So everyone wants to know, "How was it? Was she cool?" Well, y'know. She was funny. I sat through the session at the India Today Conclave that she was at alongwith Suketu Mehta. She kept wanting to bounce around but they hadn't given her a lapel, so she kept getting drawn back to the podium. Finally some kind soul gives her a cordless mike and she grasps it, thanking the lady who offered it, and remarking that she was going to hold it, "gently but firmly".
But Suketu Mehta. Now he was really funny! The talk was titled "Power Feminism Talks to Power Machismo" and so Mehta comes on looking mildly bewildered. "When they gave me this topic," he began (and he sounds nothing like you'd imagine... why'd I imagine he'd sound like Amitav Ghose?? because they're friends? Because they live in New York? But, no, NO they don't sound anything alike. Mehta has a slight lisp and a somewhat Gujarati accent), "I asked them: what would I know about power machismo? I'm Gujarati for God's sake!"
So that warmed the audience a bit. Then Wolf talked about feminism a bit. Mehta talked about his grandmother a bit - she was married at 13. Then Wolf said she had a crush on Mehta already, what a lot of action at the Conclave. Mehta invited Wolf to his room. Then then the moderator said Wolf would have to respond to Mehta's speech. So Wolf said that while Mehta's grandma tale was sweet, she wasn't big on girls getting married at 13. They argued feebly a bit. Then everyone clapped and Karan Johar came on for the next session. Time for my interview.
Which was fun!
I asked her about feminism breaking up marriages, about girls from small town India using their image as a handle to achieve a somewhat homogenous look and erase their small-town past, about her new book and so on. Feminists live in such a gendered world though. Her one-time icon Germaine Greer has sort of dissed her new book and others have accused her of submitting to patriarchy. Hazards of being a feminist?
But through the interviews, it surprised us that interviewees were so cagey about when and where they were interviewed. You'd think they'd done this sort of thing so often, they could do it without batting an eyelid. Yet they were very keen on doing TV interviews only after the session, and still looked taken aback at unexpected questions.
I asked Wolf why it took 20 years for a feminist to come out and talk about a sexual encroachment and at first she looked as if she couldn't possibly have heard me right. "Uh?", she leans forward, then slowly, "Well...." and a slow, measured explanation. But a 100 people must've asked this before me.
A few months ago, she's supposed to have discovered God. Yes, really.
After a bit of talk about a phase for introspection and slowing down... "So, you've discovered Jesus...?"
"Well, you know... I am Jewish...enough has been said about that.."
She won't deny it happened.
More bizarrely, she experienced this as a teenage boy. “I was a 13-year-old boy sitting next to him and feeling feelings I’d never felt in my lifetime,” said Wolf. “[Feelings] of a boy being with an older male who he really loves and admires and loves to be in the presence of. It was probably the most profound experience of my life. I haven’t talked about it publicly.”
Well, to each his (her) own.
