Retreat Week One and More Trolls

May 26, 2022

On Wednesday, my artist friend and I caught up on the first week of our retreat. We both were tired. In fact, Tuesday afternoon I had felt fatigued and unable to move and stretched out on my black futon for a couple of hours. I hadn’t attributed this exhaustion to immersion in the retreat till he mentioned it. 

 

His retreat was going well. He had zoned in on this task early and his method had followed too. When he tacked up his newsprint to the easel and made his first charcoal marks his ‘gestures’ from four years of portrait drawing came back to him. Soon he expanded his process by deciding to learn a new portrait method each week. On our call he showed me the results from his own method and the new one he was studying, and we talked about processes and possible reasons for the differences in the images. My retreat was still unfocused, and I tried to gather some of what I had done and talk about it. I said I could not help dividing my attention between the writing retreat and karate, and that as usual was a problem, but besides that I was divided between the new creative non-fiction course I had begun and making notes about other things I wanted to write or learn to write about. I didn’t have time to add, 'Also I’ve been battling trolls,' as our call ended then. 

 

After that first intense trolling experience. I decided to spend some time studying, it would be more honest to say baiting and thwarting, them last week. At first, I couldn’t articulate why. 

 

In the past I had read comments on political articles to understand what the people of India were thinking. I cheered me that so many Indians saw through the propaganda of the ruling party and did not buy into the hate narratives they spread. It kept me connected to the people of my birth-land.  I also laughed aloud, as some of the comments countering Hindutva trolls were clever and hilarious. They zoned in on the exact ‘blind-spot’ of the writer.  When something infuriated me, I wrote a comment, but it was rare.

 

After the mean comments I encountered the previous week I entered the space with a different purpose. I wanted to study it — how it worked, who frequented it, what was said by whom, etc. The Hindutva arguments were very similar, almost word for word at times. They might have come from IT cell WhatsApp forwards. The counter comments varied.  Few women entered this space. Women were trolled with sexual innuendo bordering on violation while men were not. Women’s comments were often attributed to lack of sexual satisfaction. If the trolls saw a Christian or Muslim name, they descended in droves and flooded responses. Nothing remotely resembling an intelligent or logical argument was made, just insults. Muslims were called rapist Mughals and Christians rice bags. Often the insults were returned, and it escalated quickly till the non-Hindu withdrew. Even here Hindutva numbers and domination was obvious.

 

I decided I would pick my battles, but once I commented on something I would keep going till the other person withdrew. Again, I am not sure why but I had to have the last word. The trolls didn’t like it. Their first response was often a comment to explain to a misguided old Hindu woman what the scene really was, but once they saw I had my own clear viewpoint they descended into insults. Slave of Mughals, of the Tukde-Tukde Congress, and even banana face were added to the names I have already mentioned last week. 

 

It was exhausting but I used a strategy or several strategies. Later I realized they had parallels in dojo partner work practice. Sometimes I would counter a statement using facts that could not be disputed and that would stop any possible reply. E.g. When a man said 80% of country were behind Modi and the saffron agenda, I countered with the fact that his 2019 vote share was 38% so that couldn’t be true. This was analogous to the one blow to end the fight before it really began, that we train for in traditional karate. At times when I wanted to further the dialogue mainly to make a particular rejoiner, I would leave an opening for a counter from the first writer. This was akin to leaving the chest open if I wanted an attack there so I could counter with a favored technique. At times it was little jabs here and there, just playing to draw out the opponent and leave him completely unprotected — his arguments illogical and easy to break apart. Soon most trolls left me alone. It was a victory, but it wasn’t, not really.

 

The purpose for entering these frays should have been to create a soft and safe space, one where ideas could be exchanged so we could understand each other’s perspectives and begin to shift them. What I was doing was experimenting on how to shove others away, create and control my space, to dominate it so nobody could violate it. It is something we women do need to do in the real world too and I am glad I did it. 

 

But this stopped any give and take, any real dialogue, any possibility of co-operation and middle ground. It only increased the polarization. 

 

In the dojo when we do partner work it is with the intention of helping each other learn about our strengths and weaknesses so we can improve. It is never to overpower and show off our strength. When I had first started commenting I had hoped for intelligent and compassionate exchange but hadn’t found any. I was left hurting and sometimes scared. In the dojo it is possible to have this co-learning space because we trust each other. Will the same be possible in the real or ‘social media’ world?

