Dear Anusheh,

What a brilliant portrayal of an aspect of man-woman relationship you have brought out. I am sure it will come as a shock to many men (or may be not) that they actually think of women in only these two roles - mother or lover (putting it mildly). I say shock because I dont think that most men do it consciously. It just happens. Thats how they are conditioned I guess. Its really quite sad to think that there is no middle ground for women where they can just BE without being judged. I am sorry if I am sounding biased, but if we analyse our relationships with men (whoever it be), this pattern does exist, with very few exceptions.

And if I may add, even if men see women as good friends, as partners earlier on, but once married, the same friendship ends up getting confined in either of the two roles. The friendship somehow gets lost somewhere.

Thanks for showing us the mirror and I hope all the men and women reading this piece see the reflection of their selves in it.

Thanks :)

anusheh, a great sigh... suffering and struggle! thy name is life!!

harb

Breathtaking. Anusheh, don't have words to express what a I went through as I read this post. God bless.

"Will the blog really become a forum to listen, speak, think and share with a desire for growth or will it become a space where a new language will be used to field old dirt. Will gender lines be reexamined with openness, receptivity to learning and engaging or will they become conflict zones?"

You gave me an invaluable share. To start with, I will ask myself these questions, very consciously, every time I feel like coming into this space, and from there to every other context where I need to ask myself this, again and again and again...

Salute the courage, the spirit and the vision!
and hope to strive to be worthy to recieve the learnings, the touch, the soaring heart and the aha moments that this blog has given me..

Love
Sukanya

Dear Anusheh,

Woman has always been treated as something secondary since the dawn of civilization. How and whence came this wrong perception about them is puzzling and also sad.

I personally feel that the celebrated Virtuous are so because someone else (most of the time wrongly ) has been labelled as unvirtuous. We all need a beating bag to feel good about ourselves. In the long run it snowballs to attack on the integrity of someone else.

and human conciousness has over the ages broadly deemed it to be invariably women who bare the brunt. The other example is that of the caste system.

This blog is a beginning. Every endeavour has to face indifference, repulsion, assimilation and finally acceptance.

I personally am sure that any endeavor done in the right spirit with passion will blossom.

To try with a sincere heart is our must, to reap our dreams in the future a certainity.:)

and if this sincere effort one day blossoms into a platform that you dream, then you can look back perhaps at this very same post in the future and congratulate your team and you for...

'an act of great courage and faith in human kind...'

Good night. :)

Poignant. Intense. Anguished. Powerful.

In the face.

What a reminder!

Anusheh, we need these reminders... atleast I do.. I need them to shake me up, dust me out and clear the cobwebs that persist...

Saying "thank you" seems small and trite and cliched right now.

Wish I could say, give me a hug, your spirit heals my ugliness inside, reconciles me to my "self" and bring it closer to balance and harmony...

Beautifully said, Aachi.

"To try with a sincere heart is our must, to reap our dreams in the future a certainity.:).."

So clear, so true.. sincere heart is our must.. the imperative.. then dreams manifest..

hi Anusheh mam,

Gr8 post . Loved reading it. Specially the way u defined a virgin (spiritually and morally pure). I do agree that treatment wid men & women as far as sexual desires are concerned has not been equal . one has been supressed & one exaggerated i guess !!

Abt those serials .. cannot really decide what is gud & whts bad .. but i can tell u one think .. whn i m watchin one of those serials wid my mom & the wicked (as u described ) women comes in to the picture i dont see my mom too happy .. and she evn says "tht women is bad" .. wht i want to say here is tht the women are made to supress there feelings to such extent tht after some point of time evn they start believing in those shitty society rules .

The point m confused abt is tht wheres the limit ?? For ex. premarital sex is increasing these dayz .. so shd one consider it gud jst because people r now expressing there supressed feelings or is it that they r getting out of control .. moving towards the whore culture ??

And abt this blog serving its purpose .. ACHI sir said it very well .. but for me this sounds a great idea . I started writing my blog in IFSHA only ..donno why thn this idea didnt came in picture .. but it feels gr8 to see a space where certain unsaid things can be discussed .

Best wishes .
anuj .

hard hitting post , anusheh...concepts are deep drilled into wo/man's psyche...and to me, contra-positioning appears equally sad and violent...i seek a redressal of the violence , the fears, the resentments and so much more within that manifest outside as misery and abuse ...to me, contra-positioning can be equally immature....i find intelligence in the adage that if we fight fire with fire , we only end up with ashes...it is like thrusting morality paradigms...which, to me, is more immoral...Abusers are as much victims as the abused themselves and to me, healing can manifest only in a compassionate understanding...
The blog , to me, is a massive benchmark in south asian consciouness spaces...somewhere it again is a manifest from realms of collective intent...and encouraging to see that it has reached thus far...
where it will go, lets wait and watch as it unfolds...everyday, i look forward to more postings from the indicative lists of posters as well as commenters...and hope for more to join...

ah sukanya, glad to see you back in posting action...

Hi All

This piece really made me think. At one level I was struggling to accept these views about women were true. At least not in my times. So I shared the piece with my wife and she immediately saw what I couldn't. I have to say I was distressed when she said it was because I was a man. I have not stopped thinking that about whether that is truly the reason. I have always seen women as equals etc have no issues with morality for them being different. But as my wife made some points about men's ribald humour etc I began to see she's right somewhere. So what we haven't really changed inside? It's unnerved me.

Like this comment Sundar made. 'Contrapositioning is violent? Abusers have been abused themselves.' I guess my wife is right when she says men with new language haven't really resolved their 'crap' but are playing a new game.
I have a question though... all the women who are creating new spaces, stepping out of old morality ,living on their own terms? How come they manage? my wife says they pay their own price, is that true.

