Blank Noise is a wake-up call

I guess I have been way too far away from bloggerland these days, because I am only just getting to read about the blanknoise project. And you know what... it fills me with great disgust at myself, for I have been so oblivious to all this, in spite of having seen it all happening first-hand. I read so many accounts of hapless women, nay little girls, who could not even understand what it's all about, let alone fend for themselves. And this is how they are introduced to the concept of being a woman. The very fact that all these brave individuals are able to lead normal, highly successful lives, stand up for themselves and speak out, and want to do something about it, is a testament to the strength of mind that women possess.

I had been fiddled around with once, by a homosexual sitting next to me in a movie theatre for the duration of the movie. I was a young boy then, and ever since and till very recently, I had not been able to consider gay people with the same respect as straight ones. I can't imagine how hard it must be for women to even live with men in India, after having gone through some of the most demeaning ordeals.

How can this be happening at such a large scale and be so wholly ignored by our lot, at a social and administrative ( hah, forget political ) level? Are we all silently consenting to it? No? Well, the only way to oppose it, is to actively pursue and destroy this evil. Yes, it is evil. It is as evil as it gets. Today, killing the freedom of an individual is as good as burning him/her alive. Throwing unnecessary and ugly impediments in the way of a normal life, just because there is a perception of power over another, is the mindset of uncivilized brutes, and does not behove anyone in this day and age. We owe it to our womenfolk who have borne such torture, and have had the great minds and hearts to raise, and take care of us men.

I am looking at women in a new light today, and what Wodehouse once said about women feels so, so apt -
"At the age of eleven or thereabouts women acquire a poise and an ability to handle difficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages to achieve somewhere in the later seventies."

Transformation

It was the darkest morning of my life. A darkness I had never experienced before, endless, merciless. It set upon me as soon as I opened my eyes. It had been so bright, and I, so happy when my eyes were closed. Now, I was squinting as I tried desperately to peer into this darkness, to find some shape to this nothingness that pervaded me. I tried to see my hands, but couldn't. I tried to imagine what I looked like, but suddenly I found that I wasn't sure anymore. It was painful, and it was sad. All these truths I seemed to know, couldn't be seen. All these memories, these wishes, these cravings, they all seemed to have disappeared into the darkness. I flailed around for the authenticities that represented this world, my world. I had to prove the world existed. Nothing. Darkness. Then, I gave up. Resigned myself to this darkness forever. I had been trying to find one, just one authenticity in my life. And yet, not one ray of light, not one...

What would become of me now? Was there any point in keeping my eyes open to this darkness? What if it hurt me? It definitely scared me. But, then, if I could not see the world, then was there no world? And if there was no world, then what is it I had been kidding myself about, all this while? And if there was a world, and I could not see it anymore, then there was no world anyway. Now I was me, and I existed. Just my consciousness, which did not need a world. And if I had my consciousness, then I had me. The world would be what I wanted it to be. And I didn't even need it to be, anymore.

Now I see the light. It is the light that I have just made. The light I will declare, and the light that I will spread. The light is my word, and my word is the light. I now exist, because of my word. That is the one authenticity to me now. The word... My word...

The color of truth is not white, the color of truth is Black....