried out in a clandestine manner through one night in a Boys' Hostel common room. This is not to say that attempts weren't made, of course, but that there were a critical mass of students within the batch who resisted this coercion. Fourth, the election of the President was direct, candidature needed to be declared in advance, and rigging the entire system to get a President of your choice was no longer an option. Slandering the other side and her friends could only get you so far, and possibly could backfire (as I think it did). Politics was out in the open, and boy was it refreshing! Manifestos had an impact on people's choices. There was a Presidential campaign that was put together by a large number of small groups of students and was based on what the person stood for, not who she was standing against. People were discussing politics openly, even jovially. It felt empowering, if nothing else.

If excited comments and pings from seniors from college are anything to go by, women have spent years in NALSAR feeling frustrated by the system. This is very clearly a moment of celebration, not only because we have a woman President (YAY!) and women won other gender neutral positions (like that of treasurer), but also because the terms of reference are no longer traditional Boys' Hostel politicking. Alternative are no longer unthinkable! But the desire to treat this victory like a paradigmatic shift must be resisted. The University needs to get a functional Constitution in place; it needs to seriously consider questions of representation, and methods of election. We have opened up, a great deal, to women's participation in politics, but it is still possible to malign a person in this space for being an assertive woman; it is still a legitimate campaign against a candidate (it was against this year's President) that she is a "Gender and Sexuality Forum" candidate; principled stances are still seen as unrealistic; several identities still attract prejudice. I live in the hope that, someday, I'll find a Facebook post by my juniors talking about a firebrand feminist winning a position of power. Now, wouldn't that be nice? 

From Azad

An open letter from someone who has something to say.

I am an Indian Muslim. Apparently, some of my self-proclaimed leaders were some of the people to have appealed against the Delhi High Court judgement.

But I just wanted to tell you that the distance between us is not as much as they think it is. The distance between us, in fact, often is the jail cell. The distance between us, is the distance between S. 125 and S. 377. In fact, we are closer than even we want to believe. For a lot of you, and for a lot of us, the policeman does not represent security. He represents the spectre of state violence, he represents for us, the “colonial legislation”, but he represents the very reality of our lives: that we are marginalized, that our living and dying in this country is based on premises of obedience, on some “ancient traditions” that are summoned whenever uncomfortable questions of identity are raised. Words like assimilation and integration and unity are thrown at us, and we are expected to suspend our lived realities and live in the margins.

We are also living in these miserable times when our friends are openly the greatest supporters of this discourse of development and growth and other things like those. That, for them, their privilege makes them easy purchasers of dreams that our tormentors sell. Our friends maybe attending protest rallies in the evenings today, but each morning, they are subscribing to narratives (and to political forces) that would push us farther away from this mirage of a mainstream. Our suffering is, in a very convoluted fate, now linked. And I hope our resistance too, is.

So while I attend a pride parade here, oppose colonial legislations wherever I can. I expect, as part of millions who suffer, for you to reciprocate. 377 wasn’t the sole British vestige of oppression left in this land. AFSPA exists. Freedom of Religion Acts exist. So does a legislation that criminalises the lives of transgendered persons in Andhra Pradesh.

Our oppressors seemed to have united – the All India Muslim Personal Law Board could not spare money for hundreds of young men who became victims to this narrative of war on terror, but appealed zealously against the Naz Foundation judgment. The Board does not find time enough to reform oppressive provisions in Indian Muslim Law (that even Pakistan has), but it has found time to go after your freedoms. In it, it has found a wonderful ally in the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has never, otherwise, lost a chance to spew venom against India’s marginalized.

In our tormentors’ vision: we are all the same. Dalit, Women, Muslim, Trans, Homosexual. But we have identities that have been suppressed. And I wish to assert my own. And maybe you would too. I am protesting against the Supreme Court verdict. Are you attending the protest for the rights of Dalit Muslims and Dalit Christians – which, by the way, was also at Jantar Mantar?

Their fear after all, is that, one day all of us will be attending each others’ protests. Let us make their fear a little real.

-Azad.

377 rage

Disclaimer: This post is likely to be inarticulate as hell, but I need to write to clear up my thinking. 

I felt a great deal of anger at the Supreme Court's 377 verdict. When I heard, from a senior at college (whose blog post on Legally India on the Delhi High Court's judgement was the first thing I ever read by a nalsarite) that the Court had upheld the appeal, I spent a couple of hours covered in goosebumps at the idea that the highest judicial body in the land could make such a decision. I spent the day, as hopeless facebooking farts like me are wont to do, posting stuff on facebook, reporting abuse when I came by homophobic comments (there is great pleasure in hitting that report abuse button, sometimes, I feel) or arguing with people about the judgement and the Court's ideal role. Then the judgement came out, and I frankly was not surprised that it had no content worth engaging with. 

The cause for my anger was, at the most basic level, the fact that people I know and care about (and even some I don't care so much about) are being judged and declared to be criminals for no discernible reason. Beyond the personal, though, the worry for me was that our society, and our institutions, are still colonised. We still think in certain moral terms, we have yet to throw off so many of the shackles that were used by the British to confine us. To my mind, this judgement is part of a continuum that legalises illegitimate state violence and intrusion into the choices of individuals and of peoples. Despite all the articles on why we should all care, not only the LGBT community, I wonder if the verdict is really being seen as a part of a larger malaise. I wonder if calls for solidarity are meant to extend both ways. On comment chains on facebook, I found it common that those bringing up other concerns of violence that are not getting requisite attention were told not to side-track from the point. Whither solidarity? What is the point? If the point is merely that Section 377 exists and has been upheld to be constitutional, so do the Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Eunuchs Act, AFSPA and very many others that are just as damaging (if not worse) symbolically and in action. Are they not the point too? Are they side issues? Do they not deserve global days of rage? Is it individual movements' fault that they do not have access to such publicity?

