For a Free Land, Free Life

Please sign the Impunity Must End in Manipur petition to end Armed Forces Special Power Act in Manipur. Irom Sharmila (who I wrote about earlier) has been on hunger strike for 10 years demanding removal of this atrocious law that our own (?) country has imposed upon us. Enough is enough. For a free land and a free life, please click on the following link and sign the online petition.

http://campaigns.ahrchk.net/manipur/

I know online petitions are a bore. Also I am not really sure about how effective they are. But for this, I will try anything. It's a matter of freedom or death! So friends. Please sign.

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The Religious Peeps

The other day, I had to go see the owners of my flat to pay my rent. I also had to make complaints about a few things not working in the house – a plug in the kitchen, the bathroom light, the bedroom fan… The good landlords assured me they will send an electrician in the evening and then all full of consideration and concern for me asked– “Do you have problems if a Muslim enters your kitchen?” I took a few seconds to register the question before I burst out laughing. While shaking my whole body in all directions with convulsive laughter I managed to shake my head sideways and say – ‘No, there is no problem.’ The elderly couple waited for my epilepsy to subside and said with hurt sensibility – “We have no problems either. We let them enter the kitchen.” (In the same tone that whites say, ‘I am not a racist. Some of my best friends are black.) I called up all my friends to tell the story and everyone laughed almost as hard as me. Some of course laughed harder. One Muslim-phile (he i

High Art, Low Lives

At the end of a failed attempt to reach Kunming (in China) from Margherita (in Assam) we were quick to settle for a resort nearby. This is what I enjoy most about travelling with my friends - this ability to happily settle for rabbit piss while you were actually looking for moonshine. When we started from Guwahati 650 kilometres ago, no one knew where we were going. Such is the level of meticulous planning and detailed organisation of the ensemble we were travelling in. The ensemble performs music and is quite popularly known. Thankfully they had a show in Margherita. Or we would not even know where to go from Guwahati. Somewhere through the 650 km journey, from Guwahati to Margherita, that for some inexplicable reason started at 2 am in the morning, we managed to decide that we will go somewhere beyond Margherita and visit unknown frontiers and untouched forests. Making decision you must know is more difficult than driving 650 km straight through a night and more dangerous than the un

Women’s Day Speech: 2019

Hello everyone, (good morning, good afternoon, good evening) Happy International Women’s Day. My name is Banamallika, today is 8 th March and I am here because it is International Women’s Day. I love IWD because it is the only day when random women like me, get invited to talk on random things related or unrelated to women at random places. The rest 363 days of the year, women are asked to shut up, keep quiet, not make too much noise. Not that women ever listen to anything they are told to do and that is why we have International Women’s Day. But I am coming to that part of the story later. I am a feminist and one of the few people who have a t-shirt saying so. Naturally I get invited to speak at many places each year on women’s day. As the second or third option always. It is only when the police officer, the actress, the writer, the journalist or the successful business woman has said she has other commitment is when the call comes to me. Anyways, although I ha

Feminist Rantings

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