Design

I am absolutely in love with design and don't think twice before sacrificing a little functionality for a lot of style. Sometimes, however, I can't help but wonder if we've let design gain a disproportionate amount of importance in our lives.
The last time I bought a cell phone -- quite a long time ago now -- I ultimately picked up a Nokia E50. Almost completely outdated at the moment but I love it nonetheless. The thing is though that choosing it was painful. I had a look at what was available in the market (in my budget) and ultimately picked on this phone because it had everything I wanted while being slim enough to fit into an evening purse without a problem. (The last phone I owned was a Nokia 3350, if I remember the name of the model correctly, and it lasted me a good six years.)
What I found particularly painful about having to buy the phone is that even though this was the model I focussed on within ten minutes of being in a shop, every time I tried to buy it, I'd have people tell me all about how I should buy something else which looked better (to them). The result was that it took me a good two weeks to actually buy the phone.
And if that wasn't enough, once I got it, I discovered that everything on and in it was treated like an extension of me and my personality whether it was the ringtone I chose or the wall paper.
Quite frankly, I'm not sure if I want design to play such a huge part in my life. For example, I know that I don't want mugs made of white ceramic with grey-steel handles just because they're apparently über cool, never mind that they're also über uncomfortable to hold. I don't want to have to rate cars on how sleek they look -- I just want them to be able to get me to go from point A to B. And I certainly don't want things like my footwear to depend entirely on design.
Quite frankly, I'm willing to leave avant garde design to art galleries. In my personal life, I don't want everything I own to be a so-called extension of my personality, to be heavily imbibed with meaning, to be a way people think that they can read me, to be a factor which people use to judge my values and my priorities, to turn into a tangible manifestation of the design versus functionality debate.

Defined by Blood

To learn the value of physical integrity...

1.

A child you're clutching to your bosom. He'd been pushed aside, and hit his head on something which left a nasty gash in his forehead. Blood gushes out of the wound as it always does from head injuries. He's screaming, crying either in pain or in fear — you're not sure which. It's probably a bit of both. You thank God that you're wearing a black shirt. Black satin. Cool. Smooth. It doesn't absorb any appreciable amount of blood but it does camouflage it, making it possible for you not to become every bit as hysterical as the child, ensuring that the child himself does not become even more frightened than he already is. Never mind that the white marble floor is turning red. Or that the child will be marked for life because of, you believe, your failure to provide protection.


2.

Insensate. Unfeeling. You're lying down on your bed, so shell-shocked that you barely know which way is up. You somehow manage to get yourself away from the bed, out of the room. He says he's sorry over and over again; repeats the word so many times that you lose count of the number of times he apologises. You're not sure if his regret means anything to you though. He's asked you if you'd like to sleep and you must have said that you would. You don't remember getting off the chair you'd sunk into but you do remember him guiding you towards your bedroom. His hand on the small of your back, so gentle that you could barely feel it. And then without knowing how, you find yourself lying down on your bed yet again. You know he's said something but, to you, the words are incoherent. Possibly realising that nothing he says means anything to you, he says no more. He covers you with something and then he leaves you, bleeding and broken, in bed. You don't know what he's covered you with and you don't care; you're grateful for anything which allows you to feel as though you've gone into hiding. You do not yet know that it'll be months before you are able to lie down on a bed without having nightmares of him.


3.

Clumps of hair lie on the floor. You hear yourself scream. The doorbell finally rings but it's been a long time since that's made any difference to him. There's blood on the sheets. You can feel it sliding down your body. There's a rag being pushed down your throat; the neighbours do make a difference after all. You cannot scream. Neither can you beg. You pray. He shouts, wondering how someone he loves can do this. You only wonder what he's talking about convinced that he's lost his mind, and then realise that it's you who's becoming insane as you tell yourself that he cares, not knowing why. You see the anguish on his face, through bruised eyelids, so swollen that you can barely see at all. Your arms are tied, you cannot protect yourself. You have not thought of fighting; you are so tired that you give up: you no longer ask God to make him stop. You only ask Him to let you die. That's all he's made you want for so long now.


