Ladybug's field notes

"I am the demon! Come have a look at me!" as he pushed himself into the car. It was past midnight in May. Delhi was hot as hell and Haryana looked as menacing as one has read in newspaper, that late in night. I touched my earlobe many a times as we looked for her house in old part of the city. My friend noticed my nervousness and talked in a calm voice with the driver as we took detours and u-turns through dark and semi dark alleys. The girl we were trying to reach was in dire need and we had to reach her. I did not know her. She did not know me. We had never seen each other. She could hardly give me the address. I absolutely did not know the locality. I could not get a known driver. I only knew that I had to go. I only knew I probably could only ask this friend to accompany. She only knew that I was her sister-in law's trusted friend. And she had to leave the home that night with her 3 year old kid. Her home was the most dangerous place for her that night. She was so de...

This blog post came to my mind while going through many writings in the recent past on how a whole generation of us have been taught to establish man woman equality. And on a lighter vein, how seriously we took that role!  When I joined the development sector, I was out to prove anything that a man of my age could do, I could do too. And working in SRUTI, a NGO that supported activists in far flung areas of the country, I was subjected to the toughest of the tests in this regard. To begin with SRUTI was highly skeptical about adding a woman to their team (of men, largely). I had to jump into proving that I was no less than a "man in the team" the moment I joined. I joined on 5th of May and I was sent to Jhabua area of Madhya Pradesh for a month starting 11th of May. This post is specifically about the struggles of washing one self in the areas where there was no concept of a bathroom and men, with whom you were travelling did not think they should try to make any extra ...

Today after a long time I was thinking about our time in Banaras Hindu University (BHU). We had studied there in the mid 1990s. BHU has a large number of hostels for students which made it one of the most sought after university of our times. A time when Kolkata did not have many residential colleges and hence BHU received horde of students. I do not know how it is now. BHU or Varanasi was our first encounter with North India and its culture. In our cities we had faced taunts on the road, catcalls, comments on how we looked etc which was called "eve teasing" in common parlance. I have a problem with this term. It probably does not describe the grave impact it can have on a girl's life. I am relieved to note that others are also finding that expression strange. It is being called sexual harassment. and the #askingforit campaign by Breakthrough  http://www.breakthrough.tv/  has been launched to show the falacy of the term. Coming back to BHU, however, what we faced the...

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...

1. How do you know the students/women/rape survivor/villagers/displaced people were right in their manner of protest? Why were they using sanitary pads to write their messages? 2. How do you know they are not wrong in raising the issue? 3. Why are they raising it NOW? Why are you supporting them NOW? 4. How do you know this is not political in nature? (I know it is. So? You lose your case. ) 5. Have you heard the other side of the story? 6. Have you protested against all the bad things that are happening in all the other parts of the world? (I am sure you did not against the afforestation in Central Africa which is causing the current Ebola epidemic! What! you did not hear about that causing it? See. I told you!) 7. Did you stand up for that particular incident 10 or 20 years ago that happened in your college campus in the 1990s? You did not? You have no right to feel bad about anything that happened thereafter. 8. In such and such part of such and such country if women/student...

We grew up in an industrial township. My life has been my field of learning (and unlearning) in that way. My father worked as a laborer in a steel factory. No. He was not an officer. He was a steel factory worker. It would not have been so much fun otherwise. Officers had ground floor bungalows, separated from others' bungalows by boundaries. We grew up with other steel factory workers' children. They were our brothers, sisters, friends, love interest and idols. Imagine a whole world made up of steel factory workers and their families! We   all had the same two room flats known as "quarters". We had two rooms; the "inside room" (bhetorer ghar) and the "outside room" (bairer ghar). The household often poured outside these two rooms. Backyard gardens of the ground floor quarters were used to store coal for fuel. Stairs going to the roof used as shoe-racks for two quarters on the second floor. When I fell in love with the boy next door, I used to...

Are your reactions always linear? Can people read into your reactions? Are they always transparent? For if they are, you are really evolved. Most of us remain confused in our thoughts, perceptions and hence in our reactions too. The issue that I am going to talk about is not discussed as much as it should be though it has gained much attention after Pinki Virani's book Bitter Chocolate, which I will never read. No. I don't think it is not worth reading. I have every reason to believe it is a very good book but I do not have the courage to read about more ordeals than what I have heard already. In the following paragraphs I will mostly use first person narrative but all that are written below are NOT my personal experience. I have felt them with the person who narrated them. I thereby assume the right to narrate in first person. I also think a person should have every right to choose when they want to tell their story and how. I should not take away that privilege j...

