‘Tell the Prime Minister to go and wear a sari,’ said an adolescent boy, jostled by grinning men, as he accused the PM of having ‘given in’ to the demands of Muslim groups in the face of tensions over Babri Masjid. Around me, as I sat cross-legged in a darkened room watching these images from the documentary ‘Trial by Fire’ along with 25 young adults, there was an outbreak of angry whispers from the audience. The film shows the gender biases inherent in communalism—an ugly truth that remains disap- pointingly invisible because of the lack of media coverage on such issues. I’m not sur- prised by the shock and rage expressed by all of us in that room. Like many other images we have seen, this one has left its mark. But what hits home, at the end of the day, is that the images we see, like it or not, are the ones we have built. Whether it’s the blind eye we turned to a child labourer the other day, or a casual derogatory comment among friends, we are all an undeniable part of the ‘system’ that propagates such beliefs.

Over a week, a group of approximately 25 young adults went on a high adrenaline adventure that challenged them to face highly controversial questions on sexuality, gender, human rights and law, with Debolina Dutta and Oishik Sircar. ‘In the rights direction’, a PeaceWorks—Positive Spaces Human Rights Defenders workshop, was held between 23–29 January 2009, at the Seagull Arts and Media Resource Centre, Kolkata. The workshop attracted people who joined as late as the fourth day, after having heard their friends go completely gaga over the activities, games, discussions and films lined up for each day’s schedule. I don’t believe a single person walked out of that room without new purpose in their steps at 5:30 pm each day, after having spent seven hours there. I remember distinctly the first energizer I was a part of, where we had to sing ‘I am alive, awake, alert and enthusiastic’ with actions—just like we did when we were kids. Inhibited at first, I loosened up with every new chant and before I knew it, the words began to sound real.

We had a body-mapping exercise afterwards and discussed areas of pain, pleasure and shame on body outlines we had drawn. Strangely (though it only dawned on us after it was pointed out), the genitals on every group’s outline were absent. Surprisingly, some of us had gone to the extent of drawing nails, hair and a brain. After a frank discussion, we had several people rushing towards the charts to draw the missing genitals. Feeling liberated, we proceeded to watch a documentary on the social stigma faced by homosexual couples and transsexuals. To reinforce the message of the film, we were asked to create a sexual hierarchy which would list the social acceptability of sexualities. It didn’t take long to realise how confused we were about sexuality and gender. We concluded the day by watching a Tamil film that poignantly portrayed a young girl’s journey to find her uncle as he journeyed to find his sexual identity. It’s never easy to put yourself in another’s shoes, is it? Place yourself in a world where heterosexuality is unnatural and needs to be ‘treated’. Imagine that your parents (a homosexual couple, of course) are apprehensive of your heterosexual tendencies and fear you may become a ‘breeder’. The thought made me recoil as we watched the video clipping that illustrated such a world. It was apparent from the documentary that followed—‘My tango with porn’—that the day’s theme was about challenging existing sexual norms. I began the day with a set of notion that pornography and prostitution are wrong; however I did not even bother to question. Midway through a discussion on what sexual acts are ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, I realised how much we had progressed as a group—we were suddenly talking about which porn is okay and how ambiguous penetration in rape really is. We hadn’t started out with such open-mindedness and yet, we had begun to critically examine our own value systems.