One of the images that caught my eye, in the many that are doing the rounds on the internet is a picture of the press meet at Chennai:

I could not get my eyes off the battalion of cameras in this photograph. To have access to such publicity is not merely the work of the movement (though that is definitely not to be discounted). There are definitely class elements to it. More importantly, however, it is an issue that corporate media finds, sells. If packaged in fluffy, byte-sized snippets on love over all else, it makes very few people uncomfortable. But love isn't fluffy and easy on the mind. Love is powerful, it scoffs at petty institutions and can be deeply subversive. The call for dignity of the individual has the power to change much that is wrong with Indian society. That is pretty radical stuff. This is a moment that could lead to deep thought on what we want the Indian State to stand for or it could be a moment about Section 377 of the IPC. I worry that it is only going to be the latter:

Fanon, aptly said: "The colonial world is a world divided into compartments.… In the capitalist countries a multitude of moral teachers, counselors and ‘bewilderers’ separate the exploited from those in power. In the colonial countries, on the contrary, the policeman and the soldier, by their immediate presence and their frequent and direct action maintain contact with the native and advise him by means of rifle butts and napalm not to budge. It is obvious here that the agents of government speak the language of pure force. The intermediary does not lighten the oppression, nor seek to hide the domination; he shows them up and puts them into practice with the clear conscience of an upholder of the peace; yet he is the bringer of violence into the home and into the mind of the native."

Ours is a State that merges the worst of both, and we have much to agitate about. And that agitation cannot happen if we're unwilling to let others 'sidetrack' from the 'point'. To have social movements divided into compartments is what suits governing institutions, not movements. I have felt an unsettling discomfort at the pit of my stomach about the Global Day of Rage, not because the rage is unwarranted, but because of the narrowness of its construction. A recognition of privilege by those leading the LGBT movement would, perhaps, turn the protest against unwarranted State violence and coalesce with others fighting violence and labelling. The movement calls for solidarity, but at this moment, it ought also be extending solidarity.

It is true that this Supreme Court verdict is a blot on our judicial history. As Cover would say, not only did it reach a decision that can be termed morally reprehensible, it showed no commitment to its stand, for it gave no real reasons. To my mind, that is the bigger evil; the idea that a State can choose to turn down people fighting for their ways of life, without needing to reason it out to its people, without committing to its position. This is a moment when we can force this accountability upon our institutions; it is much much bigger than any one problematic provision.

just get on a diet already

Right. So I have always been chubby. ALWAYS. From when I can remember, I have had pudgy fingers, wobbly arms and a tummy. It might have something to do with the fact that I inherit my body structure (right down to the stubby toes) from my paternal grandmother who is round, as was her mother, as was her mother and so on (you get the flow?). My great-grandmother lived to be over ninety, with her critical faculties all in place. My grandmother is still puffing on, and she's nearly eighty. My mother, however, insists that if I "don't get rid of that fat" I will "waste my education" because I will "die early". Apart from the fact that this seems statistically unlikely in my family, I frankly don't care enough about living for very long anyway. My maternal grandmother thinks out aloud, sometimes, that I look 'quite nice' and as long as I do not put on any more weight, I'm sure to be find someone who wants to marry me. I do not know whom she is reassuring, the idea of marriage really frightens me, especially to someone who needs me to fit a certain weight bracket.

Family expectation related woes aside, some things have changed in the time that has passed between my being a chubby baby and a 'fat' adult. When my parents would tell the family doctor that their daughter was overweight, half a decade ago, he'd pooh-pooh them into silence and say that I'll lose the 'puppy fat' soon enough. Now doctors are falling over themselves, during routine medical tests, to tell my parents that their daughter is overweight, and detailing grotesque consequences unless I lose weight at the earliest. Maybe they mean well, I most certainly do need a lot more exercise, but I wonder if the collective paranoia (inherited, I feel, from a weight-loss infatuated white West) puts me off exercise more than it lets me do the things I like.

For a fat person, exercise is a 'weight-loss' thing to do; you walk into a gym and they bloody tell you how much weight you need to lose and how. As a child, I would play cricket; I enrolled myself in tennis classes; I enjoyed throwball; I sucked at kho-kho but played it nonetheless. As a child I loved dance class; I loved theatre. Somehow, in one way or the other, society found it necessary to inform me that fat people don't do these things; that fat actresses can't be 'heroines', that I should stick to recitation for Teachers' Day celebrations (dancing isn't my thing; despite the fairly awesome scores I got in my practical dance examination and all that) and that sports are for winning and fat people aren't fast enough or good enough to win, so bye-bye. And as a child, I didn't know better than to believe those who told me these things were out of my reach - my slim peers, my teachers (yeah, one used me as an example of  'something you'd weigh in tonnes'). Now I look back and feel stupid about letting myself be defined by selfish, oppressive gits, but it is hard to unlearn things you've spent a good part of your life internalising. I was told I could not possibly be sexually attractive; years after these comments, I still can't be physically intimate with anyone because I'm fucking scared they will find me repulsive, and leave.

So, one by one, I stopped doing all of the physical exercise I enjoyed doing. As a rebellious adolescent, I let myself go--ate all the fatty food I could lay my hands on, dressed in baggy clothes, stopped exercising--in order to stick a finger up at society. Then the same god-damned society came back to me and said, "Sorry bro, you're fat, you need to exercise." Well, yeah, that is what I was doing, isn't it? Instead, now, I must 'work out' because it will make me 'feel good' in gyms or in my house watching youtube videos, with the sole objective of losing weight being healthy. There are some who go at it with maniacal persistence. I do not have that sort of tenacity, because I do not care as much. But what I find really saddening is that I was exercising, I was healthy, and I was doing things I enjoyed. And now I am struggling with myself, in order to get my lazy butt up to go for walks and do a crunch or two. I wonder at the hypocrisy of it all.

PS: For those who write back, if anybody writes back, saying "but you can play tennis, dance blah blah blah again" yes, I am aware; just being able to do it despite years of conditioning telling you otherwise isn't really cake-walk. It is doubting myself, all the time; it is feeling like a repulsive being because of the tyres and the stretch marks; it's wondering whether it's worth it, just to hear those comments again. This isn't to make myself out to be some sort of victim or anything, it's merely to point out that the 'self-help' rhetoric sounds like synchronised farting sometimes.

PPS: I don't know whether people ordinarily face up with this, so maybe the use of the term 'society' is unfair. Possibly I was stuck with an especially despicable sample.

PPPS: It's all a capitalist conspiracy, really; make no clothes that fit the fat folk (or call it the Plus size and charge them double the price), shame them into going to the gym (guaranteed weight loss) and laugh all the way to the bank.

Solidarity. That's the key.

I've been acerbic, the last few times I've posted here. Acerbic, angry, hurt and a whole gamut of emotions that make those who wish to understand you, truly empathise, while simultaneously alienating a whole host of others who don't really care very much about the human being that you are. This time round, I've got the best shot I've had in ages, to write something that isn't going to be read as an attempt to take anybody down. And, by golly, I shall use it.

