Embracing paths, feminist and spiritual

“I adopted two seemingly disparate liberatory paths, feminism and spiritual practice, to survive and make sense of what I was going through; that I, who was neither consciously feminist nor spiritually inclined, became both; that this personal revolution couldn’t have happened any other way, for me, is something I’m just beginning to grasp,” writes Nighat Gandhi in her book What I Am Today, I Won’t Remain Tomorrow published by Yoda Press. The book is deeply powerful, sharing the author’s own transformational journey, intertwined with her sensitive portrayal of encounters with women survivors of abuse.

It is easy for urban dwellers, especially well-intentioned ones, to make victims and martyrs out of the suffering of common folk, and glorify them for what it’s worth. However, Nighat treads carefully. She is acutely aware of the privileged position she enjoys in relation to the ‘subjects’ she attempts to represent. There is a sincerity about the questions she asks them, born perhaps of the desire to share their narratives as truthfully as possible, never degenerating into voyeuristic curiosity. What’s most beautiful is the constant self-examination on her part, never assuming that her own life is perfect while other lives are fraught with problems and fissures.

Here is an interview with Nighat, who I had the opportunity to meet in Varanasi in April 2010, soon after spotting her other book Ghalib at Dusk at store near Assi Ghat. We found that we were both staying on the same campus at Rajghat Besant School; she as a writer-in-residence, I as a workshop participant. It’s amazing how our paths crossed, and how a friendship was born over walks and conversations.

How did you decide on the title of your book ‘What I Am Today, I Won’t Remain Tomorrow’? Does it reflect on your personal philosophy?

The title is taken from Sadhana’s story–it’s what she says towards the end of her narrative. I tried to get chapter headings, as far as possible, from the speech of the actual participants.  And yes, the title does reflect my personal belief,  but earlier, what Sadhana said was an insight and source of inspiration for me. The fact that decay is as natural as renewal. Both are inevitable processes in nature.

I find it significant that you call the participants of your study ‘survivors of abuse’, not ‘victims of abuse’. Would you like to elaborate on this choice of words?

They are survivors! I think calling them victims would be a gross insult to their indomitable spirit of survival. All women, and for that matter, all oppressed peoples, are survivors–and should be applauded for the sheer act of surviving in a misogynistic milieu.

Your acknowledgements page starts on an unusual note ‘The chain of my gratitude could stretch to the ancient matter which makes up the universe and our planet, the primordial atoms and molecules, culminating in the body-mind, the ‘I’ through whom this book got written. For now, I’ll limit myself to the principal links in the performance chain.’ What brought about this feeling of deep gratitude?

I think gratitude is a natural outgrowth when you are on the spiritual path. I am filled with gratitude to that universal energy, presence, intelligence, of which I am also a part–every day, I take time out to offer thanks. I try to make a conscious effort to appreciate even the most mundane happenings in life –like the kids got back home safely–if you see the awful traffic in Allahabad, you’ll know what I mean!

In your acknowledgements, you also refer to ‘my weird hermetic ways’. I’m curious to know more.

Well, most writers have weird hermetic ways, don’t they? I mean the preference for solitude, and a room of one’s own. I can’t write in a café or public space like some writers can. Except if it’s a quiet library–those I love and miss–there’s isn’t such a place here.  So my office is my hermetic space. That’s where most of my writing gets done. And many of the non-writing hours are also spent there. But the preparation for writing is also happening when I’m not typing out the words–it’s happening in the head and heart all the time.

In the book, you frequently refer to Allahabad’s location at the confluence of three rivers Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati. Has this held some kind of personal significance for you — in terms of your writing, or otherwise?

Being at the confluence of the rivers…Yes, it has a personal significance in the sense that it is here, in this town, that I came to realize my life was forking out and coming together–the many strands of it–mothering, activism, writing. And all of it came together in a magical, mythical manner. As if Saraswati had something to do with it! When I least expected it. I thought I would get buried in my domestic life and would never emerge as a writer or in any other role except mother and wife. I lived in that fear always. But somehow I did emerge. I learned to swim and float down the river of self-discovery.

