Darkness: Brightness

Beneath the starry sky
Darkness left the world
As brightness within arrived

- Diary of an Oxymoron

From India to New York: Going Global through Fulbright

There are many aspects of what it means to be a Fulbrighter. For instance, it changes not only how people identify you, but how you see yourself and the world. The amount of exposure to different cultures and experience that Fulbright provides is immense. The feeling of being a 2012-2013 Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellow from India started sinking in the day I attended the pre-departure orientation. Being chosen as a representative of my country was huge. I knew that what I that my experience researching community radio and participatory communication in the United States would be different from my previous experiences in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, and I was very much looking forward to it.

When I attended the Gateway Orientation at Virginia Commonwealth University, the feeling of ‘going global’ overcame me, and I realized just how huge a responsibility being a Fulbrighter is. During the orientation, I learned much about the American Civil War and also from my fellow Fulbrighters from all over the world.

When I arrived at New York University’s (NYU’s) Department of Media, Culture, and Communication, I knew that as a Development Communication and Extension Specialist from India, NYU was going to be a great place to analyze global development, not just by studying what is happening within the field in the United States, but also by meeting with representatives from different countries. My Fulbright research focuses on community radio stations as models of participatory communication, and I intend to use my findings on American community radio stations’ financial and volunteer management when I return to India. Understanding the similarities and differences between Indian and American models will be particularly helpful in developing an in-depth analysis of global community radio stations’ best practices.

Living in New York City, with its hustle and bustle, noisy subways, and crowds, has helped me to gain a better awareness of what a worldly city is like. My first amazing New York Fulbright experience was when I attended a session on polio eradication during the United Nations General Assembly 2012. Meeting world leaders and being introduced as a Fulbrighter further underscored how huge the opportunity is for those lucky enough to receive a grant.

Another enriching Fulbright experience I had involved conducting research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Campus Radio. There, I met many student radio enthusiasts in different fields and community radio broadcasters who had been volunteering for decades. This experienced helped me to understand how deeply rooted volunteerism is in the United States and that most American Community Media Systems have been able to develop due to ongoing support from volunteers.

I have loved each and every day of my stay and research in United States. For the traveler, communicator, listener and scholar in me, this has been the best experience of my life!

This was originally published at the Fulbright Blog 

Fighting Female Foeticide: Stories From A Typical Day At Work

The story below is a real life experience of the author during a session on female foeticide in a village in Haryana.

This is the first of  two stories: one from a day at work in a village, and another from her own life in a city, both revolving around female foeticide & preference for sons – making it clear that the issue has nothing to do with urban-rural settings.

“They will keep on asking me to reproduce till they get a son for the family.”

—x———-x———–

In 2005, during a project in my undergrad school, I did a secondary research project on the issue of Female Foeticide and Son Preference in India. In 2011-12, I was traveling from one village to another in Haryana, conducting sessions with men and women to create awareness, answer queries, and to try changing mindsets of the people on the issue of the girl child, female foeticide, and son preference.

In these years, I had worked with a few organizations on the issue, assisted my sister on her project relating to the same, done behavior change campaigns, and developed innovative communication tools for the same. Yet, I stood there,  facing the dilemma of why, how, and when. 

The Scenario

At the meeting to raise questions

During one of my visits, I traveled into a small village of one of the states with a terrible Male-Female Sex Ratio. I am comfortable interacting with a group of not more than 35-50 people. A small group like that is more interactive, can be handled much more easily, with a better flow of communication- especially on such crucial social issues.

When I reached the venue, I saw a crowd of 200 men and women sitting, divided by the aisle. On one side, sat the men with their turbans. On the other, were the women with their veils crossing their chin. Now this was a little complicated scenario for me. I knew that both categories of my participants appreciated this brutal form of killing and violation of the right to be born; favoring males as the carriers of traditions and family name.

 I knew that both categories of my participants appreciated this brutal form of killing and violation of the right to be born; favoring males as the carriers of traditions and family name.