Sangeetha wrote a blog about her experience as an academic representative. It can be accessed here: http://thehinduleftist.blogspot.in/2013/10/this-is-not-rant-sob-story-cribbing.html. I do not know if I would have had the courage to write as she has, if placed in a similar situation; there is grace and honesty in her writing that I do not think I would be able to replicate. Even if nobody else bothers to take her point and introspect, I'm incredibly glad she understands; Sangeetha, after all, had nominated me for the same post in my second year.

While I have been vocally critical of some of the stuff the present academic committee has been up to, and do disagree with some of what she has said, in her blog, I want to continue with the bigger point she made about the manner in which representatives are treated in this place. Sangeetha's experiences have not been laced with the added flavour of university politics, being the alleged "mouth-piece" of certain members of faculty (because nobody here has independent judgement) and having "hotlines to bigshots", but they are startlingly similar to mine, in their minutiae. And I'd hazard the guess that they are similar to the experiences of anybody in a position of power, seeking to work earnestly, in NALSAR (if not elsewhere). And I wonder why. Across the board - student representatives, administration - we treat anybody in a position of power as a bounden slave. For the longest time, I thought that this was the "electorate's right" but that's true only if your responsibility in a democratic set-up is merely to get somebody in power and then sit down and twiddle your thumbs. If that is the case, then you're expected to take whatever the person in power does, and not complain (or be nasty). And if that is not the case (and I certainly believe that it is not), then engagement requires both sides to take responsibility. You cannot expect results when you need to engage, and fail to. You also cannot expect personal preferences to trump everybody else's, because there are way too many people and way too many preferences, for everyone to get their way. Democracy entails compromise and understanding; I think that's where we falter. We're so ensconced in our sense of entitlement that it doesn't often hit us that we're not the ones the world revolves around; the universe is not going to conspire to grant you your every little wish.

There is also a difference in Sangeetha's experiences and mine, and part of it was to do with where the nastiness was coming from. It is rare that a good friend of mine would publicly deride me and treat me like an instrument towards achieving her ends. I think the same goes with Sangeetha too. The most startling example being the fact that one person who sent innumerable mails to my batch group detailing my 'duties' (and the fact that he didn't even vote for me, and was being forced to tolerate me) stood up in vociferous defence of Sangeetha, when she was facing the heat about her own 'duties'. Being friends with a person in power makes you see them as human beings, and that makes you treat them with consideration. Now you cannot be friends with everybody who occupies some position that you need to interact with, but I really think we need to start extending to everybody who is working in positions of authority, the basic consideration of being human. And that entails recognising human frailties; it means tolerating the sudden burst of anger, the occasional snap and sometimes, the one task left unaccomplished. Once, when I was still a representative, I was arguing about similar things with Sangeetha, and she said, "What if the person in question portrays themselves to be 'more than human'?" Yes, some people find it hard to acknowledge frailty in themselves; I know I find it hard to ask for help or explain that I'm down and out and need somebody to just be nice to me. That too is frailty; the fact that a woman is strong and seems unassailable does not give you the right to rail against her with all your might, until she crumbles. Recognising people in power as being just as human as any other person, with their own stories, their own private issues, is basic; it simply must be extended to everybody, regardless of whether they actively seek it or not. If we want to be treated as human beings and be empathised with, by administrators and representatives, then we must extend to them the same courtesy.

I've pissed off too many people in law school for my words to be the cause of any sort of 'neutral' introspection; whatever I say is perceived as coming from some inherently biased position that needs to be countered immediately, not thought about. But take Sangeetha seriously; recognise the fact that we are two people who have been at loggerheads with each other (publicly) agreeing about something; please do think about it.

new stories.

I've a pile of movies sitting around on my hard disk, waiting to be watched. A whole host of story books that I really ought to read, but haven't got around to reading. Bushels of poetry that I have marked out for myself, but haven't read. My usual reason for all of this is the fact that I'm "busy".

But the truth is, that's a lie.

I spend hours re-watching bits of movies that I like, reading parts of books that I already know off by heart, reciting poems that I've known since I was a child. I've spent hours re-visiting all those life affirming moments, while effacing the rest of the story-line. And I've ached, as I watched it. Ached as I watched the last scene from Intouchables, the jubilation of the team from Wiley College, the student clambering onto a table and saying "Oh Captain! My Captain!", the tie of friendship between Miss Daisy and Hoke.

I'm scared of art, suddenly. I'm afraid of the sort of impact it has on me. I am afraid of uncertainties -- I often read the plot of movies/books and watch/read on that basis. Art used to be a revelatory experience. It had the power to reaffirm my faith in relationships and life. Now it seems taunting. And I don't quite know why. I don't know when and why I turned, from a girl who wolved down books at alarming rates, into a person who would much rather live inside her head. A person who is afraid of stories, be it in her own life or otherwise. A person who treats mere friendliness with unqualified suspicion, even hostility. A person who is more accustomed to having people afraid of her than not; indeed, to the extent that she doesn't know how to react to being approached normally. A person who has begun, sometimes, to think of herself in terms of instrumental value, as opposed to merely having a place in the universe. A person who's perpetually on the defensive and sometimes on the offensive, but rarely just being. A person who presumes that the worst opinion delivered is most likely to be the common view of a matter. A person whose instinctive reaction is now to walk away, because anything else is just too exhausting. A person who is reading these very words and thinking that even war veterans seem more optimistic about things, but is writing this nonetheless.

Each time I hear a story, I find more things to be envious of. The ache in me grows. It's almost like I have come to believe that these stories are not for me. That meaningful relationships are beyond me or, perhaps, that there is something inherently repulsive in me that I somehow can't get rid of. And so aches are all that one is left with.

But I watched Sherlock over a few days. And I went back to watch the scene where Sherlock knocks Neilson out and moves swiftly to kneel before Mrs Hudson and reassure her, and the one in which he tries to break the 'ice' with Watson, after having behaved horribly on feeling doubt. I went back and watched those scenes because there is always hope that human relationships can be forged and maintained. There is hope that you can be redeemed, both to yourself and others. And that is why new stories are so important -- they force you to hope when it's easier to just give in to the snarling, stony side of yourself. So I watched that suicide scene and I howled my eyes out and realised, that if art can cause me to feel so deeply about a character that I have only seen through the viewpoint of some director, perhaps I wouldn't want to miss out on the power of real human relationships, despite the pain, the judgement and the disillusionment that often comes gratis.

Of condescension and monopolies.

