Careless Chronicles

New Women in Old Marriages 2

2011-12-28T08:39:00.000+05:30

This post is a comment in response to a comment on "New women in old marriages." It was too long, so I converted it into a post. My responses in italics.

Dreemzguy: I think this tirade is essentially letting off the steam from personal experiences or maybe second hand ones from those close...

starting thus from the opposite side of the fence, i can already notice quite a few ladies dragging out the daggers...lol ; but i would sum up my initial thoughts by just three points. ( and I do NOT disagree with what you ladies have said- so please put down the daggers back for the moment..LOL)

Point No 1 - I presume most educated, smart, liberated and well off women as described in the write up make their own choice of the life partner. Some fully knowing the basic characteristics of the guys hoping they would tame them. It seldom happens that way, hence all men are generalized to be in the same category. My point is only this - there are MANY good guys out there who respect and treat their spouse as more than equal. So its a question of a conscious choice we make. Who do we blame for that?

@ Dreemzguy: I am answering this as I read, so I will go point by point as well.

Women who marry men "to tame them" are not included in this. I am talking about normal people here, not ringmaster-aspirants. Most women marry in the good faith that the man they dated (either arranged by their parents or selected on their own) will be what they projected themselves to be. Because the Indian family is a fairly intrusive and hierarchical institution, marrying an Indian man is not so simplistic. The man you dated and the man you married are often two different people.

Not all men have families that buy in to the concept of equality. When such families get involved, certain expectations are placed on the bride and the man has little choice except to request his wife to concede or break ties with his family. Very often the first few are small compromises, but they inevitably add up. It's either that or a constant heartache over the very first compromise - "All I told her was to wear sindoor always and even that much she refused to do," the MIL mourns to all and sundry.

Even in more nuclear marriages where the man's family is minimally involved, the marriage scales begin to tilt when children arrive on the scene. You usually find that the wife takes greater responsibility for the child. There are some awesome fathers out there, but this is the general trend.

When both parents work after the birth of a child, you rarely find a man who takes a step back career-wise to care for the child so that his wife can be more successful. On the other hand, women often turn down promotions or give up trips to be with the child. In a truly equal marriage, both would have stepped down career-wise. Many men do say during the dating period that they would take equal responsibility for the child, but this does not always happen. And when it does not, there is little a wife can do.

Another side of the coin is that in many cases, the women earn less and hence the man feels that it would make more sense to work harder while his wife steps down - or out of - the corporate ladder. However, when the wife quits work temporarily to care for the baby, she is often relegated to the home sphere. Few husbands make efforts towards alternate arrangements for childcare, so that the wife can pursue her financial and career goals. She has to stand in the sidelines and watch her husband succeed careerwise making him the “provider” and her the primary “caregiver” of the family.

Dreemzguy: Point No 2 - It is the women who are women's worst enemy as far as differentiation at family level is concerned. We do not hear as much about father in law or brother in law ill treating a woman. I feel it is women (saas, bahu, nanad, etc - at times even the newly married wife!)...who wants to control circumstances; this leads to situations where a man is expected to take sides! And I think the general opinion here would be that he takes extreme positions...its either this or that. Is it practical? Especially when the truth may not even be known to the poor guy- since most undercurrents take root behind his back over trivial issues that build up subsequently. A case in point, when our own mother gives tips and gems of knowledge which in any case we disregard (being smart or worldly wise) why have it against the poor MIL if she does the same?

@ Dreemzguy: When people mouth the words “ Women are women’s worst enemy” they inevitably point to the mother in law and sister in law (relations that are formed through the husband). They do not point at mothers and sisters. This shows that it is only after marriage that women become subjected to persecution by other women. This is because the man is unable to draw a line around his marriage and keep his family out of it the way a woman is able to do.

Disregarding the mother’s gems of knowledge has fewer repercussions than disregarding the mother-in-law’s. The mother-in-law usually takes it as a personal insult whereas the mother takes it as the daughter’s nature.

I think that if the couple want to maintain a nuclear unit with their own set of rules and regulations, it is imperative that both make sure that outside influences do not compromise the integrity of their home. “Please wear saree when my parents are here” or “please do Puja when we visit my parents” compromise on the equality that was promised to the woman at the time of marriage.

The man should not take sides. He is one of the walls protecting his marriage, just as the woman is. They are, in some ways, a single unit. Imagine the message you are sending to your child who sees Mummy in different avatars are dadi’s house and at nani’s house regardless of how equal your own home is and who sees Papa in the same avatar everywhere. This has a greater impact on your children than any lecture on equality you can give them. They will learn that no matter how liberated they are in their parents home, they will have to change for their in-laws. Many children lose respect for their mothers when they see them as weak figures manipulated by people around them and unable to make independent choices.

Dreemzguy: Point No 3 - The issues raised here are not as widespread as brought out - I would dare to say that most marriages are good, we don't hear of them, that's about all. It is like we don't hear of honest people who are plenty, but judge the society by a few dishonest ones who come to light. Generally marriage is a happy occasion, bringing up children is the most wonderful thing for a couple, treating everyone as equal in a house is what everyone wants and tries to do. Blaming the husband or wife or family, expecting one or the other to take sides is NORMAL too but why emphasis only on husband's family? Every family also has issues between father and son, mother daughter, siblings, EVERY ONE has problems; so a newly married wife too is bound have have her share. It is normal...maybe a new set of norms and circumstances are a bit different initially but those are the rules of the game in that house for all.

@ Dreemzguy: I hope that most marriages are good. Unfortunately, the more financially independent and educated women become, you find that they are less willing to compromise on their beliefs and many marriages are going sour. So this clearly shows that the women compromise on their beliefs is an integral part of marriages being “good.”

While everyone has problems – this is inevitable – the problems that new brides face are often created by unreasonable and overly intrusive demands by her husband’s family. The solution is simple and obvious – stop making them.

It is hard enough for two adults to live together – there have to be compromises – fan high or low, windows open or shut, buy a home or rent one, have children now or later, daycare or maid. Add to this, wear a saree or not because FIL is scandalized by salwar kameez-wearing-DILs, use diapers for baby or not because Mil does not believe in diapers, attend buaji’s daughter-in-law’s brother’s wedding or not because buaji will be hurt…. You get the picture….

All I am saying is that people take for granted that once a girl is married anyone and everyone can make demands on her. Until she is married, her parents protect her and don’t allow people to intrude into her space. Marriage leaves her exposed to people to try to dominate her and direct her choices. Should not the husband – who brought this baggage with him – try to deal with it? If she fights on her own, should he not refrain from blaming her (openly or in his own mind) for “straining family relationships?”

Home Breakers Incorporated - Part I

2011-04-23T12:18:00.002+05:30

Some time ago, following this discussion on Indian HomeMakers blog, a group of people offered advice to a young woman who was unhappy in her marriage. By the time the Confused Wife had more or less declared that her marriage was not worth keeping with the following statement “…I quit. They win. I don’t care. Let them. I’ll find love again….”, the most revealing and notable comment in the entire discussion was thrown up:

“Jai_C:
1.This is the first time I took part in a comment thread that comes out to this. Feels weird and not good*. I do not wish to own any part of my contribution to the above statement unless it is clear to you that I think that most second marriages are happier because of lower expectations on *both sides* (this includes your side).”

While many women and men are happy to sympathise with a woman in a toxic relationship, they want no part in the breakage of a home. As long as the woman is complaining, sympathetic others are willing to listen, to counsel and even to agree. However, the moment she says “Enough is enough” and gets ready to pack her bags, the sympathisers melt away like snowflakes in the sun. Why do they do this?

In our country, women who leave a marriage do not easily find a safe place to go other than their parental homes. They are often shunned by society and become emotionally and some times financially dependent on whoever is willing to support them.

Parents are not always willing to support a woman in distress. This may be because they fear the repercussions of one child's broken marriage on other children's marriages or marital prospects. In other conservative families, parents are afraid that they will face the criticism of their community if they support their daughter. Some have religious scruples about breaking a union which they believed was ordained by God.

Parents are also afraid that they are once again faced with the same situation that they had before the daughter was married – Who will take care of her in her old age? They fear for their daughter's safety and worry about her financial security if she leaves her marriage. These fears also lend wings to members of her extended family who come flying in to resolve her marital problems. They fear that her break-up will taint their own children's lives.

Siblings also very often take a conservative view of a woman's wish to leave her home because they may be taunted about this by their in-laws and even spouses. So the best solution for them is to push for a reunion rather than a separation. They are also concerned that they may be asked to shell out money towards the support of their siblings or their nephews and nieces. Also, in case of illness or death of the woman, her brothers and sisters may have to care for their children. A far-thinking sibling will want to avoid this.

In case of brothers who have already got the family home or are looking forward to inheriting it, the burden of allotting a part of it for the upkeep of the sister and her children acts as a deterrent. The siblings may also be afraid that the parents may now want to endow a larger part of the family inheritance in the woman's name in addition to the dowry that she has already received. Clearly, they will be shooting themselves in the leg by supporting such a move.

As far as friends and acquaintances are concerned, similar fears prevails. Male supporters may worry about the connotations that may be placed upon the relationship if they encourage a woman to leave her husband. Female acquaintances who may willingly commiserate with a woman on how terrible married life is, will be dismayed to find that their words are taken seriously and the woman is actually walking out.

They may worry that their own husbands would be displeased to find that they played a role in the breakup of a home. They fear that a reckless woman who can rashly leave her own husband may be equally capable of revealing the secrets that they have been sharing to her husband and in-laws. They may also fear that a single woman on the lookout for a shoulder to cry on, may find that shoulder in their own mate.

Sundry others, who are not personally involved, may also back out for similar reasons – a fear of the woman becomes even more unhappy after her break-up and then blames them for misleading her, religion, community, tradition and even concern that the woman and her children will now have fewer options and chances to happiness outside the marital framework rather than within it.

Ultimately, the enormous sanctity that surrounds an Indian family, makes it a no-entry zone for people around it. And like Hotel California, you can check in but you can never check out. Unless you leave feet first.

As I said to someone earlier, many couples stay together because family and community puts pressure on a person who wants out of a marriage by excluding them, and in case of women, sexually harassing them and making them feel unsafe. It is very sad when this is the only thread binding couples together who live under the same roof in a daily cocoon of petty spite, one-upmanship and bottled emotions.

Fairytale parents? No way!

2011-04-21T12:23:00.005+05:30

The interesting thing about Western children's books was the utter insignificance of the parent figures in most of the plots. In the few Indian children's books like Swami and Friends, the children's parents do play an important role – from the sidelines.

However, after being smothered with attention from my own parents throughout my life, I was often fascinated by the life of kids like the Famous Five who were more or less left to their own devices most of the time.

Considering that the kids spent most of their days in boarding school, and the mothers had household help, the fathers still resented the noise they made on their vacations. They did their best to arrange conferences or vacations with their wives during school holidays, leaving the kids at the mercy of a fine variety of antisocial elements from smugglers to thieves to spies.

However, a recent re-visiting of the Grimm's Fairy Tales throws up an even greater assortment of dysfunctional parents. For starters, there are scores of deadbeat dads who bring in questionable women into their lives to care for their motherless children.

The awful judgement of fairytale fathers has given us some gems of villainy like Snow White's narcissistic step-mother (who made 4 murder attempts on the child's life) and Cinderella's abusive and nepotistic step-mother who forced her to sleep among the cinders and do all the household work.

Hansel and Gretel's father takes the cake when he actually abandons his two little children – in the jungle, no less – so that he and his wife may enjoy whatever food is left for the family in the time of famine.

Other parents seem to strike dangerous deals with their children's lives – pawning the children so they themselves might live. The most famous of these being Rapunzel's father who plundered a neighbour's garden to fulfil his wife's pregnancy craving for radishes. When caught, he pledges his child to the witch in return for his life and more radishes (do you know these radishes were called rapunzels, which is where the child gets her outlandish name)!

The miller in Rumplestiltskin, who increases his own importance by boasting to all and sundry that his daughter can spin straw into gold, finally abandons her in the King's hands so that he can live, instead of confessing that he was exaggerating her skills. The miller's daughter carries on her father's fine tradition, rashly promising her own first-born to Rumplestiltskin.

Many of the parents are only guilty of neglect. The father of the twelve dancing princesses had no idea that his daughters had a trapdoor in their room. I always wonder why he did not give them separate rooms in the first place. An ordinary manor house had some 50-odd rooms as a rule those days. An infinitely better idea than allowing a gaggle of strange men spending the night watching over them.

Thumbelina's mother seemed to have taken some time and trouble over her. Unfortunately, leaving the ground-floor window open to allow strange toads to kidnap the child shows that she didn't baby-proof the house well enough. Much the same can be said of the King who fathered the six swans. He married a witch. Though he did take precautions to move his children to another castle, later events show that he clearly made a terrible mistake by marrying her in the first place.

The most despicable of all the fairytale parents was perhaps Catskin's father- who wanted to marry his daughter to take the place of his dead wife. The proposal shocked the girl and caused her to run away and work as a scullery maid for a while before she married the prince.

Parents competed with each other to send their children unaccompanied on long journeys or into the jungle. The woodcutter from Little House in the Wood successively lost all of his daughters when he insisted that they bring him lunch in the jungle. Red Riding Hood's mother was clearly used to sending her daughter into the jungle to visit the grandmother – something that would seem like child neglect to the parents of today. And what prompted the Goose Girl's parents to send her to her marital home with just a evil maid for company, I cannot tell!

Apart from such poor specimens, we also have parents who longed for treasures that their poor children had to face much danger and fetch for them (eg. The Firebird) or those who put their children in a quandary by asking them to choose between a small potion of food with a curse or a large potion of food with a blessing. Parents also unwittingly pawned their children with magical monsters when they promised to give them the first thing that they met at home (eg Beauty and the Beast or Nix naught Nothing).

Among this overwhelming majority of poor parenting, a few do stand out. Though Briar Rose's father brought on the sleeping curse by neglecting to invite the thirteenth fairy, he did get all the spinning wheels in the kingdom destroyed . And the Little Mermaid's family seem to have kept up with her all through her life as a human. My favourite remains the King whose daughter ended up with the Frog Prince; he insisted that his daughter keep her promise to the frog. Despite these few good men, having fairytale parents largely seems a nightmare.

I am now a teacher :)

2011-04-19T11:46:00.004+05:30

Thank you for writing in, all of you. After agonizing over the decision long and hard, I decided to go for it. I am now a teacher – something I never thought I would be. The mate challenged me that since I have such strong opinions on the education system, I am being given a chance to put my money where my mouth is and I should have conviction enough to go for it.

Of course, he thinks that I will totally rise to such a challenge. And I know that he is pushing for this because, in his eyes, this is an “ideal job” for me and he infinitely prefers me to be here rather than in the corporate rat race. The timings as well as the travel that comes with corporate life will take away from “our quality of life” for “mere money.”

While I can see through this well enough, he is right when he says that I am committing to something I believe in. This school is an artsy place and truly believes in educating the whole human being and in teaching children at the conceptual level, rather than rote learning. Now that is something I believe in. It also has spaces for everyone to succeed - art, music, academics, dance. Everyone participates in everything, so kids get to constantly challenge themselves and also explore new territories.

There are no "school leaders" or "class captains" – the older kids serve as mentors for the little ones. They take in kids of all kinds of abilities. And the class teacher stays with the class for 3-7 years - which is why I had to make the 3-year commitment. Most of the teachers are there because they believe in the school and truly love the children. Now, I cannot think of anything more idealistic than this kind of environment – somewhat reminiscent of the Gurukul. The great thing is that they actually follow all they say - something I could see for myself after being there. These are not paper promises.

Careerwise, I am exploring a completely new territory. Somehow, I have always found that all the career decisions I have made have helped me immensely in any future jobs I take. Even staying at home for the last 3 years has helped me explore reading to my children, telling stories, helping with school-work, sewing, painting – all of which will be immensely useful to me at the school. There are loads of learning opportunities and I still have enough free time to pursue my boutique idea as well as write. And perhaps this will offer me some skills that will help if and when I decide to move on.

As for the money, the mate still earns enough to keep us in comfort, and I will be earning enough to at least ensure some sort of basic living were I thrown to my own devices. The school says that it plans to raise the salaries over the next couple of years. So after weighing and thinking and careful consideration, I feel certain of my decision. So I am letting the mate believe that he talked me into this and from June, I will be a teacher. Let's see what adventures come out of this.

A hard decision to make

2011-03-19T05:56:00.000+05:30

When I left work to stay home with my daughter, I planned to return to work in a year's time. It's been three years now and she is starting school this summer. It's an alternative education system and I love it so much that I am moving my son to this as well. My belief system is so much in alignment with what the school has to offer that I am thrilled to find this. That is the good news.

Now for the not so good news. I am ready to get back to work in June. I had it all planned out because I always believed that a woman should be financially independent - regardless of how much money her partner is making.

When I went in for admissions, I was offered a job at my daughter's school and I decided to try out the two-week trial period for a lark. That was a mistake. Now, I am completely in love with it. It's very outdoorsy, the colleagues are good people. I can be friends with many of them - I've never seen so many kindred spirits in one place before.

The pay - however - is so dismally low that it isn't a job at all. If a job fulfils all my needs higher up on Maslow's need hierarchy without meeting the ones below, I have no business to take it up at all. Or, do I?

Besides, it's a three-year commitment - at the very least - and I wonder if I can afford it. So that - and Ken's exams - is why I have not answering emails and comments. Sorry. On that note, any inputs? I have to decide by midweek.

What do you think? A possible project....

2011-02-24T09:47:00.001+05:30

I've been writing about a number of gender issues lately and so have many other women. One of the recurring problems that women in trouble seem to face is the isolation and the lack of validation of their concerns.
I was wondering if we could set up a community blog with resources and link it to each of our blogs. If we know of any resource that may help women and make their lives easier, we can list this here. Since many women will participate, we can get resources from across India and maybe abroad.
Examples would include names and contact of lawyers and police officials with whom we (or someone we know) have some personal experience. A short review will be awesome. Help with creches and domestic help agencies or even plumbers and carpenters, internet providers - anything that will help a woman who is trying to settle into a new city (with her family or alone).
We can also share details of everything from shopping deals to safe areas to settle down at or job openings we know of. We can post information about shelters or therapists that we know.
The important thing is that the people who post this should have some personal experiences with the people they are recommending and should write a review, so that this does not turn into commercial list and we take some responsibility for what we recommend or don't recommend.
We can have an email address for the blog, so women would be able to write back. It can also link to relevant blog posts and resources.
It would be awesome to have some first person accounts of how women dealt with new situations - whether moving to a new city or learning to cook, or getting a divorce or finding a job.You needn't even write anything unless you have something to recommend. Even if it's a virtual support group, it could still be a group. Also, we need not write new stuff. We can link to existing information eg. An example would be Starry Eyes on adoption.
What do you think? And will you be willing to participate? How do you think we could improve on this idea? Should we even pursue it? If enough people are interested, I personally think it would be a good step to take. Write back.

Two true stories: To do or not to do

2011-02-20T10:22:00.003+05:30

A few days earlier IHM put up a post titled “What would you have done?” This is not related, but it did put me in mind of situations when one cannot do anything. The first incident happened at my first job when I went to interview the founders of a mental health rehabilitation center.
The first person I met while I was in the waiting room was a young girl, Anju*. She was about fifteen; she was beautiful. Anju complimented me on my dress and told me that she could dress as well as me, if she wanted to. “I can look prettier than you too,” she said. “I'm sure you can,” I agreed.
Suddenly, she clutched my hand and pressed a slip of paper into my hand. “Please call this number, and tell them to take me away from this terrible place. Please,” she pleaded.
I was flabbergasted to put it mildly. I was totally unprepared for this. Anju went on to tell me that she was a top student at a local NGO-run school. She assured me that she was completely normal and she was kidnapped and being held there against her will.
Anju said she was being abused by the volunteers at the center and that experiments were conducted on her. She also told me that she was subjected to shock treatments as a punishment and that she was kept so constantly drugged that she lost whole days and weeks of her life.
Before I jumped into any conclusions, during the interview that followed, I expressed an interest - "That's a pretty girl outside. Is she really a patient or does she work here?". The founder readily gave me Anju's case file. She also requested me to visit Anju whenever I could, since they encouraged the patients to interact with the world outside as much as possible.
The case file reported that she came from a dysfunctional family. Her father was a pimp and her mother a sex worker. Anju had been inducted into prostitution as a young child. Her mental balance lost, she was rescued when a 'customer' reported her to the center.
Repeated attempts to rehabilitate her proved unsuccessful as she was confused about whether she wanted to stay at the asylum or return to her family. Every attempt to reunite her with her parents put her right back on the streets turning tricks.
During my visits, I saw that the patients were not kept locked and many of them, including Anju, could move freely outside. There was a telephone in the visitor's hall which anyone could use. It was not locked and the visitor's hall was often empty and Anju spent a lot of her time alone there. I figured that she could make that call if she wanted to. I also found out that the school Anju mentioned had never existed.
I didn't call the number she gave me, but I went back and visited Anju several times. The next time I met her, she praised the institution and told me that they had saved her. The next time round, she seemed to hate it there. Her conversations and her file confused me completely and apart from a few visits, I did not try to get her out of there. She seemed safer there.
Possibly her case file was entirely true. In which case, I did the right thing by not calling the number she asked me to. Abused people do try to get back to the familiarity of their abusers. Possibly her story is true, in which case I passed judgement and turned my back on someone that reached out to me.
After a while, I moved to a different place and could not continue the visits. But Anju is often in my thoughts and prayers. And to this day, 11 years later, I still wonder. Was Anju paranoid delusional? Was she trapped?
Another, more disturbing incident happened during the process of my own divorce. I was waiting to see my lawyer when a lovely young woman with a beautiful 2-year-old in her arms stepped past me. They were so lovely – the both of them – that I turned to look. The little girl Ken's age at that time.
While talking to me later, my lawyer and I were discussing divorce cases in general when she gave me the shocking statistics that only about 3 per cent of women who work up the courage to meet a lawyer actually follow through till the divorce. Many drop off at some point; so arduous is the process.
Without realising that I had seen and noticed her previous client, she told me about that woman, Meera*. Meera was an only child in the second year of her B.A. when her father passed away. According to the family custom, she was married off within six months of his death to a Dubai-based businessman, who had lost both his parents.
With no relatives to speak of, Meera and her mother sold whatever little property they had and handed it to Meera's husband for investment. Mother and daughter moved into his luxurious flat and he returned to Dubai. Apart from a visit when the child was about a week old, Meera had not met her husband and was looking forward to his visit two years later.
A few days into his long-awaited visit, Meera discovered that he was sexually abusing her daughter. She had no job, her education was incomplete; she and her mother were completely dependent on this man for their daily bread and shelter. They had no relatives on both sides to turn to. The day I saw her was her first visit to the lawyer; the abuse had been going on for the last 10 days - the duration of his visit. She was afraid to confront him and wanted to explore her options.
The lawyer adviced her to move to a woman's shelter immediately and file a police complaint and a case against her husband and offered to help. When I met her the next time, I asked her about Meera. After leaving that day,saying that she would think about it, Meera had never returned. She had left no contact details, so the lawyer could not follow up either. Sadly, the lawyer was not surprised. She said that this was quite common.
Moving out and taking her husband to Court was a bigger challenge for Meera than accepting what was happening to her daughter. I can close my eyes and see that child in her yellow frock and I hope that Meera did leave with her or that that entire episode was just a misunderstanding.
The challenge for women like Meera who have literally given their all to the men in their lives is the paucity of options. She had an old dependant mother and a little baby girl. She had been clearly raised in a cocoon of wealth and sanskaar. She was a "family woman." She had no money and no identity of her own. She probably had no idea where to start.
The moment a person moves out of the shelter of the family, the options that are open to them are bleak. Abused at home, further abused at various 'shelters' and 'institutions' that they have been placed at, it is the lack of economic freedom that drive these women back into the clutches of the men who abuse them.
The reasons these shelters are so ineffective are clear. Many of these orphanages, shelters and centers are dependent on local businessmen and political leaders for funding and permissions. Unscrupulous persons among them look upon the inmates as a harem, negating the purpose of the existence of such institutions.
While some founders, managers and trustees do try to stand up to them, the pressure is too high and they believe that sacrificing a few children to serve the larger interests of the rest is alright. A little like the widow ashram in Deepa Mehta's Water that prostituted one widow so that the rest could eat and live with dignity.
In these cases, local police, staff and even the social workers who volunteer are aware of the situation, but do nothing to stop this. In any case, where else can these vulnerable people go? Is it better to stay in one of these shelters and be preyed upon occasionally or stay on the streets and be subjected to harassment every day?
Educated people satisfy their consciences with organising a lunch or dinner for inmates in shelters and orphanages. Many prefer to send the money and don't even visit to ensure that the “feast” is served. It requires persistence and determination to get to the root of the issue. And if you do, what then?
A small tip of the iceberg was visible in the Anchorage Orphanage case. This was widely reported but justice was not served here. The arthouse film Manorama – Six Feet Under, focusses the issue on child trafficking in Indian orphanages. However, children continue to be vulnerable - both in India and abroad.
What can we do? Volunteer regularly? And even if we open a can of worms, what then? I have no idea. It would be wonderful to think that we can make the change. The media can make the change. To quote the Jessica Lal case. But that is just one case. The rest of India is yet to get its chance at justice.

