Why Liberals Should Wear Our Hearts On Our Sleeves

July 2015: #selfiewithdaughter & #lovewins: despite the criticisms, these two campaigns are social media wins.

These past few days, I’ve been reading a number of updates, tweets and comments, and having a number of conversations about both, #selfiewithdaughter, and #celebratepride and #lovewins. There are those going yay-yay, there are those going nay-nay. But, you know what, I’m a yay-yay.

One could argue that the selfie culture is only skin deep, and that there is a lot of more meaningful work left to be done on the governance and policy level—“how can you have a #selfiewithdaughter campaign but at the same time not criminalise marital rape in India, saying that it’s a ‘personal issue’ that is sensitive and so the government doesn’t want to take a stand?” asks Ishita. Shruti Seth asked the PM to “try reform”, and got trolled for it by blind Modi bhakts.

And one could say that love has only won in America, take a chill-pill Indians, we’re still in the dark ages, far from decriminalising gay sex, let alone celebrating gay marriage.

These criticisms are all true and, as someone deeply involved with gender and equal rights issues, I am well aware of all the work left to be done on both these fronts.

But I am also aware of how skin-deep the world is at the moment, where all that glitters is seen as gold. We see the negatives of this every day—from men and women who base standards of beauty on airbrushed images to the damage caused to Australian treasurer Joe Hockey’s reputation by headlines and tweets that proclaimed ‘Treasurer for sale’ (he isn’t corrupt, the stories were about a fundraising activity and he’s since won a defamation case against Fairfax Media).

It’s also interesting to explore the definition of ‘liberal’. Many of us liberals have been content with living and letting live, ‘your rights end where my feelings begin’, a social laissez faire. Increasingly (and ironically) though, it has become important to fight for the right to be oneself (and to let others be themselves), to be left in peace unless you’re hurting something other than ‘culture’. Militant upholders of mainstream culture and religion—those that propagate ideas against daughters and gay people—are pretty proud and loud, in case you haven’t noticed. Too blatant and outspoken about your liberal ideas? You’re a ‘sickular’ bitch who must be jailed.

In this environment, then, it is important to declare ones support for ones ideas, if marching on the streets is not for you. So when we take and propagate #selfiewithdaughter and make our profile pictures rainbow-coloured, we’re aligning ourselves with our beliefs, even if the expression is skin-deep, frothy and feel-good. We’re counting ourselves (and being counted as) people who believe in women’s and gay rights, even if (especially since) they aren’t yet constitutionally and socially guaranteed, even if it is armchair activism. We’re declaring that we want a certain type of world, even if we’re not actively going and seeking it. We’re coming out of the closet with our counter-culture beliefs, even if, in the former case, it propagated by the same government that is simultaneously regressive.

I’ve never been one to follow the ‘if you can’t say anything good, don’t say anything at all’ adage. In this case, though, may I recommend that, if you are indeed a believer in women’s and gay rights (human rights, really), please keep the hole poking of these feel-good campaigns to yourself. There are enough regressives out there doing just that, for motives more sinister than yours.

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An edited version of this article appeared on iDiva in July 2015.

Interview: Parineeti Chopra

July 2015: For Parineeti Chopra, being fit is waking up fresh in the morning. Once carrying 90 kg on her petite 5’6” frame, she discusses her weight-loss journey, and newfound love for fitness and health as she flaunts her toned new bod.

The cover of Women's Health.

"Body con at its best! Body con at its best!" she yells excitedly as she emerges from the dressing room in what is her fourth change of the shoot. The dress is bright red, perfectly offsetting her creamy complexion, and figure hugging to show off her new fit frame. Her body language is confident and casual; she’s smiley, friendly and chatty, her language peppered with casual expletives… every bit as “real” as co-star Arjun Kapoor says she is. 