The Root

The problem of patriarchy, son preference, and women being ignored has deep linkages with every cause I ever took up in the villages with respect to women’s rights and gender issues (violence, education, nutrition, dowry, child marriage etc). The problem was that not only men but even the women followed the so-called traditional methods, thereby creating more disparity.

The problem was also the lack of communication between the men and women, on any social issue. I learnt one thing from this: in order to solve any problem with respect to rights of Women (economic, social, or political ) we need to engage and bring on the same level both the genders of the communities – to discuss and understand.

The problem was also the lack of communication between the men and women, on any social issue.

So there I was, happy to realize that this was one of the most amazing opportunities I could ever have, to make the two interact. I knew the risks were huge. I could be shamed, accused, or worse – thrown out of the village for trying to break the age old systems of functioning and change  the lack of communication between the two genders. But, I realized it was worth the risk.

The Act

As I stood there, I realized that to get the best of reactions, it was important for me to startle my audience with something controversial. And I started with my story. The story of my ancestral home, where son preference was a very commonly accepted norm. I started sharing what I saw as a young daughter to how I became a woman. And as I did this, I threw in my series of snapshots and films I always worked with when interacting in the communities.

I stood there, with a microphone in my hand, amongst the crowd of men and women, asking them why, how, and when. The same questions that I had been carrying with me even after so many years of working on the issue.

Now I had known a few answers all this while. Who will light the pyre of the parents? A son is the gateway to Moksha! A daughter is a source of misery! Who will carry forward the family name and lineage? Who will feed the parents in their old age? Take care of the women?! Why go through dowry? Safety of women? Who will be the man?

The reason I stood there with those questions every time was because I knew I would end up getting a new set of answers, every single time.

The Reactions

One elderly woman turned to me and shouted out loud, saying that I have gone mad to think that its okay to not have a son. This is how she explained the cycle (translated from Haryanvi):

“The world needs men. If a son is born in the family, he takes care of the family, carries the name forward, helps earn money, and feed the members, is safe and does not need to be taken care of (body-wise). He gives dowry for the family’s daughters, takes care of the future rituals (chhuchhak, bhaat etc), protects the family lineage, gives more sons to the house, stays with the parents, lights the pyre and helps achieve moksha (salvation)…

What will we do if we do not have son to do all this? These days the younger generation is having fewer kids. We tell them to not get the foetus aborted, but what is the solution if they want a son? They have to get it cleaned before it turns older (abortion). And now tell me, why should we not promote female foeticide?”

“…And now tell me, why should we not promote female foeticide?”

An old man agreed to the above stated ‘facts’, but also explained how they never pushed the women to have only sons. Every woman agreed that they had gone through so much torture in their lives that having a son meant high social status in the family as she was the carrier.

Slowly, as the discussion garnered more comments and reactions, I saw a chattering crowd of men and women debating on why and why not. A lot of the women with daughters agreed with me, and a lot accused me of trying to change “how it has been”. I stood there smiling internally because I had initiated a major conversation that had been missing from the community, which had accepted female foeticide as the norm.

As I made them see the future of a land without women, a land with a high crime rate, a land where women handled every task that the old lady had mentioned, a lot of the protesters went silent. I had no clue how and what it was going to lead to (the session was a part of a project) but I was hopeful that I had initiated at least a thought which was missing from the majority of the crowd.

A picture of the future  is important. What happens if we keep on going like this? When people realize that it’s not healthy to go on like we are going, the fear increases and chances are many that it will change to a “something should be done” attitude. When a picture of “no women in next 5 years if you keep on killing girls” was shown, people started realizing the value of girls, daughters, wives, mothers.

The Cycle of Change

While a baby cannot be born just with an egg of the mother and needs the sperm of the father, similar is the case with rearing the child. I have seen that in rural areas in India, if a woman works, she takes part in the decision making of the house in the smallest and biggest matters, she has an opinion on the children’s future, and that opinion is heard and valued.

