Sari...Burkha...Bombay...Man
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
(Maya Angelou)
I belong to a Marwari family, some prefer to call it Baniya,
makhichoos, kaiyaan, etc all designated as a metaphor/hyperbole/exaggeration of
the world famous lust of a Marwari householder to earn more and spend less.
What may be the credence to this assertion or myth, is mysterious and
unanswerable. Another stereotype which goes with such households are ladies
post marriage can be seen only in saris. I have seen many women now turning to
salwaar kameez, which mind you is considered a very radical garment by the
older generations, as it has less scope for a bye gone practice of covering
your head and sometimes even the entire face with the garment; especially in
front of the masculine gender and elders. Though I did not belong to such
medieval times, my mother along with other ladies in my family wore a sari by
choice and occasionally Salwaar Kameez but were not instructed to cover their
head all the times, other than religious or family gatherings. I personally do
not have any problems with a sari, it is actually quite an elegant piece of
garment if wore properly and also, its multipurpose usages are quite admirable.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mumbai/Bombay is an
incident that happens to you. I came here to the city after my graduation, to
work with the schools in the slums. One of my schools is an Urdu School by the
name of Shahji nagar which is located in the Trombay area of the city which is
considered notorious for both its crime rates as well as incredibly pathetic
living conditions of the marginalized sections of the society. My work is
challenging, exhilarating, adventurous and spiritual if I can call it so. But
this is not about my work nor is it
about Bombay. It is about that one day under the grey sky when the sun hid
behind the clouds, when something so peculiar yet not so extra ordinary, so
every day but still once in forever happened.
The day was Friday,
when all the Urdu Schools of the city have a half day. The attendance which is
different from enrolment (for those not acquainted with Government School
terminology) was low as usual, and the children who came were not there to
study and the teachers invariably were also not there to teach. A government
school especially a school under construction does not look or resemble like a
teaching learning centre, instead it is actually quite like a kaleidoscope or a
montage of our country, teachers drinking chai and gossiping over soaps and
serials, offices with files biting dust, children fighting and biting each
other’s toes, government aided supply of shitty food being trampled, toilets
stinking like chemistry labs, guards abusing like butchers, no electricity,
undrinkable water, noise, cacophony...promise of Education in Shining India
being betrayed, raped; everything happening simultaneously, is scary, absurd
and worrisome. My job, if not to clean the mess, is to not add to it, and then
maybe reduce it (a far distant dream). Though the above picture/description is
not true for everyone and everywhere, and my description may be a slight
exaggeration if not a hyperbole.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ms. Nilufar was a MA
B.Ed from Baroda, and had taken to teaching in government schools since 1992,
the year also when my sister was born. She was married to a government servant
and had a child who studied in a Special School because he suffered from ADSD.
Ms. Nilufar had taught various classes in elementary school and was an
exceptional teacher, gaining her quite a recognition in the Ward as compared to
her peers who were only cogs in a machine, completely lacking the human element
in teaching. Watching her teach Social Sciences in elementary classes was a
delight, a performance, an innovation which could easily surpass any teacher
from the country. My first encounter with her was, when she was teaching the
Freedom Movement in Standard 4, her lesson jumped from the meaning of
independence to equality to concept of rights was ...was...I was speechless! I
had never seen something like that. It was a religious revelation of sorts,
meaning/purpose of education at display. Every visit to that school would be
incomplete without a conversation with Ms. Nilufar, where I shared what I knew
and she would listen attentively and then give me a completely different
perspective on education which I was unaware or maybe had never even thought about. She had about 36
children in her class, and all of them enjoyed Ms. Nilufar’s presence and performance.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Meanwhile that Friday (remember), the kaleidoscope/montage...Bombay
now called Mumbai was sticky and humid, the day was grey and sun hid behind the
clouds. The city was restless and less vibrant than usual, Sachin had retired
from One Day Internationals, Bal Thackeray was dead, many and also, Yash Chopra
died of Dengue, more slums were being demolished to give way to bigger enclaves
and housing societies, food prices were on a rise and more and more Bahiyyas
and Undu Pundus landed on the island. After the morning shift was over, Ms.
Nilufar and I had planned to go to Dadar to buy various Teacher Learning and
Teaching Aid Materials. We left the school around 1, when the sound of the
Azaan could be still heard from the speakers of the mosque.
Before leaving the school she wore the burkha. This was the
first time I would walk with a lady who wore a burkha. My house in Darjeeling
is in a Muslim neighborhood but one wearing a burkha is a rare sight. A burkha
and a sarei both wore by females, are something which is understood and is very
different. Only the face is visible, the feet and hands, and everything else is
covered. A sight of the eye or the lips is tremendously, profoundly, intensely;
powerful. And the blackness of the garment, makes it extremely difficult to
ignore. It was my first time, it was special and also strange. I have walked
with females wearing different garments but never a burkha. It was a funny
feeling I must say. It was not a provocative attire nor an intimidating one,
and Ms. Nilufar seemed quite at ease in it. I saw the way some men looked at
the lipstick on her mouth and the kajaal around her eyes. It did remind of many
a lot women who I had seen covering their faces and head with the sarei in the presence
of men. We bought the learning aids, stopped by for a soda, had a vada pav, and
had endless conversations regarding school, education, children, books, Ghalib,
Manto, etc, etc.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am a man, who is sexually
different from a female. I am also aware and at times also scared of my carnal
desires. An act of copulation/reproduction/procreation is the basis of life in
this world. It is a determinant factor in the way human beings are what they
are. Wasn't it Freud who completely based his psychoanalytic theory of the mind
on sex. Or are those ascetics who in their reach for enlightenment and
knowledge have to pass the most challenging of obstacles kama/lust/desire.
Pornography and Rape are on an exponential high growth rate. Have men not
evolved from their beastly state of their forefathers and still are largely under
its spell. And are we men not aware of it? Yes, Fuck We are. But what worries
me today is this carnal desire which is inevitable is being exploited and deliberately
made perverse contrary to its sacred, aesthetic and natural inception.
Advertising, Billboards, Xnxx, Twilight, Pornography, etc and etc with rapes
and pedophilia ..Man/Human/or An-ANIMAL. Men are probably with little
historical or sociological research, have been a sort of guiding force of
development, evolution and civilization. These same men deigned the burkha, the
custom of women covering their faces and so on, a defense mechanism from one of
the most powerful impulses in a man. Fear of one’s own desires. The danger that
lay in looking. The powerlessness of that MAN...and That Pornographic Ugly Propaganda....
.jpg)
