Darlings: Thanks, but no thanks

Social media was full of ‘Darlings’ reviews. For awhile I didn’t even know what the movie was about, so I really didn’t bother until a dear friend shared that she was triggered by it and stopped watching. I took her experience to heart and knew that the plot would bring up stuff for me too. A few weeks back, my partner watched it and my knee jerk response was that I won’t watch it and I guessed that I’d feel sick. He agreed that it would be reliving the trauma.

Last night, I thought of giving it a try. I mean, I would always switch it off, right?

I was being lured to by the harrowing theme of you know, maybe, just maybe, after all these reviews, the movie might be showing a real scenario and somehow, just somehow, I might feel that certain experiences would be validated? I still don’t know what my reason to watch it was, but I watched it. But you know, sometimes, those things that you should avoid have an allure that entices you to take one bite, one tiny bite, and no harm done? I was feeling all that…

I looked at the movie cast and thought, ‘Well, if Shefali Shah is in it, the plot must be dark enough to be real.’ Let me see what this is about.

Six minutes and ten seconds into the show (I’m guessing intro credits included), I had to pause. My jaw was tight, my breathing was shallow, my mouth went dry and my gut clenched. I felt physically ill and could feel the bile rising in my throat. I had known that giving this movie my time would be a bad idea.

A very bad idea.

To set the record straight, my review of this movie is based on having been there and with the wisdom, clairvoyance, clairaudience and clairsentience of hindsight. I didn’t even need to know the theme of the movie to know what was going to happen in the first few minutes. The disrespect and the absence of value for her space, effort, time was blatant. He unceremonious and remorseless manipulation of her feelings by dangling the carrot of marriage and babies and a home… a future together… it. was. all. right. there.

Yet, she stayed.

And there will be a zillion A-holes making wise ass comments like, ‘Why is she still staying with him, then?’ Placing the onus of the survivor… sigh! Making it her burden to explain how maybe she still thought or believed that this was a hiccup that all relationships go through? Or was it to feel guilty about expecting a happy ever after? Or maybe a happy till tomorrow? Was she to be held responsible to hope and seek a loving, secure relationship?

This story was also compounded by multiple themes – almost making it an excuse in some places. He is an alcoholic. Alcoholism is a disease. He needs our pity & our sympathy. He needs her support and care to get off it. Well, if it means a couple of blows, punches, broken ribs and a miscarriage – well, this is between the husband and wife…

Sorry, but I cannot write this in coherent order. There is no beginning.. and I sense myself going in loops.

I found the humor grating. I didn’t laugh at all throughout the movie. Not once. My daughter came to the room twice to tell me to please stop watching it as it was clearly upsetting me. I didn’t watch to carry it to the next day. I would allow the poison to be drawn in one go.

That humor, was not funny. I found it insulting. I found a mentally agitated young woman’s desperation being churned as fodder for gaping bystanders to shake their heads and say, ‘Look at the stupidity she is doing! Why can’t she just leave him?’ The humor and the ridiculous music downplayed trauma, grief and brutal fear for one’s life into a rubbish piece of badly written jokes. To me, they were not funny to me.

The humor downplayed violence, mental anguish, trauma, miscarriage, suicide all that to feed an audience of bystanders who didn’t really know or care about what happens behind closed doors.

What they did show well was manipulation and gaslighting, even if it fell on deaf ears. They showed well the trembling of her hands when he bit on the second stone in his rice. They showed well the reflexive clasping of her throat when she knew what was coming. They showed well the brutality of an abusive and violent person. They were also spot on in showing how an abuser would work towards isolating his ‘prey’ from social and financial support.

The most hard hitting scene for me, was when Hamza hits Shamshu, his mother-in-law, in the cab – abusing the family of the victim is brutal and often not expressed well. I can only hope the message reached a fair number of minds.

But, in my very honest opinion, they failed miserably at showing the effects on Badru’s body, mind and spirit. There was a tendency to not showcase her grief and instead center on his abuse instead. The abuse was centered – the abuser was centered. It is typical, isn’t it? To shy away from uncomfortable truths of a woman’s experience of pain and horror?

This was perhaps a teachable movie – to raise awareness of a cornucopia of social issues – I don’t know… To me, it lacked. Just by educating the masses about Section 498A, one doesn’t really push the needle that required public outcry and a movement that motivates society to care for its members.

I felt for Badru – she was just a child trapped in the clutches of a monster. She’s right to take charge of her respect in her own hands, but the philosophy of greatness and the higher moral ground is a psychological nightmare. I can’t think how it can happen overnight – I’m glad it did, but… it just watered down the reality of domestic violence, intimate partner violence, violence against women and gender based violence.