It is important for women in rural areas to realize that the need to change is now, and education is very important. Not just schooling but also awareness and capacity building – which can help develop the logical self, in defining and deciding what is right and what is wrong.

It is important for women in rural areas to realize that the need to change is now, and education is very important. Not just schooling but also awareness and capacity building.

It’s a researched fact that Education has led to understanding and realization of choices, which has further led to economic empowerment and sharing of responsibilities. We can say that the community heritage is a reason too, but education is a founding backbone of the process.

The implementation of policies along with training at the grassroots is crucial, too. Unless people see the reason why change is required strongly, people wont change. And for that to happen, in India atleast, a multi-pronged approach with both Behaviour Change Campaigns and policy level implementations is required.

The Behaviour Change Campaigns need to be community specific/state specific with exhaustive research (using methods like Positive Deviance) to be used to define Why and How and Whom (W’s) of the campaign with participation by the people, for the people. A simple campaign on the Community radios running in the villages can create a change in many homes.

Community Media, and Mass media need to collaborate on common guidelines-based messages that should percolate the homes through edutainment based methods (TV shows, radio programs), in a very subtle way in order to make it a casual process, avoiding rebellion by elders.

I believe and I think it is crucial that the idea should move beyond just saying and towards more doing.  We need strategic methods with constant evaluation in order to stay on track.

That day, at the end of the session, a young woman working with the police came to me. She explained her story as the other young girls hopped around. I saw hope, I saw challenges, I saw passion to make things work. I realized, I cannot give up on the society so easily. I also realized that things can be worked around, but the start has to be made now.

There are a few deviant stories around where girls have been born despite all challenges and have managed to turn into inspiring stories for other to learn from. The challenge is to find these stories and convert them into a norm instead of being an exception.

The cycle of oppression that women go through in their lifetime needs to change. I came back from the session, hopeful and positive for many more deviant stories for us all to learn from. This was not, after all, just another day at work.

This article was originally published at womens web. 

Breaking the Culture of Silence in India

“I was a girl, now I am a woman, I came alone, I die alone.

People cried when I was born, when I die none will mourn.”

_________

Antim, 13 years old had not eaten properly since years. After all, she was a girl.  When she was born, the whole community had cried. Not tears of joy but of pain. After the torturous nine months that her mother had gone through, all everyone was expecting was to see the baby that would carry the family name ahead, bring joy to the community where having a baby girl was a sin. And when she came in, not only did the family-friends cried, the mother who had borne her in her uterus cried, from both her heart and her body. She was that’s why named Antim, which meant, the last one.

Her mother conceived almost as soon as she could again. And when her brother was born, that was the end of any happiness she could have seen in this world where patriarchy was the only rule that prevailed. While the whole crowd around her danced in joy, the pain she will have to go through was right in front of her, waiting to grab her like a demon. As she grew, she remained aloof of the basic joys of life: freedom, food and family. At 13, when she started menstruating for the first time, as confused as she was of the changes that were happening to her, she was unaware of the fact that now, the burden of being a woman had grabbed her, a burden she would have to deal with a smile on her face. No proper nutrition, thousand rules to abide by, and unaware of what she could have been, she was being trained to become a woman, a woman who her mother was, her grandmother was and may be her baby girl will be later.

Menstruation is a phenomenon that changes everything for a girl. As she dwindles with the body and emotional changes that happen to her, she is forced to take it as a curse instead of a blessing. On one hand where she can see her body change, on the other she sees how her curious mind is shut forever. Neither does her mother tell her what to do, nor does anybody else. Hygiene, nutrition, puberty, sex education are topics that are dusted under the carpet. As she grows, she realizes that she must have done sins to be born a woman.

