No second act

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Whoever said women were permitted only one act in a lifetime?

Do twenty extra kilos, remnants of an invasive surgery, dental supplements and some somnolent muscles mean you are done for in this life? Would it be fair to say that you are now past your peak and prime, having discharged your primary obligations of parenting and being a supportive spouse? Could there be more to look forward to in addition to grand-parenthood and paying back your dues to the generation before, both very desirable and welcome albeit.

Oh yes, there was a  time when you were squaring with sleepless hours, aching muscles, palpitating heart, nervous requests, wary expectations, and endless neglect of the self. The loci were always outside of you. There were priorities. Is the family healthy? Are the relatives congenial enough? Are you in an OK equation with the colleagues? Could you have chartered your primary relationship better? Have you been nice enough, warm enough, positive enough, pleasing enough, non-demanding enough, adjusting enough, mature enough, sensible enough?

Of course you have. As a woman, you have paid heed to what the world outside told you for the better part of your life, so much so that you tuned out all the voices that ever clamoured inside of you. They would have receded, becoming a whisper before fading out completely. But they are coming back now, are they? They are coming at you with a vengeance, telling you that you owed yourself the same authentication that you have been preaching your mother and your daughters?

There is no mention of these voices in the description of the four Vedic ashramas of life but I hear them too! And they are telling me surprising things. They discount that this is the time to take it easy, throttle back, relax and enjoy the well-earned lull. They claim my best years lie ahead of me. They say this is my consolidation age. They assure me it is not too late to get myself into shape. Playing roles is all OK but where is your definition of the real you, they ask. It would be harakiri to draw my sense of self from those I love, they would have me believe. This is your second act and you are darned lucky to be getting to do one, I am being told.

I admit my first act was shaky. There were milestones to be met. I had people depending on me. I was not friends enough with myself. There were worries, fears, and concerns. I was doing the risking, the motivating and the envisioning. Self-nurture was the last thing on my list, the first priority being to secure a safe nest and get the young into their flight mode.

Was it a sacrifice? Far from it, I would not have had it any other way. Did it leave me fatigued or bitter? Certainly not for it was self-validation at a different level, an evolution of a fundamental nature. It is that experience in fact, of having been responsible for other lives that eventually empowered me with a sense of calm certainty. It put me in a space made for constructive closure.

I have never felt better. When I step out onto the streets, I no longer experience the nauseous lechery of the yore.  I am at home enough in my skin not to be rattled by physical blueprints.  I earn enough to fund my personal whimsies. I can hold my own in any scenario now that I am no longer afraid of embarrassing myself. I have hurt enough to understand that we are all, deep down under, similar in our needs.  I have at long last begun to understand that I cannot pin blame for my lows on others. I am glimpsing more and more the range of possibilities that begin and end with me.

And so, I have decided to pull my projects off the back-burner. It is never too late to learn Golf! If you always dreamed of playing the piano, walk into a school of music right now. Do not listen to anyone who says your bones may not be able to take the Zumba! It is great to want your life to matter and be of some relevance.

Will I ace the second act? I do not know and I do not care. What resonate in my ears are words like these: life is given to us in trust, it is for living. We owe it to ourselves to challenge the self constantly and in so doing grow. The day is about venturing beyond the walls of security we build around ourselves. The more you reach out, the more you reach in. And what else is life about if not reaching out and touching!

Why BDUTT is wrong !

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There is a new profession in town. Criticism! A destructive, no holds barred tearing down of people who are on the rise in their respective fields. And nowhere is it as visible as in the creative arts and the media.

Take Barkha Dutt. Currently on a three month fellowship, in residence at the Brown University, working on her book “The Unquiet Land; Exploring India’s Faultlines”, she fuels an entire industry of noxious denigration. A website called MediaCrooks http://www.mediacrooks.com/  places her at number one on their list of India’s worst journalists. If you look closely, the reasons given are Radiagate, the alleged Kargil and 26/11 journalistic misadventures, her propensity for Pakistan and Rahul Gandhi and the fact that she is the only journalist purported to have a “wardrobe sponsor”. The rest are a lot of words.

Now Barkha Dutt happens to be a “Padma Shri”. She was nominated last year with Sir Richard Attenborough and Ross Kemp for the “International TV Personality of the Year”. She is also a member of the National Integration Council of India and an accomplished conflict zone reporter and TV talk show hostess. About six lakh people follow her on twitter.  She writes a weekly column, has interviewed a range of personalities, was the subject of a Bollywood movie and has won umpteen national and international awards.