* Names changed to protect privacy

Mamta: A perspective on roles of Indian Women

2011-02-18T04:15:00.005+05:30

Mamta or maternal – this word forms the essence of womanhood in our country. In India, every woman considered worthy of respect and devotion embodies mamta. Mamta is built on the foundations of sacrifice, self-denial, chastity bordering on abstinence, unconditional maternal love and unquestioning family loyalty. A woman who does not have these qualities is neither respected nor valued in traditional Indian society.

In our country, a woman's mamta is a product of several factors. An Indian woman's goodness is determined by the quickness, the perceptiveness and the willingness with which she makes sacrifices. Her worth is established by how self-effacing she can be. Her value is ascertained by how forgiving and patient she can be. The woman who excels in all these qualities is considered suitable for the responsibility of Indian motherhood. And the entire family and social system is committed to making all women fit better into this specific mould.

Indian motherhood is somewhat different from the motherhood that women of other nations have and value. Our nation is one of those rare places where it is politically, legally and culturally correct to tell a woman that she achieves completeness only when she becomes a mother. A traditional Indian mother is not a facilitator or an enabler for her child. She is an anchor. Unlike other mothers who step aside after showing their children the path they must travel on, an Indian mother's success is deemed to lie in travelling the entire path with the child.

A traditional Indian mother's role is not that of a bird pushing her chick to test its wings. Her role is to bind her chick to the nest with a soft silken thread so that he does not fly too far. She does not want to teach her child how to fish, nor does she encourage him to discover the source of fish. She gives him so much fish that he remains as dependent on her for his daily needs, as she is on him for her identity. If she dies, another woman takes over her role and keeps the child (regardless of age) in the same state of ignorant dependence.

In order to prepare for this unique role, an Indian girl is trained from childhood. She spends her whole life in preparation for this great moment of achieving Indian motherhood -in overt and covert ways. Until she bears her own children, she practices her maternal love on her dolls, her parents, her in-laws and even her partner.
As part of her training, a traditional Indian girl learns to obey her elders and acknowledge the superiority of the males of her family – younger or older. She learns to suppress her opinions or express them in such a way that she does not offend other members of the family.When she can crucify herself effectively and smile doing it, she has the adequate amount of mamta.

Because of this unique training, a traditional good Indian woman is expected to be able to mother everyone. She makes sure that her family is overfed and welcomes a chance to go hungry. She makes sure that she is able to nurse family members or outsiders – giving up sleep, attending to any bedside needs and making sure they take their medications. She takes complete responsibility for everyone's physical and emotional well-being. Even a bride is expected to quickly learn her marital family's routines, likes and dislikes and the sooner she does this, the better mother she will eventually make.

So strong is the Indian woman's maternal instinct that she treats her husband as her eldest son. She openly refers to him as her eldest son and the seeming incestuous angle of this declaration does not faze her or her audience. For, everyone else has an eldest son-cum-husband in their homes as well. Thus, even her sexual side is completely subjugated by her mamta.

Ultimately, when she finally has the children that she has been trained all her life for, she shares a unique, almost parasitic relationship with them. Her identity and importance rests with them, and she has compromised almost every human desire for this moment. Therefore she clings to them by making them cling to her - like two creepers living off each other with the family institution as a support system.
While Indian motherhood establishes her identity, and gives a direction to her mamta, it also brings with it its uniquely Indian challenges. Indian mothers are held entirely responsible for the value system that an Indian child subscribes to. However, the value system that she is expected to inculcate in her children is not some Decalogue that she has worked out in the course of her life. Oh no! It is an amalgam of values, attitudes and lifestyle choices subscribed to by her marital home.

This is where the self-effacement, the blind obedience and the unquestioning loyalty that she has practised all her life come to her aid. If she did not possess these qualities in abundance, it would be impossible for her to effectively train her children in a code of conduct that she has not worked out for herself. In essence, she is merely the link that passes on the sanskaar of her marital home from the generation before her to the generation that follows.

An Indian woman's varied roles as a daughter, a sister, a wife, a daughter-in-law and even as a working woman, are intrinsically coloured and flavoured and moulded by this great melting pot of mamta – the role that she was supposedly created for. Her choices, her character and her lifestyle are defined by her mamta. Whether she leaves a bad relationship or stays, whether she drops a successful career or works, whether she has children or not... Ultimately all her big life decisions are bound, cinched and decreed by her mamta.

In traditional society, Indian womanhood is defined by mamta, is worshipped by mamta and identified with mamta. Indian womanhood is celebrated by mamta, is honoured by mamta and idolized as mamta. Indian womanhood is established by mamta, is idealised by mamta and determined by mamta.

On the other hand, Indian womanhood is seduced by mamta, is stereotyped by mamta and is shackled by mamta. It is denied by mamta, is distorted by mamta and often debased by mamta. Indian womanhood is a lot bigger than mamta. A whole lot bigger. Perhaps this Woman's Day, we should think about freeing Indian women to enjoy all the roles they have, unadulterated by the burden of mamta.

I tag Desi Girl, Eeprikka and Shilpa Desh to participate.

Delhi girls are easy?

2011-01-31T15:15:00.002+05:30

A few weeks ago, I was talking to an acquaintance about a news item about a young girl who'd been sexually abused by her local guardian. Blackmailed and abused for several months, she finally picked up the courage to file a case against him.

TV news channels immediately scented a story and convinced her to tell her story. While they did blur her face (legal requirements and all), one of the channels focussed repeatedly and unnecessarily on Page 1 of her case affidavit which gave her real name, father's name and address.

I was really mad and being very vocal about this completely unethical behaviour, when suddenly she said – remember this is a jeans-clad, Gucci-sporting 21st century woman speaking - “Oh, You can't trust these Delhi girls, yaar! They're easy! She must have had her fun from it! You make everything into a woman's issue. It's passé to be feminist now!” And she giggled.

Delhi girls are easy? Passé to be feminist? A woman's issue? How can anyone be so insensitive? I completely acknowledge that there are thousands of women in this country who have enjoyed nothing but kindness and protection from their menfolk. Fathers, uncles, brothers, sons, husbands have always supported and guided them. They have kept them away from petty annoyances and raised them to be a league apart. And just because they live like that, how can they deny the existence of someone like that girl on TV?

Don't they realise that in this very nation where they live like princesses, hundreds of women are burnt for dowry? Do they deny the women who submit to sexual excesses and put themselves at risk of domestic violence and abuse by spouses who were supposed to love and protect them? Do they deny the thousands of little girls in our country who don't get enough to eat or don't go to school because of their gender?

Can they deny all the little babies that were thrown in dustbins or poisoned merely because they were female? Do they deny all the young girls working in their very own homes and factories? Do they deny bonded labour? Do they deny trafficking in children? When they attack women who talk about serious issues and kick them to the sidelines, do they realise that there, but for the grace of God, might be themselves?

It is a pathetic state of affairs and it saddens me. Not that I have been labelled and sidelined, but that the issues have been denied and sidetracked. Unlike the American women all of whom were denied suffrage and fought for the vote, our country has a few privileged who have most of the say. Those who have don't want to fight for the have nots. No one wants to sully their hands in feminism.

The system is too dirty to clean up. They know they have to play dumb to keep their own situations safe. Everywhere I see a false sense of well-being. People who are afraid to protest because they don't want to face the discrimination themselves. They so want to be 'in' that they completely forget that so many, so many of their sisterhood is very much 'out of it.'

Every woman who overworks and underpays her maid or who employs a little child to look after her children is a criminal. Every woman who looks the other way while lower wages are paid to women in her factory or company for the same work that male workers get paid more for is a callous bitch. Apathy I have met before. But denial? That is really taking it too far.

Life vs Lifestyle

2011-01-22T15:38:00.007+05:30

This post is closely connected to the last two posts I have written. The routine of a sanskaari bahu may seem very far out to people in this day and age. However, this is still practised across many homes for a number of reasons. Primarily, as Mr Rajiv Nigam puts it, crores of households across our nation choose what they call life over lifestyle.

Life, in their opinion, is following traditions, living per our shastras and our culture. Lifestyle, meanwhile, means deviating from our traditions and choosing several means which allow daily routines to be more comfortable, equitable, polite and beautiful.

Freshly-prepared natural foods

Those people who choose life over lifestyle, live as close to nature as possible. They eat traditional seasonal foods. They are against processed foods and don't have a lot of faith in refrigeration. Therefore, all meals are cooked from the scratch; and all meals are cooked fresh every time. They believe that food that has been stored loses its nutrients. They believe that this kind of a diet keeps their bodies healthy.

This means that all meals have to planned very well. Foodstuffs have to be soaked, ground, cleaned. Food preparation becomes a long process. Any leftover food is given away to the household help or to the animals that are raised by the family or by their neighbours. So limited food is prepared to avoid waste. Nothing is reused.

This means no pre-ground ginger-garlic paste, no imli paste, no sauces. No store bought achaars, or dry masala powders. Whole spices are bought, cleaned, dried in the terraces or verandahs for days and then ground. While this process goes on, these foodstuffs have to be spread out every morning and taken back every evening. This is life. Also food is cooked in chulas and gas stoves. Microwave ovens are out.

With the world condemning processed foods and more and more people becoming aware of the advantages of natural, healthy, freshly-prepared foods, obviously the “Life” group have emerged leaders of the pack. Advocates of Life over Lifestyle are quick to point out how the world is eventually coming round to their point of view.

However, in order to perform all of these tasks, they use the women of their households. Not many people seem to worry about whether the quality of her “life” is the same as that of the household. No one is making her garam rotis or ensuring that she eats taaza khaana. Therein lies the sting.

Caste divides

Another huge problem in such traditional households is that they are ridden by caste divides. Yes, in this day and age. Maids of different castes are used for different jobs, and it can get as specific as to whether a caste can touch the atta or only clean the vessels. Because of these divides, rules and customs, the women of the house can take only limited help from the maids. However, thankfully for such homes, they choose bahus from such good castes that they are able to perform all of the household tasks without spoiling the dharm of the household. These rules again only inconvenience the women of the household.

Touching and handling of food

Also, traditional households follow a number of rules regarding touching and handling of food. For instance, food is first served to the elders and the men of the household. If someone has eaten from it before it is served to them the food becomes “leftover,” “unclean” or “jhoota.” This means that women have to wait till everyone is served. Also, while men and children often snack on the food before pujas etc, women are expected to maintain their fast. As a result men delay meals, while women on empty stomachs wait on them and are forced to stay hungry until the men finish their meals.

No one objects when women eat the jhoota khaana or only get to grab a quick bite in between chores. On the other hand, for men food is a pleasurable and important feature of their day. Because of these sacrifices made by the women, men feel entitled to expect these things as a matter of course. A fair, self-respecting woman who expects a man to take an equal share in the work is viewed as a witch and a vamp. Women who serve men are given the highest honour and equated to their mothers.

Sanskaar and tradition benefits only one half of the population. Women are taught to place the highest value on the satisfaction that she gets when the family is well-fed and to ignore her own appetites. Many men and children are so insensitive that they fail to see if there is adequate left for the woman. Tasty dishes and sweets are gulped down as they happily demand more servings and women serve them their own share as well. How can this be a good thing?

Why Lifestyle is supposed to be bad

In the recent Maa Exchange Mr Nigam said that Ms Pooja Bedi and a few of her wealthy contemporaries had only a lifestyle. They employed maids to cook meals and take hot meals to the children; drivers were employed to take the children around; nannied spent time caring for their children while they freed themselves for work or entertainment outside the home. This was looked upon as maternal neglect.

He failed to notice that Ms Bedi was earning much more and able to provide better for her children by going out and making her living rather than by sitting at home and feeding them hot phulkas. Also, she spent a fair amount of her time pampering and entertaining herself, which made her a more balanced and happy person compared to his own bitter and resentful wife. Clearly, her children were polite, well-balanced, happy people who were loyal to and loved their mother.

It is interesting to note how any woman who does not wrap herself around her family like a parasitic creeper is considered a bad mother.

Male vs Female Life

Mr Nigam claimed that he and his wife and crores of middle class people like them had “life.” What he failed to realise was that he had a life. He had friends, a paying job outside the home, a chance to meet new and interesting and funny people and enjoy the world experiences. At home, he got hot meals, a wife who never opposed him or argued with him and lived her life per his rules.

Mrs Anuradha Nigam, meanwhile, had only their son for company, spend all day cooking and cleaning and entertaining his guests. She got only cold food which she had to eat alone. She stated that she was happy and content with her life because she believed in “simple living and high thinking”, she has a “husband” (a below-the-belt dig at Ms Bedi who is divorced), and she wants to feed her family “garam phulkas with her own hand.”

Happy content people are never mean; frustrated people always are

Mrs Anuradha Nigam, for all her high thinking, spent a lot of her time trying to find fault and put down Pooja Bedi as a woman and as a mother. She tried very hard to convince Ms Bedi's children that they had been neglected. She tried to turn the children against each other. She tried to get the household help to confirm her diagnosis that the Bedi household was an unhappy one. She also got the entire family to dress in Indian clothes and celebrate the “Indian way of life.”

The men stay young and the women become mothers

Another telling thing I noticed about the Maa Exchange was at what different stages Mr Rajiv Nigam and his wife were. Mr Nigam dresses young for his age - jeans and T-shirts with lettering all over them. His clothes were loud and garish and more appropriate for a school or college grad (with bad taste). His wife, meanwhile, dressed far older than her age.

Mr Nigam also shamelessly flirted with his guest Ms Bedi, arranging a candle light dinner for her and even pressing her legs. It was interesting to see how Ms Bedi effectively used his child, Yashraj, to counter his gallantry. In typical Indian male style, he happily told his wife that all his efforts were only an attempt to ensure that he got enough food because he did not like Ms Bedi's cooking. He was willing to give his heart for his wife, but strongly objected to having a full-time maid to ease her burden.

What such sanskaari people should realise is that Indian culture and Indian values are far far bigger and more complex than they can even imagine. A woman wearing sarees and cooking garam khana, or failing to do these, will not rent the Indian cultural fabric in any way. Only the ability to evolve keeps things alive – be it a creature or a culture. Otherwise, Bharatiya sanskaar will soon become the dinosaurs and dodos of the future – extinct and irrelevant.
Part 1 of the first episode of Maa Exchange mentioned in this post is available here: Maa Exchange Part 1 January 12.

How to be a sanskaari bahu

2011-01-19T18:07:00.004+05:30

I've worked since I graduated from college, through my son's birth and childhood and only decided to stay at home when my daughter was born.

Ever since I have been at home, I am amazed by the amount of time on my hands and I am constantly excited by the fun ways to fill it. I wrote my book in about 6 months after the baby was born. Since then, I have been editing and redrafting it for some two years now, it doesn't even look like the same book any more.

I learnt to sew so that I could make myself maternity clothes. I ended up making my daughter's clothes, my son's kurta pajamas and my own kurtis and skirts. And now I am still sewing up a storm for my handmade babyclothes boutique (a dream which I hope to realise soon).

I taught myself to use oil pastels and am now experimenting with water-colours. I learnt to cook a huge variety of new dishes and most days I prepare at least two hot meals. I even make my own ghee. Yummy stuff! I spend 3-4 hours every evening exclusively with my son, teaching him, talking to him and being with him. I even catch siestas most afternoons.

I have – and I am not exaggerating – bought and read over 500 new books and reread some 100-odd books multiple times. I have also watched hundreds of English, Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam movies. I am putting together a huge blog reviewing old Tamil movies from the 50s to 80s.

The days when I do nothing but cook, I feel like a truant kid who hasn't done her homework. So I wondered what women who are “real housewives” do all day. It was hard for me to believe that cooking can take all day. So what are the sanskaari bahus doing if they are not wasting their time sewing frocks for tenuous business ideas, wasting the family money buying novels and wasting their energy writing books they don't intend to publish.

I began to study the species and decided to share with you their gruelling routine. This is information collected from my observation of and interaction with many sanskaari bahus, so perhaps somewhere within this routine lies the ideal of what I really should have been doing with my time instead of wasting it as I so clearly have.

A day in the life of a cultured Indian Bahu

Anytime between 5:00 a.m. - 6:30 a.m. – Wake up, sweep up and bathe and change. Because, of course, you can't do worship in a dirty house and your can't enter the kitchen without a bath.

6:30 a.m. – 7:30 a.m. – Wake up, brush, bathe and dress any school-going kids. Feed them breakfast and pack them hot lunches and send them off to school. Serve an initial breakfast to the family, comprising chai and snacks. Unless someone asks for more tea, you may even get a cup of tea yourself. If they do ask and you were short-sighted enough to not prepare extra, you would, of course, be happy to jump at the chance to make a sacrifice this early in the day.

7:30 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. – You take part in the family worship (puja) and then make and serving a proper Bharathiya Breakfast (puris, parathas... you get the idea).

8:30 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. – Start a wash cycle, retrieve all the used cups and snack dishes, which everyone has considerately left just about anywhere. Boil the milk for the day and make the kitchen presentable. Get that towel off your hair and put in the finishing touches to your morning ablutions, so that you look as appealing as your kitchen does.

9:30 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. – Put out stuff that needs to be dried (lal mirch, papads, vadams etc), hang the washed clothes out to dry (making sure to put them inside out so that they don't fade – do you have any idea how long this takes (!)), make a quick round of the house - making beds, washing any veggies (like ginger) bought from the market and putting them out to dry, handplucking the methi and dhanya leaves or other greens, making two more rounds of tea for everyone, act as the maid's assistant or the maid (if there's no maid), have a quick mouthful of that now-cold garam breakfast you cooked for everyone else.

11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. – Start processing and cooking another hot, multi-course taaza meal (which will be severely depleted and tandha by the time you get any share of it).

12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. – Custom deems that those who are eating cannot serve themselves because that will spoil the food. So you get to serve this meal and wait upon the family members through a single sitting (if you're lucky) and several rounds if family members drop into their chairs at random intervals.

You need to make sure that everyone's plate is filled with the steaming rotis or puris and everyone gets a good share of the side dishes. And if you are a good Indian woman, you won't want to make anyone wait for a refill, would you? Unthinkable! So you run around the table and to and from the kitchen besides.

Over time, you will become a natural at this and will stop wanting tongs to turn the rotis over a flame. Your hand becomes mildly fire resistant. Yippee!!

1:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. – You clean up the table and sort out the kitchen (which is probably in an unholy mess) before the delicate feelings of other family members are upset by this reminder of the humongous amount of work you put in. Then you grab a meal yourself.

2:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. – Ah bliss. Nothing to do. Nothing! A good bahu usually spends this time in saas seva (pressing legs etc). The bad one retreats to the privacy of her room.

3:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. – The clock strikes three and the kids come back from school with alarming promptitude. They have to be washed, fed and listened to and taken care of. If they throw tantrums, you have to deal with them gently because who are you – an outsider – to raise your voice at the waaris of the family?

You set them to play/study while you run outside to grab the drying things (since they can't be left outside after sunset), fold the clothes and put away all the other stuff while listening to the kids chatter or/and lessons. After this, you pretty yourself up in anticipation of your man's return from work.

5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. - Another the round of tea and snacks begins.

6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. - You check the children's studies while giving the house a quick facelift. Often, guests drop by and you shuttle between the kitchen and the drawing room, entertaining them, getting them tea and cooking hot snacks for them. If they really like you, they will show their affection by demanding specific snacks or extra cups of tea. What joy to get that stamp of approval!

7:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. - You begin preparations for another hot fresh meal tuning in (as much as you can) to the mega-serials of women doing the same thing as you in more glamorous clothes. What a good thing you don't need to wear 10-odd kilos of stone-worked sarees and kundan jewellery while running with the steaming phulkas!

8:30 p.m. - 10:00 p.m. - Dinner is eaten at a more leisurely pace as the family members review their day and share their experiences. You're still confined to your usual cook/parlourmaid/butlering duties (euphemistically called the personal touch). The kids, meanwhile, have to be put to bed after their meal.

10:00 p.m. - 10:40 p.m. - You catch a bite to eat, thoroughly clean up the kitchen, pack up the left-over food for the maids, give everyone a glass of warm milk for the night, store the left-over milk in the fridge and finally lock up the kitchen. Sometimes, you are expected to prove your worth as a mother by packing the kids' bags and laying out their uniforms for the next day. What a terrible state of affairs if they have to do that for themselves, bechaara!

10:40 p.m onwards - You land in bed, dead tired and are confronted by the exciting prospect of getting to massage your poor hard-working husband's feet (I'm not joking. A real woman actually told me this in a matter-of-fact way last month). If you're lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you look at it), the man is all happy and ready for sleepy sex. You close your eyes and he does his thing. Somewhere, the instinct of culture and tradition reminds you to fake the orgasm at the right place because, of course, the sex is a massage for his ego. So you do that last duty that is expected of you as a good Bharathiya Naari, and you sleep the sleep of the sanskaari bahu.

Into this routine, throw in house-guests, relatives, ceremonies, tantrums, weddings, maids on leave, festivals, sick family members, vrats... and you still juggle them all. Congratulations! You've done it. Now we love you so much more and will give you the privilege of dedicating more of your time and your mind towards our well being. We may let you press our heads when they ache. If we're really pleased, this Holi, we may even give you one of those puke-coloured sarees we picked up for Rs. 450 on the roads of Sarojini Nagar market.

Prototype Indian family

2011-01-19T02:58:00.005+05:30

I have just been watching the desi version of the UK TV show Wife Swap. Telecast on Sony Entertainment TV on Wednesdays and Thurdays, the Indian version - less scandalously named as Maa Exchange - kicked off last week with actress/model Pooja Bedi swapping maternal duties with Anuradha Nigam, wife of TV stand-up comedian, Rajiv Nigam.

Forgetting all about the style of the programming and whether the drama in the show was staged, please watch the show simply to see Rajiv Nigam. Mr Nigam is a prototype of many men I have met. He is a true representation of many Indian males - the sense of entitlement, his alternate worship of and efforts to tame the glamourous Ms Bedi are not dramatised, his teaming up with his male-child and his praising his wife's skills as long as she toes the Lakshman Rekha of "tradition". Believe me, most of the men I have met are EXACTLY like this.

Mrs Anuradha Nigam, his wife, with her awe of Ms Bedi glamourous home and her trying to prove herself and her values superior to those of Ms Bedi is another prototype of the judgemental, grapes-are-sour attitude of women who live “for the God in him.” Good mothering lies in pandering to the whims and fancies of your child and husband; good mothering lies in taaza khaana; good mothering lies in replacing all your paintings and art prints with your child's artwork.

This, in essence is how a lot of India works. I suspected it earlier when my experiences were limited to the South. It is entirely confirmed after my experiences included North India. Of course urban men and women may rise up in arms and say that lot of the drama was staged. Perhaps. But even so, it has only been staged to reflect the reality of many Indian homes. I won't even say middle class Indian homes or rural Indian homes. This phenomenon cuts across all such boundaries.
Part 1 of the first episode of Maa Exchange mentioned in this post is available here: Maa Exchange Part 1 January 12.

Stop helping your wives

2011-01-14T00:51:00.004+05:30

Language is powerful. Historically, it has been a patriarchal tool. Atrocities against women have always been given cute names, thereby reducing the shock value of intrinsically chauvinistic and criminal activities. An example to point is that disgusting euphemism: eveteasing.

Women need to recognise how powerful language can be and take ownership of it. They need to understand it and use it effectively if they ever want to be taken seriously.

I hate when women and men mouth the words “help the wife” as if it were a virtue. On the one hand, women say “My husband does not help out.” or “My husband helps me out so much.” On the other, men too talk about how they are willing/unwilling to help with the chores.

Help is defined as “To furnish with strength or means for the successful performance of any action or the attainment of any object; to aid; to assist.”

When a couple share a home, meals and children, why is keeping that home tidy, cooking those meals or raising those children predominantly the woman's job with the husband getting away with “helping her.” When the wife works outside the home, does that mean that she is “helping him?”

It is little nuances in our language that reinforce the stereotypes which exist in our society. Perhaps if we stopped using them, someday we may have a more fair world.

Why marry?

2010-12-18T08:48:00.001+05:30

When I was growing up, the idea of remaining single was considered impractical, radical (in a bad way) and even stupid. When men and women reached “the marriageable age,” they were more concerned about the kind of person they wanted to marry rather than whether they wanted to be married at all. It was assumed that everyone wanted to be married - of course, they did.

Men who tried to get married later or who were hard to please were adviced by all and sundry to 'settle down.' Visions of hot meals, clean houses and happy children were dangled in front of them. Men who didn't jump at the first chance of marriage, despite these temptations were viewed suspiciously – 'Surely there is someone.' Their parents were pitied and they went around airing their woes to all and sundry with scant regard for their children's privacy.

Women who didn't want to get married were largely ignored, their reluctance put down to shyness and they were married off anyway. Excessive resistance was again viewed with suspicion, because parents believed that they were already in a relationship. If no such evidence was found and the parents were too liberal to force the girl into marriage, they threatened their daughters with depictions of sexual harassment, ostracism and, of course, loneliness. (It is interesting point that men were recommended marriage as a temptation while women were recommended it as a protection.) Parents, in extreme cases, threatened to hurt themselves if their offspring did not marry. Both men and women who wanted to stay single, were attacked with warnings of lonesome old age.

None of these is a legitimate reason for marriage any more. Old age, regardless of marital status is, for most people, a somewhat lonesome stage of life. One is living life at a different pace from those around, often with reduced faculties and memories of a more productive and rewarding life. A spouse may be good company at this point, but not necessarily so. A bad spouse can be a terrible burden to the overflowing cup of elderly woes.

Both men and women can get good food and a clean house by hiring cooks and maids. They are professionals who do a better job and involve less trouble than a partner – whether you are married or co-habiting. And as long as you pay them fairly, and treat them courteously, many will go out of their way to make you happy.

