What makes Smith’s voice so compelling isn’t just this intimacy but her ability to realise human limitations, especially her own. Whether it involves going from Joni Mitchell–hating pilgrim to Joni Mitchell–weeper, or getting over her moral queasiness over using the first person in novels. Or even, changing her mind about being photographed in pretty clothes for magazines. There is the underlying radical idea that in human limitation lies the possibility of freedom.
I mentioned Angela Saini’s brilliant book, ‘Inferior,’ in an article I wrote some weeks ago - it’s about how science has got women wrong for a very long time, and I think it should be required reading in schools, parliament, everywhere, basically. Some interesting facts I picked up: all foetuses start out as physically female, horse testes are one of the richest sources of oestrogen, we share 99% of our genomes with chimpanzees and baboons.... in this conversation we talk about the problem with Darwin, a lab of one’s own & how science has helped establish sexual stereotypes. ‘Why do we have chastity belts? Why do religions take such pains to dictate how women should behave sexually if women are naturally monogamous? These two things don’t tally. If you don’t understand that for thousands of years women have been sexually oppressed, then how on earth are you going to understand human sexual behaviour today?’
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OF PINK LOTUSES AND PENANCE
There is a quality of red that characterises the earth of Tamil Nadu, which is as ancient and life-giving as the red earth and pouring rain of the Kurontokai — and we are in it. One hundred kilometres from Tiruchirappalli, driving south towards Karaikudi, we are winding through incongruous landscape. Flat and parched all around, interrupted by groves of leggy palmyra and swathes of eucalyptus. In the distance there are rocky outposts — forts and temples, sun-blasted, desolate. At regular intervals we pass rectangles of paddy fields so green, the eye stings.
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There is a quality of red that characterises the earth of Tamil Nadu, which is as ancient and life-giving as the red earth and pouring rain of the Kurontokai — and we are in it. One hundred kilometres from Tiruchirappalli, driving south towards Karaikudi, we are winding through incongruous landscape. Flat and parched all around, interrupted by groves of leggy palmyra and swathes of eucalyptus. In the distance there are rocky outposts — forts and temples, sun-blasted, desolate. At regular intervals we pass rectangles of paddy fields so green, the eye stings.
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Tishani Doshi performs Girls are Coming out of the Woods. photo: Carlo Pizzati
GIRL IN A BOX
PORTRAITS BY RICCARDO CAVALLARI
PORTRAITS BY RICCARDO CAVALLARI
