The #metoo conversation will be incomplete without seeing what the current model of “growth and development” is doing to us.

If more empowered girls only end up creating more consumers, they will join in the havoc being wrecked on the planet.

Maybe a demand will come from some corner to monetise parenting. If paid for parenting, women will have greater economic power and freedom after all.

And the busy-ness at the workplace (which may eventually start paying equally) will mean much lesser time to tend to our relationships and a challenge in dividing both housework and parenting responsibilities.

Capitalism will very happily co-opt anything that comes its way. Not only will we see more philanthropy being directed towards gender issues but also more products and services appealing to women.

But it will rob us of the time and vitality required for the healing that needs to happen. We won’t be able to have the conversations that matter (about gender), to have the space for forgiveness, grieving and reconciliation.

All of these are slow processes, they take time. With our schooling of instant gratification we risk getting into a reactive cycle very easily, rather than understanding the deeper processes and structures at play.

What has been done to women over these centuries has also started happening to our planet, our rivers and our forests in different ways.

At the root of it all is the same de-humanization, the same feeling of disconnection, the same greed for power and control, the same fear of losing some ‘territory’ and the same old story of self-importance.

Let’s use this opportunity to go deeper to the roots. Let’s give this the time it needs and deserves. Let’s start unplugging from this machine that will keep us in a perpetual state of consumption, instant gratification and endless desire.

An Opportunity was originally published in BAM-BAM on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

1. Kamla Bahsin talks about toxic masculinity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOLYIzJnKT4

2. One of the responses as The Gender Lab & Blue Ribbon Movement- our boys program

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc-268PE9Mw

3. At times the ask for empowerment can create a clash of values — like the debate on equal pay, where Jordan Peterson opens an alternate perspective

https://youtu.be/aMcjxSThD54?t=888

4. And back home there is still household violence…but this clip in Satya I can’t forget cos Bhikku Mhatre gets slapped back and it ends in a loving space

https://youtu.be/HMLdEV-k5zw?t=2468

5. Empowered women are incredibly attractive (and so rarely portrayed in early bollywood)….Hazaro Khwaishein and Swades comes to mind (here’s Chitrangada in Hazaron….)

https://youtu.be/l7IfYB2bzXk?t=732

6. And there seems to be an alternate take on celebrating gender that Nimo bhai’s video manages to capture….celebrating women for being women….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoVuGoRVH2I

7. Back in 1995, with a newly liberalized India, this is how the response to gender issues was…this pop video “Sambhalke” visualises Nariman Point in 2025 as being filled with working women

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqJzGeS2Si0

8. One of the instances of refined masculinity is Malvelo, this gaucho band from Argentina…this is what happens when power meets grace….

https://youtu.be/83fGoM_xGlE?t=174

9. How about gender fluidity….(NSFW)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojRuancSmvk

10. And to finally close this list, a total must watch on this subject is Nenette by Hannah Gadsby

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aE29fiatQ0

Which videos would you include? What do you feel having gone through these….

**

28 Jan 2019: This morning’s invitation to you is to zoom out from here and now….to the larger journey of humanity….

It’s a privilege to be able to look across generations…and here are a few videos that always leave me ‘awe’struck

1. History of Humanity in 1 minute : A beautiful journey from the big bang to now….I always say that the last scene in this video is what is happening outside the screen (go figure;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSt9tm3RoUU

2. Nasadiya Sukta : Our ancestors had a lot of time to chill and reflect on the Universe….and this sukta captures the mystery so beautifully…..it still leaves me with a sense of wonder….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GeUkRIOXaM

3. One of the wonders of life, our conception and birth captured in a beautiful 5 minute animation….imagine our journey to this planet…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ7LkSk4sIs

4. Talvin Singh captures the cycle of creation-destruction-rebirth in this beautiful track “Ananta”….listen to the whole thing to experience the silence in between…this was the background track for Relead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACZxRYYhx_U

5. The history of humanity shaped by the crazy-ones….in this beautiful apple ad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rwsuXHA7RA

6. And who can forget the breathtaking views captured in Samsara — here’s only the trailer (in the same genre I would put Human, the movie)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzE66iSI-Ko

7. And I wanna close with Animatrix, the second renaissance (Part I and II)….in capturing our response to the rise of AI, it makes you think about the future in a whole new way

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0K6Cb1ZoG4

Which ones would you add to the list?