______________

Suman, 23 years old sits beside me as we discuss the issues women face in the community. A look at her is enough to understand that though she smiles, she is empty inside. A mother to three girls, she has recently gone through her third abortion. In her six years of marriage, she has been pregnant almost always. With an expressionless face, she explains that somewhere women are born to live a life this way. The purpose of a woman coming on this earth is only to reproduce and so what she was going through seemed to her like a duty. Desires somewhere had died long ago, or maybe never existed at all.

She was married when she was 17 years old. A case of child marriage as she was, she had never seen her husband’s face, and so marriage was just another duty. In a small yet rich town of the most prosperous state of India, she came to her in-laws knowing the duties she was entitled to do. One of which was satisfying her husband in bed, another one being giving the family the heir, male heir. On one hand while she dwindled with expectations of the family growing every day for her to produce a baby boy, she was being cursed every day for failing to deliver. And so, one abortion after another she was loosing faith in her being able to fulfill her duty, failing to be the ideal woman she was defined to be since childhood. Droopy eyes with dark circles around, she was pregnant this time too and scared because soon she had to go through an ultrasound examination to know the sex of the baby. Little she know, its not she who defined the sex of the baby, biologically.  Suman as she was proudly named, which means a flower, had no meaning in her life because she wasn’t aware what blooming was all about.

Issues of Family Planning go way beyond the number of babies. It encompasses the awareness of contraception, rights to make that choice on using one, it entails the issues of Maternal and childcare, it entails patriarchy and control over bodies, involves issues of infection, HIV and Violence Against Women. It’s much more than contraception and incentives to get vasectomy or birth control.  The fact that even today women simply fail to say NO to their husbands and family pressures go beyond any government scheme or incentives given. The issue remains, of dialogue to move beyond ego issues of males related to condoms, of asking instead of forcing to have sex and reproduce.

_____________

Banwari, 55 years sat next to her granddaughter telling her how to cook as her mother went on the farm. She is greeted by the Nurse from the nearby Local health Clinic set up by the government asking her about the injection schedule for the baby boy just born. During the few minutes of conversation, she is tempted to ask her about the changes that she has been undergoing. She had been trying to ask her since months and so, after a lot of courage she shares her troubles. She goes on and describes a series of symptoms that she has been going through. Her knees have started to pain, she is having uneven periods.. the nurse tells her about Menopause but tries to explain to her how she should get herself tested for once. She shuns the idea, takes it as normal and shows her the door.

After two more months of pain and trouble, she wonders if she should have got those tests done. The local ayurveda doctor medicines didn’t work, neither did the priests prayers. The local community radio channel playing on the radio beside her grandson who lies there playing on the cot has the reporter discussing a similar problem. She is hesitant to discuss the issue with anyone, but after a lot of thinking she finally gathers the courage to call the doctor on the call-in show, happy that she isn’t sitting face to face with him. Being retold to get herself examined, she wonders if it was time to see a doctor.. silently, she gets back to her work. She looks at her grand daughter, maybe she sees in her a reflection of her own past. Named after Lord Krishna himself, she must show courage to handle all her pains.

While Menopause is a natural phenomenon, cervical cancers have been on a rise in the country of India. The fact that a woman would think a hundred times before she sees a doctor for a ‘personal’ problem that should not be spoken about to anyone, makes it evident that screening is slower even after awareness. Even today, when it comes to issues related to Maternal Health, Personal hygiene and Feminine care, women in rural India are just not ready to voice out their concerns, their fears. The will live in pain, as they have been trained to but never speak out, thereby remain voiceless.

_____________

These Three stories connect to the Culture of silence in India. Keep aside men. Keep aside social rituals. The fact that even a woman cannot easily talk to a woman about her troubles and get empathy in return makes it evident that even after 65 years of independence, women are crippled by social customs and age-old traditions to a level where they wont speak their desires out. Though systems of support outside family exist, the fact that the first connection should happen at home leaves them helpless. The culture of silence on issues of Menstruation, Maternal Health and Menopause have been there since ever, especially in Northern part of India. These three make women feel burdened of living and while she had faced the same in her childhood, she doesn’t easily take a step to fight for her daughter or daughter-in-law.

