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Agency or Age?

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It happened that night

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artwork by Reya Ahmed

Caste, class, gender, sexuality, age, agency. At the nexus of them all, in the very heartland of U.P, is Kashvi. Written into history by journalist Pooja Pande, this is her story from 16 to 22, navigating life, work, family, politics and most fearlessly, love.

In Bundelkhand, or, you could argue, anywhere in India, a curious nature is not the most desirable of qualities. Especially in women, where it’s best stifled and strangled upon first sighting.

But that summer of 2014, 16-year-old Kashvi* felt the mightiest stirrings of curiosity when she encountered Ritwika*. Here was a girl who appeared as a mirror reflection to Kashvi in her non-conforming behaviour, and yet was different in her almost child-like wonder, which often translated as stubbornness in a world run by those who have long crossed 17.

‘It is just who she is,’ Kashvi says. ‘She has this child-like quality about her that she manages to hold on to. An innocence, a purity, a continuous refusal to comprehend the complicated realities of growing up, of life.’

Now 22, Kashvi sounds just a wee bit miffed. Five years, familial betrayals, forced marriages, social censure, an exodus, and an unsettled existence at 10k a month in brutal suburban Delhi will do that to you. It makes you feel that everything, including and especially you, is fragile.

But we’re still speaking of 2014, when Sam Smith was topping charts on summer love pop hits, and worlds away, Kashvi and Ritwika were slowly but surely falling in love.

North India’s heartland regularly makes news headlines during the annual heatwave of May and June. The rising temperatures can get unbearable — they break hearts, they bend human wills, they test patience and compassion like nothing else. But, perhaps most importantly, they can forge bonds for life — bonds melded in an unforgettable fire. And if there’s one thing we know, it’s that the perfect collision (and collusion) of a school’s summer break and a teenager’s frenzied hormone levels spell out HEAT on myriad levels.

A photo of a small town in India taken from a rooftop.
‘India — Town’, by lau rey (2015) Image courtesy: https://bit.ly/Lau-Rey

That summer of 2014 in Hamirpur — a district in Uttar Pradesh that is afforded newsprint real estate diligently every five years during elections, or when brutal crimes, usually of violence against women, occur — was a particularly hot one, as recalled by Hamirpur local Kashvi, who was a few months short of her 17th birthday.

Having just graduated from high school, she was visiting her mother’s side of the family in the neighbouring village of Kanhauli, Muskara — a tradition intrinsic to desi summer holidays, one of those well-hidden aspects of a patriarchal culture, because almost nothing negative can be thought of in connection with nani ka ghar (grandmother’s house) — right?

‘It’s about 20 kilometres from my place [in Raath tehsil]’, says Kashvi. She shares some trivia about the tehsil or sub-district’s name: ‘Actually, it was king Virat’s nagri (domain), and in Bundelkhand, it changed to Raath ki nagri, which was then just shortened to Raath.’

She’s always had a keenness for history, and fleetingly mentions wanting to pursue it if she has the opportunity. ‘I think it’s basic curiosity to want to know about the areas you belong to, where you’re from. It’s thrilling to know these secrets of a past that are somehow yours too, by virtue of being present in the same geographies.’

Their connection came through family. ‘Ritwika’s older sister was a friend of mine. Number teen hain yeh, chaar behnon mein (She is the third of four sisters). Her sister, my friend, was nothing like her.’

In other words, nothing had prepared Kashvi for Ritwika.

‘She would storm into the house. You know how other people walk in? Not her. Ritwika would storm in.’ And this would only be for a few minutes, she adds — Ritwika is a creature of the outdoors. ‘Bat an eye and she’d be out the door again, kanche khelne mein maahir aur time waste nahi ho sakta (A pro at playing marbles, she wouldn’t waste any time).’

Her ways were boyish, and while this was similar to Kashvi’s own demeanour, Ritwika was a few leagues above and beyond. From the way she dressed to the way she walked and talked, ‘sab 100% ladkon jaise’ (just like boys). She wore her hair short and you’d never find her in anything except ‘pant-shirt’, hanging out with the boys in her neighbourhood, beating them at kanche (marbles).

It took Ritwika some time to warm to the attention that Kashvi was directing her way. ‘I think she was slightly offended at first, wondering why I would be staring at her so. But then I think she started liking it.’

Art by Upasana A.

How did Kashvi sense this? ‘Because she would make 100 excuses to keep coming over. And she would come by 8–10 times a day, no less!’

Kashvi had been stewing in a personal rebellion of her own. She had been wanting to break out of a feminine identity. A good student, she’d won the first fight at her home when she’d succeeded in convincing her parents — both daily wage workers — to let her leave home to attend high school in the big city of Prayagraj (then Allahabad).

‘I had my first taste of freedom then,’ she recalls, as Ritwika, who’s also present as a silent witness to the story, leans in to hear about this part of her girlfriend’s life. Yes, Kashvi’s first girlfriend (or two) belonged to the Allahabad era, though she’s unwilling to get into details, perhaps as a mark of respect towards Ritwika.