Want to congratulate this blog. Indeed its an act of courage and gat faith. But my two bits are that you are that its a brilliant effort. good luck!

hi venkat, almost looked like u were waiting to respond to my comments...thx...

language is a mere vehicle of expression....and dialogue an express intent of this blogspace...different perspectives and points of view are healthy and essential for growth in people who perceive themselves to be learners...if people feel they know it all and what they know is the final word on a subject, it is, in my opinion self-inhibitive...and defeating to the very purpose of creating a blog which is pro-actively interactive in nature as different from a web-page....

Good morning everyone and thank you for your comments and questions.

Aachi, Very aptly put "I personally feel that the celebrated Virtuous are so because someone else (most of the time wrongly ) has been labelled as unvirtuous." When we raise our finger at someone the remaining four point at us. However like you rightly say we are unaware of that and instead use our understanding of virtuous and moral to feel greater and holier than the other.

Anuj, good to see you here. Ofcourse women are deeply conditioned by the virgin/whore myth and relate to other women (as well as themselves)using these very paradigms. And then we pass these on to our daughters and our sons and so the cycles continue.As for your question. Within your question lies the answer Anuj. If people (women) are expressing their sexuality why should it be termed as the 'whore' culture? Have you ever heard of a man being called a 'whore' because he sleeps around a lot? The point is that womens sexuality is always judged and perhaps thats where your concern comes from.

Sukanya and Shubz...thanks.

love
anusheh

wa re-reading your comment, aachi...as usual a tremendous depth of perspective u bring in...just wanted you to clarify the first sentence , though...in my limited explores,i have come across very self-deterministic women like Gargi, Maitreyi, Sukanya etc...who give an insight into the nature of times and wisdom manifests in dignified spaces...i feel corruption of these perspectives came in with manusmriti and so on which were much later...
even if we observe the indian cultural panaorama, there are fiercely matriarchal societies like Kerala and your own Mangalore...in the context of property rights and so on...
true , women have bore the brunt of so much of social suppression and abuse...in power-centric manifests...
i hope to see a lot of breakthroughs manifest in the age of aquarius that is underway now ....

Sundar

Have you ever wondered why your responses are so prickly mate? Is that why you use such long winded sentences to couch your point? Sorry just an observation.

why be sorry , mate...its a free world..u r welcome to your observations...elsewhere in this blog someone talked about how important it is for us to see ourselves, not from other's eyes from our own centres of being...made a lot of sense to me...i do not disagree with what you or anyone says, venkat, but i find presumptuousness, wherever it occurs, arrogant and immature...a product of conditioning....i see myself evolving in my learning spaces even as i evolve as a learner...

a random observation....proxy wars through alibis are commonplace manifests in blogspaces across the world...though i am never certain, i feel the maturity in this space would obviate a need for such manifests, if ever they occur...

Sundar your last comment was totally out of line. To express their point of view or to disagree is the right of everyone who visits this blog. I think this has been raised before also. Who you are accusing of proxy wars....whether commentors or authors...the innuendo is an insult to all. As a contributing author one would expect more maturity from you.

Venkat

Like shubhosree said. I think the conditioning runs so very deep and men are not entirely conscious of it. Awareness is always key to beginning to root biases/judgments out of ourselves.

Women who live on their own terms do pay a price.That seems to be the law of nature i.e. every choice comes with its own price tag. The price tag could be finger pointing, isolation, losing family, and worse carrying the inner fear that you have something to hide or you will be judged.

The labelling today may not be as intense as virgin and whore but the labelling exists in different forms and innuendos. As a 34 year old woman I can personally say that having carved out many non traditional spaces for myself I have paid numerous prices. Please do not consider this to be some victim self that I am airing because every choice made me stronger and more aware that I must deal with the fallout. Today, personally I have no regrets and would not have it any other way. But having worked with scores of women even younger than me whose desires/life choices created so much inner conflict (obviously triggered by the outer judgements)I realise that the problem is fairly deep rooted. For instance i know so many successful working mothers who carry a fairly observable guilt at not being there for their children the way their mothers were. Its a whole syndrome for stress in modern women.

I dont know what the answers are Venkat. They are tough ones and I guess what we need to be thankful for is that today at least there are many more spaces available for women to attempt a different reality. And I also feel that that has come from many more men supporting that attempt.

We can only hope that a 100 years down the line people will look back at a discussion like this and think what an archaic world they lived in!

Good Morning All

Just to share a whole other aspect of whore/mother. I think the mother tag carries many deep-rooted moral expectations of women and that is something which is an area of social/psychological seeding with possibly no easy answers. I think all of us can truthfully say here, that if we see our father's digress morally somewhere no matter how painful the truth we can still forgive and come to terms. But when we even 'feel' our mothers maybe sexually 'immoral' (I mean it could even be a past laison) the emotional distress is acute. This must have far deeper roots I feel than just gender discrimination but imagine what it must also do in burdening women's sexuality and morality. Having worked with some clients (both men and women) who had reasons to 'judge' their mother's morality I found the anger/confusion/hate and distress levels quite acute. It was a tough one to make them see their mother as an individual with her 'needs' and likes/dislikes. The sons did have harder time though.
Ditto to what Anusheh said about working mothers, I see the guilt that the mothers feel almost always leads to pampering and indulging the child in completely unsound ways. Even when the working mothers are doing so to add to family income they just seem to carry a higher emotional/moral bane.

No easy answers I think!

anusheh...u r being accusing when u say that...i qualified my comment clearly...to me, i am also fresh from a discusion on some other blog sites on this issue and thought it was a relevant share in blogspace...

thats very insightful, jasjit...tx...i find that pattern very often even amongst women i know...a lot of things is felt ok for men...and finds constant reinforcement through social media...looking back, i find it was sacrilege to even consider a remarriage for my mom, widowed as she was at 37....i am not sure if an alternative perspective would have manifested had it been otherwise as in a reversal...

