‘I am proud of my middleclassness’

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Author Shobhaa De is agitated after a recent encounter with sexual harassment in the capital’s Bengali Market. On her recent visit, when she was buying traditional sweetmeat from the market, three ‘well-dressed men’ brushed past her, at least five times. “Unko woh gol gol dena (give her that round thing), they said suggestively,” she says. “There is no sharam left in the country. I said, ‘Get lost or I will hammer you’. If such a thing can happen to me at 65, imagine what can happen to my daughter when she steps out of home,” she said.
She spoke about the incident in conversation with filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt at the inauguration of the 10-day Penguin Spring Fever festival at India Habitat Center.
“It is not a very pleasant thing to be a woman in India,” she said, turning the spotlight on the rising violence against women.
“Throughout mythology, teasing a woman has been taken for granted. Even now when it has taken on a serious tone, we don’t see it as a serious enough issue,” she said.
The author of Shobhaa At Sixty, Sethji, Sandhya’s Secret, Surviving Men and Sisters said, “Today’s generation of young girls is very comfortable with their sexuality unlike the men. A lot of violence we see is an outcome of the inability of the men to cope with the overt expression of women’s sexuality,” she said.
Being a part of an all-woman family, with a beautiful mother and three pretty sisters, Mahesh said he’s very comfortable with the idea of ‘listening to a woman’.
Shobhaa asked him if he also feels concerned when his youngest daughter Alia, who has just joined films, goes out for work. “Not at all, she goes to work like hundreds of women go in the local trains. We are the inside people of the film industry. So I know that it’s as good or as bad to be working in films as it may be in any other profession,” he replied.
The conversation, aptly titled “Never a Dull De”, also revolved around books, films and creative ideas.
Shobhaa reminded Mahesh of his words, “I am a leper who sells his wounds” voiced years back when he made his autobiographical Arth, and if he still stands by it. “Certainly,” he said.
“Of course, it’s essential for a creative person to have an element that disturbs. For myself, I didn’t have any demons to deal with. I have been a middleclass girl, proud of my middleclassness. I have always remained transparent and allowed life to touch me,” she said.