Shorn

For a Woman's Day special Open Mic poetry night at the Tuning Fork on 6th March, 2017, I chose to versify this article of mine and well, read it.

It’s Woman’s Day! It’s Woman’s Day!

And as a thinking, feeling woman, 

I’m expected to think and feel

(And maybe even dance around a little)

And proclaim my womanhood. 

But today I think I’ll dance a backward dance

Hold a top-down stance

And start at the end of this story

Let me first undress 

Wipe off that lipstick, scrub off that makeup

Maybe cut off all my hair

And the seduction tied to it.

Let me take off my jewellery

The dangle of earrings, the tinkle of bangles

And everything that chains me

To your ideas of beauty. 

Here comes off my saree - pallu, choli and all

And with it the curves, they so famously adorn

I unclasp my bra, and throw it on the floor

And with it these breasts

That hands of men hunger for

Now I take off my panties, and with it my vagina

Shutting shop for all manner

Of pleasure and pain

And finally, watch me

As I rip off that uterus and the expectation

That it will one day produce heirs. 

Naked and shorn of every notion

That makes me a woman, 

I am now ready to celebrate

With just my heart in place. 

Women by Charles Bukowski: Impressions

The Internet is a strange amazing thing, and one without which life seems unimaginable now. One reads and meets the most incredible beings here, who sometimes repulse, sometimes attract and sometimes change one's life. I came upon one such curious creature called Charles Bukowski here. He came as a wave on social media. Suddenly one was seeing Charles Bukowski being quoted everywhere; and by everywhere I mean Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Anyone who frequents these social media sites will know about waves like these: Rumi has had one, Neruda has had one, Agha Shahid Ali has had one. Lovers go about looking for their words – lovers of people, lovers of words, lovers of love. I am one too. So imagine how struck I was when I read this by Bukowski: Find what you love and let it kill you. No soft wave of love this; it was like being pounded by a big wall of water. And then came more such lines. Naturally, I ran off to Flipkart to buy me a Bukowski.

A prolific American author, Charles Bukowski has written extensively and compared to some of the finest writers of the 20 stood out for its title: Women (and the wonderful cover graphic!). I had to know what the great CB, who wrote brutally about love, had to say about women. So I bought it, read it, and now I am disappointed.

To put it mildly, 'Women' is not Bukowski's best work. Yes, the book is dark and direct, in true CB style, but there are few, if any, flashes of genius that I was seeking. Perhaps I was turned off by the gritty Americanism of the book. Such oppressive superfluousness! American literature has never appealed to me and Bukowski's 'Women' did nothing to change that.

 'Women' is a seemingly autobiographical story about a noir poet, whose new-found fame helps fund his debauched lifestyle. Protagonist Henry Chinaski is about 50 years old, an unrepentant alcoholic and will sleep with just about any woman. Wild women, volatile women, young women, blonde women, black women, fat women, thin women, trippy women, good women, whore women... Chinaski's conquests are endless. There is a love interest called Lydia in the beginning, but once she fades out, the plot becomes a blur. Tammie, Iris, Sara, Katherine, Debra, Cecelia, Valencia, Tanya, Liza, Dee Dee become one indistinguishable blob – a mass of breasts, legs, ass, hair, mouth and sex. They all come, drink, fuck and leave. We find Chinaski waking up at noon with a hangover, puking, gambling at the racetrack, drinking some more, and looking for his next fuck.

Occasionally, we find him flying to one city or another to give a poetry reading. The book almost reads like soft porn, but for CB's existential angst peppering its pages. The story ends with a hint of Chinaski's transformation, but one comes away with nothing.

Because Bukowski is a good writer, you cannot put the book away easily. You go on reading and hoping there will be something of beauty, of substance in these 'Women', only to find hollow shells. His character sketches do not impress, except for one or two. Well, the characters have no real 'page time' to be able to reveal themselves. Chinaski's drinking-­whoring routine reads depressingly dull and monotonous, save for a few occasional insights about the human condition. At the end of it, the book felt like a waste of time, and life's too short for bad fiction. Skip it.

Sex and the Citadel by Shireen El Feki: Impressions

With my aesthetic preferences, my world is often only made of pretty things like fashion, poetry, art, chocolate, literature and such. My mind conveniently filters out the grime that coats out daily lives. I stopped reading the newspaper for the lack of time, but I find myself happier for it. On social media, my eyes are unseeing of the steady stream of outrage on the state of this country. I bullishly swim upstream, spouting poetic lines when everyone else is talking about rape and murder and mayhem.

