Kusum Choppra

All those Social Media doomsday prophets are perhaps right. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, their cousins’ value in any society? Zilch.         Two recent examples: An anti-rape activist Sunitha Krishnan posted videos already viral on YouTube. They showed the rapists in a gang rape.   Within hours, video removed, her car was attacked.  Bas. That’s all. What happened to Social Media?  Exactly NOTHING. A noted Tamil littérateur, Perumal Merugan was hounded over his description of an age-old practice that perhaps pre-dates even the Mahabharat. Published in Tamil in 2010, recommended for a Sahitya Akademi Award and translated into English, “One Part Woman”/ ”Madhorubagan” is the story of a childless woman who seeks sex outside marriage to conceive, in a ceremony sanctified by tradition, community and religion. As ‘Niyoga,’ this practice finds mention in many episodes, including the Mahabharat where Ved Vyas impregnates the t...

BLANK NOISE: Vocabulary - Strategy 1. Owning, twisting, throwing it  back  there are innumerable ways that have been thought of in dealing with self reckoned Romeos. Read my book NIRBHAYA & OTHERS WHO DARED , an anthology of stories of women who refuse to suffer, taking up the cudgels against various forms of physical and emotional violence in different social situations.  they come out on top, battling each transgression in different ways, each as per her own genius.