This speaks of a huge body of work, by any standards, and spanning only sixteen years.

An objective, fact based, professional criticism would have been understandable but downright muckiness forces one to wonder what exactly is at play here. I read some more and found the author claim at one point that on the stated charter of Medaicrooks , “….there were hundreds of provisions to identify and talk about the crooks but not a single one to identify the good ones or the best in the business.”

So there you are, the online destruction stood justified in view of their mission which was to identify the crooks. And what did they do if they did not find any; they manufactured one!

During a recent “We the People” episode on clinical trials, I began a tweet exchange with Barkha Dutt on her bright yellow dupatta and this is how it evolved:

@BDUTT Lovely yellow dupatta! Potential add on to your signature, a vibrant color everytime but then Mediacrooks will allege distraction.

@Honeysangha  :))) ha ha do you really pay any attention to them. Thanks :)

@BDUTT Hard put to escape the 24/7 spew emanating from these practitioners of the latest profession in town; criticism for its own sake.

@Honeysangha indeed! but I just block and couldn’t care less :-)

@BDUTT This is the age of dis-information or black propaganda. Wise to rebut or to ignore? Ten people call the rose a weed and that it is!

@Honeysangha  disagree completely. If that’s what it takes for a rose to be a weed, so be it. Who cares !

@BDUTT Cheers to that self-assured dismissal! Wish you many more such tweets of well-earned certainty!!

@Honeysangha :))thankee

Now I am a Barkha Dutt fan and had hastened to conclude the above exchange on a positive note but the thought that disinformation needed to be addressed lingered.

I believe there are two categories of people where work is concerned. One kind commits, the other comments; one burns the midnight oil, the other burns their hearts; one has no time or inclination to look around, while that is all the other is doing; one is foolish, the other foolhardy.

There is more. The good workers invariably come wired with a deep seated arrogance that blinds them to the hooks dangling in vicinity. So strong is their faith in personal merit, they are either shocked at or outright dismissive of destructive criticism. Neither is effective. In the excessively networked world we inhabit today, there is no escaping connection. Black propaganda exists and the sheer range and reach of digital media puts it out of the harmlessness of just a couple of people talking rubbish. Disinformation today infects the ether, resounds back into the atmosphere and circles the globe, tearing reputations, undermining good work and leading to huge wastes of human endeavor.

Disinformation deserves to be beaten back. A responsible online conduct needs to be canvassed. We ought to care that so much hate is snaking around the web links. Adults, kids, everybody who gets online needs to be watchful, critical and analytical. Is the website genuine? What is their purpose of existence? Is the information they post accurate, current and comparable?

That there are so many disinformation artists and agents clogging the net-ways is hardly reason enough to give up the desire to hear and speak the truth. Silence can be a very deadly sanction !

Whole

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If there is anything more criminal, more crushing than injustice; it is a denial of its existence. 

I look at the dark clouds hovering over her head, sensing the talons that are tearing apart her sense of reality. The world outside is smiling benignly at her anguish, telling her what a sunny day it is and how wonderful the people who surround her. She is terrifyingly confused. Her voice is weary, there are endless rewinds and forwards in her narration and I sense, in her deeply drawn breaths, the vortex of desperation, down under.

She could be any woman, slowly losing her battle to fit or flee a mould.

I want to shake her and tell her a few things.

They can chip at you, if you let them, are you paying heed?

Humans are like that. They are incomplete entities, in the forever quest of that elusive and final conclusion. In their bodily tissues run the primeval neurons that cry out for constant affirmation.

No one is alone, everyone needs it. They all crave recognition that they are somehow special; an acknowledgement that they are making a difference. The variations are in the mode that they find their reasons in, to go on living.  

Yes, the succour differs. For some, it is meeting serial challenges at work. For others there is the delicious daze of the arts. And who can deny the drugged delight of an hour spent pushing the body. People get high on the company they keep, the things they buy, the stuff they eat. There are the adrenalin fans, the movie buffs, the gourmets, the geeks, the family fanatics, the devotees…they are all good.

But beware!

Beware of the domination junkies. Those who would sink their hooks into your spirits, oh yes believe it or not, they exist. Their fuel is control over others. They like to direct, to shame, to induce guilt, to belittle, to dismiss, and to denigrate. A consistent abuse of life around is a diehard habit. They are the Suns of their systems, in centrifugal command of lives tied to theirs. One might spend years denying the existence of this brand of human transaction; so disarming are these sugar glazed bullies; why, one may find it too offensive to believe it to be true but the phenomenon exists and how!

