CHENNAI: I have not had a piece published in this space for a few weeks and it has gone largely unnoticed. But not by my grandfather, who well into his eighties, reads eight newspapers a day and every piece I publish with his goldcoloured magnifying glass. He only ever says “Interesting” to describe what I write, too proud as a man fighting his age to keep up with current affairs to express discomfort. He asked me once, and then once again why I haven’t written in a while.
I have avoided visiting him on the pretext of social distancing. My father, who thinks that writing in this space is the most respectable thing I do, never reads what I write. When he sees my byline he marks the first page of the paper with my name and puts it on the pile of papers never to be discarded from the house. I hear from the mother that he has asked why it has been a while since he’s been able to do this, but because he complains often that I make elaborate meaning of movies without stating whether one should watch it not, or that the news is uncomfortable enough without me adding to it, he hasn’t asked me. The truth is that I have had a hard time adjusting to the ‘new normal’, and a severe bout of depression had left me with no energy to give to writing.
When I found the will I was at a loss for words, not knowing how to respond to a changing world and the suffering that has come along with it. I convinced myself that it was best to avoid writing altogether instead of spewing rhetoric, wondering how words in this space would benefit anyone when there is so much advice out there. One week became many and I had given up on writing anything at all when I received an email that changed everything. The person who introduced herself as ‘D’ began her email with “Thank you very much for your article”.
She is a foreigner stuck in Puducherry during the lockdown and was in urgent need of an Emergency Contraceptive Pill (ECP). “This situation is crazy for me...This is a very desperate email, just to try every possibility...I know we don’t know each other, but if you have any idea of where I could get the day-after pill I would be forever grateful,” read another part of the message. The article ‘D’ was referring to was a piece I had written on ECPs in this space in February 2019.
Though I receive on average an email a week from a person desperate for an ECP, who stumbles upon my piece on a Google search and writes to me, a complete stranger, via email, this email from ‘D’ at 1 am on a Thursday was a wake up call for me who was pretending to sleep in all manners of speaking. Not knowing a single source for an ECP in Puducherry and realising that those that kept stock in Chennai had all run out of pills, I took to social media. By the time ‘D’ got in touch the next morning via WhatsApp, a dozen people had volunteered to call pharmacies, visit them, see how we could get a pill across to her, and many more had written in with suggestions, doctor contacts, hospital addresses, etc.
By afternoon the next day none of us were able to get ‘D’ an ECP, but her request was closed after she visited a doctor. Since then, a lawyer has been in touch to explore the legalities that define the unavailability of pill, many women have expressed interest in taking this up as a campaign and a friend managed to bring in two dozen i-Pills from Bengaluru, of which two have been collected (by strangers). I can say now that I found the energy, the will and even the words, thanks to D’s midnight mail. But if I were to be really honest about it, it’s the article from last year and this space I had been given and given to that gave me my will and the words back.
Because of this, and also because I ought to treasure this space that allows my uncomfortable, elaborate meaning-making-ofmovies voice when such spaces are shrinking elsewhere I want to write even when it’s not ideal for me. And I’ll come as I am, with my confusions, questions, discomfort and depression and as Stephanie Hrehirchuk suggests “I’ll write even when it’s not all roses and rainbows because the process may heal” or help a ‘D’ or an XYZ somewhere in search of something that a stranger can give.
Archanaa Seker
seker.archanaa@gmail.com
The writer is a city-based activist, in-your-face feminist and a media glutton