Now, for the few of you who may insist that you know nothing about Eat Pray Love, here it is in a nutshell: a financially successful but not particularly famous author finds herself getting divorced, going into depression, and then taking a year to travel in order to reinvigorate her life. In Italy, she indulges – eating her way through the first third of the year. In India, she joins an ashram (the book is extremely spiritual, and this section is so heartrendingly painful that you wonder why anyone would call this book fluffy… until you get to the next). And finally, in Indonesia, tying up the circle in perfectly fairytale style, she finds love.

All of this is a true story, told in a fashion that is alternately charming, mildly annoying, and deeply honest.

So when the sequel came out, of course I had to read it. Snarkily, with some of usual disclaimers, but with some real excitement about its subject matter (which trumped any reservations brought on by my passive-aggressive crush on the earlier book). Committed: A Skeptic’s View of Marriage picks up where Eat Pray Love left off – i.e. the author and her Brazilian-born, Bali-discovered lover float off into their happily ever after. Until the US government interfered.

As a foreigner whose trips into the country were not only frequent, but whose exits themselves were only border runs for visa renewals, Gilbert’s partner Felipe finds himself in trouble with Immigration. Fortunately, they are given a choice: if they get married, they can continue their lifestyle (sans border running, too!). Desperately, they agree — but both having survived divorce, the idea of remarriage is significantly terrifying. But the process is so complex that the couple essentially has to spend almost a year outside the country, waiting for the fiancee visa to come through, and Gilbert spends this time confronting her traumas and issues about the institution of marriage, its history in American society (paradigms which are increasingly emulated around the world), its relevance to contemporary life, and how it compares and has evolved (or not) based on cultural and religious circumstances — ruminations and research that eventually became Committed.

Committed is a feminist memoir, make no mistake about it. It is an empowering, thought-provoking read that I would recommend to anyone who 1. wants to marry, 2. doesn’t want to marry, 3. is concerned about civil rights and international affairs (in all senses of the term!). It’s important that the events it describes happened prior to Eat Pray Love’s insane success. Not unlike the happy coincidence of having met her new love at the end of her first book’s journey, a happy coincidence which resulted in an almost too-perfect book, everything that happens therein was spontaneous. Gilbert leaves little doubt that nowhere during her ten months of bad traffic and matrimonial panic wandering around Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia could it have occurred to her that she might exploit this bout of hard luck. She went through the experience with no guarantee of a platform to discuss, let alone capitalise on, it. Because of this, it is all the more relevant. This isn’t a celebrity memoir, but an ordinary couple’s absolutely commonplace struggle in a world that loves and enforces its borders even as it claims to have none.

Now, this sort of gets back to the problem with Eat Pray Love. Which was not, strictly speaking, a real problem with Eat Pray Love itself, but with exactly how the memoir got co-opted into the chick-lit category. Not chick-lit as in light and fun, but chick-lit as in delusional-inducing, Prince-awaiting, hearts-a-breaking. And that problem was that many – many, many, many – of us are where Gilbert was at the start of that book. Lying on the bathroom floor bawling. And in the course of a few hundred pages, in about a year, she was both literally and figuratively somewhere else altogether. And the book was so engaging that it made it look easy.

The problem, essentially, was the expectation created. I encountered this personally in my own life, and practically every woman friend who has read it has admitted to the same rues. Some of them had become especially resentful toward Gilbert. This was not a phenomenon restricted to my circles — a real backlash against Eat Pray Love and its author occurred among its disenchanted readership. Its most common contentions, as discussed on comment forums all over the Internet, were that Gilbert was selfish, and as a white American with some wealth, she was operating from a place of privilege and entitlement. “Not all of us can give up our lives and jetset for a year” was a common refrain — as though if only we could, we would also land ourselves true love and astronomical book sales (a phrase Gilbert’s own sister, married with children and obligations of her own, sarcastically echoes in one email exchange in the book).

