Street Theater Can Open Men’s Eyes to Women’s Harassment

Women across region, class and age have always expressed a serious concern for their physical safety. Take the capital city of Delhi, for instance: It has regularly faced indictment for failing to provide safety to its women residents; a 2012 survey by the UN and the International Center for Research on Women showed that 95% of women felt unsafe in Delhi, and 51% of men interviewed there admitted to having sexually harassed women in public places.

Therefore, in an effort to examine the access – the lack thereof, and the challenges therein — to public spaces by women in the city, The Pocket Company launched Genderventions (directed by Niranjani Iyer), a theater project, of which I was a part. Through a series of street performances in different areas of Delhi, we set out to assess how comfortable and confident Delhi’s women felt outside their homes, and what men viewed as harassment, its causes and the possible solutions.

Here’s how the project rolled out and what we found.

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It started with a workshop, during which women members of the Genderventions team re-enacted scenes of harassment, the ludicrous suggestions — like “do not go anywhere alone” – that they and women at large are routinely given by society as solutions to women’s safety, and possible ways of resistance against these expectations.

For example, thinking about how women deal with the lack of public toilets, a high-stress scene, led to a skit in which one woman acted out peeing, while two covered her, and another stood guard.

As one of the activities in the workshop, women from the Genderventions team went to a park on a winter night. When men huddled around a bonfire saw them, the men asked why the women were out at night. Upon explaining that they were trying to reclaim public spaces at night, the men seemed to realize that the spaces they take for granted are daily battlefields for women.

During the workshop, too, women spent time learning the expected postures of a male body. This led to an exercise in which the Genderventions women occupied public spaces while assuming postures commonly associated with men. I participated in this, visiting a Delhi tea stall – the only woman there. I remember sitting with my feet up, or standing in the middle of the road with arms behind my head, while bystanders stared with a mixture of shock, awe, or, if they were women, of amusement and admiration.

In the same exercise, Gendervention’s male members tried to walk and carry their bodies like women. We took this exercise to the male members of the audience and gave them instructions usually given to girls about how to sit, stand, walk, laugh — be graceful; don’t be too fast; don’t walk so slowly that you seem dull; smile, don’t look morose; don’t laugh loudly; don’t put your chest out. This sought to help the men watching understand the undue pressure upon women’s bodies to simultaneously embody the obligation to be nice, and the fear of coming across as too nice. The men’s awkwardness was clear; they said they did not feel “natural” or at ease, and did not like being constantly instructed.

We found this to be effective experience-sharing, where the audience could empathize through having lived the same experience, albeit temporarily.

The project was taken to different areas, markets and street corners of Delhi and depicted the scenes of harassment developed in the workshop, and asked the audience to describe what they perceived. If they said the woman was being harassed, we asked why they thought so. They described how the woman was squirming and inching close to the corner of her bus seat, or scowling in anger if the man’s hand touched her knees.

We also depicted a scene in which a female actor started alone on stage, then male actors joined her. It allowed the audience to observe a woman’s body in a space free of men, and then observe how discomfort in her body started building up as more and more men’s eyes turned to stare at her. This was to shed light on how staring can constitute harassment for a woman.

Ultimately, men easily outnumbered women in the audience, because as an unwritten rule, women are not supposed to loiter and watch street performances. At one point, we even had to pause the performance and intervene because a young girl was not able to watch our play due to being constantly jostled by men. The only exception was when we performed in a team member’s residential area; there, women formed the larger piece of the audience pie because she had personally invited the women. 

After our shows, women in the audience spoke of how the only place where they felt comfortable in their bodies was the bathroom. 

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When it comes to providing security to women, the focus of the government is still on CCTV cameras, SOS apps and helpline numbers, whose aim is either to help women stay safe or to provide mechanisms to report if they are harassed. It is still far away from proactively creating spaces that are welcoming for women, and encouraging women’s right to risk. It is still a time where irritated cops ask women to avoid trouble and go home when these women come together for their night walks to reclaim the streets.