Her fondest memories of the time revolve around wearing jeans: ‘My father never let me wear them at home,’ she explains.

In Hamirpur, girls wearing jeans — along with doing, wearing and eating other things — is severely frowned upon. In large swathes across north India, the sight of a newlywed woman is invariably one of a swaddled young girl, weighed down under yards of synthetic fabric decorated with salma-sitaare (spangled stars) that scratch at her arms, stomach and back. In turn, she spends every breathing second praying for a moment when she can maybe, just maybe, pull back the stifling ghunghat (veil). But centuries of patriarchy require physical discomfort for women, and the damned men always seem to be around.

That summer of 2014 also included attention from the opposite sex. How could it not? Kashvi has a mirthful response. ‘Any time a boy would tell me he loves me, can’t live without me, and all that — you know how boys swear undying love at the drop of a hat — I would tell them you can do that all your life, but you must know that I can never reciprocate.’ She is still friends with some of them, she adds. ‘Some are working, some are still studying, married or about to… the usual.’

Back in Hamirpur for her summer holidays, Kashvi was the big city-returned ‘didi ki saheli’ (elder sister’s friend) for Ritwika. Although she almost always shied away from Kashvi’s ‘hi’s’ and ‘hellos’, the long, unrelenting days of May and June finally had their way when one fine (read: blazing) morning, Ritwika made eye contact with Kashvi for the very first time.

‘There was something so hat ke (unique/edgy) about her,’ Kashvi said. ‘I was drawn to her, completely mesmerised.’

‘She has this innocent face, and then she has this edgy attitude complementing it. If you think about it like that, it doesn’t connect or seem to work. But somehow that’s her, that’s Ritwika. You either find it attractive, or you don’t,’ says Kashvi, who often calls her lover “bachcha” (child).

In the year that followed, the girls turned 17 and Kashvi pulled off another bold move vis-à-vis her parents: She got them to sanction her “inter ki padhaai” (Classes 11 and 12) in Muskara, Ritwika’s village. ‘I knew I had to move to be closer to her. Or at least try to. There was no other way to be around her, be with her…’

Lovers — The Power Of Love 1, by Carmen Tyrrell (2013) Image courtesy: https://www.art2arts.co.uk/artwork/lovers-the-power-of-love-1

The Navratras(the Hindu festival across nine nights) marked a milestone of this journey. The Ram Leela mela (fair) was in town and local excitement was at an all-time high.

‘It’s a big deal in the village. It’s like the mood is electric.’ Kashvi, like most other people there, was prepped to pull an all-nighter.

The show usually started late in the evening, after the mela’s activities had been wrapped up and ‘a thrilling sense of fun was in the air.’

A photo of the Ram Leela mela.
‘When In Ramleela’ (2016) Image courtesy: https://blog.vajor.com/when-in-ramleela/

As Kashvi packed a few blankets and shawls for the night out, she was all nerves and anticipation. ‘Nobody had plans to come back home that night.’

Onstage, as the much-eulogised battle of good versus evil played out, with the finale of the epic build-up that everyone had been waiting for — when the righteous Rama faces-off with the erring Ravana — Kashvi and Ritwika cosied up under a shared blanket.

‘It was my plan all along,’ says Kashvi, ‘What better opportunity than that night? I knew that everyone would be busy watching the Leela and nobody would notice us, or what we were up to.’

A night of discovery unfolded for the couple as they became lovers. Even though they had seen their own reflections in each other long before this night and were familiar with each other’s bodies as images of their own, the climax of their union brought about new feelings. As they shared a first kiss, Sita was reunited with Rama. Euphoria, bliss, and the definitive afterglow of a pact sealed with The One marked this night as forever memorable.

In 2016, spaced apart by mere months, both Kashvi and Ritwika found themselves married off to men — the culmination of parental exhaustion with daughters who spent night after night on mobile phones, desperate to stay in touch.

The memories of that Ram Leela night stayed with Kashvi and Ritwika as they refused their lawfully wedded husbands consummation, denying them, in that act, not just their bodies, but their souls, their identities. Who they are had become inextricably linked to one another ever since that night. They had pledged a sacred vow to each other and to their own selves, even at the risk of violence from their marital families and larger societal structures.

Poster of the film Sancharram showing the two women lead characters.
‘Sancharram : A journey India needs to see’ (2004), a film exploring a lesbian relationship between two teens, Kiran and Delilah, in a rural area, and how their family and society react to it. Image courtesy: https://safecity.in/sancharram/

‘When I got married, I would spend all my waking hours plotting excuses to return to my parents’ house. It would be a migraine one day, and a debilitating illness on another. I think my in-laws would get quite worried that I might pin something disastrous on them, something that would implicate them.’

Kashvi was barely 20 then, and had already threatened suicide to both her in-laws and her parents. Her parents’ logic had been that a marriage would fix it all.

‘I can’t even blame them,’ says Kashvi in hindsight. ‘I’ve seen this many a time. Girls, some of whom I even know, simply change their orientation after marriage. It’s just another adjustment for them.’​

Ritwika had tried to convince her lover to elope on both their wedding nights, but had allowed herself to then be talked out of it. Ritwika often allows herself to be talked out of things when it’s Kashvi doing the talking.