She’s in jeggings and an aquamarine tee, her hair in a high pony when she sits opposite me for our chat. Some things have changed for Parineeti in the year since we interviewed her last. For one, she's gone from being a person who wasn’t into labels and designerwear to someone who has grown to appreciate them. “Saying I will only wear this brand or that, to be ‘branded’ at all times doesn't come naturally to me. But I’m a sucker for quality, I literally stretch clothes to test them, and you can see the difference in cut and quality with good brands.” Having said that, her staple clothing is still gunjis and shorts, and loose shapeless t-shirts. And she’s still not going to spend three lakhs on a dress—the investment-banker-turned-actress says she “would rather pay an EMI or buy something more substantial!”

The biggest change though, is that she’s acquired a new, if belated, interest in fitness.

The Unlikely Actress

Despite cousin Priyanka’s movie-star status, Parineeti was “never influenced”, and, growing up in Ambala, Haryana, only ever wanted to be an investment banker. Upon her return to India after graduating from Manchester Business School in the 2009 recession, she landed a job in the marketing department of Yash Raj Films. Here, she fell in love with acting, decided to give it a shot, signed a three-film deal with the YRF banner… and the rest, as they say, is history. Six films later, here she is.

Being an actor sure feels good, and she loves performing, being in front of the camera. But there are many things that come with it that she doesn't enjoy so much—the lack of private life, too much scrutiny, too many cooks in your life. “There are so many elements, from the team of people to the fans, that contribute to you as an actor and as a brand—those can be slightly high pressure.” She admits to having no idea about the behind-the-scenes aspects of the business when she first faced the camera.

Kapoor reminisces about their film, Habib Faisal’s 2012 hit Ishaqzaade, which was his first and her first in a lead role. Despite a tumultuous start, they became and stayed friends. “I don’t think that equation can change, especially with your first co-star. Because, for what it’s worth, they know all your insecurities, strengths, weaknesses, flaws and issues because you've faced the camera together at such a vulnerable time in your life.”

Had she known earlier in life that she wanted to be an actress, she would have been more prepared for this journey, she says. “Even if you’re making an omelette, there are more failures if you don’t know what you’re doing.” She’s learnt everything on the job, growing in the eye of the camera. It, and audiences at large, has also been privy to her weight-loss journey.

Motivation from Without

She’s pleasantly plump in Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl (2011), but seems to have gotten steadily fitter since. “I was always a lazy person, never a sportswoman, and it led me to be obese in university,” Parineeti discloses. Even when she was 90 kg, she never considered herself unfit or fat. “Most people who are unhealthy or unfit don't consider themselves so. The brain switches off. I would eat like it's no ones business; I had no stamina, no health, the worst skin, the worst hair… I was one podgy person!”

Motivation to lose weight came in fits and starts. Her weight dropped owing to her busy lifestyle when she got to Mumbai, and the compliments that began coming her way drove her to join the gym. Since she doesn’t like the gym, that didn’t last, and she yo-yoed. Being offered her first film got her inspired again: “‘Okay, now I’m an actress, I’ve got to do this,’ I said to myself.”

But it never really came as a calling from inside.

Fitness Bug

Until the start of this year, that is. Like her love for acting, there wasn’t an ‘Aha!’ moment when she acquired the fitness bug, they both came through “slow catharses”.

It started with wanting to become thin: she wasn’t fitting in to her jeans, didn’t like the way she was looking in pictures and was always trying to camouflage her fat. “But now it’s beyond the aesthetics. I have to feel healthy, fit and energetic no matter what I may look like.”

As she gets bored easily and has “spent 26 years without any exercise”, she’s taking it slow and doing what she enjoys. She does one-on-one hour-and-a-half classes with a trainer 15-20 days in the month, alternating between martial arts like kalaripayattu, yoga, weights, the gym and dancing. “It’s informal; she comes to where I am—either home, the YRF gym or a dance hall—and we will do whatever we feel like that day.” It helps that she’s had the time to focus on her fitness this year, while perusing scripts and meeting directors before zeroing in on her next projects.

“Fitness simply means having no fatigue when I wake up in the morning. If I don’t wake up fresh, I know something’s wrong—it may be that I’m unfit or I’ve eaten wrong the previous day or I’ve not worked out.”