A very Good Morning to all,

Nice to see the debate going on (barring a few unwanted comments here and there of course)! Anusheh, I think you are getting your answer - the blog is on its way to serving its purpose of being a forum for healthy discussions :)

Anuj,

"The point m confused abt is tht wheres the limit ?? For ex. premarital sex is increasing these dayz .. so shd one consider it gud jst because people r now expressing there supressed feelings or is it that they r getting out of control .. moving towards the whore culture ??"

I just have one thing to say about this - as long as the expressions (like pre-marital sex etc) dont take place at the expense of the 'other' and as long as the two people involved take full responsibility for their actions, you cant really call it getting out of control. The reason why men get paranoid about things getting "out of control" (as you put it) is because they probably feel insecure about letting women express their sexuality and sexual preferences openly. coz somewhere they fear 'losing' their women. Men are not used to women doing as they please and that scares them.

Have a great Sunday everyone!

thats very well expressed anuhaeh...i feel anybody and not just women, who live on their own terms pay a price for their choice...in terms of being repeatedly misunderstood, in terms of being judged by one and all...but people who make choices more often than not are strong to face the repurcussions, if any...they grow in their resolve and integrity, if at all...growing up can be a very painful process and can inadverdantly even hurt those around about whom one may care deeply...

Thanx Anushehe

It brought back the story of an aunt who was widowed at 30. Educated and bright she decided to go to work and bring up her 2 kids. When she was40 she met a really great guy & wanted to remarry. The kids in their teens then went on a rampage. And frankly no one really talked them out of it. Today she's about fifty plus, the kids are abroad & she's alone. What you said has suddenly made it all clearer. I mean I never even bothered to intervene back then. I could have. I see what Radhika ,my wife wa pointing out earlier. Man we really need to look beyond our self-concepts. I'm suddenly feeling really guilty for her lonliness.

And Sundar mate where is that war we are proxying? Mate I think in all earnestness some of us are still stuck in perrcieving it as war. Good time for some real honest contemplation. Perhaps you should try more of that 'inner world's manifest' that you repeat everytime.

tx again mate...as u see let it be...a strage thing one observes about life is that we always assume that changes are needed in the other...and it applies to all....if you felt like making that comment after my clarification to anusheh's perception, so be it....

Women who live on their own terms do pay a price. Every choice has a consequence, a price tag...and that applies to all.. like Anusheh rightly said, the labeling has only taken different forms, is couched in many myriad manifests of social behaviour and pressures.

Its repetitive, since Anusheh has already written this...but yes as a woman, trying to live on my terms, carving out my own non-traditional "space", there have many consequences, fallouts and prices to pay. However, I wouldn't have it any other way either. This journey has strengthened me, made me aware of the choices I make and the consequent fallouts that i must cope with. Though it has been tough, it has been "a step at a time" process always moving, expanding, growing.

Not fitting into the definitions, not conforming to the (virtuous) stereotype, the first thing that one faces everyday is the whore label though many times couched within comments, propositions, innuenduos.. All else falls away. Since I dare to be different, I am available, loose, promiscuous. On innummerable occasions, even as a student, if I topped the university list, I must have used my womanly wiles, if I did well in my career, it must be because I was generous with my favours... and these came not just from strangers or acquaintances or men.. it also came from people close to me, from family, from women..All my achievements, anything that I have been able to do with my life must be linked to the whore aspect. Any new contact, connect, introduction, invariably ends up today by first becoming a sly proposal for sex, or a covert sexual interaction. So much of it, that today I'd rather not be a "social" person.

Then there is the "aha bechari, poor thing" approach.. poor thing, she doesn't have a normal woman's life... someone who is deprived of so much.. what else can she be..

Rare, oh so rare is the fact that there are a few individuals who understand, accept and respect that these are choices I made, continue to make and am living my life in the space i created... irrespective of and inspite of all the labels.

This blog is one of those very rare spaces, that has renewed me, helped me, reminded me of my inner life and inner self... that I am a person, not just a sex object.

thats so beautifully said , sukanya...ur integrity is so fascinating to watch as it expresses itself....

Hello Friends,

It's mostly true that today's working women can't give as must time to their children as they received from their own mothers. The solution for the problem is creation of commune as suggested by osho. I won't say much and prefer to quote osho here :

The idea of a commune is beautiful: people living together in a nonpossessive way, neither possessing things nor possessing persons; people living together, creating together, celebrating together, and still allowing each one his own space; people creating a certain climate of meditativeness, of love, and living in that climate.
I am certainly interested in the idea of the commune -- it simply means where communion is possible. In the world there is no communion possible. Even communication is not possible, what to say about communion! Communication means a dialogue between two minds -- even that is not possible -- and communion means a meeting of two hearts. Where communion is possible, there exists a commune.
The idea of the family is rotten now. It has worked, it has done its work, it is finished. There is no future for the family. In fact, the family has been one of the causes of calamity. The family makes you identified with a very small group -- the mother, the father, the brother, the sister -- a very small group becomes your whole world. A man needs to grow more variety.
A commune means more variety: not just your father but many uncles, not just your mother but many aunts. A commune means the children will have more people to learn about, more people to love, more people to become accustomed to. They will become richer.
Psychologists say that when a child lives with the mother and the father, the small unit of the family, he knows the mother as the representative of all womanhood and the father as the representative of all manhood -- which is wrong, utterly wrong. His father does not represent all the types and his mother does not represent all the types either. And he becomes slowly slowly focused on the mother; the mother becomes womanhood incarnate.
Now there will be trouble! His whole life he will be searching for his mother in his wife and he will not find her -- and that creates misery. No wife will be a mother to him, and that will be his deep search, unconscious search, because he knows only one woman. That is his idea of a real woman, how a woman should be. And the girl will always be looking for the father, and no husband will be a father to her.