But here’s the thing. I don’t think – especially having noticed Committed’s incredible redemptive powers – that Gilbert meant for her memoir to have anything to do with typically misguiding light literature aimed at women. How Eat Pray Love has been marketed – even by readers who recommend it – has not done it justice.

On its own steam, Committed is an important book, completely relevant to our world today and the choices we are faced with as thinking women who sometimes have no alternative but to acquiesce to a fundamentally patriarchal institution (even if we believe we want it, with eyes open or closed). But it’s also a most marvellous redemption for Eat Pray Love’s unintended consequences (and there were some). As she points out almost guilelessly in the introduction, prior to Eat Pray Love, Gilbert was mostly known for writing about men. Her three prior books – Stern Men, Pilgrims and The Last American Man – were explorations of masculine life — fiction and nonfiction about “supermacho characters: cowboys, lobster fishermen hunters, trucksters, Teamsters, woodmen”. As a journalist, Gilbert had even gone as far as dressing in drag for a week, complete with a birdseed filled condom stuffed in her pants.

She doesn’t mention this in this book, but it occurred to me that even before Eat Pray Love, it is ironic that the most lucrative of her projects was probably when a magazine article she wrote about her bartending experiences became the basis for the decidedly fluffy rom-com flick Coyote Ugly. Sadly, between that and Eat Pray Love, her broader scope of work was overshadowed. Call it Gilbert’s chick-lit curse. And Committed, quite decisively, breaks it.

The truth is, I am still bawling on my floor. And I do wish I hadn’t ever heard the word-of-mouth that hyped Eat Pray Love as some sort of semi-prophetic text, because it did result in a few regrettable actions for me at the time (oh hey, a few good anecdotes too). But Committed’s redemptive powers are such that not only does it completely absolve Gilbert of any hand played in the prolonged miseries of some of her readers, but it also elevates her, in a way that Eat Pray Love couldn’t possibly, to the role already assigned to her by the same masses of sad readers: that of the high priestess, the knowing one, a Solomon-like figure who could provide a solution.

Marriage, whether we like it or not, is a necessary decision for many of us. Whether the larger bodies we aim to please are governments, families, societies or own guilt-tripping demons, it can be an inevitability. Committed does two things, and does them beautifully — it strips the institution of its veneer of romance. And then it reinstates it, at a far more meaningful level.

Committed will probably help many more women’s hearts and choices than Eat Pray Love did because there is absolutely nothing here but gritty realism — the facts of the world and its requirements, and how a relationship must necessarily be an accord of solidarity in negotiating these facts and requirements. It will also, hopefully, further the cause of same-sex marriage. As Gilbert most unselfishly points out in the book, she and Felipe are fortunate to even have this choice. Across the world, most lovers of the same gender do not. And when it comes to the paperwork — immigration, insurance, death and taxes – they suffer in ways that heterosexuals can take for granted that they won’t have to.

And Eat Pray Love, that old bugaboo? Let’s just say I am really looking forward to the film. Aren’t you?

The first one is a mushy love story, the second an MMS sex scandal and the third, about the media’s voracious appetite for ’stings’. It is the second and third stories that really hold your attention; the first one is slow to heat up and I almost forwarded a little of the first 10-15 minutes. Yet, my mind keeps going back to it. (This post isn’t a movie review though.)

*Spoilers here, beware!*

When the love story of Rahul, aspiring director at a film institute and Shruti, the “Simran” of his film begins, it is hard not to think of this love story as more a paean to DDLJ than anything else. Cheesy like the film they are making, it is hard to imagine that Rahul and Shruti really love anything beyond the feeling of being in love.

And yet, given the conservative family Shruti comes from, there is no possibility of their dating or getting to know each other. Love must lead to an elopement and marriage almost immediately. Rahul’s blithe confidence that after marriage, the family will “come around”, is almost revolting to watch in its stupidity. The end, when it comes, is gruesome, even though nothing of this honour killing is really shown.

Just yesterday, the Supreme Court has issued a notice asking the Central Government (and a few states), why they are doing nothing to combat the recent spate of honour killings.

