00:09May I have your attention, please?
00:12According to the latest statistics, we present to you a whopping 106 rapes a day in our country,
00:18which means that by the time I probably finish speaking today, a woman is probably getting raped somewhere.
00:27Shhh.
00:29Do not sit with your legs apart.
00:32Your bra strap is showing.
00:35You are wearing too much makeup.
00:37A G-string means you want sex.
00:40Too less clothing.
00:41You asked for it.
00:43Swipe left.
00:48Happy International Women's Day.
00:50May I present to you a whopping 15% discount on groceries today.
00:55While walking to the grocery store, we cannot guarantee that you will be free from any lecherous invitation.
01:01But here is a coupon code.
01:04Please buy this useless product for vaginal sanitation.
01:09Happy International Women's Day.
01:11According to the age-old belief, you do not have agency over your own body.
01:16Your body belongs to your parents, your boyfriends, your husbands, the perpetrators, the society, and even to the government.
01:24Happy International Women's Day.
01:26We have a lot of products here for you to buy today.
01:29Use a pepper spray, a safety rod, a safety torch, or even a lipstick-shaped flashlight specially created for women's
01:37safety.
01:39Because while you do not have the right to own your body, it is your duty, madam, to sanitize it,
01:45safeguard it.
01:46And while it is none of our business, the rest of us will tell you how to use your own
01:52uterus.
01:56Yes, I am asking for it.
01:58I am asking for it because my vagina no longer needs a monologue.
02:02It demands a dialogue, a dialogue that establishes control over the choices that I make.
02:08Choices that are guided by my wishes, my desires, and my wants.
02:13Whether it is my choice to match, unmatch, swipe right, or left.
02:19My hymen is not a treasure garden to be safeguarded from theft.
02:24Swipe right.
02:26Yes, I am asking for it.
02:28I am asking for you to please sit with your legs apart.
02:58Because your perspective is stuck right there.
03:02In between those closed legs, your perspective is wearing a g-string.
03:06Your perspective is hidden under layers of makeup.
03:10Your perspective is revealing its bra strap.
03:15Your perspective is revealing its prejudice.
03:18In full glory.
03:20In minimal clothing.
03:23Swipe right.
03:28Thank you so much.
03:31Thank you so, so much.
03:46This one's called Making Faces.
03:52The softest faces are the youngest ones and exchange exhortions without much hesitation, if any.
04:00As you get older, though, your freedom wrinkles and learns to shut up.
04:06The nose relaxes.
04:08The earlobes hang with knowledge.
04:10Lines form sooner than you think, and you hate them sooner than you think, too.
04:15Most nights, I don't particularly want to scream.
04:18I just want to go home.
04:20But the rearview mirrors in my rickshaw tilt further, as the men taking me home get stranger.
04:26So I have mastered making a nasty face.
04:28As ugly as it could get like this.
04:30I learned it from all the newer children in my family.
04:33All the little boys and girls, not afraid to get even uglier.
04:37The youngest girls, the ones holding out for longer, are the happiest.
04:41They have so many question marks, and none of them ask for permission to speak.
04:47So many yeses and nos and of courses and nevers and all of the longest sentences with all of the
04:53brackets and semicolons and commas and all of the subtext and context and everything.
04:59Their mouths get larger than the rest of their faces.
05:02Their hearts get bigger than the rest of their bodies.
05:04When I got older, though, my freedom wrinkled and learned to shut up.
05:10Eyebrows angled upwards, the sad way and not the angry way.
05:14Lips quivered.
05:16Pupils turned into little clenched fists on fire.
05:18The kind of face that, despite all of its power, would not stop shrinking in a fast rickshaw's rearview mirror.
05:25Some nights, when the air around me fattens with fed-up, when we're all tired of being tired, when the
05:33girls, God help them, dance, drunk on despites and even ifs, when they intertwine little fingers in bathrooms and smile
05:42at each other.
05:43When the girls do that, even I could spin the world on a middle finger.
05:47Look behind my shoulders at all of the faces I've made.
05:50The red eyes cried out.
05:53The glitter of a tear-stained cheek.
05:55The lips chapped from laughter.
05:56Kisses, colors, F-words, whatnot.
05:59I could look over my shoulder at all of the faces I'd made.
06:02The ugly, asymmetrical, droopy here and there.
06:05I could look over.
06:08Memorize them.
06:09And turn back ahead.
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