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Ideas
Imagination
THE THE BEND RIDE OF OF MY MY HAIR BREASTS
THE JOY IN MY FEET
Dialectics
THE FIRE OF MY EYES
THE The SWING March of OF Women MY 2013 WAIST THE SPAN OF MY HIPS
1st March 2013 `30
THE ARCH OF MY BACK
THE PALM OF MY HANDS
RECLAIMING MY BODY Part by Part
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Eyes
by Pritha Kejriwal
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Teri Aankhon mein to Akaash ka Failaav Nazar aata hai... Every woman sits on her own personal debris of everything that has previously appeared before her and paints that minute in the life of the world going by…each minute - a portrait of her relationship with the world – simultaneously personal and political, oppressed & rebellious, subtle and dramatic, banal and radical, inward and outward, everyday and historic
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ecause the faculty of sight is continuous, because visual categories (red, yellow, dark, thick, thin) remain constant, and because so many things appear to remain in place, one tends to forget that the visual is always the result of an unrepeatable, momentary encounter. Appearances, at any given moment, are a construction emerging from the debris of everything which has previously appeared. It is something like this that I understand in those words of Cezanne which so often come back to me: ‘One minute in life of the world is going by. Paint it as it is’ – John Berger (Drawn to That Moment) Every woman sits on her own personal debris of everything that has previously appeared before her and paints that minute in the life of the world going by…each minute - a portrait of her relationship with the world – simultaneously personal and political, oppressed & rebellious, subtle and dramatic, banal and radical, inward and outward, everyday and historic. A woman’s perspective is always an infinite point perspective, because she inserts into all the rectilinear scenes, a set of parallel lines that are not parallel to any of the three axes of the scene, thus always creating a new vanishing March 2013
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Vagina
by Saswat Pattanayak
Jamie McCartney’s Sculpture The Great Wall of Vagina
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ULGAR. IOLENCE. IBRATION. OYEUR. ULVA.
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e are not yet sure how to refer to the “private part” “down there”. But as Foucault says, it is important that we refer to it. It’s important to deconstruct the discourse around vagina in order to extrapolate manners in which power relations exist between genders. As singularly responsible for essentializing the female species, a discourse surrounding the vagina helps uncover the history of separations, existence of tensions and potentials for liberation. It also helps identify how feminism has made the pursuit of sexual pleasure— the expression of women’s sexual autonomy— a political goal. Vagina and Separation Until about 18th century, the idea of onesex body dominated recorded understanding of sex and gender. Under the Galenic system (and Aristotle’s), men and women had essentially similar anatomical structures, only with different levels of heat and moistness. This perception that held sway for over two millennia rapidly changed with masculinity and femininity observed in the very structure of the body, whereby the nervous system was feminized and musculature was masculinized, thus laying the foundation for sex, and not gender as grounds for social and cultural differences in the body.
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Hair
by Sayan Bhattacharya
BECAUSE YOU’RE STILL WORTH IT!
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in-laws. Mullah recited the prayers, rubbing his thigh every now and then. He picked up the kitchen knife with a long blade. The convention is to let the goat not see the knife. Murad, my husband, fed the goat a sugar cube, to make death sweeter. The goat kicked, but not much. Just a second before Murad slivered the throat of the animal, I saw its eyes. It is a look that will haunt me for years. But I watched. I watched because of that look of acceptance in the goat’s eyes. I guess the animal sees that its looming demise is for a superior purpose. I want to tear away from this place, from reality. Ascend up like a cloud and soar away, melt into the cold winter night and dissolve somewhere far over the hills. But I am here on a pile of snow, my legs blocks of concrete, my lungs filled with the smell of Murad’s breath of onion and tobacco. I pass out. Then, in the middle of the night, I feel like there is cold water in my nose. I open my eyes and can’t even see because of all the blood. I hear chatter, subdued sobbing and sniffling. The elevator doors opening, the operator paging someone
in English. And then the smell of iodine and peroxide hits me, and all I have time before I pass out is to see two men wearing surgical caps dressing me in a green gown. This was a day of firsts. The first time my father-in-law held my feet. The first time my brother-in-law held my arms behind my back. The first time I tried to run away from home. I wake up to grandmother sitting on my bedside. Except my eyes, my face is covered in bandages. She begins to say something and her voice cracks. She closes her mouth, opens it and closes it again. She wipes her face and smiles. She pretended she didn’t hear who did this to me. Just like she pretended that she didn’t know Baba married me to a Taliban fighter to repay a debt. Just like she pretended she didn’t know I was made to sleep in a stable with animals. Or she hadn’t seen the dark stain on the seat of my burqa earlier in the evening. Or those tiny drops that fell from between my legs and stain the snow black as I stood bleeding at her doorstep. Like she pretended not seeing the blank space and blood on my face, where my nose should have been.
