Latest / Love Matters With Leeza Mangaldas / Lived Experiences of Caste, Gender, and Desire Ft. Christina Dhanuja

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Lived Experiences of Caste, Gender, and Desire Ft. Christina Dhanuja · Love Matters With Leeza Mangaldas

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I'm Lisa Mangeldas, and this is Love Matters, and today I'm in conversation
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with Christina Danoja about cast, desire, and gender with a focus on lived
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experiences. Christina is the co founder of Taleth History Month, and much of
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her work is focused on challenging the existing narrative around Thaloth women. In fact,
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she's currently working on a book about Thaloth women and the fullness of life.
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Christina's work has spanned several continents, and today she is joining me from
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New York. Welcome to Love Matters. Christina is so glad to have you
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here. Thanks so much for having me, Lisa, It's lovely to be
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here. I wanted to start with a quote that I read in one of
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the articles you wrote that really really struck with me. I'm just going to
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read it to you. It was about your early experiences while dating in college,
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when you assumed that cast identity was something that wouldn't matter, and you
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wrote, I believe love conquered everything. I couldn't have been further from the
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true. I'd love for you to expound on that, because I've been so
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sort of moved by how personal and candid much of your writing is you always
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draw from your lived experiences, and you know, as the reader, I
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find that's so powerful. I believe that quote is from this essay that I
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had written, one of my first essays titled Swipe Me Left. I'm dulleth
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and this was commissioned by gender It wherein we were trying to look at how
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technology and cast and love and romance all came together within the context of an
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interpersonal experience, the context being me. I mean, how else do you
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write, right like? You base your thoughts and your articulations on personal experience.
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But that's particularly true and extremely valuable for dull women authors and dullt women
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writers, because there are no precedents out there and around, say, for
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example, around desirability and love and how that sort of became what it is
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today, influenced by pop culture, by history, by conversations around us,
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and how do you really make sense of all that. I started off with
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this understanding that love is the most powerful emotion that's out there, that is
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going to heal all of us, that is going to conquer everything, as
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the court said, and with love, nothing can come in between, whether
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it discussed or class or any sort of power differential is not going to hold
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a candle before true love. But what is true love really? Right?
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And for me, as a young Thummer person who grew up in the nineties
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with cinema that continue to glorify I love and in various ways, I just
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assumed. I mean, I grew up in a very regular, dullth Christian
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family that had its own set of you know, own set of restrictions influenced
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by both Christianity as well as you know, cast rules and a whole bunch
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of limits that were imposed upon me. But nonetheless, I think when I
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first encountered love, romantic love, I assumed that it's all going to be
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great, because it is love after all, only to realize that there are
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so many other aspects to it. Right. There's of course the caste,
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which is which is the way Indian society, most of Indian society functions,
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But beyond cast there are also other things with which cast interacts. So initially,
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while it was a very disappointing experience, I would tell myself that,
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you know, everyone goes through these things. This is a struggle, And
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funnily enough, every time I was at that depressing juncture of rejection and you
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know, trying to get past that. I would be I would be given
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a quote, or a quote would just appear of people saying you have to
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open up to love because you know, do that again, because go all
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the way. Love is a struggle, and there's a whole bunch of influential
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quotes that's floating around us. And then I would take another step and I
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would be like, Okay, maybe this would be different, Maybe this would
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be different. And so it just went on for years together till the time
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I realized that, you know, this is probably not a me problem.
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And I personalized every rejection and every condescension and every experience of use as something
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that is problematic about me. But after years and years and years and knowing
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that you are knowing yourself and being so self aware and doing so much work
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on yourself, at some point in time you have to realize. And that
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happened to me, and I'm really thankful that it did, because at some
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point I said, this is probably not a me problem. This is a
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systemic issue. Not always do we talk about it that way as far as
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love is concerned, as far as romance is concerned, but this is probably
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a systematic systemic issue, and from there on, I think I also set
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a lot of personal boundaries, and I'm really glad I did that because where
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I am today is in an extremely healthy relationship which is so accepting and so
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beautiful that the only regret I have is why didn't this happen sooner that I
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could have spent longer with this person. I will certainly ask you more about
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your husband. He's a lucky man, but I also wanted to just hop
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on this idea of systemic forces that shape our dating behaviors and our desirability and
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who we desire. Just sort of within that article as well, you spoke
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of how your Savarna friends, for example, had quite different experiences. But
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I want to take a step back, and I want to sort of and
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this is also a learning that I've had in the recent past since I wrote
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that piece. I want to sort of point out that it's quite understandable why
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we go into this traps of looking at everything within a Savanna versus dull it
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binary, But that's not always how things play out in reality. Right Like,
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theoretically speaking, it's easier to sort of into that binary, but in
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reality, people are living very complex intricate, overlapping, you know, overlapping
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lives and are having different sorts of experiences depending upon who they are and how
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they look and how they carry themselves, who they interact with. So there's
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it's it's really confusing and complex and intricate that goes beyond the Savarna binary.
