I make the best idlis in the world. But...

To anyone who knows me this heading would have seemed completely out of character. For one I don't cook. And certainly not well enough to boast about being particularly good at it. So why did I just make that tall claim? It was a certificate given to me by my 8-year-old this morning. Maybe because it was the first time I have ever personally made her favorite breakfast for her and she wanted to encourage me to keep it going. My reliable domestic help of many years quit after her children assured her she need not work for a living anymore. We are currently in the gap period between her leaving and finding a replacement for her. Out of necessity, I have now donned the cape of Cook, which I wear awkwardly and fully intend to bury once I have a new 'Chechi' who will make idlis for my children (even if they are not 'the best in the world').

My mother is in that league of mothers whose cooking everyone always lauded and talked of with great fondness (her physical condition does not allow her to cook much anymore). Neither of her daughters cook. And I don't mean can't. I mean don't. Choice. Of the conscious variety. Early in life, my sister and I realised we didn't particularly enjoy sweating it out in the kitchen - or the fact that whatever else we may do with our lives, we would still be judged on the tang of our Sambar or the shape of our chapathis. What do we normally do in households when a job turns up that we don't know how to do or prefer not to do by ourselves? Like plumbing. Or a blown fuse. Or gardening. We hire someone who knows how to do the job and pay them for it. That has pretty much been our policy on food from the time we became independent adults. We entrust the cooking to someone who knows how to do it and chose to do it to make a living. (I realise there are many interjections I need to make here - like the fact that everyone who chooses to make a living by cooking for others may not be doing it by choice either. They are putting a skill set to work and I respect that.) When I got married, in the initial days I thought I needed to fit into the definition of a 'good wife' and cook three meals for my husband every day. I tried. Neither my interest nor my patience lasted for long and my husband told me he would rather see me do the things I was skilled at or enjoyed doing rather than be tied up in the kitchen, trying to dish out meal after meal. In retrospect, I realise if things had not worked out that way at that point in time, I would have ended up a bitter and unhappy woman who resented her family for reducing her to "person-who-puts-food-on-the-table" over and above anything else I did with my life.

I have never quite understood this equation of women and cooking. When I joined the radio station I worked in for 7 years, one of my first assignments was to critique their popular celebrity interview segment. That particular week they featured two popular female singers who were to be married soon. To both of them, the interviewer put that most crucial question: So how are the cooking lessons going? Like it was a given that henceforth their lives were going to be all about feeding the men who were being so kind as to take charge of their lives. I raised the point in my report: why was it so crucial to know whether two successful independent women who made a mark with their singing could cook well enough to please their husbands?' A very incredulous RJ asked me, 'what is wrong with that? Isn't that what people want to know?' Years later, a prominent newspaper carried a story on newly elected women mayors after the local body elections. Every single profile of these women who were going to be the first citizens of their towns focussed on what they had cooked for breakfast that morning and how they intended to 'manage home and work at the same time' once they assumed office. I made a call to a sub editor I was acquainted with and told him I found it offensive that they had narrowed those women down to their kitchens on the day they had just been entrusted by the people of their town with the charge of running the town! He incredulously asked me, 'what is so offensive about that? That is what people want to know.' Really? Even before we know their views on the state of the roads and the garbage piling up all over? Does it validate our choice of Mayor to know that they are going to cook for their families first and foremost before they go about doing anything else? After the previous election, when a male mayor had assumed charge I don't remember reading about how he intended to balance his work and home or whether he would continue to stand in line to pay the electricity bill for his household henceforth (keeping with the gendered character of roles in households in general.) PS: this was before everyone started paying all their bills online ☺

A couple of years ago, my husband was featured in a magazine in an article on flat-life in Kochi. In addition to the standard questions on aspects of convenience and facilities and his ideas on decor was an innocuous looking question at the very end: which part of the apartment is best described as 'the' family space? The answer was this: 'The kitchen. When my wife is in the kitchen, cooking, we all tend to converge there to spend time together.' There was just a simple problem with this question. It was never actually asked or answered. I am guessing the interviewer, when writing his final draft, figured he should have included something in the family angle and threw in what he thought was a typical question to which there was only one typical answer. Except nothing could be less true in our household. We have never considered 'converging in the kitchen as my wife cooks' to be the definition of fun family times.

Now let me stress here that I am not in any way denigrating the art or the daily necessity of cooking or looking down on those who happily, willingly, do it three times a day, every day. I just have an issue with it being this gendered responsibility that is pushed down women's throats like that (along with procreation) is one of the reasons for their existing. Or the conception that marriage entails a man getting a free cook and housekeeper for life. Food is a basic necessity. Cooking is a life skill that any human being, male or female, should master, to the extent of being able to brew their own cup of coffee or tea in the mornings and a couple of life saving mini-meals like an omelette or 2 minute noodles (or whatever falls in your definition of survival food or a no-frills staving-off-hunger quick fix). Anything beyond that is - should be - based on individual choice and capabilities. Like music or dance lessons beyond the mandatory minimum that is taught in primary school. It is not a male/female thing. It is a human thing.

Everyone thinks their mother is the best cook in the world. My mother (and I think pretty much all mothers in the world would have said variations of this to their children) used to say it is because mothers mix love into the food they cook. I never wanted to be that mother. I mix my love into the time I take to read to my children, take them wherever they need to go, talk to them, tickle them, listen to them or in general be with them. Because there isn't just one kind of mother - the mother who makes the best idlis in the world. I am not her. Have never aspired to be her. Do not wish my daughters to grow up thinking they need to be her. 

Kadheen Chhe, Bhutan

I am not an avid traveller. I never expected a travel blog to be part of my repertoire. In fact, this is not a travel blog. But yes, it does involve travel. To one of the most magical places on Earth. Bhutan. The only item I had on my bucket list thus far.

A view of the 'Chortens' (Stupas) at Dochu La Pass

It's two months today since my fellow travellers and I descended back to the reality of everyday life after our 11-day sojourn of Bhutan. I can't believe it took my this long to get this blog out. It should have been so easy considering I was writing it in my head from about 9 months ago when we first started planning for it - our trip of a lifetime. I could have so easily put together a few pictures that - however inadequately - frame the natural beauty of the country and added a few glowing descriptions before the sun set on our return. And yet this was an experience that would not be so easily condensed. That is why I have written it and rewritten it over the past 8 weeks and each time been dissatisfied with the result. If I close my eyes and concentrate I can still feel the crispness of the Himalayan air on my skin and the distant sound of prayer flags fluttering in the wind. In two months I have come to realise that that is what Bhutan has really done for me - given me a taste of what tranquillity means. Given me a lifelong pass to escape into a moment that will forever be associated with peace and the purest joy that comes from deep within. Kadheen Che, Bhutan.

If you google the phrase 'Kadheen Chhe' you would probably not get any results. The official phrase for 'Thank You' in Bhutanese according to the Internet is 'Kadrin Che' but that was not the way Ringzin said it. Ringzin, our designated driver, in his dignified black 'Gho' and gel-slicked hair, spoke very little in the first few days of our travel. Then he heard us ask Sonam, our eager-beaver guide how to say thank you in Bhutanese and was not satisfied with the way Sonam answered our query. So he took it upon himself to teach us that one phrase. Every time he held the door open for us (which, charmingly, was every time we needed to get out of his sturdy car which proudly proclaimed 'Ring's' in white on the front glass) he would enunciate the phrase 'Kadheen Chhe' till we learnt to say it to his satisfaction and in place of our mechanical 'thank you's. Kadheen Chhe for that Ringzin. Ringzin and Sonam, our companions from the moment we were picked up at the airport to the moment we waved goodbye were so much a part of our experience of Bhutan that it would seem incomplete to write about that trip without mentioning them!

