‘ IMPACT HOUR’ with Vyjayanthi Vasantha Mogli

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Written By Sahithi Divi as told by Vyjayanthi Vasantha Mogli

Transgender RTI Activitist, Co-founder, Queer Swabhimana Yatra and Telangana Hijra Intersex Transgender Samiti

This story is of a fifteen year old who was thrown out of the house due to her sexuality. As an LGBTQ child she wanted to be like every girl leading a normal and bright life. Growing up was hard and she lacked stability because of not being born into a female body. Vyjayanti Vasanta Mogli, a transwoman LGBT activist, shared her story of abuse as a child in school. How lesbian women and transmen in tier two and smaller places remain supressed and vulnerable. She said that ‘ formal education about gender and bonded labour is unapologetically important for people sailing through similar times as Vyjayanthi’.

Progress today can be measured in form of enactments and awareness by the government but which cannot benefit anybody, without the rules to support them. She faced abuse , violence and trauma even from the organisations that were suppose to rehabilitate her. But in the first place why should someone be forced into rehabilitation ? Sadly, for coming out as a trans woman !

Absence of an inclusive society and the harsh conditions imposed by the society on her was devastating. Most of the people in the society lack awareness about Gender and separate humankind into divided beings, leading to major suppression of human rights. This is widely overlooked and surrounded with toxic ignorance. Children who are born in these systems are exposed to frugal conditions, trained to live by earning a bread for a day. She has led unanimous movements fighting for transgender rights and also associated with organisations like Bhumika, Anveshi, Centre For Law And Policy Research, Bangalore.

Vyjayanthi has more than 17 years of corporate experience. She closely unfolds the challenges faced by a trans person in the hiring process. She carries the weight of soo many stories of her friends who were failed by their working environments. Shutting down a person’s right to live and replacing it with painful emotional violence will not broaden the intersectional differences. Even the reserved segments of the society are subjected to reduced inequalities within them due to dominance. Seperation from her family as a child affected her belief on men. Patriarchy could neither stand for gender nor for the innocent child who badly wanted assurance and love at that time.

Even as an activist who suffered injuries of misogyny, she does not objectivise feminism as a fight for women. Every person who has been through the abuse can only look from the lens of equality. The fight is all about right to live with dignity. Adding that true feminism can resolve problems with humanism. Vyjayanthi says that world needs a new perspective to rebuild the pre-scripted idols of an ideal woman, that does not really exist. What remains is education, empowerment and entrepreneurship ( creation ) ; they will facilitate you for the war on Gender Inequality.

Written By Sahithi Divi as told by Vyjayanthi Vasantha Mogli (source : http://www.impactscientist.com)

‘ IMPACT HOUR ‘ With Dr. Apoorva

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Written By Sahithi Divi as told by Dr. Apoorva

Doctor ( Anaesthesiologist, Critical Care Physician ) , Mother, Vegan, Sustainability Influencer, Education Volunteer

Apoorva’s story tunes back to childhood embraced with everything she needed as a kid. Hailing from a family of doctors and mother being a lawyer , she often comprehended ways to be able to use the resources for a larger purpose. As a child she travelled through books and conspired boundaries to being exposed to pain. Her parents compassed her confidence towards restoring healthcare. She remembers being a child who only knew the world confined to her books.

She is a an Anaesthesiologist, Critical Care Physician who started to look at the cancer chemotherapy as a painful process of healing or eradication of cancer. She explains how intense and draining the palliative therapy can be. Expressing her deepest desire is to work towards improvising the healing process for cancer patients.

Being a doctor it is equally important to be updated and create awareness about the same, to uphold a continuity in transforming knowledge into something useful with the help of digital platforms. She said every individual has the collated power to act. “Segregating your target group and begin educating them”, she said. Broadly saying, her intention was to create awareness about prevention and sustainability while curing it.

Motherhood not only brought an internal change but she also realised the importance of sharing her experiences and gave birth to a new her called Dr . Mommy’s Son. She found herself making an impact by turning a sustainability influencer and took a leap for turning into a conscious vegan. Every person’s ability to push the dial is underestimated with prefixed roles assigned even before someone is born. Dreams are for oneself but what is the point of not including the ecosystem we live in ? she stares ! A community of common thinkers is a strong force , then imagine the strength of doers. As a doctor she understands the affect of suffering on a person’s life and how lifestyle changes with-hold long terms concerns of sustainable overall wellbeing.

When asked about her perspective about women, she said most of the women do not go to sleep with the contentment of being able to do what they want , as their aspirations might not match the social standards of the leverage given to a girl for dreaming, precisely of carrying no emotional regrets. She says , ” death is inevitable, meanwhile don’t throw away your life to the comfort of anyone except you”. Turning into a vegan was an enlightenment which helped her develop a resourceful relationship with nature. At the same time she is attributing herself in the journey of Makers Of Milkshakes founded by her spouse, Rahul.