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So I would like us to understand two things. One is that I think
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within Indian society, South Asian society, or any society that is heavily cast
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conterered, regardless of whether it is within a romantic context or not, we
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ascribe value to individuals, collectives, families, and communities based on cost.
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That is the primary determinant to how we ascribe value to people. Perhaps it's
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happening subconsciously in some cases also consciously, but mostly it's not at the in
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the front and center of our brains. Rather, what we are looking for
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our markers we have constructed consciously or subconsciously, and like you say, we
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don't talk about it, but it is there in our minds about who this
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ideal is. So when all of us have a certain value, there is
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someone who holds the highest value, or a collective or a group of individuals
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that are a five on five or a ten on ten, how muchever we
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want to ascribe the final value is. So we have an ideal in mind,
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and I think within particularly within romantic contexts, we have decided as people,
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not through a conference or whatever, but over a period of time,
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we have decided that this ideal will be someone who is of a certain body
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shape, of a certain skin color, of a certain hair texture, of
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a certain you know, class location, of a certain class location. So
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there are these markers that point to a certain ideal. So yes, Indeed,
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in my article I talk quite a bit about you know how Savannah friends
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of mine had a different sort of a journey when it came to their romantic
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relationships. And this was something that I often noticed is that they would they
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would they would have their you know, fun, their whole pays or whatever,
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but that would have very less impact on at least the generation that I
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grew up in. I have noticed with dullet people, and particularly with dullt
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women, who I feel are under who are pressured to meet different standards,
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higher standards of morality and chastity, and that was also a survi well tactic
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for them because they were at risk of facing cars, space, sexual violence,
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at work or anywhere else, and so they would put on these very
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austere masks, or perhaps they were austereo themselves. So it's partly coming from
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there too, But again I think externally too, there is a lot of
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pressure for the women to be to be a certain way in order to be
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accepted as you know, as normal. So to say, well, that's
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not the standard that most Saverna women or most Savarna people have to seem to
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be abiding by. So I would love to hear about, you know,
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how your experiences have been, and you know, what are some of the
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experiences that you went through, or any observations that you've noticed as to how
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Savarna people approach this. Would you would you agree with what I said or
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would you would you differ? Would you think that your observations have been,
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you know, starkly different from what I have mentioned. I think growing up
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I wasn't sufficiently aware of my own privilege, and I think that I only
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really began understanding the realities of caste and how my own social landscape maybe participated
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in the sort of inequalities that exist in our society much later on. And
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I suppose that that is a factor of being from an oppresso cast group.
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To have the fantasy of you know, I don't know cast or cast doesn't
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exist in my life is something I suppose only people who are some form of
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oppresso cast can experience. So, I mean statistic of observation that's really stood
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out for me is the fact that even in twenty twenty three, only five
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percent of marriages in our country are intercast. For me, I mean,
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marriage is just an institution that doesn't resonate. You know. I was that
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person. I was this person when I was growing up thinking that I was
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never going to get married. Marriage is a really evil institution. It probably
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is, and a whole bunch of other things, you know, very very
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classic feminist in that sense. But I also realized while I was getting married,
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and while I was during my search of finding the person, while I
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was going through the preparations for the wedding, I also sort of realized how
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different, for the lack of a better word, how different my situation is,
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my reality is, and by extension, the reality of a lot of
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Dalath women, particularly dulleth women. Yeah. I wanted to say dull women
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and men, but then I don't think perhaps this does not fully apply to
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Dallat men, but particularly with dulleth women. How our situations are different in
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the sense that it demands a certain legitimate relationship in order to exist in the
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society, in order to live fully in society. And so this is not
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to say that all dullth women must get married, or it's better that all
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dalt women get married. That is not what I'm saying. What I'm saying
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is that I don't think making a choice. And this is something that I
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realized through my experience of reality visa we The liberal theory that I was trying
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to ascribe to was that I should not be ashamed to make a choice,
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that is that I make for survival, that I make for living a better
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life than what my ancestors did. And I don't want dullth women. And
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I say this as I'm saying this to myself. I don't want dullt women
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to be pressured into making decisions, whether it is promarg or you know,
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anti marriage, to be making those decisions based on an artificial based on not
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artificial but based on a just a entirely theorized cerebral sort of a standard.