The thing about us Indians is that we pride ourselves on our superior ‘Indian values’; we lose no chance to deride Western societies for their (alleged) lack of affection, ‘family values’ and morality. Nowhere is this more evident than in our smug attitude to the upbringing of children. It is so common to hear people talking as though Indians are the only people that know how to bring up children well – everywhere else, children are neglected, spoilt, abused and grow up to have no love for their parents.

And yet, this is the country where a good chunk of people are all too ready to sacrifice their children in the name of honour, society, family name and blah blah. Honour killing is one extreme end of the spectrum, but the unwillingness to accept children’s choices and their happiness as a primary consideration exists in many other forms, ranging from emotional blackmail to being ‘cast out of the family’.

Gajar-ka-halwa aside, we need to stop kidding ourselves. I suppose we have good and bad parents like everywhere else, but no magic beans that qualify us as the best parents on earth.

OVER THE LAST FEW decades, sociologists and economists have been exploring the consequences of marriage for men and for women. Many of the studies indicate that married people are happier, healthier and richer than single or divorced people. Sometimes this masks the fact that marriage has more advantages for men than for women especially when we examine the financial portfolios of married women in developed countries compared to never married or widowed women. Married women appear to have smaller pensions and investments as well as savings. In the UK where I live, many more women work part-time than men, particularly after childbirth; there are more men than women in senior professional and managerial positions; and finally, more women care for elderly relatives (including parents and in-laws) than men and do so either by working part-time or by quitting their jobs. Given these exits from the labour market at various points in their lives, it is not surprising that when they are close to retirement women have smaller pensions and greater economic insecurity compared to men.

As an anthropologist married to a scientist, I’m interested in the career trajectories of women in the sciences. I’ve noticed that most successful scientists, especially those tenured at research-intensive universities, tend to have wives who initially had a promising career but 15-20 years later, they’re working in occupations for which they are overqualified. These range from temporary lectureships to teaching below university level or sometimes focusing only on teaching and not doing any research. Teaching is poorly paid and less prestigious than research.

Part of this imbalance is a function of the highly rarefied academic job market but this is not the full picture. Through informal conversation, I’ve discovered that a combination of circumstances and personal choices have resulted in one partner having a more conventionally successful career than the other. Some wives graduated after their husbands and followed their husbands’ jobs. If the husband procured employment in a remote area with few industries, it presented great obstacles to the wife. For others, the arrival of children tipped the balance of priorities.

I do not intend to present these women as victims of their circumstances; they are probably privileged and in a position to forgo work because they don’t need the money. Also most of the wives say they have very fulfilling lives, even if they are not doing exactly what they were trained to do. From a strictly economic perspective, it might make more sense for couples to focus their energies on the career of one partner especially when that partner is already doing well. But it’s hard to miss the fact that these women’s choices subsidize their husbands’ success to some extent. Without the reliability of a wife who chooses to stay at home or not be engaged in an extremely demanding career, some male scientists would probably not reach the pinnacles they do.

In defense of the male scientists I’ve met, most contribute considerably towards household chores each day. But unmistakably, marriage does tend to have better outcomes for men than for women. Worst is the penalty that women must endure if the marriage does not work out. Not only is she at a disadvantage in the labour market because she has not worked for a long period of time but the initial premise for compromise i.e. family stability has turned out to be false. I am not making a case against marriage, just pointing out that it is not without its risks and costs.

Of course, not all decisions are taken using cold-hearted economic models! Our decisions are often based on our individual definitions of happiness. From my own personal experiences, I’ve realised that a happy marriage is one where the woman does not feel that she is making too many sacrifices. It’s important for women is to be fully aware of the of the risks and costs of their choices, some of which may indeed leave them worse off in the long run as individuals. Feminism allows us a choice of several different life trajectories as long as we’re willing to abide by the consequences of our decisions. It should not dictate one way of life over another because this would not reflect the values at the core of the movement.

