Why're women still asking?

The women’s liberation movement started, formally, in 1848, with the Seneca Falls Convention.

Writer such as Virginia Woolf expounded on the subject – they didn’t ask why women weren’t being given freedom, they said, very definitely, that women weren’t being given freedom.

The question might have come down to ‘why’ at some point during the movement, but the main point that was being contested was not why: it was ‘please give us the freedom to think’.

That phrase has gone through changes in a hundred and fifty years. Today, it has become ‘please give us equal status with men’.

Does anyone see anything wrong with that statement, apart from the ‘please’, which admittedly and thank God, women don’t use when asking?

Asking. There’s the point, isn’t it? Why’re they – why’re we still asking? What do we have to ask for? Freedom?

And who’re we asking? Who’s going to give it to us? This isn’t like when the countries fought for freedom. We don’t want anything tangible that the men are refusing to give us. So where does the question of asking arise?

Freedom is not something that you grab from someone; freedom is definitely not something someone can give you. Freedom is how you feel. On the inside. People like Kalpana Chawla and Saina Nehwal didn’t ask for freedom. They wanted to do something, and then they went ahead and did it. Of course there were barriers – but who doesn’t face barriers these days? If a man wants to be a receptionist, he will seriously have to contend with the natural beauty and probably grace of a female receptionist. Same goes with an air hostess. Men are not the natural choice for secretaries, teachers, even modelling is mostly woman-centred.

Some might say women are chosen for those jobs only for their beauty and not their brains, but face it – men aren’t preferred in the army for their superior intelligence, are they? Or as plumbers, or swimming-pool diggers or, well, the list is very limited. Most of the ‘intelligent’ jobs are open to both men and women. Gender bias there is a personal problem, like racism.

As for what was traditionally called gender bias – there will always be an inherent difference between men and women. Women are different, and that is not in any way a demeaning statement. It’s the truth.

I’m not saying women are lesser than men – they’re different. They think differently, they react differently. It’s quite a lot more demeaning to womanhood, as it is, to try to behave like a man in the hope that you will be accepted in what you, and no one else, calls a ‘man’s world’.

It’s a relief to see women who have moved out of the ‘feminist’ rut and are starting to accept their femininity rather than fight it. It also is quite a relief to see men accept women as intelligent counterparts, rather than sex objects that cook well.

Which is why the women’s reservation bill took me by surprise. Which is why the debate over the women’s reservation bill took me by surprise. Which is why, every time I read about horrible hate crimes against women – this definitely includes taking dowry – I get surprised, to put it mildly.

Which is why I still wonder what it is that’s keeping scores of women from breaking out of their underdog psyche and actually look at themselves as human beings. And why there are scores of other women who demand ‘equal’ rights.

Stop demanding, please. Stop pleading with the men to give you something that is, frankly, not theirs to give. Teach other women to accept themselves, if you really want to make a change.

The world has changed since it was said of women that ‘they must be seen and not heard’. Today, it is a lot harder to ignore or belittle women, and anyone who tries it is widely accepted to seriously need psychiatric analysis. We’re being heard today. So why’re we still shouting?

Just go out there and grab your freedom by the horns. And then you can put pink ribbons on it, if you want.

The world is your oyster. Go ahead and decorate it.

happily drunk

look beyond yourself and you'll see them;
laughing, playing, waiting for you to join them.
and your feet will tap in rhythm with their music
and a smile will form all by itself
slowly growing and spreading,
filling your head with the deepest intoxication -
one that can't be slept away...

Disappointment

Given to you all my life
i've given up for you all i had
all i ever wanted
everything i could get

but i gave it all up for you
this you made me do
and now that all i had is gone
you took away the least i'd expected of you

The Visitor

He didn’t know why he came – he just felt the pull, every year. Every year, and he just had to come. To see this grave, that he’d seen a hundred times before. To see this grave again.

He’d wanted to, ever since he was a child. The first time they’d passed this cemetery, he’d been twelve years old, and he’d wanted to come in here.

His parents had refused, like parents all over the world, and had promised to take him to a better cemetery some time else. They also brought him ice cream to see if that stopped him crying. But it hadn’t helped – he’d wanted to come back, and that was that. So they’d brought him back, cursing their luck in getting such a weird son.

And he’d come back again, the week after that, secretly, hiding from his parents because he’d known they didn’t want him to come here. He’d come, and stood near this grave, and he’d stared at it – just the way he was staring at it right now – and he’d suspended all thinking.

He’d found out, later, that this was the grave of P.B. Shelley, a poet from the past. The name had meant nothing to him.

He’d done a poem of his later in school, and had liked it a lot. So much, in fact, that he’d bought the book and had read every poem this man had ever written. With some poems, bits of - something – had come to him – like he should be remembering something but couldn’t figure out what it was. He’d tried re-reading those poems, again and again, to see if he could actually remember what he felt he should be remembering.

But he hadn’t. He couldn’t. He couldn’t remember anything more than those fragments of – something – that made him try to remember WHAT it was that he should be remembering.

He’d come again, that once, a week after he’d first stepped in when he was twelve, and then he’d forgotten about this grave.

Until the day of his birthday – and P.B. Shelley’s birthday, both of which, by a curious coincidence, fell on the same day. It was his thirteenth birthday. He’d been cutting his cake happily when his lungs had started hurting, and he hadn’t been able to breathe. He’d fainted.

As soon as he’d woken up, he’d asked to be taken to this cemetery. His parents had stared at him weirdly, but had brought him here, because they would rather not argue with their crazy son when he was in such a weak condition.