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Because what is the alternative. So in my case, that's how I went
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about it. Can I really And I remember being this massive fan of this
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book called The New Single Woman, which was written by a white author.
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Perhaps you've read it. It was an amazing book. It spoke about it
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gave really practical tips around you know, how do you create a full life
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if you choose not to get married. And I was like, damn it,
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this is this is what I'm going to do. This is this is
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the person I am, the New single Woman, and this I would be
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doing at a time when, you know, in the midst of extremely abusive
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relationships with extremely horrible castest men who were condescending, who were castists, who
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are racist, who are everything that you would not want to be with.
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And I would tell myself that these are the things that I would be doing
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because that's what I'm destined for. I can't have a relationship and therefore I
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would need to be doing these things. And the things that this author spoke
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about was having a very strong friends circle, you know, a set of
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things to do, being creative, being passionate about things, finding ways to
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be sensual and sexual whatever that means to you. And finally, to have
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some sort of a relationship with the younger generation, whether it's through your church,
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or through your work, or through your extended family, whatever it is.
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But all of these things need to exist for us to survive. Like
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we need that community, we need that infrastruateructure, that emotional infrastructure to survive
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if particularly if we are choosing no marriage. And I don't think that infrastructure
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is always available for DULLT women, and at least it was not available for
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me. So I all that I'm trying to say is that it's it's it's
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it's very interesting. But I think for DULLT women, particularly cast marginalized women,
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who are under resourced, and by under resource, I don't just mean
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material resource sources, but also emotional resources, psychological resources. I think it's
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okay to get married. I think it's okay not to get married. I
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think it's okay to do anything that you need to be doing to survive,
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to thrive, do what you need to do in order to know in order
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to get by. Can we also talk about the beautiful photographs behind you?
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It's you. One is about your wedding, Yes it is. I want
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to hear about how you met your partner you'd be willing to share. Ben
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is truly a gift and every and I'm not exaggerating at all. There are
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moments when I think, did this really happen? Like is this real?
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Am I going to wake up from this dream? And I and I feel
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like my brain goes on an overdrive in terms of anxiety, because it's not
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able to handle happiness. It's not able to handle this much peace in the
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relationship, this much love. It's not able to handle it because it's like
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something's going to go wrong, Something's going to go wrong. And that's how
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anxiety works, right, Like it's if you're going to bombard your brain and
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your body with so much trauma, particularly trauma that comes from interpersonal relationships.
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Of course, trauma, I mean interpersonal relationships is the biggest source of trauma,
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but particularly romantic interpersonal relationships. Where we've been with I've been with people
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who have been extremely condescending, not just about my social location, but about
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my family, my skin color, my body shape, just rejection all out
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and just all the time, incessantly, constantly different kinds of rejection, but
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while being fetishized sexually and so to be in such a situation like all the
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time for years together can really do things to your brain, Like your brain's
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like, what's happening? Is is this true? Is this? Is this
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for real? Is this person for good? You know, there's a whole
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bunch of things that that that you go through as a as a battered person,
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And it's really embarrassing to talk about rejections all the time, Like I
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want to be able to talk about, you know, how attractive I am,
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and how charming I am, and how what a what a goddess I
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am in bed like I would like to talk about all of those things.
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I would like to position myself that way rather but to but to have experiences
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that seem to be taking a higher percentage in your life, which is of
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rejection and condescension and trauma, it's quite embarrassing at some level. But going
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back to what you asked about ben Uh, the way we met and the
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way ben Uh narrates the story is that it was love at first read,
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which I find very cheesy, but in truth, that's how we met.