***

Sreeparna Chattopadhyay grew up in Bombay, has lived in the US and currently lives in Norwich, UK. She splits her time between working as a social researcher for the government of the UK in London and spending time with her husband and friends in Norwich. She enjoys cooking, reading, writing and taking long walks in the countryside.

Bertha & I

Tonight I feel like Bertha Mason
with a fire and sadness in my soul.
I pace my room – this attic of madness –
it keeps me sane. I think it keeps me
whole, somehow. There’s no breeze
through the window, just an empty
vastness of night and shadow and
half-lights. And the knock on my door,
well, it came before – today, tomorrow,
or never, who knows. Tonight I am
Bertha Mason. I see her in the mirror,
lifting her hand to strike the match,
to knock the lantern over. I wait for
the crackle and hiss of wood, the empty
kiss of lapping flames. Yet all around
me is darkness, darkness. What burns
is a fury for what’s come before
and will again.

***

To Sylvia

When I put away Ariel
I cannot sleep, though
the night is as you describe
it – black, blue. With the moon,
a white knuckle and terribly
upset. Do you still brood
like a rook in winter,
somewhere behind flowering,
mystical clouds? Or walk
a dark landscape beneath
gothic yew trees? Has the
terror come to life in death?
If so, you could not
have escaped, except for
the aged face in the mirror
that now lies forever youthful;
in the back of your poetry books.
I wonder if you still drag your
marble-heavy bag full of god.
If you still hate as much as you
used to. Or has it all magically
faded and made you pure as
a pane of ice? A gift to the stars.
In the distance, I think I see Ariel
– the hurl of mud from hooves,
the brown arc of neck – and you
alongside, running towards morning.

***

Janice Pariat is a freelance writer now based in her hometown Shillong after many years of being away in Delhi and elsewhere. She studied English Literature in St Stephen’s College and Communications at Westminster, London. At the moment Janice is working on several projects – a graphic novel set in Shillong, a first novel as well as a collection of poems based on women literary characters and writers.

Leafing through pictures mailed by a friend, I find one of me on the beach laughing uninhibitedly with my hair streaming in the wind, and I smile to myself thinking ‘this is so me.’ I am a single woman in her thirties, have never been married and have no ‘special relationship’ with any man. Yes, at times, I do long for companionship and romance but for the most part, I revel in my being single. I enjoy the time and space I have and the freedom to explore love, life and relationships in my own way without the responsibilities that come with being a wife or a mother. Yet, living in a patriarchal society where a woman is expected to prize above all, the role of wife and mother, being single also means having to regularly encounter reactions ranging from the sympathetic to the malicious.

I do understand the curiosity others display about my personal life. I probably seem like something of an oddball to them and I’ve got used to fielding questions about the reasons for my choosing to remain unmarried. My reply — that I am single because I have not yet come across the right person and that I am against the arranged marriage system where caste and religion are of prime importance and superficial qualities such as colour of skin and looks assume greater significance than the kind of person one is — does not seem good enough. It’s usually followed by advice about why I should not be so rigid and ‘settle down.’ I have got used to that too.

The hostile remarks get to me though. Sample this. One man asked me if I was single because I was ‘tainted.’ The same man also told me that my parents had been irresponsible and if he had been in my Dad’s place, he would have whacked me and seen to it that I got married at the ‘right age.’ I have been told by male colleagues that my being single gives men fodder for gossip about me and that if only I got married, the gossip would die down. I have been let in on some of the gossip and it is hurtful. I know this happens to other single women as well. A woman’s single status seems reason enough for men to speculate about her personal life and sexuality. Then, there are times when I have had to fend off men who assume that I must be eager to jump into bed with any man just because I am single. Of course, there is the ‘frustrated spinster’ tag that is lobbed at me even when I justifiably lose my cool in the workplace or with family. Mercifully, I haven’t had to deal with worse.