Sometimes we do not believe in solutions or alternatives until we see them; art can help with the visualization. The performances and interactions we engaged in show that, despite laws, men’s take on harassment came a lot from what they, and not the women, “believed” should be defined as harassment. Victim-blaming is still rampant.

In our “ideal city” exercise, we asked men and women to describe a city that is equally accessible and comfortable for men and women. When our female actor gave an example by sitting on an imagined bus seat, with closed eyes and a relaxed body, taking up enough space for herself, some protested that it was not the correct or proper way to sit.

Once, a member of the audience said a harassed woman on the bus should stand up on her seat and call attention to the harasser. After a team member carried out the suggestion and enacted that scene, I realized I had never considered the possibility — but after I had seen it “in action,” I felt I was ready to literally stand my ground the next time somebody tried to attack me. Ironically, but not unexpectedly, I had to confront a harasser on public transport even as I was on my way to one of these performances.

Delhi is home to women from diverse backgrounds. Some come seeking education and employment. Others have lived there all their lives. Both look to the capital with the hope that it would provide them with opportunities they do not have access to elsewhere. These women deserve better. They deserve more interventions by the state and its citizenry, more gender-ventions that change attitudes and actually prevent crimes against them, so they can equally and fearlessly claim every inch of the mega-city. 

First published in The Swaddle, 7 Jun 2019.

On what it takes to puncture a manel and overcome internalised conditioning in a patriarchy

As a journalist, a writer, a poet or as someone invested in gender issues, if I am invited to speak publicly, there is often a pattern to the sequence of events that unfold. There are aspects of internalised conditioning that I have to work against to publicly be as full and true a version of myself as I want to be.

If I am the only woman on what would otherwise have been a manel, I wonder if I have been invited for the sake of tokenism. A grassroots activist organisation called me for their programme once on short notice saying they are all men and that they need “some woman” on stage. At times like these, I sit down with myself to believe that maybe it is some effort, however small, made by the organisers to be diverse. I have to remind myself that what I am going to share comes from the work I have done, however limited, and from my lived experiences. And that since sharing this has resonated with people in the past and encouraged others to speak up, it is important that I continue to do so regardless of the organiser’s agenda in inviting me. In fact recently I came across an excellent tweet where the woman is aghast at being invited as a gender diversity showpiece. Then she remembers how men have been getting so many invites for ever simply by virtue of being men. This calms her, and me, down.

On these public occasions, I remind myself of my school days when I spoke too fast because I was, as so many women are, afraid of taking too much time or space. This was despite encouragement by teachers who had read my articles in the local paper and had thus asked me to speak in the morning assembly. But in writing I could quietly put my thoughts out there and withdraw; in speaking I had to convince myself and a full school playground that my words were worthy of their time. My friends in the audience used to gently tell me that I seemed hurried, and that they would have liked to hear more from me. When I recall this today while being on stage, I slow down and learn to use the time allotted to me, even as I marvel at how most men around me leisurely exceed the time limit. I remember an exceptional case, a poetry event when I used up all my time while the men finished sharing their works in a shorter duration. I look at these instances, or occasions of taking a couple of additional minutes, with a mixture of guilt and embarrassment at having got “carried away”, and exhilaration at having finally claimed my time and space.

Once I am off the stage and if people I do not know come to compliment me on my words, I am reminded of all the times my confidence was labelled as arrogance. I try extra hard to prove to them that I do not think too much of myself. I labour to appear as polite and humble as I feel. From the point of qualifying or rejecting others’ compliments to realising that it is disrespectful both to them and to myself, I have now reached the stage of biting my tongue and saying a tight thank you, and then worrying about whether I would have struck the other person as being too cold.

When it is a man praising me I listen with bated breath hoping he won't ask for my number (unless for a clear, work related purpose). If he doesn’t, I am relieved. If he does, I give it because I do not want to be rude. Later I am angry with myself for buying into the notion that my concern about not being harassed (arising from experience) is less important than a man’s feelings.