 

Since I began learning karate whatever I learnt in the dojo helped me understand psychological dynamics within myself and within a relationship — whether it was contentious or harmonious. I often wonder if the wisdom of traditional karate can help in large group conflict transformation.

Any thoughts?

Shame and Courage

 May 18, 2022

 

I feel as fatigued and battered as a warrior returning from a fight. Though all I did was verbally battle Hindutva ‘boys’ on Facebook. 

 

Let me backtrack a bit. Yesterday on our weds morning chat, my artist friend agreed to join me in a retreat. The purpose of which was to move through our creative blocks. He had a clear idea about how he would start. One of his teachers had told him to break through a block he should go where he was most afraid, and so he chose portrait drawing. He is a conceptual artist who is in a phase where he fears he cannot do representational art anymore, though at one time he was very good at it. 

 

As we talked I disclosed that even though the retreat was my suggestion I had no idea of how I would use the time. I made vague noises, accompanied by a lot of hand gestures, about still exploring the contrasts of my yet uncertain and shaky writing practice and my fairly disciplined karate practice. I had some vague(r) thoughts on projects but mostly I was still ‘sharpening pencils in my studio’ it seemed. Though my friend said I was surfing the ocean, waiting for the right wave. All I knew is that I would spend my days with more attention and awareness of how I passed through time.

 

As I munched on my pasta with sun-dried tomatoes lunch, I surfed Facebook and made a casual comment on one of the articles I read — about how a militant Hindutva organization was providing arms training to its young cadre. This organization has been in the news for harassing religious minorities and instigating mobs to lynch Muslim men — over love jihad and unproven cow slaughter accusations. I said they should be banned as they were destroying the social fabric of India. An army of trolls quickly emerged to abuse me. 

 

Last week I had commented on an article on a group called the Trads, that believed in Upper Caste Hindu Male superiority, and their activities against women (this group set up the apps that auctioned Muslim women), other religions, and lower castes. A male troll had commented on my profile picture — one of me in a fitted tank and gi bottom, in a karate stance. ‘Look at you aunty, don’t you feel shame?’ He said, adding a line of emoji’s of those grinning faces, rolling around with tears of laughter popping out. 

 

I froze. Women have been shamed for so many things around their bodies — and I too have felt shame about my body for most of my life, since before I was even born perhaps. I wanted to rush and cover myself, to hide my body parts. To pick a demure picture, perhaps one that did not even have me in it. All through childhood and I guess even now I have been told about women who 'asked for it' because of the way they dressed, moved, sat, even when all that might be visible of them was their scared lowered eyes. I felt violated by the comment. 

 

I remembered a story I had read in my twenties. It was set in a village where a woman was gathering other women to stand up to the upper caste domination of the village. The leader, a patriarch, had ordered her captured and punished. His henchmen had tied her to a pole, stripped her and raped her repeatedly over days. The story had infused waves of horror and fear in me. Rape was a fate worse than death we women had been told. After two days the man had ordered the woman be brought to him. She was freed and clothes were thrown on her body by sneering men who had used her body. She had tossed the robes away and swayed naked and proud to the man’s ‘throne’, absolutely voiding the effects the man had hoped for. 

 

That story had reversed every single thing I had been told about rape being a woman’s shame. Of course the shame belonged entirely to the rapists and I reminded my ‘daughters’ about that daily after. 

 

I wrote a reply to that young man, I can’t remember what I said – probably just pointed out how his comment was irrelevant. He said, ‘It is your time to retire and take God’s name, not come out to fight with us young men.’ I had an image of an old woman sitting in a corner, thrown scraps of food if anyone felt like feeding her. He mentioned my clothes again and used the word shame a few more times. I didn’t respond but that goaded him to write a few more comments reiterating my shame. 

 

Yesterday a young man commented on my picture again. ‘So aunty does karate.’ Grinning emoji. He barraged me with mocking comments about karate and when I refused to engage he threatened that the likes of me would be obliterated. 

 

I think some sort of word was sent out and all day and night mostly young men began deriding me. I responded to a few, just to see their replies, and words such as pseudosecular, jihadist, leftist, began appearing quickly. Then  more like swine, poison, liberandu (a liberal who should be anally fucked) etc. spilled out. 

