Searching for light in the darkness of insanity....

A few days ago, I was at Goregaon station, on my way to a meeting. As I was waiting at the entrance for Snehal, I realised that I had suddenly become the focus of everyone's attention. Apparently my outfit was too much for people to handle - I was dressed in a black t-shirt and knee-length denim skirt. I could feel my body being ravaged like an old love-letter by stares and muted condemnations. I could see the women clicking their tongues in disapproval; I could hear the men lasciviously whispering what they wanted to do to me.

I knew what they all were thinking; I saw the venom roll off their tongues. Shameless. Immoral.WHORE. For one desperate moment, I knew why women voluntarily wore the burqa. I perfectly understood how empowerment could come from being swathed in black, relegated to anonymity. I saw that percieved freedom could be oppressive, and that percieved oppression could be liberating.

I chided myself for my unfortunate wardrobe choice. I went against everything I stand for, and made myself believe I had brought this upon myself. I guess when you're mistaken for a piece of meat, skinned and naked,there's little you can do to ward off the vultures.

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I just dropped Bo to the station. I don't want to get into the details of what happened while we were in Baroda, but suffice to say that it was a weekend straight from the foetid depths of hell. I dragged her back to Bombay so that she could get away for a while and recuperate. A week has gone by, and I don't feel any better about this situation. I can't even imagine how she feels. I feel so uneasy as I'm typing this. On the way to the train station, there was so much I wanted to say and do for her. I wanted to pulverise the fucker who made her feel this way, deathly afraid in her own home, unsure of the future. I wanted to tell her everything would be okay and mean it . I wanted to protect her, form a human shield, so no one could ever hurt her again. Instead all I did was hold her hand, silently apologising for my inadequacies. She forgave me just as silently, placing her other hand on mine, while stoically staring into the Bombay traffic.

As I tried to calm her down last Sunday night, I said all the things I've been trained to say - "This is not your fault." "You are not blowing things out of proportion." "Your feelings are totally valid." Even as my legs were quivering, I felt strong as she seemed to take solace in my words. Tonight I feel broken. I feel like a bad sister for allowing her to get back to her life. I feel like a bad feminist for wanting her to move out, to run away. I feel like a bad activist for being unable to change her circumstances.

This is the first solid blow I've felt to my chosen career. What's the point of workshops and training manuals and conferences when I can't even protect my own sister? What good is it to be well-versed in feminist theory if it doesn't help me do something to erase her fear, her pain, her self-blame? Is my work even worth anything, or is it just aiding me while I walk around with blinders? Am I helping the situation even remotely, or is this job just a defense mechanism against the ugly truth?

I don't know the answers. I don't even want to know the answers. I just want to fall into a dreamless sleep, and wake up to a better tomorrow.

Randomness.

Thoughts that crossed my mind while watching Iqbal today:

- "Wow, I wonder where they shot. It's beautiful."

- "Meh...Shreyas Talpade is utterly average looking."

- "Holy crap, Raghu's sister looks uncannily like their father."

- "There is entirely too much hugging in this film. I'm a hugger, and even *I* think this hugging must end."

"Haha. This Rahul Dravid look-alike is such a terrible actor."

- "Naseer Shah is so great. And he looks so much like...dammit, who does he look like?"

-"Woah...Shreyas Talpade has incredibly. INCREDIBLY. hot. lips."

- "I'm sure the little girl playing his younger sister had a crush on him while filming. All that hugging at that age would've made me positively giddy."

"Man. This film is going to make my kajal smudge, isn't it?"

"How predictable! But...why can't I stop grinning?"

"Okay, those last five minutes were totally unneccessary."

"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! Naseer Shah looks like JUDY!!!!!!!!!"

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Abby, Surabhi,if you girls are reading this, The pictures are only for you two. Do either of you see the resemblance to Judy? Heheh

They never get uptight when a moth gets crushed...

Dream:

I'm in an unrecognizable house, watching a talent competition of sorts. I'm bored by the predictability of the scantily-clad girls with quivering voices hoping to mask their inability to hold notes, rivalled by flannel-clad Dave Matthews wannabes. Suddenly I hear the unmistakable guitar intro to "Tomorrow Tomorrow" and squeal, "Oh my god, I love that song!" On the couch opposite, holding an instrument that - in typical dream-style- looks nothing like, but sounds everything like, a guitar, a boy is singing one of my all-time favourite songs. I distinctly remember him singing, "They took your life apart/They called your failures art," a line that I've always found particularly poignant given the circumstances. Suddenly I realise that this boy in the green t-shirt is none other than my boyfriend. After he's done singing, I am in a tizzy; I hug him sideways, stand on my toes and kiss his cheek repeatedly - I feel the warmth wetness of my lips against his cheek, as he smiles shyly, his greasy hair falling in his downward cast eyes. It was only this morning when I woke up that I realised that my "boyfriend," this boy I was endlessly proud of, this figure of Orphic beauty was Elliott Smith.

