Photo Courtesy: FUPeriod’s website

Originally published on 31 January 2018.

When I hear the term period sex, I am always reminded of an episode of Californication. The sultry writer Hank Moody and Mrs Patterson, his daughter Becca’s teacher, are getting hot and heavy when she suddenly interrupts their furious making out to tell him that she is on her period.

Hank, the naughty character that I was already growing to love, says something then that makes him even more appealing: “I don’t care about that.” And then they resume.

And now it looks like the (in)famous porn website PornHub agrees with Moody. PornHub is offering a monthly five-day free membership to women on their cycle. With a campaign aptly titled ‘Fuck Your Period’, the website hopes to help women dismiss the stigma that’s chained with sex when they’re red.

PornHub has made a scintillating advertising video which begins with the problems that women attach to period sex, and later moves on to how it is actually a good thing to pleasure yourself while you are experiencing a bloody crime scene in your underwear.  They’ve added that the dopamine (the feel-good hormone) level in your body increases when you orgasm and that, in turn, helps to ease the emotional and physical ordeal that you are undergoing.

For years, I was under the clichéd impression that sex during period was just impossible. That during this five-day duration, women all over the world were deprived of an orgasm although this was probably the exact period when they desperately needed some pleasurable solace.

Hank Moody (and now PornHub) may have charmed but, sadly, not a lot of men think like that. Many are grossed out by the thought of period sex.

So, the next time you want some when you can’t get some, just remember that it’s about time you start helping yourself.

The post Ladies, PornHub’s Got a Monthly Treat For You appeared first on The Ladies Finger.

Photo courtesy: Candace Jean Anderson’s Twitter profile

Originally published on 21 March 2018. 

You’ve heard of women being interrupted by men. Now, here’s a woman being literally hidden behind…well…men.  In a photo taken in 1971, at the International Conference of the Biology of Whales in Virginia, there are 38 male scientists and ONE woman. But wait, don’t go shaking your head yet. There’s more.

The woman in the photo is half-hidden by the man in front of her. And the description with the names of all the scientists doesn’t have the woman’s name. So, all you see is half a smiling face of what looks like a Black woman with no clues to figure out who she is in an old, fading snapshot.

This was until Candace Jean Anderson came into the picture – figuratively, of course.

With the desire to write a picture book on the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, Anderson was on the lookout for some information. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration helped her out by sending an article. There, amid the long text, Anderson saw the blurry photograph, became curious about the obscured woman and decided to find what her contributions to the conference may have been. She posted the photo on Twitter and soon people began pouring in to help. And voila! The emeritus curator of mammals at the Smithsonian National Museum of National History, Don Wilson, recognized her.

Sheila Minor Huff, now 71, has a biology degree and worked as a museum technician in 1971 when Wilson first started there. When she applied for her first job, she was asked to work as a typist, which she immediately declined by saying that she went to school too long to be a secretary. After completing her Master’s degree, Huff worked with top government officials on a variety of wildlife and environmental projects, was a member of the American society of mammologists and retired at 58 with one of the highest possible designations at the Department of the Interior.

As for the photo, Sheila said to The New York Times, “It’s kind of like, no big deal. When I try to do good, when I try and add back to this wonderful earth that we have, when I try to protect it, does it matter that anybody knows my name?”

The post She Was the Only Woman in a Photo of 38 Male Scientists and We Didn’t Know Her Name, Until Now appeared first on The Ladies Finger.

Parora, the karela’s cousin-brother. Or so my sabziwala says. All images courtesy Aneela Z Babar.

First published on Aug 19, 2015

At the sabziwala vegetable vendor earlier today:
“Ji, yeh kya hain?”I ask. What is this?
“Parora. Ye karela ka cousin brother hain!”
“Cousin brother?”
“Ji do bhai the. Ek Pakistan chala gaya, ek yah rah gaya. Hehehhehheh!”
“Ji, hehehheh.”
Hamein jo bhi mila Manmohan Desai mila. Sabziwala nahin mila. And it falls to my filmy lot to encounter the Manmohan Desais of the greens world.

In a couple of hours the clock will strike the midnight hour and August 14 will slip into August 15 in the city where I am tonight. And I realize this year there has to be the ubiquitous jashn-e-azadi blog post, if for nothing else but to acknowledge that sometimes the very fantastic does not come with fireworks and Mountbatten getting into a carriage.

Some of you may have figured out that I am one-third of a Pakistani-Indian-Australian family living in Delhi. And it is a sign of our times that the first question I am asked is What Happens During World Cup. 

I know midnight tonight should be a celebration of being who we are and where we have been over the past five years. Rawalpindi. Dhaka. Delhi. But sadly this year, like many other August evenings before, I cannot rustle up any excitement. Not even to recycle my standard joke about Churchill questioning giving independence to these rascals, rogues, freebooters (and this without meeting Messrs. Zardari and Lalit Modi!) for a brand new audience. I balk at summoning up the energy to stick the star and crescent and tricolour tattoo on the child and have him trussed up for photographs in salwar kamiz like the aman ki asha project people might want him to be. I know, I know, we constantly disappoint people for living our lives in Times New Roman when we could be such an interesting new font.

Since we have known each other, the only project my husband and I have been serious about is getting fat and middle-aged – with the years briefly interspersed with my getting angsty when days like this roll around and I pester him with so we should be having the conversation around big questions like borders, and statehood, and Jinnah ka Pakistan, and Nehru’s tryst, and was the world sleeping just then, but that only reminds us that we have to sleep as the toddler will be up in a couple of hours and yara suna hai Sri Lanka me match tha? Phir miss ho gaya.

One August we were in Bangladesh, the 40^th year of Bangladesh to be precise, which made me the more anxious for not composing a theme song that night. Damn, what if the eyes of all of South Asia were on us just now? Pulling at my sleeve: So? So? Do You Have Some Panchi Nadiya Ke Jhonke Lyrics Yet? AR Rahman ko call karein? Chalo, let’s reuse the Bombay theme I say, one cues in.

And there is my mother-in-law in Assam who cannot sleep, the ignominy, the ignominy of her son being in Bangladesh. When have you heard of someone going THAT side of the river to work! These are all signs! Mark my words, signs, she mutters.

It could be that I stopped engaging with words after realising that there was little I understood of the semantics Pakistan engages in lately. They bandy about terms like death penalties for terrorists but end up hanging teenagers and the mentally infirm and shower rose petals on smiling assassins, and I stare bewildered. Even though growing up we had Gen Zia-ul-Haq teaching us the alphabet. And I look down and realize that somewhere over the years I have also lost the Look East security blanket from my Wonder (of all things Indian) Years. They tell me the past is another country and send me post cards from where they are, and I read the cards and tell myself “No, I do not think they wish I was there”.

