In Body or Spirit? by Sanjukta Sarkar, Project Associate

By Sanjukta Sarkar, Kolkata

I recently walked away from my decade-long relationship, because staying would have meant taking the feminist movement backward by a decade, since the personal is always political. The void often finds expression through healing creations: the shaping of a healthier body through yoga and dance; a healthier mind through meditation and journaling; and an overall sense of healthier self through handcrafting products for self-care, singing, baking, and hosting virtual sessions with peers.

On that particular day, I had taken a fancy to building a tent. So that is exactly what I had been doing, setting up my tent– a sanctuary for peace, a personal space. As I was untangling the fairy lights, I heard the sound of loud whacks and slaps, meeting what sounded like the heavy breathing of silence. I immediately ran up to the roof of my house, following the sounds, and, just in time, caught a glimpse of an immobile woman being hounded by a man, her husband. Through the open window of their apartment, I was a mute spectator of the woman gracefully walking away, once the man had finished brutalizing her. When she turned, I thought I saw a passive face.

With my body shaking, I returned to my room, before trying to reach out to the instruments of justice. Alas, 8 p.m. is probably too late for NGOs, and COVID-19 too urgent to address cases of domestic violence. Eventually, I let it go, assuming that she would have refused to lodge an official complaint anyway, for lack of economic agency.

Lucky in that regard, I had been working from home, sometimes almost for 10-12 hours everyday, since the lockdown. We were made to work harder, sometimes outside our normalized job roles, taking a 20% pay-cut on average, in the hope of better days.

Somehow life seemed very fragile. Could we really ever return to the way things were, pre-COVID? Did we want to? Moving on, what intentions would I want to hold myself accountable to? With a troubled sleep-cycle, I decided to stop manifesting and start surrendering to the purpose of my soul. That was the night of April 27, the same evening when I had been made a team-lead for an international project.

But just one day later, I (along with all of my colleagues in Kolkata) received a call from human resources at my organization, asking us to submit our resignation. The management had decided to discontinue operations in our region. While some of the staff protested, wishing to stay on, I demanded immediate release. Having revised our notice period from 60 days to 45 days, for the apparent ease of the final settlement, capitalism coerced me into continuing in a loveless working relationship. I felt violated, after devoting almost three years of my youth to a cause that wasn't invested in me, and after having been denied an appraisal for this year, leaving all the times I went beyond my role, unacknowledged.

I wonder, does any woman really have the agency to leave–whether her soul is being sucked out in a job entrenched in structured capitalism, or her relationship is abusive, well-versed in the ways of systematic patriarchy? Even if she does leave in body, what about her spirit?

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Sanjukta was a member of our amazing team of Project Associates based in Kolkata, who assisted with all aspects of the online storytelling workshops, from recruitment to facilitation.