You write of your ’long-felt unease with my assigned roles as a woman’. When did you begin to recognise this unease? What were the roles that fettered you?

I realized that my life was not going to be as I had wanted it to be—soon after marriage, and especially after the birth of my daughter. It was a shock but since it arrived slowly, it just seeped into my being, like slow poison. What were the roles that fettered me? Well, the domestic roles, of course, and loss of personal freedoms in a small town, and the middle class roles of a middle class woman.

You say that this unease ‘fed the inner compulsion to give voice to some of this town’s (Allahabad’s) most invisible women.’ What was the nature of that compulsion?

I think the compulsion was the feminist mantra–the personal is political, and of course, no woman is free until all are free. Once I realized the truth of these sayings, there was no turning back to the old way of life.

Did you feel that in giving voice to others, you’d be able to get at the heart of your own misery?

I knew what was making me miserable. So there was no element of surprise or new knowledge in writing about the lives of the study participants. But yes, in the process of interviewing them and writing their stories, I did gain much inspiration on how to change my own life.  Mostly, I gained confidence and courage about embarking on the road less travelled.

What did the listening and the retelling of those stories do to you? I mean, at all levels — physical, emotional, spiritual.

It made me grow and grow and grow! Ok, not physically perhaps! But yes, emotionally and spiritually, I grew so much, I hardly fit the old me mould anymore! I feel like I’m another me. It was a molting process, shedding of old skin.

You write, ‘It is in the criss-crossing of paths, the intersecting spaces of spirituality and feminism, a (con)fusion which continues to thrill and liberate me, that this book got written.” I’d like you to explain that. That one sentence seems to have a lot behind it.

As I wrote in the Intro, both feminism and spirituality became life quests, they became survival strategies. Both are philosophies that challenge social construction of roles and inequalities. So I see a lot of parallels in both as liberatory paths. Traditional spirituality has not necessarily addressed gender roles or gender-based inequalities. But if a movement is about the equality of all beings, if it’s about resisting oppression, then by extrapolation, one can apply it to the question of gender inequality also.

Intellectuals are often hesitant to use the word ‘spirituality’. What do you think is the reason behind this? Do they fear that their academic rigour would be compromised?

I think our present intellectual gains are assumed to be a fruit of the Enlightenment era–the age of rationality and reason. So we feel out of sorts when we dwell in the world of mysticism and spirituality because it’s not deemed a quantifiable, verifiable science! The whole idea of Social Sciences is questionable, at least if one follows the research designs for uncovering or proving a fact or testing a hypothesis, used in the  natural sciences like Biology etc. So ideas like intuition, spiritual awakening, ecstasy, etc are relegated to the realm of the superstitious, hocus pocus, not cool! Therefore, the truly objective person is somehow not supposed to be spiritual. Because we haven’t yet devised a scientific way of testing the truth of spiritual insights.That seems like a pretty unscientific approach to reality to me.

How did you think of your own spiritual journey? What have your primary influences been — people, places, reading, personal crises? Did living in various parts of the world have anything to do with this?

Yes, all the above have been influences. The path of self-development is strewn with such influences. The book’s participants have been very influential in my life.  I mention some of them in the Intro to the book. The authors I read—those I already talk about in the Introduction to my book, but there are so so many others too. Like Anne Marie Schimmel, Karen Armstrong, Rita Gross, Evelyn Underhill, whose names I didn’t mention. And music–sufi music  has played a transformative role too–listening to Abida Parveen, Nusrat Fateh Ali.
Living in different parts of the world definitely contributed to a lack of rootedness, which I see as a spiritual gift. It’s easier to realize the impermanence of the world and shed all illusions about what we call ‘mine’ if one has had to shed baggage literally and set up camp several times in a lifetime.

NOTE: To get a copy of the book, check http://www.flipkart.com/am-today-won-remain-tomorrow-book-8190666835

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