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.