The Dhammapada : The way of the Buddha, Vol.4

all men were once women.

in a certain range women could only progress from being mothers to being men-like (which probably many here mean by the word whore).

on a wider range they could and did end up from being women to being actually men.

there is no question which does not have answer. what all is needed is either humility or the self-confidence to lsten to them.

it is ignorance to say that the great nirbhao, nirver [fearless, biasless]scheme of things of the One/universe will be biased in favour or against one species at the cost of the other.

only the wearer know where the shoe pinches, and it pinches no less in the case of men. wise say the higher one goes the more difficulties one encounters.

women have to tackle only on man at home or mostly one issue of saving their izzat outside, men have to tackle numerous men and issues and in numerous ways in this dog-eat-dog world.

[my younger brother began from zero and earned crores of rupees but then died at age 38 indirectly because of having the face/fight the ever-increasing difficulties/competitiveness of the world of men, more so because he was not highly educated. till he was alive his wife would always quarrel with him mostly because he did not pay heed to her advice as to how to run the business more lucratively. he died in 1996. within ten years she, helped by her two sons then aged 14 and 16, have lost all their property doing the same business her own way. they are now paupers and even we other family members have lost lots of money in trying to help them in one way or the other.]

wherever there is a weakness nature in one way or the other will strike there not primarily to hurt but to heal through first making one aware of that weakness and then through struggle overcome it. i wonder if i am being used by nature in this connection here, for otherwsie i am really never against women as i may be seeming here.

in this connection i wish to narrate two true incidents from my life.

the first one goes back some 40 years. i was in higher secondary class and a lad of very independent thinking. there used to be a girl, a friend of my elder sister, who was as outspoken at that time and had the courage to look eye to eye with men while talking as what we now call modern woman. women were in awe of her and men looked at her as some loose woman. they ridiculed her in her absence. i felt myself so strongly with her that even though i was very shy in talking to women in general, i brought up the courage in the presence of all my family and even the men who were around to say, "sister sukhwinder, whatever the others may think or say of you, i totally understand and appreciate your behaviour vis-a-vis people especially men. i admire you, stand by you and wish that all women were like you." i still remember, listening to this she was almost in tears. and i also remember my family members and others around thinking of me as always as a bit naive or bhola(innocent).

the second incident pertains to the time i was in the final year of my professional studies. in the final year students were taken to what was called a long tour. among other cities we also went to bombay. once there one evening i was aghast to find that we all had reached a red light area. because of my hearing problem i did not know where all were going but i followed in the knowledge that they must be going sight seeing wherever they were going so i followed them without questioning. once there i felt so awkward when i found that we were in a building full of what then were plainly called prostitutes and all except i and an other friend of mine were going one by one with them to separate rooms. i simply became wooden, and sat outside with my friend on a bench. some naughty friends seeing this sent some girls after us who left nothing to tease us, arouse us or whatever, but the more they would do this the more we would become numb. i said that i am willing to give them money but i just cant go with them to their room. i felt so hurt at the degradation i saw of women in the name of money or whatever there that i felt as if i will never be able to have sex with women in future. i felt like vomiting.

even now reading about sundar's mother being a widow at 37, a thought at once came to my mind that were i there in the form of say a relative i would have stood by her and said that she could marry if she can find a suitable partner and i will stand by her/them even if the whole family will go against it. i say to all even now, live your life and damn the others who unnecessarily come in your way. i myself was in a similar situation once because of being labelled a saint but then i rebelled and lived my own life.

i know women cannot go that far but then what men can really do to help them here? has mere lip sympathy ever served any purpose? it rather weakens the resolve. no right was ever been given to anybody on a platter and no ones fight was ever fought by others. it all is a deception. so go ahead and live your life and fight your fight!! but also keep the larger view in sight. none is in heaven here. nor entirely in hell though.

Dear Rohit

Thank you for that very insightful post. Osho indeed spoke some great pearls of wisdom on this issue and demystified the family and its shackles like none other. Indeed the seeds of our own morals,ie what we are drawn to and what we reject, come largely from the twisted interactions with those who we have known as parents. All intimacy, sexuality, morality ends up in circles around the same source.

But as a word of caution Rohit, the ideal that Osho had promised in the nature of the commune did not really work and I believe there are some adults engaged in publishing some very strong criticisms against what they suffered growing up as children in the commune. I guess it is about the fact that even as the conceptual ideal of an alternative structure is put forth those who have to live that ideal are neither emotionally nor spiritually evolved enough to make it work. Perhaps it will be a long time before viable alternatives to family, as is known, will actually emerge.

For now I feel family is the primary structure and frankly with much untapped potential. Even as women have taken on the responsibility of being financial providers, more and more men need to step in as emotional anchors for the children. I feel some of that has begun to happen and the transition may already have begun. But its very shallow still and needs many more men to assume and share the role that mothers have singularly carried for so many centuries. Perhaps that will modify expectations of motherhood and fatherhood to fit a healthier and wholesome concept of family.

hsy rohit...had not read that one from osho's perspective...tx for the share...maybe it will manifest as an alternative lifestyle paradigm in larger spaces in the future...i have encountered tribals deep in the forests of andhra as well as in central india who have a clothes-free lifestyle as also a non-possessive perspective...soemtimes when i read the story of mahabharata, it has alawys made me curious to learn what was society's reaction to draupadi sharing 5 husbands...would appreciate sharings if anyone has any insights on this....

