Mona Lisa Smile!

"Let us try to open our minds to a new idea."

I met so many amazing women this year and I wish to acknowledge them all. Some younger than me, a few older than my mother; all of them inspired me with their compassionate and kind demeanour. I believe I learned some great life lessons from all of them. I met some in movies and books and for me they are as real as the ones I met in flesh and blood. There are ideas and energies that keep me on the brim of unexplored territories and sharing them with all these encouraging women has resulted in a far better reality than I could have anticipated. Our power lies in our being and radiating that knowing to those beneath us and creating opportunities for their own exaltation. My being sketchy about the year gone by is just another example of how much we share happiness around us. Our constant whirlwind engages us in a stupor far more controlling our life's reins than we ought to permit it. 

I became part of some conversations this year that focused on our role as the other gender who keeps struggling to explain everything we do. There are reasons and long discussions on the necessity and purpose of the said actions and decisions taken by women. It was fortunately challenged by a group of women who write poetry in South East Asia, not so long ago. Yes, you may ban books written by them, banish them from countries, stifle their natural prowess but how do you deny their voices being heard from their caged existence? That's why we have poetry and oral traditions that flourished in so many different Tribal and remote arenas throughout the planet. 

~* Those who led the giant nationwide strike in Poland to protest their loss of reproductive rights in numbers that went beyond 30,000 led not just a procession of angry women out of their workplaces on streets, but a collective outrage that was stifled for a long time and needed a rightly justified release. Our body, our right still cries for acceptance in 2016 is a reminder of the constant progress and failure of our conscious educated minds to embrace change. 

~* The Stanford Rape Survivor with her open letter not just bought out courage and solidarity among girls and women of all age groups but among people who I believe still possess a good head and heart and humane virtues that make them so. Her words cut through, pierced the pain and 'powerful' is not a word with enough intensity that she addressed her thoughts, anguish and hope through the letter. Us, women, learned that no matter the good in this world, the better people still existing, we will always have to stand guard for our safety and our self-respect. We don't and never will give it away, come what may.

~* Saudi women who are not allowed to drive and appear in public spaces without a male member of their family, had their first female Olympic sprinter compete in the Rio Olympics. What a powerful statement against all who restrict our presence with their narrow understanding of gender equations! May there be many more taking inspiration from Kariman Abuljadayel.

~* The International Criminal Court with a judicial bench of three women Judges convicted a Congolese politician of War crimes that included sexual violence. The United Nations appointed women on important positions such as Deputy Secretary-General, Chef de Cabinet and a Special Adviser on Policy. Certainly befitting roles these accomplished women of merit deserve to make their right mark on gender politics.

Internationally, a whole new avenue with opportunities opened up for women. Back on our home turf, Indian women performed exceptionally brilliant in Sports, an activity that is still predominantly a male-oriented power bastion. Right from picking up talent, honing skills and financing the rigorous process of being a woman sportsperson is a huge, almost, insurmountable barrier and one which many are breaking free. Yes, we need to push past our physical strengths in a yet traditional outfit society as ours. Women in Academia such as the coveted Administrative Services have been outperforming themselves each passing year, a much needed positive force for imbibing sensitivity and inclusiveness in Bureaucracy. We are voicing our thoughts out, clear and loud, some still fall on deaf ears but a thud has began making its way. A revolution starts not with numbers or crowds or loud noises but with persistent energies put together by all sexes. We can no longer deny, ignore and dismiss voices of the queer, the oppressed genders and the powerless. The Mona Lisa no longer charms from within a painting but with her fiery spirits that engulf everything she sets her eyes and mind upon. She is certainly also not to be regarded as the sole representative of all women who share a force much larger than they are emanating presently. Our imagined utopia is not only a reality today but one which is so consciously challenged, designed and moulded by our aspirations and hard work to survive and rise above that which has existed as the sole pinnacle of perfection for ages. May we continue to be better than before.