Persepolis

” I wish he were alive and in jail rather than dead and a Hero”, these were the exact words  by Marjane’s 10 year old friend who had just lost her father in the war.

I recently finished reading Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and I think it is really hard to express how resourceful  the book was in a few words .

Do you feel irritated when your parents don’t let you wear what you want ? Do you also feel oppressed when they tell you not to do certain things ?  How about someone tells you that you can’t wear the new Nike shoes or lipstick because its against the culture ?

To begin with this book is basically about what it feels like to be a liberal leftist in Iran during its period of revolution and war turmoil which lasted for about 8 years. Every instance, every real life account and every character makes you feel like you are reliving that period and at the same time makes you feel grateful to have rights as a woman today. To give you an insight I would like to tell you few rules that the author and others in the country were imposed with

1) You need to wear a Hijab whether you wish or not and your hair cannot be exposed as it attracts the men.

2) The schools were shut for over more than a year just so the whole education system can be changed.

3)  The author was caught by the moral police for wearing a trendy  jacket because it’s basically illegal to import anything from other countries.

4) In the art anatomy class the nude models were replaced with models in long veiled Burkha because it’s against the culture to show arms and legs.

After reading the whole three fifty pages book I ended up massively respecting Marjane Satrapi and her family who were evolved and liberal but had to bend down in front of the government because if they didn’t then they would either be executed or lashed.

The oppression of women and men makes your heart wrench in pain and fury but the author has so well presented in a comic form that it eases out the stress and hence I strongly recommend this book to everyone.

Note: To all the noobies like me who are trying to know more about gender equality this is a great book to begin with. Also I’m doing a book challenge where  I readcone book per week and the genres that I have decided to explore are Gender Equality and Artificial Intelligence so let me know if you guys have any recommendations 🙂

-Neha Kangralkar

Wabi Sabi- The art of imperfection

“We as women are trained to see ourselves as cheap imitations of fashion photographs, rather than seeing fashion photographs as cheap imitation of women” -Naomi Wolf

Recently, I was at Mumbai airport and because I had a lot of time in hand I decided to go cosmetic shopping. And I ended up at a known skin care brand shop where the lady welcomed me with a smile. I told her that I was looking for a moisturizer that can just nourish my skin and yet not make it look oily. As soon as I told her this the lady began telling me how my skin is really dull, has blemishes, discoloration in certain areas and then tried to sell me the most expensive moisturizer along with other stuff. I could swear that nobody made me feel so self-conscious and terrible about myself. And that’s when I realized how desperate we women are to have the perfect skin, perfect bust or perfect body size.

Have you ever seen a guy feel insecure about other guys’  skin, height, or even body? (Yeah, they do envy because it’s basic human emotion but I’m talking about insecurity here). NO? That’s because the society doesn’t treat guys as eye candies and that is one of the reasons why they are secure and comfortable in their own skin while most women are crash dieting, becoming anorexic or depressed about their complexion.

It took me 19 years to disobey with the beauty standards projected by fashion and cosmetic industry and to fall in love with my flaws. I am not against makeup or size2 all I am saying is every dent or curve on your body, every scar or every freckle that you think is a flaw and imperfection is something that makes you idiosyncratically beautiful.

Go ahead, stand in front of a mirror and look at yourself. Just look at how beautiful that scar is, how beautifully curvy those love handles are and instead of being ashamed of them wear them like a badge of honor because you are beautiful in your own way.

 

“For I conclude that enemy is not lipstick, but guilt itself; we deserve to be sexual and serious- or whatever we please; We are entitled to wear cowboy boots to our own revolution.” -Naomi Wolf

 

–Neha Kangralkar

 

(I would like to give special credits to Gursimran Kaur( Rum and raisins on WordPress) for introducing me to engaging authors and also for discussing beauty myths which triggered me to write this article.)