Blog

By Deepa Ranganathan

Joining FAT was an experiment by almost all standards—a new city, a new field, a new designation and new roles and responsibilities. Well, the city wasn’t entirely new. I had lived in Delhi before but I was returning to the capital after a gap of four years and had already felt alienated from it. But more importantly, this was an entirely new working field and space for me. I was a journalist in an earlier avatar and while I have always been an advocate of women’s rights and aligned towards feminist politics, working with an organization in the development sector was an experiment. In a nut-shell, I was about to become one of those “poor NGO workers”—an identity that is riddled with so many stereotypes, many of which have broken during my stint at FAT.

Since I was shifting fields, transitioning from the media industry to the non-profit sector, I was apprehensive about the work space and how comfortable I would be. My earlier working space was so mundane, morose and dead that I had no expectations whatsoever with my future working life at all. But here I was: a feminist working space that comprised of people that represented varied contextual realities. Every conversation I have had at FAT has triggered my feminist consciousness in more ways than I can imagine, made me rethink my theory and practice and help me identify my own presumptions and learn to be judgement-free. As a working space, FAT is very different from most other spaces—it is a space where work and having fun go hand-in-hand, a space where one never realizes when it’s evening and time to go home because the entire day was so well-spent. There is rarely a dull moment because even when work bogs you down, interacting with the team and the girls always boosts your spirit.

As a person handling communications and outreach, I was exploring my skills and efficiency in new areas of work. While I quite enjoy social media, to use it for effective communication of organizational work was much more challenging than it sounded. I still take pride in telling everyone that my work involves Facebooking and Twittering and I still fight presumptions around that being easy. As a rapidly growing organization, FAT’s growth and reach is crucial to communicate and it has been a wonderful experience of identifying new and innovative ways of increasing the organization’s visibility on various platforms.

This one year at FAT has allowed me to try my hand at almost everything and not just communications and outreach: ranging from research, advocacy, translation, teaching, engaging in discussions with the girls, administering activities and leading mainstream projects. As a FAT team member, I have had the rare opportunity of being an employee, a core team member, a supervisor, a mentor, a peer as well as a colleague. Sometimes, it can get intimidating to juggle between such seemingly diverse roles but the work space and the kind of work that one gets to do at FAT never lets that happen. Every role comes with its own set of responsibilities and it has never been more fun to actually done multiple hats and excel in each one of them.

What continues to motivate me and trigger my passion and diligence towards my work are the people I interact and engage with at FAT. The staff, team, interns and the girls—each one of them has taught me valuable lessons not just about the way I work but the way I look and understand feminism. Coming from an academic background and studying Women’s Studies, the way I perceive my feminism has undergone a significant change since I joined FAT. Interacting with adolescent girls who have been fighting [feminist] struggles since an age where such words and politics were alien to them has probably taught me more than I can ever learn in a traditional classroom.

I have always believed and understood feminism to not be a homogenous term—its definition, application and perception changes constantly. My own multiple and changing contextual realities have helped my understanding of feminism grow from being theoretical to academic to everyday practice and it being intersectional in every way possible. FAT has taught me to question my politics several times, allowed me the space to pause and reflect on them and learn from each others’ struggles that may seem different and yet resonate strongly. I am thankful to FAT for helping me learn and unlearn and emerge as a strong, independent and gender sensitive individual.

Deepa Ranganathan is a FAT team member who handles communication and outreach at the organization. She completed one year at FAT this month.