harb, agree with you that all of us has humans have our unique crosses to bear...i do not know whether all men have been women sometime...hnce cannot comment on it...my not knowing of something need not imply that it is not true...
through my college years as an active studenst council official, i have seen abuses stem from both male and female platforms...i have seen horrendous instances of sexual ragging in both spaces...i myself was victim of a vicious press campaign in certain section of the press some years back in delhi...all because i had rejected a commercial press coverage proposition...
it can be a horrid world for anyone....
to me, integrity and awareness are the keys for any individual....they are loyal friends, like shadows and stand us in good stead wherever and in whatever sitution of condemnation or ridicule or whatever lack of acceptance one encounters...to be able to accept oneslef for whatever one is a key region of paersonal evolution for me....

interesting share, anusheh..tx..

one more thought comes to my mind. i know my remarks above would be juxtaposed against my earlier remarks about some women being after sex...(i can say it on oath that i did not have any particular women in mind while saying that and i just said it in general and in the sense of just teasing them a bit in a friendly manner, though now i can understand that some one could have taken it personally as also that it might have touched some raw nerve of some which though must be there in the first place i dare say.)

anyway, in this connection i just want to say that before i had rebelled against that saint image i too would have reacted in the same angry way if anybody had said that really i wanted to have sex with women and were being goody goody only on the surface more so when i made very apparent efforts to avoid women, rather that my avoiding them in that manner was just one more clear pointer betraying that hidden desire. only now, when that 'raw nerve' is out of my system that i can see how true it would have been.

now were one to say this to me i would just accept the fact that yes, i am here to find some women's company, why not, i am a healthy person and i have some problems in my marriage space, what is wrong if in the course of my work i find ways to fulfill my desire too, even though now i may be (or rather really am) beyond it in some way. in fact at least in my case i have many times thought that perhaps because i could not have normal interaction with women because of my hearing problem i am here to make up for that. and if it is so, i am not ashamed to admit it.

Sundar,

If you can find this book, a novel "Yajnaseni" by Pratibha Ray....has won many awards, including the Sahitya Akademi...originally in Oriya (very powerful) but now available in English, though the translation loses some of the power but it is an amazing perspective...in fact the only book I've come across that tells Draupadi's story from her perspective, her version of being a woman and what it takes..

I go back to this book time and again...
To pose a counter question - have we (society)ever held Draupadi in high esteem? Examine this...Even today isn't there ridicule when cited as example or role model - paanch patiyon wali..? Does it induce us to examine and introspect?

An anecdote from Yajnaseni for reflection:

Draupadi, unable to accept that she will have to commit to 5 different men, asks Krishna - why this situation Sakha.. you expect me to give myself 100% to each one of the Pandavas, mind, body, soul and action.. every day, every moment?
I gave myself to You, you passed me on to your manifestation Arjun, I accepted that and committed my life to him, now you want me to divide myself up into pieces... how will I be true to my dharma?

Krishna answers... Sakhi, your life in this age, your karma is this...you have come here in this manifestation for a purpose.. Those whom I love best, I break them, and mould them, break them and create anew...constantly..
Look inside each moment, find me...in doing so you will renew yourself everyday, you will heal yourself every day, it will manifest in your karma, in being a wife to 5 husbands..and you will therefore remain faithful to your dharma..

tx sukanya for that suggest..will try and locate it..would be an interesting read...is it a researched work or fictionalised?

interesting counter q u have posed...

Just to say that I'm enjoying the dialogue on these issues!
Anushehe, anushe,anuheh....!:-)) good piece yaar...

Sukanya, I really enjoyed that excerpt you quoted from 'yajnaseni'...so powerful and so rich...

And sure, I think Draupadi has definitely been overlooked, her reputation largely besmirched (i mean, how common is a name like draupadi or panchali for a woman??) by her association with five men and the mthyical disrobing/re-robe-ing. we like to give our girls 'virtuous' names rather than the names of brooding mysterious women whose stories are metaphors for struggles/existence/experience way beyond commonly accepted social expectations of femininity and womanhood.

i think it was when i read feminist interepretations of myths that first opened my eyes to different ways of seeing these female icons - sita, draupadi, renuka...

i remember this beautiful illustrated version of the mahabharata for children that i got on my tenth birthday..there was a painting of draupadi in it on the night of her wedding... staring up at the moon with a melancholic/languid/resigned expression with the shadows of five trees falling over her. it was so rich and poignant. now as an adult looking at it again i read an allegory of strength and self-journeying..

Dear Anusheh,

It's true that small families create small problems & big families create problems but only if it consists of those who are not meditators. Not just doing techniques but known their blissful centre within. So, a commune can only be success if it consists of blissful people otherwise not.

Atleast those who run the commune should have gone beyond their mind & it will outdate the structure of family.

more later !

HI Sukanya, Anuseh,

I fully identify with the "prices we paid to just BE ourself". It's not about this time, or this society, or this millenium. Neither is it about this country or about working, non working, beautiful or not, educated or not.

This malady of branding a woman as a 'bad girl' is as old as common cold, and equally common.

Many healers and other senior members of my family have felt the same things for being themselves. Lot of people with a philosophical bend told me the divide of good girl vs bad girl is all in the head. And if you want to live with peace you have to take it in your stride. Like my mother said, "whether you are good or bad are according to your own set of standards. SO stand in front of the mirror and see if you can accept the way you are. Forget about what others say."

We are all living in hope that it will change. If at all the change is happening, it is at the rate of evolution. so perhaps if they find a fossilised diary of sangeeta, I am hoping then they will agree that the choices I made in my life were not like a 'bad girl.' ;-)

in continuation --

My grandmother was widowed at 24. Within a year of coming to India after partition. With two kids, one set of old parents in law, one grandma in law, she decided to work and look after the family instead of remarrying. Her brother in law saw that if he married and added another family or four, they won't survive. So with only his pay and my granny's pay at a meager pention of her father in law, the family of seven somehow made their ends meet. Throughout her life she had to face ridicule.

