STUTI’s
THERE IS ENOUGH RED IN ME
Stuti Kumar
There is enough red in me, Stuti Kumar, 2024.
Concept Note:
The institution of marriage is one of the greatest protected treasures of patriarchy. A never ending cycle which
allows a constant flow of women in and out of families to pass on the pains of the elders to. Hence when people
rebel gender norms, this institution is threatened, and the world makes moves to protect it as greatly as it can. In
1984, a judgment of the Delhi High Court said that the Fundamental Rights ensured to every Indian citizen by
the Constitution, were not applicable in the family: these rights have to stop at the door of the home.
Women are found then women are oppressed.
When women aren’t given the choices to delegate their responsibility to men, the only choice they have left are
other women. This is when the cycle of patriarchy starts. A woman can forcefully hand her responsibilities to the
hands of another, but is that her way of fighting her oppression or oppressing another woman. Hence families
become breeding grounds for hatred between women, as each of them struggles to survive the pressures,
unknowingly becoming a part of it all together. Women are often not left with a choice but to oppress others just
to escape themselves.
I started taking anti-depressants after my 18th birthday, a path already well-trodden by the women in my family.
I learned that depression was our shared companion, passed down like an inheritance from one generation to the
next. Our conversations, once confined to whispered secrets, now unfolded openly, constructing our daily lives
with discussions about mental health. Almost as if depression was an heirloom being passed down from
generation to generation. As if my family welcomed me to womanhood with this gift I must carry for the
remaining of my life.
It felt as though the collective traumas of the women who came before me seeped into my very being, their pain
becoming an indelible part of my own existence. Yet, amidst the shadows of their struggles, I found solace in the
small, red pill that promised resilience against the storm.
There is enough red in me to cause fires
Just not in the four walls of my home.
It was both a blessing and a burden, a beacon of hope in a sea of inherited sorrow. In our family, it seemed that
women bore the weight of past sorrows, tasked with the unspoken duty of maintaining familial comfort at the
expense of our own well-being. We absorbed the pain like a sponge, filtering out the stories of trauma, shielding
those around us from its harsh reality. This is the heirloom of a family in pain.
My depression is an heirloom from my mother and grandmothers. It runs in my family either through shared
genetics or shared experiences. It is difficult to tell which one, but it is definite that this illness creates unity
among the women in my family. We all discuss our little red pill which infests our body to allow us to forget the
labours we must serve as women. The red pill is the curse that is passed down in this family from generation to
generation.
There is enough red in me to cause fires
There is enough red in us all,
Just not enough to escape these four walls.
allows a constant flow of women in and out of families to pass on the pains of the elders to. Hence when people
rebel gender norms, this institution is threatened, and the world makes moves to protect it as greatly as it can. In
1984, a judgment of the Delhi High Court said that the Fundamental Rights ensured to every Indian citizen by
the Constitution, were not applicable in the family: these rights have to stop at the door of the home.
Women are found then women are oppressed.
When women aren’t given the choices to delegate their responsibility to men, the only choice they have left are
other women. This is when the cycle of patriarchy starts. A woman can forcefully hand her responsibilities to the
hands of another, but is that her way of fighting her oppression or oppressing another woman. Hence families
become breeding grounds for hatred between women, as each of them struggles to survive the pressures,
unknowingly becoming a part of it all together. Women are often not left with a choice but to oppress others just
to escape themselves.
I started taking anti-depressants after my 18th birthday, a path already well-trodden by the women in my family.
I learned that depression was our shared companion, passed down like an inheritance from one generation to the
next. Our conversations, once confined to whispered secrets, now unfolded openly, constructing our daily lives
with discussions about mental health. Almost as if depression was an heirloom being passed down from
generation to generation. As if my family welcomed me to womanhood with this gift I must carry for the
remaining of my life.
It felt as though the collective traumas of the women who came before me seeped into my very being, their pain
becoming an indelible part of my own existence. Yet, amidst the shadows of their struggles, I found solace in the
small, red pill that promised resilience against the storm.
There is enough red in me to cause fires
Just not in the four walls of my home.
It was both a blessing and a burden, a beacon of hope in a sea of inherited sorrow. In our family, it seemed that
women bore the weight of past sorrows, tasked with the unspoken duty of maintaining familial comfort at the
expense of our own well-being. We absorbed the pain like a sponge, filtering out the stories of trauma, shielding
those around us from its harsh reality. This is the heirloom of a family in pain.
My depression is an heirloom from my mother and grandmothers. It runs in my family either through shared
genetics or shared experiences. It is difficult to tell which one, but it is definite that this illness creates unity
among the women in my family. We all discuss our little red pill which infests our body to allow us to forget the
labours we must serve as women. The red pill is the curse that is passed down in this family from generation to
generation.
There is enough red in me to cause fires
There is enough red in us all,
Just not enough to escape these four walls.
Bio:Stuti is a contemporary artist exploring various mediums, including textile, printing, painting, and digital projects. Experimentation is central to her practice, as she believe no single medium can fully capture her ideas.Currently, in her third year of a BFA program at Srishti Manipal. She frequently travels between Delhi and Bangalore, an experience that broadens her perspective and enriches her work. Eager to learn about the lives of people beyond her own experiences, which continually shapes and inspires her art. An artist far from home, building a life for herself but still hesitant to cook. Living a life as paradoxical as it can be. Willing to try everything and anything, yet still happy with her stubborn ways.