It also misplaced the story by setting it in a lower income chawl with lesser educated individuals of a certain community. Violence occurs in all segments of society. Worse stuff gets perpetrated in upper middle class and wealthy society units. There the façade to save face for Page 3 insets is strong, the walls sufficiently sound proofed, gated communities provide the anonymity and isolation sufficient to get away with ‘this is between husband & wife, we will sort it’

Like I said, I feel a bit incoherent in my ramble. Trauma doesn’t resolve itself over night. It rewinds itself at various times and we learn and unlearn over and over again.

I don’t have a textbook conclusion to this post today… it just is a visceral outpouring. The movie was a trigger and I am still experiencing the effects of giving it my time. To those who have given it rave reviews for the effort of highlighting this issue, well… I don’t know… There must be better ways. But if those reviews were coming from a third person, unaffected place, then I really think they must rethink their ‘position’ before dissing off those of us who found the movie triggering, belittling and insensitive in many ways.

Now I need to recover from this movie. This is why I hate watching TV…

Me: Independent, Sovereign, Free, Complete…

‘Freedom is a state of mind’ – as a yoga practitioner, I think I’ve heard this often enough and taught this in various shades of essential philosophy.

For many, if not most of us, we need to feel the true liberation in our bodies – physical liberation – from power structures and systems. Freedom is unfathomable to the many who live through the daily grind & cycle of hurt, pain, injustices, prejudices, bloodshed, terror, violence, abuse, grief, sorrow…. etc

For some blessed folks, the threshold of physical limitation has been overcome and, despite their physical pain, they go on to live in the bliss of mental liberation. Not many of us are there yet.

So, we only breathe in the air of true freedom when we’ve broken the invisible chains of visible barriers, toxic relationships and past mistakes. Sometimes, those are also visible shackles, and we may remain blind to them too, or just too numb and tired to even move them, let alone break away from.

Over the past many years, I’ve slowly inched myself away from visible chains to invisible restraints. My restraints were largely ‘for the sake of my children’. But realising that they were the ones being played as pawns was the last push needed.

The last contraction, the most painful, the birth, and the scream that accompanies the first breath, the first exhale…. and then the cord is cut.

Rebirth.

These past 2 months were my moment of rebirth. Having cut the cords that attempted to manipulate and call the shots in my life, they were rendered powerless.

One weak man who used every despicable trick to harm a woman and children and get away with it – was left powerless. No more avenues to play with innocent, trusting lives.

Last night, as I held my oldest in my arms as he battled with the tightly held emotions of years of betrayal, I knew he was making his own journey to freedom. I think I birthed him again. What else could I do but that?

So, Independence.

We breathe that breath of freshness today, my children and I, from this place of raw Independence (in body and mind).
And I, as a woman, reclaim my freedom of body, mind, spirit and resources, my agency, my sovereignty, my everything.

Happy Independence Day!

Selfie depicting what freedom in an Indian woman looks like.

This Thing Called Rape Culture

Yesterday, a girl was being harassed by a stranger on Instagram – asking her out for coffee. She said no and to please stop messaging her because she didn’t know him. He apologised and went away. For a few hours! Only to come back with “Hi…” ‘How are you?” & “I can’t stop myself”… The girl gives him a piece of her mind, threatens to shame him on FB & goes on to do just that.

What unfolded thereafter was priceless.

There were women supporting the girl or standing up for herself and outing the guy who couldn’t take no for an answer.

There were a few supportive men but one man, in particularly who consistently vocalised his support for the girl and for her standing up.

There were a few who went on with the you shouldn’t have spoken to him, you shouldn’t have snubbed the poor guy, he was only asking you out for coffee….. that crap…

And then, there were the MRAs – heard of them? Male Rights Activists who, you know, suddenly read a couple of articles here & there, appreciate the current jargon and assume themselves to be politically correct by throwing in key words that allege allyship.

And that’s where things took a turn for me.

You see, the rate of violent crimes against women – domestic violence, sexual violence, online harassment, in person harrassment, etc… has only been on a consistent rise. With the rise of the feminist movement (which is not ‘anti-men‘, by the way), a lot of groups who misunderstand the term or take it too literally, end up messing up with the movement entirely. So anyway,  in this entire business of keeping our girls safe, there is this whole new idea of policing them ‘for their own good’ and training them in kick boxing & martial arts, not for the love of it or for the health aspect, but more so as a tool to keep them safe from a potential assault / attack / rape.

In short, telling our girls and women to learn how to keep themselves safe – avoid eye contact, dress up.. no strike that… cover up!, don’t tell men to go away, learn self defense, etc.. and all of these ideas are only taught so that if and when the unthinkable happens, it gets to be OH SO EASY to tell the girl, ‘You shouldn’t have done that!‘ or ‘You should’ve done xyz‘ – the onus is put on the woman to explain herself, and take responsibility for the incident. The assault and the attacker – who, in the entire narrative, is either long forgotten or categorised as the poor guy while the woman’s character is being assassinated, past faux pas pulled out of the closet and all that drama.

