By Shazia Ilmi
I was a little girl who grew up in a family of many siblings in Kanpur–a big city with a small town mentality. That’s where it all started–the incessant questioning, the need for answers, the insatiable curiosity. Everything that was told to me as given by my parents, teachers, gurus was constantly challenged by me. People thought I was one insufferable child. Indeed, I was a tough kid to handle, full marks to my parents for putting up with me.
When you grow up in a big family like I did, you learn to speak fast –as no one has the time to listen to you and you learn how to make alliances with this brother or that sister. Extended family is a good training ground for coalition politics of sorts, and was already forging “gathbandhan” as a child.
I would question the given, challenge the normative existence. Women in Mecca and Medina are allowed in the mosques but not in Uttar Pradesh (my home state), why? There is no caste system in Islam but in India there is a caste system, why? There are no fatwas for education though the Quran is categorical about talim, why? I wondered often and questioned why we are constantly being told things that are not true.
There are stereotypes that tag along and shape our identity and constrict us. I wanted to break social stereotypes and biases that govern every aspect of our being–all the time. They have the effect of putting you in a box, from one box to another. I was not going to be buried in a box. I liked the space in between the boxes. I liked to create my own box. My box is not of a particular shape, it could be amorphous; or amoeba-like, or extensive as a universe, and would expand constantly. That’s how I pushed the limits of my being, my identity, and rediscovered myself many times in the process.
My struggle continued as I grew older, so did my rage. Growing up in Uttar Pradesh, in a ghettoised neighbourhood, later in Nainital and Delhi, you get very incensed by people looking at you. Every minute of your time outside your house, you become an object of scrutiny. This starts when you're barely 9 or 10 years old–and it continues….there are these multitude of eyes looking at you constantly. That was really scary.
This cannot go on. I didn’t want to be stared at. I must have been twelve years old, I had a plan. I made faces, scary faces, Zombie-like faces, grotesque faces to repel people who took undue interest in my physical being. When I’d step into a bus, I would pretend I had a whooping cough, some sort of bacteria attack, convulsing in pain. I did these silly things to scare people off and to prevent them from attacking me. There was this lingering anger all this while.
I must be twenty years old. When the man was pressing against me in a crowded bus. He pushed me. ‘What are you doing?’ I asked. “Bheed hai, lag gayi hogi”, he retorted. I said to myself, ‘I am going to keep my anger alive. No, this is not going to work. I will not be stared at or stalked, or allow anyone to misbehave with me or objectify me. No. I am not just part of my anatomy. I’m much more than that. I’m my mind. I'm an independent spirit.’ I plotted this. He, by then, had got a place to sit. I walked up to him and stood on his foot and jumped a few times. It must have hurt him badly. And I said, sorry, “bheed hai, lag gayi hogi”.
I liked newspapers, stationery, and books. Diamonds bore me. I wondered why the desire to be presented with a diamond ring by a charming prince would be a raison d’etre for a woman. It wasn’t mine.
After doing masters in mass communication from Jamia and joined a journalistic job. They looked at me and said, you’re a sweet girl, cover lifestyle, fashion, Bollywood, music…. I said, ‘no, I don’t want to. I want to cover politics, defence, and the Home Ministry. I want to cover all of that.’ You are always held in a box. And there’s always someone out there dying to put you in a box.
Many years later, I was a debutant anchor in Star Network. I was told that you come in and you read the news, the headlines. And the distinguished men would discuss the election results and all of those weightier issues. I told my boss, ‘I don’t want to do that.’ It is like the famous Ajit ka joke from Bollywood, “Robert, tum sonale ke aao; Michael, tum cycle pe jao; aur Lily, tum nahati raho.” I do not want to be the Lily ever in my life. No Mona darlings and Lilies for me, please. My boss conceded.
I have an innate desire to challenge the stereotypes. As stereotypes govern our life, it becomes a never ending story. Like men are defined by what they do, by their work, their wealth, how distinguished or accomplished they are. But women are just pretty much trapped in the bubble of youth. She is 30 years old, she’s over the hill, let's send her to some cave. Youth is gone. Youthfulness is gone. The vitality is gone. I hear it so often: vanity, thy name is woman (though, Shakespeare in Hamlet wrote "Frailty, thy name is woman”–which I reckon is no better). We are not just our bodies, we are more than that. We are not just a number. While men can go ageless and timeless and continue to be thought of as George-Clooney-like-handsome with greying hair. It is women who are constantly squeezing ourselves into corsets and spandex. Men have a life after they are 30, 40, 50 years old. So does a woman.
That’s the point I want to make, going beyond the limits and boundaries that are prescribed for you. By constantly asking questions. By pushing the limits of your being. And, in the process, becoming limitless. I think that my passion is taking it forward. Making the small spark of anger into a forest fire of change. That makes you reach out to children out there who face the same kind of injustice, helplessness, and voicelessness. This is the passion of my life. I set out to do it in my endless pursuit to challenge stereotypes.
Last but not least and very importantly, the last stereotype that we hear is ‘the knight in shining armour’. I realised that we grew up on that delusion–kind of “Mugli Ghutti 555– that there will be a knight coming to you, to rescue you. I decided that I am not waiting for any knight. I will be my own knight, my own shining armour, and my shining armour will be my passion, and like a knight, I will fight for myself and for many many girls and guys, men and women, like me who are seeking a better tomorrow, a better deal for ourselves, now, today and forever.
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