The family and the extended family never had any problems. They were highly educated and progressive.
It was her workplace that she faced all her problems. Being a quiet strong woman, she never succumbed to the ridicule she faced.

And much later she faced about 25 yrs of ridicule from the most unexpected person. Her own daughter in law. She even had to face accusations that she had a relationship with her bro-in law who died before the daughter in law came into the family.

Yes my granny did pay the price... After her retirement, she became unsocial, quieter, burying herself in her books and in the last stages of her life went totally disbalanced whenever anybody said anything to her. But she never stopped being herself.

The last time I saw her before her death, she lamented, "I died long time back, but I still eat and live, because I decided long time back never to depend on anybody. I can't say that I have forgiven all those people, or I didn't feel hurt, but I chose not to react. Because if I had shown even a single sign of irritation, that would have made them happy. If it gave them pleasure they would have made it worse for me."

------------------------

My mother faced the same kind of things, in spite of being a non-working woman. And when I started working at 25, I faced attacks on my character from girls 4-5 yrs younger to me.
Even when I was a spectacled, girl with braces, with no such beauty or figure to talk about. The attack was direct at my work, my friedships, my promotion etc.

And surprisingly we all face the most hurtful insults from women than otherwise.

Like my predecessors I stopped reacting. But I did pay the price, by being unsocial at times, being cynical, being quieter and of course at times being philosophical and rude.

At the end of the day I guess it's going to take a lot of time, for individual progress and social progress at the larger level. At this point I disgree that the family can't help. It's not possible to make a social revolution in mindsets and attitudes. The change begins at home and then when each home is changed the entire society will start showing the change.

Of course for this change women play a large part. IF I take it from Harb, I dunno if men were women earlier, but I can say for each boy to become a man there is a woman working at it.

So if we want to expect change in the way men look at us, first as mothers it's essential how the women are bringing up the menfolk. It might be gradual, but it will happen. Amen

Dear Sukanya,

thank you, though the sentence is just a rounded version of the karma philosophy of the gita.:)

Hi anuj,

good to see you here. visited your space...its very good.

Sundar I absolutely agree with you about Gargi, Maitreyi etc. in fact a medieval saint broke the rules and started a school for women to teach them vedas....when the hypocritcal society objected...he asked them only one question....whom do the vedas, the upanishads etc, worship? who according to them (apart from the absolute which is sexless ) is the ultimate diety?......

they scholars pondered and said Gayathri...( from the Gayathri Mantra)...

the saint quipped " If the Ultimate Diety is a woman then how come women are banned from learning the vedas?"

the scholars were left speechless at this logic.

:)

hello everyone,

I will be out for a couple of days...going to visit someone special...Lord Balaji of Tirupati...the love of my life :)...have a nice day.

Well Anusheh

What a day its been. unsettling but greatly introspective. The guilt was gnawing so I called my aunt and asked her how she copes with her lonliness. I hardly ever call her so it was strange conversation. But what saddened me really is that underneath that really cool woman was such a lonely soul. And all we had chosen to see all these years was just her competence and calm.
Indeed when she was widowed no one suggested marriage because everyone thought only of her kids. I guess it is a fact that we don't want to think of women's sexual needs. But don't women just substitute them with maternal instincts? O.k stupid question but it has always seemed that way hasn't it?
Rohit enjoyed reading your post but also realized that I can't still think beyond the family as the best of the worst. Can't imagine trusting others to bring up my kids with the same care.

I need to thank you Anusheh for bringing such an important insight into my life.

Aachi

Have a great trip and offer some flowers for me too. :-)

Rohit
I wonder if you ever came across the book Sound of Running Water- there are only some hundred copies in print, largely untraceable and the price prohibitive. However I was lucky to come across it with someone and it has the most stunning pictures and detailed blueprints of how the commune was meant to be. Osho had an awesome vision for it and reading each page is like a meditative high itself. Most of it today does not exist anymore, much was discontinued when he was still there, others things have been transformed (etc). My point is that the ideal of meditative people with centre's of bliss is important to have. It is equally critical to know that it is an individual journey and rare individual's find that centre and then preserve it too. In groups and sects, many bring distorted agendas to such places. Largely because by their nature such places are open, welcoming and inclusive. I too would not trust children's care to any group no matter where it was placed.

Man's nature must be known to carry deep schisms of manipulation, unsound agendas and unresolved violence. Garbed under the right language, totemizing themselves as special and blessed they become all the more dangerous for unsuspecting naive people. I guess because suffering makes most people so needy, they want to trust blindly.

I agree with Venkat. It is the best of the worst, but the family has a higher probability for providing protection to the its young.

Aachi, happy travels. Venkat, thank you that is very sweet. Actually its not a stupid question that you ask. Women do often try and substitute the sexual through nurturing but at the end of the day its just that...a substitute. You cant fulfill needs by substituting them.

Sangeeta, you've raised a very important point. This kind of conditioning has created deep schisms in women, and no one suppresses/damns a womans sexual self quite like another woman. Whereas men are frankly quite crude in the ways in which they supress female sexuality i.e. violence, obsessiveness etc. Women know how to get under the skin of other women and torment them in ways which are far more destructive - largely because of their own projected reality of supression, denial and self judgement. As far as bringing up men goes...I agree, women also need to take responsibility but that's only going to happen when women themselves begin to change the way that they look at themselves and the whole notion of being female.

