Stree: A foolish rumination on rape

In my creative writing workshop, one of the sessions is on understanding ‘point of view’. During class, I ask the participants to write about a fight they had with someone — anyone — and their assignment, the following week, is to write about the same fight from the other person’s point of view.

Invariably, the boys write about physical violence. Either how they indulged in it, withstood it, or stood up to it. They were either the bully or the bullied. Or they were friends who threw punches at each other for no good reason. The girls, on the other hand, write about being upset with a friend or sibling because they ignored them or did something they did not like. Here, too, there are instances when the fight becomes physical, but it is rare. Mostly, there is passive aggression and the punishment is cold silence.

I wondered about this and thought back to my school days when the boys would reproduce scenes from WWF (which is now WWE) in the classroom. They would beat each other up, sometimes cornering one boy like pack animals and bullying him till he cried. I never understood what they got out of it.

I asked M if this happened in his school, and he told me, yes, it did. He used to do it too.

I asked ‘A’ if this happens in her school, and she said, yes, it does. She doesn’t understand what they get out of it.

***

I was reading about chimpanzees the other day. I wasn’t asked to write about chimpanzees by anybody, but this is something I do. I get interested in a random topic and read a lot about it for no reason.

Chimpanzees, according to zoologist Jane Goodall, use violence to get sex. Sometimes, female chimpanzees are not interested in mating with a certain male and the male is in no mood to be lectured to on consent. To counter the female chimpanzee’s resistance, the male chimpanzee may attack her several times, days before he intends to mate with her. This is to “train” the female chimpanzee to be afraid of him — when he eventually wants to have sex, she is in no position to resist. She is conditioned by fear.

The chimpanzee is one of the closest relatives to humans.

So, I let myself ask a terrible question: Is rape natural?

***

You see why I’ve called this ‘a foolish rumination’? Because, I can’t be seriously suggesting that rape is natural! Saying something is natural makes it sound like it is inevitable, acceptable, even wholesome. Beautiful. A shampoo automatically becomes superior if it’s made with natural ingredients. A tornado is devastating but it’s also beautiful.

We are not chimpanzees anyway.

Or are we?

When I was looking after my infant daughter years ago, I used to think a lot about how civilization had complicated childcare. If only I could breastfeed her without having to cover up in public. If only we lived in the jungle, and she could pee and poop in the mud instead of having to wear diapers. If only I lived in a herd or pack where other females shared my responsibilities and I wasn’t the only one in charge of this tiny person.

It is when we are returned to our most primal state that we remember we are animals, too. Perhaps it’s so difficult to be humane all the time because it’s not natural.

***

Social media is full of outrage about the young doctor from Kolkata. I have done my best not to read about the case, and yet, the details have lined up on my timeline day after day. I feel a familiar yet dull sense of outrage. I don’t want to pick this scab. I don’t want to commit this story to memory. I want a blue stretch of sky, not a crimson scream waking me up from my sleep.

I don’t want to think about it when my daughter asks me if she can go somewhere. I don’t want to build prison walls around her when I have spent half my lifetime tearing down those prison walls around me.

So, I ignore the story. I scroll past it. I run faster on my elliptical machine. I drink hot chocolate. I watch Kim’s Convenience for the fourth time. I read about chimpanzees.

***

Do men hate women? It seems likely though when you think about the men you know, it seems like a preposterous exaggeration. There are nice men in nice shirts doing nice things for you all the time. But what if they’re really chimpanzees under their nice shirts? Imagine the black fur creeping out of the soft linen. The eyes turning red, ape-like. The human-but-not-human hands with the nails.

Can you imagine it? I can. I can see them typing the names of the dead girls on porn websites. I can hear the hooting and the whooping.

The prison walls that I broke years ago rise from the dust. I crane my neck to see the stretch of blue sky. I don’t lose sight of it in the din. Before the roof can close over my head, I stop it with a crowbar. It’s only this I have that I can pass on to my daughter. The ability to see the blue sky.

***

M and I watched Stree 2 on Sunday. We enjoyed it. It’s about a vengeful female spirit who takes on patriarchy and smashes it. I like Rajkummar Rao. Abhishek Banerjee was hilarious. Pankaj Tripathi, too.

At the end of the film, though, they put Shraddha Kapoor in a flimsy saree and blouse and made her dance like it was any other Bollywood film.

Is this what they mean by horror comedy? Even when you’re a vengeful female spirit who takes on patriarchy and smashes it, you are still a stree. A piece of meat for consumption. Remove the red ghoongat, wear the red chiffon. Chimpanzee see, chimpanzee do.

***

So, is it inevitable then? Is there no hope?

I often think about these lines from The Pursuit of Happyness: “Maybe happiness is something that we can only pursue. And maybe we can actually never have it, no matter what.”

The pursuit of equality is similar. We can never actually have it, but we can pursue it. It’s still worth it because there’s possibility in the pursuit. It makes life bearable.

If we don’t pursue it, the crowbar falls to the ground. The roof closes over us. The simian chants fill the air. The sky is gone. And then, of what use the breath that remains in the body?