Bhutan was my first experience of the Himalayas. It was my first time away with girlfriends. It was the first time I ventured out of my comfort zone to try my hand at experiences like trekking, camping and river rafting. It was the first time I was leaving behind my two children for something as non-mandatory as a vacation. It was in many ways a milestone then. A journey that was much more than travelling from Point A to Point B - a 'journey' in the infinite meanings of that term which is what made it different from all the 'trips' I have been on so far and which made me feel this was something to write about. Bhutan was a dream I had nurtured in my heart for a really long time but in that corner of my dreams reserved for those I thought would never materialise. I hadn't read a lot about it. I hadn't seen a lot of pictures or documentaries on it. So I am really unable to say why and how this dream took root in my psyche. Like it was an important marker in my life that I needed to cross at some point. Like it was just meant to be. But how do I start this story?

The natural starting point, of course, is that morning I impulsively messaged P and S with this query: I have at different times spoken to both of you about going on a trip to Bhutan. So here is my question: would you be open to getting introduced to each other and thinking about whether all of three of us could plan the trip together? Suffice to say that within a few minutes, we had a Whatsapp group 'Mission Bhutan 2017' up and running, complete with a DP of that most iconic of Bhutanese images - Tiger's Nest Monastery, precariously poised on the ridges of a sheer, black cliff. This was to be our motif for longing, aspiration and dreams coming true in the days ahead. In a couple of days, we sat around a table and had our first cup of coffee together and dedicated ourselves to the task of travelling to the Land of the Thunder Dragon, sometime during the next school summer vacation which was eight months away. P and S have been friends from different facets of my life, both younger than me but closer in age to each other, so I found they easily vibed and in fact, hit it off so well that there were aspects of the trip when they were probably happier to have each other than just me for company.  I think the real starting point of this trip was the eagerness, shared in equal degree by the three of us, to not just visit an exotic destination but to be subject to the experience that the country that prides itself on its happiness quotient, has to offer. The intent. The desire. The motivation. Kadheen Che, P and S, for sharing, supporting and fully living my dream!

It was the on the morning of 29th April that we boarded the flight from Kolkata to Paro - the land of our dreams. As the flight took wing into mountains of clouds, we were acutely aware of the fact that any minute now we would have our first glimpse of the Himalayas. We did not have the good fortune to be seated on the left side - from where you get the best views. But even so, we were awed into silence as the mighty mountains of innumerable legends loomed on the horizon - as distant, as majestic, as perfect as you have always imagined. I felt the prick of tears in my eyes as I saw a perfect snow-capped peak rising taller than the others in that expansive range. It may have been the Kanchenjunga (which the pilot had announced we would get to see on the flight) but I can't be sure. It was the Himalayas and that was enough for me. It was an overwhelming moment - one that makes you feel like everything else in your life was simply leading you towards this day and this moment. Your first sighting of the Himalayas is no mean moment. It is a momentous occasion - like the day you get married. Or have your first child. To our right, there was nothing but walls of impenetrable white clouds and on the left, the spiny, black ridges with that one perfect snow cone in the horizon. Soon, too soon, the ranges disappeared from view and we were flying among the smaller mountains - so close that you could almost press your nose up against them! And before we knew it, we had landed on the tiny airstrip snuggled into a flat surface among tall hills - Paro airport. As we descended from the aircraft we could see that no one was hurrying towards the terminal to clear immigration or claim their baggage. Everyone was looking around in awe at the surrounding hills, hastily trying to imprint every moment on their phones or cameras and filling their hearts and lungs with every ounce of goodness in the Bhutanese air.

The greatest favour I did myself in the planning of this trip was that I had not saturated my mind with pictures of Bhutan. I was therefore happily surprised and wonder struck by everything! The country has a strict policy on architecture - everything, from hotels to monasteries and even the airport - are built in the ancient architectural style of Bhutan. So there is a visual symmetry to the country that is quite stunning! Whitewashed exteriors with intricately carved window frames, rimmed with red and black on which are golden paintings depicting the legends associated with Buddhism. No buildings are allowed to have over six stories so there is nothing that disrupts your view of the ubiquitous mountains and nothing that distracts from the sheer bounty of Nature that the country wraps itself in. The expansive, uninterrupted skies are a whole new experience, especially for us, hailing from the second most populated country on Earth and one of the most population-dense states therein. I did not want to take my eyes off the mountains for an instant if I could help it! Everything else - the ancient temples, the stately Dzongs (administrative headquarters) and Lhakhangs (temples/monasteries), the gigantic Buddha that rules the Thimphu skyline - all of it pales before the sheer blue of the sky and looming black of the mountains. From the airport in Paro, we were driven straight to the capital city of Thimphu. We would cover Paro - which is home to the Tiger's Nest monastery - in greater detail in the last few days of our trip.

If you ever get a chance to visit Bhutan but have only two days to spend there, I would strongly suggest you spend those two days in Thimphu. It is everything Bhutan has to offer, in a comfortable nutshell. There is the gigantic Buddha I mentioned before. There is the hike to the ancient Tango Monastery that offers a chiselled down version of the far more strenuous trek to Tiger's Nest. It has breathtaking views of the mountains around, lush green mountain vegetation, unexpected animal sightings, dramatic blooms and a monastery that makes you feel like you have just stepped into a long vanished past. It also has adorable dogs that accompany you on the trek for just a pat or two, taking away some of the tedium of being breathless and just a tad dizzy from the thin mountain air. On our trek, we were also fortunate to come upon a bunch of adorable puppies who were happy to be fussed over and carried around.

A dramatic view from the trail up to Tango Monastery

Takin - the national animal of Bhutan

Not to be missed in Thimphu is also the Takin reserve - the only enclosure in all of Bhutan where an animal is held in captivity. As Sonam explained, Bhutan being a strongly Buddhist community, the idea of a zoo is anathema but the Takin reserve is the sole exception for the simple reason that the Takin - a unique creature that looks like it is half-goat and half-cow - is the national animal with mythic origins and the only way for a visitor to have a view of one is to have a few in an enclosure. The reserve is pretty small and there are only a handful of Takin that you get to see but it is a worthwhile trip for a glimpse of the unique animal.

The Thimphu Dzong

The impressive Thimphu Dzong houses the offices of the King as well as the topmost officials of the administration. The Dzongs are part offices and part monastery housing the monks who head monastic affairs, just as Zhabdrung, the founder of the modern Kingdom of Bhutan envisaged it. What he did not lay down, but which makes Bhutan the last Shangri-La on Earth are certain principles the govern the deeply Buddhist country - they are the only carbon-negative nation on Earth and their constitution decrees that 70% of the country is to remain forested for eternity. No development may be planned which transgresses this basic principle. Which is why the air we breathe and the food we eat in Bhutan is probably of a quality that you don't find anywhere else on the planet right now. The two greatest industries in Bhutan are hydropower and tourism, both done with the greatest care to retain ecological balance as far as possible.