Dhaka stayed quiet for most of that August in 2011, but then one day our driver grew a bit pensive and asked me, “So this Obama he is not Amreekan right?”

And I speak up, “No, no he is,” but clearly Driverji had been working on his piece for a while. So he continues, “Jo bhi, he was not theirs but even then they were so eager to have him as president. But we, we were yours, why didn’t you accept us?”

And I ask you: Dear Reader, why, why, why?

For you may know something I do not.

And I cannot answer such difficult questions as I am only a poor Pashtun mother running after a toddler who will only speak to her in Bangla one year, English the next (for you know South Delhi. Hindi thoda thoda bolega).

For that is how most stories end.

We fight, we squabble, we kill, we argue, and at the end of the day there is a man who brings back a pot of pulao from work and a black ribbon which he has to wear all week and his wife asks him why and he says Because It is Mourning Day. (It was the National Mourning Month to be exact – the Awami League had decided that in August 2011 – which I can completely understand, for there was that one time when stores in Peshawar Hayatabad Bara market closed down for a day as a shopkeeper stocking smuggled goods had passed away, “Woh jo Marks & Spencer nahi tha bibi,” explains the guard “wo mar gaya maskeen”. (Marks & Spencer, that poor guy, just died.)

And my husband has to add, “Woh jo Sheikh Mujib ko tum logo ne maar diya tha” and I tell him No, just because a man dies it does not mean there was a Pakistani involved (secretly telling myself to Google just in case I have it wrong) and I eat the rice and say a prayer.

August 14, 2011            

Bangladesh: 1
Pakistan, India: 0
And Kashmir never made it to the table.

When I was in the third grade our Urdu teacher looked up from her book one afternoon and announced that Waqt ka ghoda tezi se apni manzil ki jaanib bhaag raha hai (The horse of time is galloping speedily towards the end of your sojourn in this world). Such cheerful stuff to a six-year-old, God bless her! But her words and the transient nature of our lives in this world stay on with me. I don’t want my love affair with this world to end; and therefore I attempt to pack our many, many South Asian lives into this current stint I have of motherhood.

Would you like a glimpse?

August 2009

The blue-black of the child’s Australian passport has arrived in the post and is lying next to the green of mine. I burst into tears and cry for the better part of the afternoon. I realize then that it was just the first of the many changes and political differences to arrive upon us, he is of me but not me. And then counsel myself to save some tears for the day he tells us he cannot stand Shah Rukh Khan. The issues of nationalism and identity can turn very complicated, such a long journey awaits us, and who knows how the goody bag of ethnicity, religion and community plays out for us. I recall the words of a Punjabi Sikh in Thailand who had guffawed over his New York cousins and their over-the-top Americanism in the post 9/11 world: “They try to dress and talk like them but shakal toh unkee nahee la sakte na – will they ever look like them?” So baby, end of the day, even if the green in you might not out, I will continue to love you and be proud of all that you choose or don’t choose to be.

But oh God please let him learn to love SRK.

My little son, who now has an Australian passport, in Pakistan.

August 2010

The drive from Rawalpindi to Peshawar has been very difficult. I know that what awaits me in Peshawar is a new chapter in the life of my loved ones, their personal has met Pakistan’s terrible political – a cousin has been assassinated – and we are still trying to make sense of it and find closure. It doesn’t help that my drive to the city takes me through a very tragical tapestry, as the mighty rivers that cross at Attock rise each day. The skies rain on us and I look out at the greys and browns of a river in flood and a motorway that is now housing a tent village of people displaced from their homes, now trying to make a semblance of a home under bedraggled tarpaulin. Already they have the expression of so this is what our life will be from now on, as a steady flow of cars passes them by, some looking at them with obvious pity, some trying not to make eye contact out of respect, and some in-betweens like me who are still trying to find answers. But in the midst of all this, they are tending to their animals and children who try to make a run for the traffic; there are visitors popping in and out of each tent, as all the while their hosts keep one eye on their villages across the road. And then after witnessing all this misery one drives into Peshawar and it’s inevitable that you will make comparisons with other times in your life. So I fret and I fume about why it has to be so and how will people make sense of their city, and will the city’s young ever have a childhood. And our car turns into a lane and I see little kids jumping into a fountain, splashing their friends, squealing with mischief. And one of them turns around and looks me in the eye and mocks me out of my pity fest. I realize my social and cultural capital will always be Bollywood, so it will not be remiss to make a Hindi film reference here. Remember that scene out of Dil Chahta Hai when Akash/Aamir Khan is brooding his way down Bombay’s streets and passing his old college, an apparition of a younger him – so Ghost of College Lives Past – turns to him as if to say, What Gives? Aisi kya Tension? I think, right then, that moment, that was I. That little child in the fountain just shrugging to himself thinking, Madam, while you in the car there indulge in your self-pity worrying over our lives, here we are, actually living life to the fullest.

And I think this is my life now. This is the moment when I stopped worrying and started living in Pakistan. Well at least for a month or two until the next crisis hit us.

December 2011

Dhaka days allow me to experience sights and sounds I would never have been privy to. Where else can your morning walk include a man carrying a whole menagerie of parrots and parakeets on his shoulders? Hens roosting in a basket who draw tighter into each other make roses in a row, and one afternoon we walked next to a man carrying a dozen geese by their feet. They reach out with their long necks, staring the child in his face, and he looks back at them from his stroller in fascination as they hang upside down.

Early evenings we are bored, waiting for visitors, and the father stuck perennially in traffic, so we go to the roof and while the toddler putters about in a corner I walk up and down trying to entertain him, amuse myself by telling him tales of working in Islamabad and escaping to the roof top to enjoy the winter sun, the cups of chai and stolen smokes. We would look down (both literally and figuratively) at the suited booted lipstick jungle of the corporate world next door. I am sure they amused themselves making fun of us becharis who wore sneakers and behenji clothes to work. There are no corporate types here in the neighbourhood, just a lot of construction workers bringing down buildings. They are miffed at the begum sahibas who now cut into their adda time.

Knocking at the door of Dhaka University.

“Taaq-e-Nissian”, translated as a niche, is a shelf in the wall to place what you need to and give yourself permission to forget about it. I am sure there are families, families like ours, whom we continue to question with a how do you go through this? – families who have trained themselves to place their memories, each day of December, in a Taaq-e-Nissian of their own.

So considering I am still trying to string my words – words that keep slipping off their spool into rooms I should have long closed the door to; I choose to walk away from them for the day.