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He he was preparing towards a piece that he needed to write about about diversity
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caspace diversity within the development sector. He was a William J. Clinton fellow
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at that time with the American Indian Foundation, and he wanted to interview someone
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who had approached this topic. But he wanted to interview a dullth woman,
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and so he just went about looking for that person and he found me and
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he slid into my DNS in true millennial fashion, which I didn't see for
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three weeks, and then I did and it was this really beautiful, you
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know paragraphs, these beautiful paragraphs around what he has felt as a dullth man
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looking for romance and you know, and by the way, I would like
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to interview you for a piece that I'm writing. And so we got talking
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and then he wrote the article that got published. But I felt something,
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I guess. I was in Beijing at that time and he was in India,
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and so I was like, hey, what's up, how are you
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doing? And he came down to me me in Beijing, and he was
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very sure of it. Initially I took some time to ease into it,
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but there was I remember this particular moment at work. I wanted to come
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back home to him and I was like, wait, this feels this feels
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very different, and this feels so beautiful, like I hadn't felt that in
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a really, really long time, and I think at some point during that
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evening I knew this was my person. Thank you for sharing that. And
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since we've been talking about you know, what makes someone desirable or why and
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how we end up feeling desire? What do you see as the most desirable
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qualities in a partner? I think this person who can sort of see you
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in your most embarrassing, most awkward, most really pathetic state and still be
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able to love you. I think that to me is the most desirable quality
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in a partner. And it's great to have chemistry, it's great to have,
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you know, attraction, like the I forget the name of that character,
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but she was the protagonist of the first season in Bridgeton, who then
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talks to her brother in the second season and tells him that if this is
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the person that you can't even think with, like sorry, If in the
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presence of this person you're unable to even think, then that's love and that
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limerence is great and it's so fun to go through that. But eventually,
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in a long term relationship such as a marriage, or such as a monogamous
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or even in a committed polymorous relationship. You will have to get to a
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point where you must be vulnerable to this person. You have to show parts
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of yourself. There is no such thing as I won't change for you.
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I mean, there's no such thing as that we change. We evolve,
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We change for our people, We change for the people that we love,
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and they change for us. And we make people change. We force people
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to change based on our behaviors and our and our demands. And so all
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of this really needs to come together. And this person, this partner,
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needs to needs to be needs to have the grit and the resilience to go
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with you through that. And I think nothing, nothing but that can cut
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can constitute desire for me. Thank you for sharing that. That was beautiful.
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And now, as we conclude this interview, given it so much of
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your work revolves around changing the existing narrative around cast and desire, I want
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to ask you what you think. Too many of us too often get wrong
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in our approach. I think one of the things that we have to be
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cognizant of is that we haven't even begun to scratch the surface around broadcast experiences
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feel like and look like when it comes to love and romance and sex and
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sex positivity and sexual sexuality. I think we are only beginning to do that.
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And I'm also a little apprehensive about how much Western language and Western articulations
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we borrow from and they may not necessarily always be applicable to South Asian contexts.
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And so there's definitely a need for novel thinking. There's definitely a need
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for creating a body of work that is original and authentic and very much based
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on our experiences, our experiences, and that is the best that that I
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think is the most is the right way to go about approaching this, this
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this whole thing. Uh, this is not to say that we that we
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completely ignore everything that you know, Western articulations have taught us. There's a
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lot to gain from it. There is, there's black feminist thought, there
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is indigenous women's thought, like, there's just so much to gain from all
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of that. But at the same time, I think there's definitely space for
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us to sort of, you know, create our own thinking and articulate our
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own experiences and create a body of work that's authentic and original. Secondly,
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I think it's not so much about what people can do, but it's also
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about how they can be like, how does cast apply like, for example,
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instead of thinking about how caste is affecting and having consequences in cost marginalized
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people's lives, maybe it would be a good thing to sort of flip that
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and talk about how caste is enabling you to have power and access and capital
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social capital within interpersonal relationships. And that sort of thinking and that sort of
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articulation is definitely important and very much needed from uppercast people, from people who
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occupy privileged, uppercast locations. And I think that is going to sort of
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revolutionize the way we are approaching all of these things, because it is also
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deeply disheartening to constantly think about just cast marginalized lives. When you're thinking about
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cast it's very tiring and it's very very exhausting to be doing that. So
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I think there's definitely that bit that we need to take into account. Thank
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you for sharing that. Thank you so much. I really thank you,
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really really grateful that you could do this with us today. Thanks so much
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for having me, Lisa, it was wonderful talking to you, and thank
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you for tuning into love matters. If you'd like to read more of Christina's
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writing, as well as more about her work. We're going to leave our
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website in our show notes. We also would love it if you shared this
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podcast with your friends, read it wherever you're listening, and left us a
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comment with your thoughts. You can also write to us at Lovematters at DW
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dot com. Lovematters is produced by the Indian Express and DW Germany's international broadcaster.
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I'm Lisa Mangeldas and I believe Love Matters