“I wanted to
study further, I loved reading but I had to leave in between because my parents
got me married. I had to because my No meant nothing at that time! ”,
shared one of the participants.
It has been almost a
year involving marathon of gender work with adolescents, police and teachers, because
of which “Kadam Mila Kar Chalna Hoga” somehow went on hiatus. This program has
always been very close to my heart primarily because through this we engage with
the women who live in our neighborhood on the crucial issues of gender and
gender based violence, co-create women’s circle where they can share their
pain, joy, sorrows and in turn support each other. This has not been really
easy path for us because there is so much hostility towards each other in the
community resulting in the mistrust among them. The series of movie screening under
‘Kadam Mila Kar Chalna Hoga’ has resulted in progression of the trust and safe
space among the women; unfortunately they have found common ground in pain inflicted
through their life due to gender norms and stereotypes.
With this challenging
scenario, I thought to initiate conversation and build an understanding on “gender
based violence and consent” with the women living in the neighborhood of Sahas.
We began the
event by sharing about the intention for the day and Sahas in brief. The
participants were invited to share their name and one unique quality they have.
They struggled to share their qualities, and then ended up saying “they love to
cook” or “Helping others”
Then we screened
‘Anaarkali of Aarah’ a 2017 Indian film written and directed by
debutant Avinash Das. It’s a story of Anaarkali, who makes a living by
performing on double meaning songs in public functions. During one of her stage
shows, Anaarkali comes across Vice Chancellor Dharmender Chauhan who molests
her in front of thousands of people. This leads to a conflict between the two
where Dharmender holding a position of power has an upper hand but Anaarkali
refuses to give in to the challenges thrown in her life and instead decides to
fight back.
What really intrigued
me was, while watching the movie, the participants were motivating, saying
encouraging words to Anaarkali, and was making happy noises whenever she takes
any action. It somehow made me think that is it because in our real lives, we
hardly get to say “No” or don’t actually gather enough courage for ourselves?
The participants
were then invited to share ‘a word or a sentence’ that came to their mind after
watching the movie.
“Courage”
“People like VC
and Police should be taught a lesson just like this”
“Whatever a woman
does, she will always be judged in terms of her choices, the kind of clothes
she wears or the profession”
"I don't
understand why man can't hear NO from woman? Whatever is her profession,
whatever she wears, wherever she goes, she has the right to say No. Unfortunately we are always taught to say Yes and when we say No,
it's conveniently ignored"
“Touching her or
doing anything to her without her consent is wrong; you can’t touch a woman
just because you feel like”
“It was her
profession, she was doing it because she liked it and was earning well but that
doesn’t give anyone the license to do this”
“I loved the climax of
the film and the way she explains NO”
“The mindset of society
is so doomed and wrong that they can’t see a woman doing what she wants to”
“The relationship with Rangeela
was by her choice but what VC did was against her consent, there is a
difference and men tends to ignore it because of their own whimps”
In the next activity, the
participants were invited to share “one crucial incident or any decision of
their life where they gave consent or their choices were respected”
Unfortunately except
for one woman, none of them could recall any such life changing events, it was
scary because all of them have what society says a well settled life- married,
with kids, regular income etc!!
The next question “one
crucial incident or any decision of their life when their NO was not heard” Sadly,
all hands shot up
“I wanted to study and
become teacher but my parents got my marriage fixed. I didn’t want to marry but
my NO was royally ignored”
“I was a very enthusiastic
kid, I wanted to play games professionally, I was into theatre and dancing but
my journey was cut short, because I had come to the ripe age of marriage”
“I wanted to learn
music, but my dad denied saying that girls shouldn’t sing”
“Marriage is all I can
think of because it was an important decision and I was not even asked about it”
“Even now, in household
decisions, I hardly think woman’s consent or NO matters”
Taking cue from the
film and discussion with the participants, gender, gender based violence,
gravity of the situation and how important is the consent was elaborated.
An interesting
conversation happened over the difference of age between boys and girls during
marriage.
“I never wanted my son
to marry that girl, she was 8 years older. But then, he loved her so I had no
choice” said one of the participant.
Before I could say
anything, another participant replied, “But earlier men used to be so much
older than girls like every men at the time of marriage but nobody objected and
now also no one objects so why do that with girls?”
“I feel nowadays the
age difference hardly matters, it’s about love and compatibility. I got my
daughter married for the second time, no one was agreeing but I wanted my
daughter to be happy. That was all that matter”
Just before closing,
one of the elderly woman said, “If you don’t mind I want to suggest you
something like my daughter. Your voice is too loud, girls shouldn’t fight like
that. You should tone down” I had a known smirk on my face and I was about to
say something because this was a prospective discussion but then another
participant interrupted
“But why would you tell
her to tone down, this is her work. She goes to various places, talk about
violence and if she hesitates to even raise voice than that would be contradict
her own work.”
And then i could just
smile because this is more than what I can hope for in just 3 hours <3
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