So here’s how things unfolded for me in this entire drama.

Going back to the 12 odd comments before I came into the conversation, I couldn’t be bothered with the public shaming the girl engaged. That’s the least of my concerns. He was a creep and not someone she knew – one of those PM trolls. Neither shaming nor engaging with such fools is my style, so not commenting on either. However, what was bothersome was the open shaming that her so-called ‘friends’ were throwing her way.

My comment in the conversation was in shock & disgust at them and in the context of the policing that was being freely given to the girl. It went like this:

“This is like teaching the girls martial arts so that they can ward off ‘potential rapists’ – ffs why should they train in martial arts to keep themselves safe instead of for better coordination or strength or something else?! The jerk didn’t know what no means and if he ‘cant help himself’ then he deserves worse than what you gave him.”

Of all the comments on the thread, it took one chauvinist to pick on this one because of ‘potential rapists‘ and his assumption that I had likened the troll harasser to a ‘potential rapist’ and that the girl had several chances to clearly close the conversation rather than leave it open when he persisted. See where this is going? The conversation went back & forth with male fragility reeking in every response and the patriarchy practically waiting to burst in flames of fury at me when….

wait for it…

The chauvinist is joined by his wife. What better way to slam a woman speaking tough words than by sending in another woman, right? Well, bang on right!!! This woman how turns out to be the ideal desi wife – uber supportive of her husband’s stand and pointing fingers and creating pedestals for me to sit atop and later dragging her own into the picture (definitely higher than mine)… Oh, what followed was the saccharine sweet mess of husband & wife trolling the posts, Liking & Loving each others comments (yeah this was fun to watch) and applauding each other’s goodness for all to see and dragging old crap of the girl in question’s to prove that they’re better…

OMG… this was a guidebook for the patriarchal misogyny 101.

Yeah somewhere in the middle, they kinda forgot about me – poor me, not getting the attention that these kindergarteners were so desperately seeking. Out of nowhere the couple get 2 assistants, one of whom pinches a picture from my facebook featured pics and posts in in the comments and openly asks me out (I think he asked me out, silly me) for coffee, and another jumps in to make some lame, “No wonder y’all are single.” comment.

Ok…. so what’s the deal?

The deal is that this kind of behaviour right from asking for coffee to the social structure of victim shaming & gaslighting especially when women speak out against online harrassment is nothing but misogyny and a kick in the gut of every single girl & woman out there who struggles with it. It is easy to label every woman who cries foul as a misandrist and not true to the cause of feminism and equality. They fail to work on their inner patriarchal prejudice and male fragility and they fail even more to see that the misogyny rests with a lot of the women too. I’ll bet my last penny that this guy who was making all these tall claims would have been raised in a patriarchal family and most likely with no sisters. His mother probably endured violence and they have either learnt to normalize it or learnt that they should say the right things to be perceived as politically correct but end up doing all the opposite shit, thinking all the polar opposite thoughts and then getting a handful of applause from others who are obviously just as entrenched in the misogynistic parlay of everyday existence.

Yes, shit stinks.

But then, there is something called as hoping to set the ball rolling and getting education right. Right? So here were some thoughts that I posted back on to the thread. As expected, there has been not one comment on it after that…. either they’ve realised what idiots they have been sounding like.. or.. they really are the idiots and chose to finally shut their trap. [A=girl who posted, X=Guy who took offense, Y=His Wife]

Let’s get a couple of things straight – not because I need to ever explain myself, but because if you people are the kind of woke youth living with the pseudo feminism that you are flaunting then you DO need this education. What you do with it is your thing. Most likely, you’ll ignore is as ignorance speaking – but somewhere sometime when it comes to bite you in the rear end, perhaps you’ll know how to deal with it.

1. My original comment was not in response to A’s OP, it was in response to the 12 other comments with various takes on it. It was in response to those comments that were giving A advice on what she should’ve/could’ve done to keep her space safe instead of addressing & denouncing the guy’s behavior. THAT kind of a response is no different from telling women that when they are eve-teased or harassed or raped that they asked for it because of the clothes they were wearing or because they were spotted at a bar.

2. Although X keeps saying that he agrees with a no is a no is a no, he also keeps harping on the fact that A shouldn’t have led the guy on with open ended questions etc… The onus is being shifted to A in this case. As far as the guy’s behavior… X indicates that his “approach could have been better”. THIS IS MAN TALK. He (X) may not have heard the term, but he sure as hell engages in it – shrouded in pseudofeminist terms like, “I’m all for women being safe.” Sure you are! Sounds sexist to him & his wife because a woman called him out on HIS BS. So be it. Bite me! This is a man literally making an allowance for a dude to ask a girl out for coffee – all he needs is a fine tuning of his approach so that her ‘no’ would probably be coaxed into a ‘yes’.