For the longest time now, I've been trying to be tolerant and remain unshaken by slander. I have tried to work within a system that gave me cause for nothing but disillusionment, for people who perceived a willing worker as a bounden slave, and I have given it everything I had. I have done my best to keep my temper at check, and on the occasions that I failed in that effort, I have felt the need to apologise. I have tried to convince myself that the sense of entitlement with which people approach me is valid. Yesterday, all of this trying ended. I stood for office in the belief that critiquing a system without engaging with it is unfair. I stood, thinking that there is much work that needs to be done, and perhaps I could help do it. I stood, knowing that I had a dream of a law school that stimulated my mind and gave me the freedom to be who I want to be and I didn't think this was an illegitimate end to pursue, for a university. In two years of office, I've realised why nobody with half a brain or any sense of self-preservation would want to put themselves through this grind, if the grind is to be undertaken in earnest.

Yesterday was the fourth election that I contested in NALSAR, and the third that I won (marginally). I wasn't certain whether I ought to have stood or not, but with a system changing by leaps and bounds, I felt that perhaps my previous knowledge of its functioning and my investment in its success would be useful tools to have on board. Yesterday was also the culmination of my tolerance towards comments made without the slightest inclination towards thought, sensitivity or decency. So, I want to address certain longstanding charges against my work in office, and against me. These were well summarised by our present Vice President, in explaining to me why an Executive position for me was undesirable. As I write this, there are those who insist that I resigned from office because I wanted to be on the Exec, and this having not materialised, I chose to walk out. Well, in my experience in NALSAR, it's always easier to believe the worst possible of a person, but I would want to clarify that I resigned because of unsubstantiated, pointed insults to my dignity and the effort I put into these years in office; insults that I felt that I no longer needed to waste my breath tolerating.

Reason Number One: Condescending and Unapproachable
Being a representative has been hard for me. I'm an exceedingly private and hot-tempered person by nature. If there is anything I owe this office, it is the training I've had in biting my tongue and listening to people, regardless of what I feel about them or the point they are making. I am sure I have, now and then, snapped and the person talking to me felt that it was unwarranted, and for the most part I have tried to apologise when those incidents occurred. But what I find interesting is how I am unapproachable, only when I don't need to be approached. When there is something that folk require of me--their grades (in order to pass) or their attendance or medical certificates or bare Acts for examinations or exemptions from exams or reworking of examination schedules or rules they take issue with--they approach me; even when they want to insult the living daylights out of me, they approach me. Otherwise, I am unapproachable. Yes, I have not functioned in the league of my predecessors in terms of speaking to teachers to get marks increased or attendance added, but I have worked in the field of policy to ensure that every person in that situation gets the benefit in question; and this hasn't been for friends (they usually don't fall foul of NALSAR rules anyway) but for a wide assortment of people who are neither close to me nor have any specific reason to find me more approachable than others do. Yet, as a matter of image, I am perennially unapproachable, which begs the question, then why have people been getting so much of their work done through me?

Reason Number Two: Undemocratic and Oppressive
Here's a rough list of things I have worked towards in the past year in office, because the administration was finally one that was willing to be democratic:

1. Frequent open houses to discuss policy decisions 
2. Attendance being scanned in and sent to students every month
3. All policies being mailed to the student body for comments, before being implemented
4. Decisions like surprise tests being removed, etc. being made after polls by students
5. All existing rules being scanned in and sent to the entire student body for comments, in order to have them re-worked

These were, of course, undemocratic. It is immaterial that barely anybody showed up for open houses and that nobody really bothered to actually send in constructive suggestions on the rules, but I made undemocratic decisions.
I made decisions on the basis of what I wanted. I made the university's timetable, and now I'm told that it was on the basis of the courses I liked (and an effort to ensure they don't clash). The preference forms sent before making the timetable were for fun--you know, my vacation's worth of Excel-playtime while dealing with a painful breakup and being incredibly lonesome in a big city? Nine people chose both Banking and Finance and IoS, seven chose IoS and Cap Marks, while there were clashes ranging up to thirty-six (17 courses more than 10, all of which clashes were avoided) with these subjects and other ones. "Why couldn't Banking and Finance not be made to clash with IoS when over thirty students wanted both?" Here's my answer: "Because when you were asked to give in your preferences, you didn't bother to think it through, but you will not introspect enough to find fault with yourselves, so it's convenient to make me out to be some kind of self-serving bitch who made the timetable only to serve her own ends." Because spending an entire vacation researching timetabling software and learning PHP is totally work one would do while being self-serving.
So I asked the Vice-President which of my decisions he found oppressive and imposed. He said: "So many of them." So I asked, "Which?" And he said, "Erm, the timetable? Last year's timetable." I asked him if he noticed that the schedule that people suggested as an alternative in Semester 5 was the schedule that was followed in Semester 6 (oh no, but that would mean that student opinion had actually been taken seriously, an admission that would really harm the argument at hand), and he blinked and moved on to the other problems with me.

Reason Number Three: Monopoly over Power
This, supposedly, doesn't even require an explanation. I have a monopoly over power in this place and that's just a statement of fact now. I would, however, like to unpack this a tiny bit.
So I was Academic Representative in my second year and the Convenor of the same committee in my third year. I have a tiny group of friends. I have neither tried nor want to try bullying people into voting for me, so Boys' Hostel politics is not my cup of tea. When men have monopolised the political system and positions in the Executive since the existence of the system itself, that doesn't count. There have been two women in Executive positions in the history of NALSAR, and that isn't monopoly over power. One woman, winning three elections consecutively, working her guts out for humane policy in the university and building relationships with people in the administration (though never ceasing to oppose the things she dislikes, hence often being told off by the same members of the administration for 'abusing space') is monopolising power. The first time I spoke to the Vice-Chancellor was when I was asked to convince him into making an exception for a LLM student who could not afford to pay the fees to be admitted into the university, and the VC yelled at me so loudly that the Registrar's office heard. Clearly, 'hotlines to bigshots' involve a good deal of persistence and a much greater amount of work in terms of putting together cogent arguments that are hard to deny. And if you try it out, you might find that you'll have hotlines to bigshots too; even hotter lines, perhaps, given how horribly unlikeable I am.