 

I stood back detached, going in to jab at something if I felt like, mostly just deflecting the words away. I think I wanted to test myself. How far I could stand tall and grounded amongst these creepy men. I wanted to shed that internal conditioning that felt shame if a man commented on my body, my now aging one that deserved even more to be covered or condemned by their standards. I wanted to be that woman in the story — bold, courageous and unfazed by male attempts to punish her. 

 

I couldn’t sleep till 4 am. Something inside was trembling from the felt threats of many lifetimes upon many women. Even as I post this the trolls are still trying to shame me, the milder ones for my thoughts, but definitely the undertones are that a woman needs to sit these battles out. I have a long way to go to shed the layers of shame and invisibility I have felt all my life, but each time one woman succeeds it is a step in the right direction  for both women and men. 

We Shall Not Cease from Exploration

 May 6, 2022

 

I made a couple of starts on a blog post during my first week back, but they fizzled, and I let them be. But in a WhatsApp conversation a friend said she was waiting for reflections of Bombay and so I sit here on my desk today trying to write a post again. 

 

I wrote this on Monday morning… Singapore welcomed me smoothly, gently, back. Immigration, baggage pick-up, and the cab back home were swift. But when I entered our apartment, I looked around as if I was entering an alien space. 'This is our apartment?' something asked. I had to survey the living room and anchor on the lone, slim bookcase in the right corner near the balcony, to reply, 'Indeed.'

 

It is that sense of entering an alien space that haunts. Is it the moment of arriving where I started and knowing something for the first time, like the TS Eliot quote, or is it losing a space of grounding and being less anchored than ever?

 

I’m still feeling overheated – literally. I met a friend for lunch yesterday after doing some training – basics and Sanseru. He messaged unexpectedly while I was on the zoom call with my artist friend. We hadn’t spoken for the three Wednesdays while I was in India and had a lot of catching up to do. I told my artist friend that despite having so many more things to do in Bombay, and subsequently less time, I had slowed down considerably internally. It was the first time this happened since March 2020. I said, 'I wrote 100 pages while I was there, though they might be drivel.'

 

I said, 'My major challenge now, which is connected to other decisions I might make about where I want to live, is to be able to replicate that slowing down here.' I also told him about the dark, sticky terror I felt while I was there, and of the inconsolable and uncontrolled meltdown on Sunday afternoon in Singapore. (I notice I want to write Singapore instead of Singy now?). Of course he had to know more about it all. 

 

I wish I could replicate that conversation as it moved from here to there. One of the things we discovered was how the filling of masalas and grains contributed to the slowing down. The timelessness of it, the sense of being part of an infinite cycle, of something bigger than myself, of the togetherness of millions of others doing the same thing, was one of the underlying factors that lead to a deep slow calm. I said, I’d have to read my writings while there to know what else — between the connections and missed connections, the closeness and the fights — lead to this. 

 

While we were chatting my Indian friend sent me a picture of the sea followed by a message that said ‘East Coast’. I hadn’t contacted him in Bombay, and I was happy that he was here. At the same time, I had plans to start work and this was interference. I decided that I needed to meet him. I wanted to know how we would connect after two years of barely any connection. 

 

We had lunch near the beach and talked about our processes during the pandemic. The losses —  physical and emotional, the following of the inner fears, the self-awareness or lack of it, and the noticing of how things, and people, wanted to move back to the way they were before — even if it meant a regression of sorts. We also could talk easily about politics in India, something we could never do as he is a Modi supporter. We didn’t agree on everything, but it was good to find some common ground and even better to disagree without the accompanying heat. 

 

I walked with him back to the spot he would cross-over to get to his daughter’s apartment. I should have gone with him and taken a bus back, but the sea tempted. I ended up with a moderate heatstroke, as the breeze and tree cover dropped and the sun scorched down. 

 

I need to find the courage to read the words I wrote in Bombay. There might be things I have learnt that I could use here. I know one of the things I did in Bombay was to go back to free-writing, in the mornings if I could. I also used the hour or the half hour I had between chores to do focused writing tasks. As usual the mind scattered not knowing where to begin. I noticed the fear, the terrible fear, perhaps of missing out if I picked one thing over another, but the lack of time forced the decision to pick and focus on one thing. 

I know two things. We need to not skip over the traumas and the learnings of the pandemic as we go back to normal. Time is limited and I can’t do everything I want to. Yet, I do feel that at the end of this ten-year exploration of Writing I am at some sort of beginning and I am knowing it for the first time.