I recall my visit to Ahmedabad some years ago to visit a woman friend, also single. Her work demanded that she travel frequently and she often had to leave and return home at odd hours. We were leaving her apartment one morning when she spotted a few of her neighbours talking to each other. She warned me to ignore their remarks. Later, she told me that when she walked past, her neighbours sometimes called her a prostitute.

On a similar note, I have heard of a single woman in Mumbai being summoned by the residents association to explain her ‘indecent behaviour’ as she returned home late at times. The single woman, it would seem, is expected to adhere to some unwritten code of conduct — to not have male friends, not socialise with men, not entertain friends at home, to be home by a ‘respectable’ hour and so on. It also seems that it is okay to make assumptions about her character and to subject her to verbal abuse and harassment if she deviates from this code.

Even in this day and age, even in urban India, people find it difficult to accept that a woman can choose to remain single and lead a healthy, happy and full life. The idea that the single woman is entitled to the full range of freedoms that any other adult does and is entitled to live her life as she chooses is also one that is yet to gain full acceptance in our society. I wonder when the day will arrive when the single woman can just be and people see her as she is and respect her for what she is instead of making assumptions about her and her character based on her single status.

***

Our love toils about one period.
On the bloody and lusty grassland
You transform me into your self-pitied crippled rabbit.

When you finally discard everything you have
That is inside your permanently bulging equipment,
You turn your back
And ride towards the flat horizon

On a white horse
Whose tail is momentarily dyed pink.
Your horse clip-clops on the flatland.
Your horse remains no more.

I am still bleeding, and my inner thighs are sore.
I hop to the muddy river
To get myself some water.
That reflection of mine is startling:
She’s a ghostly ancient whore.

First published in Hutt

***

The Fisherman’s Wife

The Summer shower comes down
as mercilessly as running horses on full speed.
The afternoon news reports again that there’s no news
about the lost fishing vessel of late.
‘It’s okay, he’ll be back.’ They keep telling her.
They keep telling themselves to keep telling her.

Tonight, she leaves home and mounts the pier
on her palms and knees, without help
from her husband, presumably lost in the sea.
Before departure, he said it would be
a marvellous genesis.

To the salted wind and the salted rain
she serves herself. By the morning
she knows he isn’t returning.
The white-haired waves loom high,
clutching tight the wet air.

Sleepless, tired, she curses,
wails to the open sea like a dog being butchered;
but soon no voice comes to her.
She’s turned into a mad statue,
forced to wait for the impossible
come back.

First published in Qarrtsiluni

***

Tammy Ho Lai-Ming is a Hong Kong-born writer currently based in London, United Kingdom. She is an assistant poetry editor of Sotto Voce Magazine and a founding co-editor of Cha: An Asian Literary Journal. Her website is http://sighming.com and she blogs at http://tammyholaiming.com.

And that’s when he said, ‘You’ had to do it, I wouldn’t have, which got me thinking. What is it about housework that even the most liberated of us women continue to willing wear it around our necks like a millstone that we are proud of?

Now, Mr. B is that rare Indian male who is quite feminist as far as his actions go – he doesn’t talk much about it, he doesn’t know that much about it, but instinctively, he is fair – and that means he doesn’t think housework is ‘my job’ nor does he encourage me to think so. Most of the time, we divide up chores fairly although cooking is one thing I handle (and there are other things like car cleaning, maintaining the yard, dog care and bathroom cleaning which I absolutely leave to him!) On a given day one person may do more but overall, it evens out, and more importantly, he doesn’t see it as ‘my job’ that he is helping me with.

And yet, he is far more objective about housework than I am. While he is good with most of it, he doesn’t see a messy house as reflecting on him in some way. If he feels unwell or even simply lazy, he doesn’t feel obliged to clean up (given that we don’t have kids, its not yet an absolute necessity for us). If he is too tired, he simply plonks down on the sofa to watch TV. Me, on the other hand – I don’t hate housework, I am reasonably hard-working – but at times, I do feel pressurized to pick up or do stuff even if I am tired or unwell. Given that there is no one else pressurizing me, it is really not needed.