The next time it happens I say no, and offer my email instead. The man notes down my digital address and gives me his phone so I can punch in my number, as if he never heard my no. Ironically, my talk at the event where I was the only woman on the panel was on listening to women’s stories rather than imposing our stories on them. The man’s dogged pursuit of my number while ignoring my own consent makes me feel like once again someone is trying to force me to link my Aaadhar number with every shred of my identity. As I wonder if I would have to get a Supreme Court order to make his volatile effervescence subside, my friend approaches me and subtly fixes my sari palla slipping off my shoulders. I am suddenly aware of all the people, all the men around. I am now too tired to think and don’t want to get into an argument so I end up feeding my number. I return home frustrated with myself again for having caved in, for not having stood up tall enough, long enough for myself while I had aimed to do that for other women in my speech. I get some semblance of a closure only when he calls me up later and asks to meet and “just chat about stuff”, and I respond with a terse no and hang up and block his number.

I am a feminist, I am 33, I am called to speak on issues concerning women, I am perceived as bold and outspoken by many. Yet I struggle to occupy space, to take time, to say no without explaining or apologising, to make people believe in my humility. The most taxing part of my feminism is not fighting others but resisting my own conditioning. Through poems I write, plays I act in, reporting I do and books (like The Courage to be Disliked) I read, I am constantly schooling myself that I can be who I want to be, that I do not have to be who I am supposed to be according to gender roles.

So, while meninists would like to believe that our claws are pointed at them, the truth is we are more engrossed in a nail biting battle to peel away our own conditioning. For the longest time, this truth used to piss me off. Eventually, as promised, it has started setting me free because this phenomenon reiterates that patriarchy is not a monster coming at us whose head needs some slaying. It is a claustrophobia inducing tent that covers all of us, getting hotter with global warming, one that needs to be deflated from within. And if I ever get on pins and needles facing it again, I want to prick it right in the gut and say, “Yes, I have a number and no, I won’t give it to you,” and walk away and without stressing about whether my gait would be seen as haughty.

First published in Firstpost, 9 May 2019.

Don’t make a mountain out of menstruation

Using theatre to talk of taboo subjects in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, and the lessons learnt

A few years ago, our theatre troupe, Aatish, had gone to the Central Himalayan region of Uttarakhand, in the Almora region, with our plays on resisting menstrual taboos and pre- and post-natal care for women. Before we booked our tickets, there was a big debate in our team on whether the men in our troupe should go along with us. Would it make it awkward for the women in the audience to interact with us if there were men on the stage too? Would they even come to watch?

We finally decided that patriarchal rules were set up by men and at times implemented by women. So both men and women needed to be part of the discussion. If a man wondered about why his menstruating daughter is not sleeping in a hut outside, he needed to know that it was her right to be as safe and comfortable as the rest of her family. If medicines or nutritious food had to be bought for pregnant or lactating mothers, men needed to know why it was crucial to budget for it.

With some of our apprehensions and nervousness still remaining, we got on the stage on performance day. With our usual enthusiasm, glitches and improvisation, we concluded our plays and waited with bated breath for the audience’s response. The turnout had been promising. But we still bit our nails fretting: would the audience find it worthwhile to come for our upcoming performances in the area or would they reject our choice of subject and actors for discussing what many consider “womanly” issues, or, “ladies problems”!?

After a kind applause, an old woman got up to say, “All right, we need to maintain hygiene during menstruation. But living here in the mountains we face water scarcity. Can something be done about that?” Another man her age shared how his pregnant daughter-in-law was forced to carry water as her spouse worked in the city and the father-in-law was too old to do it himself. We encountered more openness in talking about women’s health than we sometimes find in urban settings.

A local activist spoke of how women need to be healthy in order to function well in society, drawing the analogy of a sewing machine that needs regular oiling. We interjected to say that women need to be healthy because everyone deserves to be, and not just because good health ensures women’s productivity, something that ends up serving others’ interests more than their own. Two girls came to talk to us in private. One tried to explain a menstrual problem but was not very clear. Her friend, standing a few steps behind, came forward and revealed that her friend had been speaking on her behalf, because the girl had been hesitant. She then spoke about the issue herself and asked us if she should see a doctor.