Having the luxury of 11 days before us, we probably spent more time in Thimphu than an average tourist would and so got the chance to experience the charms of the very simple but very cosmopolitan city. There are cafes with excellent pastries and coffee. We spent a few hours in a public square with very few people but with an outburst of overhanging yellow flowers and the whirr of prayer wheels. You could just sit there with a coffee and a book and be willingly suspended from all reality of everyday life! Our visit was in the beginning of the Monsoon in Bhutan but we were fortunate to have sunny skies and pleasant weather most days. Nights tend to get a bit chillier than the average South Indian is used to but Thimphu was also the best of our stops, weather wise. The day we arrived the mountains in the distance were dark and plain. The next morning there was a smattering of powdery snow on them. The changing vistas were as magical as you could imagine! There are a good number of pubs as well and on our night out with our hosts (the owners of the travel agency through which we booked our trip who happen to be friends of a good friend) we saw people let their hair down and have a good time to the music of young, local bands. We were quite charmed when our hosts opted to take a longer route than follow a stately black car which they told us belonged to the Queen who was probably out on a night time drive with her infant son. The Bhutanese practically worship their young King and Queen whose pictures greet you from every shop front and every public square and it was with the affection bestowed on a beloved family member that they decided to let the Queen and the little Prince have their privacy on the lonely highway. All too soon it was time to leave the cosy confines of Thimphu and move on to the whimsical valley of Punakha where the jacarandas bloomed and the glacial waters of the gentle River Mo Chhu beckoned us to step into its playful, icy waters.

The Stately Punakha Dzong

Punakha offered new images to soothe our mountain-addled brains. There were vast fields and ridges being readied for cultivation. The trek to the Temple of Fertility was more flat ground than we had seen so far in Bhutan. This quaint little temple with a wooden penis as its motif challenged and provoked Bhutanese morality at one point in history but now the penis is happily etched on walls and fences and penis shaped keychains and other collectibles are widely seen in all souvenir shops. The Punakha Dzong on the banks of the Mo Chhu is almost like a whole other world. While we were inside, preparations were on for a festival the next day and monks were busily decorating the rooftops with colourful cloth streamers. At one point a music started to play - I can't name the instruments and I can't describe the sound. Let's just say every person within the monastery stood transfixed as that haunting music whose source we could not see played as a background to the arrival of some high priest. It stopped as abruptly as it began but it took several moments for everyone to get back to whatever they were doing. P and S were busily trying to download that music back in our hotel room that night - it was that rivetting! But I doubt if it would have the same effect playing out over earphones as it would standing in a 17th century Buddhist Dzong, with monks milling around and prayer flags and cloth streamers fluttering in the wind. Bhutan to me has it own sound signature - you hear it everywhere - wherever you are in, in varying degrees. The population is too small and the country too overwhelmed by the hills and the winds for us to hear any of the din we are familiar with - human voices, traffic et al. In Bhutan the wind is the dominant force. And as human kind's tiny attempt to harness those unbridled forces of nature, everywhere you look you see prayer flags. Then there are the prayer wheels - at the end of each rotation, a pole on top of the wheel strikes a tiny little bell to indicate that it has completed a turn. The rhythmic striking of the bells, the flutter of the flags and the roar of the wind is Bhutan in a sound clip. It is what happiness sounds like.

On the trek to Khumsum Yulley Namgyal Chorten

Our third trek was again in Punakha - this one to a tranquil temple built in modern times atop a hill. The trek was through some dramatic landscapes and this one in addition to our treks to Tango and the Temple of Fertility truly prepared us for what was to be the highlight of the trip - the trek to Tatkshang - Tiger's Nest monastery. But that was to be only on the last day of the trip. Khamsum Yulley Namgyal Chorten offered some fantastic photo opportunities from atop the temple - there were snow capped peaks to one side and the river flowing through the valley on the other. After the trek we went rafting down the Mo-Chhu. For someone as inexperienced with anything to do with water as me, the Mo-Chhu was a comforting first time. The water was mostly gentle and knee deep - you could see the rrock-strewn bottom through the crystal clear waters - and there were only a few gentle rapids on the one and a half hour trip. Sonam told us once the summer started and the glaciers started melting there would be far more water and far more rapids than what we saw. For the more experienced and adventurous rafters, there is the 'male' river - the Pho-Chhu - which would join the Mo-Chhu before flowing as one before the magnificent Punakha Dzong. That night we camped on the banks of the Mo-Chhu just a short distance from the Dzong. It was a cloudy night with a light drizzle so my dream of counting the stars on a bright night by the riverside was not quite realised. But I can't complain, really There was so just so much magic on offer that one cloudy night could not cast a shadow on the grand spectacle that Bhutan laid out before us!

The one night in Bhutan that we did not really cherish was the one in Gangtey. A five-hour drive along treacherous mountain roads still under construction was a deviation from our otherwise idyllic sojourns. The area itself was a Swiss-village-like setting high up in the mountains but by the time we got there we were so tired that the cold, wet, misty and depressing landscape did nothing to brighten our spirits. Bang opposite the modest lodgings we were put up at was an ancient monastery. This one was slightly different from the temples and monasteries we had seen on our trip so far. It houses stockpiles of weapons from ancient marauding/war/hunting days. It had the dankness of an unpleasant history swirling within its dark and gloomy interiors. The icing on the cake was when our guide pointed out a life-size effigy and claimed it was the actual mortal remains of a witch killed by one of the high priests of the temple centuries ago. In our cold hotel rooms that night, seemingly cut off from civilisation and surrounded by foggy mountains and a corpse, we found it difficult to sleep. Adding to the misery was our fear that the power would go off and not return. The huge candles in the rooms were our first indication that this was a place where power cuts were a regular occurrence. Around 7.30 pm there was a knock on my door and a pale and unsmiling face at the door said: Please come for dinner. 'But it's too early for dinner,' I protested, ' we would like to eat by 8.30 if that is ok with you.' 'Power go. No surety. Please have dinner now' the face said without a flicker of expression. In my mind, this visual has the lady holding up a flickering candle that throws a ghostly glimmer on to her face. I know this can't be true because in fact the power stayed put during our stay and there was no need to light a candle. But somehow the picture seems more apt with the candles and the shadows. I wearily informed P and S that we needed to head down for an early dinner. That night the three of us talked late into the night, huddled up in one room until we realised we were all a bit spooked by the whole thing and were somehow reluctant to go back to our own rooms. The realisation made us laugh and finally, we decided to call it a night. Sonam said we needed to leave by 7 in the morning. We asked him to make it 6.30. Morning dawned on a pristine valley full of rhododendrons and thin veils of mist. As we drove away from Gangtey we realised that the reason this place was on our itinerary was that it was so stunningly beautiful. We stopped for a few pictures of the rhododendrons and a yak we spotted on a hill. Maybe it was the weather. Maybe it was the sheer length of the drive or the fact that it was colder than we had experienced in Bhutan thus far. Gangtey left us with a bitter taste in our mouths that place itself does not deserve at all! Maybe another time, another day would have made quite a different impression.

