I'm Hearing Voices..

["I'm hearing voices again" - Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf in The Hours]


Following up to yesterday's post, I'm featuring a few of the woman voices on the blogosphere here. These are people I know-- if you know of someone, please add to the list by posting link(s) in the comments.

summer in hyderabad, by jenny:

"they put it in the local newspaper,
among the tits and thighs that
keeps the sales going on,
between the color face of a PYT
the black and white of my death.."

[the obituary]

"..and so i come close to your bruised head your black eyes that you hit against the mirrorr and i come close to the lips that kissed death and escaped yet another time and i touch your face remembering the summer clouds that all morning went pass my sky.."

[when i come back (for M)]

Walk Alone, by bindu:

"It is only when you shift houses
That you know
That your self moved in certain corners there
When you drag old dust filled memories out
To pack or discard
That you know
They existed in those particular nooks and crannies.."

[Shifting houses]

"We each have one
Calculate, add, multiply, enter
How much have I done?
How much have you taken?.."

[Logbook of Lovelssness]

"We play games of conquest
We conquer minds
For some short while
We need to fill ourselves within others
Or, else we fear,
We do not exist.."

[Conquests of the Mind]

it's time.., by gargi:

"i dont see her when i search my memories
i dont like/dislike that.
now, she exists in my life,
not as my mother.
someone who is present.
thats all.

is that because of her
is that because of me..."

[mother, mother..]

flux, by sreejitha:

"Fear is like an antenna.
When you are weak
it's there
fully active
to recieve
all curses around.."

[Fear]

"You spoke:
Spoke of truth
for truth itself
here and there
Got trapped.
Trapped in "love"
they call it, still.."

[Abhimanyu phase]

"IT's not easy knowing what to share.
For, all the time u might not be knowing what you have.
They might not have allowed a space wherein you can peep and find out
What you are
or at least to begin with,
What you have.."

[Sharing]

towards a language of my own, also by sreejitha:

"i mix up too many things.
all because of ignorance.
sometimes
i dont even know
how to be democratic- cum -assertive
So to put in another way
I can be a passive democratic person
or an active undemocratic assertive one.."

[mixing up]

"I asked myself how to live
Alone?
or with someboday
or in a commune?
First i wanted to foster my thoughts
being with myself.."

[so.. how to live?]

"Let men be free from patriarchy
Help men to be free from patriarchy.."

[I, a feminist]

"So what has been tough for me as a feminist?
One thing is
BEing with someone who loves you.."

[Dealing with..]

I know one need not feel depressed about the boring reruns of words and images.. There must be a lot of people who can give us something drastically different, especially women. And other sections of the society who have been silenced or have had to remain silent for a long time now. I don't mean the privileged ones who have established themselves, or even the lesser known (but still privileged) who express through blogs or shortfilms. It is a matter of getting the right platform, and I understand it's tough. Attempts to get these thoughts into limelight fail often [recently read an interview with a documentary filmmaker's wife in a Malayalam weekly-- she was desparately trying to give the "safest" answers that made the interview a mockery, but I believe she didn't have much of a choice]. But I think the time is near.. they can't remain in the dark for ever.

A Natural Question

This Onam, one of the leading periodicals in Malayalam published an interview with an author who writes short stories and has written a couple of novels. The last question was paticularly interesting: "When you write so much about intimate encounters between men and women, the natural question is whether it has anything to do with your experiences".

I don't understand why is this a "natural" question, and wonder if this would have been a "natural question" had the author been a man.

She could have just said that none of your business. But being a woman, and having to live in Kerala among an apparently intellectual society that is sex-starved and moralistic when it comes to women (many woman writers have faced threatening phonecalls and other kinds of threats), she prefers to give the safest answer possible-- a disclaimer that it's got nothing to do with her or anyone else's experiences, and they are completely imaginary.

* * *

I hear that Sithara S, who has written some quality short stories in Malayalam, has gone into silence. She didn't live in Kerala (probably out of the same fear) and was settled in a foreign country. But a woman has to keep fighting those who try to silence her-- either from the society outside or from within the family-- especially if she chooses to express (through writing, theatre.. whatever). I hope Sithara gets back into business soon-- the Malayalam short story scene is really sad.