Photograph of Aisha Bibi whose nose was cut off by her Taliban husband’s family
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Belly
by Sharanya Manivannan
OF CONCAVE AND CONVEX MIRRORS...
coquettish Maria de Medeiros, playing the moll in Pulp Fiction, lounges in bed, practically purring with a self-assured, lazy sensuality. Sleepily, she fantasises about having a potbelly, how she would accentuate it with small tees and how very sexy one is (but only, and she is vehement – and here I must respectfully disagree – on women). She praises the potbelly, while conceding its unfair reputation: “I don’t give a damn what men find attractive. It’s unfortunate what we find pleasing to the touch and pleasing to the eye is seldom the same.”
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in religious and erotic literature. The paragon waist was tiny in comparison to the generousness of the breasts and hips, but the tummy itself ample of its own accord. The Lalita Sahasranamam, for example, extols not only the contours of such a stomach (Sthana bhara dalan madhya patta bhandha valithraya – “she who has three stripes in her belly which appear to have been created to protect her tiny waist from her heavy breasts”), but even the down that grows upon it (Lakshya roma latha dharatha samunneya madhayama – “she who is suspected to have a waist because of the creeperlike hairs rising from there”).
Who knows when the rounded belly began to be regarded as anything less glorious than the other womanly curves. The classical poets adored it; the sculptors chiseled its softness in stone. Among the customary markers of beauty were the three folds of the stomach – which inspired lines
There are beautiful names, too, for this hair of the stomach, which runs from pubis to navel, and sometimes from navel to solar plexus: take the Sanskrit romaraji, and the Latin linea nigra.
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Illustration by Sumit Das 34 | KINDLE INDIA
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AND FLEW THE GOLDEN BIRD
Spine
by Nidhi Dugar Kundalia
Daksha Sheth has evolutionised the spine through dance, incorporating martial arts and aerial acts in her performances. The danseuse speaks about spine being the metaphor of freedom, an act of resistance. And it’s not just the dance but the life and the choices made. 40 | KINDLE INDIA
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“One wants to mutter deeply that apart from having two good legs I also have two good degrees and it is just possible that I do know what I’m talking about” - Edwina Currie 46 | KINDLE INDIA
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OM EN IN THE MARKET In an industry where women’s lib is associated more with skimpy outfits and father-inlaw sanctioned widow remarriage, Shyam Benegal has constantly produced cinema that refuses to give easy answers – be it the unapologetic sex workers in Mandi or the journey of Usha, through a strings of relationships in Bhumika. An interview on these two films,much ahead of their times with the director himself. By Sayan Bhattacharya.
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What made you choose the text Mandi... the short story? There was a very well-known short story writer from the pre independent times- Ghulam Abbas. After partition , he moved to Karachi and he had written a short story called Anandi. It is a very interesting story because it deals with how this so called moral brigade tends to deal with women. In this case there is this bordello in the heart of town, as you always have in the tradtional Indian towns, like Sonagachi, you have different places like Daal ki Mandi in Benaras and so on. So he had taken a situation where you have the city elders, (which means the municipality) who decide to get rid of their brothels and exile these people because they are bad for social morality. So they get rid of them, and the women are left in the wilderness but soon their business picks up and a whole city develops around them; this is the story in very simple terms. Now there is an interesting back story to this, I don’t know how far it is true, but it was said that Ghulam Abbas had taken the idea of the story from Allahabad, which was his native town; and he wrote this because in 1928, Jawaharlal Nehru became the Mayor of Allahabad and his municipality councillors came upto to him and said “Sir, the house in which you were born is now a house of ill repute and you should get rid of this house, because you cannot be associated with any such thing.” Ofcourse Nehru laughed it off and did nothing about it, but it became the germ for this particular story. Nehru thought it was completely absurd, nonsense you know, clearly it didn’t make any difference to him and he didn’t believe in such sort of a thing because he was a liberal and a different sort of person. So Ghulam Abbas wrote this story and I was very interested in doing this as a film and I got an opportunity after I made two films for Shashi Kapoor- Junoon and Kalyug, and soon after that I made a film in Bengal called Aarohan. After Aarohan, I got the opportunity to make this film and to me it was two things that made me do this film. One, because I just love this story as it’s an unapologetic story, you know as far as the women are concerned. They don’t need to apologize for what they are, clearly they are there because the men want it, otherwise they wouldn’t have been there, they’d be doing other things. So they have a legitimate business with a legitimate way of making a living, so there is essentially a feminist position. So I decided that I would make this film and I made it. For me it was a great experience because it was an ensemble film and I hadn’t made any ensemble films before and here I had all the bunch of actors who used to work with me at that time, who today are stars of one kind or another. It was a little ahead of its time when it released because the feminist ideas in India—I’m not talking about the American feminist ideas, for we have our own brand of feminism—was slowly taking shape, and the film came before that but later it developed a great cult around it, particularly when it went on to the video and dvd circuit and of course it keeps coming back on television quite frequently. So basically that was what it was.