A view of the Jomolhari Peak from Chele La Pass

After Gangtey we went back to Paro for the final leg of our trip. Paro offered two of the most unforgettable destinations - Chele La Pass and Tiger's Nest. Chele La offers the most stunning views of the Himalayas that you get to see in Bhutan. You see the glimmering snow capped Jomolhari - the tallest peak situated within Bhutan along with a few others among the 8000+ meter peaks of the Himalayas. The day we went, the skies were a stunning blue and the sunlight danced off the distant row of peaks. Chele La is the highest motorable road in all of Bhutan. The winds tend to be really chilly. Get yourself a cup of tea from the roadside stall and take a few minutes to wander off by yourself. Standing there among the tall white flags fluttering in the wind, watching the endless Himalayan peaks on the horizon is the closest I have experienced to a Zen moment. It is the nearest I have come to meditation. You don't need to consciously purge yourself of thoughts. It is a moment where the silence that fills you on the inside holds all the words you will ever need. The vastness of the Universe and your place in it all. The skies. The mountains. And tiny, tiny you.

Taktsang or Tiger's Nest Monastery in Paro

In preparing for our trip to Bhutan, the biggest hurdle in my mind was the trek to Tiger's Nest Monastery. This was the image that represented Bhutan to me. So there was no question of not attempting it. And yet, everything I had read about that particular trek was intimidating, especially to someone so unused to physical activity in all my living life. I have never played a sport or run a mile. My only advantage was that I had always enjoyed walking long distances. I was travelling with two women much younger and fitter than me and it was a personal challenge to not let my fitness levels be a stumbling block or even a speed breaker for my fellow companions. I set a challenge for myself - I would lose 4 kilos off my excess weight and be perfectly fit for this climb. I have never worked so hard and so systematically on something since I crossed the age for competitive exams. I started walking in the mornings, gradually increasing my capacity from 2 kilometres in half in hour to 6 kilometres in 45 minutes. I downloaded a health app and started tracking my calories. I learned to increase my intake of protein and fibre and cut down on the carbs and fats. I started attending an aerobics class. This was from about 4 months before our trip. When the day of our trip dawned, the weighing scale showed only a loss of two kilos but my body told me a different story. I felt more energetic than I had in a really long time. I was ready.

The trek to Tiger's Nest had specifically been pencilled in for the last day of our trip, knowing we would probably not have the energy for anything more after that. We set out nice and early. From the starting point, the monastery high up in the hills looked almost impossible to reach. It was a chilly day and I was wearing a jacket. In about five minutes the jacket came off - such was the heat of the effort. We encountered several people who had given up half way. We saw some go up on horseback - which you can do only until what is generally considered a half way point but which from our experience is more like one third of the way - the only cafe on the route. We sat at the cafe and looked up at the gleaming cliff ahead of us. No way we were turning back! We stuck to it and steamrolled our way ahead. Past the boulders and mud trails. Past the impossible inclines and the few blessed stretches of flat ground. Past the seemingly unending flight of stairs at the very end of the trail. Past the ice cold waterfall just before the entrance to the monastery. And up the final flight of stairs into the very chamber where Guru Padmasambhava flew in to meditate atop his tigress consort. As we breathed in the trapped air from medieval days in a chamber hewn out of the black rocks, we stopped for an instant to contemplate on what this trip had meant to each of us. S chose to seat herself in one of the many meditation chambers for a while. P and I sat on a stone bench outside the temple, looking at the mountains around us and the valley below in absolute, companionable silence. We had done it. Climbed up Tiger's Nest. And our sojourn of Bhutan was at its glorious end. We did not feel the ache in our limbs or the hunger in our stomachs as we descended from our 8 hour trek (not everyone takes 8 hours - we just decided to take our own time with the climb as well as within the temple). As we sat together with Sonam and Ringzin for a final cup of coffee together at a Paro cafe, we knew we had seen as much as our eyes could take in and experienced as much as our souls could assimilate. We had truly, truly tasted the happiness that Bhutan represents for one and all.

For a woman with two small children aged 8 and 3 to up and leave for 12 days is not an easy task. For a woman to want to break free from it all and just immerse herself in the pursuit of her own little piece of the sky is a dream that all women nurture, I discovered on my return. All it took was a picture or two on Facebook for several of my women friends to reach out and say (1) how much they envied me for being able to take that step (2) how much they would have liked to do the same and (3) to be sure to let them know if I ever planned on such a trip again. So let me first answer that question that several people had on their minds when they heard about this - how did the kids manage? The answer is: remarkably well. For two kids whose days start with a good morning kiss from their mother and end with cuddling to sleep with her, yes, sure, they missed me. But they did not break down. Did not feel betrayed/abandoned/unhappy. They adjusted to getting their morning kisses from their dad and cuddling to sleep with their grandmother (which they often do when I am home as well). Yes, I was lucky to have a supportive husband and mother and a well-established support system in place when I embarked on this trip. But I think the important thing is to allow yourself to believe that the children are not going to be damaged by your absence. Just as they learn to adapt when you travel on work or other emergencies, just as they learn to adapt to their father's absences for work, they will also adapt to this and there will be no lasting effects on their emotional makeup. As long as they know for a fact that you are coming back and will continue to love them just as much as you always did. Did I miss them? Of course, to the point that my eyes misted over when I witnessed a surprise birthday party for a little girl on holiday with her family at breakfast in the hotel one day. But did it cloud my experience of enjoying the trip I had wanted for so long? Judge me if you will, but the answer is not at all. So Kadheen Che, my beautiful children and my understanding family for letting me be. Oh, and in case you are wondering, the promise of gifts works beautifully on keeping the children happy in your absence.

So at the end of the day, what did travelling to Bhutan really leave me with, other than an enviable treasure trove of memories of glorious landscapes? It reinforced the belief that I am in control of my own time and aspirations. It gave me an uncluttered space within my mind where I can escape to, wherein I hold the bliss of a Bhutanese mountainside trapped for eternity. And most importantly, it told me I can still challenge myself, push myself to go beyond my self-styled limitations and feel the rush of achieving something I have worked hard for.

Bhutan to me will always be what Serenity looks, feels and sounds like. It has the emerald texture of a tiny pristine landscape sandwiched between the mountains. It feels like the icy touch of a drop of dew on a misty morning. And it sounds like Himalayan winds rustling prayer flags with the rhythmic sounding of bells from prayer wheels.

When the Traffic Ceased

Mekha is my next door neighbour, patient listener to my mother's nostalgic ruminations, my late night chat buddy and my children's dearest playmate. I wish she had not moved in next door. I would much rather she had remained the unexpected visitor at the unexpected hour because that would mean loudness, laughter, drama, shrill arguments and endless, meandering conversation over a dinner of whatever could be rummaged out of the kitchen. It would have meant her husband was going to be holed up in my husband's room for the next several hours while we tried to stay awake and keep the conversation going. It would have meant Rajesh was still alive.

Rajesh Raman Pillai. The wonder kid of Malayalam cinema who picked himself up from the ashes and carved a niche for himself against all expectations. The man who used every public platform ever made available to him, to remind himself and anyone who cared to listen that my husband was his best friend and mentor. The man who burst into tears before me one night long ago when he was just Rajesh: the man who stole my evenings with my husband in the early years of our marriage.