As for sexual harassment, it is a sad reality for every woman – race, culture and marital status notwithstanding. Most random sexual abusers tend to target younger women, and it is true that perhaps a sindoor or a mangalsutra does act as a deterrent for many roadside abusers, but this is definitely not a rule. Any independent, successful or wealthy-looking woman is always viewed as a threat by weaker men. Even if they don't want them for themselves, they would still like to take them down a peg or two. Being married means nothing under those circumstances.

Unmarried people are targeted and even ostracised in closed communities. Even in upwardly mobile, urban communities, a less extreme form of boycott does happen - in family and social gatherings. Many single men and women feel a little "off" with a group of married people. Married people (especially women) seem to talk predominantly about family. (Or perhaps I'm just meeting the wrong kind of married women.) Even independent, successful single people are made to feel a little inferior to the married people. They get slight-condescension-mixed-with-pity vibes around them, even by those who are less successful. After all, they have failed the big one – marriage.

Despite these inconveniences, singlehood seems a haven from the evils of a traditional Indian marriage. For a few decades now, some people have been arguing that marriage is an outdated institution. With men and women becoming more educated and better paid and able to afford more services and security, the only sensible reason to tie oneself in matrimonial knots is if marriage is going to make you happier than you are. And a concoction of compromises, which forms the basis of the old-fashioned marriage, does not seem to be a great way to be happier.

Even today, across the board, married women are treated like ignorant dependants by imposing the yoke of “culture” upon them. Since we were raised by a generation that had still not shaken off the said yoke, we too bow down to many of the expectations placed upon us, despite access to education and a healthy self-esteem. Many of us say that though we are feminists, we still “adjust” and “compromise.”

Few of us would dare to walk out merely because we were not treated as equals. We take it as a given that sometimes our opinions are ignored, sometimes the spouse and/or his family is rude to us, sometimes we are not allowed to do certain things, sometimes we are not included in decisions that are made about our children, sometimes we are expected to undertake religious or cultural duties that we don't believe in, sometimes our dress code is dictated to us.....

The list of these 'sometimes' is pretty long. Some times, it is so long that almost all the time, we are made to behave in a manner which is opposed to our own nature/inclinations/beliefs. There are very few times that a woman is able to be true to her own nature. The merits of staying true to your convictions is portrayed in the Tamil-language film "Kalyaana Agathigal" (Prisoners of marriage). The film features a group of 7 women in a women's hostel who rebel against a patriarchal society.

The least feminist of them, the orphaned Amulu (played beautifully by actress Saritha) listens to all her friends' rants but remains cheerful and positive and happily in love with a Christian news-reporter. At the end of the film, as each of the women find resolution in their own way, Amulu too gets married.

Her mother-in-law "allows her" to pray to her own God, but forbids her to display the idol openly. Amulu, with a low-paying job and no family and still very much in love with her husband, walks out of her love marriage the morning after the wedding and returns to the hostel.

Her friends feel that it was a small compromise that she could have made, but she decides that it is better to be herself than change for the unreasonable, narrow minded caprices of someone else. And she does not want to stay with her man who cannot ensure that she is free and independent in her marriage.

I don't know how long it will take for women to take such decisions and have the guts to face the backlash. Or for men to let their wives be.

Passive agressive: Because I love you....

2010-12-17T19:01:00.005+05:30

Most of my friends accuse me of allowing people to push me around. They say that I don't stand up for myself and "give as good as I get" as much as I ought to until I reach "breaking-off" point. This seems strange especially since I "seem" a sensible person with a healthy self-esteem and a fair idea of feminism and my rights as a human being.

One of the reasons I don't blow up people who mess with me is because I don't think that any insult I can give them will adequately balance out the damage to my soul. I am fairly sure about what I want to feel about myself and how I want to live life. I try to live and let live as much as possible; I like earning good karma brownie points because that makes me happy. And I have learnt in these past years that making you compromise your values and dignity is a form of abuse. And like hell, I am going to let someone do that to me.

I am not allowing these people to push me around forever. For a while, perhaps. But one day, I'm gone from there. Poof! It is stressful while it lasts, but I sure as hell am not about to allow any one of them turn me into a lesser or a meaner human being.

While a few people try to control you by physical aggression and direct rudeness, most people control you by using conditional love, emotional blackmail, well-meant advice, and the oh-so-cute phrase – Mujhe haq hai! (I have the right!) I have the right to do "Blank" because I love you/you are a family member/I care about you.

Arguing/putting them in their place/rudeness really does not work with such people. You really have no option except to let them go out of your life. If you don't, you spend all your time pushing them out of your personal space. Or, you have to be on the offensive or on the defensive all the time. This can be a physically, mentally, emotionally and morally draining process.

Passive aggressive behaviour is usually exhibited by chronically disturbed and unhappy people. If you don't offend or neglect them, they will find something else to be unhappy about. However, if you want to lead a happy and positive life, allowing them to disturb your equilibrium is the one way ticket to ending up like them – unhappy and passive aggressive.

I know because I have dealt with family who have perfected passive aggressive behaviour into an art form. We go through the same conversations over and over again – objectively, subjectively, calmly, angrily. And the next time around, they will begin the entire argument from Point One as if it were something entirely new.

They assume things about your life and when you try to explain, nod and argue and pretend to comprehend only to attack again when you least expect it. It is exhausting going through the same ground over and over and over..... Sometimes, you'd rather just give in and agree. In a while, something else begins. It's an endless vicious cycle. If you decide to ignore and let it run like water off a duck's back, they still persist in bringing it up and talking about it and having a monologue if need be, but they will not let it go.

If you ever get stuck in a situation where you need to get something done, you will go right round the bend with such people. No matter how impertinent, annoying, intrusive or personal they are being, they always look at it as a small favour in return for all the "big things" they've done for you. This is such an effective technique when they are parents or in-laws or family elders in general. e.g. "How many sacrifices have we made to get you here?" or "We gifted you your husband. if it wasn't for us, you wouldn't even have this husband in the first place."

After giving people the benefit of doubt and giving them some time to see if the situation eases up, I usually prefer to simply break off such relationships. Perhaps because the break comes so suddenly and unexpectedly, they are taken aback. And they are taken aback for the simple reason that they DO NOT LISTEN. They hear, but they don't listen and they close their mind to possible repercussions of their behaviour.

You can stay with passive aggressive people for 30 years at a stretch and scream into their ears and slash your wrists and go to counsellors with them and pave your own way into hell with expletives against them; you can work out compromises and set boundaries till kingdom come. It will not not make ONE IOTA OF DIFFERENCE. Be nice. Explain. Give a little time. And then get the hell out of there. There are really no two ways about it.

Closing that chapter – just as if nothing happened

2010-12-10T23:06:00.002+05:30

The email has opened a can of worms in several marital closets and set the stage for discussions on why women put up with what they do. Especially, when they seem to have options. While the Known Devil syndrome and the Stockholm Syndrome do play a large role, there are several niggling issues that hold women back and theses are often not identified or addressed.

A fear of moving back into the parental home:

Strangely, most women do experience this anxiety. She often asks herelf: “Where will I go if I leave here?” The obvious answer is: “Back home to Mama and Papa.” Most parents are not comfortable with their divorced children living on their own. They suddenly begin to hover after a separation or a divorce. They move into your house or induce you to move into theirs.

Sometimes, women move back into the parental home because they are so emotionally and financially drained. In other cases, it is because they live in conservative societies. Try telling a landlord that you're divorced; you'll find it tough to induce them to rent you a flat. So even if you don't want to, you are often forced to go back to your parents' home. This relapse into dependency can be a deterrent for many women wanting out.

Loss of status

Suddenly, you lose the status of a wife and mother and become a daughter. Even during the brief time of playing house in the bad marriage, you get used to your own style of doing things. Suddenly, back at your parents' you need to defer to your mothers' or if you are in a joint family, your sister-in-laws' way of running the home.

For instance, your parents may stock your fridge or pay your bills or monitor your maids. And for many independent women, walking back to the parents' home with their suitcases is not a very appealing permanent alternative to a bad marriage.

Unappealing scaled down lifestyle

Once you have been married and running your own home – within the framework of whatever restrictions or abuse the ex-marriage brought – it is impossible to go back to being the person you were before you were married. There is no lack of detractors; even supporters offer extremely conditional support. You are expected to behave either like a broken, fragile infant to be protected from everything or like a woman that is thoroughly ashamed of her conduct and be a saint.

Neither of these options is feasible in the long run. While you may want to withdraw into the parental shell for a while, you will eventually get over it and move on. Parents, by their very nature, cannot forget. And once you get back home, you will find it a hard to move out and will usually meet as much resistance as you did when leaving your marital home. And because of your lives are so closely intertwined with your family's, your conduct has be toned down. At some level your mind knows this and dreads choosing between a dreary future and another family confrontation.

The fear of public judgement and censure:

Social control in the form of gossip makes women apprehensive about leaving an unhappy marriage. What will your siblings think? What will their in-laws think? What will the uncles think? What will the children's in-laws think?

Every move you make is watched closely by detractors and supporters alike if you continue to live in the same neighbourhood or move in the same circle. Your private life comes into the limelight and it is harder to deal with the people who ask impertinent super-personal questions. You become a mini-celebrity and everyone is the paparazzi feeling entitled to know about you.

You also get plenty of annoying advice. Also, plenty of rumours about why your marriage is on the rocks float around; when they come back to you, they don't feel very nice. Eg: Be prepared to hear from many sources that your spouse left you for another woman even if you left him; if there was abuse, be assured that it will be spiced up and very often a sexual element added - eg, wife swapping (So much more scandalous than a mere wife beating).

Lack of information about the nitty gritties of divorce:

Another constraint on unhappy wives wanting to leave, is the lack of proper information and feedback from people who have been there. For instance, where do you find a lawyer? (Untangling the judiciary is an exhausting process.) How much does one pay? How long is this going to take? What does a court look like? How does one begin? And at every point Bharatiya sanskaar puts up a brave fight to retain the family unit in the form of delays, counselling sessions etc. There is very little information available and like everything else, experiences vary widely. Also, unless you can prove cruelty, desertion or adultery, you couldn't get a divorce, unless your partner agrees to let go as well. This is one of the reasons why fake dowry/cruelty complaints are filed. And a divorce by mutual consent is only possible only if there is mutual consent. The no-fault divorce is still a new concept in India.

Isolation during the marriage and the breakup

Many women in Indian marriages are alone in a crowd. On anonymous forums like a blog, it is amazing to see so many like-minded people coming out of the woodwork. Otherwise, the married women's social circle is severely limited. And if the marriage is unhappy or abusive, she becomes even more isolated.

Because of the emotional pressure she is under, she often becomes depressed, fatigued and even physically ill. It gets harder to meet and entertain new people or include friends and activities into her routine. Also, there is a sense of shame, coupled with a feeling of guilt and inadequacy because all the other women seem so settled into and blissfully happy with their marriages.
Empty social calender:
By the time the marriage is at breaking point, the woman is very often alone. She has no one her age to turn to at this crucial hour. Many men think that divorce is contagious and discourage their own wives from associating with women on the verge of a divorce or a separation.

It's no fun to suddenly find yourself on the fringes of society right after being the heart and soul of it. People who know that your marriage is breaking down, feel awkward around you. Common acquaintances have no idea whether to sign on to your side or your spouse's, melt away. Suddenly your social diary is emptying rapidly. These first signs of social boycott induce many women to stay on.

Conditional support:

Those who support your decision at this point, often provide very conditional support. Your family may have it's own set of restrictions to place on you – from requesting you to dress differently to asking you to tone down your general behaviour. The religious fanatics will take you in and want to give you a makeover. The sympathetic people who come in to cry with you may cringe to see you laughing or happy... Ultimately, everyone seems to have an agenda.

Uncertainty about day-to-day post-divorce options and choices:

I think that changing your marital status changes you in so many ways that even you cannot understand. One can't go from single to married and single again and expect things to fall in place. You are not 'unmarried single' any more. You are 'divorced single,' which makes you a very different person altogether.

Many women don't want to see a marriage certificate for the rest of their lives after one bad experience and they may find it easier to walk out. Others who still believe in the institution and want to try again, are dissuaded by the idea that the marriage market for divorcees is limited and skewed in favour of the young and the childless. In such cases it is the case "bird in the hand."
Starting over
The more obvious constraint on a woman wanting to leave a bad marriage is having to start over. This is especially true when she is a home-maker or when she has children. The responsibilities of starting over seem overwhelming. The older you get, the harder this becomes because your roots are deeper at this point.

Even though women give many reasons for staying, subconsciously, many of these lesser talked about issues get swept under the carpet. Women themselves feel that these issues are too trivial to discuss. However, it makes complete sense for any woman who is breaking with her past to make her decisions based on the immediate and distant future. But these are issues about which she has no one to talk to. They end up becoming uncertainties that overwhelm her need to get away. She stays on and becomes one more bitter anonymous woman venting on a forum.

New women in old marriages

2010-12-09T04:30:00.008+05:30

The recent debates at Indian Home Maker's blog triggered by this email, seemed very close to the thoughts that have been running in my own head for a couple of weeks now. The people who enter marriages today are very different from those who entered marriages in the past.

Until a couple of generations back, most women were unable to support themselves financially. Post marriage, the entire care of the woman fell upon her marital home. Throughout her life, a woman expected to be supported financially and emotionally by her marital family.

In return for this security, she integrated herself into this family and took its name, and was trained to follow its culture, food habits and dressing traditions, as well as to raise her children to do the same. Her relationship existed not only with her spouse but encompassed his entire extended family, of which she became a part. She usually married young enough to be able to absorb the new way of life. Because cross cultural marriages were rare, both her parental and marital homes often had the same lifestyle, and this made the transition easier.

Most of the traditions and customs were evolved with this model of marriage in mind. Over the last century or so, the status of women and their options have changed so drastically that a woman is able to support herself and, in some cases, even her in-laws with her income just as easily as a man. Despite this, today's wife is still expected to behave like the wife of a century ago, especially around her in-laws.

Over time, smart women have begun to see that they need not change their natures to suit anyone's caprices. However, since marriage has yet to evolve as fast as women themselves have, this has resulted in an epidemic of unhappy, discontented and bitter wives. Unless marriage catches up, more and more women of the future are going to opt to remain single or revert to singlehood. Also, more and more women are probably going to choose not to have children.

Most men who believe that this is merely a vague feminist threat, need only to look at countries like Britain who are paying people to have children. If men truly value their marriages and want to keep them, they need to skip the intermediate steps and adopt a more equal form of marriage, just as they would do with a new gadget.

No one buying their first computer today would insist on following the long route from the Intel 4004, to the Intel 8008 and working their way step by step till the P4s or the Quad Cores. But when it comes to their marriages, men are amazingly loyal to the old school. Perhaps because it favours them so much. Sometimes, small steps are not enough. Educated, smart women in Indian marriages today need a giant leap urgently. And this can only happen when the men catch up with their wives about the definition of marriage and understand why the two of them are there together in the first place.

As in the email, it is not so much the in-laws' interference that shatter the wives as it is the behaviour of the husbands themselves. Any woman would go up in arms if her husband is insulted or criticised by her family, unless he is an alcoholic, abusive, womaniser – and some times even then. Obviously, the scales fall off when her husband fails to defend her with the same fervour. He allows his family to ride rough shod over her and assumes that his husbandly services entitle him to expect that his wife will put up with it – since this is the way society works.

It is not that a woman can't tell her in-laws off. She can. But a bahu sassing the saas would be a lot more painful to the parents than a child putting his/her foot down. The moment a daughter-in-law or a son-in-law lays down some ground rules, things get nasty. However, men prefer to ignore the rude behaviour meted out to their wives. Considering that most of them are in it for life, it seems suicidal to burn your bridges before you even cross them. It would make more sense for them to maintain good relationship with the women who are going to be with them for the length of their future.

Despite the logic of this, a man does not do the smart thing. He feels so compelled to show his family and all the world that marriage has not changed him, that he insults the institution of marriage. How would he feel is his wife acted like she was single just so that her family and friends don't feel “left out?” When you marry, the rest of your circle is going to feel a little left out. If your circle can't handle it, it's time to find another circle, or go back to staying single.

I think if more men acknowledged that they're happy with their wives as they are and that their marriages are important/indivisible/irreversible parts of their lives, they would find that other people respect their marriages/spouses. The women don't seem to have too many problems making boundaries with their own families; I think it's because they acknowledge that their marriage is an important part of their lives. As for parents, they're all very nice in their place – outside your marriage.

I truly believe that all people should be grateful for kindnesses received, but giving birth to and raising a child – though a formidable task – benefits both the parents and the children. In different ways, perhaps. But it does benefit both. How does one express gratitude to someone for bringing them into existence and caring for them? I think this is an impossible task, because nothing you do can measure up. Just as nothing a parent does can compensate for the joys, challenges and learning experiences and social recognition that having children brings with it.

To extract payment for parental duties by controlling adult children or their spouses is cheap. If you cannot raise a child without expecting the child and his/her spouse and family to conform to your whims and fancies all their life, you are contemptible. You have no right to exercise any right on your adult kids or their spouses or their kids. Period. Especially, if they're not sharing a house with you. If they are, you compromise like two adults do. Don't play the parent-child bullshit card to get your way.

If they visit you, be as considerate towards them as you would be to your guests. If you visit them, be as considerate towards them as you would be with any other host. Being their parent does not give you the right to be fussy or mean. Resist the urge to parent once your kids are grown up.

And considering you have no right to dictate terms to your independent adult child, there's no way in hell you have any business to tell your child's spouse and kids what to do and what not to do. It's hard enough for two people to get along and raise a family in these difficult times, without their families adding to the baggage.

If you had any real concern for your child or his/her family, you would not be making life hard for them. This is the kind of behaviour that is the one way ticket to a breakdown of relations between your child and his/her spouse or between your child and you.

The little collectors

2010-11-25T09:55:00.003+05:30

I got back from a long meet-extended-family-for-the-festive-season, only to be besieged by a variety of weird health glitches. Now that all is better, I wanted to blog about a common problem raised by a number of parents we met over the course of our trip.

It seemed like there were two types in all – us, and the others. Pretty much all of the parents we met seem stuck at the same place we were at a few years ago. They all have little collectors for kids. Here is a little insight.

Kids are conservative by nature. Look at how they ask the same question over and over again, or wear the same dress everyday, or generally show a touching loyalty to the same cartoon or the same film. Creativity comes when you expose them in unfamiliar situations. Kids – even teenagers – feel the need to conform – to each other's standards. And in today's world, everyone's standards are standardised by the global media.

Toy manufacturers tap this side of child nature to turn them into little collectors. They give them different versions the same toys. Or the same costumes. Or the same books. Which is how the manufacturers of Barbie, or the Mattel Cars or the Ben 10 or Beyblade merchandise made their millions.

Every home we visited had pretty much identical toys, identical comics, and identical clothes. And none of the kids seemed to play anything. They'd all turned into collectors. Several Barbie dolls or several cars were just displayed or thrown higgledy-piggledy into toyboxes.

When I gifted Ken his first toy car, or his second or even his third, I had no idea what monster I was creating here. All said and done, these toys are irresistible. Till he was around 4, he would have about a 100 Matchbox and Mattel cars at any given point in time.

The mate finally put an end to the madness and brought some proportion into the toy-box. And I've de-addicted myself and with great effort enforced a ban on collectibles. We replaced the cars with board games.

Honestly, our popularity levels as parents went drastically down and games are much more of an effort than collectibles. While he would happily bang the cars together simulating gory accidents, he needs me to sit with him for Ludo or Carom, since little K is too small to do anything more than run away with the coins. On busy days, I am tempted to take out the collection of cars and just give it to him.

Five years later, he still has the withdrawal symptoms from the car phase. We can't visit anyone's place without him rummaging their child's car box. Almost everyone seems to have one. Most of our friends think it's cruel to do this, making the resolution harder to stick with.

On the upside, however, I feel superior when other parents' narrate the tragic tales of thousands spent on Beyblade merchandise, only to be broken 5 days later in a simulated war between the neighbourhood kids.

Thanks to this insight, Kaavya has a really small toybox and a wider variety of toys. Nothing is battery operated, no action figures and no collectible toy. It is such a pleasure to see her actually play – the way kids used to once upon a time. She doesn't need a Princess Costume to be a princess; any shawl will do.

I give her a set of my own kitchen bowls to rattle around together. The big bowl serves as the little bowl's Mama and talk to each other as she becomes a ventriloquist. Alternatively, both when it is not being used to cook a big imaginary meal. She goes shopping with a plastic cover in her little tricycle and comes back with imaginary veggies and keeps house in her toy tent.

The same tricycle becomes a racing bike as she races around the house and a train when she ties it to her old wooden walker with a string. She has a few puzzles and we give her alternate sets, (putting away the other set) every few days, so the novelty remains. And we don't buy cartoon/movie merchandise.

We have an upper limit on the number of things any one of us own at any point in time – including clothes and excluding books. When we bring something in, we usually balance by giving something away. Most of the limits are negotiable (though the kids don't know that) and we try hard to stick with them.

It needs a little conscious effort to say No. And say No consistently. Kids are persistent. And God, they nag. I refuse to listen to comparisons and when I am attacked with the old “You don't love me,” I ignore it. We both know it's an old line and the kids know I love them.

If – like most of the parents we met – you are truly worried that your kid just seems to build up a collection of toys that he only breaks and doesn't really play with, perhaps you could try our new and radical method of parenting.

Cathartic cleaning up

2010-10-25T11:09:00.003+05:30

After replying to a comment on my last post, I browsed though my favourite blogs and read this. After that, I could never bring myself to write. Or do anything, really. Was it a sense of loss, a time of grieving, a clutching my own daughter closer to me? Perhaps a combination of the three.

And then this morning, Kalpana (the maid) didn't come in and I did the dishes. After ages actually. On her weekly off days, I endeavour to cook as little as possible, simply to avoid doing the household chores. That's how lazy I am. But we had company this weekend and she's not in today as well, so I did the dishes this morning. About two sink-loads of them.

There's something so cathartic about cleaning up something visibly messy, I thought. And then I remembered that the last time I voiced the same thought in exactly the same words was some 4 years ago, exactly two days before my wedding.

Ammachi had returned to Chennai for good; Ken had gone with her; I was maidless for a month' and I was potentially leaving the house post-wedding. I took the day off to attend Ken's PTA meeting and for sundry wedding-related activities. Singin' in the Rain was on the DVD, and I looked around and decided to clear up. After all, the family was due back the next morning for the wedding.

The 'little clearing-up' soon took on monstrous proportions as I moved all the furniture and finished up my bottles of Harpic, Lizol, Surf, and Dettol with Good morning on my lips.. I relinquished the modern mop in favour of the traditional get-down-on-the-knees and scrub-with-soapy-water brand of cleaning.

A colleague called to find out how 'the day off' was going and I said in voice brimming with enthusiasm, “Fabulously. I am cleaning house!”

“And that's making you so happy because....”

“Because there's something so cathartic about cleaning up something visibly messy.”

“Yeah right!”

She hung up, obviously convinced that wedding jitters had addled my brain. I had just got back to the floor when the phone rang again. I ignored it. It rang itself out and then began again. I ignored it. Like Mrs Macbeth's hand, there was a patch on the floor that refused to respond to traditional cleaning methods and then the phone rang again. And again.

“Who's that persistant @#$!” I thought and then my catastrophizing self took over. “Ken's hurt. Oh my God! An accident. Oh God. He fell off the terrace! Dear Lord! He'd dead!” I jumped up and ran to grab the phone. And I slipped and fell just as I reached out for it. I tried to break the fall with my hand. Sadly the wrist bone is not really designed to support some 60 odd kilos. It broke. My right wrist. Two days before my wedding, I'd broken my wrist.

I had enough experiences in fractures to know that it was broken. Blameless and Clueless were not in town. I called Reckless's place. Her family was leaving town by the afternoon train and she was not at home. Her mother heard me out and came over in some 15 minutes flat. We drove down to the hospital, got the X-ray done, confirmed the fracture and got a cast. “You can't use this hand for a couple of months,” the doc declared.

“She's getting married day after tomorrow,” said Reckless's Mom dispiritedly.

“Be good practice for the groom to do the chores right from the beginning of the marriage,” he returned.

The mate was getting a haircut when I called. He thought I was pulling his leg. Until he met me at the airport the next evening. It was just an indication of how terribly interesting his life was about to become over the next few years.

I smiled at the memory. This time around, I managed to finish the dishes without breaking anything. Not even a cup.

P.S: Oh, and by the way, that persistent caller..... That was just Ken's school reminding me to attend the PTA. Kevin was alive and well.

Do Indian women have a cat-like grace?

2010-07-31T13:34:00.001+05:30

July has been hectic. A visit to the family in Madras and then the descent of the 'Madrasi' parent and the American sibling and family. Four kids in the house instead of two. The guests are all gone now and the house has recovered from the anarchy and my mind from the vertigo induced by living with four active children across three diverse age groups.

To get back my bearings after they left, I slept as much as I could, kept silent for a long periods of time and read a lot. On the lookout for new authors to replace Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers and their ilk, I discovered Elizabeth George, P D James and Ruth Rendell. Great authors, no quarrel with that. And as a sign of the times they write in, all three have Asian characters in them. Commendable.