How do you know Konkan? Have you checked it in the map for your next holiday? Have you visited Konkan to enjoy the beaches? Which one you like the best? Srivardhan? Are you from Konkan? I would be envious. Its a beautiful landscape. Does not matter whether you like sea-beaches or hills, you will love Konkan. I have roamed in Konkan to meet Katkaris and Thakars. I walked in different parts of Roha, Mhasla, Mangaon to visit villages with exotic names. Taraygar (house of stars) is one such example. Katkaris are a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) who till some time ago were a Primitive Tribe Group (PTG) and before that a De-notified Tribe Group and till British were here they were a Criminal Tribe. In all these changes of names on paper, their real status never changed. Thakars are even less known. It was almost always difficult to hold a meeting in the Thakar-wari (Thakar hamlet) after sundown. No prizes for the guessing why! They say it rains a lot in Konkan. Weather...

A noted lawyer and women's rights' activist visited our office the other day. While leaving she said, "If I would have been a black skinned person from the anti-apartheid movement in the 1980s' South Africa and you as a white skinned had told me to be patient about change, almost everyone around the world would have felt I was justified in slapping you hard. But, just because I am a female, you can still hold this unrealistic notion about my level of patience and ask me to wait for the change...forever". I looked down to hide my smile. Here is another impatient one. 20 years my senior and still equally impatient! I have been reminded time and again about this particular virtue. I am quite well known by my characteristic lacking of this one in particular. But then I regularly get data that makes this virtue completely redundant. Lets take the Hindu Succession Act (HSA), 1956   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_Succession_Act,_1956 . The Act only recognized m...

I feel pretty Hindu at times. More Hindu than most Hindus, who can not tell Surya Mantra from Gayatri Mantra and seven sages from seven ages! Especially when it comes to stories, I feel almost exclusively Hindu. Hindu gods and goddesses and the stories around them fascinate me to no end! I can hear these stories forever and ruminate on them like the holy cow, herself! I hereby proclaim that doubting in my Hindutwa will be doubting the Panchatatwa itself. You don't know Panchatatwa?! Errr..well! Never mind! Lets concentrate on the story. It was the day before yesterday that this god named Bhairav caught my fancy. You can spot a Bhairav temple near the old fort area of Dilli, which is claimed to be from the era of Pandavas of Mahabharata fame. Who is this Bhairav? My driver who is a devotee of this god, could not tell me. My common-sense was saying that this god will be linked to Shiva. Two reasons. Every god with a non-descriptive name is linked to some famous name from the ...

About 20 km before Baihar we started the real field travel as I had come to understand it by then. We left the all-weather road soon and took all possible form of fair weather roads. Every possible form that you can think of. They presented themselves as two white lines running parallel  with a patch of grass in between, a white serpentine line with thorns and stones on either side on which the jeep's tire had to balance, a white line hell-bent on falling in a ditch and all the other sorts as well. Sun bade me goodbye for the day behind the Baiga houses on a hill-top.  When we started for Harratola, after Chuka-tola it had turned pitch dark . They told that it was about 12-15 km away. By that time of the evening I started realizing that having women NGO workers around does not guarantee sensitive treatment and took a voluntary retirement from looking for it. This bit of the journey that took us an hour could be completed only by Tempo Trax Gama (my dream vehicle) t...

Rains make me nostalgic about Odisha. No! Not Mumbai, you snob Mumbaikars! Although you happen to be some of my closest friends, I must say you are way too snob on that and I have taken up this sovereign duty on my shoulders to make sure you learn that there can be non-stop rain in other parts of the country too. And no! "Aala..aala paausaa" is not the only song of its kind.  I spent 4 eventful years in Odisha and learnt names of places that my Odiya friends never heard of . That is among other things I mean. What did you think now?! My work involved travelling to various tribal districts of Odisha which included,  Boudh , Jharsuguda, Sundargarh, Rayagada, Nayagarh,   Dhenkanal  and Angul. Dhenkanal is known for its educational institutes and Angul generally reminds people of the big factories including National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) but I saw a different Angul and a very different Dhenkanal. This is a post to share that story. Pallahara Blo...