But even then it’s December 17. A moment when the calendar reminds you once more about the This Day in History and your feet itch so, to dance at their revolution. Could we go to the Flag Day at Dhaka University, you ask, and the man turns around to look at you and asks Really? Serious ho? Allow them to enjoy their party. Ab wahan bhi… and shakes his head in dismay. Memories of Kurigram earlier that year. March 26 to be precise. The child and I spy on school kids preparing for the March 26 parade, I want to push the Physical Training Master out of the way and teach the kids to salute properly (we are OCD this way), but then have a think about the politics of a Pakistani butting her head in and the kids looking at me all Baji ji tussi rehn hi do “Etau shikte hobe ki? Aapni ek kaaj korun [Didi, let it be. “Do you want to learn this? Then do one thing”] … thank you for the memories and independence, now okay tata thankyou bye.”

So perhaps I should just sit back and listen as they clear their throats to sing. My ballad about you and me and them and us and how we all fit in can keep for another day. But I cannot keep on floundering around in transit, where our past is forever placed in the Taak-e-Nissian of old.

We walk around Dhaka University one day with our individual histories.

No Liberators today no Oppressors – and we try to sneak in as Tejoy Haldar’s installation huddles in for A Serious Discussion. The Toddler is curious enough to pry, to call out. We will let some conversations be, though words of apology are forming at my lips.

And we walk past Ramna Park and the Ramna Temple. No bricks, mortar and stones now, for the deities have taken to living under a shamiana. And I think of the years I have wandered the streets of another Ramna in a city – Islamabad – which was built on our crushed hopes for this Dhaka. And yes we all wonder at how it is that it’s Ramna that interlinks Operation Searchlight and Operation Sunrise. You know when men in khakhi think they should have been in the Public Works Department with all their fondness for sitting on bulldozers. Not that the dawn of democracy was easy on these spaces.

A “shamiana temple” in Dhaka. Where temples have been dismantled, ornate tents rise to take their place.

Ab Dilli Dur Nahin Ast

William Dalrymple in City of Djinns writes about meeting a Begum Hamida Sultan who lives in Shahjahanabad. Mourning a city and a language long dead, she tells us, “Partition was a total catastrophe for Delhi. Those who were left behind are in misery. Those who were uprooted are in misery. The peace of Delhi is gone. Now it is all gone.” At the end of their meeting Dalrymple’s wife Olivia asks Sultan whether they could see her again, and if they do, whether she wanted something brought over from Delhi.

The Begum replies (and quite haughtily, Dalrymple writes), “I do not need anything. Do not come back,” adding (and this is the part that resonates best with me), “I just want to be forgotten”.

But as ever children break your reverie, piping, “Why Mama angry?” We may move to Delhi, India. Why am I apprehensive? And I try to bat away all these with a “Ab yeh udhda sa marsia toh main ne sameyta nahi aur tum ek naya tarana chedhney ko kehtey ho? (I am yet to pen my requiem and you tease me with a ballad).”

While we prepare for the move to India, I take up learning Hindi for a lark. Teacher ji bends over my notebook: “Aur yeh joh Hindi Farsi se foreign akshar aaye hain na, unko bindi laga dete hain“ Bilkul theek kaha. Sheer brilliant stuff! Let us be decorating the foreheads of all foreign alphabets now in a grand ghar wapsi.

I decide to give up on the whole thing this Day, on which divas catching a child pummelling his father outside class “Daddy Daddy, kal Gandhi ji ka budday hai batayye na batayye na, how do we celebrate?” between punching the hapless father some more. “Chocolate nahin khaate beta,” he says patting the definitely sugar-high child on his cheeks. And then after thinking for a minute, “And we also don’t tell lies.”

In Delhi, there are 8am panic attacks, had by the then 3 ½ year old: WHERE IS SITA DO-PATTA, MAMA? WHERE IS SITA DO-PATTA? – words that my Pindi ears had never imagined they would hear. He has grown all self-righteous, my boy, pulling Sita’s ghoonghat to her knees as he parades the paper puppet – a triumphant banner now, while I push him in his stroller to school. “Let her breathe yara,” perhaps his words have awakened dormant memories for me; memories of visiting the village, a chador covering my face rise to the surface.  But his little heart does not relent, apparently my boy has signed up for the Moral Police.

It has made for far more interesting revelations. “Ravan is so naughty, so naughty, Mama. He doesnt look at the green man crossing the road. Doesn’t look left right.” He is also indignant that Ravan is not returning Sita, but mostly it is the bad traffic sense, folks, bad traffic sense.

I go to sleep giggling at the image of a ten-headed Ravan at the traffic lights looking left right left right left right left right left right left right left right left right left right left right while a Sita squawks at his side trying to wriggle her wrist away.

I hide the paper puppet Sita one day, so there is one week of a paper Lakhan calling out Sita is Lost. Sita is Lost Againnn. Though when the boy’s Lakhan calls out, walking stealthily around the house, in a hoarse whisper, I will find you Sita, it sounds like a threat.

And so I live now in a city where I discover there are three other Pakistanis in my yoga class … perhaps the Aman Ki Asha is mostly asanas. Some days I am the Grinch that stole the Google Reunion spirit, and write angrily about the Fair and Lovely-isation of Partition memories. The same naive approach to what vexes us … Aneela ko gussa kyun aata hai. You know, when one is coaxed into ignoring a gender, class, and colour inquiry into why Preeto from next door didn’t cut it for that high flying job – please slap on some fairness lotion and it will all be OK.

Har ek baat pe rona aaya

I wish I knew why I was so angry then. Was it because, like everything else, an angst that has plagued our parents’ and my generation and hangs as a sword over my child’s, is now up for “commodification” too? Forget problematic ideas of nationalism, bureaucracy, foreign policy, visa regimes, a military industrial complex – all that India-Pakistan reunion needed was a better search engine.

And the subtext of It only gets fixed when YOU, yes YOU come over and make up. That the “happily ever afters” can only happen after recreating a bit of Lahore in Delhi. For you know who watches cricket, flies kites, fumbles with biryani in a Lahore kitchen. Civilization, culture, humour toh hum is paar le aaye. For across Wagah is Where The Wild Things Are.

Perhaps it was because I could not take any more of this “baat nikli toh har ek baat pe rona aaya” approach towards our lives here, memories of there. No more sighing in a corner for loves and lives lost. Get angry. Stay angry.

Or retreat to Hindi cinema. This is how this story began.

About Rocky and a Yaum-e-Azaadi Mubarak in the 1960s, no one said, Hain? Yeh kya kaha? Is it Persian? Iski Hindi Google Karo

How quickly you forgot.