Privacy is good. But sometimes issues like these that are of common good, women good, need to be spoken out loud. “We tell ourselves stories in order to live” was a strong statement that Joan Didion had given long time ago. Such stories of pain and sorrow need to be spoken out loud in order to motivate women not to face troubles with a smile, but to voice out the issues they face, the pains they go through, the fears they live with.

What is the starting point?

“Starting a dialogue, maybe”

Looking Within: Do We Support Other Women?

A plotting mother-in-law, the sultry seductive ‘other woman’, the selfish woman in flesh of a saintly friend, the unsupportive husband, the strict father.. looks like we just opened a box of the tele-serial world, isn’t it? Inspired by real life as the world of soap operas is, the fact is that today we are in the company of those few who have spoiled the way everyone else in their situations is looked at.

Feminism, some one just reminded me a day ago is a woman’s thing. Amused as I was, I kept on thinking why is it that when we think of a feminist, we think of a woman who is there raging with anger and shouting out slogans against men.

It is true that those situations used to be there earlier, but today, as times have changed, feminism has moved beyond bra burning and occupy the street kind of movements, and as I say this, I don’t intend to demean the value of them as well. 

The larger discussion today should be how feminism and the struggle for making women more empowered has a lot of do with women themselves than the men around, who have to indeed play a strong role. But when I talk of feminism, I want to move beyond the whole idea of ‘male Bashing’ and the ‘blame it on your counterpart’ game. I might sound a little more preachy and spiritual here, but the key to understanding Feminism lies in understanding the concept of ‘Standing up for yourself’ and not ‘Standing against someone’.

I was talking to a friend when she remarked that the only way this particular colleague of hers gets her work done in her office is opening the two top buttons of her shirt, her body posture leaning a little more towards male colleagues and flipping her hair right and left as she spoke. While everyone has a right to do what they want, and someone’s dressing up or down should not be a reason to question them or their character, I still fail to understand why that would work more. As for the one who is standing beside in subtle attire, tied up hair, much more talented, the struggles are much higher.

Moving beyond all this, the thing that makes me wonder how ‘one woman spoils it for every other’ is that even those who dress up or dress down and are not trying to signal to their counterparts are looked at with evil eyes. For the women around question her and the men around lech at her.

And this debate continues beyond mere work structures. A friend recently said, “My mother-in-law is not such a typical mother-in-law like the ones I used to be scared about. You know the typical out-of-horrific-family-dramas character”. As she said this, I realized how the general notion towards a mother-in-law has been that she is the wicked character of the family that a girl plans to enter. And that can be attributed to the fact that somewhere the story of that one evil character has spread like a fire in the forest, spoiling it for all the good ones too.

While this one side of the story is on how women blame other women, and mostly one case spoils the image of everyone else, the other side is of blaming men. I overheard a woman talking in a food court a few days ago. “My father had done the same thing, not letting me handle my life on my own terms and my husband is doing the same. I work so hard, day in and day out but no one appreciates, cooking-cleaning-children take up my life.”, she remarked. The discussion that followed helped me understand how we mostly try to blame our situation on others, especially the men and do not take the burden of changing the situation on our shoulders.

There can be numerous examples. And these might be just 10% (an approximate exaggerated figure) of the whole lot, but they create the image for others. The very reason that one bad fish can spoil the life of the ones in the pool is a clichéd statement but a fact here. We need to look into us before we go around blaming our bosses, husbands, fathers. Before we do something that speaks for other women too, we need to stop and think of the repercussions it might have for all the women in similar situations. We need to understand that the first level of change is “I”. Going on and speaking evil of the husband/father for not letting you do a particular thing can happen only when you have rebelled (subtly, that works more) enough and found no solution. Negotiation, after all is a trick women do/can specialize in.

And as I see women demeaning women, judging their every single act, making them fall rather than succeed, I look at the tele serials and realize that the world today looks at others, especially women with shades of either extreme black or extreme white. Grey seems to be absent. And that being true, this is even more in case of women judging women.