Sanjay and I are not the particularly sociable types - we have never considered it essential to befriend each other's friends. To us, it would have been perfectly normal if Rajesh had just remained someone who came to meet Sanjay to discuss work, greeted me politely on his way in and went about his business. But within a couple of months of our first meeting, he was walking into the kitchen demanding cookies and juice and quite ruthlessly plonking himself in our home and our lives. He then had one flopped movie behind him and was in the process of directing a comedy series on television that was not exactly doing too great. I still remember that excruciating evening when he came home to show the series to Sanjay. I was just back from a hard day at work and could not have asked for anything more than to be left alone. I found the series agonisingly boring and my entire being was screaming on the inside to get away and for him to leave. I slowly reached for a magazine from the coffee table and began flipping through it when Sanjay discreetly nudged me with his foot behind the cover of the coffee table. Rajesh was completely oblivious to my discomfiture as I cursed him with all my might and put down the magazine to turn my attention to the screen once again. I wondered if he had noticed the exchange between my husband and me. He had. And we laughed about it many a time in the years hence.

Rajesh was unlike anyone I have ever known before or after him. He had no qualms about asking the most personal questions. But he asked them with such genuine earnestness that you did not feel offended. And he was generous with his own secrets too. At times embarrassingly so. He also demanded his share in our time. In our scheme of things. One night as he was leaving late in the night he remarked that his wife had been telling him he should not be intruding so much into our time and space. His solution was to bring Mekha along the next time he came over, to keep me company while he hogged my husband's attention. The four of us started going to the movies together. We paid courtesy calls to each other's houses when our families came to visit. Slowly, they were becoming our surrogate family in a city far from home. When my mother took ill on a night that Sanjay was away, I did not think twice before reaching out to Rajesh for help. For that entire night, Rajesh and Mekha sat with me in the hospital corridor disregarding my plea to go home and come back in the morning. This was also the beginning of a deep emotional bond between my mother and Rajesh who saw in her something of his own mother whom he had lost a few years earlier.  When I discovered I was pregnant, it was Rajesh who drove all the way to Kochi to bring Sanjay home the next day. I had the privilege of naming their cute little pug Ringo Starr. Somewhere in the middle of all this, Traffic happened.

When Sanjay first said that he and Bobby (his brother and co-writer whom I call Bobby Cheta) had decided to write a script for Rajesh, I was not too thrilled with the idea. Standing at the periphery of their friendship, I could only think of Rajesh's previous flop movie and that atrocious series I had been forced to sit through, not to mention his temperamental flip flops and extreme sensitivity. 'His vision is far above the person he projects himself to be,' Sanjay said, 'and I am excited to collaborate with that vision.' As their discussions progressed and Sanjay shared the ideas that emerged thereon with me, I realised I had judged him wrong. But as it happened, Bobby and Sanjay were also working on another movie at that time - Casanova. As that movie took longer than anticipated and Sanjay started spending longer and longer periods in Kochi with the Casanova team, back in Trivandrum Rajesh started getting restless. Around that time I also had to move back home to Kottayam owing to some complications in my pregnancy. A couple of months later, we made a short visit to Trivandrum and I was seeing Rajesh after a considerable gap of time. As soon as he got home, Sanjay and he got into a heated exchange on the delays in their proposed project. As usual, I retreated to the background as they argued into the night. Then Sanjay went off into his room to answer a phone call. Rajesh requested I come to the sitting room. He knelt beside me, took my hands in his and burst into tears. I was appalled, embarrassed and a bit uncomfortable. 'Why is he doing this to me? Please tell him not to put my film off any longer. This movie is my life,' he sobbed. Rajesh knew I never meddled in Sanjay's work. That did not stop him from entreating me to convince Sanjay to prioritise his movie over the others he had committed to beforehand. That memory is seared deep into my consciousness - it was perhaps the first time I realised Rajesh gave me far more regard than I had imagined. That beyond the incessant jibes about my supposed haughtiness and penchant for watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S on TV, Rajesh considered me as someone he could bare his most vulnerable self to.

The day Traffic released is, of course, a milestone in all our lives. The night before had been rife with drama as last minute complications threatened to halt the release. When Rajesh was involved, drama was bound to follow!  But Traffic was Rajesh's offering at the altar of cinematic history that no force of destiny could thwart. Hurdles were magically cleared for the release almost as though nothing could hold back Rajesh Pillai anymore - his moment had come and nothing could stand in his way! As reports started coming in about audience response from across Kerala, one could see Rajesh truly blossoming. By the end of the first screening, as theatres burst into applause and standing ovations, Rajesh was truly transformed. He was no longer the anxious, bumbling wreck. His phone was ringing off the hook. For the rest of the day he was hopping around like an excited bunny answering phone call after phone call, accepting congratulatory messages with flair and unabashedly enjoying his moment in the sun. Success blended into him so smoothly and naturally, it was like it was always meant to be!

After Traffic, Rajesh had fully expected that his next movie would also be scripted by Bobby and Sanjay. Unfortunately, that was not to be. They already had a few other commitments lined up. But then who was to know that Rajesh was not going to stick around and wait? Sometimes faith - in the simple expectations we have about the future - is our greatest weapon in facing life. Somehow we all had the faith that in our seventies, Rajesh would still be pouting, complaining and sitting at our dinner table late in the night, hogging cookies and juice. When Sanjay told Rajesh to go ahead with Mili instead of waiting indefinitely for him, he had the supreme confidence that he and Rajesh had many more movies to realize together. In those days, every time he came home Rajesh would beseech me, 'please tell your husband to write a script for me before taking up other commitments.' As usual I would smile and shrug and he would start hyperventilating about how I was uncaring and arrogant. Then Rajesh did Mili. And Vettah. He was pushing his creative boundaries and charting new territories in movie making through each one though he did not complain any less about how Sanjay was making him wait.

After the heady Traffic days, when all the rest of the team had moved on with their lives, Rajesh took his time to pause and reflect on what he wanted to do next. His reluctant brush with the Hindi film world through the Hindi remake of Traffic took him away to Mumbai for close to two years. He returned unfulfilled and unhappy and probably with the first indications that something was going wrong with his body. When he started working on Mili Rajesh was once again his bustling, energetic and yes, hyper-dramatic self. But somewhere inside of him, the energy was beginning to flag. In the initial days, it was almost comic - the tantrums he would throw about having to get a blood test, the playacting we all had to do to get him to go for a check-up. Emotional blackmail was the order of the day. There was the time he refused to get a blood test and Sanjay told him not to show himself at our house till he had got it done. As expected, Rajesh headed straight over. Sanjay and Mahesh (Editor/Scriptwriter/Director and another integral part of the team) left the house before he arrived with a helpless Mekha in tow. It was left to me to tell Rajesh in the sternest of terms that they refused to see him till he had got the blood test done. I scolded him like a child and he listened like one with bowed head. Finally, when my mother joined in the admonishment he agreed to go. Theirs was another strange equation - the kind that only Rajesh was capable of forging! From the initial days when he would sneak in chocolates and magazines to her, the bond grew to the point where she was the first person he needed to see every time he was out of the hospital. At that point in time, there was only one agenda on our all minds: get Rajesh to eat healthy, lose weight and get his blood tests and checkups on time and we were all Mekha's willing accomplices in pleading, berating, yelling and prodding Rajesh along that route. Little did we all know at that point that the comedy and playacting would soon be replaced by real, impossible-to-ignore pain and prolonged bouts of hospitalisation that would leave Rajesh incapable of even protesting anymore.