4.

The Girl in Hyacinth Blue. There were those who called her 'Morning Shine'. She sat by a window with sunlight gently sweeping over her. Her serenity as the world passed by her seemed overwhelming. Can anyone ever do that in real life? Blood seeping on to the floor; thicker than water, it does not spread out only to merge again and form grotesque but interesting patterns as it spills over. Distorted reflections make their appearance in water like that. Hoping to be able to decipher a meaning which, in your heart, you know doesn't even exist in the strange aberrations strewn on the dark black granite around you, you stare at them for what seems like an aeon and thank God for them. You do not want to see reality: it is too bleak. Hallucinations and lies are your respite from pain. Anything seems easier than the truth, and almost everything is. The patterns look like modern art if you stretch your imagination far enough except for the fact that you're certain that they've been randomly created by a lunatic. You can almost hear his raucous laughs echoing in the background. They don't stop and you begin to realize that it isn't your imagination playing tricks at all. You have to go back and face them: after all, they personify what your life has become. 'The Girl in Hyacinth Blue' never was anything more than a story. There still is blood mixed with water on the bathroom floor as you begin to make your way towards the door.


5.

Wounds festering, your body wracked with illness, you find that you're burning up with fever. There's no one around. God knows, you could have used someone's presence if only to get you a glass of water but there's no one there for you. As the fever continues to wreck your body, every last ounce of energy is drained out of it. There's nothing which matters to you: all you do is lie down, allow the fever to run its course and seemingly destroy your body while within you, your body purges itself as it does more often than you'd like it to. Blood drains out, first into cotton inside you which absorbs it, and when it can hold no more, out of your body, on to your limbs, into the mattress. Its smell stale, you can no longer ignore it but you are too tired to move. The blood becomes an extension of you. In its flow, you feel your fatigue and helplessness reflected. It becomes impossible for you to differentiate between your essence and your body. You can no longer dissociate from what happens to you by telling yourself that it's happening only to your body and not, in fact, to you. You are your body, you discover. It's something you'd rather not have known — dissociation, as you know, helps you to survive pain, especially when it's pain he's caused you.


6.

Excruciating pain followed by having blood flow out of your body. Not something he's caused, for once, and not the usual trickle you're accustomed to but a seemingly unstoppable flow which nothing you can think of causes to ebb and which he chooses to be oblivious to. You are not within that 'monthly crisis of destruction' but you can feel 'the purging, tearing, draining of your own structure', as Nadine Gordimer put it. 'You are your womb although you were never before as aware — physically — that you had one.' The sight of so much blood is terrifying and mystifying all at once. As it continues to pour out of your body, you are dimly aware of losing a part of yourself. Cold sets in as your body attempts to compensate for all the fluid you've lost. You begin to lose track of what's happening around you. You see what surrounds you but you notice nothing. Everything is blurry, unreal. All that is real to you is your body, shivering violently, beset by fatigue. You know you'll never again allow yourself to forget how important your body is. You do not exist independently of it no matter what you'd like to believe.

And no one who jeopardises your safety can exist in your life.
(The 'he' in this piece does not refer to any one person, and this is not an accurate description of actual events.)

One Death Every Seven Minutes

'They always think that they'll die about now and, mind ye, sometimes they do,' said an 18th century midwife in Diana Gabaldon's 'Cross Stitch'.

Every seven minutes, one woman in India dies due to problems related to childbirth or pregnancy. Indian women are 300 times more likely to die because of such problems than their counterparts in the US or in the UK according to a report in today's Times of India. That is an appalling statistic by any count.

When I read it though, the first thought which came into my head was: and what role do men play in this. And no, I don't mean in getting women pregnant in the first place but in helping to ensure that they're cared for. If they're married, the answer is relatively straightforward. They could be obliged to be around for everything from pre-natal classes to doctors' visits and the delivery itself whether or not they or their wives want that to be the case, or in a country like India, they could just as easily leave their mothers-in-law to take care of everything without lifting a finger except to hold the child after its born. Whatever a husband does though, it'd be well neigh impossible for him to deny all responsibility for his wife's welfare.