While she’s not on a conventional diet, she follows a food plan based on allergy and intolerance tests conducted abroad. She doesn’t reveal details, but explains it as such: “I’ve been told that there are these foods that don’t agree with me. I’m allowed to eat everything else whenever I want.” There are no set rules: just lots of water and no eating after 7 PM. “I eat biryani casually because rice is apparently good for me.”

I ask Kapoor, who met her only a few days ago, what he thinks of her newborn interest in fitness, and he insists it must have been there all along. “Once you become an actor you do take care of your body, if only subconsciously. I just think she's become more aware of the finer details of how to take care of it and her health. With time and age you have to become increasingly conscious of your body because that's your most important tool.”

The diet and exercise is working, she believes. (Kapoor and I agree.) “I feel so much better! I love the changes in my body. My skin, hair, nails all feel great.” Will this newfound passion last? “Oh yeah,” Parineeti says emphatically. “Once it comes from within, it stays. Your body feels so good that you know you can’t let this go.”

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An edited version of this interview was the cover story of Women’s Health in July 2015.

Sleazy Slobbery Boss Men

June 2015: Training the spotlight on everyday sexism in the work environment.

He is a noted Delhi-based advertising and marketing guru, and we’d connected when I was the editor of a magazine. Sometime in 2010, I met him for coffee one afternoon, for banal shoptalk they call ‘networking’. After, he’d come to Mumbai as often as I’d go to Delhi, and, after years of “we must catch up the next time you’re in town”, he called during the summer of 2013 to say he was going to be in Mumbai for a day. “Let’s meet?”

He had meetings in South Bombay all day, and would return to his hotel, close to the airport and my home, only in the evening. I proposed dinner at one of the many lovely places in the vicinity; he chose the coffee shop at his hotel.

He kept getting delayed (happens—media, Mumbai, traffic, life), and it was rather late when I reached his hotel. The coffee shop was now closed, and I told him so when he emerged from the lift—“The other restaurants in the hotel are still open,” I said.

“Oh, doesn’t matter, we were going to my room anyway,” he replied.

Umm, were we? I realised it had been the plan all along; the coffee shop was close to the lift that led to his room. My antenna went up—that little superpower instinct kicked in. I seized him up—I’m a big fit girl in my 30s, I’d be able to take on this 50-year-old if it really came down to it.

In his room, now on guard, I strategically chose the big single chair, not the two-seat sofa—placing him across the coffee table and myself closer to the door. He tried to break up this arrangement several times during the evening—“Come, let’s read the menu together”; “You’re so far, I can barely see your face”. Strike 2.

We talked about this and that… and then, he started talking about sex. Look, I’m no prude. I write about gender and sexuality, and it’s a subject that fascinates me. I’m also very tuned to the difference between talking about sexuality and talking about sex. Strike 3.

And then, on one of his trips to the bar table behind my chair, he reached over and started fondling my neck. “Stoppit!” I repeated a couple of times, craning away until he did… And strike 4! I was out of my chair and out of the door, and drove home shaken into the loving arms of the husband and some friends who were over for drinks.

I never did confront him, but blocked him from all channels of communication. Often since (in classic victim self-blame) I’ve wondered whether I’d given him mixed signals—and the answer is no, I hadn’t, ever. This was no more than symptomatic of a misogynistic work environment replete with casual sexism, signs of which we encounter every day.

“How come clients only want to meet us female models for evening drinks to ‘discuss work’, and are perfectly happy meeting the guys for a quick chat in their offices?” a friend said to me once. In my previous workplace, every successful female colleague was rumoured to have been sleeping with the boss (myself included). Reprimanded by a female superior? Must be her time of the month. Insidious little parts of a much bigger puzzle.

So today, as heads roll at Greenpeace India for the perpetration as well as mishandling of the sexual harassment of a former employee, I can’t help a bittersweet smile. Small steps for women, big leaps for womankind.