August 2013

In a Mantoesque short story, one August finds me driving towards Attari to pick up a niece who is visiting us for the month. My sister in Islamabad and I, leaving Delhi, have already squabbled over WhatsApp. Having breakfast at the hotel, I watch Sur Kshetra on TV. Ghulam Ali and Asha Bhosle are singing duets over the sullen state of unrest that is Runa Laila squeaking Bangladesh Ko Na Bhuliye!

Stuff plain writes itself.

I walk around the Golden Temple and realize that ek tum hi nahi tanha ulfat me mere ruswa is sheher me/ Pindi Mardan se mastane hazaron hain. (You are not the only one losing name languishing for me, So many from Pindi Mardan grow intoxicated here each day.)

For a certain amount, your pledge becomes a part of living history at the Golden Temple. Amidst the ubiquitous grants from martyrs and military units posted to the city, there were also interesting stories. Who were they? There are pledges from Pindi! Then one mentioning a thousand rupees from Sangat Peshoriya! Also 51 rupees from Bibi Sant Kaur and Kaka Jaswant Singh from Mardan.

Pledges at the Golden Temple.

I ask the driver, “Next time please take me to the galli where Manto lived.”

Driver ji: “Aap next time aayengi aapko woh kuan (well) dikhaunga jahan Luv Kush ke kapde dhule the.”

The many-flagged box my son is painting.

At Attari it starts raining. They take down the Indian tiranga. The rain stops. Someone runs out to fly it again. Sister WhatsApps me niece’s brilliant A results. I shout them out to her over the customs. The guards congratulate me: Arey Wah!

The Indian customs guard tries to channel his best Urdu: “Aap ke adaab bahut ache hain [You have such lovely manners]”. Niece: Thanks. My niece, naya Pakistan, newer private school girl, is clueless. (And then WhatsApps me: “Pssstt what’s adaab?”)

We all returned happily ever after.

My son on Independence Day this year in Delhi.

So time is passing by, even as it all just begins for our children. May it be an easier journey for them. There are times when I stare at the expanse of green in Delhi’s parks and the child pipes up, “Such a nice country this is, Mama?”

Oh, let them live in these “countries of their mind” for as long as they can. Such a nice country it is to be some days.

Aneela Z Babar divides her time working on gender, religion, militarism, popular culture and doing baron ki izzat, hum umro ae apnapan, choton se pyaar.

The post It’s Independence Day and You Want My Son to Be an Aman ki Asha Project? Too Bad appeared first on The Ladies Finger.

Photo courtesy: Manju Thomas Facebook profile

What is it about Indian men and traffic rules? Does their reluctance to follow even the most rudimentary of these come from the clichéd (and oh-so-wrong) stereotype of them being ‘better drivers’? Or are they still stuck in some sort of high-school cool-guy persona, fulfilling eloquent standards of “mah life mah rules”? And when the police are intent on ignoring these rule-breakers, who will come forward to teach them the basic lessons of driving?

Well, Bangalore is lucky to have Manju Thomas, a 27-year-old HR professional.

On 14^th March, near Corporation Circle, Thomas was seen telling off two men for driving on a footpath that she was standing on. Having witnessed enough of this illegal footpath-to-road transformation, she decided to block the way of the men who were on a white Activa. The men obviously did not take to this kindly.

In the video taken of the incident, one of the men is heard saying “I am not here to listen to your lecture”. (Translation: I am a man and driving on the footpath is my birthright). But Thomas superbly holds her ground and tells him that she has no interest in ‘lecturing’ him and that she’ll stand here until he gets back on the road.

As I watched Thomas, I was filled with admiration and envy. One can guess that her dedication was the cause of my adulation. The envy was because I know that even in the most frustrating of such circumstances, I would never have raised a voice against these men, for fear of being belittled with a  “Ladki faltu hi baat ka batangar bana rahi hai” (This girl is unnecessarily making a mountain out of a mole-hill). So, Thomas’s enough-is-enough attitude is the coolness I aspire to.

When the incident took place, traffic was at its peak (given that it was 6 PM in Bangalore city, notorious for its unmanageable traffic), and the itch of commuters to get home must have been high, which, of course, still doesn’t justify driving on the footpath. But hilariously, the man defended himself by saying that it was ‘urgent’ that he reaches fast. Thomas immediately fired back with, “If it would have been so urgent, you wouldn’t be standing here and arguing for this long!”

Who else is applauding Thomas right now?

The post Bangalore’s Manju Thomas is Trying to Fix What the Traffic Cops Can’t Seem To appeared first on The Ladies Finger.

Photo courtesy: Wikimedia commons

Thanks to an ‘internal circular’, couples in Tamil Nadu marrying under the Hindu marriage law now need their parents’ permission to get married.

The circular, passed from the office of the inspector general of registration, Tamil Nadu, includes a list of documents to be provided by the couple at the time of registering their marriage. The document states that the initials and address of the parents given in the application should match the details contained in the accompanying documentary proof. It also requires the death certificate of the parents if they are no longer alive.

While the list may seem harmless, it isn’t really.

Couples without access to their parents’ original documents will inevitably have to seek their permission to get the requisite papers. So, for a couple in Tamil Nadu marrying without their parents’ consent or those undergoing an inter-faith marriage against the wish of their folks, this requirement becomes a major impediment. The circular looks at the wishes of two consenting adults to get married through a paternalistic lens, putting the privilege of deciding on marriage in the hands of their parents.

Legal experts have also shown their disdain for the new requirement. The Hindu quotes Indira Jaising as having said, “Registrars under a State Act or Hindu Marriage Act cannot insist on that [parental consent to register a marriage], and consent of parents cannot be demanded if two persons are of the age of marriage.”

Jaising further added that, “The tragedy is the Hindu Marriage Act nowhere asks for consent of the woman herself as a condition of a valid marriage. Who knows, maybe, they still think a daughter is “given away” by the father as kanyadaan.”

Her observation is genuinely thought-provoking. Instead of addressing what the concept of Hindu marriage really needs to adopt, that is, the consent of the actual woman involved, the circular has gone back to the concept of asking for the ‘blessings’, or at least, for all practical purposed, the permission, of the parents regardless of a couple’s circumstances. Does anyone else feel like we’re moving swiftly and sneakily backwards?

The post Tamil Nadu Just Sneakily Made Parental Consent Necessary to Register Hindu Marriages appeared first on The Ladies Finger.

Photo courtesy JCI Foundation

Many people associate the Internet with social networking sites and jumping on whatever is ‘trending’, but for others, it is also an indispensable way of making life easier. The Internet is ubiquitous in some of our lives and we frequently see polarizing debates on the good or bad value of the Internet. On one hand, a person can go online and find forums where only their username is visible. A pseudonym is the closest thing you will get to personally address them, but it’s enough for you talk at length about your interests and opinions. But on the other hand, if someone is seeking connections that go beyond their hobbies, there are routes for that as well.