Somewhere deep inside, perhaps because its mostly women I’ve seen working around the house, perhaps because others still expect the division to be that way, I do internalize it as ‘my job’, in the sense that I feel a poorly kept house says something about me (I’m lazy, I didn’t learn enough when younger etc). And at times, I feel a ridiculous sense of gratitude to Mr.B simply for doing his share of stuff at home, ridiculous both because my beliefs are that men aren’t doing anything extra-ordinary when they do housework and because he doesn’t expect any thanks for it. Still, somewhere there must be a feeling that he is ‘helping me’, which is why I feel that way.

I don’t know how much everyone else’s expectations influence this. Interestingly, many visitors to our home have praised me for the way the house is decorated and kept, when the fact is that Mr. B is much more artistic than me and I usually defer to him on choosing accessories and colours. Still, people assume that it’s me; in fact, people who knew poor Mr. B from his bachelor days have depressed him no end by claiming that ‘a woman’s touch’ has made the house beautiful when much of it is his handiwork.

Sometimes I wonder if the kind of gendered upbringing we have (and I say this as someone born to fairly liberal parents) has completely messed us up as far as this kind of thing is concerned. My beliefs are feminist, but deep down, I carry more regressive baggage than I’d like to admit. But. Perhaps that awareness is a step towards working on it and moving away.

P.S. A piece over at Savadati, another interesting Indian feminist website, on a recent CNN-IBN poll that actually asked whether women were neglecting ‘their’ housework. Even if I carry some regressive baggage, I reserve the right to feel outraged at the assumptions inherent in that poll!

Some years earlier, this act of wishing a sasroo upon me would have irked me no end. Now it must be old age and its consequent mellowing effects because today I was only mildly annoyed and half-amused that educated, supposedly liberal women in an urbane setting still think of the seeming security a husband and his family can offer as their foremost wish for me.

Oftentimes, it isn’t a well thought-out greeting, just a bouquet of lines trotted out over generations, dating back to an era when a marital home indeed meant security and the blessing of a stable life. My mother mentions with a touch of sentimentality (and she isn’t even a sentimental sort of person) that the “Now next year, celebrate your birthday in your sasroo” wish was bestowed upon her year after year by her own mother, despite knowing full well that her daughter was going nowhere until she finished her accounting degree (which she did at age 28).

I know they only mean well, all these women, and I view them with a recently-found tolerance that has me quickly scanning my hair for any change in color. But I do wish they would realize that the best blessing they can possibly bestow on me is success and happiness in the face of life’s challenges and the ability to be my own safety net. And the freedom to choose my own path, even if it doesn’t lead to the much-exalted sasroo.

In the last 3 years, I’ve seen a number of people in my own circle applying for divorce. Now, the plural of anecdote is not data, but considering the friends I’ve seen and human nature and Indian society, I feel that people who are going in for a divorce are not doing so for frivolous reasons or on a whim. You may not agree with their specific reason, or you may think they should have tried harder, but whatever it is, I feel divorce is still a very hard route to take, not the easy way out.

Why?

One. Marriage is still the holy grail. However accomplished we are, whatever shape our careers may be in, marriage is still presented as pretty much the biggest thing in women’s lives and it is drilled into our heads that a marriage is something we must keep at any cost. Because of this, most women will hesitate to think of divorce, unless the situation really calls for one.

Two. Marriage is not just about two individuals. In India at least, most marriages, even ‘love marriages’ are not just between two individuals. The family is involved in a big way, the wedding ceremony is a huge event and there are still very high personal and social costs to breaking it up (beginning with not getting your jewellery back to having your in-laws spread malicious rumours about you within the community, it all happens.) With so many people involved, the divorce can rarely be amicable. Not just that, chances are your own family will be the strongest voices urging you not to go in for a divorce. For people to disregard all that and go in for divorce – well, that says something about the marriage, doesn’t it?