Dr. Apoorva has managed to navigate her learnings towards an inclusive network of people. She created a platform to share her blog stories about sustainable living, motherhood, health and wellness and emotional intelligence. She also actively volunteers and is associated with organisations like Animal Mark and community teachings. She defines Gender as discrimination, Democracy as paralysed and Love as life.

Influence to create an impact is a tool to understated humor behind somebody’s will to bring upon a change. Apoorva is a spark of light who is on her journey to collaborate her learnings and invest her time in improvising the networking standards in India , which she feels is the key step before amplifying the elements of changing social structures.

Written By Sahithi divi as told by Dr. Apoorva ( source: http://www.impactscientist.com )

‘ IMPACT HOUR ‘ With Dhaassyam Geetha Bhascker

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Written By Sahithi Divi as told by Dhaassyam Geetha Bhascker

Mother, Actor, Teacher, Author, Social Worker, Life Skills Coach

Walking into tranquil silence of beauty, hustling through the ultimately dreamful ambience , I was bewildered at the warmth spread across every corner of her home. Cutting through social compassion, she proudly turns back at her childhood for brewing her life time learnings and package them to restore for today’s generation.

Born in an orthodox family to diverse parents, she wished for a voice inside her that could take stance for her. She sought after a chance to platform her inner voice. ” Every child must have the luxury to”, she says. A child is moulded by the stages of his life and influence of dutiful values. Facing criticism due to the social pressure of being a girl in the first place, she also enjoyed constant disappearance of individualism as a child. She translated ugly, good and uncertain words into a life of substance and provided an inclusive land of dreams for her family as a woman. Hailing from a patriarchal society which polices the physical characteristics of a person , she even walked pass the times when she resisted love from finding its real place as a kid for long. This led to a close partnership with her mom who was also her best friend. Geetha garu laughs, ” although my dad needs me for every little thing today”.

“Motherhood is like an art and art can be pushed not tamed”, while mentioning her son as her most priceless ornament……!

Geetha garu is currently working as a visual arts teacher and acted in films like Fida and Ee Nagaraniki Emaindi. Began her career in the advertisement field, she rises above the decisions made for her. Eight years of lag in the technology industry outdated her relevance to continue where she left in her career. Time for self reflection occurred to her as a young mother whose soul was on fire to find her place again and again from what ever was thrown at her. This internally changed her role as parent towards a brilliant horizon. She converted bundles of conspiring opportunities into a new start as an art teacher. ” Every mother can use motherhood as qualification to find her place in times of disruptive paradigm”. she strongly expressed adding that ” every child is born for the society “. She has authored a book called ‘Destiny’s Child’ on her parenting chapters.

Emotional temperament is a pavilion of lock outs. Precisely respect your heart’s desire because the habit of self love is underrated as it can tell you when to leave a place where you don’t belong to. The world ultimately loves the person who loves oneself.

She amplifies the need for every individual independent of gender to participate in creating a Home that promotes friendship, innovation and teamwork in order to celebrate and grow with each other. Being a woman is challenging she says explaining me how she faced the most draining situations in her life due to the stigma attached to a woman who lost her husband. Habit is the most hardest thing to let go which can create a major influence on one’s life. She truly believes in the power of women supporting each other for a sustainably progressive world. Willing to collaborate for contributing her services in areas of ‘ Widow Empowerment ‘ that is surrounded by rottening stigma which suppresses the potential of a woman due to the absence of her other half. Every woman who has to go through the experience of loosing her life partner needs the whole society to emotionally insure her instead of producing new doubts at her capacity to make an impact.

When asked about defining Gender she said it does not exist, Democracy as your right, Mother as a creator and Time as patience. Leaving me to nurture in her wonderful conversation, she brought light and broke stereotypes. Her work aligns with Sustainable Development Goal 4 of Quality Education. Impact Scientist is looking forward to associating with her in maximising the impact for women.

Written By Sahithi Divi as told by D Geetha Dhaassyam Bhascker ( source : http://www.impactscientist.com )

Identity Crisis For Women . Why ?

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Written By Sahithi divi

Where does the challenge begin for women ? Why is their identity at stake ?

Women in especially developing countries and in this case India, seem to battle with identity crisis due to the lack of equal resources and cultural speedbreakers controlling her capacity to achieve or dream. Identity crisis begins with the most generic habit of giving her feminine and household rolemodels only as an option, to pick from categories to explore.

At the same time we color the girl’s life with so many identification pointers reminding her the limitations of her being a girl. Her abilities are limitless but how much can she unfold is often not for her to decide. How can a person be confused about uncertain expectations of others ?

Fulfillment of purpose and happiness inside the soul can exist when all the factors in your life are decided by you yourself. Gender roles are tearing up almost every women to defend herself against the feminine responsibilities written off by everyone else for the women in most of the cases to forgo her real identity to fulfill the voids of a shared promise all by herself.

A women has no choice but to contribute hertime and preferences to soo many people trying to create a strong influence for her well being. Every person has a vast layout of their life, a women’s layout is created by a team of family members and influencial society examples. All she can do is decorate the provided layout with her choice of theme.

