What Indian women want

WALKING TOWARDS OURSELVES
Indian Women Tell Their Stories
Catriona Mitchell (Ed)
Harper Collins
266 pages; Rs 399

Reminisces of women in India, whether in the pre-colonial age or contemporary society, invariable evokes the figure of a mother, a daughter, a sister, a wife or even a mistress. These effigies are something that we create for ourselves for an easier comprehension of womankind. But what if picturing a woman in relation to a man's existence is as mythical as an urban legend? What if there is more to her than just being a man's subordinate in almost every space of life? What if it's time we treat them for who they are and not how we want to see them?
 

Walking Towards Ourselves, an anthology of women writers from across the country, tries to answer these fundamental questions that confront us every day. Catriona Mitchell deserves credit for bringing on board writers who figure not solely because of their gender but also because they have distinctive and bold voices on a range of issues. These voices demand to be heard, not because they are special or different but because the issues they raise are as much a part of our basic fundamental existence. At the very least, they seek equality - one of the virtues that society's ingrained patriarchal set-up has never given them across all domains and dimensions.

In recent years, whenever one thinks of the atrocities committed against women in our male-dominated society, scathing wounds from the night of December 16, 2012 begin to surface. This was the night that saw the genesis of a movement that demanded greater gender sensitivity, shaking the nation and the world from within. The people who took the streets were not there just to be a part of the larger crowd but to transcend the barriers of gender and express what they felt. It was a befitting tribute to the 23-year-old victim, whose death inspired a feeling of fearlessness among hundreds of women in the national capital to raise their voices for their right to dignity and safety.

Leila Seth, the first woman to become chief justice of a state high court, gives a first-person narrative of how things have changed for women after that night. Although she is happy with the change in the rape laws that followed, she believes the change has been incremental, with major issues such as marital rape being ignored. "Within a marriage, fighting back comes with consequences. The man who rapes me is not a stranger who runs away. He is the husband for whom I have to make the morning coffee," says an anonymous writer. It's a chilling image and almost inconceivable that a woman can continue to live in such circumstances.

Though there is considerable diversity among the contributors to this volume, the reader will find numerous manifestations of common themes. As Ms Mitchell rightly points out, "different Indias intersect here, at times in startling and surprising ways." Ira Trivedi's "Rearranged Marriage" examines what it takes to be a dark-skinned woman in Indian society in a manner that completely contrasts with Rosalyn D'Mello's version in "Black". Ms Trivedi talks about the hurdles lining the path to marriage for a dark-skinned girl, and how skin colour becomes the delineating quality of an individual. On the contrary, Ms D'Mello's protagonist raises alarming questions on how beauty is equalled to being fair. It is her moment of realisation that wisdom supersedes beauty that makes all the difference.

Woman today are not safe anywhere, whether it is in the confines of their marriage or within a professional workplace. Tisca Chopra's "Cast Away", for instance, raises the insidious concept of the casting couch, offering thought-provoking insights on those the travails of women who choose the entertainment business as a vocation. A young journalist working at odd hours in the bustling lanes of Mumbai dresses in an unkempt manner just to ensure that she is not gawked at in the workplace. The irony is inescapable: we pitch for women empowerment but leave no stone unturned to crush their self-respect and dignity. And this is how we term our society "progressive".

Every day, when a Muslim woman married into a conservative family has to lift her veil while having her supper, she loses her basic right to choose the life she wants. The majority might not even think of this as an intrusion to her basic rights, but the reality is that no one has actually asked her if this is what she wants. She is unaware of the right to choose. This is where the problem lies; most Indian women are kept ignorant of their basic right to choose, leaving the field open for the men to make it a point to decide what they think a woman wants. This book is a perfect amalgamation of voices resonating for such innate and intrinsic values and it is worth its modest price if only because it is likely to make the reader - whether male or female - think.