Body and Sexuality
वक़्त के साथ मैं समझने लगी कि सिर्फ़ शोषण नहीं, उससे उभरने की प्रक्रिया के साथ मेरा रिश्ता भी मेरा ‘औरत’ होना तय करता है। सदियों से ‘भारतीय नारी’ को हाशिए पर रखा गया है और उसे स्नेह और स्वीकृति सिर्फ़ तब तक दी जाती है जब तक वो अपनी ‘औक़ात’ के बाहर न निकले।
मैं 9वीं कक्षा में थी, जब लोग मेरे शरीर के बारे में जो कहते थे वह मेरे अंदर उतरने लगा। मैंने पहली बार रुककर ध्यान दिया कि दूसरों की नज़र में मैं कैसी दिखती थी। यह अपने बारे में सचेत होने की शुरुआत थी, और ख़ुद से असहज होने की भी।
आख़िर यह कहने का क्या फ़ायदा कि मेरा शरीर मेरा है जब असल में हमारा मतलब यह है कि मेरा शरीर आंशिक रूप से मेरा है और बाकी शरीर मेरे माँ-बाप, जिम, मैं जिन लोगों को चाहती हूँ और वे मुझे नहीं चाहते उनका, मीडिया, समाज और अनगिनत अनजान लोगों का है, जिन्हें लगता है कि वे मुझे राय दे सकते हैं और बता सकते हैं कि मुझे कैसा दिखना चाहिए।
For transgender persons the body is a very critical juncture where a lot of trans politics happens, given the fact that a lot of our identities in terms of gender do not match how we see our bodies.
Waxing my body for the first time last year to have silky skin like the women on Veet’s box but ended up with rashes instead.
The first sensations that we experience are related to and derived from our body. It is a site of experience, expression and contemplation. The body is a means of voicing our deepest realisations, but how others visualise it can be a source of intense pain.
I smell the judgement
and the disappointment
of my parents as I enter the hall;
it stinks of their silence on my sexuality.
Since we get to see hundreds of thousands of faces over the course of our lives, we know that facial features can take all kinds of shapes and colours and textures and combinations. We don’t see people’s genitals nearly as often.
Like some perverted Pavlovian desire,
the wafting smell of fresh soap
that fills up the air in the bath
has my pupils dilate when walking out.
That’s all the big roles and ethics
All there to fulfil.
Another task,
Another box to tick
Another concrete path to rush
Quick, simple and straight.
It is unusual to find films that focus on older people, especially women, given our obsession with youth, ‘fit’ bodies and beautiful faces.
For me, pregnancy was a strange state of being so present and so aware of my body, while at the same time being separate from it. This experience really did a number on me during those nine months and during the postpartum period.
Body + a million This article: written, read, edited, uploaded on to the internet, heard using assistive software, converted into…
Our bodies are the vessels through which we feel, emote, work or navigate our societies and the world at large. Our bodies are the real, live archive of everything we have experienced and they have borne the consequences of our social conditioning and decisions.