Now those who know me will know that I'm such loath to say such things, but I took it as a sign. In my 4th consecutive day off work (I'm so fucked), I listened to "Roman Candle." It just might be my favourite Elliott album (note the use of the word "might"). I think, for me, its beauty lies in its reluctant nakedness, unsheltered by Beatlesque influences, unfettered by the self-consciousness of (relative) fame. As I lay in bed, recovering from the clammy efficiency of Panadol ActiFast, I listened like I hadn't listened in a while - I allowed myself to be engulfed by the guitars twinkling like insouciant stars, while soul-secrets filled my earphones like the tears filling my eyes. The track-and-field pace of the title track, the excoriating sweetness of the "No Name" series, the shimmer of "Kiwi Maddog 20/20", the vituperative breathlessness of "Last Call," the impossible brilliance of "Condor Avenue" - over and over and over, until I fell into a dreamless sleep.

I woke up feeling happier than I have in a while.

Why we're put in this mess is anybody's guess...

I didn't make it to work today. Again. I spent all of last night coughing, clutching my helpless stomach as if to apologise for this unprecedented exertion.

I gargled with warm salt water. I made honey lemon concoctions. I screwed up my nose, and took 2 teaspoons of Corex cough syrup. Nothing helped. In between gasping for air, I managed to apologise to Delphine, staring sleepily at me, running her arm across my back. Her face had an expression of equal parts concern, irritation and amusement.

She, like me, didn't sleep much. She didn't make it to work either.

We spent all day languishing in the living room, darkened by the relentless monsoons. I complained of a severe body ache and light-headedness; Delphine complained of an aching throat and headache. We decided to vanquish the nefarious virus by watching movies all day. We raided my meagre collection, and took out a few that Delphine hadn't watched before, and that I hadn't seen in a while

First, we watched "Citizen Kane." As always, I was blown away by the perfection of the film. I know people are sick of hearing about its legendary genius, but it's kind of like The Beatles of film - the hype is totally valid. At the risk of sounding like the total geek I am, the mise-en-scene and cinematography of the film is staggering. Really, everything about the film - acting, lighting, script, editing, music, and of course, the direction - is staggering. Besides, it's kind of sadistically cool to see Orson Welles foreshadowing his own hefty future, revelling in the laurels of the past.

Then we inaugurated my copy of "I Heart Huckabees." I hadn't seen it since I watched it in the theatres - Steph, if you're reading this, remember when Alex and I bumped into you in the Leacock Computer Labs and convinced you to go with us? What a great night; what a fabulous, fabulous movie. I love how it takes a subject that has oceanic potential of being (terribly) pretentious, but treats it instead with wit, intelligence and wonderfully absurd humour. Turns out it was just what the doctor ordered too. By the end of the film, we both had broad grins on our face as we hummed along to the brilliant (!!!) Jon Brion score.

Now we're fixing to watch A Clockwork Orange, but I have a feeling I'll probably fall asleep halfway through. I kind of hope I do because I need the sleep - I cannot afford to miss another day of work.

Overdue letter to SACOMSS.

Dear Outreachers (and other super awesome SACOMSS people),


I've been meaning to write this e-mail for a while now, but just haven't had the time to do so. Now that I'm down with the flu with little else to do (hey, that rhymes!), I thought it would be the perfect time to show my gratitude to possibly the coolest group of people I've ever had the fortune to meet.



As a lot of you know, I'd scored an internship with a human rights organization in Bombay. As if that wasn't good enough, three weeks into the internship, they offered me a job. Needless to say, I was ecstatic about making some money, and endlessly flattered as well. Just a month after this exciting development, I've been promoted to being the co-ordinator of the unit. Pretty fucking cool, but equally fucking scary. Why am I telling you all of this? Apart from being baldly modest, I realised that if it weren't for my amazing experience at SACOMSS, none of this would've happened.


I cannot emphasize enough how much my time with SACOMSS - the trainings, the conversations with people, the actual Outreaches, the meetings, the parties - has helped me grow as a person. I'm involved with India's biggest human rights organization, and I can say in all honesty that SACOMSS - a student-run Sexual Assault Center - is as efficient - if not more so - as any Women's Rights organization in the "real world."


I'm beginning to sound like an infomercial now.