India is the second largest online market, just behind China. But only 29% of these users are women. We wondered what the Internet means to Indian women so we spoke to some of them.

Here are their stories on how they use the worldwide web.

Suman, 20, 24/7 live-in caregiver, Gurgaon

I only started using the Internet last year. In July. You see, I’ve already started my own channel with a director, he’s like a business partner. It’s a channel on Facebook and YouTube, we upload Bhojpuri music videos and movie videos. Do you know if I can get an iPad in my budget? It’s easier to see and upload videos through it.

I also write scripts, take photographs of the pages and send them through WhatsApp. One of my scripts has already been accepted, including the songs in that story. I’m just trying my luck in the Bhojpuri film industry. And if this doesn’t work out, there’s always college.

Photo courtesy Kunzes Goba

I can’t imagine not using the Internet now. It’s just made everything easier. I use it to talk to friends and family, who are still back home in U.P. I use it for transportation, and now I’m also using it for work. Of course, if I stop using the Internet for some reason then it will just be like before, which is fine. But we’ve become dependent on the Internet now. It will be difficult.

Esha, 24, development communications professional, Ghaziabad

Remember Orkut? That was the first time I really got involved with the Internet, before that, it was just Google to do research for school projects. I was pretty active in the Orkut communities, especially this one called Blurts, an Orkut community for writers. I’ve made many real-life friends through it, and I’m still in touch with them. The woman I dog-sit for right now, I met her and her daughter through Blurts.

If the Internet has really changed anything, it’s the kind of media I consume, and the way I consume it. Like earlier, if I knew a few songs by my favourite artist, it was enough. Now I can find out they have so many more albums and I want to listen to them all. I’m a k-pop fan and it’s a genre that I cannot enjoy without the Internet. Like two years ago, a new music video had come out but I couldn’t watch it because I was travelling, I only had 2G and YouTube wasn’t loading fast enough.

And this is just my scenario. Different people use media differently. My parents only use WhatsApp and that’s mostly to stay in touch with relatives. Mom has a Facebook but I have to often remind her to check it.

One of the ways the Internet has influenced my life though is for self-help. I have depression and on the days that I feel isolated, I am constantly on Twitter because I want to reach out to people but I physically can’t. I cannot expect my real-life friends to relate with my depression, so I look for mental health forums and talks online. It’s easier to find like-minded people online.

Sakshi, 24, student , New Delhi

I shifted to Delhi from Mumbai. It is very lonely when you don’t know people in the city, even the few friends I have here from law school are so busy ever since we started working. Initially I used to have major FOMO (fear of missing out) so I drastically reduced the time spent on Instagram and Snapchat to avoid seeing my friends, who were constantly meeting up in Mumbai.

I found myself on apps like Tinder to meet new people in the city and make friends and just in general to reduce my loneliness. I’ve been going out a lot more than before. I don’t just spend my weekends sulking in bed watching Netflix and doing nothing because I have more of a social life now. Dating has become easy with the Internet, you can block out the creeps and filter only good matches for yourself. My parents don’t know this, of course. They would never approve of meeting strangers off the Internet. Also, my mother thinks that I cook but I actually buy all my food from Swiggy, because I usually don’t have the time to cook. But I still eat dal chaawal yaar, it’s just that someone else is doing the cooking for me.

Aishwarya, 23, copywriter, Mumbai

If you tell me to never meet people, I can do that. I can go days without meeting people. I spend around 10 hours of my day on the Internet. I work as a senior copywriter in Mumbai, and with most of the work being online, without the Internet I would be very much unemployed. From Netflix, to Zomato, to Uber, there’s not a single part of the Internet that is not part of my life. And I know it makes me seem anti-social but I’m fine with that.

Photo courtesy Dhriti Mehta

I also sketch as a hobby, but now I only upload sketches that look good on Facebook. I mean, once we start using social media it’s hard not to think in those terms. We quote everything like we are writing it on Facebook.

Uma, 50, businesswoman, Bangalore

My work is my baby. I run a military tourism company, apart from several other jobs and I am in charge of creating travel itineraries. Most of the knowledge I have about those places comes from travelling there, not the Internet. I only use that for cross-checking flight timings. I still have my old-school passion, so I don’t check my phone every five minutes. Nothing earth shattering will happen during that time! I do some online shopping and a little bit of social media, but that’s it. And I love reading but I cannot stand Kindle.

Jyotsna, 24, food blogger, Indore

After I did my engineering, an old friend suggested we collaborate with a fashion-food blogging business. I do maintain a blog, but Instagram is the main tool to attract people as their attention span is low, and most don’t prefer to read long reviews. I keep the description of the food short but appealing. So yes, my whole business is run on social media. But I consciously make an effort to not check my phone after posting something. This validating thing which drives other bloggers, it’s not good for me.

Photo courtesy Sahiba Bhatia

Saritha, 23, works at a children’s bookstore, Bangalore

I usually use the Internet for Messenger. Calling my relatives in Nepal has become easier because of the Internet. I also prefer Amazon for online shopping but I always ask one of my friends to do it for me. I’m scared that I’ll do something wrong and that I won’t know how to use the website.

Once I was making a payment through the Internet and they asked me for my account details. I instantly realized it was a scam of some kind and decided that giving bank account number online would be a terrible move.

So I only use the Internet for social media, and sometimes for work at the bookstore. But I’m too scared to use OLA so I take an auto to work. I also use YouTube to watch crotchet-making videos, since that is my hobby.

Padma, 27, domestic worker, Jaipur

I recently got a Jio mobile and it makes it easier for me to work. I have a 5-year-old son and it’s tiring to work and also check on him. So now I put on a video for him. It’s those videos with the dancing animals and nursery rhymes, he’s only 5 years old so it keeps him entertained.

It’s not good for his eyes, I know. At least now I can earn enough to be able to afford a pair of glasses if he needs them.

Photo courtesy Dhriti Mehta

Amrita, 47, HR manager, Jaipur

Years ago, after completing my MBA, my friends and I lost touch with each other. Some moved abroad, some got married and everyone got caught up in their new lives and jobs. It was not that we didn’t stay in touch, We couldn’t. The Internet is pretty recent for us and reconnecting with old, lost friends was like a revelation. If Facebook and WhatsApp had existed in the 90s, I would have been able to preserve even more friendships.