Reason Number Four (and this is the best): Will Work Anyway
"You can work anyway, even if you're not in the Exec, so..." I mean, you can think it all you want, but at least don't say this to my face! It's not as though I wasn't aware that my batch wanted its personal slave, but was disinclined to consider the slave worthy of any respect. I was. But literally being informed that the reason why you don't merit any consideration is the fact that you'll work anyway was a punch in the face. It is also why I am not going to work. I don't work on policy because I need student validation, but they outlawed slavery a while back and I'd like to remind you of that. If you recognise the fact that the work one does it worth some consideration, then give it that respect, for Christ's sake! In any case, I'm also told that "there is nothing" to all of the timetabling and project bidding and enrollment forms: it's cake walk for some, I guess. It was hard work for me, to take on this work for the whole of the university, and a shitload of pressure, because nobody here really forgives mistakes, and I don't think I'm unjustified in expecting basic decency in being dealt with, after that. "Haan haan, Gen Sec chod do, VP ke liye vote kar rahe ho na?" is not basic decency (especially if you're crooning about how you're trying so hard to get me into the Exec). It's hypocrisy. And it's hypocrisy I'm done with.

I was told by someone else (with a sense of urgency) that the problem with voting for me "is not your work, it's you!" Which, forgive me, I don't understand. I'm guessing he was talking about my image, but I still don't understand it. My work can be divorced from my image, but the negatives can't? And, more importantly, ragging someone into voting for one does no harm to one's image, having no manifesto or plan of action does no harm for one's image, having done no work in all one's time in the university does no harm, having done no work even while holding office does no harm, but perceived condescension (with the humaneness of the person in other situations being completely ignored), despite work being done and a clear plan of action in hand, is good reason to refuse to support a person. Bravo!

I shall condescend, monopolise and oppress no longer.

Word Vomit.

Have you ever felt like you're living in a haze and you don't really know what you're doing? You're not intoxicated, and technically you ought to be in your senses, but everything seems numb? Have you ever lived days hoping that you weren't really living them, and that your real life would get on track sometime soon? Have you let somebody in, against all your good sense, so much that he's become integral to your thinking and then, suddenly, found out that it might have been best to let your good sense prevail? Ever been forced to sit down and erase a name from your vocabulary, your dreams, knowing all the while that you didn't figure in his, but wishing against all odds that he's the one who's getting it wrong? Ever realised that it was all a lie while knowing that an emotion as strong and simple as that was necessarily real? Ever felt so incredibly small that all of your insecurities come tumbling out of that shelf in the back of your head where you'd hidden them for the longest time? Ever taken on more work than you would care to do, or are capable of doing, but feel lost and aimless nonetheless? And then to feel completely repulsed by yourself, because despite your claims of independence, one single person can make such a complete mess out of you.

Glad to be unhappy

Do you ever miss somebody so much that it becomes a constant ache in the pit of your stomach? But memories make you happy - so you're simultaneously ache-y and grinning like a loony toon? Miss somebody so much, when you're low it brings tears to your eyes that you don't know when you'll next meet the person? Yet, when you're low, just a conversation makes the universe you inhabit seem a whole lot brighter? It leaves you smiling in class to be able to snatch a minute's conversation or a text message or two, between hours. Makes hurtful things seem immaterial, because there's somebody who understands, or is willing to talk things through and make sense of them. Who might disagree but doesn't do so by cutting you up into strands of ribbon. Who understands what drives you, and whose passion (for entirely different things) seems completely sensible to you. Somebody whose embrace you long for, so much that it's almost a physical pang.

I owe the stoned chai-wallah, Kamani Auditorium and the Dilli winter something special.

Muddled.

Well. I remember my blog every now and then, and think that it's too much effort to get down to writing a whole coherent piece, so I quickly close the tab. There is far too much to say, and I am completely incapable of articulating it all. But, sometimes, a dam breaks and you feel the need to type furiously, incoherently, until the confused pulsating red-hot-blob of blehness in your stomach quietens down and you can go back to being boringly humdrum again. I have often wondered why I can't write witty pieces on contemporary issues and be all awesomely intellectual on this blog, but then I guess it has, over the years, turned into a remarkably useful rant-spot, so we shall leave it as such. Maybe, when my brain is somewhat less fraught with conflict and is less befuddled, it will get down to the seriously cool task of opinionating.

I really don't know what's happening. Bal Thackeray died. Whee. Ponty Singh and his brother died. Okay. Nobody really politically important died in Delhi. Damn. I could do with the Price Oxford International Media Law Moot - South-East Asia Rounds being cancelled. Foreverandever. My results are semi-out and they do not make my family particularly happy. They don't make me happy either, but that's primarily because of the extended displeasure that my parents evince on hearing of an unforeseen "B+" and the fact that, following this trajectory, I'm going to have no options open before me when I graduate.

My internship is fun. I'm happier than I have been in the recent past, but that's tinged with a really weird sensation of regret. Regret on so many different levels. That I headed to NALSAR, in the first place; that I chose not to keep my mouth shut and do things as expected of me, and that I'm now facing the music for it; that I might just have bitten off a lot more than I can chew, and have thrown away my chances of studying abroad, as I have wanted to for ever so long. I suppose what is most irksome about it is that while I might do my best to dump the blame for all of this on other folk, the choices were mine. And regret stings most in those situations.

Most of the things I get to do are because I study in NALSAR, but I still seem to hate it from the very core of my being. It stifles me. Even a notional mention of it brings forth waves of revulsion. The other day I had a conversation with somebody about handing over the power of definition to the bad guys and then whining about how horrible the scene is. Well, yeah so I take over the power of definition and NALSAR is "my" university and so what? It remains a shithole where you can get screwed over on multiple levels and people will sit around and watch. It remains a shithole, miles away from any kind of civilisation, chock full of pretentious attempts at CV building (heh, look at me mootin'!) and being "studly". Remains a shithole where as a student you can afford to have a "life" only if you're filthy rich. A shithole that you can give your everything to but just get fucked in return. And the only retaliation possible is a god damned blog post! Except, that it is so despite my definition of what it could be. Gee! That makes me so much happier and hugely empowered!

My mother says that it is futile trying to knock some sense into me because no matter where I go, I get into altercations with all manners of people and then whine about how they're unfair. Which makes me wonder if the problem is with NALSAR or it's just me. Evidently, a lot of people seem to be getting along fine in NALSAR. They're "nice" people, "good" students, over-achievers by any measure, and nobody threatens to expel them. They have friends by the cart-load, teachers salivating over their answer scripts and not a regret in the world (I presume). Maybe being all activist-y is just presumptuous as hell, 'cause who said I'm needed? It's just some sort of ego-massage, presuming that there is a battle to fight and that you're the one to do it. A chap recently told me that all of this "stance-taking" is just very hollow because there is practically nothing that you can do about it, so what's the point? Register your dissent and then do the same things. Say you really dislike the competition and the feel like a miserable failure because you cannot succeed in being the bigger rat. Say you dislike the system and then feel miserable because you stuck your foot in the door and someone stuck an arm out to biff you on the nose. This bravado is all for "big" people. For those who need something from the system, all the protest is farcical, 'cause their future is held hostage by the darned system that they are fighting. And the big people don't need anything in the system to change, so status quo it is.