Are we as feminists, losing the ground of being humanists? I am just trying to question the culture of ‘male bashing’ and ‘Oh! She is the evil one’ for every single failure of our struggle to question our patriarchal social roles. While there are men who won’t let us work, there are those who will happily support the cause. Instead of painting the movement of empowerment against males, let’s first look inside and question how many of females are against us.

—-

Questions we can ask ourselves before we act and react:

- Who is responsible for my situation?

- Have I done anything to change that situation?

- Has negotiation failed? If yes, should I rebel further?

- Am I being driven or I am driving my life?

- Am I being supportive to other women in similar situations, or worse?

—-

Against or in favour? The classic debate!

This posts as originally published at Women's Web: http://www.womensweb.in/2014/02/do-women-support-other-women/

An Obituary Of The Nation: By Cropped Roots, Chopped Wings And Silenced Voices

Dear Fellow Countrymen,

As I write this down, I am in tears. It gives me a choking discomfort and terrible pain to pen down this obituary. This obituary does not speak of a woman dying a sad death after being raped or tortured, but about the sad demise of humanity amongst a nation of beings with whom live the hundreds of women who have no clue how they are being sucked into a black hole of predators just looking for them to fulfill sexual pleasures; of predators who look for the chance to assert their ‘manly’ power, of predators who smile inside when a female foetus is not allowed birth in this land.

This might be an obituary for many men around you, women too. And sadly, if you read this and look away, this might be an obituary to that little human heart of yours. Therefore, this might be the biggest obituary written in history (read: of the second most populated country in the world); of hoards of men and women, who might feel this is an obituary to them. Because even when you are breathing, you are dead inside. And while the Nation still claims to be highly populated with different categories of Indians, blood sucking Vampires in human form are the ones that make the biggest class, caste and community of this country.

This is your obituary, if one day you told your wife/daughter/daughter-in-law to get her womb tested for determining the Gender (not sex, because before her birth is decided her life) of the baby. This is also your obituary if you tortured a woman for dowry. This is your obituary because you died inside the day you lurked at a woman as a sex object, and yours too if no matter how much you loved your wife, you beat her up at home in order to showcase your masculinity, the strength of being a man – powerful.

This is your obituary too if you as a woman tortured another for not following the gender norms, social rules. This is the obituary of those innumerable men and women who at some point or another didn’t realize that it is their duty to stand up and fight for humanity, womanhood, even if they are not facing anything themselves; after all watching in silence is a crime too.

An obituary of the numerous politicians who fail to recognize what an important issue women’s safety is, who call a woman ‘dented and painted‘ if she makes a choice, who tell women who are sex workers that they are criminals, who think that all women’s issues are not of national importance. This is an obituary to those numerous women who are swimming deep in power, strong enough to shut out the voices in their head, voices of women who are in pain. This is an obituary to those youngsters who find happiness is all about material assets while they walk past that woman who is being tortured by her family, and those who bear the torture thrown upon them too. An obituary of those educated, cultured and so-called high-class people sitting in offices thinking of how to ignore these daily reports of gang rapes, rapes, dowry deaths and suicides of women, yes this is it.

The day you thought that feminism was all about women, you died. The day you thought that those women who fight for their rights can be silenced by being harassed, tortured, abused or raped, you died. The day you thought that a woman is not equal to a man in terms of human rights and freedom, you died. The day you made bread out of a career in this field, silently torturing women around you in your house, you died. The day patriarchy was logical to you, you died. The day you thought that your wife should only be born to feed, reproduce and take care of you, you died. The day you thought that women are the weaker sex, yes, you my friend died.

While Patriarchy crippled us, the National history of women’s movements and support haven’t been of any help either. This is an obituary of the past, the hard work done to create a global uproar by women in this land of hungry monsters, men and women both. This is an obituary of a failed national system of governance, of the law, of the policies, of the family culture and dynamics that fails to teach us as citizens, as humans, the difference between right and wrong, the difference between crime and punishment, the difference between human and evil.