Honestly, though, my already-profound love and respect for all things SACOMSS has increased greatly in my time away from it. At the risk of sounding shamefully cheesy, I've learnt so much from each one of you, and it is with staggering admiration that I realized that despite being student-run, relatively penurious, manacled by a shitty administration, SACOMSS is doing veritably life-changing work - And it's not only our clients whose lives we're affecting positively, it's also the lives of our dedicated, intelligent, profoundly humane volunteers.


I know training is about to start soon, and I wanted to tell you all to give yourselves a huge pat on the back for jobs excellently done. I know the 2 weeks of training are going to seem like the longest of your life - there will often be moans of laziness, tears of frustration, sighs of bewilderment, but there will also be feelings of boundless, overwhelming, incomparable accomplishment. And that makes all the difference.


Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are all amazing.


Love,


Aurina

More reasons why I love Salman Rushdie.

India And Pakistan's Deadly
Code Of Dishonour

By Salman Rushdie

13 August, 2005
Toronto Star

In honour-and-shame cultures like those of India and Pakistan, male honour resides in the sexual probity of women, and the "shaming" of women dishonours all men. So it is that five men of Pakistan's powerful Matsoi tribe were disgracefully acquitted of raping a villager named Mukhtar Mai three years ago. Theirs was an "honour rape," intended to punish a relative of Mukhtar for having been seen with a Matsoi woman. The acquittals have now been suspended by the Pakistan Supreme Court and there is finally a chance that this courageous woman may gain some measure of redress for her violation.

Pakistan, however, has little to be proud of. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says that there were 320 reported rapes in the first nine months of last year, and 350 reported gang rapes in the same period. The number of unreported rapes is believed to be much larger. The victim pressed charges in only one-third of the reported cases, and a mere 39 arrests were made. The use of rape in tribal disputes has become, one might say, normal. And the belief that a raped woman's best recourse is to kill herself remains widespread and deeply ingrained.

For every Mukhtar Mai there are dozens of such suicides. Nor is courage any guarantee of getting justice, as the case of Shazia Khalid shows. Dr. Khalid was raped last year in the province of Baluchistan by security personnel at the hospital where she worked. A Pakistani tribunal failed to
convict anyone of the crime.

Khalid says that she was subsequently "threatened so many times" that she was forced to flee Pakistan. "I was hounded out," she says, expressing dissatisfaction that the government neither brought her attackers to justice nor protected her from the threats that followed.

That is the same government, led by President Pervez Musharraf, that confiscated Mai's passport because it feared she would go abroad and say things that would bring Pakistan into disrepute; and it is the same government that has allied with the West in the war on terrorism, but seems quite prepared to allow a war of sexual terror to be waged against its female citizens.

Now comes even worse news. Whatever Pakistan can do, India, it seems, can trump. The so-called Imrana case, in which a Muslim woman from a village in northern India says she was raped by her father-in-law, has brought forth a ruling from the powerful Islamist seminary Darul-Uloom ordering her to leave her husband because as a result of the rape she has become haram (unclean) for him. "It does not matter," a Deobandi cleric has stated, "if it was consensual or forced."

Darul-Uloom, in the village of Deoband 90 miles north of Delhi, is the birthplace of the ultra-conservative Deobandi cult, in whose madrassas the Taliban were trained. It teaches the most fundamentalist, narrow, puritan, rigid, oppressive version of Islam that exists anywhere in the world today. In one fatwa it suggested that Jews were responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
Not only the Taliban but also the assassins of The Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl were followers of Deobandi teachings.

Darul-Uloom's rigid interpretations of sharia law are notorious, and immensely influential - so much so that the victim, Imrana, a woman under unimaginable pressure, has said she will abide by the seminary's decision in spite of the widespread outcry in India against it. An innocent woman, she will leave her husband because of his father's crime.

Why does a mere seminary have the power to issue such judgments? The answer lies in the strange anomaly that is the Muslim personal law system - a parallel legal system for Indian Muslims, which leaves women like Imrana at the mercy of the mullahs. Such is the historical confusion on this vexed subject that anyone who suggests that a democratic country should have a single, unified legal system is accused of being anti-Muslim and in favour of the hardline Hindu nationalists.

In the 1980s, a divorced woman named Shah Bano was granted "maintenance money" by the Indian Supreme Court. But there is no alimony under Islamic law, so orthodox Indian Islamists like
those at Darul-Uloom protested that this ruling infringed the Muslim Personal Law, and they founded the All-India Muslim Law Board to mount protests. The government caved in, passing a bill denying alimony to divorced Muslim women. Ever since Shah Bano, Indian politicians have not dared to challenge the power of Islamist clerical grandees.