When my friends formed our WhatsApp group, two years ago, we would enthusiastically share pictures of our family, talk about our jobs and it didn’t take long before we planned a reunion. Some flew in from different countries to attend it, which took place last year.

Photo courtesy Dhriti Mehta

But the group is not as active as before. We send the usual wishes on someone’s birthday, we change the name of the group to HBD ‘name of the person’. It seems that a lot of people have either muted or exited the group though. Maybe they got sick of all the images being forwarded, those ‘good morning’ roses.

The post The Internet is Great But How Do Indian Women Really Use It? Women Across 7 Cities Told Us Some Surprising Things appeared first on The Ladies Finger.

Screen-grab of video posted on Penguin India Facebook page

When I picked up Eleven Ways to Love, I assumed that it would just be another run-of-the-mill book where people find love, learn to love, deal with heartbreak, and then have the brave spirit to plunge into love again.

But this three hundred-page hardcover has so much more to offer. The book consists of eleven stories by different authors – eight by women, two by men, and one by a trans-woman. Most of the stories don’t have the quintessential happy-endings and prove to be terribly heart wrenching. And many of them make you sit up and pay attention to issues aside from the experience of love itself.

And though all of the accounts have wonderful insight into the world of love, a couple of them seemed to be especially incredible.

In The Shade of You, author Anushree Majumdar portrays an acutely honest picture of how dating a black man in the capital city is both an ordeal and an experience like no other. The story reflects the general mindset of Indian people, especially North-Indians, who pride themselves on being fair. “…a certain kind of blackness is acceptable-the hip-hop rap group or artiste, the Premier League footballer, Barack Obama, Idris Elba for James Bond – you get the drift. But what about the several different cultures from African countries that international student populations or expatriates bring to our cities? Ain’t nobody got time for that?” writes Majumdar, her brutally candid words forcing me to reflect on my own supposedly ‘unbiased’ outlook of the Black community.

In another beautiful story, Size Matters, (which, full disclosure, was published by The Ladies Finger) the author delves into a person’s struggle to love while being considerably overweight. She, at one point, talks about how people with prominent collarbones can’t really be called fat. Having inherited the aforementioned collarbones, I went through a brief moment of jubilation upon reading this. But that was quickly replaced by the immediate shameful realisation that I just played into the same prejudices that she was talking about.

Aside from the common ground of love, the essays share opinions on a variety of areas like caste, loneliness, body-shaming, disability, different sexualities and more. The authors’ writings about love reflect an inherent honesty and that, I think, is the most appealing aspect of the book.

The post This Book About Love Will Push You Out of Your Comfort Zone appeared first on The Ladies Finger.

Photo courtesy: Flickr

Wonder Woman may have won our hearts (and the box-office) but it looks like she, and only a few others, were the ones to do so.

A study by San Diego University has found out that in the 100 top-grossing movies of Hollywood, woman protagonists amounted to only 24 percent, a decrease of five percent from 2016.

The statistics are a bit surprising, not just because the top three grossing movies in North America were female-led, but also because for some time now Hollywood has been surfing a major feminist wave, focused on the upliftment of strong female characters in movies. Also, amidst the stir of sexual allegations against powerful men in Hollywood, the united front that many major actors have formed provided a this-is-the-time-for-women-in-Hollywood notion to audiences. So when Chris Pine became the funny sidekick of Gal Gadot, people, especially women, cheered and thought ‘The time has come’.  The time when a woman saves the day while her love-interest just makes googly eyes at the shero. But looks like the numbers don’t back up that perception.

But the study also provides a positive statistic: More women had speaking roles in films, accounting for 34 percent of such characters, up two percentage points from 2016.

Though Bollywood also saw a rise in woman-led movies such as Simran, Lipstick Under My Burkha and Tumhari Sulu, the top-grossing movies remained those led by men. So that means that while Sallu Bhai rolled around in money kyunki Tiger Zinda Hai, Hamari Sulu was stuck juggling her life as an RJ and a housewife to make ends meet (admittedly, that’s an exaggeration).

The Hollywood report may have been surprising but it still shows that stories with women leads have the potential to reach the top of the box-office. And at least that leaves us with hope.

The post We May Have Cheered for Wonder Woman But There Were Fewer Female Protagonists in 2017 appeared first on The Ladies Finger.

Photo courtesy: Facebook page of Niti central

For five days, starting from 5 February 2018, journalism website IndiaSpend counted the number of men and women who appeared as panelists on debates on 10 English news channels, between 8 pm to 10 pm.

The results were extreme. There were four times more men than women in these debates.

This is just a statistical corroboration of a widely known fact: Women’s opinions are very explicitly disregarded. A woman’s opinions, no matter how correct, are not deemed worthy enough to be aired on TV. Especially not worthy enough to be viewed by the misogynist news-viewing male population of India, a fact that journalist Sagarika Ghose very aptly stated in one line in an interview with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in Oxford, ‘”There’s a belief among TV news managers in India that news audiences are “mostly male who prefer to get opinions from men rather than women.”

As the study states, women are summoned only to get their ‘expert’ opinions on gender issues like tax on sanitary napkins or some female politician’s hearty laugh in the upper house. The absence (or tiny just-for-the-sake-of-it presence) of female panelists to discuss non-gender based issues points out the misogyny that is ingrained throughout this country.

Let us take the fresh example of the Nirav Modi corruption case. Arnab Goswami was obviously present to orchestrate a discussion on the incident. As he was vomiting adverbs to introduce the people on his Sunday debate, the camera suddenly panned on to the panelists. There were in total seven debaters. All men. Because why should one even think about inviting a woman (or women) on a panel that discusses the biggest corruption scam of the country as of 2018? It is not like Nirav Modi committed a fraud of stealing pink pad-shaped handbags for his wife that one should invite a woman on the panel right?

In 2013, the BBC academy in London launched training for women who were experts in various fields and were interested in becoming media commentators. Around 2000 women showed up for the 24-seat availability.

What Indian media channels can do is take a page from BBC’s book and launch a similar program to train women. Train them accordingly, until they are seen boisterously shouting their mind like their male counterparts. Train them to the point where no one can say that ‘women are not aggressive enough for TV’. Train them, because their views matter. And it seems only aggressive toxic masculinity finds play on air.

The post TV News Debates Are Basically Just Men Screaming Over Each Other and Now the Numbers Prove it appeared first on The Ladies Finger.

Photo Courtesy: Shanavi Ponnusamy Twitter account

A transgender woman Shanavi Ponnusamy has written a letter to President Ram Nath Govind asking his permission to take her own life as a mercy killing.
She alleges that despite repeated attempts to apply for a job at Air India and despite being qualified, she was rejected every single time. She claims that the airline’s rejection was due to the fact that they don’t have the third-gender ‘category’ in their organisation.