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An edited version of this article appeared on iDiva in June 2015. Watch my interview of 'The Greenpeace Girl' Sonam Mittal here.

October 2018: In light of #MeToo #MeTooIndia #TimesUp, I reveal that the man I am talking about in this post is Navroze Dhondy, founder of the advertising/marketing firm Creatigies Communications that works with the Indian Super League.

Who's Responsible for Jahanvi Gadkar?

June 2015: It’s time to change our attitudes towards governance and become community conscious.

I was 18 and in my first year of college, and reached the bus stop at New Delhi’s posh Chanakya Puri locality to catch a bus home, as I did every day. Here lay a little calf that was clearly in distress, and I stopped to help it. Soon a crowd of about 40 gathered to watch, though only three boys responded to my requests for water/milk/any help—two from Meerut, in town for an entrance exam, and a student from a nearby college.

A deep realisation dawned that day, that’s only gotten stronger since—in India, there is a lot of curiosity but no (or very little) concern. Bystanders stand by watching, talking, as others cry for help—or die for help, in the case of Jyoti Singh Pandey.

So when corporate lawyer Janhavi Gadkar got behind the wheel that fateful day two weeks ago, no one said a word. Not the bar or valet staff at Hotel Marine Plaza in whose bar she started the night, nor her colleagues Rahul Dutt and Shailendra Rane who she was there celebrating with. Not the staff as Irish House where she continued to, nor Alok Agarwal, the CFO of RIL who she there with. (Rahul did apparently ask if she was okay to drive, but bought her “Don't worry, I have done this before” answer.)

She drove, drunk, on the wrong side of the Eastern Express Freeway, killing cabbie Mohammad Hussain Sayaed and his passenger Salim Saboowala who was in the car with his family. Since, she’s lost her trial by media, even if she, like other privileged people before here, manages to out-machinate the law.

Shouldn’t someone have stopped her? If one sees drunk driving, the wilful act of endangering others, as ‘homicide’, aren’t her drinking buddies and those serving her the alcohol morally (if not legally) culpable? Shouldn’t someone—anyone—have got involved?

But we don’t give a shit. The ‘Indian Psyche’ dictates a deep involvement with our respective blood families and religious communities (the romanticised cores of our culture), and somewhat with friends and colleagues. We’re apathetic towards the rest, our heartstrings immune to the hungry beggar children beyond our cars’ windows (philanthropy isn’t really a thing here), or a person or animal in need. (The worst thing about being gang raped and left unconscious in a ditch on a busy highway, my friend told me, was the three hours it took her in the morning to flag down a motorist. “I was barely clothed, bleeding and could barely stand—no one stopped.”) I wonder what Gandhi would say.

Divisive politics don’t help. Neither does the process of law enforcement—seen as inherently unjust, as well as stressful and lengthy. I don’t for a moment deny that we need stricter laws, stronger enforcement and a less sluggish judiciary. But we also need to mend our public attitudes towards governance.

Everything is not someone else’s problem. And while we need to start following ‘the spirit of the law’ ourselves, we should also develop a sense of community responsibility and get involved, in big ways and small—from giving strangers in distress lifts to preventing drunk friends from driving.

In the case of my friend, and in my years of animal rescue and general activism since the incident with the calf, I’ve noticed that the few who do help are invariably of college-going age—not yet overcome by the cynicism of real life, still idealistic enough to believe one can make a difference.

We all can. Because the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

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An edited version of this article appeared on iDiva in June 2015.

Why So Horny, Mr Hunt?

June 2015: The real reason why scientist Tim Hunt—and other chauvinists—want women out of their headspaces.

You’ve probably heard Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Tim Hunt’s recent call for gender-segregated labs, calling on his “trouble with girls”—“You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them, they cry.” Oh wow!