Hospitals. Needles. Surgeries. Everyone dreads those. But with Rajesh it was no ordinary dread. It was wide-eyed, childlike, undiluted fear. But over a period of time, we painfully watched him get resigned to it all. Slowly it dawned on us all that healthy eating habits and losing weight were not going to change anything for him - not anymore and not at this stage. We found fewer arguments to bolster his confidence as his vigour, his vitality and his zest for life started sinking, irretrievably. Then came the day the doctor told him he had only six months more to live. Eyes brimming over, he told us over the dinner table that he was scared as a dispassionate Mekha sat next to him, trying to make light of it. We loudly protested the insensitivity of that doctor and the utter senselessness of that prediction. We starting discussing the possibility of a liver transplant. In the privacy of his writing room, Rajesh confessed to Sanjay that he had begun to accept the inevitability of fast approaching death. There was only one assurance he needed: Please be there for Mekha.

Through all the pain, all the hopelessness, Rajesh made one more film - Vettah. Whatever was left of his energies and spirit he poured into Vettah, perhaps fully aware that it would be his last. There were several bouts of hospitalisation in between. He pulled himself out of his hospital bed each time to get back to work and he continued to do it right till the day of Vettah's release. Sanjay and Mahesh were making enquires about the liver transplant and they had Rajesh's word that he would go with them to Chennai once Vettah was released. From the days of Traffic, Rajesh and Sanjay had a ritual - on the release of either of their movies, they would watch the first day, first show together. After wrapping up the movie in Trivandrum, Rajesh insisted on travelling to Kochi to watch Vettah together. He was so unwell at that point that the only way the doctors consented to his travel was by ambulance. And the ambulance was to take him directly to the ICU of PVS Hospital. It turned out to be the last journey of his life.

That night when Sanjay told me Rajesh was hospitalised yet again, I was impatient, angry and not feeling too kindly towards him. Just that afternoon, when we heard about his foolhardy trip by ambulance, I had told Sanjay, 'if this guy does not get his act together and get that transplant, he is not going to be around much longer.' As I said those words, I did not believe it was going to happen. You say such things out loud only when you think that eventuality is impossible. Never going to happen. It was just another statement I would probably have said to his face to bully him. 'Rajesh is in the ICU' Sanjay said and something in his voice made me realise this was not one of those times to get angry. Sanjay was preparing to say something and it was with great difficulty that he got the words out: 'It looks like he may not come out of this, this time.' Those words went into my heart like a red-hot knife. This was nothing like the impatient exchange we had shared that afternoon. This was the ugly reality we had been dreading for the past few months. A reality that was leaving deep, deep furrows in our souls as it was being uttered and heard. Sanjay is not one to exaggerate. He is not one for drama. He uses his words sparingly and carefully. So I knew he would not utter those words without reason. The end we had dreaded but thought was a long way away was actually upon us. The big man was actually going to leave. It was a haze of tears and pain after that. Somewhere in the middle of it all, Rajesh breathed his final gusts of air and his heart beat its final, flamboyant beats. And then he was gone. Into a silence that was never like him. Into a journey from which he would never again return in the middle of the night to disturb our sleep.

After he had been taken away, I realised there were things I should have told him but never did. That when we moved to Kochi from Trivandrum he and Mekha were topmost on my list of things I would miss. That somehow - somehow - he had managed to make me realise he meant more to me than I have ever acknowledged. That somehow - somehow - he had managed to make me cry. That I would never be able to repay him for the trust with which he shared his secrets. For the unconditional acceptance of who I was. For the needless and unsolicited affection. For the unstated respect. Rajesh - you could have just been my husband's best friend. You unnecessarily, uninvited, made yourself a part of my family.

I have seen Rajesh being described as a 'child-man'. I have heard people claim he shed tears when they left after a short meeting with him. Following his brutally abrupt death, I read about people who were perplexed, overwhelmed, agitated, confused or just plain fascinated with him. He was capable of eliciting those reactions and more. Even from me, the wife of the man he declared in every interview he ever gave, meant the world to him. It was a strange friendship - my even tempered, introverted husband and this boisterous, tempestous extrovert; the quiet, brooding writer and the flamboyant, mercurial director. On Rajesh's passing, my husband was approached to write a piece in his memory. He refused. For one, he could never begin to capture in words what Rajesh had meant to him. And for another, the act of putting a tribute on paper would have meant closure, an acceptance of the finality of death. Wherever Rajesh is right now, I can almost picture him - pouting, seething, complaining - "Annaa! You refused to write about me? How could you?" Rajesh - this is the tribute Sanjay will never write for you. These are the stories I would like to add to the many that have already been written about you. Who would have thought, that day when I was forced to watch that horribly boring series you had directed, that you would one day fill up pages in newspapers and be a 'trending' topic on social media the day you left everything behind in a world that could not quite contain you? Who would have thought I would be writing a piece in your memory? Not you or me, that's for sure!

Rajesh Raman Pillai was not my friend. I did not know the workings of his tumultuous mind or his sensitive heart. I did not spend hours with him holed up in a room, laughing like mad at his anecdotes or witnessing his eccentric breakdowns over the most seemingly trivial things. I only watched from the sidelines. And occasionally sparred with him over why the radio station I then worked in would not promote his films or why I preferred to watch American comedies on tv rather than a Malayalam series. But at least on a few occasions, he bared his soul to me - shared some of his innermost feelings and fears, hopes and insecurities with me. I don't know if I would have done the same with him some day. But I hate that he did not leave me that option, that feeling that somewhere out there, there would have been someone to talk to. I have depended on him, trusted him, wept for him. But I resent the fact that he did not give me the opportunity to tell him I did care. Far more than I have ever expressed. That I did not just see him as an affable friend of my husband. And that for the rest of our lives, we are going to have those fleeting moments when we involuntarily think or say out loud 'imagine if Rajesh had heard this.' The moments we feel 'if only Rajesh had been here to see this'. And definitely, all those moments in the future when we are going to think 'Rajesh should have been here today.' He should have.

My Name is Nayar

Caste surnames have been grabbing headlines in the most shameful manner in the past couple of days (not that they have ever been too far from the headlines in our country!)

Lakshmi Nair, principal of a reputed institution - a Law College of all places! - is reported to nurture a caste bias so enormous she has Dalit students pulled out from their classrooms to report to work at her restaurant. A forward on Whatsapp said: After Saritha Nair, Reshmi Nair and now Lakshmi Nair, people may want to drop that Nair surname.

Sanjay Leela Bhansali gets beaten up by Rajput goons over a supposed distortion of history (or rather the version of history which has their seal of approval).  And actor Sushanth Singh Rajput dropped the Rajput surname on Twitter in a show of solidarity with the director.


My family has an interesting relationship with surnames. My father Venugopalan Nayar had the spelling of his traditional caste surname Nair officially corrected to Nayar because he felt that was more phonetically accurate. My father was the eldest of eight siblings. The remaining seven did not have to bother with the spelling correction because they were not named Nair at all! The seven of them have the surname Bose. Reason? My grandfather apparently was an admirer of Subhash Chandra Bose and decided to show his admiration by adopting his surname for his children. My father at that time was old enough to voice his opinion and politely declined the patriotic fervour but the rest of the brood did not get a chance to voice theirs (if any). So I have a set of Uncles, Aunts and cousins with the surname Bose. I had a tough time during my school days convincing my friends that Anand Bose (a prominent IAS officer who was often in the news in those days) was really my Uncle! And he, in turn, used to laugh about how people he met often found it difficult to reconcile his very South Indian complexion with his very Bengali name!

