My big problem with feminists

I have a problem with the word feminist. I always have. And more so, these days when after writing what's being touted as India's first "feminist", erotica, I am suddenly being viewed as the "new feminist voice". Or something like that. I'll tell you why.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I accompanied my mother to watch a film she'd pinned great hopes on - the Rani Mukherjee starrer Mardaani. Now, it's clear that the newly anointed Mrs Chopra is keen to pull off what a Vidya Balan possibly did in Dirty Picture. Bust a populist stereotype. Be a hero, in some way, in an industry that is still clearly content with Munni's, Shiela's and their ilk. Pink lips, Babydoll, et al.

True to expectation, Rani, in her "tough cop" avatar did pretty much everything expected from a senior crime branch officer, all geared up to bust a child sex trafficking racket. She used the word "chutiya", liberally, slapped mean looking goons, sported tight-assed khaki, bossed over her meek Bengali husband, who strangely looked wimpy throughout (armed with the quintessential thick brown frames and the loose white, cotton pyjamas), randomly picked up gangsters for ferocious and fake encounters, gunning them down while they were necking with their molls in dingy suburban chawls. Even getting involved in a hand-to-hand, karate contest with the villain in the climax. Throwing away her ammunition. Egging him on to fight her "man-to-man" in a Fight Club inspired sequence.

What got me thinking on the way home was - is this what our so-called "feminist" crusade is actually built upon and how we think we can survive - emulating attributes (physical or otherwise) that we usually associate with the male gender - physical strength, jobs as cops and pilots, prowess in martial arts, liberal usage of slang, sporting a completely de-glam look, wearing staid pant-shirt. Is this how we will win, I couldn't help but wonder? By being a man? In a woman's skin? ?

What about emotional strength? What about women who walk out of failed, abusive marriages, sans any family support/wealth? Who dump men, who cheat and lie, not clinging on to any fake notions of love? Who don't wait by the phone after the first date, caring a damn if he will/won't call, back? Validating their girlhood. Who choose to become single mothers, adopting children/buying a sperm? Or run away from impoverished homes to become athletes/models/film stars/IAS officers? Some coming from small villages, struggling to finish their studies, going on to become big city corporates? War widows raising families, single-handedly? Acid attack victims? Survivors of rape who still dream of kids? Unwed mothers?

Why is our highest perception of womanhood always some kind of a mock drill whose standards are defined by masculinity? Who said we had to be this. Or that.

What if there is a place, such as now?

Where your boss is also your wife? Like the recently released, controversial Airtel commercial that had a lot of "feminists", up in arms. So, what's wrong if the tough cookie in the boardroom transforms into a sexual, sensual being, for the man she loves, cooking, texting dirty and Skyping in bed?

Why are we constantly in denial of the politics of pleasure? The same ease with which tend to characterise the fairer sex as the sati or the slut - be it in books, films, ads, life.

The same way an editor of a leading national daily wrote in, after my book, Sita's Curse, was just out, calling me a, "frustrated single woman, who would never get married. Who is putting ideas into the heads of our wives and mothers?" Married folks who must pretend to be asexual at all costs. Child bearing hips, fair and beautiful, but only, for the marriage market to survive and prosper?

My question is, however, do we do this to ourselves? Conforming, so much safer than confrontation. Do we like to hide? From ourselves, because we're scared of our own primordial sexual strength and emotional succor. Of things that we inherited centuries ago - from our mothers, sisters and grand-mothers.

It's precisely why, I turned down a request from a leading women's magazine asking me to address their popular relationship column. The questions being - my boyfriend doesn't call back. Most of the times. Is he cheating? My husband snores a lot. My mother interferes in my personal space, secretly spying over my chat history. Does she harbor trust issues? I am a virgin at 29. Will it hurt on the first night?

And, these were the ones I tried answering.

Get a new boyfriend. Get another bedroom. Get another FB login id. Get laid!

I mean who are we bullshitting here? How long will we fight the same demons, time after time? Fat. Skinny. Stretch marks. Skin colour. Single. Sexless. Childless. To quit a job. Second child? To have sex before marriage. Or wait for the first night? Arranged? Love?

What if our biggest battle is yet to begin - a private dialogue? The one with ourselves? And, each other?

What if it all boils down to just being you.

Standing in a place you actually can own.

Our Middle Earth.

Believing in the cause. Becoming the right woman. First.