In the Imrana case, the All-India Muslim Law Board has unsurprisingly backed the Darul-Uloom decision, though many other Muslim and non-Muslim organizations and individuals have denounced it.

Shockingly, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mulayam Singh Yadav, has also backed the Darul-Uloom fatwa. "The decision of the Muslim religious leaders in the Imrana case must have been taken after a lot of thought," he told reporters in Lucknow. "The religious leaders are all very learned and they understand the Muslim community and its sentiments."

This is a craven statement. The "culture" of rape that exists in India and Pakistan arises from profound social anomalies, its origins lying in the unchanging harshness of a moral code based on the concepts of honour and shame. Thanks to that code's ruthlessness, raped women will go on hanging themselves in the woods and walking into rivers to drown themselves. It will take generations to change that. Meanwhile, the law must do what it can.

In Pakistan, the Supreme Court has taken one small but significant step in the matter of Mai; now it is for the police and politicians to start pursuing rapists instead of hounding their victims. As for India, at the risk of being called a communalist, I must agree that any country that claims to be a modern, secular democracy must secularize and unify its legal system, and take power over women's lives away, once and for all, from medievalist Diinstitutions like Darul-Uloom.

Who wants to join my pity party?

For the second time in 2 weeks, I'm down with the flu. It's like Delphine and I are playing flu tag - I got it last week and gave it to her, and now I've contracted it again and this evening, she started complaining of a body ache and itchy throat. It'd be quite amusing if it didn't involve blocked sinuses and throbbing headaches. Also I'm still suffering from a bruised heart, and the more I think about it, the more it hurts. I've been keeping myself inordinately busy at work so I don't have much time to mull over silly boy-situations. But the busier I am, the more stressed I get. And of course, More Stress = Lower Immunity = More Time To Think About Achy-Breaky Hearts.

Sometimes I wish I had a fairy godmother.

These are the days of miracle and wonder.

An hour ago when I left home for work, I felt pretty. I got a little more dressed up than usual in honour of Ganesh Chaturthi, a festival I don't celebrate that worships a God I don't believe in. I wore my pink and blue OMO kurta with a bright orange salwar (no, it looks good, honest!), used very dark kajal, wore my hair down despite the heat, wore bronze dangly earrings, and attracted compliments from everyone I met. A 28 minute train ride and 12 minute walk later, I feel like my skin has absorbed the myriad smells - ammonia, sewage, dead rats, rotten fish, cow dung- I encountered on my journey, and gone from being Medimix-clear to dermatological hell. Sweat and grime have encroached the nape of my neck, my scalp, my torso, and the eye make-up that usually brightens my face is just making me look stressed.

In short: Despite compulsive deodorization, hand sanitization, face-dabbing and water-splashing, Bombay makes me feel irreversibly ugly.

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This morning, I got this e-mail:

Dear Aurina,

Cecilia Lipp here in the San Francisco office told me that you were trying to set up a telephone interviewwith her and then it didn't happen. She passed on your resume to me for a possible internship with the Amnesty International Film Festival.

I would like to know if you are intersted in applying for this internship and if so, I would like to try and set up a call. I am going to be away until Sept 18th, so it wouldhave to be after that date.

More information about the festival is on our website: www.amnestyusa.org/filmfest

Best wishes,Alessandra
------------------------------------------------------------------------
How cool is that?

Excerpts.

"Why must you always be so goddamned...." He said, sputtering as he rummaged through potential answers. "Impetuous?" He said finally, victorious in his quest, defeated in his demeanour. His hair, usually parted to one side, was now inappropriately angry-looking. He placed his arms on his hips, and looked downwards for a few seconds, revealing the slight bald patch that had encouraged his side-parting to come to fruition. When he looked back up at her face, he could trace no change in her expression. She stared stonily at him, chewing on her inner cheek, playing with one of her earrings. Her kajaal had now smudged into the brownness of her skin, giving her an air of tired madness, and as he tried to read her carefully callous actions, he realised that she was only trying to do to him what he had done to her. She finally looked away from him, but instead of leaving the room, she retired to a nearby chair, and closed her eyes. He kneeled on the floor next to her, his hand hovering over hers, struggling to find the courage to hold it. He stared at her left hand intently - veins stark against her dark skin, the remnants of an old mosquito bite, the slight hair on her knuckles - and desperately placed his forehead against her chest.