Though what he’s saying has such a familiar ring, it’s unusual to hear something like coming from a man of his intelligence. I mean, smart people shouldn’t carry such dogma; or should at least be smart enough not to air their opinions, and certainly not to a collection of women scientists and journalists! And the catch-all umbrella of ‘humour’ and ‘joke’—har-har, it would be funny if it didn’t just expose the attitudes that result in the glass ceiling and women’s low numbers in the workforce, particularly in the science fields that are seen as male domains.

There’s gender segregation in most religions, in mosques and convent schools, and Aligarh Muslim University banned women from accessing a library last year. And their premises are all the same.

Women distract men. At the sight of women, able-bodied men’s bodies flood with hormones and they start thinking from the wrong head, anathema for intellectual and spiritual pursuits. Of course, it assumes a sexual-romantic interest is all that can exist between people of opposite genders, as though we’re magnetised towards to the opposite gender via our reproductive organs in the manner of animals on heat, led solely by them. It also stems from heteronormality—what about same-sex relationships and sex? And what’s wrong with sex anyway?!

Of course, this leaves the onus of men’s hormones on the woman, as though men are blubbering tantrumatic toddlers unable to control their bodies and desires. And this is unfair and dangerous to women—the belief that our mere existence inconveniences the 'primary' sex is the basis of the don’t-wear-short-clothes don’t-go-out-at-night serves-her-right attitude about sexual violence that we fight so hard against. The burka and the ghoonghat are for women’s own safety, you see?

And this assumption of female emotional weakness—really?! In fact, if anything, the principle that lays the responsibility of men’s desires on women (including Mr Hunt’s distracting romantic entanglements with female colleagues) takes the men to be the emotionally weaker sex.

Gender binaries in all cultures that exist today are based on historical mores; they come from a world where physical power was crucial and it determined the relative importance and roles of both genders. We have now evolved into a knowledge economy were brawn only goes so far and equal rights have only grown—we must now rethink the basis of gender and other prejudices.

So no. First, I’m sure most men would like to stop being thought of as weaklings who are tyrannised by their own desires, more balls than brains. Your “trouble with girls”, Mr Hunt, is the trouble with you—your inability to concentrate, your inability to prevent love-shuv and lust from “disrupting” your work and scientific thought. Ditto with the ‘I saw what she was wearing and I couldn’t help myself’ argument for sexual violence—c’mon, give yourselves some credit, why don’t you?

Once that’s done, once men are attributed with (and attribute themselves with) agency and responsibility for their thoughts and actions, everything else falls into place. There’ll be no need to protect them against women’s wily charms; and they’ll be no need to protect women (or for women to protect themselves) against the physical power of those enslaved by their hormones. It’s time for men to be considered (and consider themselves) adults.

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An edited version of this article appeared on iDiva in June 2015.

Bright Lights & Trans Rights

June 2015: Great things are happening in the LGBTIQ world. I take a look.

As America (and the world) watched transfixed as transgender Bruce Jenner debuted as Caitlyn on the cover of Vanity Fair, Mumbai Mirror had it’s own transsexual cover girl last Friday. Bidhan Barua, whose case it had been following since 2012, was now revealed as a happily married Swati, post her sex change. Meanwhile, India got its first transgender college principal—Manabi Banerjee will head the Krishnagar Women's College in West Bengal.

These stories are a big win in a world where heterosexual men and women in natural gender roles is the only idea of ‘normal’. It’s not. Even though transgender is not equal to transsexual is not equal to gay (you can choose from around 60 gender options on Facebook and show interest in male, female or both; read a full list of gender definitions here), these LGBTIQ (lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender/intersex/questioning) issues are against the norm.

I face ‘confirmation bias’ through my friends, online and off, where everyone is supporting these individuals and calling out their bravery, celebrating these alternative choices that inspire others to live life as their 'authentic' selves. Clearly, this supportive environment is not the standard in a heteronormative world. I have written about the gay struggle; a transgender person was my closest friend when I was in my late teens and a post-op transsexual worked under me in a magazine I used to edit.