I had decided way before I got married that I would retain my own name until the end of my days. I have never understood the concept of a 'maiden name' and a 'married name'. To my mind, a person's identity has a lot of elements that you don't get to choose. By the time you reach the age of legal maturity you have already lived with your name, sex, religion and usually, nationality for quite a while, built relationships on that basis and established your identity in a variety of documents as required by the laws of the land. Of course, people get to change aspects of their identity and many do so for a variety of reasons. But I have never wanted to do that. I hated the name Anjana as a child and really really wanted to get it changed to something more whimsical - like an Anjali! I mean, there are songs in movies dedicated to heroines named Anjali! Couldn't my parents have spared just a moment considering options that were so close by before they settled on the prosaic, plain, unromantic Anjana? I considered it highly unfair on their part! The caste proclamation in my surname was not something that bothered me at that point. By the time I was grown up I realised I had to make my unhappy peace with the name everyone knew me by and that was that. Marriage did not seem to me to be a starting point in life quite as dramatic as birth that it would require me to start life over with a whole new identity. So Anjana Nayar I stayed. By this time I was aware of the caste overtones to my surname - but just as I could not start over with a whimsical first name I also did not think I could pull off a pretty surname. The Nayar in my name is the one remaining link to my father that I cannot and will not part with.

My husband's name on his official documents is Sanjay Cherian. Mostly everyone knows him as just Sanjay. Except where required for official purposes, he prefers to go without a surname as he does not believe in declaring his religious background (which is unambiguously revealed by his surname) in unwarranted situations. Since I did not believe in changing my surname despite its caste overtones and he did not believe in flaunting his, we had a difficult time finding a suitable appendage to our children's names. At the outset we decided that we did not want them to carry the collective burden of their mixed lineage with awkward hyphenated appellations like Nayar-Cherian or Anjana-Sanjay or worse, Chittezham-Kunnel (!!!) We considered giving them just first names but then we read about complications arising from leaving the surname column blank on passports. So we came up with a new name altogether that would be their own unique identity - Jayna. Our children are called Antara Jayna and Akshara Jayna. The Jay is part of Sanjay's name and the Na is part of mine. If anything, it denotes who their parents are - minus burdens of religion, caste or even geographical location. Jayna, we felt was a name, that if it sounds at all like anything familiar, sounds like an Indian name but without any further reveals. So our children are free to go about the business of life hopefully without anyone forming any impressions about them from their name.


I lived at least twenty-five years of my life without ever thinking about the import of carrying a caste tag around as part of my identity. I never gave any thought to the fact that I was declaring my caste credentials every time I introduced myself to anyone. In the wake of Rohith Vemula's eye opening letter preceding his tragic suicide, there was a lot of commentary on caste and how it permeates our society in ways that none other than the victims are even aware of. But the most arresting of those, to me, was one which said 'don't claim to empathise with something you have no idea about.' It was like a slap in the face. Yes, I have lived my life as an upper caste Hindu with a name that proclaimed me as such. I don't know if my surname - a decidedly, openly, unabashedly casteist one - has opened or shut any doors to me. I am thankful for the fact that I never had to find out. Unfortunately, that did not mean I was unaware of such a phenomenon as caste based discrimination.


My mother and my grandmothers before her had a distaste for people whose caste identities could not be assuaged from their names. They belonged squarely to the generations that judged people based on their family background. My Christian and Muslim friends found more favour with my mother than the so-called 'lower castes'. I could not fathom how that made a difference in a bunch of teenage girls: all equally prone to fits of giggling, all dressed equally gaudily in what was considered the fashionable style of the time, all with the same fears and insecurities and all with the same urge to bunk tuition and gather at the ice cream parlour next to the college after class. I remember my brother, sister and me all waging battles with my mother over unwarranted assumptions about some of our friends and to her credit, she did start rethinking the conventional wisdom of judging people by their backgrounds when all three of her children started questioning it. I have seen her take the effort to hold back her 'considered' opinion about people since I was clear I did not want my children to be exposed to such notions - such as Caste X being untrustworthy or Caste Y being low on hygiene. Truly, "the value of a man reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility!" But when my cousins and I were children, we thought it was quite normal for people to be addressed by their caste names - depending on the chore they performed. The respectful 'Uncle' and 'Aunty' tags were only for people above a certain station in life and it was considered perfectly alright for an 8-year-old child to address the 75-year-old lady who used to sweep the courtyard by her name and her caste tag. I am so grateful such 'traditions' have almost died a deserved and inevitable death! Almost.

While the bogey of caste within a traditional Nair household like ours was visible and unapologetic - lending itself to being identified and snuffed out with greater ease, the less obvious formations are all around us and less susceptible to quick annihilation. During my time at National Law School where I got myself a Masters Degree in Law, I was once asked by one of my teachers - 'are Nairs the Brahmins of Kerala?' I answered in the negative, wondering if that answer had any bearing on how he would treat me in future (or how he had treated me till then, which was very favourable). I did not have further occasion to think it had any bearing on anything but I wish that question had not been asked and that that question did not form part of my memories of that institution which redefined education and thinking for me. I remember that at the graduation ceremony at that institution a whole array of medals are awarded to students. The reasons for each being awarded are read out as they are given away. Among them was one - the Director's Prize - which was awarded without any criteria being announced. I found out after attending two of those ceremonies that this was for the candidate who scored the highest marks from among students in the reserved categories. The reason I found out about this the year I graduated was that the student who was to be awarded that prize refused to accept it as (if I remember right) she was already eligible for some other awards in the merit categories and she did not feel that this one was of any particular relevance to her list of accomplishments. As far as I understand, the said prize was thereafter discontinued. And this was within the highest citadel of legal learning in the country - an institution that prides itself on teaching its students to pick apart the constitution and equips them to fight against all forms of discrimination.

I cannot imagine the humiliation of students forced out of classrooms to wait on tables at the Principal's restaurant. I cannot bring myself to think that there are Rohit Vemulas silently enduring insufferable, soul-searing insults within our classrooms. I cannot understand the world of caste privilege - or any other kind of privilege - that allows that to happen. We live in a world where parents are forced to think about the likelihood of their children being detained as adults at airports when they pick a name. So we have more and more cosmopolitan, implications-free names abounding in kindergartens now. And that is as it should be. Let another wall fall as newer ones are being built. I kept my 'Nayar' tag but I have ensured the caste tag is not propagated through me. That is the least I can do.

Who is afraid of the F-Word?

Another headline about sexual assault - this time in public and involving a whole crowd of revellers on New Year's eve in one of India's most cosmopolitan cities. Another round of chilling statements about women's clothes and their startling, conscious choice to be outside of their homes with male partners who were not their husbands or brothers. In the meantime, India's superstar Shahrukh Khan says in an interview for a women's magazine: "Why a feminist? I would love to be a woman!" You cannot and need not be a woman, Shahrukh. Being a feminist would do just fine. Because we could do with a few more of those in these trying times.

What are the images the word 'feminist' brings to mind? Your sharp-tongued colleague who has no friends? The kurta-clad activist who does not speak about anything you can relate with? Unreasonable women with insufferable attitudes? Stop and think beyond the cliches for just an instant! If you came to know that your mother or sister or wife or best friend was, in fact, a closet feminist, would it make you uncomfortable? Why? I have seen people struggle with the word as well as the concept; seen women hastily add the line 'not that I am feminist or anything' after having spoken out about something that offended their sense of fairness and seen men scoff 'but then you would say that: you are, after all, a feminist.' Like it was a bad word. Like it made one a peculiar kind of person. Like it took away from one's otherwise likeable personality, somehow.