However, read the descriptions below and tell me if something rankles. The first is from Well-schooled in Murder by Elizabeth George:

“They were not greeted by Giles Byrne, however, but rather by a Pakistani woman perhaps thirty years old.... She was obviously not a servant....
The woman stepped back from the door and motioned them to come inside. The gesture drew the sleeve of her caftan away from her smooth dark skin... Her teeth were very small, very white.... She left them, running lightly along the stairs...”

Later in the book:

“'There's no need for you to stay, Rhena. You've a brief to work on for court next week, haven't you?'
“I wish to stay, my dear,' she replied and moved across the room soundlessly to sit on the couch. She slipped off a delicate pair of sandals and drew her legs up beneath her. Four thin gold bracelets slid down her arm. She directed her eyes at Byrne and kept them there.”

Now on to Ruth Rendell's rendering of Malina Patel in A Sleeping Life.

“Beauty had opened the front door to him, beauty in a peacock-green sari with gold ornaments, and on hands of a fineness and delicacy seldom seen in Western women, the width across the broadest part less than three inches, rings of gold and ivory. An exquisite small face, the skin of smoky gold, peeped at him from behind a cloud of silky black hair.”

A little earlier in the book, Rendell writes “He crossed the grass where black children and one white child were playing ball, where two Indian women in saris, their hair in long braids, walked slowly and gracefully as if they carried invisible pots on their heads.”

Compare these with Jules Verne's more openly racist description of Aouda, in Around the World in 80 Days. “The worthy Indian then gave some account of the victim, who, he said, was a celebrated beauty of the Parsee race, and the daughter of a wealthy Bombay merchant. She had received a thoroughly English education in that city, and, from her manners and intelligence, would be thought an European. Her name was Aouda.”

I have no idea if any of the readers find such descriptions of Indian women offensive, but for some reason I do. The whole cat-like grace and tiger-like anger! And God! Teeth! The only other time authors rave about teeth are when they talk about horses! Somehow all the Indian women that Western authors have met have small, even, white teeth. As do Native Americans and blacks. And they all have smooth skin. Nary a pimple! Oh no!

A look at our dental records or our streets will testify that we have all kinds of teeth. Even, odd, big, small, protruding... Oh, and we have cavities too, just like people everywhere else. We probably have the largest population of dentists in the world. And they all make good money out of our bad teeth.

As for George's description of Rhena, the whole thing calls to mind, as perhaps meant to, a wild cat. The eyes fixed on the lover, the soundless movement across the room, the drawing up of the legs on the couch.

The whole cat-like movements of Asian woman is a laugh. Indian women are perhaps the noisiest people I have ever encountered. The decibal levels of a group of aging Indian woman will beat those of a gaggle of Western teenagers hollow! Not all of us are petite and delicate. Some of us are – I hope you're sitting down now – fat. Yes, fat. With cellulite and orange peel skin and all.

Oh yes, we're not all barefoot, either. We actually have a thriving footwear industry here as well. And I should know, I live in the country, see! And the NRIs who are often the richer Indians have access to footwear and use them.

As for the “cloud of silky hair,” it just seems like mixed metaphors to me. To me a cloud of hair would call to mind “fluffy” not silky. But that's probably because English is not my native tongue. Even my accent is not as “prettily correct” as Malina Patel's.

On an another point, I'm not am NRI, so I really cannot comment, but how many young NRI women sit at home in peacock green sarees? NRIs are a strange clan and perhaps they feel compelled to cling to their roots with a saree tied on, but all of my NRI friends live in jeans and dresses. A modern Indian women in a sari is a rare commodity – even in India.

Oh, and did you guys note the “walked slowly and gracefully as if they carried invisible pots on their heads.” I have not encounted any Indian woman who walks slowly and gracefully. Many Indian woman have bad posture. Some of us stoop. We're not all petite and erect with swaying walks. That's only those of us who are on Western television. The rest of us walk like the average woman around the world. No grace, no silence.

Most Indian woman I see are busy people, and they are rushing all the time, unless they are mingling at a party, drink in hand - like any woman anywhere. Apart from that consider the traffic, the catcalls, the unwanted attention on the roads. All the women I know want to be out of public places as soon as possible. Lingering is not encouraged.

I would much rather Western authors ignore the presence of Asians in their midst, rather than endow us time and again with all those stereotyped charecteristics that have been our lot from the age of Jules Verne. What offends me more is that they never describe a Western woman this way. Even the catlike Western women escape without having their teeth examined.

Descriptions such as these don't seem to offend anyone in this politically correct age and pass though the hands of authors, editors, publishers, critics and readers without anyone feeling offended. Except me. And I flinch. Everytime. Do you?

Have you eaten alone?

2010-06-27T08:54:00.007+05:30

I have seen women tourists sitting alone nursing their cups of coffee and looking out the window in one of the Barista or the CCD outlets. I am yet to see an Indian woman alone in a coffee shop. And though I eat out pretty often, I am yet to see any woman – native or otherwise – eating in any restaurant alone. But then, of course, my experience has been limited to Chennai and Hyderabad.

Yesterday, for the second time in my entire life, I ate out alone.
Both times, I have felt very comfortable. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the people around me. The first time, I was out shopping at Ameerpet and had been walking till my legs ached so I dropped thankfully into the air conditioned environs of Sitara. I had been there before with the family and with friends and I like the food and the courteous service. Best of all, I love the big aquariums in the place. Aquariums are one of the coolest ways of keeping the Ks busy while we're waiting.

The waiter kept asking me whether any one was joining me. He seemed disconcerted to see that there was nothing on the menu which was designed for one person. The portions were too large. Despite the fact that several other couples were there before me, he took down my order first and brought my bill in record time. He seemed anxious to get me out.

The second time I ate out alone was yesterday - at an Ohri's outlet. Again there were curious glances. A couple of men who were also alone ate a quick chaat combo and did not stay for a relaxed meal. As for me, the waiter brought the food to my table – in a self-service joint!

It probably was my own hypersensitivity, but both times, I noticed several wondering glances in my direction. Probably because a woman eating alone is not a common phenomenon in a South Indian-style restaurant. Or maybe they were making up stories about my life – like I do when I see people.

And that got me wondering if any of you – male and female – have eaten out alone? How formal was the place – fast food/restaurant? And did you feel comfortable or were you subjected to unusually high concentrations of curiosity? Meanwhile, I am off to Chennai for a week to see “ma best pal.” And I am SO excited.

Why Bharatiya Nari?

2010-06-26T10:50:00.004+05:30

Preethi had written this comment on Serially Speaking and I thought I'd reply with a post. Otherwise, the reply comment is much too long. Her comments are in italics.

“I happened to chance upon your blog while I was over at IHM. I think the words 'feminist', 'Indian' and 'woman' are oxymorons. I have met very few women who have succeeded in not internalizing, our society's sexism and warped gender role expectations. I am always intrigued when I see female colleagues compete with each other at passing themselves off as ideal wives, daughters-in-law and mothers."

Thanks for writing in.
This reminds me of a couple of married people who tried to friend me when I got married. They never gave me the time of the day when I was a divorcee. Suddenly they wanted to know my Valentine's Day plans and ask relationship advice. I was suddenly caught in this trap of behenji talk. I missed the madness and lightness and humour of single talk. Right now, i still find my brain turning to mush with overexposure to behenji-speak. I only have the mate to talk films and feminism with. Terrible state of affairs. The singles will not touch me with a barge pole now!

I often wonder about why women feel compelled to pass themselves off as the ideal Bharatiya Nari. Why is there so much social pressure on us to be "good Indian women"? Men don't seem to feel any cultural pressure to be "good Indian men" (besides being good little mama's boys, of course)!

There are gender expectations on both sides I think. The role of men is to remain good children all their life. The role of women is to be born mothers. Everything we watch on television and in mainstream films reinforce those roles. It's scary.

I think these serials are, at a sub-conscious level, a source of affirmation and validation for most female viewers.

I think society forces Indian women to psychologically reconcile themselves with their gender role and status. Based on personal experience, this can often be extremely traumatic.

As a woman, how can you accept and comply with society's expectations and still have healthy self-esteem and regard? My guess is that such serials help women accept and tolerate the injustices and restrictions that is their lot in life and thus provide psychological nourishment and validation.

I am extremely fascinated by how women often support and perpetuate cultural beliefs, values and practices that are so antithetical to their well-being. I have never been able to fully understand why and how women do this. So much so that I often question if I am a woman at all!!! :))) I would love to read your thoughts on this!”

Serials are made to appeal to the widest audience possible. However, I don't think that they reflect the truth. Very often, the female protagonists of megaserials have multiple romantic relationships. Of these, perhaps one is a love affair with a lot of affection showered on the woman. After that, she enters into a marriage either with the boyfriend or another person and that relationship is often a disaster. Then the serial follows her struggles as she progresses through this relationship – involving multiple separations and maybe even divorces and remarriages – until the TRPs drop so low that the producers wind the damn thing up.

People accept this woman's changing partners only because she does not seem to enjoy being in any of these relationships even though she keeps vrats for the current partner and silently suffers several indignities during the length of the relationship.

No matter how often she is wedded and bedded she retains a reluctance about sex or even kissing. Standard dialogue includes the ubiquitous “Chodo na, ji. Bahut kaam hai. Mujhe jaane do.” This indicates that she is still virtuous.

I don't know how many real Indian women really change their partners so often. Even fewer have men lining up to marry them irrespective of whether they are virgins, mothers or divorcees. However, all Indian women identify with the common theme of struggling suffering womanhood. One and all, they have been in these unfair situations themselves. Even though they may have never questioned it.

Examples include: Snide remarks about their upbringing. Enforced dress codes when in-laws are around. Adopted eating habits around in-laws. Lack of privacy. Increased workloads. Fasts they are expected to undertake for the husbands well-being. Accessories of married women that they are expected to wear.

All of these seem familiar to a majority of Indian women. At some level there is identification. Serials perhaps reinforce that this is the “done thing” and about making the best of the situation. Putting women in unfair situations is a socially accepted custom. Long practice has just validated this with the stamp of tradition. And anyone who is unconventional has a lot to battle against. They either have to shut up and take these “small injustices” or leave. Or be permanently putting their foot down and acquire a reputation for touchiness.

As for why women submit, I think it is because the opposition is so strong. And isolation is the key here. One woman enters a household of conditioned men and women. She immediately feels inadequate because she is out of her comfort zone. Then she is taught that “in this house we do things this way.” At worse, people criticise her upbringing or at best, sympathise that she has been ignorant and are forgiving towards her. This puts her in a situation where she feels that she “owes them.”

Calls to her family are monitored and discouraged. Calls of friends are treated as frivolous and unnecessary. Her own circle of family and friends keep their distance because “the family” is a forbidding institution. They cannot just come in and talk to their daughter. They have to meet her in the presence of her other family members. A case to point is the Hrishikesh Mukherjee classic, Khoobsurat, which depicts a similar situation. The outsider against “the family.”

The woman is afraid to confide in anyone about her situation and her husband is her only confidant. He can choose to support her – risking being labelled henpecked, or he can comfort her. In both cases the woman again feels inordinately grateful for his support. The serial Pratigya, which was mentioned in that post, features a man who faces derision from his family because he supports his wife.

There are a number of women who find it intolerable that she would not appreciate his support as "she should." Before marriage, the protagonist was harassed by two “admirers.” However, she assumed that she had only admirer and he became the subject of all her wrath.

Since this one was the hero, he immediately got the support of the audience, because he was not guilty of half he was accused of. The continual harassment ends in her marriage to him and then she realised that it is only the beginning. His family is several steps ahead of him in the violence department and the women are all mistreated and scheming, or mistreated and suffering.

The “bold” protagonist Pratigya takes all her mother-in-laws meanness, supports her abused co-sister and is unfailingly polite to the mean maid and the loud-mouthed sister-in-law. Krishna saves her from his family several times. He allows her to retain her first name; he stops his brother from beating her; he does not rape her (though he often threatens to); he goes after her when she leaves the house after he slaps her and his father kicks her out. And for all this “support,” the women expect that she should love him.

Everyone was disappointed when she left the house and are happy to see her back with Krishna – now in a tumbledown hut. So, it is accepted for a woman to go through unfairness and still stay. If she submitted wordlessly she was a doormat. If she made her disapproval clear politely, she was bold. If she tried to enforce her rights, she's a bitch.

Like I mentioned in another post, if every woman spoke her mind on every unfairness that she faced, there would be unhappiness in every family. It is only because the slaves have accepted their slavery that the system still thrives. Otherwise, there would be civil war.

A planecrash in the 1100s

2010-06-25T13:43:00.001+05:30

I just received my large box of Moser Baer DVDs. Ever since their website launched, I've been checking out their collection and planning on placing an order. I am so uncomfortable with buying online, though, that I've been putting it off. After I received my first rejection letter from the first publisher I sent my book to, my mind went all wonky for a bit and I did a variety of mildly crazy things.

One of these included ordering 40 Malayalam DVDs.
(If anyone is interested, other crazy things included going offline for a week, transforming Ken's school project into a work of art by cutting out individual blades of grass for the garden of his house model, making 3 dresses in white and blue for Kaavya – all of them too tight in the chest!) and heading out in the afternoon sun to buy a plain black raincoat for Ken. See my craziness is not very unbalanced these days! Or perhaps I was not as affected by the rejection as I should be.)

Anyway, I picked Vanaprastam as the first film to watch. I hate criticising movies because of the immense effort that goes into making them. But honestly, for no reason this film set the events in the 1100s and featured pens, a telephone, a planecrash and a car....

I have no idea why they picked the 1100s. Or was it the early 1900s they meant and the typos made all the 9s into 1s? Loopholes are all very well, but something so obvious? As for the film, it was about Mohanlal and Suhasini and katahkali. Somehow many of the subtleties that one looks for in good Malayalam films were missing. There was a soul there somewhere. But the performer overshadowed the soul a bit.

The final slap

2010-06-10T14:36:00.006+05:30

I don't write a lot about domestic violence predominantly because I have a history and I am still extremely uncomfortable talking about the topic. I clearly have made some progress, which explains this post.

However, I also felt compelled to add something more on this issue.
Something that I have mulled over for a long while and am still unsure about. A journalist friend who called me to get my “insider's” take on domestic violence asked me what I would tell women to do differently if they had to go through what I did.

Pat came the answer. “Leave, of course. Abuse doesn't end. It may change forms, may change in intensity but it isn't really going to end.”

“But when would you actually pick up your bags and leave?” she persisted. “The fourth beating? The eighteenth one? Would one slap justify your moving out?”

“Sure,” I said. “It's not going to stop with one.”

“Wouldn't I be possible that you're having a fight and you're both in a rage and he just raises his hand? Assume this is an otherwise loving relationship. Would you still leave?”

“I don't know. In that case, maybe I wouldn't,” I said.

“And what if,” she continued, “a second slap comes a year or two later. What if the first slap comes when the kids are in their teens?”

I had no answer then. I just didn't know. Slapping, shoving and physical expression of rage is so much part of marital relationships here that I have a notion – hopefully a wrong one – that at least half of all married Indian women have been in such situations – and are still married. Imagine if they had all walked out?

Imagine if they don't walk out and the beatings increase. A slap can go both ways. Stop there. Or Continue. A second slap can go both ways too. Three years after being asked this question, I still have no answer. Which slap decides that you leave?

A return of Real Women in Indian Cinema?

2010-06-10T14:35:00.005+05:30

I recently watched Gautham Menon's latest offering, Vinnaithandi Varuvaaya, and I enjoyed seeing real women gradually returning to the Tamil screen. Many of the popular Tamil films have been hitherto plagued by unreal female characters. Films made for the “thaikulam” (women) were probably the worst culprits when it came to reinforcing negative gender stereotypes and deepening gender cleavages.

Few directors have dared to feature real women in mainstream Tamil movies.
K. Balachander made a few attempts to do this in films such as Thaneer Thaneer and 47 Natkal. Balu Mahendra has also tried featuring more real women in his films but his offerings have been few and far between. Anyway, his films occupy the nebulous area between parallel and mainstream cinema.

Probably the first popular director who has continuously broken the mould of formulaic female leads is Mani Ratnam. His women are real, often urban. Unlike in consciously “feminist films”, Mani Ratnam's heroines are not brash, overly sexualised, or masculine. They are just normal woman. They are strong, existent, romantic, attractive and possible. They talk to men like equals, they aren't constantly paranoid about their fragile virtue and they are independent of the men they care for.

Director Vasanth who made interesting films such as Keladi Kanmani, Aasai, Rhythm and Satham Podathey is another director who features real woman in his films. Suhasini, after her unorthodox TV series Penn, which featured regular women, gave us Indira, a heroine who blended the vulnerable and the determined.

Director Cheran is yet another director who has been making films with real women. I have seen only a few of his films. But Pandavar Bhoomi, Autograph and Thavamai Thavamirindhu all featured interesting women. A couple of films he acted in, Raman Thediya Seethai and Pirivom Sandhipom, also have realistic small town women. From his first film Minnale to his latest offering Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya (Ye Maya Chesave), Gautham Menon has chosen to explore believable urban women rather than the creatures of fantasy.

Among the hundreds of films released each year, these are a handful of films over the last 3 or 4 decades which have made an attempt in this direction. For the rest, they continue to feature unidimensionally bubbly, arrogant, innocent or docile women. However, considering that realistic women are appearing in more and more mainstream films over the past decade or so, perhaps the conventional portrayals will finally peter out, leaving women smiling.

Getting a lot of action

2010-06-10T02:31:00.001+05:30

Ken started Grade 4 today. From this year they have a third language and since Hindi and Telugu are the only options and his second language is already Hindi, the third is Telugu by default.

His homework for today was to write the first 6 Telugu alphabets on two pages. "I have to do it, Mummy," he said, "Otherwise I'll be getting action from my Telugu teacher. I'll be getting a lot of action from my Telugu teacher."

He never understood what I found so pervertedly funny about the statement. Of course, he doesn't have Mind-In-Gutter Syndrome like me. He's only 8 yet. However, I had to call Clueless and we both giggled our heads off at the idea. Thankful that the third language was not Malayalam. That would have been too appropriate for comfort.

A good beating for a bad woman?

2010-06-09T14:27:00.004+05:30

This was something I heard yesterday. The story goes that a couple of weeks ago, a female acquaintance's husband saw her with a male friend (when she was supposed to be home with the kids). He confronted her when he got home. She claimed she had been playing with the Little K all afternoon.

The husband called me to ask if his wife was with me.
Obviously, I had no idea about any of this, so I said, 'No.' He asked if I had seen her at any time during the day. I said 'No. I haven't seen her in a while now.' Her lie proved, he began to retaliate in the only way he knew how. He beat her up. He beat her up so bad that she bled profusely and had marks and bruises all over her body including her face.

She was so angry that she left the house and with the support of this male friend, went to the police. With his wife gone, the man took their two young children and dropped them off at his village. The police came a couple of days later with the woman and made enquiries into the domestic violence.

The entire community including the woman's father and sisters testified against her. They told the policemen that he only beat her because she was cuckolding him. It was "the natural reaction for any man." What else could he do? He was perfectly justified.

The police immediately became unsympathetic to the woman. They told her that it was her duty as a woman to stay with her husband and children and not go befriending good-looking young men, no matter how rich they were. Having adviced both husband and wife, and patched up the Great Indian family, they left.

The man locked his wife up for two days and beat her up to reform her and avenge the dishonour to his name. The first chance she got, the woman left again. She has now proposed to marry the male friend and is hiding from her husband, because she is afraid. She misses her kids, but she dare not try to retrieve them either.

There is strong social censure against this woman because she has put herself in the wrong by cheating on her husband. She is the bad woman now. Leaving aside the moral issues of infidelity. I'm wondering if a good beating will make a bad woman good?

Of Ps and Qs

2010-06-07T16:00:00.003+05:30

I've been wanting to write about this a long time, but didn't get a chance until now. A couple of months ago, I was at a upmarket day spa and an assistant came in with a jar of hot wax in one hand, and paper strips in the other. I held open the door for her as she passed, and she looked at me in surprise. “I've been working here for five years madam,” she said “no one has shown this much consideration.”
And all I did was hold open a door. Didn't cost me a thing.

I have no idea if she was being truthful, but it did take me by surprise that in such a popular place frequented by well-off, probably educated women, no one had looked at the assistant as a person. It's such a little thing – holding a door open, saying "Thank you", writing a good comment, leaving a positive feedback about a shop assistant or a waiter. And yet, she said no one had done it before.

That's when I began to notice. And I realised that many people really don't do these little things. When we go in for work, how many of us take for granted the “Hey, How are you?”s or the “Looking good today”s that greet us. And we also smile at the “Thank you”s and the “Have a great evening”s that bid us goodbye.

How many of us pass on these greetings and wishes to the people who work for us? The maids, the nannies, the drivers, the watchmen. How many of us open the door and greet them with a namaste or a smiling “Come in.” And how many of us say “Thank you” when they leave?

While none of us would appreciate being addressed by our designations at work, we constantly do that with the people who work with us. Even kids say “Ayah,” or “Watchman” or “Driver.” This sounds even worse when we're yelling for them from a distance. “DRIVER!!! Idhar aao!!!” How would we like being addressed that way by out managers ' “ASSOCIATE EXECUTIVE! Come here!” At the most, polite parents insist that kids suffix the designations with 'Uncle', as in, “The watchman uncle has come.” Don't these people have names, or are we too forgetful to remember them?

There's a kid of Ken's age in our apartment who comes down to play and his nanny accompanies him carrying his water bottle or any toys he may want. I can understand sending a chaperon, but a coolie? Can't the kid carry his own bloody water-bottle? He walks around like a spoilt brat threatening his driver, beating up the presswala's kids and ordering his nanny about.

I've often been tempted to spank that little prick as he lords over the place, but there's not much I can do except feel happy that he's so going to give his folks hell when he grows up. This kid is just an extreme example of the total fallacy of our feudalistic attitudes towards people of a different economic or social class.

Not many of us encourage our kids to use a respectful tone while addressing the domestic staff. How many say “Aap biscuit dedijiye, please?” instead of “Ayah tum biscuit do!” Kids are encouraged to wish their teachers and uncles and aunties of the same or better economic groups, but not the maids or the drivers or the watchman.

Teaching kids to be polite is not easy. It requires us to treat people like individuals and not stereotype them - all the time. It needs us to be polite and step off the "Maids are so XYZ", "That class of people are like this only," bandwagon. It requires us to greet, to hold doors open, and to mind our own Ps and Qs. That's when kids begin to understand that this is how people should be treated.

It's a given for people to treat their staff rudely that initially there's bound to be consternation when one person begins to be polite. But keep at it. We did. Most of the new security staff in our complex think Ken is pulling their leg when he greets them. And after a while they get it and begin to wish back. There was a time when parents taught their kids their Ps and Qs. Today, looks like we've forgotten them ourselves.

Old loves: Phir Kabhi

2010-05-27T20:37:00.008+05:30

Coincidentally, I watched two films with a similar theme last week. Both dealt with aging couples meeting soul-mates and finding someone to share the loneliness of their old age. The first, Pyar Mein Twist, opens with widower Yash Khurana (Rishi Kapoor) handing over the reins of his business empire to his son Rahul.
He meets Sheetal Arya (Dimple Kapadia), a widowed businesswoman preparing for the marriage of her second daughter, Ria (Soha Ali Khan). Her older son and daughter are married.

Sheetal and Yash become fast friends. As their children and society pressure them to break up, they take off on a vacation together. They enjoy each other's company so much that they decide to get married. The kids finally realise how unfair they're being and fall in with the plan.

The second film, Phir Kabhi, has the lyrical quality of the Gulzar classic, Ijaazat. A fabulous film with a great screenplay and some nice music, the film is strengthened by amazing performances by a great cast. Understandably, this film never made it to the theatres and released on DVD. I'm glad that this film escaped the poison pens of critics who cannot appreciate a good film unless it features SRK in the USA or is product of one of the media-approved art film makers such as Shyam Benegal.

Phir Kabhi is the story of retired station master Hari (Mithun Chakraborthy), whose world is suddenly shaken up when Lakshmi (Rati Agnihotri) his wife of 4 decades dies. Ganga, Hari's first love from school who has remained single so long, sees the obituary and writes to him. When he does not respond, she writes again inviting him for a class reunion. As the two reconnect, his daughter-in-law intervenes to put a stop to the relationship. With his grand-daughter and his son taking his side, Hari again gets a second chance at love – with Ganga. I loved is movie better because it was more sensible, subtle, funny and beautiful.

But that apart, both films really got me thinking about how selfish children can be. Even after the parents spend all their lives taking care of their young ones, the kids don't want to let parents go even in their old age.

In the first case, Khurana's son could not understand how his father could form an attachment because they never shared a close relationship even with each other. He also looks upon this as a betrayal of his mother. He relents only when he realises that Yash is not his birth father. He is Yash's older brother's son. When the elder brother died young, Yash walked away from his girlfriend to marry his bhabhi at his father's insistence. Only then does Rahul accept Yash's new relationship with Sheetal.

In Sheetal's family, her daughters and son face pressure from their spouses and in-laws to make their mother conform. This despite the fact that Sheetal's sister-in-law Toshi is on her side. Only when Dia's fiance takes her part does the rest of the family follow suit.

Do old men and women actually need to take permission from their kids to form a relationship? At what point will families stop being so suffocating? In my opinion, it all boils down to money. Children are afraid that a relationship formed at this point will rob them of the inheritance that they expect as matter of right. They don't want some scheming individual to steal their parent's money. They want to do it themselves.

Parents fund a child all his childhood – which they have to do. It's their job because that's a commitment they made. And after the kids grow up, they are expected to fork out not only fees, but also insanely high donations and get the kids into colleges. And parents – and kids – think that it is their duty to do this. Apart from this, all the tuitions and coaching classes and God knows what else.

