The illusionist P.C. Sorcar ‘vanishes’ monuments and trains full of passengers for a surreal moment. Sorcar, a fabled magician, and a Merlin awardee, has the skills to make things hide in plain sight.
But our patriarchal society has even finer skills to make women invisible for life! However, the bastions of patriarchy have been falling slowly but surely inch by inch over the years.
No better warrior than Vinesh Phogat, the current heart-beat of the nation. Her name is on every one’s lips, minus the gloating vicious trolls and the entitled dons embedded in the system.
The time she could’ve spent in training for the Paris Olympics 2024 to hone her skills and stamina, was wasted in wrestling with the system against the perpetrators of sexual harassment of women wrestlers.
Vinesh and Sakshi Malik, another feisty world champion, nearly immersed all their medals in the Ganga at Haridwar. Fortunately, they were prevented from sending their medals to a watery death by a Uttar Pradesh farmer leader in the nick of time.
A later trashing of the medals along with a fellow wrestler Bajrang Punia on the Capital’s roads went unheeded again by the Prime Minister who cares, and sports authorities. It feels cathartic to stand in solidarity with Vinesh Phogat in this hour of the tragic twist to her tale at Olympics.
To take on the male dons of the Wrestling Federation of India, unmindful of the harsh consequences, is an act of supreme courage. A cousin of the famous Phogat siblings who featured in the storied bio-pic, ‘Dangal’ (2016), Vinesh has the same outstanding wrestling genes.
She will be remembered as a daredevil diva in sports history for the determined push back despite being pilloried, harassed and called a ‘Khota Sikka’! Nothing counterfeit about her. It is her tormentors who have to look within.
She was disqualified within touching distance of a gold medal in the final bout because of a quirky wrestling mandate at the Paris Olympics. To lose an Olympic medal because of a strange rule that asks for the same weigh-in on the second day after the match is over and won!
That too overweight by a negligible 100 grams. How illogical is that? The United World Wrestling (UWW) chief needs to weigh-in on this unfair retrospective directive .
Now that the Sports Arbitration Court has referred Vinesh Phogat’s plea to Hon. Dr. Annabelle Bennet, to be given a joint silver with the Cuban she squarely defeated, there’s a glimmer of hope. The former Australian federal judge, appointed as the Sole Arbitrator may right the wrong.
The contemporary woman with all her trappings of modernity still doesn’t own the street. You can be raped, brutalised or plain intimidated by the males.
The new ‘woke’ woman, a minuscule minority, is pushing the Lakshman rekha to emerge as one with agency, not living merely as an object of male gaze. It is due to their resilience and grit that women are emerging in even cutting edge fields despite constraints.
There is a sudden eruption of maleness to the extreme all around. And this malaise of male machismo and misogyny is a global double whammy. It has a wide arc from sports to politics.
Hear Donald Trump spouting undiluted misogyny. His sexist statement that Kamala Harris will be seen as a toy by global leaders if she becomes the President, and his support of J. D. Vance categorising Kamala as ‘childless cat lady’ is revolting.
What else can one expect from a convicted felon on charges of bribing a porn star to keep quiet on his past peccadilloes?
Women, over the centuries, have been made invisible without a magic cloak. To gloss over this patriarchal attitude their achievements were given marginal recognition as window dressing to seem progressive.
The trick is to elevate women as Devi and put her on a pedestal. Kali with her skeleton garland is an outré avatar to display some Nari Shakti. But any aam aurat with an attitude will be forced into submission as a subaltern.
Reservations in politics and other such measures to empower women are done in a way as if it is a largesse bestowed, a lofty feel-good gesture. Women have had to struggle for gaining social, legal and political rights.
And they are still clawing up the rock face with tenacity, with or without crampons, to prove that they can not be trampled underfoot. Vinesh Phogat is the latest entrant in this galaxy of iconic women.
Ushi Kak aka Kashpundit, is an author who revels in wordplay and satire couched in humour. At times she deviates into gravitas. Views expressed are the writer’s own.
Cover Photograph Getty Images