Sukanya thanks for sharing that excerpt...that was very interesting.
love
a

hey aachi...have a gr8 trip....and keep me in ur prayers...tx.

aachi, just wanted to share with you an event that happened just some years back...i had been commissioned to do the commentary text for the Gayathri Mantra through Times Music a few years back and this became a bone of contention with a lot of scholars whose ok I had to take for my approvals on text...Thankfully, the singers Pandit Jasraj and Rattan Shama insisted on my text and I could have my way...these perspectives limit people even now that the gayathri cannot be recited by women, within certain schools of thought!!!!

venkat, i speak as a friend in these spaces...so please do not take my comments amiss in any context...i operate from my platform of experiences and am comfortable in processes as i see myself to be a part of, while i respect others explores...i wish u and your wife well in all your explores....

Dear Sukanya

Draupadi, more than any other mythical character has unexplored sides and metaphors for men and women. I remember in Gurbani there was a line in the midst of a verse (gurbani is written in verses comprising a central theme) where it said "Panchaali ko raj sabha mein ram naam sut aaee." Within a verse which was extolling the intensity of maya and how man wakes up or doesn't when all structures he/she depends upon begin to crumble.

When I heard that line, since I knew Draupadi only as Draupadi I was confused and asked my father why she was being called Panchaali. He explained that though the name being used was from her father's kingdom (Panchaal Naresh), it was also referring to her kingdom of five rulers. Five yang powers, each Pandav excelling i.e. perfected masculine in his field and yet in the court she has to call to Krishna, divine truth.

This image stayed with me throughout and expanded and revealed many many truths. I guess it brings us back to the essential play that the yin at its core can only draw its force from the purity and perfection of its divine connection. The yang is there to provide and define play, assist in manifesting, but should the yin mistakenly consider the yang as its guiding/protecting force then she will find herself as Draupadi did. Stripped of her basic dignity in the midst of all the male citadels of her life.

I would therefore interpret it slightly differently from you and say that Krishna placed Draupadi in the karmic play of understanding that the yin is an independent and essential force, not a subject of the yang.

As Aachi said about the gayatri mantra, both the deity and the esoteric powers of that mantra have yet to be unveiled. As Krishna said in the Gita, 'amongst mantras I am the gayatri'. It is the yin principle of such unrivaled purity and supremacy that it cannot be compared or even assigned a hierarchy. Draupadis life's maya (the five husband thing)was in essence Krishna's attempt to illustrate the singularity of what that principle of Gayatri is to mean.

Like Harb mentioned, in births and rebirths, we go through cycles of being born men, women to push the frontiers and fathom the mystery of yin/yang. I think gender definitions in our lifetime really test and provoke us to move to a higher understanding. Whether we do or not is then again ofcourse, choice and the suffering that comes thereof.

love :-)

thats a very fascinating perspective, jasjit...tx.

Good evening all...this thread is still going strong...wo!

Aachi, Balaji is such a sweetheart isn't he... have a wonderful reunion..

Thank you Maya, Sangeeta, Anusheh, Sundar...

Sangeeta, lovely express.. my mother said almost the same words to me.. You are so right about family being where it starts... its only now in that i am able to truly appreciate and treasure the women and the men in my life, my mother and both my grandmothers and the family as the anchor... i loved the "as old as common cold and as common" express..

Sundar, Yajnaseni is a fictionalized work but well researched...the structure is a mixture of draupadi's monologues, her dialogues with krishna and her world view as a woman... and the author has treated the mahabarata as women's story.. simply put, its different.

I reproduced this anecdote here from the Oriya narrative. So it wasn't quoted from the text..
from the first time I read it, Yajnaseni has been a "meditative high" to use Jasjit's expression... I find tremendous inspiration and strength in the simple, everyday language, and I identify with the woman struggling with herself, with a life that is thrust on her, and how she relates to the men and women in her space...

Thank you all, this blog is addictive! Cant stay away from it..

Jasjit, fascinating... "yin at its core can only draw its force from the purity and perfection of its divine connection...Yin is an independent essential force, not a subject of yang..

thank you!

Hi Bloggers!

Missed quite a lot on the blog. Was caught up in work. Anusheh what an article!

Sangeeta's story about her granny tells us that people are not satisfied with accusing a woman as 'whore' alone. To really crush her sexuality and self another adjective is added 'incestuous whore'. I have seen it happen in my family too.

Hi Sukanya,

You know if we went back to the period of Draupadi or Kunti, women were 100 times more comfortable with their sexuality and choices than today. Yes there must have been subtle ways of oppression and control but still the complexities were lesser.

If you read "City of Djinns" towards the end, there is a very nice comparison, between, the pretty white Ganga, and the dark mysterious Yamuna. The author aptly describes the different views towards the two women(rivers).

I want to share something I heard from my mother.
It's from a book in bangla called "Panchajanya". basically it's the author's analysis of the various situations and people of the Mahabharat.

---------------

Kunti was an extremely clever, wise and strong woman. When the Pandavas were in exile, for a year, they went and got Draupadi married to Arjun. When they came back to their hut, apparently Yudhishthir called out to his mother, extremely excited about what they had got. Kunti was alarmed, she had never seen her poised eldest son so excited about something. She peered out and saw Draupadi. Also she saw the tremendous excitement writ large on the face of Yudhishthir, bhim and the twins.

Kunti realised, that this extraordinarily beautiful and sexually attractive woman might end up being the bone of contenion between the five brothers. Whether it was her womanly instincts or her motherly concerns, she was puzzled, what to do. At that point of time, she needed all her sons' energies and concentration into defeating the Kauravas.

One look at Draupadi, oozing with charm and grace, she realised if she wants her boys not to fight among each other over a woman (which was very common then) she has to unite them into one. Only this woman had the strength and potential to control these five men into one unified power.

