I Am A Woman And Not Stupidly Touchy About It by Santosh Jha - HTML preview

CHAPTER 5

Tonnes of literature, especially poetry have been written on behavioral idiosyncrasies of females. In Oriental Urdu language, this word called ‘Ada’ is the most common subject of all Shayars (poets), from starters to the arrived.

Somehow, Ada is associated with positivity of reception, in the part of men, who never complained about Ada of the women in their lives. This positivity was always there, even when the consequences of these behavioral idiosyncrasies (Ada) were often aimed at painfulness for the men. The Ada of beloved was often this emotionless neutrality, bordering neglect and even conceited carelessness. Still, the Shayars, the men in love of their unaffected beloved wrote beautiful poetry over Ada and even labeled them as something, which engendered joys for them…

A Poet said –

‘Iltiza Ka Malal Kya Kije, Unke Dar Par Kahin Padi Hogi…’

This means – What regret I can have of my request (Of Love) to her, it (request) would probably be lying unattended on her doorstep…!

Another poet said –

‘Jinke Hothon Pe Hasin, Panw Mein Chhale Honge, Han Wahi Log Tere Chahne Wale Honge…’

This means – Those, who shall keep smiling, even when blisters shall fill up their feet, can dare to claim to be your lovers…!

Somehow, this Ada, stands to be compared with what contemporary culture accepts as attitude. The men, who talked positively about Ada of women folks and wrote copious poetries over the subject, are now very bitter about the ‘attitudes’ modern women are dishing out to them. No doubt, no poetry of any worth is being written about attitudes of contemporary women and all sorts of bitter and negative talks are listed against them. These men-accusations have now become a meme – rooted part of collective unconscious of modern men, who now accept this realism as generic trouble with all modern women. This is another trullusion! Perceptional but so widely accepted that it has become a meme.

A person wrote on a social site –

‘If the brain of a modern woman is squeezed, the attitude that shall come out of it can easily equal water in Pacific Ocean…’

Often, contemporary men feel scared and even embattled with the so-called attitudes of modern women. The reality remains that ‘attitude’ is something, most people are wearing more than clothes today. Men are also wearing enough attitudes; women however are listed as greater and larger offenders. It may be a realism that as most attitudes of men are age-old and a continuation from the past, they are not even noticed, whereas modern women have attitudes, which surely are new, acquired recently out of their newly-established empowerment and operative in new milieus of contemporary society and cultures, they are being counted more and are registered deeply.

The core issue is – what is this attitude, which becomes negative and scary, whereas Ada was good and even praised! The meanings of attitude, as listed in dictionaries varies from a ‘settled worldview’ to ‘negativity of behavior’. Similarly, Ada too is defined similarly. Though, some details may vary, the common factor is related to some ‘unpleasantness of behavior’.

So, what makes Ada so good, or not so bad but attitude as definitively bad?

If the two realisms – Ada and Attitude are compared and details of various shades of two are scrutinized, it seems clear as why Ada is good and attitude is bad. Let us list the differences –

1. Somehow, both Ada and Attitude are predominantly women-specific entities and both pertain to behavioral impropriety of the person. Still, Ada is often very implicit, latent and subtle, whereas it seems, attitude is explicit, overt and intentionally tangible.
2. Ada in popular sense is associated with ‘neutrality’ of beloved or women, in return of lover’s overtures for intimacy, not targeted at him but there as usual demeanor; whereas, attitude is a usually particularalistic and ‘intended negativity’ towards a defined target. Attitude surely does not have the benefit of doubt as ‘neutrality’ is hugely missing, whereas Ada is mostly the neutrality, in response to the request for ‘positivity’ of lover.
3. Most importantly, Ada literally has more to do with body language and words are often missing. It is more about casualness and unattachedness of attention, expressed and communicated through ‘unresponsiveness’ and ‘neutrality’ of body postures and body languages. Attitude in contemporary times has begun to take words along body languages. This accompaniment of words is the prime culprit of offence. Attitude carries words and actionable body language, whereas Ada has no words and actionability is smothered by absolute neutrality…
4. Last but not the least, Ada was considered as an expression of vulnerability and helplessness of a woman, as women in past had to live with loads of socio-cultural restrictions. A woman’s neutrality was considered an Ada as lovers accepted that she was crippled by restrictions on her and was not as liberated as men to express and communicate their inside desires. However, attitude is associated with strength, endowments and empowerment of modern liberalized women. Ada emanated out of helplessness and choicelessness, whereas, attitude is engendered out of liberty and empowerment.

The simple fact is – neither Ada, nor attitude is a desired state of human choice. Both present a situation to men and women to ‘be, what they may not be and what they intend to be but they are not’. This conflict and dualism is never good for human relationships, especially man-woman intimate relationships. We all are better off being simple and true persons. Wearing something, which hides and discolors our true consciousness and personality is not desirable for the person as well as others. We already have so much distrust among men and women.

The purpose of this talk is to bring about the importance of the strength of communication for modern empowered women. Communication is rather a very critical element of empowerment and here it is now not necessary to say that this too is gender-neutral.

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