Others in the audience said that the hospital in front of which we performed hardly had doctors or medicines. Someone from the hospital said that is because people do not come to the health centre but prefer to go to ojhas instead. There was a dialogue. We ended up doing a workshop for the NGO that wanted to create a play on basic health issues to show how people could take care of minor ailments (many children in the region had been lost to diarrhoea) through simple measures at home rather than going to quacks and risking their health. There was also demand for a dance performance after all the serious stuff we had put them through! Slightly embarrassed at our lack of skill in the area, we had to excuse ourselves. In the evening, we performed our play on menstruation again on a stage that had been set for a Ramleela performance by the locals. As we tried to break a taboo in our own small way, little heads of Ramayana characters peeped from behind the wings.

Some of the questions that had been raised by the villagers were simpler to answer than the others. The people there probably already knew that. But they wanted someone to listen, which we did. And we learnt and unlearnt. We learnt a bit more about the lives of people in the mountains, and unlearnt some of our own stereotypes. We realised that for all of our efforts to spread “awareness”, we too had not used words like “menstruation”, or “maahvaari”, its Hindi equivalent, as many times in our lives as we did that day on stage. We witnessed that once we had normalised the use of those words, a girl in the audience could also use it to discuss her problem with us. We lived the experience of every effort of liberation being a collective one, not something that gets passed down from one to the other. We saw that the restraint that an urban sense of privacy imposes on middle class or upper middle class conversations is often absent from many rural conversations where privacy and segregated familial and individual spaces are often a luxury. We noted that working at the local level required an understanding of the local context, and not stand-alone, externally imposed “solutions”. We were humbled to see that where fundamental rights could not be availed of, people at times withered, and at others made do with proud resilience. We observed that when representatives in a democracy failed to serve their people, those people sometimes got attached to dangerous peddlers of faith, for the desperate want of something to hold on to in the face of adversity. And we learnt that if we wanted more people to join our revolution, we needed to add some dance to it!

Walking back to our accommodation after the performances, workshops and discussions, we saw a grey-haired lady beat us to the top as we huffed and puffed up the treacherous hilly path. We knew that she and her tribe could leave us behind each time, and we thought of the “development” that had been too slow in reaching them, and yet was ironically leaving them behind.

First published in  thREAD, The Hindu, 4 Apr 2019.

My humble attempt to “take back the night”

After having lived at the same place in New Delhi in India for over a decade, I was happy when I moved to a part of the city where my college friend was my neighbour. If I drive to her place, it doesn’t take over five minutes. One night, I was leaving her house around 12, grinning from ear to ear after hours of laughing at her slapstick jokes. My car had just about touched the gravel of the road when a bike dashed past me, the driver hatefully spitting out these words: “You are roaming the streets at midnight?!”

I am always over-conscious about following the rules while driving because women drivers are summarily ridiculed while men always beat them when it comes to rash driving statistics and the overconfidence that it takes to leave a car parked in the middle of the road, or the sense of entitlement needed to graze your car and stare at you blankly when you look to them for an apology. This time too my first instinct was to check if I had been in the wrong. But I couldn’t figure out what had inspired him to curse when both of us had enough space to co-exist on a broad two-lane, and my speed wouldn’t have made a cycle rickshaw insecure. There was hardly any traffic.

The sad and simple explanation was this: Years after the rape and murder of the student on 16 December 2012, whom the country had decided to call Nirbhaya, the city felt just as repelled by the idea of a woman on a night street.

In college too cowardly bike riders were a common pestilence, even as early as seven in the evening, uttering inane jibes and scurrying away cockily. It was not acceptable to us to remain helpless so we took to walking with stones clenched in our fists. Hearing an occasional pebble hit the spokes of their wheels made us feel we had been able to answer back.