So It helps to pepper ones reading list with hard-hitting non-fiction books to bring one back to ground realities from time to time. I like my share of 'real life' in measured doses - in books like Sex and the Citadel by Shireen El Feki.

Feki, who is an award-winning journalist, a writer, broadcaster, an academic, the vice chair of UN's Global Commission on HIV and the Law and a TED Global Fellow. With extensive experience in the field of sexual health, Feki writes this commentary on the sociosexual life in the Arab world with great insight and authority. The book is not only an excellent social commentary on the contemporary Muslim world but also an eye opener on many subjects apart from the sexual. The author's Islamic background and her Western upbringing puts her at an great vantage point and makes her writing credible.

'Sex and the Citadel' is divided into many clear chapters pertaining to sexual issues. The first chapter gives the reader an overview of the the Arab society's stance on all matters sexual. It is surprising to learn that there was once a fairly liberal system in place where practices like homosexuality, and even prostitution were not just tolerated but considered normal. Feki cites several literary instances that have spoken explicitly on sex and its many possibilities. Following political upheavals in the late 1800s, the Arab world's stance on sexuality changed, thanks to the likes of Hassan Al Banna and Sayyid Qutb. These men blamed Egypt's decline to Western culture and turned to Sharia laws to revive the region's Islamist glory. And that was the beginning of the downward spiral.

One can't help but be reminded one of the India that once produced Kama Sutra and erotic temple art of Khajuraho and in time turned into a land of prudes due to religious and political influences.

The next chapter, titled 'Desperate Housewives' is one of the longest in the book deals with the plight of the average niqab'd or hijab'd Arab housewife, who has little or no say in the bedroom or outside it. The problems for the girl child begin early on with customs like female circumcision, and only multiply with practices like the very public test of virginity, limited access to legal aid or medical care with regards contraception, pregnancy or abortion. Feki interviews many 'regular' people through the course of this book to understand the nature of the sexual problems that plague the country. She also speaks to a few firebrand women who are slowly but surely challenging the norms and helping lend voice to the otherwise silent Arab woman.

The third chapter is titled 'Sex and the Single Arab' and boldly discusses the biggest of all hush hush subjects - premarital sex. Feki speaks of the lengths to which single women go to preserve their virginity and the sexual frustration of young men who do not have the resources to marry among other things. One interesting thing I learnt from this chapter was that in Islam, there are various kinds of marriage. Many single people in love opt for a relatively hassle-free form of marriage called Urfi so they may have sex with some form of religious sanction and thus a clear conscience. 'Proper' marriages are, of course, the kind that is solemnised before the court, a religious representative and the community.

'Facts of Life', the fourth chapter illuminates the reader on the sad state of sexual education (which is pretty much the case everywhere), the depiction of sex in film and the media, the general misconceptions and taboos surrounding sex and a handful of brave men ad women challenging this state of affairs with the help of new age media. Feki also discusses how access to the Internet has significantly changed attitudes about sex among youngsters, even if this attitudinal shift is not easy to see.

The fifth chapter is dedicated to the business of flesh, aptly titled 'Sex for Sale'. Though officially illegal, prostitution manages to thrive in dark discreet alleys in Egypt and its neighbouring nations. Like in most nations of the world, most women are pushed into prostitution for financial necessity. It reflects the sad plight of women in the Arab world who have little recourse to a 'normal' and respectable life due to limited education and job opportunities. Feki also throws in bits about activism in this area as she is wont to do in all chapters.

In 'Dare to be Different', the author brings to light a marginalised community in not just the Arab world, but everywhere - transgenders. The chapter talks about the struggle of these people in accessing surgical and hormonal treatments in the first place, and then acceptance.

'Come the Revolution' sums up the contents of the book beautifully, and if you do not have the patience to read the whole book (it can seem boring and lengthy at times), read at least this one. Feki acknowledges how the revolution at Tahrir Square changed the old world order in Egypt forever, and how it will hopefully bring positive changes in the Arab world. Egypt's second wave of mass protests are being held even as I write this review. As Feki's brave work predicts, Arab's social soil is ready to be sown with the seeds of change.