This kind of a situation occurs because she is not designed to think like a bread winner instead she is told to be a meal maker and at the same time homemaking is considered compulsion not luxury.

Identity is more than a person’s right where as we are creating layers of identities with divided classes of norms and expectations.

Focusing on one’s own prosperity is much more eventful than thinking actively for an other adult especially influencing them to such an extent that gender actually becomes a considerable point of accepting inequality .

IDENTITY CRISIS IS NOT TRUE IF YOU DON”T BELIEVE

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Written By Sahithi Divi

Kanya = (Fresh) daughter ; Daan = Donation ? I Oppose This Practise

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Written By Sahithi Divi

#iopposekanyadaan

Kanyadaan is giving away the bride as a symbolic marriage ritual . Father of the Bride take’s his daughters hand and places it in the Groom’s hand, requesting for him to accept his daughter to be an equal partner.When I google the word ‘Kanya ‘ , it confuses me what a modest, fresh and virgin daugther means. This is performed in order to transfer the responsibility of daughter into the hands of the groom and his family. In my opinion giving away your daughter in donation to wash your sins after bringing her up with such compassion does not fit well with my beliefs. Along with the changing times we forgot to update the rituals to what applies today and why ? The big change is hard to imagine but what about you who is reading this ?

While we are talking about serious social issues leading to gender inequality and the changes we cannot bring on the larger scale, what about advocating for your own equality to stand as a strong example for others to begin their life not as a donated object but a person who underwent a celebration of their union called marriage.

By practising Kanyadaan, the positioning of woman in the family is naturally a draft of bound customs. A lot speaks about the things that we do not question about. There must be some beginning , a collective voice and a powerful repulsion about how we demonstrate rights,in public in form of customs. Due to the potrayal of idiolic rituals gender bias get priorly infused on public platforms and hence, such unopposed beliefs become common norms.

“Unopposed beliefs become common norms”.

Kanyadaanam is a personal expirience which one goes through and it is your own descision to question it or to convert that to a meaningful context that hooks to your view of life. While this ritual occurs at the start of wedding journey , it lays foundation to behavioral hierarchy and common expectation for millions of uniquely different girls. Inferiority need not be economic status , it can also be highly comparable to how she is treated or how her decision making naturally becomes someone else’s right or responsibility overnight.

Everything begins with you. Let us know your thoughts about this custom and why we must bring an end to it as it gives a very inequal picture to the whole world from where the life of a girl begins after marriage.

#iopposekanyadaan

I raise my voice against donating daughters publicly in a wedding celebration.

Written By Sahithi Divi

When To Get Married And To Whom ?

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Written By Sahithi Divi ( Sustainable Development Goal 5 of UNDP 2030 Goal )

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United Nation Population Fund , 140 million girls will become child brides by 2020 in india

Giving birth is a choice, being born is not. Once if a baby comes onto this planet, then it our individual responsibility to strengthen the social complexity for a girl surrounding her. A girl even without a right to vote can she be ready for forced sex and child bearing ? Every girl has been restricted from unlocking her place in the world saying ” The Society” will not accpet. Each of you reading this compiles of the society but you again draw boundaries for a girl saying some other set of families might not agree to your perception of living life.

Marriage is a very transformative phase of a person’s life. Although after the marriage takes place the complexity can occur from both the sides. Yet the age, person, child birth , continuation of education, pursuance of a career, personal choices are navigated by the family just for a ‘women’ mostly.
Isn’t it ?

When must a women get married and to whom ?

The answer is –
IT IS A WOMEN’S RIGHT TO CHOOSE WHEN SHE WANTS TO GET MARRIED AND TO WHOM ! ALSO ILLEGAL TO PERFORM A CHILD MARRIAGE FOR A GIRL BELOW THE AGE OF 18 AND BOY BELOW 21 .

But as per the UNICEF report even today in India 27 % of the girls are married before the age of 18 , that is 1 out of 3 girls. India also has the highest number of child brides in the world which accounts to 15,509,000 girls.

National Geographic website – image source

Socio economic conditions being the major reason for the early marriage . Whom to marry is still decided by the
the parent / guardian / family, for which we do not have verified data. Whom a girl marries is the most important factor because personal accomplishment in such a socially complex environment is hard. There is a constant fight for self empowerment leading to the world never expiriencing her full potential. This is a serious loss to the country.

This concern arises because only 25 % of the graduate women are in the work force today.

The government is working up to provide various incentives / schemes to improvise the overall conditions for the vulnerable women. But I strongly commend that most of the human rights issues have to be addressed more from a personal level to attain the maximum impact. Cross polinating the education about women rights and creating awareness can be done by you.

In cities for example, your house help, watchman, driver, gardner etc. are the people facing the vulnerability. Some parents are adement due to lack of education, some are afraid about the security of their girl child, some are unable to afford the cost and most of them are deeply affected by the conclusions given by the so called community or society around them.

Give your voice and counsel as many people around you about the mental and health benefits for not only the girl but also which will reflect on the overall social health of the family. Educate and encourage girls to be able to speak about their preference of choice or make a choice about who they must marry.