This time I was in a car, supposed to be safer for women compared to public transport or walking. My hands were empty, and I threw them up in the air to ask the bike driver what he meant by his rudeness. I don’t know if the motorist saw me. Once again, I tried to gulp down the feeling of having been attacked and not having been able to retaliate.

People often enquire, “Don’t you feel scared, going around everywhere alone?” When one has to feel scared without having done anything wrong, the fear eventually bursts giving way to the molten lava of anger. The sense of injustice that jabs at the heart every day becomes sharper than fear. It becomes a question of living with dignity, with your head held high, rather than surviving each day curled indoors and inwards like a foetus.

The one riding the bike that night was merely a face I could not even see clearly. But his arms and shoulders, giving strength to him, were huge sections of society. The rebellion against all of them churning in my stomach made me resolve that now I would actually roam and not rush back home fearful.

I started driving at a leisurely pace. There were other people, rather, other men on the roads . . . strolling, chatting, buying ice-cream without looking over their shoulder, while it is a fantasy for women to enjoy such nightly strolls on the streets. I wanted to be able to pass them peacefully without another fight, another encounter. I wanted to own the streets as rightfully and confidently, as do those who think of mothers while cursing and of fathers when asserting their right over the street. Nobody asks, “Does the road belong to your mother?” It’s always the father when it comes to property ownership. What falls in the mother’s share is the home, and only till they promise to remain the sacred tulsi plant in the courtyard, quiet and uncomplaining.

Having arrived at my place, hardly a kilometre away from my friend’s, I calmed myself down as I unlocked my door and thought of how the bleak situation seems the same even after all the uproar over the assault on Nirbhaya. But what kept coming back to me was the outrage and insecurity in the mototrcyclist’s voice, which showed he was not able to digest a woman a) being out b) at night c) driving a car.

Those who have been raised to believe that being a man is to be everything a woman is not would have difficulty swallowing when they see women in “manly” roles. But this change would not seek the permission of such men. Nor would it quietly wait for the police or the administration to get their act together. It is true that women like Nirbhaya have been going through brutalities in villages and cities. But voices suppressed for ages are also revolting. The torment that had to be quietly borne but could not be named is now being spoken of in debates, discussions, protests, FIRs and courts.

Women have battled oppression for years. We are perhaps too cynical now to dream of a magical revolution overnight. To live a life of self-respect, however, we cannot afford to be resigned either. It’s hard to say about the country but its women are changing. The roots of this change sprouting within us are claiming the streets, and the land beneath.

First published in thREAD, The Hindu, 18 May 2018.

श्रीमती जी नहीं

एक दिन फेसबुक पर एक पुरुष मित्र ने मुझे एक वीडियो में टैग किया। लिंक खोलने पर मैंने देखा कि फिल्म में कई मर्द उन सारी चीजों के लिए माफ़ी माँग रहे थे जो औरत होने के नाते हमें इस समाज में झेलनी पड़ती हैं। हाल में इंटरनेट पर चले#metoo अभियान में भी कई मर्दों ने अपनी महिला दोस्तों का साथ दिया। 

ऐसे कई पुरूष हैं जो नारीवाद से डरते नहीं दिखते। उनसे बात करके लगता है कि वे औरत-मर्द के भेद-भाव को खत्म करने की ज़रूरत को समझते हैं। बराबरी के इस आंदोलन में शामिल होने की कोशिश भी करते हैं। फिर भी ज़बान कभी-कभी फिसल जाती है, वे कुछ ऐसा कह या कर जाते हैं जो इस बराबरी की मुहिम में ठीक नहीं बैठता और आप इस तरफ़ उनका ध्यान आकर्षित करते हैं। 

