Hello reader,
Last month I traveled in the Delhi metro after more than two years. Before stepping out I clicked a few pictures of myself in my full-length mirror wearing the new red kurta having shoulder straps and sent it to my boyfriend. I added a remark that said “love the way I look but not so comfortable putting my hair in a bun as my shoulders would show”. And with that I let my hair down, clicked some more pictures and left to embark on my Sunday plan.
While returning, a stranger in my compartment waved at me. I looked at him with perplexed eyes. All he was trying to do was inform me that we are at the last station and the metro will traverse back from here on. With this sudden confusion, I got down at the station without looking around much; immediately realizing that I wanted to thank him. I turned around and waved at him from outside the window. He waved back and pointed to the opposite platform. He probably sensed the cluelessness reflecting on my face. Again, confused then smiling at my foolishness on mistaking the stranger’s kindness as intrusion, I softened and tip-toed my way to the opposite platform with a few others like me who followed. Sitting in the fresh new compartment of the metro that definitely goes to my station, I registered that I was already in a rebellious state of mind. And that was because I was returning from my visit to the museum of rape threats and sexism.
This museum was a three day display of digital accounts of women receiving hate & abuse. The invite read:
Museum of Rape Threats and Sexism is a space built with victimhood of online violence. It invites you to come see what bullshit we go through every single day and it asks: How dare you? How dare you intrude in my personal space and abuse my existence online? How dare you make this a cautious experience for my being? How dare no one found out what you did. It is a museum co curated by contributors on online violence, we all came together to build this space. And now that we have put up a museum of it, we invite you all to see it.
The entry to this makeshift museum was through a tiny door justifying the name of the venue - Khulee Khirkee. My hyper-alert was already on as the path that led to the venue was small and a little dingy. There was a passageway between the khirkee and the main hall running the display. I removed my shoes in that passageway and went in. As I entered, I saw three curtain-like pieces of cotton cloth hanging in the middle of the hall with a red spotlighted in the middle and two whites on its sides. The three hanging curtains had victim stories thread-stitched on them. The walls to my left and right bore screenshots of online abuse arrayed with golden rectangular frames of varied sizes. It featured messages from perpetrators who were misogynists, sexual harassers and potential rapists.
The hall looked aesthetically pleasing and no one could tell that the content displayed carries the heaviness of a bulldozer. I started reading from the very left, dragging my feet to the extreme right of the opposite wall. With every drag, I became angrier with increased heaviness in my feet. Fuming with rage after absorbing it all from the wall of abuse, I looked around and all I saw were women, hardly any men. The ratio was almost 15:2. It looked the way it looked because the people who go through this abuse on an everyday basis were there. And the people who enabled all the abuse were absent. The absence of men didn’t surprise me as much. I was rather awed by the presence of women. The sight of how all of us were spread in that 30 x 40 ft hall, reading, talking to each other, some were even seated at the empty corners of the hall. It felt like a shrine for women, a place where we know whoever steps in, they understand how we all are living in a hell, of varied intensities, albeit a hell.
There was too much going inside my chest that I felt the need to let it out there itself. I joined the women seated in one corner of the hall. Some of them were the curators of this museum. On chatting with them, I learnt the idea behind calling it a museum and not a collection or an archive. “The abuse is live”, said one of the women who was the brain behind this idea. “This is something that has happened and continues to happen. If anything is to be memorized, it’s this. If there can exist a museum of something as bizarre as toilets and its history, then this is a history that lasts longer than any other history.” We discussed & narrated our experiences of the wide sphere of abuse that we’ve faced. All of it came up. Ranging from boys locker room chats to casual sexism within academic & work spaces to prevalence of patriarchy in a regular household. The fact that this abuse lives not just outside but within the confines of our homes jolted me the most.
“People rush to discredit survivors and protect perpetrators because it’s easier to deny that something happened than to deal with the fact that there are predators in our midst.” ― Luvvie Ajayi
The curators were clear what they were doing and the kind of attention they did NOT want to grab. Because well, putting this nastiness on display is offensive but women living this nastiness is harmless. According to NCRB report, Delhi recorded 13,892 cases of crimes against women in 2021, a significant surge of more than 40% compared to 2020. Yet, nobody wants to confront the truth, especially not the people of this country.
I recognize this display of rape threats and sexism as a movement. This movement has the ability to make the women of this country come together, be able to display the abuse they endure without shame and seek comfort in the sisterhood of fellow women. This movement can spark a fire that shakes the status quo.
“We will ruffle feathers. We might be the villains in a few people’s stories. We might even blow up a few bridges. But our worth is not based on how much we acquiesced to the people we knew. The goal is to betray ourselves less. So, be kind but take no shit.”
― Luvvie Ajayi Jones
Before stepping out for the museum I had loosened my hair so my shoulders won’t show. Lightened & empowered I tied my hair in a bun as I marched out of the khirkee not caring for the gaze of the world. If I have to describe how powerful I felt while returning, this was my moment.
Some feminist books that have been recently published and are sitting in my current to-read list are:
Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh: India's Lonely Young Women and the Search for Intimacy and Independence by Shrayana Bhattacharya (uh uh don’t judge the title too soon ;) )
Sisterhood Economy by Shaili Chopra (founder of Shethepeople)
Goodbye, dear reader. Eight months of this year have gone by, let’s ponder more. I’m gonna!
Riti
x