This blogpost is a means to serve two selfish purposes. One, for me to reacquaint with a nearly-forgotten writing hobby (there are unfinished write-ups in my folders being completed only in my dreams). And second, more pertinently, to catalog an eclectic mix of articles and music that I have found inspiring in the past few months. Please click on the embedded hyperlinks through this text to view them. Ha. Reading this just turned into a large homework assignment for you.
Maybe as you read this it will also be obvious what I feel this little girl represents. I saw her in Buenos Aires and took this picture as she seemed to be having a great time.
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Sharing a home with The Bearded One (at long last) has modified my lifestyle in a multitude of ways. A substantial change is in the diversity of things I watch on Netflix. We live in quite a happening city, but modern life these days I tell you - what seems paramount is how good your internet connection is and whether your country of residence streams Netflix. Pathetic? I suppose yes, unless you can choose what you watch wisely. We don’t always succeed at that, but we have seen some terrific shows. One of them is Fargo which released its third season this year. This series has a few outstanding female characters (much like the original film starring the phenomenal Frances McDormand, who recently received a well-deserved second Academy award and knocked her acceptance speech out of the park, into the glitzy face of the male chauvinist show business).
In the second season of Fargo, Betsy who is bravely coping with her recent cancer diagnosis, says to her police officer husband about the Vietnam War “Coulda saved a lot of lives if wives and mothers from both sides came and dragged their men home by the ear.”
This line has stayed with me and resurfaced in my thoughts frequently while reading the news. Because I honestly and naïvely think it’s true. Although there are and have been terrible women in this world who have abused positions of power, it still seems to me that in the hands of women, this world could be a much better place. I simply cannot imagine many of us being bloodthirsty, vengeful heads of government or murderous, ruthless rebel leaders. I cannot imagine womenfolk raping, looting, plundering, threatening, driving vans into innocent people and pointlessly firing missiles. Perhaps not having a Y chromosome impairs my judgement.
In the wake of the recently reported horrific rapes/murders in Unnao, Kathua, Surat, Indore and more, we have witnessed a lot of noise, anger, agitation as well as some deafening, telling silences. Amidst this chaos, I had the good fortune of reading some thoughtful responses and meaningful approaches. Rather unsurprisingly they involve brave women at the helm. Madhumita Pandey’s interviews with 100 rapists in Delhi’s Tihar Jail reveals how much work lies ahead of us to bring change, in a conservative culture where the basic concept of sexual consent is non-existent. This would involve slow, unrelenting, deep-rooted changes to our thinking, our conversations and our education system. On another path towards grass-root level changes, a group of IAS officers, many women among them, have discussed and outlined preliminary strategies for rigorous oversight and inquest into any rape allegation.
I know. Boring research work, trudging through the muddy trenches of our legal and administrative systems and cultural changes that will take generations? Where is the stirring, rushing sensation of the winds of change?
Well for starters, an overnight announcement of the death penalty for rape is just wind, with little change.
Revolutions are the fruits of years and decades of persistent hard work. They are not, even if they seem to be, instantaneous miracles. This goes for any part of the world, any difficult task. For a small example, here you can see a narrative about the diplomatic nightmare and months of toil behind the handshake between Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin. Yes, a woman was involved. You may have never heard of Mona Juul or her husband before, because a man called Bill Clinton got the glory and the historic photograph. It is besides the point that 25 years later, the Israel-Palestine conflict appears nowhere close to its resolution. But I digress.
Women in India have mounted some bold protests in the past that have been imprinted into public memory. Some like the 1974 Chipko movement had some impact on government policy. Others like the one by the Mothers of Manipur at Kangla Fort, Imphal in 2004, with the unforgettable cry “Indian Army Rape Us” perhaps only had limited effects. Many of us find this frustrating and we yearn for big, swooping, lasting changes. Crying hoarsely on social media or staring silently at the news isn't particularly satisfying all the time. So where do we look?
In the remainder of this post, I offer various streams of hope and inspiration from two wildly different reservoirs. However, just like the brave women I have mentioned so far, these ladies aren’t fairy godmothers turning pumpkins into transport solutions overnight. Their efforts instead resemble the sure, slow process of evolution. You can’t necessarily see them making a difference, but civilization couldn’t move forward if they didn’t do their jobs.
The first source of inspiration is from my own line of work - the world of science and academia.