And where was she while he saw the future in the grooves of her hands? She was thinking about lingering glances in poorly lit stairwells, the impish grins of unexplored lust, about the mysterious familiarity of strangers. When they finally had an opportunity to introduce themselves, they both laughed nervously, fumbling over the simplest words in the euphoria of the inevitable. Just like that, two days after they had exchanged names like wedding vows, they were a couple. It took less than forty-eight hours to forge the requisite comfort level for having arms around each other’s waists, each kiss a finely honed art, as they flaunted their discovery of instinctive, cinematic love.

I thought it was a bird, but it was just a paper bag.

What a couple of weeks it has been. I feel like I've had no time to myself, no time to just sit, think and sort myself out. I think my inability to just come to terms with certain things was fueled by this lack of rumination time. The most I've had was the 34 minute train ride from VT to Bandra, sobbing on the phone to Anam, and then my mum. The first class Ladies' compartment was empty when I boarded the train, but then a woman came in at Dockyard. By then, I was in such a state of emotional bewilderment that I didn't really care that she was intently listening to every word staggering on the edge of my lips. Like I said to Anam later, at least she'd have an interesting dinner conversation with her husband that night. It's the least I can do for my fellow passengers.

Apart from its unabashed sleep thievery, the prodigal lifestyle of the past 2 weeks must also end due to pecuniary concerns. To top off the expenses of restaurant-and-bar-hopping, I also bought two new kurtas from FabIndia yesterday. I've only recently re-discovered my attraction to kurtas, and have been having a hard time remembering why I'd spurned them the way I did. In any case, while the past twelve days might not altogether be my speed, I cannot deny that they were the most fun I've ever had in Bombay. I never expected to meet so many new people here, I never expected to be babysitting really sweet Swedes, or to be living with a Belgian student from La Sorbonne. This sounds strange to say, but I'm beginning to miss Montreal less, and beginning to appreciate Bombay a whole lot more.

In other news, I've made a really uncharacteristic decision - I'm going to law school. Someone save me from the nefarious clutches of pragmatism, please!

(I'm listening to "Paper Bag" - one of my all-time favourite songs - and it's hitting so close to home, I have to end this post).

Timeline!

18:25: Leave Work

7:25: Meet Aditya for a quick Iced Tea at Pot Pourri

8:00: Home, food, ice-cream, showers.

10:00: Raghu comes over and has his share of food and ice-cream

10:35: Leave for V Lounge

11:00: After a ride with a highly inefficient rickshaw driver, we finally arrive. At the door we are asked if we have reservations. We say we don't, and we are led into a large lounge with 4 people.

11:20: Get drinks. Make a wise decision to leave for some place busier.

12:15: Reach Zenzi. Congratulate ourselves on this decision. Run into Georgie and Meenu, which is tres exciting. Get 2 drinks each.

1:00: A waiter whispers into my ear that he'd like to buy me a drink. I decline, and later regret this decision.

1:30: Get another drink, and take silly pictures.

2:00: Cops shut us down, so we move to Janata. Get take-away Biryani and Chicken Tikkas, and go over to R's house.

2:20: Reach house, giggle at the watchman who evidently believes Raghu's the man for bringing home two women to his empty apartment at this hour.

2:30: Gorge on the food, and finish off the remaining half of a gin bottle. Incidentally, this is around the same time we think wearing onions as glasses are hilarious. Make some stupid jokes about "glass onions." Hahaha. Yeah. Anyway.

3:10: Raghu's Swedish guests arrive. We tell them where to go shopping.

3:30: Swedish guests go to bed in their underwear and we think this is funny.

4:00: Delphine and I decide to go home.

4:15: Halfway home in the rickshaw, I discover I have the wrong keys. Turn back to Raghu's apartment.

4:30: Watchman eyes us suspiciously as we make our way back to the love-nest.

4:35: Bleary-eyed eye boy opens the door to two very sheepish girls.

5:15: Finally fall asleep after some idle chit-chat.

7:15: I wake up 45 minutes ahead of my phone alarm to the calming wafts of sea breeze.

7:20: Find scrap paper and a pen, and scribble a note to our sleeping host to thank him. Fold the sheets, put away pillows, wake up Delphine who says, "But I'm so fucking DRUNK!"

7:35: Watchman eyes us suspiciously as we get out of the love-nest.

8:00: Get home, walk down the slope in decidedly inappropriate clothes for the hour while school children point and giggle, shower, eat breakfast, drink copious amounts of water.

8:45: Update blog.
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Coming up!
9:16: Train to work
11:00-14:00: Facilitating a training on Sexual Violence with Guru Nanak College Students in King's Circle
15:00-4:00- Meeting with Sneha
17:30-19:30 - Press Conference on the Bombay Flood Situation at Yacht Club
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I'm not sure whether this was the best or worst day of 2005 so far.