Hindu College, which is very proud of its ‘Virgin Tree’ celebration, is at it again. Apparently, this ‘ritual’ holds a special place in the hearts of Hinduites, who seem to be amused by the visible sexual representation of Damdami Mai. In a university space, where sexuality-related conversations are regarded as a taboo, this kind of a celebration (a fascination which doesn’t shy away from acknowledging sexual desire, fantasy, use of condoms) is often termed as liberatory.

Every year, several students gather around a tree amidst a lot of fanfare to paste a picture of a woman and proclaim her as the object of male desire. When questioned about how their ‘tradition’ might reek of misogyny, they defended their position by asserting: “The condoms are used for AIDS awareness and not as an act of desperation and vulgarity.” 

Let’s be clear, there is no problem with condoms being used in a public installation but the ends that this event serves and the intention behind it has very little to do with spreading AIDS awareness. It is possible that those seeking to spread awareness are, in fact, participating in a highly masculinist event which might even be encouraging intolerance towards other forms of sexuality and gender identity. There is no real attempt to celebrate sexuality on an equal footing, amidst an audience charged with masculine aggression.

Is it not the same as men from the college across the road, St Stephens College, making chick charts and rating women students and displaying it on the notice boards or high school boys making a list of ‘attractive girls(s) with best body parts’? Your despicable excuse for an opportunity to grade and rate women on their appearance is not something which we cannot see through. This Virgin Tree celebration is just another trope which objectifies women. This is no ‘innocent’ humour, but a contributor to the rape culture — which slut shames women who assert their sexuality and blames survivors of abuse for ‘asking for it’.

The organisers of this ‘tradition’ by means of repeating this act — year after year and passing the baton to their juniors to continue their ‘legacy’ — lay false claim on arguments about safe sex to couch their own misogynistic ideals and objectification of women that they claim to ‘worship’. Much like how screaming ‘Bharat Mata ki jai’ doesn’t remove the effects of patriarchy, and in fact becomes an easy trope to do anything while still claiming ‘love for Mother India’, this event too becomes an easy cop out while paying lip service to some distorted and hollow notion of ‘sex-positivism’.

The V-tree ‘puja’ itself is ridden in a Brahmanical and casteist notion of prayer and reward — pray to the Virgin Tree to lose your virginity. This mock ritual actually ends up replicating the idea of a ‘male priest’ who is ordained by the Gods to perform the ‘ceremony.’ The idea behind the ritual is to take the ‘blessings’ of a glorified sex goddess, who will bless them into finding a girlfriend under 6 weeks! We wonder what Damdami Mai does to ensure so! Does she appear in their dreams with ‘tips’ or does she whisper sweet-nothings in the ear of the seeker, or does she cast a spell on the beloved?

The idealised Damdami Mai, is the fetishised body of a celebrity who they think is the epitome of sexiness. What the celebration does is nothing but reinforce the existing patriarchal structures which are responsible for ingraining insecurity in the minds of young women — all for the pleasure of and determined by an external male gaze. Men and women are conditioned into believing in certain ideas of desirability and respectability, which are deeply influenced by the popular depiction of women that are deemed worthy of being regarded as sexy. Who are the people who find themselves out of these circuits of desirability and why? What are the parameters of this ‘sexy’? Who is considered sexy and who is not?

What this event is, is a spectacle with revellers, voyeurs all complicit in the stroking of a collective fantasy. It doesn’t matter who gets excluded in this celebration and the discomfort it might cause to people, especially women — who are either left with the choice of laughing off this ceremony as boyish fun or condemning it only to be labelled as ‘conservatives’ or ‘feminazis’, who are incapable of sharing a laugh.

The boys’ hostel union, who failed to provide any active support to the protest against high fees and discriminatory regulations for womens’ hostel in Hindu College, are adamant and militant about never breaking the tradition of the V-tree puja. In their new-found love for “equality”, they claim to have added a new “introduction” to the ritual this year — a Love Guru, the male counterpart of the Damdami Mai, to be elected by the women’s hostel. Wow, how democratic! Yes, Fair and Lovely is OK, if there is Fair and Handsome, right?

This is our last appeal to the boys’ hostel union and the students’ union to stop this V-tree puja once and for all. Women’s voices and anger is not going to stay silent for long. There are no chick-charts anymore, there dare not be another Anga Oath, and so too will be the fate of Virgin Tree rituals — be warned.