All these people have described to me how absolutely traumatic swimming upstream had been for them, particularly where they didn’t know about alternate sexualities let alone having the option to openly identify as such. From feeling isolated and alone to dealing with strife in the family and at work, it’s not an easy journey. In fact, I didn’t know about my colleague’s transformation until someone let me into the slew of gossip that had flowed between one media house and the next, from where she had worked to where he was working.

It may seem that Indian laws are progressive, with the Supreme Court declaring the transgender community a legal third gender last year. Truth is, that was a long-overdue acknowledgement of the historical socioreligious Hijra community, not stemming from progressive or liberal thinking. Judiciary and culture continues to be set against the assimilation of LGBTIQs in to the mainstream. This mainstream is where most would like to live, instead of having to congeal in to a community on the fringes, brought together by their inability to find a place in society’s rigid gender norms.

When father-of-six Bruce embraced her new identity as Caitlyn in full glare of the media, the former Olympian, former stepfather to the Kardashian sisters and reality TV star on Keeping Up with the Kardashians told millions about her struggle with gender dysphoria, it brought the LGBTIQ conversation out into the open. For broadminded liberals, her story only reinforces what we already knew—that those who identify as LGBTIQs are people, no more, no less, with more than their fair share of emotional, societal and religious strife.  For others, it shows the inner workings of a lifestyle they had never or only ever heard of, and, hopefully, contributes to their empathy.

Many years ago, my very liberal aunt had said that she would cry if her children had alternate sexualities—“Not for shame or society,” she said, before I could even protest, “but for them. Life is just so much harder as an LGBT person.” For a child somewhere, stories like Jenner’s, Barua’s and Banerjee’s could serve to quell the bitter loneliness and confusion, and contribute to a home and social environment of love and acceptance—and put an end to horrific things like corrective rapes.

Congratulations and best of luck, Caitlyn, Swati and Manabi. You’ve done us proud.

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An edited version of this article appeared on iDiva in June 2015.

On Veganism

May 2015: Why I think it is the only food and lifestyle philosophy that aligns with my value systems.

So shall we get the calls of “hypocrite” out of the way?

I am not a vegan (eats and uses only plant matter). I’ve spent my adult life oscillating between being a lacto-ovo-vegetarian (vegetarian, plus dairy and eggs), pescetarian (lacto-ovo-vegetarian, plus seafood) and omnivore (eats both plant- and animal-origin food). (I’m calling out the way I’ve used these terms, as there are so many types and definitions: eg, in Indian Hindus, ‘pure veg’ usually means lacto-vegetarian.)

Truth is, veganism is the only food and lifestyle philosophy that aligns to my belief systems; and food is the only aspect of my life in which I am a blatant hypocrite, where my actions don’t match my words. With a personality that’s “guilt-prone” (my therapist’s words, not mine), it bothers me no end that I am not even a committed vegetarian; niggling guilt and disappointment tinge the pleasure of a good steak. I cannot believe my lack of will power, that my tongue and hedonism (and laziness) win in a battle against my beliefs.

So what are the beliefs that point me straight to a vegan lifestyle?

Anthropocentricism

Let’s consider, first, the mediocrity principle, the opposite of anthropocentricism. What is the place of humanity in The Grander Scheme of Things? We are, for all our self-aggrandisement, no more than one species on earth, and one of millions in the universe. If we are no more or less than the animals who co-inhabit earth with us, we don’t—shouldn’t—have rights over them.

Let’s say one believes the opposite, that humans are the most significant species on the planet, the very pinnacle of evolution, the Masters of the Earth. One could take an anthropocentric belief system to mean that we are the rightful owners of everything that lives—or see that it grants us agency, great power… and great responsibility. In a situation where we can control the fates of other species, how should we treat them? If you had a kingdom, what kind of monarch would you be?

Animal Ethics

It is not anthropomorphism to suppose that farm animals feel pain, loneliness, terror, fear; and also love, belonging, attachment, joie de vivre—no less than pets, no less than us.

