Ladybug's field notes

When you talk of "feminism" and "women empowerment" the reaction of the larger public both off line and online is fear at best and vocal misogyny at the worst. As I work in an organisation that works on making discrimination and violence against women and girls unacceptable, we face this repeatedly in the villages that we work in. I for one, have always truly believed that a gender-just world is better for both men and women (even if I live within the gender binary) along with all the other genders. However, I often face a hostile reaction to the word feminism even from the educated. I have a doubt that it is majorly because of the word "fem" being associated with it and according to the norms of masculinity anything associated with females/femininity is often associated with inadequacy, lowering one's status, as well as becoming inferior. The so called woke men who engage in the issues of gender-justice and feminism also often come from a position o...

The other day I posted a news about Sitar Maestro Ravi Shankar and Annapurna Devi on my Facebook page.  A newspaper reported Ravi Shankar was uncomfortable with his wife's superior talent and that lead to the wife not playing publicly anymore. This was confirmed by the wife. I  used that example to highlight a deep seated problem of masculinity which is to remain superior in a marital relationship. I thought I was being cautious while putting up the post as I lamented saying, "Why men, in general" instead of "Why all men...". It seemed later, I was not cautious  enough. I t caused some hurt around. Not so much with the male readers, at least not to the extent that they felt the need to defend their creed. In one response/reaction I was told, I was generalizing. I, on the other hand thought, I was pretty conscious, most of the time to avoid unnecessary generalization,  based on isolated facts. I n this case, I defended generalization. I  soon however, remembe...

As I traveled in South-Western Rajasthan, village after village I met communities in denial. There was either silence or they tried hard to convince me that the phenomenon of sex selection does not take place in their villages. Period! If you push, show data, ask them to ponder and after a long pause it was a tentative, "May be...some women in some other villages are doing it" and then quickly turning to, "It is the urban areas you see..not us". It was tiring to talk to these walls of silence! We met them in different social groups. They were Local Government members (PRI) as we know them in India) or the health workers like, Auxiliary Nursing Matrons (ANMs) and Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA). Health, Nutrition and Sanitation Committee members and local doctors and others. "Although you say nothing is wrong, the data says otherwise" chipped in a NGO worker. "May be that's what God is doing. He is sending less girls to the world...

I looked at Indira with disbelief! I was shocked but she actually managed to take a deep breath, wait for a few seconds to pass and talk in the same calm voice that she had, to begin with. I looked at the men again. I could not believe I was hearing this, “Women? Well! they are good for nothing now-a-days. They are only good at sleeping beneath fans. And what is this excessive laad (love) for one’s own body? They want to bathe with soap every time!” The men were indignant.   This was in Ajmer district of Rajasthan. We were talking to a group of men in the evening near the village temple. Women could not join the meeting. Completely our fault! We organized it at a time when for the womenfolk it was time to cook and feed the whole family. Children were dozing already after a hard day of playing in the mud. The women would also get ready for the work in the fields at night alongside their men or make some extra arrangements of food and tea for workers in the field, which they wo...

Mehroon was married and sent to her marital home only to find that her husband already had another wife. She was beaten up by her husband for not performing her wifely duties and the other wife did not spare her either. She ran back to her grandmother’s home where she grew up without parents to save her life. She now considers herself a separated woman and this “woman” is all of 15! This is not a story of North Bihar, neither a story from the hinterland of Rajasthan, it is only about 20 km away from Kolkata, the state capital of West Bengal. I know we would love to find the religion in it. After all it is always the “other” who has all the problems and not us! But, Malati’s suicide in a similar situation a few days ago would not let us do so. May be now we will try to find the caste in it, after all it has to be the other!! Mehroon, Susmita, Tapasi and Mahroof …I met them all in the adolescent centers run by an organization in South 24 Paraganas. Their stories give a new meaning...

--> A population of 1.45 million, 598 Gram Panchayats, 9 Blocks and only 3 Block Development Officers (BDOs), one of whom I met recovering from a tell-tale sign of a hangover and lying in his courtyard on a sunny winter afternoon. We reached his office and was quite taken aback by finding him on his cot in the backyard of government quarter instead of the office. I was in Uttar Pradesh  trying to satisfy my curiosity regarding what keeps UP at the bottom in NREGA implementation. Now don’t tell me you do not know NREGA. You will be hanged, drawn and quartered in the present government’s raj if you don’t. After all the current political party in power has beaten and keeps beating every willing and reluctant drum available to announce the program that at Rs 390,000 million has the single largest chunk of allocation and is second only to defense. If you are part of the middle class paying tax diligently like me (just because the tax norms are becoming tighter a...