VAW campaign.
The rally yesterday went off fabulously. We managed to mobilise about 300 people - which I personally thought was pretty impressive under the circumstances - of which about a 100 women were from the slums of Dharavi. The multifariousness of the group was heartening too - there were women covered head-to-toe in burqas, but there were also women like me, in skirts, all chanting for change, for equality, for freedom, for mobility, for the right not to be raped, for the right to be heard, for the right not to be killed for being a female foetus. Akshara had organized a truck that we all decorated with banners and posters; it led the rally, and on it stood about 10 Akshara employees with tin "drums" tied to their waists. Before the rally when the girls were practicing in their office, I thought the din was going to both drive me insane and cause a lot of unneccessary chaos. I was so wrong; while two girls shouted out a variety of slogans for the crowd, the drumming lent not only a discernable rhythm but also a sense of incredible empowerment.
By the end of it, though, I was ready to drop dead. Being the youngest, the entire ICHRL crew was bullied into putting up banners, posters and all that jazz. This involved dodging traffic, climbing trees and callousing fingers. Once we were done, we made our way to Kotwal Gardens where the rally was going to begin. From there, we marched through the gullies of Dadar, through all of Cadell Road, and finally Shivaji Park in the heart of Shiv Sena territory. All of this meant five continuous hours in the hot Bombay sun without any lunch.
Since we'd taken permission from the cops, the entire street behind Shivaji Park was for us, and everyone sat down - this is not a very common sight in Bombay, certainly not in Dadar. The first speaker was H. S from MAVA (Men Against Violence and Abuse), which is an organization that sounds a lot better in theory than it is in practice. Not only should it be renamed to "Man Against Violence'... since he seems to be the only person who works there, but it'd be brilliantly apt if it were to be renamed "Terribly Moralistic Condescending Man." After a yawn-and-dirty-looks inducing speech that talked about "indecent women" and pernicious advertising and "virtuous women," the chief guest Joy Sengupta spoke. Now, Joy Sengupta is a theatre actor working in English whose main audience is the very elite upper middle class - the point of getting someone famous was entirely defeated since 95% of the crowd had no idea who he was. That said, I was really amused that people who'd never heard of him before crowded around him for autographs. His speech was good, but honestly, a little boring.
By far, the highlight of the evening was Kamayani's moment in the spotlight. I think my favourite part of her HIGHLY entertaining speech was when, referring to the Hindu right-wing, she said, "Stop treating us like goddesses and start treating us like human beings." Except she said it in Hindi, in her inimitably hilarious way, and got a huge round of applause, cat-calls and other such tokens of approval.
By the end of the event, my legs hurt, my feet were blistered, I was starving, was severely dehydrated, was dying to pee, had a throbbing headache and had the biggest smile on my face.
This is a really badly written account of the whole event. I guess you just had to be there.
By the end of it, though, I was ready to drop dead. Being the youngest, the entire ICHRL crew was bullied into putting up banners, posters and all that jazz. This involved dodging traffic, climbing trees and callousing fingers. Once we were done, we made our way to Kotwal Gardens where the rally was going to begin. From there, we marched through the gullies of Dadar, through all of Cadell Road, and finally Shivaji Park in the heart of Shiv Sena territory. All of this meant five continuous hours in the hot Bombay sun without any lunch.
Since we'd taken permission from the cops, the entire street behind Shivaji Park was for us, and everyone sat down - this is not a very common sight in Bombay, certainly not in Dadar. The first speaker was H. S from MAVA (Men Against Violence and Abuse), which is an organization that sounds a lot better in theory than it is in practice. Not only should it be renamed to "Man Against Violence'... since he seems to be the only person who works there, but it'd be brilliantly apt if it were to be renamed "Terribly Moralistic Condescending Man." After a yawn-and-dirty-looks inducing speech that talked about "indecent women" and pernicious advertising and "virtuous women," the chief guest Joy Sengupta spoke. Now, Joy Sengupta is a theatre actor working in English whose main audience is the very elite upper middle class - the point of getting someone famous was entirely defeated since 95% of the crowd had no idea who he was. That said, I was really amused that people who'd never heard of him before crowded around him for autographs. His speech was good, but honestly, a little boring.
By far, the highlight of the evening was Kamayani's moment in the spotlight. I think my favourite part of her HIGHLY entertaining speech was when, referring to the Hindu right-wing, she said, "Stop treating us like goddesses and start treating us like human beings." Except she said it in Hindi, in her inimitably hilarious way, and got a huge round of applause, cat-calls and other such tokens of approval.
By the end of the event, my legs hurt, my feet were blistered, I was starving, was severely dehydrated, was dying to pee, had a throbbing headache and had the biggest smile on my face.
This is a really badly written account of the whole event. I guess you just had to be there.
posted by Auri @ 12:41 AM
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