A recent piece written by an unseen friend and one childhood friend regarding the backlash against pictures in a public transport setting are making me think of Epistemology- why do we know what we know. And how do we acknowledge the layers of responses with a compassionate setting. You know what they say- you had to be there. I'm a woman who to this day in urban spaces in my adopted home marvel at the space bubble around me. What? No groping?
While I would agree with the response to the backlash against the photos and points made regarding the issue of "professional" jealousy and sabotage of careers, the picture of the two men with the girl between them did evoke a visceral distaste and panic in me. As a Vipassana meditator I was able to breathe through the twists in my chest and trace their origin.
Travelling on Western Railway trains at 10 pm after doctor calls as a medical representative, I've dreaded everyday the signal stops of the train over the Bandra Creek. I've also experienced the slow inching forward of predatory men in trains and in Mumbai over two decades ago. In Goa four years ago in broad daylight, I've rushed away from a beach shack at Colva with my two children to the safety of a CCD just so that the leery beery gaze of men did not result in a whole scale follow- who wants fish an chips at a time like that?
And it's nothing to with being a woman alone. I'd worry for my son too. Remember Arundhati Roy's movie theatre scene in God of small things? I've clutched my belly then with my boy still inside.
So, before I throw away the backlash as backward or not appreciative of art, I'd look at the epistemology of the discomfort.
The male gaze, the colonial gaze, the hetero gaze, are all deeper potlas that need to be unpacked one skein at a time.
Think Bandra Creek and slowing Western Railway Train. Would you let our niece or daughter or son be in that situation alone? That's the litmus test.
(C) 2014
No comments:
Post a Comment