Black square. Red circle. White triangle.

Hey there!

Welcome to my blog. As the heading suggests I am starting a series on un-conditioning the mind and destroying the boxes that we are living in every day and for generations. There will be various topics that will be covered under this banner. My intention is not to put anything or anyone down but to ask questions about what we have been taught and what we are following, albeit blindly. It is fear of the unknown most of the time that keeps us rooted where we are, but if we think about it, we came into a completely unknown world and from thereon every step we took, our first word, first school, etc. were all unknown. For that matter, even the next moment is unknown. My intention is step on the uncomfortable, not to change you, but just get you to take a step back and open a tiny window in your mind to consider different possibilities, widen your thought process and question the conditioning.

If you want to change the fabric, change the weave.

I was restless a couple of nights ago. Sleep seemed to be eluding me and I tossed and turned in my bed as visions of that little girl in Kashmir flashed incessantly in my head. The reality that she was a daughter of a mother like me, like you, that she was just a bud beginning to bloom was harsh and unrelenting. The thought that she could have actually been my child, was harsher. “What kind of creature or creatures could have done such a thing?”, “What heart would allow it?”, “When and how did we disintegrate and become lower than lowly?” These and more such questions just wouldn’t quit. And I kept looking for answers. Almost everyone on social media urged one another to change their profile picture to a black square. “The men must wonder where the women were”, some said. “All they (the men) needed to do was click on our profile page and we are all there for the world to see”, I thought. It's not a bad thing but where to from there? After a while we all need to go back, need to return to our routines and push these and other atrocities to the back of our minds. And we are not wrong in doing so because we must cling to normalcy in order to make sense of our own lives. It is a requirement to hold on to sanity and a ray of hope that something will change. That night when I couldn’t sleep, these two phrases kept repeating themselves. Black square. Red circle. White triangle. If you want to change the fabric, change the weave. Black square, red…triangle…change the weave. It felt like a voice chanting continuously into my ear. It kept pushing me into thoughts of my life, of the people around me, what they said and how they behaved. Words that seem harmless or said out of ‘concern’, like when my father said, “I am afraid that my daughter will become a prostitute in order to make ends meet”, because I didn’t want to stay in an abusive marriage; or when he folded his palms together in deference and said to my second husband, “I thank you for accepting my daughter as your wife. I am eternally in your debt”.

It starts from here…

“My daughter is such a home bird”, my father would say gleefully to everyone around him while my mother, a working woman herself would nod. “Just stay at home and look after your home and family”, he would say to me.

It starts from here... if you want to change the fabric, change the weave...

When, one day, I spoke to my husband’s mother about his atrocities on me, she swore to be by my side if I left him and when I did, she said, “I think you have lost it after your mother’s death. Please see a psychiatrist”, she insisted. Again, years later when I repeated everything to her, she called me and wept angrily that she had a son like him and yet when I told my story on a public platform, she recoiled and said that I ruined her son’s big corporate image even though I hadn’t even mentioned his name. Both my husbands didn’t see how they behaved with me but insisted that I was leaving them only to sleep around with other men and my father sent an email to the second one asking for forgiveness because he had a mentally deranged daughter.

It starts from here, from the home, our homes.

All through my growing years my mother told me that I could do whatever I wanted to in my life provided I remained a virgin for my husband, learnt how to cook (because if I didn't know that, what would the in-laws think of me, of my parents...they will question my upbringing) "Get married and then do whatever you want as long as your husband approves", she would insist...."because you will not be our responsibility any more".

Black square, red circle, white triangle, the shape of the mindset needs to change. The fabric of the values and ideals at home needs to change.

Do I think I have all the answers? no I don’t. I know that in order for change to occur, we need to pull out the weeds at the root level.

We need to:

• Look at the kind of jokes we crack, one of my exes used to say, " If you're getting raped might as well lie back and enjoy it".

• Look within our homes for veiled misogyny in the form of, concern. Look at our immediate environment, our extended families, friends and so on.

• Watch the words that we callously throw around. A lady I knew many years ago frequently said, "that woman needs to be raped to quieten her arrogance, (read independence, outspoken nature and such attributes)"

It starts from here...

If we take a step back and look closely enough we will find it. That’s what we can do while we go back to our normal lives and day to day affairs. We can try and question, initiate a dialogue.

If you want to change the fabric, change the weave. If you want to change the weave, change the thread.

More from me soon my darlings, Love and Light, Cheelu DeBox. Life Infinite