As I write this, I am in a lot of pain. Writing on behalf of those hundreds of women who left this land of living hell to may be a better place far far away, for their voices went with them, for their unspoken pains will never be penned. And as I write, I feel another pain towards those many more who are living in hell here.  I am saddened, also a little disgusted at the sight of those laughing men and women who escape the heinous crimes they commit against women, and at the faces of victory of those who help them escape.

Those policemen who bring shame to women, yes, you are trusted upon the task to protect, and when you do inhuman deeds, I am ashamed. To those hundreds of lawyers, doctors, teachers, politicians, bureaucrats, parents, management gurus, celebrities, and yes media professionals, sadly this is an obituary of the educated, polished, looked-up-to (down by me) you.

Dharnas for issues as low as demanding a certain person to walk away from his job seem to be taking over the freedom movements of women. While the media can’t stop talking about the baby of a celebrity, the woman who was brutally raped by 12 men, and one who was killed seems to be an issue of less national importance. Today, this is an obituary of all those moments where the media and people have let us down. This is an obituary, of not one or two but those unaccounted men and women around who think women’s rights and issues concerned are not of immediate importance.

Sadly, this will remain just another piece of a voice among those many different voices that are being shouted from the corner of every village, town and state of India. When a woman is killed somewhere, or tortured, a little part of humanity dies every second. This is a sad reminder that India has become a land where economy takes over human rights, where people fight for a statement made by an opponent before they fight for a raped woman, where she is just another case dumped in the pile of files in a court, making her life worth nothing more than a few sessions of court room drama.

Do I rest my case or is my Case adjourned? This is my obituary to a dying, prosperous land which is economically growing but somewhere has become hollow inside. While you read this, yet another rape case, a case of suicide of a woman will be making headlines. I wonder how do you sleep?

May your soulless bodies Never Rest in Peace.

This post was originally published at Women's Web: http://www.womensweb.in/2014/01/violence-against-women-india/

Women, Contraception & Issues of Access-Usage-Rights

She was all of 22 year old. Four daughters already, two abortions done, I thought I should ask her how it felt to have been pregnant literally all the time since she had been married off. But before I could, her tear-filled eyes looked at me, her lips tried to (fake a) smile, and she said, “This is what women are born for after all. Isn’t it?” I had no answer.

It wasn’t literally that I had none. Somehow I could have used all my textbook based knowledge and my dose of empathy to make her understand that she was worth more than that. That she was powerful. That she was more than a baby-producing machine. That she had rights. But suddenly at that moment, I was completely numb. I had nothing to say. I realized how every system, every policy, every initiative, every organization had failed at that very moment for me.

Do I sound a little hopeless? I had to be. I had no other choice that moment. This issue was more complicated than it looked. What were the problems? Was it Patriarchy and Women’s Status? Or was it access to contraception? Decision making? Or Maternal Health Care? Male-heir desperation? What was it?

On my way back, her strong words kept on resonating in my mind and all I could feel was a sudden rush, an uncontrollable feeling of hatred towards society. People call me emotional with respect to my work. They say I should be more practical. But wasn’t the first reason I joined such a work force that I wanted my emotions to become a passion? I had a hundred thoughts and as the sun started setting, the cold breeze seemed to hit me harder than it usually did.

Issues of Family Planning go way beyond the number of babies. It encompasses the awareness of contraception, rights to make that choice on using one, it entails the issues of maternal and child care, it entails patriarchy and control over bodies, it involves issues of infection, HIV and Violence Against Women. It’s much more than contraception and incentives to get vasectomy or birth control. While the whole system in the country is working towards making people have  control over the production of babies, the lack of empathy has resulted in a flawed policy system where what we have reached today is a point on which we as citizens and humans are better off killing female fetuses and ignoring maternal health.