After all this, parents spend the money that they have collected over the years to conduct the children's weddings. In the case of daughters, parents continue to fund the childbirths of their grandchildren, as well as several of the functions in the daughter's sasural. Often, parents go into debt for these expenses. Apart from the financial aspect, parents are also expected to be the caretakers of their grandchildren and act as doulas for their children.

At what point does this cycle end? When will kids become more liberated and gift their parents the same trust, liberty and love that they enjoy so much? From time immemorial, parents have been convincing their kids to get married to escape from loneliness in old age. What about the old people who are left partnerless in their old age? If they feel the need for support, is it so wrong to take it when they find it? It's hard enough to find in the first place.

Kids might say that old people who take such a step are opening up themselves to be set up by gold-diggers. Perhaps. But aren't we all? Every time we bring someone into our intimate circle, whether in our old age or in our youth, we are taking a risk. Big Deal!!! After all, "The secret to life is to take pleasure in being terribly terribly deceived... "

Serially speaking

2010-05-26T04:10:00.008+05:30

A month or two ago, I read an article in The Hindu criticising, what else, TV serials, with special mention of the Star Plus offering Pratigya. Though I've read hundreds of such articles, I finally decided to delve a little deeper into this much maligned world of megaserials, with special notice taken of above mentioned Pratigya. I have to do a whole new post on this specific serial, but here's what I learned in general.

And wow! What a revelation.
I've been watching back-issues or earlier episodes (whatever!) on youtube and reading up on the forums. The forums provide an interesting insight into the world of serial watchers. Serial watching is serious business.

Written updates: The members of forums take the effort to watch the episodes and provide detailed written updates of each episode. Often these read like the screenplay of the episode itself. “Hamare hott Krishna is wearing a jazzy pink shirt and walks angrily towards Angadwa with Chandu and Tunnu.” (Yes, it can get as detailed as that!) There are even live updaters. :)

Comments: The written update is also accompanied by comments, the level of detail in these vary. Very often the involvement is so great that characters are referred to by their characteristics rather than their names. “That kali dayan Number 1 comes in accompanied by the two joru ki ghulams.” (Friends and ex-colleagues! Please note the marked improvement in my Hindi skills, please! I actually understood what that means.)

Custom orders: Apart from the updates, a number of threads are started and these include petitions to the production house creatives (CVs) requesting the return of some favourite actor, or the changing of a particular storyline or even in some cases possible love scenes that viewers want to see.

Couple nickames: I have no idea when the trend of giving a common name to a couple began (as in Brangalina and Saifina), but Boy! this flourishes in TV land – Michi (Milind-Prachi), Kriya (Krishna-Pratigya), Siddima (Siddharth-Riddima), KaJen (Karan Singh Grover-Jennifer Winget).... the list goes on. Somehow I have never liked these couple nicknames as they seem to wipe out individual identity. Earlier, it used to be "the Kashyaps" or "the Subramanis". So this was one of the harder things to overlook.

Tracking: Tracks are the branches that stem from the main serial. These may be a new crisis in the household, or a new affair, or a new character introduction or a focus on one set of characters for a while. The serial follows the said track until that crisis is resolved or the affair reaches it's (often) illogical conclusion. All this new jargon stemming from the megaserial industry is fascinating.

Educated viewership: At least from the forums, it looks like a lot of young English-speaking young women (and men actually) watch these serials both in India and abroad. Many of the written updates are done by teenagers or college students. Some are written by NRIs or Pakistani women. With the banning of youtube in Pakistan the latter now face a new problem and can only follow the serials through the written updates. I found this an interesting sociological phenomenon. What do the women do now that they cannot see whether Kriya really got a divorce or Ishaani actually discovered love?

Active condoning of violence by viewers: Domestic violence plagues SerialLand. The victimised partner's (usually a female lead) loyalty and fidelity is constantly called into question. She is physically and psychologically tortured. And none of the educated woman, apparently liberated woman on the forums seem to mind.

Interestingly, while all the women claim that they don't support abuse and sexual assault, many of them support on-screen domestic violence perpetrated on negative characters. “I'm so glad he hit her. She deserved it,” is an often seen comment on many of the forums. Slapping and pushing around, throwing things and threatening violence is not even considered abuse, even when these are perpetrated on the positive characters.

Even though many of the commentators type the mandatory “Not that I support domestic violence, but...” it is too often followed by the justification of the abuser that the protest seems like lip service. Violence is NEVER justified. NEVER!!

Skewed sense of romance: Romantic relationships in megaserials is almost always the stuff that generations of M&Bs and Harlequin Romances have been made of. Incompatible couple, often at loggerheads and how they end up together. People casually enter into marriages or marriage-like relationships of convenience. Many of the couples in these megaserials are temporary, with women falling in love with one person and often marrying elsewhere. Remarriages and new jodis are common and this often creates the drama element and also provides a context for all the violence that follows.

Stereotyping sex: Interestingly, many of the marriages are not consummated for several months and suhaag raats often feature declarations of revenge and sexual deprivation until the avenging man or woman finally understands the true love of his partner. Sometimes the partner is a negative character and marriage is never consummated. TV friends marry out of a sense of misplaced loyalty to save the friend of the opposite sex and the relationships remain platonic. The coy woman-angry male sexual stereotyping is shocking. Even among loving couples, sex is rare and always accompanied by reluctance on the woman's side. (Probably because the partner is bad in bed?)

Scarily easygoing attitudes towards sexual assault: Which explains Another thing is the latitude given to good-looking angry male leads. They threaten rape often and constantly humiliate their partners. You cannot begin to imagine how commonly, lightly and gloatingly rape and sexual battery are discussed. Forthcoming rape or attempted rape scenes are predicted with (to my mind) pretend horror. And attempted rape scenes don't gratify as much as the real thing. This perhaps explains the overdose of rapes attributed to the Indian soaps. Many didn't even take place but viewers tell each other and newbies that they did.

Any sexual abuse scene immediately generates multiple threads, some of them have a superficial disapproval clause “I lost all my respect for him, but God didn't he look sooooo HOTT!!!” “I disapprove of what he did, but see how long he has waited, yaar! After all, woh ek mard hai. Kitne din tak wait karega!” Some even hope that a good rape will break the ice and love scenes will follow.

Disturbing? Or is all this just a video translation of the rich, angry playboy-virginal poor girl plots of the countless romances girls everywhere read? At any rate, it was not so much the serials themselves as the attitude of the people watching them that disturbed me. While they profess to like liberated women, they seem to prefer women finding romance - particularly from brooding, angry male characters.

Even though proud, sarcastic, wealthy Darcy-types have been loved by generations of women, a relationship with this type of man not a lot of fun. The only men I know who are brooding and angry all the time are chauvinistic and insecure. Ergo, abusive. And I am sad to see that with all their education and opportunities, young women in my country are still liking cavemen types.

The adventure of the three sofa sets

2010-05-23T22:35:00.015+05:30

I just got back from Chennai, where I went to pick up Ken after his month of lazing around on the couch with POGO and chips. He's 4 kilos fatter and has developed teenager attitude. But that is a not-so-important, temporary problem compared to the chaos I feel plunged into whenever I visit my parents' home. Apart from all the emotional baggage, it's physically overcrowded! Not with people. With furniture!

Take for instance, our sofa sets.
The first sofa set had become so old that Papa convinced everyone that it was best sold and a new one bought. Concerned about our potentially sofa-less state between the sale of the old set and the purchase of the new, he wanted to buy before he sold. He picked up a large carved sofa set which he claimed would go well with the large carved almirah that his father had picked up for 50 bucks at an auction in 1950 or so.

Having set up the new sofa and the antiquated almirah in the hall, he proceeded to buy a matching carved TV cabinet which occupied one wall end to end - and reduced the space in the drawing room by about 25%. Oh, and a matching center table as well as 2 carved stools (I have difficulty using that word in this context, but can find no other).

Anyway, at this point Daddy discovered that there were few takers for the old set, so he decided to get it re-upholstered and try again. Now he found that the offer price was lower than the expensive tiger print faux leather upholstery that he used. (He has such a thing for animal prints. Ugh!) To get back, he decided to do “the wise thing” and keep the old, newly-upholstered sofa as well. So now we had two sofa sets.

Shortly after this, my sister left for the US, and all her furniture (including her cane sofa set) was added to my parents collection. Despite her specific instructions to sell, they kept those for sentimental reasons. What with fashion, sentiment and price considerations, about 50% of our drawing room space is occupied by sofa sets. The other 30% is taken up by the TV Cabinet, the center table, the stools (!?) and the almirah. This is just the drawing room!

Despite long practice, I find it hard to navigate the maze of sofa sets that Dad has strategically placed all over the hall leaving a few inches of space. One has to negotiate one's skillfully to get from one end of the hall to the other. Moving around, especially holding something, is a difficult experience. One wrong step and I may be impaled on the hard wooden edge of some frightfully carved piece of furniture.

Oh, and you can't access the beautifully carved shelf space of of the cabinets because you can't open any of the drawers or the doors without physically moving all the rest of the furniture. So the stuff we initially put in there have remained - like buried treasure types. And we can't put new stuff in, so all the stuff that ought to be put away in drawers or cupboards are placed on top of all this furniture any which way. NOT a pretty sight!

The rest of the house is furnished around much the same principle. More.. more...more... of everything. They have also three sets of kitchen utensils (theirs, as well as my sister's and mine - which we cast away when we moved out of the city).

They have about 4 double beds as well as 3 dismantled ones, that occupy 2 bedrooms. And these include the cot bed I used as a toddler. There are around 7 supersized Godrej bureaus, four of which are simply used for all the old fashioned, faded and undersized clothes that my sister and I dumped when after college.

My folks live their life dangerously - and therefore angrily - among the overload of furniture in this space. My mother, now 65, finds it impossible to dust and maintain all this furniture. Or sweep under or around them. Not being wealthy zamindars in filmy villages, we also find it hard to get any respectable maid who will do so.

And don't even get me started on all the electronics that they have and never use. I ask "Why aren't you washing in the washing machine?" to be confronted with "Oh there's just one bucket of clothes!" "Why don't you play your CDs on the new HUGE music system?" "We don't know how!" "Why don't you watch all those DVDs of films that you wanted to see?" "We forgot how to use the DVD player!" There follows a demo and then on my next visit, both look sheepish like kids in a classroom and claim to have lost the detailed instructions and forgotten the lesson!

I know that it's their home and their life and they have a perfect right to live their life in any which way. Acquiring new furniture. Or fighting constantly over who cleans what. I mean, everyone has their own ideas of fun. But increasingly, I find it harder and harder to visit and even tougher to stay for longer than a couple of days. It would all be like Jerome K Jerome's classic "Uncle Podger hangs a Picture" if only tempers weren't so frayed. But they are and poor Ken's obnoxious parting advice to his grandparents was "You're married. You must love each other. And when I come next vacation, I'll clean!"

Censored or uncut?

2010-05-14T13:31:00.008+05:30

The other day a single friend told me that her friend watched every film twice before she allowed her children to watch them. She wondered what I felt about such censoring. I suddenly realised that even though I never thought of it that way, I was pro-censorship for kids.

Considering that my parents let me off so easy, it seems surprising that I feel compelled to take this route but I have realised that I would much rather draw the (however ineffective) Lakshman Rekha than run after Sita.
I feel uncomfortable about exposing kids to the abuse, the materialism, the tantrums, the sexual stereotyping depicted in today's entertainment.

While I have no issues with my children seeing intimate male-female relationships on screen, I'd much rather they see healthy ones rather than pin-woman-to-the-wall, breathe-down-her-neck variety of abusive relationships that plague TV serials today.

I don't want my kids seeing badly made up fairies and men in black robes doing black magic on Pogo/Disney/whatever. I'm not against ghost stories and when Ken displayed a strong interest to read one, I lent him my copy of Oscar Wilde's A Canterville Ghost. And he's already familiar with Nearly Headless Nick in Harry Potter. He didn't want to read any more ghost stories after that and his curiosity was satisfied. I wanted him to be amused and not afraid. He can explore the genre when he's mature enough to be thrilled by ghosts and not scared/scarred.

When parents sit their children in front of kids channels, I wonder if they even give a second thought to the content. The other day I read a piece dissecting Chota Bheem and how it enforced sexual stereotypes. Apparently, both female children in the series had stereotyped roles. One was a cook/housekeeper (Martha) and the other was a damsel in distress (Mary Magdelene). And both were vying for Bheem's affections. Let them watch Harry Potter, I say. Or read the Panchatantra. I don't see that much sexism there.

Another TV image I have a problem with is the materialism it reflects. While adults know that it's super aspirational to land a helicopter in your parents backyard to get there on time for the puja a la SRK in K3G, kids totally don't get that. I want the kids to feel a little want, so they know what it's like to wait for stuff.

Kids in films like Ta Ra Rum Pum don't reflect the reality of children in our country. While I wouldn't go the other extreme and show them Slumdog Millionare, I don't want them to think that materialistic behavior is acceptable and adorable. It's totally not. And films and television programmes that reflect this are misleading. In this respect, I'd rather my kids watch Iqbal, Tare Zameen Par and the more recent Bumm Bumm Bole.

Another thing I don't want my kids thinking is that it's ok to misbehave. Seeing children their age totally acting up and being not only tolerated but even appreciated for bratty behavior makes them feel that it's fine to act up. The effect of the visual media is so strong that after seeing an ad where an angry child threw and broke a doll, the Little K threw her toy for the first time.

Kids are imitative and don't have enough judgment. They think it's ok to break someone's car headlight because Partner's Rohan did it and got away with it. Neither of the Ks are under the delusion that they can ill-treat my guests or slam the door in my face because they are annoyed. Unlike TV parents who say, “Darling. I'm sorry. Please understand,” I'm going to cut privileges for misbehaviour. Unapologetically.

So yes, I censor. I will censor sexism, classism, violence.... or any behavior that I don't want my kids to reflect and adapt. Sometimes it seems like a losing battle against the outside world, where Big K's best pal in the apartment (all of 8) has his own laptop and no one else has any TV restrictions. But I'm ok with that.

Someday, the kids will probably understand that it's ok to be different. Maybe they won't. As with all parenting decisons, I can only take what I believe to be the best approach. Until they're legally old enough to do that for themselves. And that's when I'll hold a huge party and all my greying hairs will turn black overnight in shock as I regain my freedom.

It would be nice to have....

2010-05-14T11:09:00.005+05:30

...a tiny online form where you can fill in your email ID and request the author of a private blog for an invite?

When a blog author has a private blog, and you try to access it, you come up against the following cold message: "It doesn't look like you have been invited to read this blog. If you think this is a mbistake, you might want to contact the blog author and request an invitation."

I've blogged about this earlier, but I never realised that there was no feature that allowed folks to "contact the blog author." Why is there a tiny online form where you can fill in your email ID and ask the author for an invite?

Doesn't this approach assume that the author does not want to share the blog with strangers? What about folks like me who want to share their blog only with strangers and use the private blog feature to weed out The Family?

Makes me wanna SCREAM

2010-05-13T17:30:00.009+05:30

This post is a response to Bhagwad's comment on Sorry, no Saree. He said that "People must stand up for themselves. There is always emotional pressure and one assumes she can withstand it." He wondered if there was a physical threat to the woman who refused to wear the saree.

In this specific case, I don't know what she meant when she alleged that she was forced to dress in a certain way.
However, in several families, it has become an accepted norm for family members to dictate the clothing choices of their adult children or children-in-law. Such interference is more common in case of women.

Several people – related and unrelated, older and younger - comment on or give hints to women on a plethora of personal issues throughout their life. Women recognize this fact and while some welcome it, some don't.

Conflict arises when women don't want to act upon these suggestions. Our society is conditioned to think that “good” women shouldn't really be opinionated – leave alone be unbending about their choices. A woman who does not want to do as she is asked to, is viewed as being in the wrong. She is described as rigid and arrogant - ziddi aur gamandi.

Once you dismiss the woman's right to free choice as wrong, or worse, silly, then it's easy to undermine her stand and laugh at her opinions as just another evidence of her zidd. Zidd is totally discouraged in women even during childhood, while obedience and respect for elders is promoted.

The family's “izzat” is entirely tied to the behaviour of the women of the house – particularly the daughters and the daughters-in-law. The older women of the house who have been trained into a certain kind of behaviour and have adopted specific styles of dress, pass on these traditions to the younger women. They adopt several strategies to force them to toe the line. When the younger woman still refuses to bow down, the men are brought in to persuade, starve, deprive or even beat her into submission.

Even in the most modern households, where daughters are treated on par with their sons, family members acknowledge that the conservatism of the wider society around them is hanging like the cliched Damocles' sword over their daughter's head. The mention of her sasural is always an effective curb of any unseemly effervescence of spirits or display of zidd. From an early age, it is assumed that the daughter will not remain a part of her parental family for long.

Meanwhile, the male child is also brainwashed into certain accepted norms of behaviour. Among them, he is slated for the role of lifelong caretaker of his parents and he is taught that his dharm is to care for his family – get his sisters married and protect their honour, discipline them when needed and ensure that his wife and children conform to the household norms and submit to the household elders. Any man who fails in the fulfilment of these duties puts himself in the wrong.

Even though much has changed in terms of choices and education as well as the inflow of suspect Western thought, these essentials remain the same across the nation, even in supposedly cosmopolitan and liberated households. The extent and nature of conformance expected from a son or a daughter has changed, but the expectations are still there. Children are not trained to be independent but rather are institutionalized into The Family.

Even parents who allow their adult children to choose what to study, what to work as, what to wear and whom to marry, still place the burden of gratitude on their children. They expect that the children will accommodate their ideas because they have given them “so much freedom.” When their “reasonable” requests are denied, parents either sulk or lash out.

A common example is of a parent who allows the child freedom of choice in marriage, but expects the child's spouse to follow the family norm. Many sons, who are unable to get over the constant brainwashing of childhood, believe that he has the right to ask his mate to make “small adjustments” for his parents' sake. A change of dressing style perhaps, or food habits, or maybe job choices.

A majority of women conform because to refuse would mean getting into an endless cycle of resentment and argument. The son who has seen and accepted these norms in his home all his life simply fails to understand why his wife can't just shut her trap and wear the damn saree, since his mother is determined to make her.

At this point, the younger woman often bows to the wishes of the older one. Women who conform, have more and more requests piled upon them, while those who don't are outcasts right away. One compromise is often the start of a whole series of changes as she is assimilated into the family and rewarded with privileges - including affection from members of her marital family, freedom to communicate with the outside world, and more private time with her husband.

The woman's parental family, however liberated, does not feel comfortable when her in-laws complain that the daughter is “rebelling at her marital home.” Often, the mother scolds her into submission and the father emotionally blackmails her saying that she is ruining his “izzat.” Sometimes the parental family even cuts themselves off from the woman, refusing to welcome her home or associate with her until she gets a good name from her -laws.

Ultimately, all the family that the woman has, arraigns against her on the side of her in-laws. It requires immense strength and courage to stand against all of these people and continue your marriage in the face of such universal disapproval. The woman who stands up for herself finds herself very much alone against an overwhelming hostile majority. Many buckle under and give in to purchase day to day peace.

In the case of non-working women or those who are not financially independent, this problem becomes even more pronounced as there is no source from where the woman can derive strength or where she can go for peace of mind. In many small towns across India, this problem is exacerbated by the homogeneity of the community. Young women in such places usually don't travel unaccompanied to stores or cinemas, so it's not as if she can take off to the mall or the gym or the restaurant with her like-minded friends.

Often, as mentioned in a comment by ummon in response to the same post, the family even prevents her from communicating with the outside world and discourages younger members of the family from associating with her. They fear that the rebellion is contagious.

So to answer Bhagwad's question, this I think is what many people mean when they say they are 'forced' to do something. Unless we stop burdening our daughters with the family izzat and the sons with the family dekhpaal, we are depriving them of the right to make free choices.

The stability and existence of hierarchies rest upon authoritarianism. And authoritarianism was never based on principles of right and wrong, or justice and unfairness. It has always been about power and always will be.

Marriage is a part of life – albeit a very important one. But it is not all of life and never should be. Sorry to sound like a panic-mongering doomsday type, but unless the institution of marriage gets a little more space and breadth, a couple of generations down the line, people will begin to wonder if it's just an outdated practice and choose to stay away from it.

The symbolism of the saree

2010-05-13T03:39:00.008+05:30

Continuing my train of thought from the previous post, I realise that apart from its grace and uniqueness to our country, the saree also has a lot of symbolism built into it.

This is best illustrated in Indian cinema, where the heroine starts off all bubbly and happy in pants or salwars, and then as her life gets more melodramatic and miserable, she moves to sarees.
The lack of detailing and the reducing price of her sarees symbolically depicts her transformation from a creature of mirth to a creature of pain.

Slowly, the bouffant comes off, the double plait becomes a single one and then even that makes way for a severe bun, often covered in a ghungat. The change in her dress reflects the downslide in her fate as she transforms into a melancholic person with a brave weak smile making an occasional appearance on her now tragic face.

Millions of women wear the saree everyday and are comfortable with it. But reducing it to a married woman's uniform is unjust and a gross violation of a person's rights. Why can't a woman be good without looking like Nirupa Roy?

What if the girls' parents insisted that the groom wear dothi-kurtha all the time? If the in-laws insisted on the hijab, is that alright? What if the issue was raised over the ghungat? Or a sleeveless blouse?

Of course anyone can have rules in their home. But what if, by virtue of marriage, it becomes as much the daughter-in-law's home as it is yours? Doesn't she have the right to be comfortable there? She has to wear what you ask her to or move out? Look at the options the woman has! She has to take your orders or "take your son away."

When families insist on women making wardrobe changes after marriage, they don't realise how much is at stake for the woman concerned. What you wear is as much a way of expressing your personality as your handwriting and your style of speech and your religious beliefs.

Changing the way you dress is a way of changing your identity. Of course, philosophers may say that my clothes should not be my identity. The fundamental me will stay unchanged no matter what I wear. I agree, but I also believe that the fundamental me is going to have a big chip on the shoulder if someone is going to force me to practice what I personally don't believe in.

This is the first step towards a changing personality. Suddenly I go from easygoing to resentful, may be even angry. All those scheming buas and bhabhis who play mindgames and politics in your home are probably thwarted, disgruntled women whose "punjabi suits" were trashed by their MILs.

The first thing you do by changing a person's style of dress is taking her or him out of their comfort zone. Whether you are adding on high heels or removing her make-up. And why would any loving family want to make their loved ones uncomfortable?

While I do agree that when a group of adults stay together - either as a family or as roommates - there have to be some basic rules in place so that other people are not inconvenienced by unannounced skinshows. But I fail to see how a 'punjabi suit' would cause inconvenience to the family while the saree would not.

I can meanwhile imagine how the 'bothersome garment' could cause a thousand little inconveniences for a woman not used to them. She has to learn to tie it on her own, passably well . Till she does, she often invites criticism on her and her mother's head about her lack of proper training. She's not going to be pleased.

She cannot climb stairs or take long strides unless she is used to the saree. She is definitely going to feel uncomfortably hot. She'd spend half her time ensuring that the damn thing doesn't fall off slowing her down in her household chores, often inviting more criticism on herself.

Apart from this, the very idea of someone dictating to an adult on her choice of clothes irks me. Why is it that the law recognises us as adults when we become 18 and we are forced to bow down to the tyranny of the age hierarchy - all our lives?

By law, we are guaranteed equality, freedom of speech and expression, and freedom from exploitation. Whether we accept it or not, the fact remains that clothing style is an important part of a person. And if she cannot stay with her husband in her marital home without changing into uniform, it is tragic that the Court thought it right to deny her even the freedom of divorce by turning down her request.

Forcing a saree on a woman who is fashion conscious or who is picky about style is so wrong at so many levels. While Dostana's Desi Girl Priyanka Chopra did look hot and happening in a sari, the problem with a sari that is not made of net and worn with a halter neck is that it is often a serious, modest garment. And, of course, "bothersome."

It has long been a custom in India for a woman to move into her in-laws home and fit into their family. Just because a practice has been in force for a long time in a particular place does not make it right. Female infanticide, human sacrifice, child marriage and sati were all customs that have been around for a long time in India. Today, they are crimes.

I'm the first to acknowledge that this gradual tearing down of a woman's identity is not as serious in the physical sense as these other customs which are now crimes in India. But unless the Indian courts put their money where their mouth is and protect the individual's right to equality, life for the already oppressed Indian woman is just going to be a little bleaker.

Unless better sense prevails and someone does away with the thousand little compromises that women are expected to make just for the privilege of being married, more and more women are going to resent their in-laws and punish the spouse for these violations of her right to choose.

You can make people do what you want, but they're probably going to hate you for making them do it. All their lives. Dialogue, not dictatorship. After all, you're trying to run a family here. A daughter-in-law is uncomfortable enough as a newcomer into your home without you adding to her misery by making her wear unfamiliar clothes.

Forcing women to dress the way you like is the first step to seeing statements such as "Will not tolerate in-laws interference in matter of food, dress, career etc. Do not want to live with in-laws." in TOI's new Equality Matrimonial ads.

Sorry, no saree

2010-05-13T01:58:00.008+05:30

While dismissing a divorce case, the Bombay High Court recently ruled that the "Sari may be a bothersome garment, especially compared to 'Punjabi dress', but a marriage cannot be ended over it." Apparently, this woman's in-laws were forcing her to wear a sari and she found that it amounted to cruelty, while the law did not. I wonder what the ruling would have been if the in-laws had insisted on a bikini as the dress-code for the family bahus.