A few recommendations was originally published in BAM-BAM on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

And while #metoo brings out only the more extreme forms of violation, I am pretty sure there are plenty that I have been a part of knowingly and unknowingly. These may be small actions of pushing boundaries or plain abuse of privilege. And in today’s day and time, that is probably true of most men.*

So what now? What next? I’ve been troubled and searching within to find a response….here are some possibilities that I could think of. It will have to be women who will have to lead the way on this one is my sense — as the oppressed must if we are to move to a new order….

So one is to have a decade of healing….going all the way to 2030 (that’s also when the UN’s SDGs end). In this decade of healing, lets create space for all these hurts and violations to be surfaced. Let us also hope for forgiveness as well as restitution. What does it require of us to repent the wrongs. Rather than keeping it only one way (men against women), it would be fair to open the space to all genders, including men.

Two is to take up the painstaking job of restoring equality and equity in our own intimate relationships. This involves naming the privileges, re-working the status quo and even a negotiation on what are new boundaries and ways of being that can work for everyone?

Three, that we initiate conversations on how do we imagine the new world and new equilibrium to be? This is going to be a joint process because it will need imagination, it will also need consent from everyone. Through these conversations and shared inquiry (as well as experiments) I am confident that we will be able to find newer ways.

Four is to remember that making things sterile is not the answer. There is a richness in the man woman dynamic that is beautiful, that is worth celebrating. It is a dance that must be danced — sitting down because it is turning ugly isn’t the answer. The Eros, the vital energy that sustains the attraction, the creative tension, the beauty — that must be protected and nurtured.

And most importantly let us not forget that our real challenge is not around reclaiming justice at the level of identities.

Our real challenge is the system that happily starts promoting “Bournvita for Women” and co-opts the struggle. It is the economic system that will welcome more labour into its fold irrespective of gender. It is the same logic that may make us want to monetize parenting (as a way to make the playing field levelled).

Identity politics is a necessary step on this long and winding road but it is only a step, a phase. Beyond this is a space where we have to connect to our innate one-ness, our shared human experience and our shared stuck-ness in this mess.

Vinoba said that gender issues will get solved only when every man is both a man and a woman, and every woman is both a man and a woman. I look forward to a world where gender is truly fluid and a choice for each of us, such that it becomes an experience of liberation rather than an instrument of oppression.

* — Since we’re taking about gender as a lens, I refer to men. This applies equally to any other lens — like caste, economic status/class, nationality etc where privilege plays out.

Privileges as a Man was originally published in BAM-BAM on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Musings was originally published in BAM-BAM on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I may start insisting that you must respect your elders. Respect you must. But don’t ever think respect equals agreement.

If you hear me bring up culture or tradition, please remind me that these are evolving ideas. Remind me that the right to reinvent them is yours.

Do not discount my experience, but do not let that needlessly interfere with your wild dreams and possibilities.

Insist on having a voice, a say in all matters that concern you — help me secure for you, a right to freedom over your choices and your destiny.

Be sharp and call out all the subtle and overt ways of suppressing your ideas and ways of being…..challenge…..creatively rebel…..question…

If I complain about this, patiently listen.

Try to reason with me.

But if that doesn’t work, agree to disagree and do what you feel is right.

Let’s continue to learn from each other — but let your fascination for me be out of curiosity, not conditioning.

Be aware that you stand on many great shoulders, on the work of many generations (so do I. I am deeply grateful for it. It reminds me of my smallness in all this.)

Give this view a try.

Because you too will sometimes try to sound older than you actually are.

You too will be 35 sometime.

And I’ll watch the invitation you send out to your younger ones!

I am 35 now. was originally published in BAM-BAM on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The materials that make up my body originated about 13 billion years ago (and I don’t know where they were before that).

But then you can say that my birth was from the time that they got assembled into the being that was me — a process that began many months before I physically appeared.

Is the baby in the womb a person? Then I was a person before my birthday.

Maybe not — this is measured from the time my ‘body’ got separated from my mother’s. But at that time there was no “I” (in the sense that I did not have a separate identity) — that happened somewhere around 2–3 years later. Why, I don’t even have any basis to check the date I was born except hearsay.

There is also a dispute between my toe and the crown of my head as to whose arrival should signify my exact birth time — when do I say I was fully born?

So it’s my body’s birthday — which is great except that 99% of it was replaced over the last year (and hence it’s a year or less older).

Now I am swimming the rough seas of abstract logic on the ship of Theseus. But there is no returning to practical realities.

In fact, by the end of writing this, I’ll be a totally new “person” (Happy Birthday to me) who would have written this.

And then of the 34 years, 8 have been leap years — and we are halfway into making that adjustment. But isn’t the earth slowing down by a bit as well? And time is increasingly being considered an illusionary sensory experience.