She asked a fundamental question: If she doesn’t get a discount on taxes because of her gender, why should she be refused a job for the same reason? The issue of employment for transpeople isn’t a new hurdle to overcome.

In May 2017, the Kochi Metro Rail hired 23 transgender women for ticketing, housekeeping and customer care in stations. It was considered a substantial move for the community. But 8 employees ended up quitting just one week after the job. Their reason was that there weren’t any proper accommodations available for them and that nobody was willing to rent out rooms to them, thus underlying that discrimination must be dealt with on a deep structural level rather than just providing them with basic solutions.

On the other hand, late in 2017, Joyita Mondal became the first transgender person to be appointed as a judge in India. Along with facing verbal abuse in her younger days, Joyita’s journey to be appointed a judge was not easy. She was ostracised by her family, had to drop out of school and was left to sleep on bus stands and beg on streets. Later, through correspondence she completed a degree in law and thereafter landed the position of the judge.

The Transgender Persons Bill 2016, which was introduced in the Lok Sabha in 2017, is not generating a positive response. The bill identifies transgender people as “partly female or male; or a combination of female or male; or neither female nor male”. This extremely specific definition is unacceptable to transpeople who want a transperson to be seen as someone whose gender identity is inconsistent to what was assigned to them.

From the above instances and now Air India’s lack of Trans category, it is clear that efforts to help the trans community seem to be going off track.

Members of the community are talking and the government needs to sit up and listen before it decides what’s right or wrong for a segment of people it doesn’t even seem to understand properly.

The post Shanavi Ponnusamy is Right. If Her Gender Doesn’t Affect Her Taxes, Why Should It Affect Her Job Prospects? appeared first on The Ladies Finger.

Photo courtesy: Pixabay

Women are taking to social media to share their disturbing sexual assault experiences during the holy pilgrimage of Hajj.

#MosqueMetoo, a hashtag started by an Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy, has gone viral. Stories shared with the hashtag talk about the sexual assault ordeals that women have suffered while at the holy grounds of Mecca or any other place of Islamic sanctity.

It all started when a Pakistani woman named Sabica Khan took to Facebook to share a horrifying incident about being groped while fulfilling the ritual of Tawaf during Hajj where one does circuits of the Kaaba. After Khan shared her story, several other women joined in to reveal shocking incidents and how these shattered their perception of purity at a holy place.

In their stories, women talked about being groped, touched or rubbed up against while they were standing amongst the throngs of people congregated at one of the holiest sites in their religion. They further stressed the fact that all this occurred despite them following the Islamic dress code of being covered from head to toe in a hijab.

In the Oscar-winning movie Spotlight, a small team of investigative journalists from The Boston Globe discovers that a huge number of Catholic priests were responsible for sexually abusing children in Boston. The brilliant movie, which is based on a true story, culminates with the credits showing the following line “249 priests and brothers were publicly accused of sexual abuse within the Boston Archdiocese.” The movie also points out similar happenings in countries across the world.

In India too, there have been several accounts of women being abused in the name of religion. One of the most recent and high profile cases being that of the self-proclaimed ‘Messenger of God’, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh.

And while all this is shocking, is it really all that surprising? When has something like religion or the way a woman is dressed kept predatory men at bay?

The post Sexual Assault at Mosques? When Has Religion Stopped Men From Being Predatory? appeared first on The Ladies Finger.

Photo courtesy: @ApoorvBJP via Twitter, Wikimedia Commons

What is it about women laughing that makes men so angry?

Members of Parliament have been known to react loudly to the speeches delivered by their counterparts during session. Even Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s Budget speech saw plenty of supportive table thumping and shouts of protest. So, when Rajya Sabha MP and Congress leader Renuka Chowdhury’s laughter was heard during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech over a claim about Aadhaar, a rebuke from the Rajya Sabha Speaker, Vice President Venkaiah Naidu was one thing but Modi’s own snarky jibe a whole other.

Comparing her laughter to that of a character from the Ramayana (which one? More on this later), he joked not about the situation but personally about Chowdhury herself.

When I watched the video of Modi’s comments, I was reminded of the backbencher war that occurred in every class in my high school in Indore.

Usually, there’d be two groups of boisterous teenagers, throwing sarcastic remarks at each other, while a pissed-off, stern teacher would admonish them with strict warnings or punishments. The two groups would reluctantly listen to the teacher and quiet down while happily soaking in the sycophantic applause from their supporters in the class.

That India’s most prominent Parliamentarians lends themselves to a group of 16-year-olds, reflects rather badly.

In the video, the prime minister is seen talking about Congress and then about Aadhaar. As he mentions Aadhaar, piercing laughter is heard from the other side of the room. On hearing Chowdhury chortle, Naidu sternly reprimands her for her unruly behaviour. To this, the prime minister responds by saying “Meri aapse vinti hai, Renuka ji ko kuch mat kahiye. Ramayanserial ke baad aisi hansi sunne ka saubhagya aaj jaake mila hai” (I request you to not say anything to Renuka ji. After the TV serial Ramayana, it is the first time that we have had the privilege to hear such kind of laughter again).

The room erupts in loud laughter and the men seated behind the prime minister are seen thunderously slapping their desks to stress just how witty they find this take to be. It bears mentioning that Naidu doesn’t reprimand this unruly behaviour.

The irony is evident when this incident is juxtaposed against the BJP’s claims over the past months to introduce the controversial Women’s Reservation Bill in Parliament. The Bill, which proposes 33 percent reservation of women in legislative bodies, was introduced in 1996 but lapsed after the dissolution of the 15^th Lok Sabha in 2014. But there’s been little forward movement despite the lip service. Add to this Modi’s statement in the year’s first Mann Ki Baat, where he insists that “it is in our culture to respect women”, and one wonders whether his respect is only for the silent kind of women.

In his essay The Laughter of Women, writer Devdutt Pattanaik tells a story from The Mahabharata in which the feisty Draupadi laughs at Duryodhana when he falls into a pool. Duryodhana, known for his vengeful persona, is unable to bear this humiliation and vows to humiliate the queen back. And the rest, after that, is history, or at least mythology. Pattanaik wonderfully writes that “The idea of a woman laughing at a man is seen as the most humiliating act, enough for justifying her abuse in public. Women can laugh, but not at men”.

What is it about women’s laughter than irks men? In popular culture, men have been known to become jealous when a female partner is seen laughing at another’s man’s joke. This ends up being romanticised. If a man is jealous when you laugh at another man’s joke, they say, then he cares for you deeply. Hasee toh phasee. But it isn’t love that’s the trigger here. It’s ego. It’s a sense of entitlement that men possess where the laughter of a woman, like the woman herself, is a possession in their belonging so must be utilised in their favour. Not against them.