I haven't the slightest idea what the point of this post is. I don't know if I can even try to conform to the "ideal student" stereotype. I don't know if I am willing to give up on my dreams in order to stand up to a system, presumptuous as that motivation is in the first place. I just want to remain as far away from NALSAR as possible. For as long as possible. I want to act again, to go for fun plays and concerts, have time to read fiction that I like. I want to drop the inhibitions that have constrained me for ever so long. I want to be able to get drunk without the fear of what I would do or say.

Sigh.

Rambling is good. Really.

This is the tenth time since I last posted on my blog that I am starting a new post. The previous nine attempts lie deleted. I start off with much gusto, which fizzles out in a few lines. That seems telling of the way I have been dealing with things in general. In starts and stops; continuity seems alien to my existence. Tenacity was never my strong point but, these days, I don't seem to complete anything. Thoughts. Work. Equations. Blog posts.

It's all broken.

I think it is because I've turned bitter. I called someone jaded on my blog, a while back. I feel jaded now. Uneasy around optimism; quick to be bitter or sarcastic; unwilling to let perceived wrongs go. At some level, it's just a convenient state of mind: I can feel morose, wallow in self-pity, be mean and feel as though it is all justified.

I know better.

I know that I've always been one royal whiner. Those I like talking to have had to bear with the unfortunate burden that my whining is. Sometimes they do so with a smile pasted on their faces, sometimes they tell me to go boil my head. But they usually listen. The problem is that I've got to a stage where I take out my frustration on those whom I am whining to. My lack of agency, my inability to get things done is often transferred to the people I believe are better placed to act. I fail to recognise that their constraints, their inability to act may be causing them just as much frustration. When you have a disagreement with the people you usually agree with, you feel god-awful. Or, at least, I do.

And then there are expectations. From people you have no right to expect anything from. When do you have a right to expect something? Expecting reasons for stances taken, consideration when you're low, an explicit indication of love, a patient ear, to be understood; it's all a giant build-up to a single sensation - disappointment. And then, I've mastered the art of being misunderstood, in any case. Ask someone if the person is a feminist and I've victimised the collective for taking a stance against my personal ideology. Or perhaps it is someone else taking the more convenient path to justify the person's unsubstantiated position. I am getting used to that too: having what I "twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools". There we go again - self-pity.

What bothers me is how much all of this bothers me. How far I'm willing to let things sink into my minimal grey matter and hog up processing power. How easy it is to unsettle me with just a phrase, these days.

I am scared.

I am scared that I do not fit into the society I live in and that there is nobody whom I connect with and who wishes to connect back. I am afraid of being an oddity; I want to be endearing and likable by the common measure. But then, I am also incapable of being anybody else but myself. And I am an oddity. I am short-haired, fat, loud, opinionated, brash, arrogant and easy to dislike or fear. What I am afraid of, is that people cannot get beyond that. I want them to; I yearn for people to understand the insecurity, the fear, the hope and the love within. I am afraid that if I do not cling on to people, they'll be more than glad to set me adrift; that they have no need to hold on; that I have nothing to offer.

I do not understand proportions.

I was told, the other night, to bring some degree of proportion into my life. Living in blacks and whites is a fool's life. For someone who argues for nuance in everything that she talks about, I seem to lack it completely in my life. Or do I understand so little about myself that I cannot even perceive the nuances in my relationships with people? That is an unsettling proposition.

I think I am just wary of being vulnerable. We are taught, early on in our lives, that vulnerability is a bad deal. That being at the mercy of another is a pathetic position to be in. But then, I cannot imagine myself completely independent under any circumstance. The problem with caring or expecting anything is that you leave the response to someone else; and there is nothing you can do if they don't care or they choose not to live up to your expectations. Then again, I'd like to think that the Buddha story applies in equal measure here too: what happens when you give someone love and they refuse to take it? You are filled with that much more love.

I'll fix it.

When you lose, it hurts.

It's hard to be content in a place like NALSAR. You always want more, often at the expense of others. Sometimes, you feel you deserve better than you are given. Then you ask for what you believe you deserve. Being a law student means that you know the power of a petition to the authorities, you know the power of the collective will. You also know the arbitrariness of a system, you recognise that every act is a power struggle and things often get dirty.

So you can keep clear of all of it and pretend like your life is untouched by the muck around you. You can flash a nice smile and get someone with influence to get you that academic leave you so desperately wanted.
Or you can be as presumptuous as hell and think of changing some part of the system.

Some of the nicest people I know on campus have sworn to stay clear; but I find that it's remarkably unfair to make no effort to change a rotten system but to complain about how deep the rot has set in. Some others, I know, acknowledge that the system is totally rotten but seem to have an inclination towards making it work the way they'd like it to, not standing up against it. Some try to work the system while trying to change it. Some cannot reconcile themselves with the complete arbitrariness of the way this place runs and demand to be heard - they cause all hell to break loose.

The last sort, they're the idiots. The type of people you should exhibit to kids on the first day of college and say, "Hey look! That's what you should aim not to be."

Here's why. Law school is remarkably result oriented. If those who stood up against the system could actually get anything done, then they'd be heroes. But, you see, it's a tiny set of people versus an institution that has the might to squash every word said against it (unless they wish to turn it around and use it against you). And, somehow, the fact that the system doesn't listen, is the fault of that tiny set of frustrated losers. It is not the fault of those who have not the courage or inclination to actually voice what they believe in. It is not the fault of those who've fed a fetid system and moulded it to their liking. It is certainly not the fault of those running the system. It's not even the fault of those who work behind the scenes but refuse to be identified with a certain cause.

"Why were you stupid enough to go antagonise them? I could have got it done for you." Doesn't law school teach one about independent agency? Aren't rules meant to be uniform? Isn't there something inherently contradictory in saying that you're trying to clean up a system while you continue to exploit those aspects of it that you find convenient? Isn't it a problem that if I go to Mr X with a request it is denied but the same request enunciated by you is acceded to? Do you have a right to clean up a system the survival of which you are contributing to? Is morality inherently impractical? Is taking a stance not based on pragmatism sheer foolishness? Why are we so against any moral argument? Granted that it's inherently subjective and, to the average utilitarian, pointless, but can we really discard what we believe is right in the face of overwhelming pressure to be practical. Is the end really that important?