आप सोचते हैं कि एक सुलझे हुए इंसान होने के नाते वो खुले मन से इस पर आपसे चर्चा करेंगे। आपकी उम्मीद ये नहीं कि वे समस्या के हर पहलू से पहले से वाकिफ़ हों। आप इस आस में हैं क्योंकि वे समझदार और संवेदनशील हैं, वे ये मानेंगे कि जिनकी आवाज़ जाति, धर्म, जेंडर जैसे सामाजिक ढाँचों की वजह से हमेशा बुलंद रही, अब उन्हें कमरे में थोड़ा पीछे बैठकर दूसरों की आवाज़ को सब्र से सुनना होगा (हाँलाकि ये कतई ज़रुरी नहीं कि हाशिए वाले हमेशा सही ही हों)। पर आपके ऐसे कोई भी सवाल उठाने पर इनमें से बहुत लोग बिफ़र पड़ते हैं, "अब ये हद से ज़्यादा हो रहा है।"

हदें भी उनकी बनाई हुई, कम-ज़्यादा भी उनका। उस पल में वे आपके हमसफ़र नहीं होते जो कुछ समय पहले तक आपसे कदम-से-कदम मिला कर "लक्ष्य को हर हाल में पाना है" गुनगुना रहे थे। उनको ये वहम हो जाता है कि आप उन्हीं की पीठ के ऊपर छलाँग मारकर उन्हें पछाड़ने के मंसूबे बना रहे हैं। उस वक्त वे एक झुँझलाए हुए धनवान और आप एक लालची, एहसानफ़रामोश याचक बन जाते हैं। 

जाति/धर्म के मामले में भी ये बहुत होता है। पीढ़ियों से ऊँचे दर्जों पर बैठे लोग उन लोगों के हकों को लेकर नियम और सीमाएँ बनाते हैं जो उतने ही लंबे समय से शोषित रहे हैं। ज़ाहिर है कि पितृसत्ता/सामंतवाद का ये संदेश महिला या पुरुष, किसी के भी ज़रिए आप तक पहुँचाया जा सकता है।

अक्सर इस खीज से गुज़री हूँ जब औरत-मर्द की ग़ैर-बराबरी का विरोध करते हुए मुझे बताया गया है कि मैं फ़िज़ूल बातों पर वक़्त की ऐसी-तैसी कर रही हूँ और "बड़े" मुद्दे मेरे हाथों से फिसले चले जा रहे हैं। यहाँ एक "छोटा" उदाहरण देना चाहूँगी ये दर्शाने के लिए कि क्यों नारीवाद "छोटी" बातों के लिए भी इतना लड़ता है।

एक साहित्य महोत्सव में कई पुरुष लेखकों और कुछ महिला लेखकों को बुलाया गया। प्रचार सामग्री में पुरुषों के केवल नाम थे। जो औरतें थी उन सबके नाम के आगे "श्रीमती" लगा था। अपने नाम के आगे भी ये देखकर मेरा सर क्यों भन्नाया?

इस सूची में जब कोई पुरुषों का नाम पढ़ता तो उसे इस क्रम में ये जानकारी प्राप्त होती: अमुक नाम का लेखक इस सम्मेलन में आनेवाला है। महिलाओं का नाम पढ़कर इस क्रम में ये पता लगता: एक विवाहित महिला, जिसका नाम . . . है, और जो एक लेखक "भी" (विवाहित होने के बाद) है, सम्मेलन में आनेवाली है।

पुरुष की पहचान के लिए सिर्फ़ "नाम (और काम) ही काफ़ी है"। और एक महिला के बारे में सबसे पहले ये जानना ज़रूरी है कि वो एक पुरुष से किस प्रकार जुड़ी (या अन-जुड़ी) है। ये बात मेरे लिए बिलकुल नाक़ाबिले बर्दाश्त है और रहेगी। इसको लोग छोटा या मोटा, जैसा भी मसला आँकें ये उन पर है। मैं इसे तवज्जो देती रहूँगी।

हाँ, ये ज़रूर है कि कार्यक्रम संचालक ने इस दिक्कत को समझा और आगे इसे दूर करने की कोशिश की। पर कई पुरुषों ने जब इस किस्से को सुना तो तुरंत समझाने लगे कि कैसे ये एक छोटे मामले को तूल देना हुआ, और किस तरह उनका ज्ञान मेरे जिये गए अनुभव से बढ़कर है। 

