They don’t make them like her any more

It’s a very particular kind of recipe

You’d need an enlightened father

You’d need a visionary mother

It would help if you had an educated book loving driver

You’d need friends scattered all over the world

They’d have to be doctors and feminists and academics and activists

You’d need a good dose of children

You’d have to have politics in the blood

A firm belief in democracy

You’d need universities that believe in teachers and teaching

A rare thing these days

You’d need international recognition

That women deserve to be counted

You’d need mentors at home

And well wishers abroad

You’d need a spirit of questioning

A liberal dose of rebellion

A belief in support

A commitment to institutions

You’d need to be curious and interested

Awesome and inspiring

You’d have to help new groups

Give support to new enterprises

You’d need to support the feminist endeavour

To provide space and step in to sort out their battles

You’d need friends who connived

And plotted and succeeded

You’d need to march in demonstrations

Learn you lessons from the poor

Focus on the town and the city

You’d need liberal doses of Old Monk

A loud voice to shout for Nandan

An ability to give dictation till 4 in the morning

Spiced by Old Monk and hot tea

To your poor long suffering fifth child (aka Nandan)

You’d need to fight for women’s studies

Begin the battle long before other had even begun to think of it

You’d need to produce a report that was just more than a report

You’d need to find a good name for it

Perhaps call it Towards Equality

And then work hard to do what most reports don’t do

Turn it into action, use it to further research

You’d need to keep the focus on the activist

And equally on the researcher

You’d need to extend your attention to the village

To learn from your sisters out there

You’d need grit, determination, braggadaccio, a loud voice

You’d need a friend called lotika di

Another called Neeraben

You’d need a clutch of feminists of all ages

your biological and political jamaat

Who were willing to be your students

Even though you’d never been their teacher

An endless supply of cigarettes

A battle with your publisher for delaying your memoirs

You’d need liberal doses of argument

A vast collection of saris

Some kaftans to be in with your grandchildren

Comrades in the movement

Whom you could rap on the knuckles from time to time

You’d need the honesty to say

Arre, you must stop me, I tend to meander

I’m getting old you know

Put all of this together

And you’d have a very potent brew

By another name it would be called Vinadi

Glasses on nose, cigarette in hand, tea on table, dictation at the ready

Come on, Vinadi, own up, we know you’re up there watching us

And we’ll raise a glass of Old Monk to you tonight

For we know

They don’t make them like you anymore.

 

(By Urvashi Butalia. With inputs from many feminists across India)