BRAND STORY- AATTAM GOA

Aattam, in Malayalam means, 'movement', 'dance', some form of oscillation, or 'to play'

"A living body provides homes for the self. The sense of self is a spatial unity between the self and its physical body. The body is the most familiar object that people can ever encounter. It is an important part of everyone's part of self identity. Our body inherently provides information about our sex, gender, ethnicity, age, race and even body postures. Stereotypes are activated in observers of people’s bodies, and those stereotypes can result in approval or disapproval, approach or avoidance. People are evaluated differently on the basis of information gleaned from observations of their bodies, treated differently as a result, and expected to assume, or refrain from, particular duties and activities."

-Woman’s Embodied Self: An Introduction, Copyright American Psychological Association

Find me a marvelous muse than a woman's body and I shall surrender.

The first house that is in the memory is a dingy one rk in Melangot. An old couple owned the house. The old man, I think, was in love with the one year old I was. His wife was a scary, woman. She would pinch me secretly, to upset the old man. He would sit with a straight face to hide the guilt of being helpless in front of her terrorizing behaviors. He would sneak in through the doorway that we shared, to give me candies and biscuits after his evening walks. The doorway was the only place I liked about that house. He would then, if the lady isn’t in the vicinity, walk me around the garden with no words but holding onto a big wide smile. I struggle to recollect the other details of this relationship; all I remember clearly is how loved and special he made me feel as a child and how white his clothes were.

With every body part that grew bigger, the craving to get out, both from the house and the body, exponentially increased. The more the need to move, was expressed, as a child, as a girl, as a woman, the more there was resistance from within and around and consequences of guilt, shame and fear associated with it. The first restriction on the body came into effect as soon as the breasts started to form on the chest. The rule was not to move, unnecessarily. Seeing a beautiful architecture slowly take its shape in the body was intensely exciting. But the excitement only lasted till the evening allowance of playtime with the boys in the neighborhood was taken away. “The breasts will bounce if you move too much”. I gradually stopped looking forward for the evenings to play. Three pair of bras were given by the Mother. It felt a little relieving to share the responsibility of keeping this mischievously expanding part, right at their places, right where they belonged. But the adamant looking bras not only tied the growing breasts but the child’s excitement of playing, moving and dancing around. Whenever playmates came looking for me, Amma would tell them I am a big girl now and has too much to study at school. ‘Stupid tiny breasts” I thought, pretending to stare at my mindlessly opened textbooks.

Anything that required more than ‘necessary’ movement in the body always created turbulence in the house dynamics. I would pick big fights to get permission even for a one-day picnic from school and would lose. Dancing was detested by the Father. Legs had to be crossed closed while sitting, and soft while walking. “When good women walk, the ground wouldn’t know”. Ammumma always reminded, dutifully. The fear to move was embodied, slow-poisoned into the system, in a myriad of ways, but it grew over the body and the house, stronger and deeper, with every question of movement. Undoing this fear, calls for a reimagination of our body and the spaces we occupy.

We cannot understand the world we live in, nor can we interact with each other or act on the environment around us, without our bodies. Everything we know, everything we do, and everything we are is mediated by the body. I often wonder about how the reproductive body of a woman, time and again extolled as the most powerful tool of creation, instead of making women happier has been driving them crazier in the modern world. Be it the 'normative discontent' about bodies resulting in risky behaviors to lose weight, unsustainable beauty rituals, painful fashions, as women, while we are trying to break a set of conventional stereotypes surrounding our bodies, by walking away from institutions like marriage, motherhood etc...we are falling prey to more dangerous ones.

Power and oppression continues to operate in women's appearance concerns and the pressure they feel to engage in beauty work and other disciplinary practices to tame their bodies is all the more getting stronger. Body image plays an important role in self identity and forming the sense of self. We judge our ability to perform various activities in the world and the goals we have set for ourselves according to the body image we encompass. Evidently there is a big disparity in the way women project themselves in the physical and digital world, compared to how they really feel within their body. This needs to change. A positive embodiment of a woman's body calls for enabling the authentic self-expression of her emotional and spiritual landscape.

Women have a complex relationship to their bodies. There are instances in our life, where we are forced into a physical condition or a very strict way of thinking, it tends to invariably impact to our relationship with our body on a very deep level. Sometimes we tend to act against in the interests of our bodies because of morals and responsibilities the society has placed on female bodies. The body which ideally should be a source of pleasure, the enabler of agency, and the mediator between the world and the self, for most women, at least some of the time, is a disappointment, a source of anxiety, and a site of labor. We need to reimagine our bodies differently. In order for a women to encompass agency, self care and joyfulness, they have to experience a positive embodiment. And to enter a dimension of positive embodiment, there has to be an environment of freedom, inspiration and knowledge .

Project aattam is a story telling/an experience generating platform to talk about bodies and our journey within our bodies. Bodies sharing experiences through story telling to improve contact with our self and the world through exploring the possibilities of movement.

We live in our bodies, as much as in our houses. Walk around to discover. Find a safe space. Move.