If there's one thing that 2017 has taught us, it is the power of together. Of the unbridled, raging force of nature that women are, and can be, when they stand together, prop each other up and push each other to be the best versions of themselves.
We saw it when the women of the world rallied behind each other to force the Harvey Weinsteins and Louis CK's of the world to, for once in their mollycoddled, entitled lives, to shut up, listen and take responsibility for the filth they've been gloriously spreading around.
But in today's individualistic, me-first, image-obsessed and perception-managed world, it can be hard to lose sight of the larger picture. Far too often, as we begin to believe in our own importance and PR, we forget to take a moment to thank those that came before, the ones who paved - often painstakingly and at great personal cost - every inch of the ground we stand and march on.
Which is why, it is a lesson in humility and the attitude of gratitude when a woman with a voice and a platform chooses to use it not for purposes of self-promotion, but to say thank you where it's due.
I woke up today to see a (very) late night Instagram post by Sunny Leone about the leading ladies of Bollywood who taught her that it was okay to be herself. It might not seem like a big deal at all, except that in a world where women are constantly being told to cover up; stay quiet; wear this; no, no, not that, shrink into smaller spaces, never be conspicuous, smile like this, but not laugh like that, being herself - unashamedly and with abandon - might just be her most defiant act of self-love, after all. And god knows, if there's one woman in Bollywood today who knows the price of being a woman and being herself, it is Sunny Leone.
Just two days ago, her performance at a New Year's Eve event in Bengaluru was cancelled due to safety concerns, thanks to a bunch of pro-Kannada cultural zealots who threatened violence and mass suicide if Sunny "assaulted their culture" by performing in their home city. There is something extremely comical, even as it is tragic, that fully functioning adult (mostly male) members of society can be persuaded to believe that a centuries-old culture can be threatened and feel under attack by the simple act of one woman dancing at a closed event! It really doesn't take much to set the bloated-with-its-own-sense-of-importance-and-moral-superiority male ego aflutter.
Sunny, in her post, thanks a bunch of Bollywood's leading ladies from the past - Zeenat Aman, Mandakini, Dimple Kapadia, Rekha, Sharmila Tagore, Madhubala. Each of them has left an indelible mark on Bollywood. While each of these women had successful careers - some more than others - each one them has left an indelible mark on Bollywood with the bold, daring, progressive choices she's made. Whether it was the scantily clad Zeenat Aman in the far-ahead-of-its-time Satyam Shivam Sundaram, Madhubala flouncing naughtily in Howrah Bridge, Sharmila Tagore and her playful swimsuit in an Evening In Paris, Rekha's uninhibited sensuousness in Utsav, Mandakini's startling bare chest in Ram Teri Ganga Maili or Dimple Kapadia's dip in the ocean in Sagar, each of them showed the generation that came her what it meant to celebrate their physical forms - without shame and fear of censure.
Unfortunately, even as we move ahead in time, a whole lot of us seem to be moving backwards in their thoughts, as can be evidenced by the constant and increasing attempts at censoring anything that remotely resembles a celebration of sexuality in our movies.
Sunny's Instagram post could not have come at a better time. As we say goodbye to another year, perhaps it is time to reflect on our attitudes and most urgent preoccupations. The swiftness with which our government has banned condom ads to protect kids from being corrupted by sex, its previous attempts to ban porn sites in the country, a state's home minister 'banning' a citizen of a free country from dancing at an event simply because a group of nutters threaten violence if he doesn't... Are we headed into 2018 1918?
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