And it seems even more weird to me that if the woman is unable to stay with her spouse because she does not wish to conform to the clothing norms of his parents, she is still denied divorce.
While the charges in this case may or may not be spurious, why should a woman who does not want to stay married to her husband be forced to remain in the marriage? I wonder whether the appellant would have got a divorce because she couldn't abide her husband without him being legally obnoxious.

If someone claims, "This man has filthy personal habits, is terrible in bed and totally not my type," would they get a divorce? I have no idea, but I'm guessing No. While the Bombay High Court may only have found it hard to fit wardrobe makeover by in-laws into the current definition of cruelty, it should have qualified its judgment recommending that the in-laws stay out of the woman's wardrobe instead of thrusting theirs down her throat.

While my source came from TOI's website and I have not yet found anything more detailed than this article on the judgment, I have no idea if the court made any recommendation to the fashion police in-laws. I can only wish they had. Someone somewhere raised a voice against oppression. It would have been nice to know that the Courts were on the side of personal liberty.

My Son: The Racist

2010-05-12T02:46:00.004+05:30

A few weeks ago, we were standing near our apartment trying to hire an auto who was willing to transport us to the bookshop at a fair price. Ken, to whom things always seem more painful and hopeless says, "We are NEVER going to get an auto. What will we do?"

"Perhaps you should try and learn to drive one when you're old enough, so you can always take us anywhere," I joked.

"I don't want to be a auto driver when I grow up," he retorted. "I want to be a racist. A car racist."

P.S.: Does that mean he will only drive Indian cars when he grows up? "I hate the cars of other races."

This is not Muthalik

2010-05-12T01:48:00.008+05:30

The thing about being feminist and living around men is to try and get some balance. I feel the need for them to see things a little differently, so that my own life can move forward without my inner peace being thrown into chaos every day.

Fond as he was of his daughters, my father was unapologetically chauvinistic and controlling. Looking back, I try to factor in the insecurity that he was perhaps trying to deal with, but every time I came up against the chauvinism and control, it made me so very angry. Still does.

Of all the men I have met in my life, the mate is perhaps among the least controlling and chavinistic, but even between us, I know that many things are taken for granted. And it irks me, more seriously at some times than at others.

One of my biggest dreams has been to inculcate the "different but equal" concept in my son. Like all dreams that are built around other people, this one too has hitherto been a notable nonstarter.

The Big K has no concept of liberal thought, tolerance or equality. Of course, I am not entirely without hope because I know that we all learn to curb our selfish, animal instincts as we grow older. And I look forward to seeing some change though I now know that some stuff is hardwired and entirely acausal.

Up until recently, it had always been a matter of wonder to me that my son is classist and sexist. I naively expected that just being around me would remove any such tendencies. Sadly, it hasn't.

Like most kids, Ken is conservative. He has to follow the herd. And, of course, it's totally uncool to do what Mummmy says (unless you're married, when being a Mama's boy is the only way you can avoid being labelled 'henpecked'). So Ken, so far, remained faithful to his Nasraani roots and occasionally beats his chest and roars like King Kong.

Despite the fact that the mate cooks quite often and has never till date ordered a meal, the Big K figures that a recipe book is a book of cookery from which the husband tells his wife what to make. Despite my bent towards the hardwired, acausal theory, I can't help but wonder why.

I figured that this idea was dropped into Ken's head by last term's nasty Hindi school essay “Meri Maa,” which outlines things all mother do - from waking up early to make the child's favourite foods to tucking the child into bed with stories. Between these times, she performs tasks that could put a small army to shame. Not one word about work outside the home or creative stuff or shopping. Nothing. Maa is just a unidimensional Nirupa Roy. Period.

On the issue of marriage, Ken remains even more conservative. He figures that marriages have to be arranged, though he knows that the mate and I didn't have an arranged marriage. He was filled with a sense of injury and neglect when I mentioned during some random conversation that he has a right to choose his partner and his marital status. He has now enlisted his grandmother's support in arranging a marriage for him “when he is a man.” The poor child is only 8 and has no idea about what kind of trouble he has signed up for.

When the mate took the cub to shop in the nearby basti for Holi colours, he shocked me by complaining that “Papa took me to the slum where the dirty black-coloured people live. Why can't we buy colours at the malls?” His one ambition in life is to be "golden" like Papa and Little K and other fair-complexioned people of our acquaintance.

I firmly believe that everyone should learn to (a) make a living, (b) clean up after themselves and (c) cook their own food. That's the first step to being independent. While handing out chores, I explained that he should learn to keep house if he wants to live in a clean place and that as he grows older he should learn to cook if he wants to eat.

He suddenly got interested in the cooking part sometime last year and came into the kitchen armed with his little diary. While I demonstrated how to make dal, he sat down, laid down his book and pencil and munched a packet of cashew-nuts and topped it off with raisins. The recipe reads “ARHAAR TOOR DHALL – wash THE daL.” :)

Do-able chores that don't involve snacking perks are greeted with understandably less enthusiasm. It took us both a frustrating year, but Ken has finally acquired the basics of cleaning up. When I say “Clean the X Room,” and return half an hour later, it's actually clean. I got it into my head that he was getting the message. I was happy. Until last week.

He's on vacation at my parents' place. We were talking on the phone the other day when out of the blue he complained "I feel like a housekeeper when I pick up the mess in the hall."

"And being a housekeeper is bad because .....?” I replied.

"Because I am not a housekeeper. I am your son.”

“And I am not your cook. I am your mother.” I retorted.

“But mothers cook,” he insisted.

“And kids do chores around the house!”

“No. Utsav doesn't. And Jatin doesn't. And...”

I used the old universal mother's favourite comeback “They're not my sons.”

“But why should I learn all this?”

“Because then you will know how to do it. When you have your own place it will look neat. And you like things to be neat.”

“I do, but then when I have my own house, I will also have my own wife who will clean the house. That's her job.”

“We'll talk more about this when you get back,” I promised as I cut the call.

I then told myself to breathe slowly and tried to remember that this was my 8-year old talking. Not Muthalik.

Meet Little K

2010-05-12T01:41:00.003+05:30

While I go on and on about Ken, I realised that I've never really introduced you guys to the Little K. So here goes. Ever since my socialisation and nurture theories failed so spectacularly with Ken, I'm a better mother to the Little K. I let her be. I have got into the habit of trying to mould Ken so I can't seem to get out of that. But I've very neatly avoided falling into that trap with the Little K. Hence, being her Mom has been a joyride from Day 1.

Like all kids, she has had a mind of her own since she was born. After Reckless “pre-poned” her GMAT tests to 2 weeks before the due date, so she could be “in at the birth,” the Little K arrived a few hours after Reckless left the city for her exams. By the time Reckless was back in town, the Little K had celebrated her first Diwali. Born just 3 hours into the labour, she caught the doctor and the nurses unawares by slipping out when no one was even looking for her. They didn't even have their surgical gloves on when she showed up.(Forgive me if that was TMI for you).

Ever since that memorable arrival, she's been living life on her own terms. One of those born charmers, she's always looking for an excuse to giggle. And she finds fun in everything. She's totally into housework and you can always see her sweeping the house with a broom twice her size, or mopping up spills with everything from wet wipes to newly ironed clothes.

She loves dressing up and can't wait to get into the clothes I stitch for her. Sometimes, she drapes fabric around her and transforms our sofa into a ramp. She loves to dance and can hum tunes even though she began to talk pretty late. Even as a kid, she would stop crying when you sang the seven notes of the scale – sa re ga ma... Something about it calmed her down. And now that she's begun talking, baby sentences won't do. She talks in complex compound sentences.

The Little K loves being photographed. Even if she's in a bad mood, you only have to start clicking for her to smile. She'll get back to tears soon after the shoot. She is extraordinarily well behaved in public. She doesn't call attention to herself when guests arrive and is happy to continue to do her own thing quietly. She holds on to grudges and doesn't easily forgive people who try to hold her when she's not ready or who try to play silly tricks on her like making scary faces.

She's brave strong and wonderful and has a great personality. I hope and pray that life holds only the best for her. Now that you guys know her, I can mention her in passing, like I did her Big Bro.

Resolution Round-about

2009-08-12T21:38:00.003+05:30

Sorry to the people who commented on American Blue, but I suddenly realised that some family do have the link to this blog, so I created a private blog and moved the post there. It has just that one post for now, but I intend to use it more often especially when I want to rant.
If any of you want to read that, please send me your email addresses and I'll send you an invite. This seems like a perfect solution to my Invite or Not to invite issue. A kind of round-about way of doing this, but it's the only solution on offer for now. I wish Blogger soon decides to introduce the Private Post feature that Wordpress has.

Plain talking

2009-07-25T02:22:00.004+05:30

Dear angst-ridden blog friend,

I have been occasionally following your blog. You write well. It's been a pleasure to read your blog. Until recently when I noticed a lot of posts that I don't agree with. They relate to your resentment that your parents have not accepted your relationship with your partner. I have been waiting for you to get over this reform-the-parents fixation for a while now.

It is none of my business but when I see the scores of people who are so sympathising with you and keeping their fingers crossed that your parents will fall in love with your mate soon, I feel compelled to write this post.

Not that you should not rant on your blog. You should. But always remember that your readers in the blogosphere are always so willing to extend sympathy to any well written whine, no matter how irrational, that before you know it, you will become convinced that you have a genuine case. (The 'you' in this paragraph is used more in the universal sense, not you in particular).

So I wanted to just give you (this is you in particular) a different perspective of your situation. I have no sympathy for you and I don't believe that your parents are wrong for not accepting your mate unreservedly and not being ecstatic over your relationship. You have parents that love you (even if they aren't pleased with your mate), a great job, a supportive and caring mate. Just why am I supposed to feel sorry for you?

While I agree that it would be great to have your parents love your mate, I also believe your parents have the right to not fall all over themselves, and you both, in excitement.

I am happy you found love. Love that you find so comforting and love that you believe will be enduring. But I also do not know you and your mate, need not have you guys over for dinner, introduce you both to my social circle, look after any potential kids you may have. Your parents have to do all of the above. At least.

As long as you expect them to take your partner into their fold and play a role (as grandparent, perhaps) as a result of your relationship, you should probably also realise that they are entitled to have an opinion on the subject. And you should probably also realise that this opinion may not match yours.

What you should be doing (if you're a mature, secure person) is to let them know you are in a relationship (so they're not spending time matchmaking). Leave it at that. Let them have their own opinions about your partner. If you feel touchy about them making mean comments, tell them you don't want to hear their opinions. That's the best you can do.

Why would you try to control or form their opinions? Why do you want them to love and accept your mate into their family? Don't you think you are being unreasonable here? You throw your mate at their face and ask them to be as fascinated, as in love with your mate as you yourself are. Isn't that weird? Aren't they entitled to an opinion of their own?

If you want to have a mate of your choice, make a family of your own. Have the same relationship with your folks as you always did (unless they hate the mate so much that they don't want to see your face either). You have a parental family. Your mate has a parental family. Stick with your groups. Expecting his/her folks to love you and your folks to love him/her is silly.

Why can't you be a couple and still have separate friends and separate families? I don't see any specific benefit in making yourself, your mate and your folks unhappy because they don't like your mate. And you've been unhappy long enough, don't you think? What an unreasonable thing to be so worked up about!

So your folks don't like your mate. Big deal! So their dislike is not justified. What dislike ever is? They are being politically incorrect. Let them! They are being old fashioned. So what? Fifty years ago, you would have been the one in the wrong. Fifty years hence perhaps you will be the one in the wrong. So you just happen to be right today. 'The right thing' is not time-proof. Just keep loving your mate, stop pressurising your folks and get on with your life.

With apologies for bringing a little proportion into your pity party
Careless

Dark Waters

2009-07-24T23:59:00.004+05:30

On the days when the maid takes off, Ken is responsible for washing up his lunch-box and spoon after he gets back from school. He loves the whole process.

He ends up using about half my Vim bar and most of my dishwash liquid on the little lunch-box, but I console myself that he's learning to take care of his own stuff and that's a BIG lesson.
And he's very thorough about his lunch box. And when he's done, he shows me the box and says it shines “Ting Tshuk!” (the sound of 'squeaky clean' from some TV ad).

Today, unfortunately, the maid didn't come. So he goes into the kitchen. It's 10 minutes and no sign of the child. I know that if I let him stay there, there will be no Pril, or Vim left in the kitchen, so I call him. I suddenly hear the sound of rushing water. I mean it sounds like a dam or a waterfall. “Ken! Why are you letting the tap run this way? Don't waste water!" The kitchen door opens and out comes Ken, drenched. "Mummy come right now!"

I rush to the kitchen to be met by a surge of water. The tap of the kitchen sink is broken; water is spurting everywhere. Memories of the bathroom pipe come to mind.

The Little K, who was almost asleep, wakes up fully and begins to giggle with glee. She loves water. She tries to catch the water, but is intimidated by the speed.

The mate is at work, so I call the apartment's plumber. He's on leave. The manager promises to send someone. I call the spouse. He advices me to plug the pipe with something. The watchman who is in charge of the apartment tank comes by about 10 minutes later. By now, both kids are drenched and giggling. I try hard to keep order, but it's hard when I'm giggling too. I try to change their clothes and the Little K thinks it's great fun to go get her dry clothes wet again.

I put on my my flip flops which are supposed to have some vacuum technology so they don't slip on wet floors. Every time I move, the suction thingy on the soles of my flip flops make a desperate squeaky noise like a mouse in trap. The kids burst into giggles again and so do I. It is weird. I take them off in an effort to regain some control and dignity. “Please put them on, Mummy. Make the funny noises,” begs Ken as if he's watching a clown.

The watchman arrives, reviews the situation and then observes that all the water from the common water tank would have been finished now because of the broken pipe. “I'll be back soon,” he says. By now I locate a valve and close it; water flow has reduced a little. I call the spouse again. He now advices me to take a big towel and hang it in front of the pipe because water will at least fall into the sink instead of showering my kitchen.

I first change both the Ks clothes again when there's another sound like the Niagara. I rush to the kitchen and find that water is gushing even more fiercely from the broken pipe. I figure that the watchman has – in his questionable wisdom – filled the apartment's water tank again.

Water is rushing out at about 10 litres per second and before I can get my breath, there's water seeping out of the bathroom and into the drawing room, and the bedrooms. It's like a horror flick. The Ks come running out and fall once more in the water, soaking themselves - again. I am wet through. I get Ken to salvage whatever he can from the wreck. “Put everything up in the sofas or the beds,” I advice. While he's at it, I call the manager in panic.

“Tell the watchman to close the main tank's valve. We have a terrible leak here.”

“I know madam. You see, the plumber is not here.”

“Yes but opening the main tank's valve is increasing the pressure. There's so much water everywhere.”

“Don't worry madam. I'll send the watchman.”

“He came here already. Tell him to close the main valve.”

“Yes madam. He has gone to open the main valve. When he comes downstairs, I will
tell him to come to your house.”

“CLOSE THE MAIN VALVE.”

“Yes madam. He is not a technical person, you see. He will see what to do.”

“CLOSE THE MAIN VALVE. MY HOUSE IS FLOODING.”

“You don't worry madam. He will come. But you will have to adjust till tomorrow you see. The plumber will be here at 11 tomorrow morning.”

“CLOSE THE MAIN VALVE. MY HOUSE IS FLOODING. I HAVE LITTLE CHILDREN!!!!”

“How can we close the main valve madam? We always open it at 4 'o' clock. We have to supply water to the apartment, you see. It's the rules.”

I bang the phone down. This is exactly the sort of thing that happens when ex-government employees take up post-retirement jobs as apartment managers. During this entire conversation, the kids are having a ball, treating the floor like a skating rink. Even Kaavya's ultra-absorbent diapers are dripping.

I call the spouse again. He listens as I rave and rant and end up in a fit of sobs and giggles combined. The man is on his way home. He knows Hyderabad well enough to realise that nothing will get done till he does it himself.

I herd the kids into the bedroom, change them into dry clothes again, command them to sit quietly and read on the bed, try to tie anything I can get my hands on (which happens to be Ken's shorts) to the pipe to control the flow. Then, I get out the wiper and begin the daunting task of getting the ankle high water out of my house.

The bell rings and the watchman is there. He looks at the water, takes in the situation at a glance and rushes back upstairs to close the valve. In 10 minutes more, the water is flowing steadily into the sink and after a little more work, most of the the water is out of the drawing room and the kitchen.

I go to change my dress and Ken takes this opportunity to help me, by (a) pushing all the water from his room and my bedroom into the drawing room (which I have just cleaned out), instead of intothe bathroom which is on the way, and (b) breaking my wiper.

I go to the kitchen, make myself a cup of coffee and settle down on top of the cushions and blankets piled on top of the sofa, too exhausted even to scream at him. The coffee refreshes me, but the sight of him amuses me. He is struggling to set matters right by sweeping out the water with an old broom, trying to gather the sticks which are dropping off the broom and floating in the water, running after the stray sticks and falling butt-first into the water, getting the water onto the walls and into corners which were not even damp before. It sends me into another fit of giggles.

A few minutes later, the mate arrives, fixes everything and I realise all over again one of the reasons why I adore him. I love fix-it-ness in men.

Question their skills, not their judgement

2009-07-19T03:12:00.012+05:30

One of the things that really annoys me about movie reviews is when reviewers not only trash the movie but also question the judgement that actors show in accepting the role they played. As in, “I can't understand why X agreed to play this role,” or “Why does Y choose to act in such loser films?” Of course the critic's job may include criticizing the acting skills or the role itself. But they are going beyond their mandate when they make derogatory comments such as, “And X again reprises those dumb stupid roles that she's rapidly becoming famous for. Why does she keep doing the same kind of roles all the time!".

Before they question an actor's judgement in taking a role, they should probably realise that like themselves, the actors also have financial commitments and sometimes need to do silly stuff for the money. How we all wish we could only work with the best teams, be genuinely proud of the work we are associated with and be so much in demand that we can pick and choose our projects. Don't reviewers themselves work at jobs which require them to watch films that they'd rather not watch, or read books which they can't stand? How many journalists have interviewed only people that they genuinely respect? How many journalists have only filed stories that they honestly agree with? Haven't they ever adjusted their article so that some fussy interviewee (aka big advertiser/celebrity) gets more space or a better placement than others interviewed for the same article?

Before they begin to question the motives and intelligence of actors, they should perhaps look at themselves. Acting is, after all, a job. The reality is that actors – unless they are really well established – cannot wait for ever before they come across a script and a role that they really believe in and would be proud to portray. Even after they get a couple of good roles, there is no sense in waiting (on loss of pay) till every role they accept is equally strong or path-breaking. Just as a reviewer cannot wait for a really mind-blowing film to come along before he writes a review.

Work sucks, as much for the actor as it does for the reviewer. Sometimes more. If I were a struggling or an out-of-work actor and needed to put the roti on the table, I would play a dumb blonde if someone is willing to pay me 50 grand for it. I wouldn't wait for Mira Nair or Deepa Mehta to make a film and then play a role as a strong, sensible woman in it.

If you've decided to take up your cross and make a living as an actor, you have to catch the attention of the public, as well as of people who want to cast you for roles in their good films. And of course if you're lucky, you may end up with a good director, script, story and role – every time. What if you're not? Will you choose to sit down and warm yourself by the fire till a film with the combination of all of the above comes along? Of course, by then the media will write you off as a wannabe with no offers. And laugh as your pretensions to acting.

And having family in the film world does not seem to help all that much either. TOI ran an article on how people in Bollywood are literally a big family. Fardeen Khan and his obnoxious brother Zayed are related to Hrithik, Mohit Suri is related to the Bhatts and Emran Hashmi, Shaheen is related to Saira Banu, Mohnish Behl is son of Nutan and cousin of Kajol & Rani. Despite such influential connections, none of them have done path-breaking roles. So even being in the family can't get you good films or good roles. Add to that equation, models, beauty pageant or talent-hunt winners all taking a shot at acting. You simply have to grab what you get. Just like the rest of us.

In the middle of all that competition, with about at least 80 percent of the films flopping, not all actors can choose to play significant parts in the rest of the 20 percent that are hits. And it's not always because they are bad actors. Not many would have expected that after about a decade of insignificant roles or forgettable films, Vikram would give 3-4 superhit films back to back. He didn't suddenly become a great actor when he played Sethu.

The same applies to actor Surya who only shot into prominence after Nandha and Kaakha Kaakha, though he'd been acting for about 5 years previously. And I'd be surprised if anyone had predicted that of all people, actor Dhanush's first 3 films would be hits. Look at Priya Mani. Apart from Paruthi Veeran and Thirakatha, where she gave clearly proved her mettle as a good actress, she's been playing pretty insignificant characters – even in lead roles.

Don't reviewers realise that when they sign a film, actors really can't tell what the end product will look like? What if there's a great role and a great story and it's spoiled by bad direction or dialogues. Look at Kareena in Khushi to see her transform into Jyothika under S J Suryah's direction. In Khushi, Kareena replicates the slightly demented expressions and the exaggerated effervescence that plagued Jyothika's acting (until in Kaakha Kaakha, she suddenly discovered the secret of underplaying).

Fabulous dialogues and great songs were what made the regular boy-meets-girl Jab We Met a runaway hit. It could have been so easily spoiled. And then the actors would end up looking like idiots. Geet would be the sterotypical hyper-bubbly Bollywood child-woman types. And Aditya would have been a non-entity. It took Imtiaz Ali's mastery to stop vivacious Geet from becoming over-the-top Khushi.

All of this is best expressed in Ego's review of Gusteau's in Ratatouille.

“In many ways the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgement. We thrive on negative criticism which is fun to write and to read. But, the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things... the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when the critic truly risks something... and that is in the discovery and the defence of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends.”

And before reviewers (and every Tom Dick and Harry who pays 120 bucks to watch a movie) questions the judgement and choice of films that actors make, perhaps they will be so kind as to remember this. As an afterthought, I'd like to add that I am in no way connected to any actors, celebrities nor do I have any connection with the film industry. This is just a regular person's disinterested POV. I have no agenda, except perhaps to make people think before they trash.

The apartment chastity belt

2009-06-26T09:42:00.005+05:30

For the second time in the last six months my maid has been asked to leave her house in under 24 hours notice. To me this is terribly disturbing at a number of levels. Before I explain why, let me start at the beginning. A number of rooms have been built in the basement of our apartment complex to serve as 'servant quarters'.

Around 60-70 families live in these 200 square feet single rooms in the rat-infested basement, and share four bathrooms, four taps and have no power backup facility. It's a regular slum down there; when it rains, water flows into the rooms drenching everything.

The people who live there work as maids, nannies, drivers and office boys with the families in the apartments. Besides water seepage and cracks on the walls, these people-below-stairs (as the British put it) have flimsy doors and live with the realities of eternal cramping.

In one of these rooms lives Latha - who works as a maid in three households in the complex, her husband – who works as a driver for one of the “sahibs upstairs,” her two school-going children (aged 9 and 5) and one of her younger sisters. One or the other of her three other younger sisters and their families stay over for deliveries, hospital treatments and festivals. Latha, the eldest child, has lived here since her mother found work here and moved to Hyderabad with her daughters; Latha was barely 6 then. Ten years later, she fell in love with her Bihari husband and married him. It's been 10 years now and she describes her life as “happy and successful.”

In these rooms downstairs, as everywhere else in this moral nation of ours, live a number of regressed hormone-ridden men, who look at any and all women as easy prey. A couple of them make passes at the women upstairs as well, so it won't be hard to imagine how relentlessly they pursue the women who have the misfortune to live nearer them.

Four months ago, frustrated by the lack of response – or rather the standard Indian "chappal response" - from some of the women, three of these perverts levelled soliciting allegations against the women. All eight women had the bad taste to prefer other men (husbands/boyfriends) over these letches.

The manager of the complex along with flat association members a notice to the relevant flat owners asking them to evict the maids and their families within 24 hours. Scared that they would meet with the same fate, other women joined the unfortunate eight who'd been asked to leave and petitioned the sahibs. An actual enquiry was conducted, it was discovered that there was no proof of the allegations and the women were "allowed" to stay. So were the men who levelled the charges.

Last month, another Bihari man staying 'downstairs' who is apparently was enamoured by Latha (she is pretty) got the chappal treatment from her. Last week, he accused her of pursuing him. The whole drama was played out again. Notices were sent to flat owners and the woman was asked to leave. The sahibs didn't have time to discuss the minor issue of a "fallen woman," (they needed to talk about the lawn and the new benches), so Latha was peremptorily asked to go.

Of course, the crowd rose up in her defence and the exasperated sahibs (who clearly had so much more important work than settling these petty squabbles of "these low class people") asked her husband for a written statement, reiterating his trust in her fidelity. The owner of the flat connected with the room she stays in, was also asked for a conduct certificate. (She doesn't stay in the room attached to my flat, though I have offered.) She gave her the letter with a severe warning against getting into silly fights with her neighbours. What did she expect? That Latha should welcome her horny neighbours' advances to keep the peace?

Anyway, this uncovers the fragility of the lifestyle of economically disadvantaged. Though with a collective income of 7,000 per month, Latha's family probably make much more than the average BPL family. But this incident seems wrong at so many levels. First, it assumes that the sahibs have the right to play panchayat in such disputes.

Second, the offhand eviction orders with 24 hour notice to a woman just seems so wrong. Apart from the trouble of finding alternate housing, rents, advances, schooling, it also takes away their jobs because they are declared unfit to be near our morally irreproachable apartment complex.

