Posts

Beauty Of The Beast: Musings Under Lockdown

Image
Mind is not a loner. It likes to frolic with its eternal playmate, the body. The memory, therefore, has a way of encoding itself in our senses. You take a stroll in your childhood neighborhood and suddenly the sunlight filtering through the trees is just so, a cool breeze ruffles your hair and you are instantly transported to a particular time and space long gone by. The images are sharp, and the sensations are all too real as if time is replaying the events right there and then. Or you go to your grandmother’s place and are immediately transported to another time by the signature aroma from the hearth. You can see yourself as a ten-year-old running in on  a particularly bright winter afternoon, all panting, hungry and excited, to gorge on freshly done paranthas with achaar, butter or jam, only to be reprimanded to wash and change first. Such is my state of mind these days. I was in my teens in eighties and life had a very different quality and texture to it. The...
10 comments
Read more

Me Thinks #MeToo

Image
I was born as a male of the species, a fact which comes with certain advantages like not having to menstruate every month or to pay the price of pregnancy for a moment of sexual indiscretion. It also means that I am born into some privileges like more social power (as yet) and better physical strength (generally, though there are exceptions). Sexual harassment is a subject that has intrigued and distressed me in equal measures and that I have discussed, deliberated on and involved myself with since much before #MeToo. And yet I begin with a handicap while talking about it or about gender issues in general. It is not easy for me to talk about my opinions on the subject without encountering a said or unsaid response of ‘Aha! That’s a man speaking’ which keeps hanging on every word I have to say like a thick cloud of suspicion (even disqualification). I must, therefore, cover my opinions with a shroud of sweetness, sensitivity and platitudes so as not to invite an imm...
Post a Comment
Read more