Three. Both for men and women (perhaps more so for the latter), while ‘divorcee’ may not carry the kind of stigma it once did, its not exactly acceptable either. If the person wants to remarry and goes down the traditional arranged route again, in almost every case, they (esp. women) will need to look for a divorcee or a widower. Few single people would be willing to ‘risk’ going with someone who’s been divorced once. Having to marry a divorcee or a widower is not of course in itself a bad thing, but what I’m trying to say is – the choice basket for a divorcee, esp a divorced woman gets considerably narrow.

Four. Economic dependence. Let’s assume this is not an issue for many younger, well-off couples where both partners are working. But, if there are kids in the equation, it is highly likely that the woman would have either slowed down on the career track, lost a few years or given up her career altogether, all impacting her earnings. It’s not an easy decision to take, to go from a financially-secure-if-unhappy home to making your own way again, especially if you are at an age where restarting your career is difficult. Also, not all families allow women to work, so there will be many younger women who’ve simply never worked outside the home in their lives. What about poorer people? Here in fact, women are more likely to be working and supporting the family, so they are not totally dependent. But, even today, few women own assets like farmland or property that can be a safety net. Plus, go back to point number three.

Five. Post-purchase rationalization. Not just in India, but everywhere in the world, people invest of themselves significantly in a marriage. If they’ve made the choice of partner themselves, they’re likely to take some pride in it. And when there is pride in one’s choice, there will always be some amount of post-purchase rationalization. He’s not alcoholic, just someone who likes his drink. She will give up her career eventually. It’s human nature to do this. People don’t like to just abandon the choices they’ve made, because that says something about them. In the Indian context, in arranged marriages, this is one reason why parents are often so strongly in favour of working on the marriage.

Considering all of this, is it time we stopped thinking of those going in for divorces as silly people fighting because one person doesn’t leave the toilet seat up? Let’s acknowledge the reality of people’s lives which is that marriages break down for a variety of reasons, few outsiders known the inside story, no one really asks for emotional upheaval in their lives and not every marriage is worth saving.

WITHOUT BEING

From the BBC story:

Eyewitnesses said the women had to queue up before undergoing an extensive physical examination by a female doctor before they were given a special badge which allowed them to participate in the ceremony.

Several of the women were quoted as saying that they had at first refused to submit to the test – but were told by officials that they would receive their wedding gifts worth 6,500 rupees (about $132) only if they took the test.

Imagine the women. Perhaps a bit shy. Definitely a bit hopeful, anticipating relief if not joy. You see, they’d finally stop being a ‘burden’ on the collective chest of family and society. They turn up at the pandal or hall, dressed in their best. Then they’re lined up like cattle. Their privacy is violated (mentally and physically). Their bodies become the site of interrogation and censure. What should have been a happy day turns into a horrible humiliation, a nightmare–and they have to endure it so that they can get their gift of 6,500 from a benevolent government.

It’s a positive sign that the issue has been raised in the Rajya Sabha but I’m wondering what, if anything, will come of the protests. Will this end up being just the flavour of politics for the day–or will there be some real measures taken to see it doesn’t recur? Are there going to be strict rules built into mass marriage schemes? Of course, firstly, virginity cannot and should not be a criteria for a government-aided marriage. Mass marriages are often organized to counter dowry or lessen the financial burden of a wedding on the poor. To tie up the issue of economic deprivation with chastity, to allow people to benefit from schemes on condition that they are ‘pure’ enough, is just plain wrong.

I would also think that participants in any scheme should be informed of all details and conditions beforehand. If there are medical tests involved, they should be informed and their consent sought in advance–not at the last minute. These women were not prepared for this googly. Some of them probably felt confused or disoriented. Others might have felt an additional pressure because it was on the day, a sense of ‘how can I back out now, after all this?’

The other question is: How are these women going to be compensated for the shame and humiliation they have suffered? It’s all very well to use them as bullets in the spitfire but what happens to them now?

None of the news reports talk about any of this stuff. Amidst all the foam spewing from various mouths, nobody seems to have addressed any of this in concrete terms. Or the media wasn’t listening.