I don't think everyone needs to stick up for the same things. Evidently, each person has her/his own concerns. But it becomes hard to swallow when the end seems like the only thing that's important. If someone's actions are inherently wrong but don't really affect my grades, I shall keep mum. The moment they do, I shall act. Do I have the right to act then? Am I not opportunistic? Shall not the system look me in the face and say, "Oh well, you have a motive and now I have an argument against you, plus the might to sit on you."

I feel like a loser today, like all that I've been wishing for over the course of two semesters was utter rubbish. I assumed that if someone can pick on me through two semesters because I chose to actually listen in his class and question him on what he says based on what he asked me to read, then some day he would be forced to account for all of his actions. I assumed that incompetence to such an extent that it cannot be tolerated would demand action against an individual. I assumed that there would be someone who would listen. Instead, we got blank stares. "He threatened you? Forget about it. No teacher can mean any ill-will against a student. It is just not possible. So what if his previous papers were unfairly judged, apprehensions are always baseless."

Now, I shall revolt/talk/whine/petition/argue into my pillows. At least they don't hit you in the face when you least expect it.

the sun does rise.

I was whining to my father, the other day, about how college life isn't what I expected it to be. How we've been dealt blows that we really don't want to learn how to parry. How my head seems alien to me suddenly. How cynicism abounds. How even the happiest moments have some uncertainty about them. And he said, "Yes, so? That's life, baba. Get used to it. It'll have ups and terrible downs. You're feeling horrible now, you'll feel elated some days later."

I scoffed at his philosophical, don't-fight-with-the-current,-flow-with-it outlook. It annoyed me, frankly. Then, while talking to Dhanda I said something remarkably pointless and she went off about how if one wants to breast-beat one can go ahead and do it but she doesn't care to listen to all that tosh, might as well do something about the problem in the same amount of time. That angered me too: I'd listened to people chest-beating, why wasn't I entitled to the same right?

They were both right. I am quite happy now and I've realised that doing is better than ranting. Which makes me quite glad that I know the people I know. =) They're brutally honest but so very sensible.

So, what makes me happy currently? A lot of things. For one, while fighting against a system that's so damn rotten, we've found unlikely allies in Principal Secretaries, criminal law teachers, seniors, peons and what-not. Random people who're willing to make a tiny effort to make our fight possible.

Then there is love. The loss of a person makes you willing to consider your relationships much more seriously. I've started talking to people; last semester's apathy has given way, very suddenly, to a desire to care and make it known to the people I care about. It has also thrown into sharp relief the superfluous nature of some relationships. It has made a touch mean the world and a cart-load of words mean nothing.

The last month was hell for many of those I am close to, but through that hell something quite beautiful has emerged. For some of us, this month has helped us loosen up and live without needing to do the 'right' thing, conventionally. For some, it has brought in the importance of being earnest. For us all, it has reinforced the necessity to place people and relationships much above anything else on our priority lists.

A lot has been said of Mahesh Gopan after he left us. I wondered why I hadn't blogged about him, given that this blog was one of the first reasons we had to converse, but something Swaraj said made things clear: perhaps there was just too much to say. Despite our grief at his demise, in death as in life, Mahesh has managed to make people happy; bring people together.

His legacy lives on.

Some things deserve saying.

This little blog post is dedicated to someone who has often left me feeling annoyed, insulted and stupid. Someone who has an uncanny ability to make your day by saying something semi-nice to you in this terribly nonchalant manner. Someone you often just cannot fathom and someone who's sometimes an open book. A person whom I would love to get to know, while she barely survives our coexistence in law school. A person who exhorts one to live by one's ideals regardless of how impractical that may be. A person whose first ever communication with me went like: "Please stop making that noise or I'll kill you." Someone who is human enough to get defensive if 'prodded' and to retaliate brutally yet capable of ignoring the altercation in all future conversations. Someone who types as though each key is to be pressed after a treasure hunt of sorts yet someone who replies to practically every mail you send to her, regardless of the triviality of the mail. Someone with whom incessant badgering, late night or early morning text messages (or all text messages, for that matter), tongue in cheek responses are all supposed to be forbidden liberties, but someone who calls up early in the morning to seek 'revenge' for the late night message and doesn't ever let on that this practice certainly isn't the norm. Someone who teaches but doesn't take over your mind. Someone who scolds and then appends a 'dear' to soothe the ache. Someone who complains non stop about being forced to listen to tonnes of rants yet always lends an ear. A person whose knowledge actually enthuses you to read some more of that obtuse, unintelligible mumbo-jumbo. Someone, when unhappy, makes a lot of people feel uncomfortable and sad. Someone who has come to mean a lot to me despite the minimal time I've spent here. Someone whom I can't tolerate being insulted by incompetent fools wearing a garb of authority. Someone we call a lot of names, the most acceptable on a public forum being Professor Dhanda.
Much love.

I'm not really good at doing this emotion thing, ok. So please excuse my style or the lack of it.  

for two crazy girls and two awesome men.

Hello there.

I promised that I wouldn't let the blog die out, this semester. I'm trying, see? Also, a certain classmate of mine who incessantly badgers me about the lack of a new blog post has hastened the process. Congratulations, boy, you moved a mountain!

When I came in for this semester, one of the biggest things on my agenda was Selection Moot. I wanted to do well in it, get a chance to travel around the country and participate in stuff, prove myself - law school style, etc. The drive remained (though no work was done) until I saw a forward from a classmate talking about a Citizen Journalism Workshop. I noted the dates, realised that it clashed with moot orals, shoved the workshop out of my mind (or so I thought) and moved on. I had a project to complete, after all. And Selection Moot was a given; why would anything disrupt that set schedule? 

Interrupt, it did. I found myself behaving irritably. I shuffled off to one corner of the library with a pile of books on contract law (while the one book that I wanted to read, a feminist critique of contract law, remained on the shelves) and pretended to work. Then I googled Journalism Mentor. Followed it up with a quick look through the Citizens Report site. Then looked up Shishir Joshi and Aloke Thakore. And went on pretending to work on my contract law project. And pretending that mooting mattered more to me than a dream that has been bashed so often that, now days, it is sometimes unrecognisable. 