I am even more uncomfortable with the idea that any moral misdemeanour strips a woman of the right to live in our complex. Downstairs, I mean. The rest of us can have male visitors and dress any which way and still stay on as long as we pay the rent and don't wake up the neighbours with the late night parties.

Forget that the allegation were false and they were not even investigated; I am more worried that such allegations justify eviction notices. “She has a man (not husband) visiting her at all hours!” “Oh my, Throw her out!” As long as she's not doing anything illegal and has a job at one of the flats upstairs, shouldn't that be enough to justify that 150 sq ft space she gets downstairs?

Even more disturbing is the idea that she needs a moral certificate from “her man” and her employer to be considered eligible to live on there. No action – in both cases was taken on the men who made the false allegations. Either you accept them as false and throw the men out or accept them as true and admit that you're letting the women stay despite their extra-curricular activities. This band-aid solution of conduct certificates is just so wrong. Latha and her family have heaved a sigh of relief and moved on. To me, nothing is ever settled until it is settled right. Now poverty has joined madness and mobs as the things I fear most in this world.

Those villainous journalists

2009-06-25T21:32:00.010+05:30

The kurta-clad, bespectacled, benign-looking, principled journalist used to be a fixture in many Indian films of the past – especially in films dealing with social reform. He – and sometimes his family – was usually killed at some point in the film as well, spurring on the hero's quest. Sadly the media is no longer the good angel in films. I don't know whether this represents a breakdown in the general perception about the integrity of the media or whether it is Bollywood's revenge against the paparazzi.

At any rate, instead of being the embodiment of righteousness and goodness, the media has now been reinvented as the new villain of cinema, especially Hindi cinema. Many major films in the recent past have portrayed journalists as the villain of choice. One of the earliest films in this genre is the notorious Page 3. Starring Konkana Sen as a dissillusioned Page 3 journalist who moves to the crime beat, uncovers a celebrity paedophile network only to have it swept under the carpet by the editor under pressure from advertisers, it showed to some degree the muck into which modern journalism has sunk – becoming a voice for corporates and politicians.

Showbiz, the 2007 film about a voice talent show winner who goes on to make his own album, also casts the paparazzi as villains. The scene where his car crashes while fleeing from the media with his sister and the cameraman unbutton the injured girl's top for a hot picture, is disturbing to watch.

Halla Bol, where the media sways this way and that – once celebrating the protagonist in his shallow manipulative superstar image and then attacking him when he takes a stand on a social issue – is yet another case of media villainy in Bollywood.

Of course, the one that really takes the cake was Mission Istaanbul which had a news channel running its own terrorist network and martyring its leading journalists to generate news. The idea – suggestive of a hyper-imaginative scriptwriter – was made even more incongruous by the styling of the channel chief (also the chief villain), who wore colourful suits, appalling ties and what looked like super-sized gerberas and chrysanthemums in his buttonhole.

I remember this motif (villianous journos, not gerbera-sporting ones) flowing through a number of other recent films as well, though I can't remember most of them. As a former journalist myself, there is a secret sense of mortification when I watch these films because some of this has its roots in truth.

I still remember approaching a magazine known for its bold stories with the idea for an article about the pathetic conditions of divorce courts – the lack of facilities, the bad treatment, the long drawn and torturous process. “Oh we ran a rape story just recently, so the circulation is going well. We'll think about it a little later. We'll do the exploitative angle.”

I've heard about publications running supposedly women-centric rape, incest and sex worker stories just to boost publication and pander to the public that wants to know the intimate details allegedly to fume but secretly to get off on them. But seeing the principle in action was a bit too much. So when people ask me if I regret my choice to not pursue a career where I could make a difference, I look shamefaced and mutter excuses.

But at least, journalists in films today have the honour of being killed quickly and painlessly by the hero rather than painfully and tortuously by the villain. So that, to an extent should reconcile them on their removal from the side of the good guys to that of the bad guys.

The trouble with great minds

2009-06-25T10:51:00.010+05:30

Ritu Beri has started a new line for kids. I was horribly upset when I heard this. Because a baby boutique was my entrepreneurial dream. Or rather one of my entrepreneurial dreams. Over the years I've thought of loads of things that I want to do but have been too bone lazy to do any of them.

First, when I worked in journalism, I noticed that the demand for content spikes around festivals or special occasions (e.g: every paper and magazine worth its ink has a Diwali or Akshya Tritya special supplement). And they don't get quality content. On the other hand, are people with a turn for writing who can't take it up as a full-time job.

So I decided to start a content database online with freelancers submitting their work with a blurb. Prospective customers could read the blurb and a sample paragraph and purchase the rest of the article. Considering that many of the articles are static (History of Christmas, Brighten your home with rangolis this Holi.. you know the type), this seemed a great idea to get connect good writers and content-hungry publishers. Admit it, it's a great idea. But I didn't do it. It's still sitting in the back burner - with the gas switched off :).

Then, inspired by the trouble I had with juggling work and Ken's weird daycare timings, I wanted to start a 24 hour childcare center. I wanted flexible programs where parents could simply extend the hours or drop off the kids when they went for a dinner or a meeting or a nightshift. I planned on an online streaming thingy where parents could log into a secure website and check on their kids during the day. I discussed and thrashed it out with my friends. So many agreed it was a great idea, I was too bone lazy to make a start. Now someone else has started one just like that.

Then I went to Coorg on vacation and had another brilliant idea. Buy some land along with other members of the “less coven”, build 4 small cottages (real cottages, not bungalows that call themselves cottages). Each of us would name and do up our own cottage as we liked and we'd rent it out to people who wanted to stay there for short stays – weekends or a few months types. Especially artist/writer types who wanted to get away to be in peace. We planned a small hall with a kitchenette downstairs and a bedroom upstairs (with a slanting roof like this one, mind you!). Of course, the idea simmered and simmered and I kept putting it off. A few months ago, I read a newspaper article about a group of male software engineers who did exactly the same thing in Munnar or somewhere. It's a huge success. But it's very annoying.

Then, one day as I was shopping at Hyderabad Central, and looking at women coming out of trial rooms in clothes that completely didn't suit them, I decided that I wanted to start a makeover consultancy. And not that these are ugly women. (There are no ugly people :) ) They just pick bad clothes and bad makeup. When you're young, it's almost impossible to be ugly if you dress right. Skin and glow and God knows what else is already on your side. And if you're older, you can look elegant and nice, even if you can't be gorgeous. Very often, elegant and nice is gorgeous. I kept thinking I should meet the people in charge at Hyderabad Central and offer my services because it made sense to start with a store of that sort, initially. Then I thought that maybe I should put in an ad to see if I have any takers. But then, as usual I didn't get started. Now Shoppers Stop in Hyderabad had introduced a personal shopper service. It's just a service that makes sense, it's a natural extension of an apparel store. It wasn't like I was thinking anything specially cutting edge, so I took that in my stride.

Then I wanted to marry the cooking skills of people with time and the demand for home cooked food and start a website where people could order food and interested others could supply on a small scale. Suddenly the whole range of regional home cooked food is thrown open. You want kachiya more and thenga chammandi? You want aloo baingan and wadi-mutter thehri? Just ask and it's delivered. Of course, just thinking about the mechanics of finding deli guys and other cooks who wanted to participate and having a control over quality was scary. Especially in Hyderabad where service sucks and is, as the mate says, “reliably unreliable.” So I sat on it and recently found just such a website in operation in Hyderabad already (Sorry, I forgot the name. It started with “v” though). Anyways, I checked out the menu and it was no different from restaurant stuff, so I didn't see much point in having home cooked food if it's a restaurant type menu. So I'm not overly jealous about that. See! I'm not overly jealous about all my business ideas – just a few.

When I got pregnant, I saw how hard it was to get right sized clothes for newborns and how hideous most newborn pics looked because of the oversized clothes, and I decided that I wanted to start a baby boutique. I mean our babies are not 4 kgs. The average birth weight of Indian babies is 2-3 kgs. And worse, there's nothing out there for preemies. Apart from the fact that when newborns have their first pics taken, they are usually squint eyed, and blotchy and have cradle cap and terrible hair, they also wear clothes that are three sizes too big for them. I am doing everyone a favour here.

And while we're on kids clothes, what is it with Indian babies and special occasion clothes? Baptisms and naming ceremonies? All fancy baby clothes are only available for babies 1 and a ½ years and up (if then). Aren't there folks like me who like their younger babies dressed traditionally for Indian festivals? I remember sewing Kaavya's first Diwali dress (she was 3 days old then) out of an ethnic dupatta I had, because a search across Hyderabad yielded nothing but Western clothes for infants.

I may even expand to a maternity line, since my experiences in getting affordable, decent-looking maternity clothes drove me to sewing. I've sat on that idea for so long and just now as I'm beginning to get serious about learning sewing properly and signing up for a course just to get the hang of buying and marketing, Ritu Beri has the same idea. Argh!! I am insanely jealous about this one. I'm not, in any way, indicating that I'm in the same league as Ritu Beri, but you get the picture.

So, I have concluded that the problem with having a great mind is that you're not alone. Great minds think alike and all that. I can try to downscale to an ordinary mind, but how does one go about doing that? (Not modest at all, as you can see :).) Anyway, the only option that is now open is get my book published before someone else brings out a novel with the exact same story, concept and cast. Now that will definitely have me fuming! Maybe...

To invite or not to invite

2009-05-28T00:13:00.006+05:30

For a while now, I've been playing with the idea of making this a subscribed or an invited blog. And I am still unable to figure out a good way to do this. The only option now is to make it private, invite the handful of readers whose email address I do have and hope that the rest will simply ask.

But after a week of trying this, what I realised is that anyone who potentially tries to reach here gets a cold “This blog is open to invited readers only. It doesn't look like you have been invited to read this blog. If you think this is a mistake, you might want to contact the blog author and request an invitation.”

Now to most people that would look like a locked door. People assume, as I myself have done many times, that if the blogger wanted me to read, I'd have got an invite. As I did not, I'm not going to embarrass us both by asking. Until I realised that things really don't work that way. I didn't have all my readers' email addresses. And even those I had were only of a few who have commented on the blog - a small percentage of my actual readers.

And I do want my blog to open to anyone who wants to read. It's like my home used to be at one point. Where people could drop by anytime, grab a coffee and make themselves comfortable. Some people who read are friends or at least kindred spirits as Anne of Green Gables would say. They understand where I'm coming from. I have no problems with strangers reading my blog either. Their opinion can't affect me at all.
The in-between relative/acquaintance/colleagues non-kindred-spirit type people reading it scares the hell out of me. The other day someone quoted something from my blog, assumed that I'd written about the mate and actually sympathised that we were having problems. Now that I wish I didn't have to deal with. I have loads of friends and we talk about loads of issues – some related to us, some to other people. Not everything blog about is about me.

Now I either don't write or I keep in mind all the possible ways in which a post can be misconstrued by non-kindred spirits. I do defensive writing now and its wearying and not so much fun any more. And then, tra la, blessed release! The spouse noticed the trouble I was having and the sparse posts since we met and asked me “to publish and be damned” if I wished. So for now, I'm opening up the blog again. And airing my opinions in my own little corner of cyberspace. :)

What was God thinking!!!!

2009-05-18T11:55:00.002+05:30

Ken wasn't particularly in a mood to finish up his food today so he asked for a loo break. I usually know when he's faking it just to take a break from the meal, but I was feeding the Little K so I let him go without examining the motives behind his request.

Half an hour later, I hear these broken sobs from the loo.

“OMG! Zipper malfunction,” I think and ask “What happened!”

And he's like “I broke the bathroom plumbing.”

I'm going “What?”

The mate is going “How did you manage THAT!”

So Ken says “I was sitting on the pot and resting my head on the tap.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I was sleeping!”

“How can you fall asleep in the loo!!!!!”

“I was thinking...”

“What?”

“What God was thinking.”

The pipe was broken. The bathroom was flooded. It's just been 3 days since our house last flooded!!!!

And I began thinking what God was thinking when he created Ken. :)

Then the mate takes everyone's breath away by saying:

“It costs Rs. 110 to replace this pipe. One ice cream costs Rs. 5. How many ice creams could we have bought with Rs. 110?”

Now I am thinking what God was thinking when he created the mate. :)

The deluge

2009-05-15T06:35:00.005+05:30

Little K has the unhappy habit of walking in her sleep. Not somnambulism type of walking. More like, “Open an eye - No parents in sight - There they are! - Walk over - Drop over them - Back to Sleep.” So we've all taken to sleeping on a big blanket on the floor in the drawing room, which is the only really baby-safe room in the house. She has enough freedom to sleep walk.

I'd gone to bed at 1:30 last night. Around 3 a.m., I heard a sound like waves lapping the shore. I'm not used to sleeping to the sound of lapping waves – no matter how peaceful they're supposed to make you feel.
[I sleep to Hindustani classical music (which I hate and the spouse loves), sports commentary (which I hate and the spouse tolerates), News channels (which we both hate), Tom and Jerry (which we both love) or a sleepy screaming baby].

So I tried to turn over and shut out the sound but it just would not go away. I tried to focus my mind on a different dream, because of course, I was sure I was dreaming. But the damn waves just kept lapping. Frustrated, I decided to wake up entirely in the hope of getting rid of them.

And then I realised that it was damp. Lapping waves? Damp? Cold? I woke up to the strange sight of the spouse, floor wiper in hand, trying to wipe the floor. Not a pre-dawn attack of cleanliness, No. On the floor was something that looked like a mini flood. Apparently, he had left the tap connecting the water supply to the cooler on. The cooler doesn't have an auto shut off valve. So once the cooler was full, the water overflowed into a bucket and then for the next few hours flooded our balcony and then just flowed everywhere into the house.

The spouse's part of the blanket was soaked first, so he woke up and was trying to wipe the water out ASAP. By now I was kind of awake, because it is terribly hard to sleep on wet blankets. I generously took over the wiper just to show off my spirit of generosity in the face of his rare lapse into irresponsibility. I'm the one that's always leaving taps open and gas stoves burning, and milk boiling et al.

We blundered around sleepy and damp and uncomfortable, trying to get the water out. The bloody thing took an hour! I was so tired by the time I got back to bed at 4 and woke up just now.

Is your husband cheating on you?

2009-05-07T23:32:00.002+05:30

The sure-fire way to tell of a man's been cheating on you is to observe him when he comes back to you.

He has that sheepish, not-meeting-your-eyes look on his face.
He greets the kids with exuberance, making some comment at them which is clearly meant to lay on the butter on you – and lay it on thick. E.g.: Oh! Have you been troubling your poor Mummy today?
And then he gets on with random chores Eg. He hangs up his trousers or washes his face like his life depended on it.
He's been at home for about 10 minutes and hasn't addressed one word to you.
When he can no longer ignore your presence without it becoming obvious, he comes and sits close by, all cuddly and snug, and then finds fault with your responsiveness. This from a man who says a quick Hi and pounces on the remote to switch to the sports channel.

That, my friend, is when you know, that he's been somewhere where he was treated real nice, smothered with food and adoration. That, my friend, is when you know he's been with....... your in-laws.

(Oops! Did you think I meant “the other woman” when I said cheating?)

Follow your bliss, Ma

2009-05-05T10:45:00.005+05:30

The other day a friend of a friend made a statement in connection with long-suffering wives - “What are these women afraid of? Losing their marriage?” Even if losing their marriage was not in the offing, the possibility of poisoning it probably drives most long-suffering women. I've seen this happen in my Mom.

My mother, bless her, has many characteristics that I find terribly annoying. But the one I loathe and despise above all is her defeatist attitude. As the daughter of an extremely dynamic man, who wielded total domestic control, my mother was taught submission from the cradle. And she simply didn't explore her choices - ever.

She is so smart, she had 5 different job offers simultaneously when she graduated. She chose to work in banking. But my Dad handles all the banking of our family. He tells her where to invest and how much and how money will be spent.

My Dad, who is a great person in his own way, but has his fair share of chauvinism, has always made her career choices for her. “Don't take this promotion, don't opt for that opening.” She sat and watched as colleagues moved on – resentfully.

He tells her which of her friends she can talk to and when, what serials she can watch, and which of her family members can visit or call her. He listens in on her phone conversations and offers to take messages for her, even when she's available to talk. He accompanies her everywhere and she hates being under the microscope all the time.

Dad has always made all the big and small decisions in our lives. What clothes to buy, where to shop, what we will eat, how our house will be furnished, what our kitchen should look like and what it should have, what colour our walls and tiles will be, what maids are appointed and when they will be fired.

At 62, Mummy doesn't know how to use the remote control, how to fill out a Tax Form, what is going on politically, what are the fashion trends or the unlock code on the phone so she make an international call to my sister in Chicago. She has no idea how to pay the electricity or phone bill, how to shop for groceries, what is my husband's phone number, how to drive a car, what money is invested where... Nothing. All her life she has been putting her signatures whereever she was asked to.

And it's not that she's resigned or happy about this situation – she resents it like hell. But why doesn't she do anything about it? She's like “Oh, Papa will not like it.” And I'm like... "You know Mom, you're 62. You could die tomorrow. And you wouldn't have done one thing to make your life happy because 'Papa wouldn't like it'.”

Some time back, I tried teaching her to use a remote control. She was so grateful she was crying. “Wow! Now I can watch my serial from the beginning without waiting for Papa to come home. Sometimes he goes out and forgets to switch to Asianet before he leaves.” “You should have tried it yourself,” I said, feeling like I'd opened a cage and released a bird.

Next thing I know Dad comes home, sees Mum's new familiarity with the remote and says, “Now what? You're going to mess the TV up like you spoiled our washing machine?” Twenty years ago, our second-hand washing machine conked out because it short circuited when my Mum was running it. She's obviously still not done paying the price for that one!

I was really angry at him. But you know what? I wouldn't let a wet blanket ruin my life for good. I may let it happen occasionally and maybe for a while, but permanently, no way. Of course, he criticises her every time she tests her wings. Of course, he doesn't ever want her to find out that paying electricity bills and filling tax forms and STD unlock codes and choosing groceries are not such great shakes anyways.

With a really tiny friends circle, the last thing he wants is for my Mom to spend time with her own group. He'd feel left out, so he tags along, finds something to criticise and tells her to avoid her friends. This makes sure that he has his elaborate meals on the table on time, every time, every day. That she's bored out of her mind the rest of the time, is really not his concern. Fair enough. But shouldn't it be her concern? Shouldn't she care about herself?

She's just too old and too gray to play dumb blonde. And what is she afraid of? Not losing her marriage; no. She's scared of making mistakes. And never hearing the end of it. And she sits in her tower like a damsel in distress twiddling her thumbs and hoping for a quick rescue. Both the Grim Reaper and Yama are welcome, she says. But I wish, that just once before either pay a visit she has the opportunity to find and follow her bliss.

Getting in touch with my evil side

2009-05-05T09:54:00.007+05:30

For a person who's so vitriolic in my writing, I tend to be pretty easy-going in real life. When anyone is obnoxious, I prefer to ignore it rather than deal with it. All my life, I've reasoned that I can deal with the shitty stuff better than they can.

Even when someone really pisses me off, I've never said in so many words, “Now this thing you're doing is intrusive/unfair/mean. It is annoying. Stop it.” I've pretended not to notice it or laugh at it or wiggle out of the situation or admit I'm annoyed without attributing the cause to the annoyer.

If I were close to the person, I'd probably say it but camouflage it in a lot of other stuff - “I'm annoyed because I'm A and B and C and D and you're doing X and Z is doing Y and M is sick.” The important part - “you're doing X” - is lost in the melee.

This has been me all my life and I've pretty much been able to handle it, because I thought that telling people off and seeing them upset is going to throw me off balance a lot more than the mean/unfair thing they're doing/saying to me.

Then suddenly a couple of weeks back, I had a sort of rebirth experience. It's been coming on for a while now – ever since I have more time for reflection and self-analysis. I realised that putting up with trashy behaviour is beginning to eat me from the inside out; perhaps, I should just tell people where to draw the line. Setting examples, being nice, pretending not to notice – none of these were working for me.

After this rebirth experience, I accepted that I'm not JC and I'm going to go for it. Over the last two weeks I've told everyone around me exactly why what they did/said was unacceptable. Not what they've been doing historically, of course. That would be too much for them. But what they were doing right then when I told them off.

Of course, as I expected, they've been hurt and probably are doing some soul searching. But you know what? I don't feel bad about hurting them as I thought I would. Perhaps I am a tiger in a lambskin and that was was getting to me more than anything. Now I can say what I really feel – as nicely as possible – and feel good even though the person I'm talking to looks like he/she has been stabbed.

After all, if one of us has to feel terrible why not them? Why me? Oh! I feel so good! I'm not Ms. Nice Girl. And I'm glad. Please God, let me stay this way. This is SO LIBERATING!!!! All you pseudo-doormats out there, try it!!!

Attacking assimilation

2009-05-04T11:17:00.024+05:30

This post originates in three conversations I had over the past week with three completely diverse people. Two of them are in inter-religious marriages. The first couple have been in love in like... forever and she was talking about how nervous she was about having kids because they've been increasingly fighting over kids and religion.

Now I assume that somewhere over the last 18-19 years, one of them would say something like, "You know, honey, would it be OK by you if our kids were raised as Religion Xites." I mean, there's only so many sweet nothings you can say. At some point the Big Talk would creep in, you would think.

But no, they apparently never talked about whether or when they wanted kids or what religion such kids would be raised in. The guy is a 'non-practising' (if such a word exists) Hindu, while the woman is a practising Christian, so he was kind of "I don't care" about the religion, so she assumed he'd be OK with her raising the kids as Christians.

Suddenly, three years into a marriage – and after they've been together practically all their lives, the Big Talk comes up. She wants the kids to be raised in her faith because she believes what she's talking about; and he's agnostic. The guy wants any potential kids to be raised as Hindus - because his parents want them to be raised as Hindus. I can understand a Christian-agnostic argument here. But a Hindu-Christian one?

The religion fight is even seeping into home decor. The guy thinks that with his wife's JC-themed paraphernalia shouldn't be hanging all over the house because his parents are appalled by the idea of walking into a room and confronted by crosses and verses and JC pictures. You see the trend.. She makes her choices. He makes his parents choices.

Now the second couple – also in an inter-religion marriage – have more or less decided long ago on religion, lifestyles and choices – both of themselves and of kids they may have. Since they live away from both parental families – such issues don't come up on a daily basis. But when they do, practically the same situation crops up again – and again.

“Just do X or Y for my parents sake. You don't need to do it everyday. Just when they're around. Just pretend,” the guy reasons. As if she signed up for acting class when they got married. Not that he changes his lifestyle when they meet her parents. "But then, your parents don't expect me to,” he says. Fine! Just because her parents act their age and don't believe that the whole world should adopt their choices, he gets away?

The third couple have been in this process long enough. They've been married over 40 years ago. The woman – when she started off – was educated and wanted a job. Her husband's family “forbade" her from pursuing a career.

Now, 4 decades later, she doles out advice about how her “sacrifices” kept the extended family together. “I did my duty. I took shit from all my in-laws,” she said, “I have worked for the family and because I ignored all the unfairnesses dealt to me, the family is still together. If I had thought about my respect, this family would have split up long ago.” I mean, who the hell really cares!

Meeting this woman in her family set-up makes it clear that she has mindlessly done all her in-laws wanted her to; she still tries to keep up all the traditions of the past, restraining the rest of the clan from moving on with their lives and the times, just as she was restrained.

She has a host of relatives and acquaintances acquired by marriage, but no soulmate. I didn't see a single friend who reached out to her because they wanted to. Everyone came because “it is duty.” The younger members of the family resent her; even her children and her spouse have mentally moved on. She's stuck in a time warp and she doesn't even know it.

She was assimilated and made the sacrificial goat – someone to do all the work and take all the shit. And she thinks this is her duty. Of course, she's probably going to go straight to heaven if God values someone who shortchanges herself so much to be overly nice to other people. But if heaven were full of soppy people, I'd hesitate to go there.

These three women represent to me a large proportion of womanhood in India. None of these couples moved out, to practice their faith (or lack thereof) in peace. No, Heaven forbid! They're doing their "duties" and staying with the old folks - either physically or mentally. Now I really can't understand how long a couple can stay happy as long as one of them is making all his big choices based on another couple (his parents). What if both played the same game?

It's just taken for granted in this country that you do what the guy's family wants – always. Interference from the girl's family is never tolerated. Why can't it be the same for both? If he refuses to take his in-laws' suggestions, it just shows how clear-headed he is, but if she refuses to submit to his in-laws' hints, just shows how arrogant she is. Extreme conservatives will go so far as to teach her her place, so she does not forget her "aukaad."

Men in conservative societies such as ours feel compelled to do any and all unreasonable things their parents ask them to – all their lives. They are also quite ruthless about expecting their wives and kids to do the same. Forget that the said son went through teenage rebellion in his early 30s and married the woman who was “intellectual” and “good-hearted” and “broad-minded” and “dynamic” and so diametrically the opposite of what his family wanted for him.

He then proceeds to make his wife pay the price of that one act of rebellion, by killing her personality and making her grovel to his family all her bloody life. She acts as the bridge over which his estranged parents run to make up with the prodigal son. In the enthusiastic re-union, she gets trampled over until her intellect tells her that she is in an insane situation and her “good heart” and “broad mind” are poisoned.

Neither the in-laws nor the oblivious spouse care – or even notice. The good husband tries to soften the process of incorporating her into “HIS FAMILY.” An uncaring one doesn't even bother to do that. I don't know how so many men can expect their wives to behave in ways that would be completely unacceptable to themselves.