Chowdhury’s laughter may well have been outside the required decorum of Parliament but then so is several men banging their desks and cheering on a statement that is obviously a personal insult. Comparing her to a character of The Ramayana was Modi’s dismissal of a senior MP as unimportant. What happened to hate the game, not the player or, in this case, taking issue with the opinion, not with the person herself?

Union Minister of State for Home Affairs and BJP member Kiren Rijiju later posted a video of a laughing Surpanakha, Raavan’s demon sister from The Ramayana. But while this interpretation has a woman character, we seem to remember Raavan’s own laughter as the loudest. Even in attempts to humiliate, Chowdhury gets a supporting character instead of the villainous lead because of her gender. Perhaps the idea of Chowdhury being in charge scares the male MPs even more than her laughter?

Co-published with Firstpost

The post What is It About Women Laughing that Makes Men So Angry? appeared first on The Ladies Finger.

Photo courtesy: Screenshot from the video

Valentine’s day is just around the corner and companies are busy promoting themselves by adorning their products with red and pink hearts. All around us, we see chocolate commercials with lovey-dovey jingles, gigantic heart-shaped balloons popping up in every next shop, scrumptious bouquets of red roses suddenly erupting in every girl’s hand, couple-party invitations being plastered in cafes and what not. We might just as well puke hearts in red.

All in all, we all are well-aware of the clichéd emergence of Valentine’s day marketing every year.

But two guys in Punjab have stepped up to end the banality with their adorable, brilliant marketing strategy for, what seems to be, their shoe shop.

This is by far the best, most entertaining ad I’ve seen in some time. #ValentinesDay #Punjabi pic.twitter.com/ZWO0BHkArs

— Ankur Bhardwaj (@Bhayankur) February 6, 2018

The hilarious video going viral on Twitter begins with a turbaned young man talking about how guys will propose to girls on Valentine’s day and whether to accept their proposal is up to the girls. “Baaki kudiyoon, je taunu koi munda taudhe naa kehn te taang karda e, ched da e, gher da e ya irritate karda e, tussi aude jutiyaan marni e”  With this dialogue he directly addresses the girls or the ‘kudiyaan’ that if a guy is being stalker-ish and not accepting their dismissal, then they should just hit him with their ‘jutti’ or their shoes.

At this moment, his pal behind him pipes up to say ‘And for shoes, you should contact us’ and lists out the complete address of their shop located in Sirhand, a town in Punjab.  And then lists all the types of shoes available. “Saade kol Dutch heel, flat heel, pencil heel, high heel, Pakistani jutti…har ek prakar di jutti mil joungi”

We can’t confirm or deny whether it’s a really witty ad for a real shop or just a great joke but now you know what to do on Valentine’s Day.

The post These Two Punjabi Boys Have Sorted All Your Valentine’s Day Needs appeared first on The Ladies Finger.

Photo courtesy: Women Cricket team India’s Facebook page

As the staff of BCCI headquarters in Mumbai was bustling around to ensure the live telecast of their precious male cricket team, miles away, in the South African city of Kimberley, Mithali Raj was busy ensuring that her own team performs its heart out. Which they did, beating South Africa’s women cricket team by 88 runs in the first match.

As soon as they heard the news, the BCCI was reminded of this other group of Indian sportspeople that was currently in South Africa representing the nation in the ODI series. It realized its naked indifference towards them, snapped out of its patriarchal reverie and decided to make amends. Hahaha just kidding. The BCCI issued a bland (and wrong) Twitter update of the score, while continuing to shout diligent instructions to show Virat Kohli’s clenched jaw on as many channels as possible. When people complained about the no-show of the women’s match, while the men’s performance was on full blast, the BCCI, swiftly blamed Cricket South Africa, saying that the responsibility was on them to broadcast the match.  Perhaps this makes you mad. As it should

But the women’s team of India, it seems, displayed magnificent indifference in return to the BCCI. It went on to play the second match held on 7^th Feb with brilliance and elan. To give you a gist, pacer Jhulan Goswami took the wicket of South African batswoman Laura Wolvaardt, thus becoming the first female cricketer to claim 200 ODI wickets in the history of women’s cricket. She had entered the second match with 199 wickets in her bag.  The same match showed opener Smriti Mandhana slamming 135 runs against the South African team, helping to beat them with a total of 178 runs.

The win in both matches in the three-match ODI series has now ensured Indian women’s team’s secure position in the 2021 World cup.

On one hand, we are thrilled by the women’s team’s continuing Wonder Woman behaviour in the face of the BCCI’s doltish attitudes. On the other hand, we are enraged that they have to be stoic and soldier on instead of being feted and celebrated and enjoying some wall-to-wall Jhulan.

The post The Indian Women’s Cricket Team is Putting it a Big ‘Ignore’ for the BCCI and Breaking Records Instead appeared first on The Ladies Finger.

Photo courtesy: Women cricket team India Facebook page

Both the men and women cricket teams of India are currently in South Africa to compete in an ongoing ODI series.

In the first match of the series, the women’s team beat South Africa by 88 runs. But unfortunately, Indians couldn’t watch the brilliance of their performance on TV. Or any other medium, for that matter.

The match that was held on 5^th of February in Kimberley was not broadcast on TV or anywhere online. Fans had to rely on Cricket South Africa’s Twitter handle for just a bland score update.

The Ladies Finger recently interviewed ESPN sports editor Sharda Ugra. When asked about the general problems faced by India’s women athletes, Ugra’s response was direct and it sums up the story behind the blackout of the women’s cricket match.

“The biggest problem for these girls is the fact that they happen to be girls,” she said.

The BCCI has put the blame on Cricket South Africa by claiming that it was their responsibility to ensure live telecast of the matches. They said that they don’t possess the rights for matches played outside the country.

In this case, one feels compelled to ask, to what lengths would the BCCI have gone to ensure a telecast had it been the men’s team? Would they have dismissed it as a trivial matter had our endorsement-endowed male players been on the ground? Would they not have made sure that there were enough close-ups of Kohli’s perfect jawline showing the beads of perspiration that reflected his immense effort for India’s sporting reputation?

Maybe the women’s team’s sweat doesn’t count as much for the BCCI, but the rest of country’s sports enthusiasts were looking forward to watching the team’s performance.

Oh, and by the way, the live telecast of the men’s team played without a hitch.

The post Hey BCCI, Would You Have Been So Indifferent If the Matches of the Men’s Cricket Team Weren’t Telecast? appeared first on The Ladies Finger.