One slight hitch. Mooting does not matter as much to me as the idea of learning how to become a journalist; learning how to seek the truth intelligently and tell people about it would always get higher priority. So I spoke to the one senior who, I felt, would give me a blunt response about whether dropping the moot for this workshop was a bad idea or not. It's simple, she said. For you,

Moot v. Journalism = Journalism.

Joblessness v. Moot = Moot.

Decision made. 

And then I spoke to some more people. One informed me that I'll regret my decision (he recently ate his words in an attempt to ensure that I don't give him 'too much information' about the workshop - sheesh, what a reputation I have). People evinced delight at the fact that I was finally picking up the courage to do what I like best not what I ought to be liking best while some others were simply glad that I wasn't competing 'cause it was one person less in the rat race. 

Much drama unfolded in terms of who'd go for it along with me and whether anyone else would come along at all. Surprise tests were forgotten about in attempts to convince parents. A final plan was decided. We figured out accommodation that met our parents' requirements (safe, safe, safe, safe) and ours (centrally located, cheap, chilled out); we got a demand draft made (my first ever demand draft); we booked tickets in non AC buses (so we saved cash and, therefore, wouldn't feel guilty while shopping) and then we waited for the 17th. 

17th came with a bang. It was the morning after Selection Moot memorial submission. Participants (and it took me quite some time to come to terms with the fact that I wasn't one) finally sent in their soft copies and then Pali, Sanya and I sat down to watch bits of "Despicable Me". Needless to say, we slept at an alien hour. Sanya and I woke up at 1020 hours. For those who're not acquainted with college hours, classes begin at 0900 hours. What a start. I got academic leave for the day (a piece of luck, that) and then, finally, we left! 

I'd describe the bus journey in detail but for a desire on my part to get to the juicier parts of this tale. So I'll dispense a little bit of knowledge. If you ever stop at a dhaba during your journey, don't feel surprised at the price of cold-drinks being INR 5 above the M.R.P. because that's the fridge charge that they're adding. No no, it's not a monopoly (you eat where the bus stops) and they certainly aren't fleecing you; it's just the cost of refrigeration of the drink in question.

We reached Pune late, we reached where we were to stay (Sadashivpeth) late and we really thought that we reached Patrakar Bhavan late too. Turned out, we were 50 minutes early, much to our, Mr. Shishir Joshi's and Richa's surprise. What does that mean for three hungry, sleepy girls? Coffee and breakfast. "Not 5-star stuff but you can eat it." We'd heard much about the famous poha from the Maharashtrians in our batch and here was a chance to try it. It's worth all the anti-mess-wala-poha rants that I've heard so far. 

We went up to the hall (we'll just call it that for the sake of convenience) and saw an adorable looking, rotund man talking in a deep baritone, gesticulating wildly. That was Mr. Aloke Thakore (note the spelling, someone's particular about it). We took our seats and listen to him discourse about the reason behind the concept of citizen journalism. It was just warm up, we were told, later. It really was. Things got better with every passing minute. 

While I could, I suppose, go on for, say, two thousand words more about what the workshop entailed, I wouldn't quite do it justice. For that reason, escapist that I am, I shall not try. Instead, I'd rather tell you why it  went on to make up three of the most beautiful days of my life. 

1. An urge to make life worth living. Whether it was Dr. Mohan Agashe who spoke of doing work to keep him alive and working on that which gives reason to one's life or Shri Bindu Madhav Joshi who's a firm believer in his 'one life one mission' idea or Mr Arun Bhatia who proclaimed that we need to find the courage to fight the larger battles (though he'd call them the only battles that exist to be fought), every single person who spoke there, spoke with some kind of passion.

2. The realisation that there is so much to learn. No, I'm not saying that I'd assumed till the workshop that I knew it all, but to meet people who'd slogged it out in their respective fields to get where they were, people who are infinitely better informed than one and to talk to them pretty much normally is quite a unique experience. 

3. Hell ya, it was fun! =) This high brow mumbo-jumbo is all very good but the bottom line was, the whole thing was tonnes and tonnes of fun. To talk about Madam Army Pants <insert sneaky giggles> and laugh at someones's indignation at a participant's demand to have the title 'Dr.' inserted before her name despite not being a medical doctor ("we don't mention honorifics," he said. He could have added "I can fix a 'Dr.' before my name too yet I abstain" but he didn't and that made what he said more than just a rant.) I thoroughly enjoyed the three days. Enjoyed listening to someone talk about writing a critical review of a book and following it up with an impassioned monologue on doing the right thing. The same person said goodbye thus, "Continue being curious and always stand for what is just." We enjoyed racing down absolutely unknown roads hunting for black markers and then writing out certificates and passing snide comments. We enjoyed watching cat fights unfold... 

I'm glad I decided to run off to Pune to attend a 'random' workshop, because it has given me the conviction that what I'd dreamt of, isn't such a bogus idea after all. The truth does come out. As someone said of the media, "it could be worse." From learning how to bite one's tongue and resist laughter when someone from across the room texts you poking fun at what another person is saying, to realising that everybody is quite similarly sized (with a few minor variations) and the big people are human too, this workshop gave me a chance to look out into the world that I can't wait to inhabit. I learnt, perhaps relearned, that things probably won't work out, but that isn't reason enough to stop wanting to make a change. 

It has also given me a terribly scalded tongue. Pune doesn't drink enough coffee, methinks. So they made it fresh for us, each time we ordered. And I scalded my tongue, each time that happened. 

Did I just trivialize something that very obviously made a pretty large impact on my short-ish life? Yes I did. So?

Hello World.

It's the new year. 1/1/'11 marks the end of the period within which I could meet schoolmates and say "Shit! The beginning of this year we were in school!" And that seems like a very weird situation.

Ah well, I'll get over it.

I'm not so much of a resolution person, but I noticed that I'd made one in my last post. I think I'd like to carry that on. I shall be myself. Drat. Change that: I shall be a slightly less lazy version of myself. I must exercise. Else I shall soon cease to fit into chairs.

The new year began well. Family time plus friends plus long walk plus my first ever journey on a bus step. =) Quite the ideal day. Let us hope the rest of the year proceeds like this.

Oh, I also solemnly swear to not let my blog die and wait for five months before resurrecting it. Continuity. That lack of laziness is the key. Then again, can I truly be myself if I quit being lazy when laziness is an integral part of my being? I suppose not. Let's see. If my pristine self gets rashes at the idea of assiduousness, I shall quickly drop the idea.

Pip pip! =)