I used to be afraid of the dark. Someone once asked me whether it was a fear of what was in front of me or what was behind. I thought about it—what’s behind, I said. “That means you’re afraid of what you don’t know.” (True!) When it comes to animal carcasses on my plate and their hides in my closet (almost zero) however, I am afraid to know. I can’t bear to see videos of animals in slaughterhouses and egg farms, and promptly choose the ‘I don’t want to see this’ option on Facebook when one of my many animal-loving friends posts something gruesome and graphic.

But these things are true. The horrific lives and deaths of animals in the meat and dairy industries are well documented. I was the child who’d cry outside meat shops (my parents didn’t permit me to give up non-veg as a child, 'coz protein), and I think Bakri Eid and other animal sacrifice is barbaric. How can I call myself an animal lover, be the person who does all this animal rescue (including that of a male calf—the vet explained that he was probably abandoned by a dairy farmer), believe in non-violence and animal rights, and still give my economic vote to the meat industry?! Not to mention the indirect deaths—the bycatch, the 1000s of species going extinct as the rainforests are destroyed to graze cattle, the male calves and chicks.

I’m not religious and identify as apathetic agnostic. The one guiding force in my life is to be ‘good’ based on my own moral compass—one could call it karma or tie it to the Christian good/evil binary or simplify it to the saying ‘What goes around, comes around’. I do not want to be the perpetrator of pain; I want to be compassionate, kind, gentle and without carnage on my conscience.

The question I’m not sure I have an answer for is whether human beings would let animals even survive if we could not use them, if they didn’t serve our purposes.

Need, Not Greed

Even though I have more of a stomach for human suffering than I do for animal suffering, the idea that the greed to eat meat deprives thousands of food they need, contributing to world hunger and famine, is unpalatable. “If we eat the plants we grow instead of feeding them to animals, the world's food shortage will disappear virtually overnight. Remember that 100 acres of land will produce enough beef for 20 people but enough wheat to feed 240 people,” says one article I read.

Environmental Conservation

Let’s quell counterarguments of agriculture’s environmental impact and inherent cruelty with common sense and the proven fact that meat and dairy farming does much more damage—global warming, water shortage, deforestation, famine (the figures are readily available online).

While veganism is a significant counterculture movement, in India I notice far more children of vegetarian families eating non-vegetarian food, owing to loosening religious beliefs and improved spending power, than the reverse. More than enough people are choosing to override the forest and kill wildlife for their horns, penises and skins. We leave a carbon footprint by merely breathing and each one of us is, literally, one among seven billion, so it is easy to dismiss individual contribution to the conservation effort—but hey, why does one bother doing anything at all, right?

Also, I’ve retained this interesting idea that I once read in a quotable quote (god, I’ve looked high and low for that quote since)! The conservation of nature is not for nature, really, it is self-preservation; nature will go on much after the human race has gone and made itself extinct. If we are, indeed, the smartest, bestest creatures that have ever lived, having children to carry forward our oh-so-important bloodlines and planning for our reincarnations, wouldn’t we want to, like, not go extinct? Shouldn’t we also be smart enough to know of and make those choices?

Health

Though advocates of non-vegetarianism believe the jury is still out on this one, there is ample evidence that vegetarianism is better for your body than meat eating. (From my reading of much research on the subject, I think the question that remains is: with or without milk and eggs?) From Ayurveda to Dr Dean Ornish’s ideas on heart health, researches on cancer, weight loss, ageing and toxicity, and the idea that human bodies were designed to be herbivorous—I’m fairly convinced. My health is important to me. From a personal point of view, of course, but also from a socioeconomic/consumerism/ecology point of view—an unhealthy body taxes available resources and healthcare.

Why am I still an omnivore? Taste: after a few days of being lacto-ovo-vegetarian, I crave the taste of non-veg food. And bacon. Hedonism: pleasure. Tasty new foods, exploring cultures through their foods when travelling, yum… But, mostly, laziness. As a foodie living in the most vegetarian-friendly country in the world, it’s not like I’ve made the most effort to find or cook the best vegetarian meals, for an apples-to-apples comparison (apples-to-chicken comparison, in this case). Neither have I bothered to explore the market of faux meats. And part of the reason I eat meat abroad is ease—though, if my in-laws, who are ‘pure veg’ for religious reasons, can travel the world with careful planning, I should be able to do the same for my beliefs.