I have always wished people would not be so wishy-washy about the term. Even an otherwise articulate and outspoken woman like Meryl Streep feels the need to defend her feminism with the shield of 'humanism' not wanting to pin herself down to the label of 'feminist.' Sarah Jessica Parker proclaimed she was no feminist but she 'believed in gender equality.' Kim Kardashian is aware that "a feminist is someone who advocates for the civil and social rights and liberties of all people, regardless of their gender; anyone who believes that women should have the same choices and opportunities as men when it comes to education and employment, their bodies and their lifestyles." But that did not stop her writing a heavily shared essay on why she herself was NOT one. Closer home Priyanka Chopra, Katrina Kaif and Parineeti Chopra have all proudly declared their 'non-feminist' credentials. These are all intelligent, successful, influential women. Difficult to imagine they did not know what they were talking about. 

And then there is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - perhaps the best-known feminist in the present day. After writing 'The Feminist Manifesto For Our Daughters' and 'We Should All be Feminists', a short essay which has been made mandatory reading for all 16-year-olds in Sweden, Adichie became the face of a UK-based cosmetics company. I cannot think of a more thrilling, empowering, revelatory moment for feminism in recent times!










I wore my first 'I am a feminist' t-shirt when I was in National Law School, which was a Universe where everyone wore all their labels proudly. But out in the real world, I discovered that it was not okay to say so if you wanted to be liked and accepted. I have seen many young women vocally demand to be treated on equal footing with males and equally loudly protest that they are not feminists. The need to decry the label stems from the misunderstanding that being a feminist also means that you hate men, that you don't respect marriage and family and that you absolutely -absolutely - detest wearing a bra. Can we clear the air on that one once and for all? Feminism is not against bras! Way back in 1968, there was a protest against a Miss America pageant on the grounds that it promoted a male dominated concept of feminine beauty to which women felt themselves obliged to conform. As a symbolic escape from the strictures of beauty as propagated by such events, there was a proposal to burn bras in public. None were actually burned.  Feminism was never about liberating breasts from bras. It was (among other things) about liberating women from the compulsion to wear them purely as a norm dictated by society - it sought to give women the power to choose whether or not they wanted to confine their assets in that manner. Period. That is the extent of the connection between clothing and feminism. 

Being a feminist does NOT mean you are required to:

• Wear asexual or androgynous clothing
• Give up your love for pink or bling
• Give up your heels or dainty bags
• Give up makeup, as Chimamanda Adichie Ngozi has so poignantly demonstrated in that proud photograph of her posing for a makeup company.

But yes, it would be great if, at some point, you reflect on whether you are doing these things (or any other thing you do) because you like to or because you are expected to, as a woman. THAT is the whole point of feminism. 

What many women mean when they say 'I believe in women's equality but I am not a feminist' is that they value their femininity. That they believe in romance. That they love the men in their lives and enjoy cooking dinner for them. That they adore their children and would not mind buying pretty dresses for them. Please do understand that you can do all of that and still be a feminist! There is nothing antithetical about being feminine and being feminist.

The reason why I think it is so important in these days for people to say out loud that they are feminists is this - world-over, societies have been structured on the paternalistic notion of keeping their women 'secure' behind closed doors or the watchful eyes of fathers, brothers, husbands and even society at large. Knowingly or unknowingly we continue to nurture such norms in the name of tradition, culture or 'values'. Feminism is the filter through which you assess whether something - anything that feels unfair to you as a woman or as a man who loves and respects the women in his life - is, in fact, fair or just another tool through which women have been traditionally subdued. If it does not pass the test of equality and fairness, it needs to go. To tear down a mega structure that has taken centuries to build is going to take as many people as can be enlisted to the task. Which is why the world needs more feminists and more people to say it out loud.

Patriarchy does not always look like a Khap Panchayat in a village you haven't heard of placing unreasonable restrictions on women you don't know (and therefore don't sympathise with). It could look like your colleague who feels he can make a joke about your anatomy since you chose to wear skin tight jeans. Or your college management that asks women students to 'dress modestly' and higher officials who complain that working days are being wasted on account of women's 'time of the month' or pregnancies. It could appear in the form of your friend's husband who asked her to quit her job because he wanted home cooked meals three times a day and because he 'did not need his woman to provide for the family.'  It also takes much more subtle forms - like when a well-wisher asked me why I did not try to have one more baby - 'a boy who could become a writer like his father since you have only girls'. Or the time the suave, cosmopolitan director of an institution I was part of asked girl students to avoid going out (at night, to buy food, at a time when the hostel mess was closed) as a solution to the eve teaser problem on the dimly lit road from the hostel to the nearby junction. Or the times we have unthinkingly danced along to songs that say 'I will teach you a lesson, woman-who-thwarted-my-advances' and applauded the hero who slaps the heroine and growls 'You are a woman. Just a woman.'

When a man assumes that a woman who wears western clothing and chooses to be out at night is 'asking for it' and worse, assumes it is alright in that scenario for him to assert his sexual dominance over her, it shows a rot in the human mindset that has survived centuries of evolution, refinement in thinking and cultural advances. We have come a long way from the days where women were not allowed to work outside of the home or vote, from the days when they were denied an education, choices or opportunities. And feminism played a large part in bringing these about. But there is still a sense of discomfort - even in the supposedly more advanced societies of the West - with the idea that women have complete ownership of their bodies and minds. In the name of protecting the structure of society based on conventional marriage and family, in the name of protecting the sanctity of religion, and even maintaining law and order (as was seen in the authorities' responses to the mass molestation in Bangalore on New Year's eve) societies try to hold on to a status quo that is heavily balanced against women. If you are aware that this is wrong, if you are aware that this is not the way forward, I think it is time to say so, loud and clear. 

Women are half the population of this world. And in every society, there have been ways and means to control women's liberties, morality, thought process and identity. And yet, the challenges faced by women in Kerala are not the same as in the hinterlands of UP - those of women in the developed world are not the same as women in Muslim countries. The commonality is only in the patriarchal mindset assuming the power the control their womenfolk. That is why feminism in each society has a different battle to wage, a different challenge to overcome. But at the very core of it all is the effort to assert that being a woman does not mean you have to live with a set of iron-clad informal rules in addition to what is envisioned by the constitution and laws of a country. If you are a woman and you have ever inwardly seethed with the words 'just because I am a woman?' raging around in your head, you are most likely a feminist.  If you are a man and have pondered about why things should be more difficult for the women in your life, you are most likely a feminist too. Being a feminist just means you understand that being a woman does not automatically put a limit on anyone's potential, capacities or dreams. It means you or a woman you love should not have to forgo an opportunity or be apologetic for what they want to do. It means getting due consideration (as a matter of right, not favour) for factors arising from purely biological characteristics like periods or pregnancies. It means never having to submit to primitive strictures that arise from a paternalistic society's ideas of what is right for a woman to do.

It is time the F-word took centre stage. In a world where the highest glass ceiling remains unshattered, where women are still sold as sex slaves and bounties of war, where women still need 'permission' to work or stay out late and have their sexual and even procreative choices set out for them, it is time for everyone who understands that these are primitive notions to say it out loud. It is time for humanity as a whole to take a step forward. Towards a world that is more equal, more fair and more gender-neutral.