However, let me acknowledge that a birthday is a great time to go back to the original promises of my life, to celebrate with gratitude the privilege of being human, to think of loved ones and beautiful memories, and also for each of you to reach out to me with something a little more than just “Happy Birthday, have a nice one”

The illusion of my 34th birthday was originally published in BAM-BAM on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I am going to give SHONALI MUTHALALY the benefit of doubt — not treating her question (What’s wrong with Indian men?) as rhetorical but as a serious inquiry. Here is what’s really “wrong” with us, men, IMHO:

1. We haven’t had ‘dad time’ — Our fathers, too busy or themselves ‘wrong men’ haven’t taught us what it is to be a man. A lot of what we have learned is from the movies, the bullys, older men, popular literature and advertising — and you can clearly see where that has led us.

2. We suffer a genuine intimacy shortage — Can’t cry, seldom held, not in touch with our emotions and not knowing what to do with our ‘urges and surges,’ we are left to ‘vent it out’ in the inhuman ways that we end up doing….

3. We don’t have enough bros — There is no bro gang, no group of real men who can hold us to a higher standard of masculinity. There is nowhere we can go (except to our women) to share the struggles of being a man, the contradictions and paradoxes and more.

4. Many of us have been thoroughly domesticated — By jobs that ask us to ‘fit in,’ by nagging wives and mothers, by the demands of having to earn and support the family and losing touch with our own wild side — we are oxen tied to the ploughs.

5. We are all being bundled together — The 600 odd million Indian men come in a range of shapes, sizes and attitudes. And most are not capable, intellectually or emotionally of responding to the rise of feminism or the feminine (or to male bashing) except in a very childish / boyish manner. But some of us hopefully can. Some of us is not all of us.

6. This is being made into a ‘man’ problem — It is a problem, sure, and getting behind it to restore equity between genders is a collective project. Shonali’s article is one more step towards that long, long journey, and every bit that raises awareness and prompts action is needed. Men and women who see this have to take the lead, together.

7. We cannot apologize for all of us — If we could, then I apologize right here. Apologize for all the wrongs that happen to women, in every home and at every corner. For upholding hundreds of years of inequality and exploitation — for feeding off women and for locking them up, for mistreating them and more….if at all it matters….

And finally, men have dealt with what was thrown at them from time to time. We went into the forests to hunt when we needed to, we stood up to defend our countries and lands, we worked to invent, create and provide. And this time around too, we will respond to this as men do — entering it without knowing where this will lead us, but dealing with it with our whole selves, with all our strength and with all that we can.

For whatever that promise is worth….meanwhile, keep the blows coming.

7 reflections on “What’s wrong with Indian men…” was originally published in BAM-BAM on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I admire the patience and tolerance women have, when it comes to putting up with nonsense….

To sell more magazines, Deepika and Vogue turn feminism into a joke, a bundle of careless cliches.

Fact of the matter is — things are really screwed up for women — and we are allowing this to become advertising copy.

First, is this pressure to be beautiful — Our new set of Miss Indias, once again look like identical triplets — high cheek bones, light skinned, tall, thin and all of that. The Disney princesses all look the same. And no one has called for a ban on Fair and Lovely — their choice.

Then there is religion — getting away with blatant discrimination — not allowing women to enter places of worship, not letting them be at the helm of affairs, constituting God as “HE” when every single day we see women give birth to life…..

There is hope of course — in government, in corporates, there are a handful of women who manage to get to the top, but mostly on the terms dictated by patriarchy, matching the hours men put in and perhaps, thinking and acting like men.

Ah! if you are bringing up a baby, please head back home, we have no place for you in our productive economy…..oh yes, all home duties shall stay unpaid so forget about having any economic decision making power…..

Every day, we live in a world where women cannot be out at night alone (making them very obviously unequal), are subtly discriminated at home (and see their mothers being beaten up) and locked away against their own choice….and we see this as mostly normal.

How long do we plan to put up with this? How much more patience, tolerance to this inequality? How much more of the blame game?

Men don’t have a better deal (though it may seem so) — violence in any form hurts both the victim and the perpetrator….so we have men whose hearts cannot cry, who find it so hard to be vulnerable, and who hide their deepest pain….

Through small actions and huge movements, in thought and action, it is time for a new world….

Bahut ho gaya….

Women & T was originally published in BAM-BAM on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

to be chivalrous when women expect us to be,

treat them equally at other times,

and not get labelled chauvinistic in the process.

Happy Women’s Day

Happy Women’s Day was originally published in BAM-BAM on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.