It isn't quite as clear what happens if the pair are not married though. Throughout history, possibly as a corollary of the 'maternity is certain, paternity is a question of belief' line of thought, there's very little (if anything) that men have been required to do in with reference to their having been intimate with women they weren't married to. They didn't have to do anything at all to facilitate the welfare of the women if they fell ill as a result, and if there were children involved, well, they couldn't possibly be expected to care for every byblow, could they?

Today, it's fashionable to say that one believes that things have changed, just as one believes that domestic violence is restricted to the 'uneducated lower classes' but the truth is that there's nothing at all which requires a contemporary man to act any differently from his medieval counterpart. True, there are laws which require children to be maintained, and DNA can prove paternity but getting those laws applied is no easy job even if a woman were willing to coerce a man into doing what she believed was the right thing for him to do. And, in any case, those laws definitely don't say a word about things like being around for pre-natal or other doctor's visits.

While one certainly wouldn't be able to argue that a man (married or not) was required to be available night and day, surely, being perpetually unavailable would not be acceptable either. And considering that many women are dependent on men in the absence of extended families to get them medical aid, would so many women die if men were more readily available and more willing to help women get medical care?

One can't help but suspect that many women who die, die simply because of a lack of access to health care. There is, of course, the problem that there are apparently a sum total of 20.000 OB-GYNs in all of rural India. But that says nothing for urban India.

A Rape-Defence World

Consent is an affirmative act which requires a person to say yes. For
some reason, this doesn't register with people who use the 'but she
didn't say no' argument in defence of rapists.

The arguments used in the bizarre world of rape-defence tend to fall
apart when they're used in any other scenario though.

Consent, in that world, is:

* a default position -- I haven't said 'no', so I'm clearly willing to
buy everything in your shop.

* about giving in to the inevitable -- Of course I'll give you my
wallet, never mind that you've got a gun to my head.

* about not fighting back -- Why would I hesitate to get into a boxing
match with someone twice my size who could break my neck in half a
minute?

* about failing to say 'no' -- Obviously, if students in an exam hall
aren't specifically told that they are not allowed to copy from each
other, it's because they are allowed to do so.

* about being unsure -- I'm not sure if I've recovered enough after my
back injury to lift weights, so, yes, of course you should pile them
on to me.

If one actually had to live in a community that defined 'consent' as
the rape-defence-world does, life probably wouldn't be safe, orderly
or even minimally comfortable.

Victims

The Curvature has a post up which questions why 'victim' is a dirty word, why survivor isn't. It made more sense to me than anything I've read in a long time.

What is it about popular culture which makes it an offence to feel hurt? Why the hell does anyone have the right to tell another not to dwell on something that went wrong? Why is it necessary to pretend to be strong even when you're falling apart?

To tell someone not to live in the part and to pull themselves together when they're clearly unable to do so is to tell them that they are inadequate. To say that they should not play the victim is effectively to say that they should take responsibility for something they may have had no control over.

To tell them to simply forget the past is to ask that they reject what is in all probability an inalienable part of their experience, of themselves. Everyone uses their experiences as a benchmark by which they assess new events in their lives. Why should those who've been
victimised not be allowed to do so?

White Mughals

I finally read ‘White Mughals’, and, yes, I do realise that I’m probably one of the last people in the world who has read it.

I didn’t pick it up earlier because it was one of those books which everyone was reading and I figured that that meant that it wasn’t a masterpiece. I didn’t want to pay for a copy of my own and someone never got around to borrowing one from someone else.

Last week though I happened to chance on it and I haven’t been able to decide what to make of the book. It’s obviously well-researched and the subject is interesting. That being said, the book reads like a well-researched Mills and Boon product – without a happy ending. Personally, I’d have liked to have read more about some of the people mentioned in the book other than Khair un Nissa whose love life is the book’s focus.

I can’t really claim to be disappointed: considering that the book did well in the market, one couldn’t have expected too much more, I suppose. That doesn’t stop me from wishing that there was more to it.