I realise now, more than ever, that I have chosen a challenging career path, fraught with soul-crushing experimental failures, self-doubt, ever-shifting goal posts and occasional shockers (a recent report on sexual harassment allegations against the once reputable Inder Verma at the Salk Institute left me rather rattled). While trying to overcome a headspace full of question marks, it was rejuvenating to come across compilations of diverse stories from women scientists. 64 ways to have it all published by The Royal Society in 2011 provides first-hand summaries of the journeys of 64 Mothers in Science. I was pleasantly surprised to find that many years before this, the Indian Academy of Sciences also brought out a collection of 100 essays titled Lilavati’s Daughters to inspire young women to embark on the complex yet rewarding journey of being a woman scientist in India.
At the front of classrooms, at the nucleus of weekly lab meetings, next to microscope cameras clicking in dark rooms or buried amongst equations in the silence of libraries, these 164 women and many, many more, have discovered unquestionable truths about our natural world and have trained and supported junior scientists around the globe. They have shown by example to impressionable young minds that women can be leaders in their academic fields and indeed lead their generation and the ones to come. Crucially, many of their stories emphasise that this does not have to come at the cost of the families they may choose to nurture at home.
My second source of newfound, unexpected inspiration appeared in the form of diverse and musical women who have seen more media spotlight than women in science.
I’m always impressed by women who, despite being in show business, are unapologetically plump and have a great sense of humour about it. Vidya Balan, Amy Schumer and Adele are probably my favourites on this count. Amy Schumer’s interview on Ellen is a hilarious example of this. Singer Meghan Trainor has recently had me hooked to her songs for a similar reason. It’s always useful to have go-to peppy songs that get your feet moving in the right direction (towards lab) on ruthless, uninspiring days (4ºC with wind and rain, in the end of April). Meghan Trainor’s most popular number is probably ‘All About that Bass’. It’s really catchy and rejects the notion of size zero figures being any kind of healthy standard. Sure, her lines are no poetry from Gulzar. But she makes her point and lots of young girls are listening. My current favourite song from her is ‘No Excuses’ that comes complete with a Zumba work-out routine. Here she asks a guy not to misbehave because ‘I don’t disrespect you/Don’t you disrespect me’ and importantly because ‘your mamma raised you better than that’. I mean, if this isn’t the crux of the revolutionary change we’re looking for, I don’t know what is.
While Meghan Trainor’s statement is in the palatable garb of feminine, benign, pastel-coloured videos, other artists like M.I.A. make no bones about their rebellion. Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam, professionally known as M.I.A., suddenly reappeared on my radar because someone just made a documentary film on her. Her father was a political activist, Tamil leader and later peace mediator in the Sri Lankan civil war. M.I.A.’s first album was named after him. Her songs unabashedly and rudely call out the hypocrisy and injustice in different parts of the world. Her most popular song ‘Paper Planes’ celebrates the life of a hustler in New York and casually and quite melodiously says some some some some I murder, some some I let go. But the song that really caught my attention was ‘Bad Girls’ where again, she boldly and sometimes lewdly, refers to the idiocy of the ban on women drivers in Saudi Arabia. She shows her solidarity with the women to drive movement using a rather bizarre music video where women perform crazy car stunts. Despite being neither my preferred type of music, nor my favourite form of visual art, I love it and find it oddly inspiring.
I will close by mentioning a different league of off-beat female musicians. I admire them for using their immense talent to shine a spotlight on other remarkable women. The Bearded One introduced me to their music (expanding my horizons beyond the scope of Netflix, thank goodness). The Afro-French pop artist Jain (Jeanne Galice) pays a rhythmic and very creative tribute to the South African singer Miriam Makeba, also known as Mama Africa. Jain’s song is brought to life by dynamic urban pop art and in its softer moments includes the lines ‘nobody can beat the mama Africa/you follow the beat that she’s gonna give ya/only her smile can all make it go/the sufferation of a thousand more’. Back home in India, Sneha Khanwalkar, a fairly well-known music director, is recognised for the unique sounds and voices she taps around the country. The Nooran sisters are probably one of her best finds. Just listen to the raw power in their voices, their glorious, shining faces, their spirits bursting through, without any assistance from make-up or stylists. Jain’s Makeba and Sneha Khanwalkar’s Tung tung baje are incredibly uplifting to me, in a way that makes me want to move, to do, to morph and to soar. I hope they have a similar effect on you.
This was a multidirectional ramble and I should attempt to summarise it in some way. Although these women who are musical artists, academics, activists, lawyers, diplomats, actors, mothers, wives and sisters appear to be doing vastly different things, or even achieving very little by the arbitrary measures of a bystander, they are accomplishing a common, imperceptible goal. They are letting their relentless actions inspire us and allowing their work to speak. Even if it takes years to be heard. And decades to germinate a revolution.
I’d better get to work too.