I don’t know how far it is true, but it was said that Ghulam Abbas had taken the idea of the story from Allahabad, which was his native town; and he wrote this because in 1928, Jawaharlal Nehru became the Mayor of Allahabad and his municipality councillors came upto to him and said “Sir, the house in which you were born is now a house of ill repute and you should get rid of this house, because you cannot be associated with any such thing.” Ofcourse Nehru laughed it off and did nothing about it Even in terms of sensibilities, it seems ahead of its times even now… Well the fact is, it tells you how difficult it is to change a patriarchal mindset. Clearly if you look at the contemperory events that are taking place, and you have various political figures and you have so called Sants and Mahatmas coming out and making the most outrageous statements. So it tells you basically how difficult it is to get rid of this. First of all we are a heirarchical society and the Constitution allows everyone equality, but we are yet to achieve that. How difficult it is to achieve that (equality) can be seen with how we treat women, of what we think of women. I was quite fascinated by that little piece that Sudhir Kakkad wrote and he quoted Gyani Zail Singh, who was our President at one time and he said about women Bhook ki cheez hai – a thing to relish, so the way, you know, women are objectified, you can never see them as your equal. In the history of mankind, patriarchy has been the longest with us, certainly all the religious texts have patriarchy; whether it is Hinduism or Christianity or Islam. The manner in which we relate to women, obviously the idea of equality is a very modern idea. It’s not an idea that’s been floating around for a long time. In terms of timing, the film released in 1983 and it’s only after a few years we see that the gates of Ayodhya are being opened... then the Shah Bano case. In the film, we see an incestuous relationship between religion, politics and how the woman has to negotiate her way through these… Because she’s also very political; she knows how to play politics, she has to. She’s clever enough to deal with the political side of it,she has to find her own way through these social barriers, because these social barriers themselves are March 2013
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SHE WAS NEVER TOLD THAT SHE EXISTS
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he day she was born, the sky turned furious and it rained. She is five and her world is small. The rose pink light of dawn brings endless chores and she steals few moments to play with whatever she finds around. She is eight and cooks so well. Sometimes she yearns to go out like her brothers do but has no time. She is fourteen and happy. She will get married soon like all her friends. Her life slowly fades in front of her and there is not time enough to question it. Does she know herself as she knows her world around? She is (no) different and God made her like that.
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Photo Essay
March 2013
by Sarika Gulati
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Guddi, Jamuna Devi, Afsana Begum, K. Supriya and many others have resorted to a life they have been taught to lead. If there is anything beyond, they may never find out. Caught in the belief of their times, they will never discover that they too exist.
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Breasts
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by Jit Chowdhury
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The Spine that ran through the Butt
Ijaz Ul Hassan’s painting titled Rifle Butt(1974)
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ho invented the human heart, I wonder? Tell me, and then show me the place where he was hanged... Lawrence Durrell from Justine
What is a spine? According to Oxford English dictionary: a series of vertebrae extending from the skull to the small of the back, enclosing the spinal cord and providing support for the thorax and abdomen; the backbone. And then the different variations: r 1BSU PG B CPPL T KBDLFU PS DPWFS UIBU FODMPTFT UIF JOOFS edges of the pages, facing outwards when the book is on a shelf and typically bearing the title and the author’s name. r Zoology & Botany: any hard, pointed defensive projection or structure, such as a prickle of a hedgehog, a spike-like projection on a sea urchin, a sharp ray in a fish’s fin, or a spike on the stem of a plant. r " MJOFBS QBZ TDBMF PQFSBUFE CZ TPNF MBSHF PSHBOJ[BUJPOT that allows flexibility for local and specific conditions. r Geology: a tall mass of viscous lava extruded from a volcano. The long and short of the spine makes it a sense of an anchor. A sense of unwavering. How can one remain rooted, when the closest person in your life takes the path of renunciation 68 | KINDLE INDIA
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by Mukherjee P.
THE RIFLE BUTT
and moves towards a spiritual attainment? How do you remain steadfast and anchor the boat? How do you become the wife when the husband moves into a greater common goal for humanity? Bimba: wife of Gautama, the Buddha has the answer. She tells us, the world and the Gautama, all at the same time. She tells us how her spine remained ramrod even while swimming against the tide. Says Bimba: How would I know...that like being a river-nomad, forest-nomad, citynomad you can be an idea-nomad. Moment-nomad. Nightnomad. Staring at that once occupied integral pillow that is now a rude metaphor of absence. Vanished. Gone. Ebbing away so fast that even the trickle shall vanish soon. How would I perhaps know that inside... inside the city of mirrors lies the city of forests and even deep inside is the city of cactus. Thorny. Hurtful. Long vertical poles with pricks at their side. Yet as you moved towards a spiritual longing, you left me to fend against my own ugly mirror image. My spine had to remain ramrod. Siddharta, I am struggling to keep my spine straight as you move towards nirvana.
RNI NO. WBENG/2010/36111 Regd. No. KOL RMS/429/2011-2013
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