He’d been brought here, he’d placed some flowers on P.B. Shelley’s grave, and then he’d felt much better.

Who was this? Who was P.B. Shelley and why did he have such an effect on his life? He knew the answer to the first question – but when would he find the answer to the second? Why did he have to come here every birthday? What crazy coincidence, if that was what it was, had made both of their birthdays fall on the same day? Why did he almost remember – something – every time he read Adonais?

He couldn’t understand it. But sixty-two now, fifty years since the first time he’d come in, he decided not to try to understand why, or what, but just accept things as they were. He bent down, laid flowers on P.B. Shelley’s grave, nodded at the coroner, who remembered him from the time he was twelve, and walked out of the graveyard. 

Death of a King

He’d taken his shower. He walked out, smiled at her, and started towelling himself dry. Most people of his stature wouldn’t do it by themselves. Most people of his stature got other people to clean their ears for them, even. But he wasn’t like them.

He did his own bathing, and his own drying, and it didn’t matter if really expensive help was sitting a few feet away from him. He wouldn’t like to ask, and she wasn’t going to offer. They were both ok with this arrangement. It wasn’t just her. People tended to treat him like this. 

He towelled himself dry, wore a pair of boxers and walked up to the bed where she was sitting, standing near the foot. She watched him. She wasn’t sitting in a sensuous pose, like she would be doing for other clients. He didn’t like that. He didn’t like for his girls to be overtly sexy. He didn’t like them to flutter eyelashes at him, he didn’t like them to give him come-hither looks, he didn’t like ‘all the faf’, as he said it. He liked them to act uninterested, in fact. He liked to turn them on. With his dancing, of all things.

For God’s sake. Others may like his dance, but she, personally, didn’t. In fact, she couldn’t understand what made the others swoon when he danced for them. Half the people she knew didn’t even have to act, which was a lot to say for a prostitute.

But it wasn’t sexy, even if it was good. It was crazy cockroach-in-my-pants dancing which looked good only on the stage. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes when he started dancing. She just continued to stare at him, a direct, expressionless stare.

He continued to dance as he slithered towards her, expectation building, reaching the climax where he would slither into bed with her and make sweet love.

She thought of all the controversies that had happened over his sexual preferences. She almost laughed to think of the little kid that had once sued this man for – what? – molesting him? This guy had been in love with that kid, he would never have hurt him. That guy – or rather his parents had just wanted a piece of the huge cake this man ate on a daily basis.

And who didn’t? Everyone wanted a piece of it – they had a right to. She’d wanted also. There was nothing wrong with it. It was almost his social responsibility to help strugglers. And it wasn’t like she hadn’t given him anything in return. In return, she’d almost fallen in love with him in an effort to make him happy. She had a right. He should have helped her. He should have given some of what she’d given him, back to her. And what had she asked of him? That he make her big too. Wouldn’t that be profitable to him too? Having a successful singer at his side, as opposed to a nobody?

But it hadn’t happened. She blurred the rest of the memory in her mind and pointed a mental finger at the man dancing in front of her. He was responsible. He should have helped her. He should have. He should have done something. Something. The rage threatened to take hold of her again as she stared calmly at him. Something. But no. He’d left her, and in such a miserable condition, she had become a prostitute.

Yes. He was responsible, and today, he was going to pay for what he’d done.

He slithered closer to her, looking at her with that expression. Oh, she knew this expression so well.

He was a good lover. Not great, good. But the profession she was in didn’t see that many good lovers and she knew many people who would give a lot to be in her place right now. He was one of the rare good ones, and one of a kind in that he was considerate, gentle and loving. He wouldn’t dream of letting her go without making sure she enjoyed herself too.

Knowing this made the dance easier to bear. She was intensely turned on, not only because she knew what he could do to her, but because she knew what she was going to do to him.

A pang of regret hit her for a fleeting moment, at the same time that a thrill ran up her spine and she shivered. This man – he was almost God, the way he played with his music, the way he enjoyed his life and art, even though to the people on the outside it looked like his life was demented and weird. He was a nice enough man – no, cancel that – he was a really nice man, true to his heart and believing, deep within, with such a conviction that the other person would believe it too, that each and every one was good inside. And that was why he found it so easy to forgive when someone wronged him.

Which meant his spirit wouldn’t haunt her, she mused as he slid into bed with her as he’d planned, and she stuck the injection straight into his heart. His spirit would find it within itself to forgive her. It was, after all, always at peace.

He gasped at the pain, looked down with horror at what she’d done, and rolled off her, falling with a thud onto the ground.

She watched him struggling, and writhing, and couldn’t believe it. It belied the state of his soul, which, she was sure, was at peace; it always was.

There was no vengeance, still, in the way he looked at her, childishly, mutely asking her for help. She watched him calmly, waiting for him to relax.

When he did, she grimaced at the grotesque expression on his face. She couldn’t leave him looking like this. That would be an insult to a great man. She reached down and adjusted his features so they would look calm and dignified whenever he was found.

He was found half an hour later. No one knew what happened to him, and they all thought he’d had a heart failure, until the coroner’s report came out and they found out he’d died of an overdose of Propofol. 

Love must be blind

Why should love be blind?

Why shouldn’t love know?

Because knowing blows away magic

Knowing lifts the curtain

And burns away passion

As sure as ice ever could

Why should we not know what we love?

Because knowing destroys feeling

And you can either know,

Or feel,

But not both.