Facilitated by patriarchy, men continue to exert unchecked, supreme authority over the dissemination and interpretation of religion
Priests perform the evening prayers at Rishikesh in Uttarakhand. Pic/Istock
My tolerance for masculinist behaviour shrinks considerably when I'm PMSing. I can't help it. I try to be more patient. I try to talk myself into being more compassionate, to muster an understanding of the fragility that lurks behind the toxicity. I've managed to keep my rage more or less in check. But I am still easily triggered by the behaviours of men who are patriarchally conditioned and who so obviously flaunt their assumed authority. Unfortunately, in India, these triggers are omnipresent because of the over-abundance of men in public and private places. Under normal circumstances, I am able to negotiate between them and my feminist impulse to smash patriarchy. But in my pre-menstrual phase, when my hormones are out of whack, I sometimes feel both anger and a sense of defeat. If I'm on my own, I can let it stew, but if I have any inkling of an available audience, I cannot help but rant compulsively.
Last Friday I was a mess of hormones and fatigue. I woke up early, and hungry, and I'd conveniently forgotten I had promised my partner I'd take him to see Kali at the Kalighat temple. All I wanted then was hot tea and breakfast, and since these weren't available, I was preparing for us to go out in search of them when my partner glimpsed at the length of my dress and wondered if it wasn't inappropriate for a temple. I groaned a little. I wasn't in the right frame of mind, but knowing that the place can be a tourist trap if you look clueless enough, I thought it would be best to accompany him. He's also been so wonderful and supportive as a companion on my fieldwork trip that I wanted, for a change, to do something he really wanted to do. So I changed into a sari, and we set off together.
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Predictably, the instant we got close to the second gate, men garbed in priestly outfits descended upon us like touts outside a railway station. Instead of going in, I directed us towards the end of the lane and decided to have a cup of tea instead. I felt too vulnerable. I gathered my wits with each sip of tea, but it would prove futile, this much I knew. The first time I had encountered Kali had felt profound. I didn't mind that I had been swindled by a priest into offering money in exchange for his non-consensual chanting over me. It was back in 2014. I was alone, and having been raised Catholic, was (and remain) unfamiliar with other religions' etiquette. I had gone in just as the temple was shutting down for lunch. There was no sea of worshippers, no sinuous queues, just a few lingering devotees. I couldn't enter the sanctum sanctorum, or maybe I wasn't allowed to. I don't remember. But I was led to a spot outside where I was told I could stand. I tilted my head upwards and confronted Kali's eyes and tongue at the same time and felt undone by the fields of energy that seemed to radiate outward. I couldn't tell if it was because the idol had been animated by the fervour of people's prayers and desires over centuries or if I was projecting onto it the goddess vibe I was told I would encounter. It was a significant moment during which I felt a transfusion of power through the act of gazing.
It was perhaps a little after 9 am when we made our way in to the temple. We kept our shoes with a woman who asked for R20. Then we joined the reasonably sized queue leading to the inner sanctum. Once we got in we found it inundated with men dressed in priestly clothes either holding baskets filled with coconut and hibiscus flowers in polythene bags and holding their sacred thread and chanting profusely the various names for Kali or guarding one approach that led to the altar and charging R500 per head for access.
They were aggressive in their approach, and did little to manage the crowd, forcing devotees to stampede their way in. Then, using some furniture, they forced the unkempt line into inching forward narrowly toward the final few feet before the altar. When it was our turn, before I was even allowed a glimpse of Kali, a hand aggressively turned my body towards a donation box. I was then pushed out. They were even more aggressive with my partner. He had to struggle to get them to let go of him. He was patient and tolerant the whole morning and was gracious about the chance of darshan. I was a ranting bitch who tried really hard to suppress her rage at being directed by sacred threaded men, the self-appointed guardians of Kali.
When I left I thought long and hard about how, facilitated by patriarchy, men around the world continue to exert unchecked, supreme authority over the dissemination and interpretation of religion, from Hinduism to Christianity to Islam to Judaism. A few days later, at a bookstore called Earthworm, I chanced upon and instantly bought an old edition of a book called "Walking Naked: Women, Society, Spirituality in South India" by Vijaya Ramaswamy, first published in 1997. It is a brilliant thesis on how women in South India found empowerment through spirituality, and even possession. Reading it is my way of finding a spiritual counter to the hyper-patriarchal world of religious practice.
Deliberating on the life and times of Everywoman, Rosalyn D'Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper
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