Kunti saw that Draupadi had the edge in her, with which she can either make or mar the Pandavas. So, pretending that she hasn't seen what they have got, she asked them to share her among themselves. It was a very clever political decision as well. She was aware that the love of this woman will keep the men together. Whereas the insult will keep this woman as a needle in their mind always.

And everybody who has read his Mahabharat knows that Draupadi had tremendous control over all her five husbands. So much so that for the long yrs that they were in exile she never let the flame of revenge die from their hearts.

Also there is an example of how much the brothers could go against each other for her. When once Draupadi was in Yudhisthir's chambers, Arjun walked in without permission, and was sent to exile for a year by his own brother. That's when he went to Manipur and married Chitrangada, and several other princesses of that region to increase his army.

--------

It's a story which shows how one woman had another woman's choices sacrificed, to further her goals. Probably it was wise then. Because if we read historical evidence the Kauravas and Pandavas were nothing more than tribes and tribal lords. It wasn't uncommon to fight over women, and killing brothers for land, wives and live stock.

Probably looking at it from our sensibilities now, we can read that Draupadi was seething in her own fire (born out the yagya fire). That in her revenge from the kauravas, she also had the five brothers as scape goats. She actually never belonged to anybody except herself. And in her soul she longed for Krishna and his support.

On the other hand as a wife she did all her duties and more. She was also a minister and advisor and at times the reason for fights. Not to mention that she invited Duryodhana to ridicule him in there new palace of Hastinapur. And the rest is an epic.

-------------------

If I find some more interesting things I'll share it with you guys.

bon voyage Aachi.

good night
sleep tight all of you

Hey Sangeeta,

Know what, I was ruminating over that episode from Mahabharat today.. when Arjun is sent off on exile, just before he is due for his time with Draupadi.. and he is forced to go wandering again, in order to honour the rules..

Inspite of disappointments, betrayal, compromise, once she made her choice, Draupadi never lost sight of her karmic goal.. Arjuna goes on to find Chitrangada, Uloupie, Urvasie...

Sri Aurobindo's poems on these 3 women and their brief encounters with Arjuna, are some of the most beautiful romantic verses.. with this amazing characterization of women..

Draupadi only belonged to herself... and her Divine..

Hmmmm, I like that comparison in the "city of djinns"..

Sure buddy, those women had some spine, as my dad would put it..

And, didi, I love Sarat Chandra's women protagonists... be it pather dabi, shesh prashna, grihadaah, bada didi, et al ... ummm... such strong, beautiful, intense women yet so human, so frail, so subtle...so anchored even with their imperfections... so natural.. imagine a gender renaissance!

Oh you remind me of how much I miss my regular dose of bangla sahitya...

Sleep well friend, and continue to renew our spaces with your thought provoking posts & insights

love
Sukanya

Draupadi has always been depicted as this independent woman with a mind of her own and probably that is why she has been picturised in 'unfeminine' ways. I'll never forget this painting of Draupadi which I had seen long time back. Dark complexion, long jet black hair left open coming from or going for worship becuase she had a plate with objects that one uses for worship. The painting showed her turning sideways and blowing her nose!

Anusheh I have only one word to say- supercalifragilisticexpialleydotous.

hi aachi! hope you have returned from triputi. how is my friend bala ji??

harb.

Dear Jasjit & others,

Yes, i see at many places that people are not as honest & simple as i expect them to be.

Thanks to osho that i could see the madness within & around. But it's really a sorry state though.

I find the spiritual groups whether it's gurdieff or osho related more political than spiritual. Not everyone is same though.

Anyway, it becomes more important to be centred within oneself & self-sufficient when there is so much madness around. So, i should better work on that for the time being. : - )

Cheers, Rohit

"Man's nature must be known to carry deep schisms of manipulation, unsound agendas and unresolved violence. Garbed under the right language, totemizing themselves as special and blessed they become all the more dangerous for unsuspecting naive people. I guess because suffering makes most people so needy, they want to trust blindly."

Are you pointing your finger towards me?...haha

Even if you are not, it's somewhat(or very much?) true about me.

The way many people even at spiritual places behaved with me, i sometimes started thinking that something might be seriously wrong with me. But then they should have told me about my unconscious behaviour instead of misbehaving. What do you say? ; - )

But then many loved/loves me too.

Cheers, Rohit

Good Morning Rohit

No I am not pointing my finger at anyone Rohit.
I would answer your question by saying that awareness of whoever we are is all we need. And in my personal journey the few times that I have visited 'spiritual' places I have been very alert to the fact, that all that happens is merely a message for me. To teach/inform/transform something within me. As a result it has saved me from focussing too much on what others are saying and doing and has helped me keep out of any complicated interactions.

I visited the Pune Commune 2 years ago for the first time and spent just 3 days. Even though Osho was very central to my journey the desire to visit Pune was absent. Even when I did finally go, it was merely to see the grandeur of his vision for that place. Many things were said about it and yet I went with a blank mind and no expectations. Once there I just watched, absorbed and enjoyed everything. I heard and saw many, many things which could lead to wild opinions, categorizations, criticism or eulogization. And yet for me nothing really 'touched' me outside the messages I sought for me. All else was just part of the deep pranam I carry in my being for a conciousness called Osho.

So I would say Rohit, that especially when we go to such places, what happens is directly linked to our needs/projections/desires. And if there is a deep reverance for the central energy which guides such a place, then one must trust all to be part of the guidance.

Just some stray musings

I agree with you here that it's a stupid idea to find faults in others as that's not good for one's growth but when one wants to do something, one needs to make judgements also. ;-)

And that's also a part of the game.

Cheers, Rohit

draupathi is an epitome of modern women with her true views on sex. her feministic view on what a man should be is krishna