The fact remains that while an educated strong working urban woman is moving towards using contraception for her own sake, in an average Indian household (let’s not even discuss rural here) a woman still struggles to discuss contraceptive measures to be used by males. She will pop an i-pill or hormonal contraceptive pill rather than ask her husband to use condoms. Condoms have male ego attached to them.

So, when I asked that woman from a very economically progressive yet patriarchal town of a very rich state in India about her view on condoms and birth control, the blank look on her face made me wonder where we are all going wrong, in our struggle to make the country control the over-production of babies.

Questions remain: Will a woman show that she knows her contraceptives well? Will she tell her male counterparts that she is bothered about her health and so should he be? Will she go ahead and buy condoms for him to use? Will she be respected for her interest in use of condoms for birth control and also infections? Will a man value his partner’s opinion on contraception, let her choose what she wants rather than ego-stabbing his opinions on her? Will Contraception become more than a man’s decision and a choice that both take together? The point is that while men on the one hand expect to rule the woman, force her to do what he wants in bed, expecting an average Indian man to make balanced choices keeping his female counterpart in mind is going a little too far right now.

All this takes me back to my Physiology lessons where we did a project on Contraception in my B.Sc days and we explored the various methods and means, did we understand the theory and practicality to use them? The issues of negotiating, of decision making and of rights vs access are something that still remain untaught to women and men out there. Indians don’t appreciate talking about bedrooms publicly but somewhere the urgent need of the hour is to start talking about things as crucial as contraception, sex education, menstruation and pregnancy-childbirth-menopause.

Her eyes still haunt me when I see women like her around. And till date, I don’t have any answer to give to any woman who comes and asks me what to do to stop her husband from asking her to pull out baby boys from her uterus. I can never forget those eyes. Not until I find an answer, a solution.

This Post was originally published at Women's Web: http://www.womensweb.in/2014/01/women-contraception-usage-rights-india/

And She Lived.. Happily Ever After

“In a land, far far away lived a princess with long silky hair and beautiful gleaming eyes, dreaming that one fine day the man of her dreams will come and woo her off her feet, sway.”

She recalled this line that was printed in her head since childhood, thanks to the numerous fairy tales she had slept hearing to as a child. As a girl who has learnt to do everything by herself, a line like that should not make much of a sense. Right?

From the fairy tales as she moved on to a not so fairy tale life, she realized how much she had been torturing herself by bearing the burden of these words. She was beaten, abused, verbally and physically. Yet she stood strong because she remembered the lines from the grandmother’s story she had heard as a little girl. “When a girl marries, she goes as a bride to the new house and comes out only when she dies.” Nothing made sense but her senses had ceased to function long back. Was it time for her to wipe these tales off her soul and listen to some new ones?

Looking at her one would often question how an educated, working young woman could be beaten black & blue, all her money taken away, and still love her husband so much? How was she bearing the torture, the horrendous crimes done upon her? Every time something inside her made her fight back, but the stories kept on coming back and logic kept on going away.

The charm of stories is that the moral and the ending are at times all we remember. She still had that torn out book from her childhood. She would often go back to it, re-read and pacify her soul, that this was a phase and would be over, and that a happily ever after would happen soon. How soon, was the biggest question?

Gleaming eyes turned into teary blue ones. Long silky hair became worn out ropes dragging her across the floor. The land far away was the land of living hell on earth. And her prince was not the prince, but the villain of the story. Could she have a happily ever after?

The story of her life originated from a story she had heard to live a happy life. But she soon became a story I tell for others to live happily ever after. We hear a lot of stories in our lives. We decide what we take out of them. For her, the fairy tale happy ending was all she wanted. She left the land hopeless and torn, may be to a land far far away.

For me, her story changed the way I looked at a fairy tale. Everyone’s life isn’t the same. And as I remember this story of hers, I have in mind hundred and thousand more to learn from. We tell ourselves stories in order to live, but sometimes we forget the whole purpose of life.

“The journey is more important than the ending.”