3. Calling this out as ‘man talk’ is then labeled as a sexist remark & ‘bad behavior’ by a woman supporting ‘her husband’… who thinks that I asked him to stay out of the conversation because he’s a man. No, stay in the conversation if you add value to it – NOT because you want to come in to tell a woman who is angry at being harassed, how she should have responded instead. That is an attempt to mansplain her choice and no, he does not have the right to do that, not even if his unconsciously patriarchal wife believes it is. How she expresses herself is entirely her entitlement.

4. For the ‘how would you feel?” bit…. Silly me… these people are on the ‘equality’ trail – throwing politically correct jargon without really even seeing the woods for the trees. My question to the wife is, when your husband will tell you what you ‘should have done’ instead of expressing your anger in whatever way you feel is right (or express it in a way that doesn’t rock the patriarchal boat of male fragile egos), then perhaps you will know what it feels like to be told what to do instead of standing up for outing someone who is on the path to rape culture.

5. Rape Culture is a thing – I’ll post a pyramid below that’ll help you see where you & others who liked your pseudo righteous speeches for equality stand.

6. The word is equity not equality. Look it up.

7. X says, “Make is a strong no” – why?? Why should she make it a strong no? Is a softer first time, ‘no’ not enough? Or do people need multiple opportunities to try and try until they succeed in getting her to say, ‘yes’?

8. Gaslighting – you’re right, you won’t find ONE instance – you’ll find plenty. You’re holding the match stick! Every time you are asking A to second guess why she is upset and she could’ve done it differently, that the poor guy was just innocently asking her out (like a creepy troll on IG DMs) and has been so ruthlessly been outed – it is asking her to rethink her upset, it is gasligthing.

9. Oh yeah, to the guy who skimmed my picture off my profile, I hope you enjoy it! And to X & the other guys who liked his comment asking me out for coffee – enjoy the joke? – well, a person who laughs at that is doing exactly what this post is all about – a guy has taken my picture, downloaded it, reposted it without my permission and it gets likes & encouragement from other guys. Are we talking sense of humor here or something else? Sense of humor I guess… C’mon boys, let’s all have a party here at the expense of this woman who asked a man to shut up & keep the explanations to himself. You have proven to me & maybe to yourselves that participating in such behavior & possibly calling it humor IS being part of the problem & you have done exactly that.

10. Finally, you don’t have to be a woman to stand for feminism and feminism does not mean hating men and neither does standing against patriarchy mean hating men. For the dimwit incel who thinks we’re all single – haha.. shine on! Perhaps somehow you’ll get lucky, in the meanwhile, intelligent men will hopefully continue make their mark & find their way to make this place a better one.

Bottom line, this is not new or a first. This happens every day and all the time… all over the world. This is violence against women – online harassment – and guess what else? It is a constant systemic effort to shut women up… and it doesn’t just happen at the hands of men, women openly and aggressively engage in this. Funnily enough, women shush up harassment of women but freely and willingly call out other women who call out men.  Sometimes it is just because of vengeful misgivings of the past, but vocal women seem to get it double time.

And of course, #NotAllMen and #NotAllWomen

This one thing, the thing all online harassment of women stems from, is the desire to stop women from sharing their opinions and thoughts on the Internet — to chip away at our power and presence in an increasingly important space.

~ Sara Alcid – Everyday Feminism

Phew! This definitely needed telling… this needed the emotional labour.. this earned the massive headache I have since last night from this puke-worthy debate with people more than a decade younger than me – our youth! Youth who dropped ten huge rocks in my gut just thinking about the kind of adults’ hands we are leaving our tomorrows in. This is where these upholding citizens of our community end up perpetuating these sickening values of harm and self-righteous but misplaced elements of equality and political correctness.

Sigh! Will this ever end? Will these people ever grow up? Sadly, I have personal experience with people hitting their mid forties and showing no sign of maturity or any evidence of understanding their gender-based privilege and demonstrating their misogyny in full effect. These folks, yesterday, I’m willing to guess that they didn’t know the full impact of their words & behavior and were just gushing with the effect of the fire of youth (and some lingering adolescence lol) to want to have the last word, gang up on social media by calling in friends to prove a point, and bolster some inadequacies with self-promotion. I wish a voice of reason and attempt to understand was demonstrated instead of a vile attacking of each other’s characters and social reach.

Until then, we watch the gloves and we watch the hands – hand in glove in this scary beat dance called Rape Culture.