कुछ ऐसा ही हुआ मेरे ब्रह्म समाजी विवाह को लेकर। हमारा विवाह एक "आचार्य" संपन्न करानेवाले थे। एक बड़े दफ़्तर में ऊँचे पद पर काम करनेवाले वे हल्की मुस्कान, धीमी आवाज़, कुर्ते-पायजामे वाले सज्जन अपने शीतल स्वभाव के कारण हमें तुरंत भा गए। काफ़ी गर्व से उन्होंने बताया कि कैसे ब्रह्म समाज में औरत-मर्द को ऊपर-नीचे नहीं रखा जाता। उन्होंने नमूने के तौर पर किसी के विवाह की पत्रिका दी जिसमें विवाह रीतियों को समझाया गया था। आनेवाले दिनों में मेरा साथी आचार्य से ईमेल और फोन पर जुड़ा रहा। हमने कुछ वचनों-रीतियों में बदलाव किए जिससे उन्हें कोई परेशानी नहीं थी।

शादी के कुछ दिनों पहले मैंने देखा कि एक प्रतिज्ञा में "भाईचारा" शब्द का प्रयोग किया गया था। मैं वैसे औरतों के बारे में चाहे जितना भी सोच लूँ, ऐसे किसी शब्द को पढ़ने-सुनने पर उस चित्र में मैं महिलाओं की कल्पना नहीं कर पाती। इसे बदलने के लिए झिझक और विनम्रता के साथ आचार्य से बात की। (झिझक इसलिए क्योंकि नारीवादी होने से किसी बुज़ुर्ग, या पुजारी जैसी हस्ती को, खासकर अगर वो मर्द हो, को नाराज़ करने का बचपन में पढ़ाया गया ड मन से पूरी तरह नहीं गया।) मेरी बात सुन वे कुछ झल्ला कर बोले, "भाषा ऐसी ही होती है। तुम भाषा को नहीं बदल सकती। अगर तुम्हारे पास बेहतर शब्द है तो तुम बताओ।" 

मैंने उनसे ये नहीं कहा कि भाषा ठंडी हवा के मासूम झोंके की तरह यूँ ही इधर-उधर टहलटी नहीं पाई जाती, सोच-समझ कर गढ़ी जाती है। उसका एक इतिहास, एक राजनीति होती है। मैंने बस कहा कि मैं कोई और शब्द ढूँढ़ने का प्रयास करूँगी। थोड़ी देर बाद जब मैंन "अपनापन" शब्द सुझाया तो वे तुरंत मान गए। 

क्या शुरू में वे इसलिए नाराज़ हुए थे क्योंकि हम तीन-चार बार भाषा में संशोधन करवा चुके थे? या अगर पहले की तरह मेरा साथी, एक पुरुष, उनसे इस बारे में बात करता तो उनका रवैया कुछ और होता? 

जब लोग अपनेआप को किसी सोच, सिद्धांत या अंदोलन का समर्थक बताते हैं तो ये उम्मीद ग़लत है कि समर्थन पानेवाले केवल एहसान मानें और उनके तरीकों पर सवाल न करें। ये सही नहीं कि वे हमारे महसूस किए हुए सच को छोटा बताएँ, ख़ासकर तब जब उनके-हमारे तजुर्बे बहुत अलग हैं।  

ऑस्ट्रेलिया की ऐक्टिविस्ट लीला वॉट्सन ने बहुत पते की बात कही है, "अगर तुम यहाँ मेरी मदद करने आए हो तो तुम अपना समय बर्बाद कर रहे हो। पर अगर तुम इसलिए आए हो क्योंकि तुम्हारी मुक्ति मेरी आज़ादी के साथ जुड़ी हुई है, तो आओ, साथ मिलकर काम करें।"

First published in Samayantar, Jun 2018.