Indian women live in constant fear of being raped: Rochelle Potkar

Mumbai-based Rochelle Potkar, a fiction writer, a storyteller and a poet, whose works have appeared in several Indian and international publications, says in the light of the increase in violence against women in India, only women could initiate a change in their destinies before the world joined hands in supporting them.
Extremely dismayed over the recent survey that the Indian youth harboured a shockingly regressive attitude towards the womenfolk, Rochelle opines most Indians simply don’t know the difference between the blurry lines of life and art. 
Rochelle’s first book of short stories, Arithmetic of Breasts, was shortlisted for The Digital Book of the Year Award 2014, by Publishing Next. Her next book, ‘Dreams of Déjà vu’ is a speculative novelIn a tete-a-tete with Kashmir Observer Chief Correspondent, Farooq Shah, Rochelle spoke about the average Indian mindset and argued unless the laws concerning the safety of women weren’t toughened, women in India would continue to suffer at the hands of a patriarchal society. Excepts of the interview: 

Farooq Shah: You could have easily gone into the corporate world to make a decent career with an MBA and an advertising course. What drove you to become a writer?

Rochelle Potkar: I did have a corporate life for 8 years before crossing over to full-time writing. My husband supports me financially. The work life in Mumbai is stressful with demanding deadlines, client expectations, and pathetic infrastructure to travel to work. If Mumbai is a road of marathon runners, I am one of the small stalls on the sides preparing sandwiches and serving water in small cups of prose and poetry. That’s how I look at myself.

FS: The genre you have chosen is pretty unorthodox for a starter especially taking into account the sub-continental mindset. Was it deliberate on your part to begin your writing career with something like ‘The Arithmetic of Breasts’?

RP: Sensuality is on my mind 24, 7, and the dichotomy of it too. Here as a woman, we get molested, gang-raped, acid-attacked and if not live in constant paranoia of it. I too am caught in this duality of fear and celebration –equal attraction and repulsion with the body’s languages of love and its politics of violence.Having said that, I have many muses like: nature, philosophies, science, movies. But hey nature is sensuous too. Do you see the bark of a tree – the way it bends, the way the tree sways its hair wet with rain, conditioned into sun, weeping with fruit and nectar.

FS: What was the immediate response from the Indian literary circle after your first work was out? It must have created a few ripples, ruffled a few feathers. Did it?

RP: I have had interesting responses. For some the book cover titillated, for some the title. The general Indian reader thought it was erotica. The international reader saw it as emotional journeys. I am soon to market this book in bookstores other than online retailers. Once that happens, let’s see what comes in.

FS: You didn’t publish your book, rather preferred the medium of e-book. Did you not find a necessity to do that? Is the classical habit of book reading dying a slow death? What future do e-books hold for the current readers and the generation next?

RP: I did not try too hard to find a publisher. The few agents I contacted were unsympathetic. I had to decide how much time and mind I give to this chase. And I have never met a big publisher. Right now e-reading forms 2-5% of readership. I don’t have the statistics with me. There are reports saying that readership is on a decline and yet more and more books are coming out in the market. What I do know is those who love to read – would read the old-fashioned way more than the new virtual way. We Indians still love the crisp smells of paper, the crackle of page turn, the dog-ear, the wormholes of silverfish.

FS: Apart from being a fiction writer, you’re a poet too. Are you a poet more or the writer or both? Have you published any collection yet?

RP: I love fiction and poetry loves me. I think of story and lyric follows me. It’s a love triangle. I have treated poetry like daughters in India are treated vis-à-vis sons. And yet she never left me. Now I acknowledge her. My first poetry manuscript ‘dew on rust’ will be sent to competitions. It is a book of 100 poems and is ready to fly.So…there is this one poetry book, an anthology of women-oriented short stories, and an anthology of speculative short stories. I am also working on a novel around the theme of light and its various interpretations.

FS: How difficult is it to survive or thrive in the writing arena especially when we know the sub-continental mindset is a little bossy and unless you ‘oblige’ the so-called big shots, success comes the hard way?

RP: I have not come across a big publisher. Most people around me are struggling with their own writing lives. The few who create platforms for other writers and poets like Cappuccino Readings, Nivasini, and Poetry Couture have been very encouraging. The only platform that ousted me did so because I couldn’t mollycoddle. Not because of my work. But then I am too genuine and transparent in my connections with people. I haven’t yet learnt to bear hug for favours, sweet-talk, or massage egos. You have to pay a price sometimes for not possessing that skill. Did hard work and good work alone take one places?

FS: Children’s Movement for Civic Awareness (CMCA) conducted a recent study on the Indian youth that revealed a shockingly regressive attitude towards the womenfolk commanding them to stay indoors and accept violence. Since your focal point is sexuality, how do you view such a mindset?

RP: Furiously, and with rage. It’s a despicable mindset. But I am more interested in knowing what the women around these interviewees think. Because only women can initiate a change in their destinies before the world joins hands in supporting them. Their silence will lead to more violence. Are they in agreement with what their men folk think? If they are not they will not accept what’s happening and revolt either silently or collectively. And then most Indians wouldn’t know the difference between the blurry lines of life and art. Once upon a time this may have been the land of Kamasutra but we are too disconnected into darkness with our interpretations of female sexuality now.

FS: The Delhi gang rape of the medical student in 2012 shocked the entire country forcing the authorities of a tougher legislation to counter violence against the womenfolk. It has still not solved the issue and on the contrary violence against women in India, according to a recent survey, has hiked by a 30%. Where do you see the wrong?

RP: It is not that the Indian man – even an illiterate – doesn’t know how to treat another human being – a female. The reason for sexual assaults is power and oppression, more than uncontrolled lust. It is the belief that they can get away with their crimes because the laws are not swift in implementation, neither the punishment very severe.

FS: Given the fact, the rapist of the medical students 2012 appears remorseless and with the incidents of rape increasing by the day, how do you think the social order in India be set right? A girl watching a late night show isn’t a rape material after all!

RP: The message to existing and potential criminals needs to be hard, fast, and clear enough to deter them from the next crime. Even if oppressive men thought of women as chicken to be plucked from a field, raped, and thrown by the roadside – you think they’d dare do it if the repercussions were threatening to their existence?Shifting and educating mindsets is one part of the solution – a longer, laborious one. Laws that act as deterrents should be the other part of this solution. If there is no empathy in the mind of the oppressor, can there at least be fear is the question.We also, as a society, need to have more empathy and sensitivity towards survivors of crime – and that includes empathy towards everybody, because often most people have gone through invisible crimes in their lives and most don’t talk about it.

Rochelle Potkar lives in Mumbai, India. Her book is available on Flipkart and Amazon in print format. She can be reached at [email protected]

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