Soon enough, both her husband and her in-laws gave up on trying to persuade Kashvi to live the normative life of marital bliss and the ‘divorce nama’ she had been gunning for all along began.

In April 2019, the couple, who’d been living with Kashvi’s parents, anticipated outstaying their welcome. And in a bid to earn a living so they could live independently, they decided to leave the place they had always called home in search of a new life.

Since then, Kashvi has been doing the bulk of the heavy lifting involved in ensuring subsistence in her new life as one-half of an adult couple, sweating it out at a garment factory in Gurugram. ‘When we moved out of Hamirpur, I had hoped for us both to be able to find work. But it is not easy for bachcha to cope with what it all means.’

Art by Nandini Moitra

Home, today, is a one-room bedsit where the women often take selfies together, lounging about on the sofa, snuggled up close, staring straight into the camera. They sometimes cook together, but not much on weekdays. That is ‘simply impossible’ for Kashvi who runs gruelling shifts Monday-Friday and also works Saturdays. ‘Please Sunday hi phone karna,’ was a constant refrain on WhatsApp while reporting this piece.

At 17, even though they had not envisioned the precise shape of their future selves and lives, Kashvi and Ritwika had never entertained illusions around the possibilities of their relationship being anything more than Bundelkhand’s best-kept secret. The realities of inherent differences in their social-familial structures were a strong deterrent, too. Kashvi is of the kotar caste, a Dalit, while Ritwika belongs to the darzi community, generally regarded as OBC, the same as the Indian Prime Minister.

It has morbid echoes of what a gay man in south Delhi said a few years ago: ‘I feel like now my parents are kinda cool with my sexual orientation. But I still can’t bring home a Muslim boyfriend, or someone from a lower class.’

Many Indians have so much to show today that passes for progress — the jobs we go to and cars we drive and rents we pay and Netflix shows we stream and the English we think-speak. But there are some things that never change. For Kashvi and Ritwika, the social censure that comes from a same-sex, inter-caste relationship, coupled with the fact of their economic realities, means absolute isolation. It places them firmly at the margins.

At work, Kashvi tries to keep engagement with her peers to a minimum, in a bid to keep her ongoing live-in relationship a secret. The agony in her voice is apparent even when she says, simply, almost matter-of-factly, ‘It’s like nothing can ever work in our favour. And this when we have some common family connections. Ritwika’s father is my moonh-bole mama.’ (uncle of sorts).

An image of Leela and Urmila featured by Feminism in India.
Leela Namdeo and Urmila Srivastava were two policewomen from Madhya Pradesh who married each other in 1987. Their marriage was one of the first and most widely reported instance of same-sex marriage in India. Image courtesy: https://twitter.com/feminisminindia/status/1012236904442368001

She speaks of Dutee Chand and the attack on a lesbian couple in London as she juggles her busy Sunday schedule that has been further complicated by the arrival of ‘gaanv se aaye chhote bhai’ (the younger brother from the village). ‘He’s here to explore opportunities. There’s nothing worthwhile left to do back in the village.’

As for her life path, the one she has charted out with her lover, there isn’t a definitive roadmap. ‘We registered for a consensual live-in relationship at the district court in Hamirpur when we heard about Article 377 being revoked. But of course, we cannot still be officially married or anything.’

Against all odds, Kashvi and Ritwika embarked on the journey together that will eventually make them Hamirpur’s first (documented) same-sex couple. They even see children in their future for which they need to establish themselves financially and independently.

There was a moment of heightened emotion that year of 2014, during those Navratras, when they both ‘got married at the temple’. It was a quick affair, urged on by Kashvi, ritualized by a pandit friend also their age. It was akin to a note of affirmation that she felt she needed: ‘We did it because it seemed romantic then. It does seem a bit foolish now.’

Given their life choices, there isn’t much room left to rebel, Kashvi says. ‘We’re women. As you must know so well, women have to be cautious all the time. There is just so much we are expected to keep in mind, be respectful of, hold the fort, et cetera.’

Even rage and sorrow exist in gendered notions. ‘A boy, when his heart breaks, just drowns himself in alcohol. As women, we’re not supposed to do even that. Even grief and its expression has boundaries for us.”’

‘It’s a difficult life,’ says Kashvi and adds in the next breath, very U.P.-like, the famous line from a Hindi movie which has become a queer anthem of sorts: ‘Pyaar kiya toh darna kya?’ (When you have given yourself to love, what is there to fear?)

Art by Soumya Dhulekhar

** Note: names changed.

Pooja Pande is a journalist, writer, mother, and Co-CEO of Chambal Media home to Khabar Lahariya. Her latest book ‘Momspeak: The Funny, Bittersweet Story of Motherhood in India’ is available here.

Watch our social media space for snippetes from our conversation with her on love, parenting and media production.

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Written by Deep Dives

Now running: Agency or Age — in depth stories on consent, age of marriage and agency for young women

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