Looking For A Suitable Groom.

My name is Akanksha Pandey, I am a student at Pathshala South Asia Media Institute in Dhaka, Bangladesh. I like to think of myself as someone who likes to question her experiences in life and considers that outside lies within.

In the middle class/small-town family I grew up we don't communicate unless its related to the mundane day to day activities, I lost my father in 2020 July, each time I try to talk about how I am feeling inside or ask them about how they're dealing with the loss and the trauma they respond by saying it's time I get married. I don't understand how that can be a response for trauma or healing but each time they force me I shave my head (In India shaving ones head is considered going against religion, unwomanly, non-feminine, lesbian) as an act of rebellion which raises many questions around my gender identity, orientation and overall being not only by my immediate family members but in any social order or space I occupy. Sometimes this makes me question whether my orientation has really changed because of the length or lack of hair on my head but each time I contemplate I find its roots deeply entrenched in patriarchy.

Men touch me in various places but they pose innocent when questioned, they are confused about my gender before they treat me like one of them even the security guards at times because my identity as a woman is not enough I need to convince them with my looks that fall in alignment with the image of femininity they hold in their head. But do they squeeze boobs of other men because they're men, they don't have boobs. Everything exists in comparison, nothing exists on its own, am I feminine in comparison to my sister? Being a woman isn’t enough.
Men are so disappointed right now, is she even a girl if she isn’t pleasing me? Men in crowded places—"Lets touch her at inappropriate places if she reacts we will know she’s a girl, if she doesn’t then its not abuse. We won’t apologise for touching you inappropriately because your hair is short and no other feature resembles that of a girl. How is she a girl if she isn’t beautiful or trying to be?"

My mother always wanted me to be highly self sufficient and self dependent, in those days when she was growing up that identity was pre-occupied by men but her younger sister showed traces of androgyny (I am forever thankful to her). Now I have sort of given up and given in to that identity of unknown. Now I am a boy and girl as required. So my bio on the matrimonial site would ideally read as the following:
Looking for a suitable+homely groom for my tough girl.
She straighten abusive men, runs home, protects mother, and drives around on scooter.

Both men and women have both masculine and feminine aspects imbued in them and as we go on living we are required to find that balance to coexist in a wholesome way--this what I believe in.

Through a series of self portraits with my mother + some objects as metaphor + some proof + archival images paint a picture of the reality I perceive.