Veganism embodies the values I claim to stand by, and, right now, I am my own "inferior other" (as described in this wonderful piece ‘Vegetarianism and the Idea of Untouchability’). I believe transition is a slow process, and I’m going to make a serious start.

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This column appeared on 3QD in May 2015.

Standing Up for Sunny Leone

May 2015: Why Sunny Leone is a cultural icon to reckon with.

I arrive at her site to be greeted by “WARNING! ADULTS ONLY! This Site Contains Sexually Oriented Material”, followed by a detailed disclaimer spanning legality, culture and morality. Below, it says, “If minors have access to your computer, please restrain their access to sexually explicit material by using…”, with links to parental control products. I then proceed to get really turned on. Boy, is Sunny Leone hot!

Although I’ve never watched any of her movies or TV appearances (saving for these *ahem* clips), she has always fascinated me as a sociocultural phenomenon: an Indian-origin American porn star doing increasingly mainstream roles in the Indian film industry. She exists at the nucleus and intersection of several paradoxes—between her Sikh upbringing and career in the adult film industry in the US; feminism, choice and acceptance; her past and her present; legality; post- and multiculturalism; the idea of marriage; the internet and ‘mainstream’; Bollywood’s and audiences’ standards of morality; etc. (All this is for a much longer piece, perhaps.)

These politics that coexist in Leone’s life are brought to the fore by the PIL filed by a Mumbai Auntie on behalf of a fringe Hindu organisation on the 15th of May. She is accused of creating “grossly indecent” material and publishing it on the internet. This is going to be interesting because, hey, the adult film industry IS legal in the States, where all of her porn was created and published, but she faces up to five years in jail if she is convicted under Indian laws. She is also charged under the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act. This case pertains to her porn-star past, not to her current mainstream career.

It is safe to say that what comprises “grossly indecent” content is subjective: Fair & Lovely ads, with their deep-seated cultural ramifications are “grossly indecent” to me. What comprises the “Indecent Representation of Women” is also subjective—many Indian movies reinforce the good/bad girl binary, bring female sexuality into bedrooms via item numbers, and badly fail the Bedchel Test. But we live and let live with our (largely unenforced) U/UA/A certifications, in the belief children should be protected and that adults are to be treated as such.

Ditto with porn.

Porn is illegal in India, but the complainant, Anjali Palan has her head buried deep in the sand if Leone’s content is the only—or worst—of the pornographic content she’s found on the internet. Studies have shown that a majority of digital immigrant Indian men first go online for porn, and Sunny Leone is India’s most searched person according to Google’s 2014 list of top searches. Palan is reported to have said that adult content poisons the minds of people and children, and I wonder whether she is proposing that India ban porn on the internet? Here, might I suggest that parental vigilance and controls on computers are a more effective solution than targeting the actor’s solitary site, and there be stronger enforcement of audience-appropriateness based on film certification.

There is no doubt that the organisation Palan belongs to is star-bashing to moral police and culturally persecute Leone, as well as to gain publicity.

According the Daily Mail, its spokesperson Dr Uday Dhuri admits: “Sunny Leone should be ousted from the country. We have registered several complaints but unfortunately no action is taken against her.” Palan too seems to be a bit confused. “This actor is coming here and displaying vulgarity. Bollywood films could earlier be watched with families. Today we cannot see them with our families,” she told reporters, yet her complaint has nothing to do with films you could (or should!) watch with family.

Leone is a strong feminist force, a woman forging her own path and not bowing to stereotypes, and I wish her all the best in battle. At the time of submitting this article, her latest post on Facebook is a quote by R Hunter accompanying a picture of her and husband Daniel: “Sometimes we live no particular way but our own”. Take that!

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An edited version of this article appeared on iDiva in May 2015.