Somewhere, at some time, perhaps we need perhaps to stop “assimilating” the bahu into the guy's family and just let her be what she signed up for. Someone's wife. Assimilation is so not good. And it's unhealthy. Assimilation is “To make similar; cause to resemble”; “To consume and incorporate into the larger unit.”

If you want a woman (or a man) that you can “consume” or “make similar to” you, then go marry one of the members of your own family, I say! They'll need no painful assimilation process. You can go right on treating them the way you always did and they'll get all the inside family jokes.

If you decide to go find a woman (or a man) from another family/background and choose to marry her/him, then just lump the differences and live with it. Trying to make all your choices based on what your parents think is plain stupid.

The wisest person I've ever met in this context was a 59-year old Tamil Brahmin man whose son fell in love with a Hungarian girl. So the son brings down this girl to "meet the parents." She's dressed in Indian clothes and learning Tamil and he presents her to his Mom as a potential student and practiser of all their family rituals.

"Don't be stupid, both of you" says the wise father. "You love her for who she is, not for her clothes or her religion or her language. Let her be who she is. That's the only way she can be comfortable. If you wanted a wife who wears sarees and doesn't drink and talks Tamil and knows our rituals, you should have found one just like that. Why marry someone different and try to make her into a version of who we are. Be broad-minded enough to accept her for who she is."

To me this man will always remain the embodiment of maturity, tolerance, and respect for others. "It's important in Hinduism that your thoughts, words and actions are aligned," he explained later. "How can I expect another person to act the way that I think? She can only act the way she thinks."

He made the choice to let his daughter-in-law be who she was, knowing full well that she was willing to make changes because she loved his son. To know you have the option to make someone change to suit you - and then NOT exercise that option! Wow! That to me is the ultimate respect you can show to your fellow human beings.

P.S.: Someone who read this post asked me if I was advocating that elderly or sick parents be abandoned. Hell, no! It's a great thing to care for your family and relatives. But I believe that just because someone is older, does not mean that they make all the decisions in your home. It is your home.

While I wouldn't think twice about caring for anyone - friend, relative, family member - who's older or ill, I think that cannot be an excuse to dictate the way I live and what I or my family does in our home. We're all adults here and we all need to treat each other that way.

Suriya Spotting

2009-04-21T01:13:00.007+05:30

I think I fell good and hard for Suriya when Anbuchelvam IPS began narrating the flashback in Kaakha Kaakha. And after that, I always thought that I'd like to be with someone like that. Not Suriya, the actor of course, about whom I know nothing, but Anbuchelvam IPS. Quiet, confident, mature, controlled.

Of course, if someone like that liked me back, the bad guys would kidnap me, behead me and pack me in a trunk. The idea of my neck and a knife being anywhere within 3 feet of each other terrifies me. So, whenever I despaired of meeting anyone remotely resembling Anbuchelvam, believe me, that thought offered consolation.

When I first moved to Hyderabad, before my kitchen was set up, I went with an ex-colleague and neighbor to the local “A-1 Tea Stall” to pick up a flask of tea; we were served by an amazingly polite, cultured Suriya-lookalike. I was thrilled at the resemblance and ever afterwards craned my neck out of the cab or auto whenever we passed the shop. But I never succeeded in spotting the guy again. The ex-colleague always tried to convince me that it was probably the man himself rehearsing a teashop boy role. Yeah right!

And then last week, a guest walked in just as we were walking out, so we downscaled our shopping/dinner-out thing to a shopping/take-out thingy. The weekend supplement had just carried an article about people going hungry to bed (not because they were on a diet) and I had made up my mind against eating at expensive restaurants. So when the spouse was debating on where we could order food from – Aromas of China or the local (inexpensive) dhaba, I was rooting for the low-cost dhaba (“I don't feel right about paying 1000 bucks for a meal in a land of the starving.”)

So there I was, standing near the escalator at City Center, when Suriya walked in (in a white shirt tucked into jeans, if anyone else is interested.) A un-mustachioed, stubbled, less-sleek version of Anbuchelavam IPS. The same brisk walk, the amused am-I-smiling-am-I-not smile. For a minute I thought he was smiling at me. Then I realised it was probably at corkscrew-curled Little K. (Oh! These younger women!) It took me a couple of minutes to get my breath; self-denial forgotten, I dragged spouse and baby up the escalator in hot pursuit.

Then I had a sudden onslaught of guilt and told the mate that I'd seen Suriya. He was like.. “Oh! That Ghajini guy? I hope people leave him alone. This is probably the only city where he can go outside without being mobbed by stupid people who don't respect privacy.” I'm usually with him on that one, so I was like nodding and thanking God that I wasn't one of the “stupid people” (though I almost acted like one). The mate's good opinion is crucial to my emotional well-being.

Of course, I knew that it was very unlikely that Aromas of China was his destination. More likely Firangi Paani next door was. I had a mad desire that I should probably have my life's first drink that night. Then I dismissed aforementioned desire as silly idea. But still, the realisation that Anbuchelvam was probably chilling out a few feet away made me sit smiling beatifically at the world while replaying Kaakha Kaakha in my mind.

And, I felt elevated all week and watched Vaaranam Aayiram and rewatched Sillunu Oru Kadhal and bought Surya s/o Krishna (the Telegu version of Vaaranam Aayiram) at the local store. All Suriya movies (for those not in the know.) I know. I am an exceedingly silly woman sometimes!

Impotent rage

2009-04-10T23:55:00.006+05:30

Rushing by in a car on a busy road on my way to the hospital with Little K, I saw a man beating a woman with a broom. The woman and two children – probably aged between 2 and 5 were scattering as he came at her. There was such terror on the children's faces; defiance chased impotent rage on hers.

I prayed hard that he dies today. I pray that all the men who beat the women in their lives die today. Please God, let those women be free. And no, I don't care what was the provocation. Beating an adult is just wrong.

So, Mumbai....

2008-12-02T01:49:00.006+05:30

I thought about whether I should blog about Mumbai as well. I felt that the 183 people dead in Mumbai have provided enough 'content' - both visual and audio - to thousands of magazines, scores of newspapers and tens of news channels already. Their loved ones have provided sound bytes and touching visuals and video clips to all of the above – specifically the last named. Is it fair to ask more of them? Could we stretch it a little more and use them as blog fodder as well? It seemed exploitative and so I didn't want to write about Mumbai.
There seemed something so terrible about stealing their tragedy for my blog. Nothing I write can change the fact that someone's spouse, someone's child, someone's sibling is dead or dying. Nothing I say can feel or heal their pain. It is theirs alone. They have to live with it for the rest of their days.

And then someone told me that I should write about how ordinary people suddenly become stories. One day, you're a normal person... walking, talking, eating, laughing, making love... And the next day, something terrible happens to you and you're fodder for the media. Your family is hounded and fed into its cruel gaping mouth as well. And then just as suddenly as you were caught up and masticated, you and your loved ones are spat out, as new food comes along. And you are all left – hurt, damaged, disoriented, shamed.... to gather your rags about you and find shelter and healing as far from the public eye as possible. Why does this happen? We, the viewers, are responsible.

We are seduced by the media into believing that we are 'doing something' by just watching events as they unfold. Somewhere in the need to vicariously share the pain of the thousands of victims and survivors of the Mumbai attacks, we sat glued to our television sets, as anchors brought us a live account of the 'unfolding tragedy.' We shook our heads at the sight of the escaping survivors of the attack – and failed to notice the media hounding them for soundbytes.

We were shocked by the visuals of the dead and the wounded, the smiling terrorists, the shattered windowpanes, the broken glass everywhere, the blood everywhere, the ownerless slippers, the remains of the taxi, the weeping relatives, the fallen crockery - (“someone's last meal”), the flames, the smoke, the vans of the NSG and the police, the helicopters of the commandos, the fire-engine of the firefighters, the curtains tied together and hanging out of hotel windows, the raft in which the terrorists were alleged to have arrived, the surging crowds, the daring commandos storming the buildings, the hospitals, the ambulances, the funerals.....

We listened with approval as Shoba De took on the politicians, with contempt as sundry political leaders condemned the blasts, with snugness when Pakistan seemed to cow down as India beat her chest and roared, with disapproval as Pakistan slithered out of it the very next day with a suavity that speaks much for her political savviness, with shame as Westerners pitied our poor emergency preparedness and the lack of equipment among our policemen and rescue personnel, with pride as we heard of hotel personnel who gave their lives so that guests might live, with sorrow as family members cried over their dead, with anger as sundry Mumbaikars said “We are very angry. We must do something and do it ourselves,” with lumps in our throats as silence was observed and candles lit in memory of those who lost their lives....

We listened and we watched and we talked about it. Then, we listened and we watched and we talked some more about it. It is 5 days now since the attacks began; 2 since they ended. We're still listening and we're watching and we're talking some more about it. Updates come every second on television. And we're still wallowing in it all. Channels have no dearth of content as they dig out fresh angles and new bereaved, and more survivors to ask them how they're feeling.

183 dead people (civilians and rescue personnel and terrorists all included), their pain, their plans – sensible and misguided, the gaping holes left in their families, their loved ones trying hard to comprehend a way and a reason to carry on.... They are lost somewhere in the middle of the media race to be the first with the pictures, to be the channel with the most interviews and the most startling story of them all.

Being a dispenser of “taaza khabar” is difficult - no matter what the frequency of your publication - for the simple reason that real news is not always happening around you. Competing publications/channels have similar sources/resources. It is almost impossible to the *only* dispenser of any item of news; it is difficult enough to be the first on the scene. And when you have the added pressure of being a round-the-clock news channel, you have no choice but to create and redefine what news really is. The hottest news today may be a woman having a cat fight with her husband's mistress, tomorrow - the US election, day after - a political assassination.

Trying to shove anything down the throats of viewers and claiming that they are doing them a service is deception. There is an attack on in Mumbai. How much do I, as a regular Indian citizen, need to know more than that at the moment? A list of guests, hostages, survivors would help. Just to check if someone I know is there. A helpline. So I know where to call so I can reach them. Anything more than that is voyeurism. Why do we watch with bated breath as the spectacle of death and destruction is played over and over again? Can't we wait for the analysis, the solutions and the interviews to come later - to use a favourite news channel cliche "after the dust has settled"?

How would speculation on whether a terrorist in a blurred picture has dilated eyes and could be on psychotropic drugs help anyone? How would seeing the agitated crowds and hearing the gunshots and the explosions help anyone? How would hearing one hundred people talking about how they were feeling help anyone? How would knowing sensitive information on the plans of the commandos help anyone? And how would my knowing all of this help them - the rescue personnel or the victims? Under the delusion that all this is of some benefit, we watch the gross intrusion into pain and sorrow and believe that the media is going to do great things by bringing us live coverage.

What have the news channels really done for India in recent times? In individual cases, highlighting people who need medical care or financial help has opened the purses of philanthropists and given help where it was needed, public opinion drummed up by the media has reopened cases that were wrongly closed. Other than a few such cases, what has the media really done? In the thousands of stories that it covers, nothing has changed. Nothing has been achieved. One story has just been swept under the deluge of other stories that are presented for our viewing pleasure.

To do this much, the media does not need to stick its microphone into a bereaved person's face and ask, “Now that you've lost your spouse/child/parent/colleague, how are you feeling?” It does not need to hound those that are running for their lives with their children and try to get an inside picture of “what it was like”. It does not need to stalk around blast sites asking sundry commandos, “Is it over? No terrorists?” and then assure us “I asked the commando there. He gave me a thumbs up sign. There are no terrorists. So it looks like we're all clear here,” and do exactly the same thing 4 times in 10 minutes? And we're not talking about looping and replaying clips here. I'm talking about repeatedly asking the same thing to 4 people in the same location. Just look at the inanity of it all! As for looping and replaying, I'm not even going to go in that direction. Honestly, how many commandos need to give the thumbs up sign for us to be convinced that it's over?

Hundreds of debates have already been held, thousands have spoken passionately about what politicians should and should not do. Silences have already been observed for the dead in newsrooms across the country. When will there be debates on what the media should and should not do? When will the media show its respect for the dead and the pain of their families by observing silence. Give them time to grieve. I am content with letting them be with their pain. Do not intrude into it and tell me you're doing it for my benefit or their benefit. If you are doing it for our benefit, define this benefit – in specific terms.

I'm not saying don't give information. Do. But, please, dispense information only when it's definite and useful. I mean, for about 12 hours they kept telling us that there was only 1 terrorist left in the Taj. And that he was injured. They made him seem like some some sort of hydra. He was engaging commandos in encounters on the 2^nd floor, the 3^rd floor and the 4^th floor at the same time! And then it turns out there were three. You're not even sure of your facts and you're talking. Wait! Tell us when you're sure. Doing an analysis and coming up with an action plan afterwards seems so much more to the point than giving out rumours and half truths and evasions and reruns.

When it's over, and the bereaved and the survivors have time to breathe, give them the choice to come tell their story. This is a free nation. Why hound them when they're vulnerable and just want to leave? I thought there was some distinction between the serious press and the paparazzi? Are the lines all blurred now? Are they all tabloids?

If you want to make a difference, take action. Get community policing started, form action groups in schools and colleges, at least release public interest ads in your own channels about recruitment into the forces, set up a fund. You plead with the politicians not to take political mileage out of a tragedy. And you take content mileage out of it. You want political parties to unite and work towards added security measures. Unite with other news channels and take policy decisions not to benefit out of other people's pain. Nobody wants their 15 minutes of fame as a bullet ridden body on a stranger's TV screen. Nobody wants their heartbroken families to be harassed by the media.

And you of the media know this. And despite that, there is the need to fill up 24X7X365 with something – anything. And something that is more startling and more controversial than what someone else is offering. You're all trying to be the Ekta Kapoors of news. Mirror-Mirror-on-the-wall.-Who-has-the-most-sordid-story-of-them-all syndrome. If content still rules compassion, then at least don't be hypocritical enough to pretend that you're doing anyone a service. You're a business. Like the neighbourhood kirana shop owner. You're in it for the money. Don't pretend otherwise. It makes me want to puke.

Spaces

2008-12-01T03:06:00.007+05:30

My aunt is dying in a hospital in Kerala. My mother is there with her. As are several more of her sisters. Her children are there with her. Sundry relatives come and go. People call – twice, thrice a day to ask for updates. I am not there. I call when in the middle of my busy time and my leisure time, memories of her suddenly creep up. When I look around at something and it reminds me of some moment that I shared with her. Despite this, I am at peace. With myself and with her.

My mother called today to remind me that I should call her family because one of my cousins "calls them thrice a day." She is working and has two school going kids and an obviously busier schedule than me. I assure her that I've been calling and talking to different people – her daughter-in-law, one of her sons, her sister-in-law, another of my aunts.... My mother was offended that no one mentioned that I'd been calling. My cousin's thrice-a-day calls were noticed. Mine were swept under the carpet. She was sorry that my enquiries didn't get more publicity. I did care and no one noticed.

I listened to the diatribe. And I was happy I was far away. That I wasn't on the spot. Once more I felt alone and cut off from those I loved and who apparently loved me the most. Because we were so different from each other. Our values, our priorities, our lives, our choices. To me, it really didn't matter whether or not people knew that I cared about my aunt. I called when I remembered. I didn't remember in a thrice-a-day-everyday way like my cousin did. I remembered once a day. Sometimes once in two days. And when I remembered, and wanted to know if she was better, I called to ask how she was.

I didn't want to talk to the most significant person who would remember my call and make sure everyone else did. I wanted to talk to those who would really like to talk with me about her. I wanted to talk to her younger son – who once used to be a favourite cousin of mine and who is not exactly the most emotionally strong or stable person of the family. I wanted to talk to his wife – who everyone despised because she converted him to Pentecostalism. They'd rather he remained a playboy.

I wanted to talk to my aunt's most insignificant sister-in-law. Her husband's youngest and ugliest sister, who'd been thrown out of her marital home. My aunt (who was widowed early) and this neglected woman that no one really wanted, set up home together and stayed together for the last 36 years. If something happened to my aunt, this lady would have to start her life anew, again. She may even have to move in with one of the other family members whom she's not as comfortable with. And at this age. She's nearly 70 now. Not exactly the time to start over with enthusiasm. If anyone will really miss my aunt, this woman will, for she has so much to lose.

And so, I spoke to these people. And I'm glad I spoke to them. I don't mind that they didn't make my call a topic of conversation. In the larger scheme of my aunt's possible death, what does that matter? Most of the family though don't have the luxury of thinking in this direction. They feel the need-to-be-on-the-spot, sense-of duty-kind of caring. And I felt glad that I was far away from all of this. That is the advantage of being in a city where no one you grew up with with lives around you. The pressure to do something because if-I-don't-do-it-what-will-people-think is less. I do more things because I want to and less from a sense of duty.

With a tube down her throat and on ventilator support, these petty politics matter little to my aunt. Whether she survives this or not, to me she will always be what she has always been. An agreeable, pleasant lady with a fierce love for her children. A strong woman who weathered some pretty hard times and raised 4 kids on a small salary. Who always says “kozhappamilla saaramilla” (It's alright. it doesn't matter) to every little and big unpleasantness that she met on life's way. I do wish I could have seen more of her. And that she has more time so we can perhaps meet again. But, if she's dying, it doesn't matter if I'm not "in at the death."

There's something about being away that brings that kind of objectivity; that allows you to come into your own as a person; that gives you the space to be an adult – making your own choices (good and bad) and living with them; that makes every moment more your own than if you had a host of disapproving elders peeping over you and puppeteering your moves. No wonder when you meet a person away from their home towns, you often find them completely different from what they seemed to be 'back home'. There are no labels on them as yet. Whatever labels they have are predominantly of their own making.

Being away allows you to be more true to yourself and know yourself a lot more than being supervised. It allows your actions to match closer with your thoughts than when you have extended family around. I wonder how many people around my aunt's bed today are people who truly want to be there. And how many are there because it-would-look-so-bad-if-they-weren't. I wonder how many calls about her health are because people want to know how she is. How many are because of the it-would-look-so-bad-if-I didn't-call syndrome.

Being away takes you away from the what-will-people-think scheme as well. People will still think, of course. They'll think that I don't care. That I'm too caught up in my new life. That the spouse has kept me in some sort of house arrest. But I'm too far away to hear the gossip and sense the disapproval. It has so little impact on my life. I would even be unaware of it if my mom didn't tell me about it. But she's in the thick of it, poor dear. She needs to “keep face.” She needs to make sure that everyone knows that her kids too, care. I wonder if she would have been a different person if she had been away. If she'd have been able to be more of herself than more of what she was expected to be. I wonder if she'd have been a lot more content and happy.

Intrusiveness

2008-10-17T10:34:00.005+05:30

The mate can work remotely from home and often does so to save commuting time. I've been home with the baby for a while now. The neighbours and apartment staff simply can't seem to get over it. Curiosity over our source of income abounds.

We obviously pay the rent. With 2 malls within walking distance and 4 others within a 4 km radius, we do a lot of impulse shopping. And eating out. The kids are pretty well dressed. Kind of regular metro life. Except that no one sees either of us sweating it out. Occassionally the mate drops in at the office.

So Ken – the most social of us all – gets the most number of questions. Who works? As what? Where? When does he go to office? How much does he get? Ken, who always becomes incoherent while answering questions, gives any vague answer that comes to his mind so the questioners are left in a more chaotic mental state than before.

The mate who believes in being polite but firm about his privacy, never gives out information except on a need-to-know basis. The intrusive people who see him making small talk at the apartment's social gatherings are flummoxed by their complete inability to get him to move from the general to the specific. He might talk about the software industry till the rivers all run dry without mentioning a word about his own work, or pay, or career path. If they become intrusive, he has no qualms about telling them that that is not their business – in exactly those words, with the same polite smile thrown in to soften the blow. People stop there.

Kaavya of course has nothing more to say right now other than Ta-ta, Pa-ba and mmmaaa unless, of course, she's scolding us in a language that closely resembles Chinese.

That leaves me. And in me is the weak link. I combine an equally great love of privacy with a convent education which emphasized so much on politeness to lesser beings that I could probably hold a conversation with the Devil over my soul and not piss him off. I might even end up giving in just so that I'm not offensive. In a word, I'm a coward about telling people to fuck off.

I assume that most people know that private stuff is private. I even assume that if I don't ask people their cultural background, religious stand, salaries, career plan, and family troubles, they won't ask me mine. I go to the extent of assuming that when people ask me intrusive questions and I present them with evasive answers, they will get the message and stop probing. e.g.: “How much does your husband earn?”

“Enough to get by.”

“Still, there must be an amount.”

“There must.”

“How much?”

“I don't know.”

“You don't know? How can you not know?”

“I've never asked. I've always been taught that it's bad manners to ask people their salaries.” (Note broad hint on their own manners here...)

“Still.... You can tell me, you know.”

One can imagine the above conversation in the context of a village where people are “more natural” and haven't acquired the “polish” of the city. But in a metro? And educated software professional type people? I just don't get it.

Even my maid gets asked by sundry other neighbours about how much she gets paid, what kind of person I am to work for, how I treat her and what kind of work does she do here, and why does she spend so much time at my place, and why does she work at my place when she bunks work in their houses. She's good at evasiveness and is an unusually cultured and polite individual who doesn't gossip about the goings on. But she casually mentioned the questioning other day and set me fuming.

I took Kaavya for a walk downstairs the other day and was tormented in this fashion by the watchman, various neighbour women who stopped by to pinch Kaavya's cheek and then ask me these questions. This, exactly is the reason, is why my door is locked at all times and I keep so much out of the apartment social circle that people think I'm either a leper or a Bertha Mason types or that I'm not in town.

I know many couples enjoy talking about how they met up, but the mate and I really think that it's our own business. It's just a part of our life that's special to us and “all and sundry” is really not whom we want to discuss it with. At first I didn't even realise how protective I felt about this until I told someone the story and he used it like a formula to promote his own love story – with all the grace of a bear trying to imitate Sasha Cohen. Since then, I have resolved to stick to the mate's formula “That's a long story.”

Honestly, it's really not like this stuff is going to bring down goverments or make an impact on Wall Street. It's just that our life, however small and insignificant in the larger scheme of things, is really important to us and we're not about to dish it out for the janta to discuss, review, comment upon, misunderstand, empathise, or even imitate.

There is such a thing as privacy. What does it matter whether we work or what we work as or how we met or what we do, as long as we are not waking up the neighbours. It's tiresome and irritating in the extreme. The next time someone drives me crazy with the interrogation I swear I'm going to spin them a tale that will burn their ears.

My favourite one so far is from the film "Honeymoon Travels." Boman Irani and Shabana Azmi are travelling with a group of honeymooners. Obviously, they excite a lot of curiosity among their tourmates primarily because they're both over 50. A tourist asks Shabana their love story and Boman answers with this tale.

“I was looking out of the window and saw this beautiful woman at the other window. Then suddenly, there was turbulence. Did I mention that we were both on planes flying parallel to each other? Anyways, there was turbulence and we all had to parachute down. There we were, the two of us parachuting down slowly towards the earth. She from her plane. I, from mine. That's how we met.” I like this one very much. I think I'll use it.

Hair troubles again

2008-10-16T10:58:00.004+05:30

Obsessive as I am about my hair, I am more so about my kids hair. I never want them to be outcasts in school because they reek of coconut oil (everyday) or have the lamest hairstyle ever invented to plague a child's life out. I take into consideration head shape, hair texture, face shape and God knows else when I get a haircut for Ken.

The parlours charge a bomb for a bad job and hate parental interference, so I stick to hair cutting saloon where I can bully my way into a decent haircut. There was a close to our previous house, where the barbers perfectly understood exactly what I wanted and did it for me – everytime – despite my horrible Hindi and Telugu skills. In the new place, I am yet to find a suitable place.

The spouse's hair styling mantra can be summed up as “let it grow and then cut it as close as possible so that it take a long time to grow again.” He suggests I do the same for Ken. Any old barber can do a crew cut, he says. What he fails to see tough, is that he has a gorgeous shaped head on which a crew cut looks nice. On Ken's bumpy head, the same cut simply doesn't have anything close to the same effect. He merely looks like a welfare child.

With a vacation coming up, I was driven by desperation to cut Ken's hair myself. I did a really good job – even though I say so myself – razoring the sideburns, close cutting on the sides and leaving longer layers on top and over his forehead. The style looked so perfectly nice on him – for two days.

Pleased with my performance with the razor and scissors, the compliments going to his head, the child decided to go ahead and paint the lily, so to speak. He tried shaving off more of his sideburns and ended up shaved patches all over his head. He said nothing to me, replacing razor and scissors in place and pretending that nothing happened. Of course, I could not avoid noticing the large irregular patches appearing amidst the jet black of his hair and for a minute I wondered if he was losing clumps of hair. Then I realised that it was the razor. I taxed him with it and he confessed.

I was dumbstruck that anyone could do this to themselves. The spouse decreed that Ken was not leaving the house looking like that. Shave it off or stay in your room till it all grows back, he said. Even the maid pitched in her two pence by laughing at the mess he had made of his hair. So it was off with his hair for the child. He came back, shorn of the locks and the new hairstyle I gave him, having received a earful from the barber who was somewhat shocked at the disastrous result of the DIY project.

So that spells the end of Kevin's vanity and my pride. The only bright spot I can see right now is that, at least, he had sense enough to leave Kaavya's spiral curls alone. Having all my life wished for a child with spiral curls, I could not have borne the damaging of that dream-come-true.