Who do you think you are? You are going too fast, you will fall! Your clothes or your hair or your colour is not right. Be very very careful, you might fail. You are not good enough for this. You are not worth the money at stake. You may be imagining your pain. Your primary duty is to people around you. You are not beautiful enough, not clean enough, not demure enough, not tolerant enough, not strong enough, not tall enough, and in fact, not human enough! You are imagining the craters; it is all beatific and beautiful. 

These are the signature words of the vampires of the soul, gnawing at your sense of self. Given a chance, they would suck the energy out of you, snapping with one click the will to live. Begin therefore, by acknowledging their existence. Read up, gather information and arm yourself with the knowledge of what you are facing. Banish the self-doubts, the self-effacing fear and step back. Once you have a view of the threat, disconnect it from your aura in one ruthless lance.

That you live is reason enough for you to exist with dignity. You deserve to keep yourself whole, to speak up, to disagree, to be pro-active over your needs, to seek personal fulfilment. You need to realize how remarkable you are and what your true worth is beyond the culture that fails you time and again.

Note: All pics by Aqseer at Hongkong. 

Self before service

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Most Indian parents follow a religion of making available to their kids all they missed out on. Some go a step further; wanting to give their kids all that they did not have plus what they think the next generation should have.

A sport was on one such wish list for our girls. We were clear that they would grow up learning one game at the least. The play field would teach those valuable lessons they would have no opportunity to learn in the classroom, we mused; out there in the rough and tumble, they would learn to stretch and push themselves, was our idealistic rationalization for throwing them into a murky cauldron called Indian sports.

I remember their first swimming trial at the Talkatora indoor swimming pool. The lights were not functional and it was a 50 m pool. We watched the two tiny capped heads, pulling away in the distance, it was a huge expanse of water for them at that young age; Aqseer mentioned years later that she imagined a shark would rise from the depths any moment to set upon them. They cleared the test that day and it was the start of a foray into a world that existed primarily to serve itself.

There were other stadia and a range of sports. The National Stadium, Nehru Stadium, Indira Gandhi Stadium; it did not matter whether it was swimming, gymnastics or boxing….the pattern of self before service remained more or less uniform. The coaches did not teach much, they barely went through the motions of instruction. It was a mass hoax, faintly legalized, thanks to the venues and the stamp of the Sports Authority of India association.

We were in the company of co-sufferers. There were fathers and mothers, so fired with zeal for their children’s sporting dreams that they went beyond the call of duty, becoming a gofer for the coaches, providing administrative and moral support to the stadium community. They drove huge distances on scooters and in buses, waiting long hours outside the games area, planning their child’s diet and training schedules. Many devoted a disproportionate amount of their modest salaries to the needs of their budding champions. They gamely put up with mismanaged competition trips that are a part of the sporting culture in our country.

I have sat there on the hard benches with them, buoyant on the surface but with a sinking feeling of grasping at straws inside. We put up brave faces to the kids as they struggled on their own to make sense of the game someone was being paid to train them in. But the writing was on the wall. The giant edifice, the huge, high roofed spaces, the battery of officials, the VIPs who surfaced during meets, the entire machinery of sports was focused on something other than the sportspersons and their promotion. Themselves!!  

I have known “bhai bandi” to be a given in many fields in our country but the depth it touches in the world of Indian sports is unparalleled. The sports biggies are like family chiefs, ruling a selective fiefdom. There is a corrupt, office for profit brand of symbiosis our sports arenas breed. “You become the Bowling Federation President and we will make my daughter the Rowing Federation Secretary”, is the vein the free for all goes in . Talent and aptitude be damned, international competitions are opportunities for sports heads to take the families on  fully paid for jaunts.

Every time India performs poorly on the field, experts rue the lack of a sporting culture, blaming your typical Indian parents for discouraging their kids from taking up games. Which father or mother would have the heart to put their children through what our Paralympic athletes are suffering currently in England? 

Dance with the winds

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As mesmerizing as the flames of a bonfire or the frothy gurgle of a brook can be the flight of a kite.

I crane my neck to look up in awe at the soaring ship. In my thoughts, I am astride on those fragile paper wings; the breeze in my hair, lashing the strands in a rhythm to match the kite’s fluttering tail. My heart lifts, I feel my body levitate and there is an expansion of being, a broadening, an enlarging of the mind almost, as though ready to hit greater heights.

That bobbing blob of colour could well be my spirit, tethered to the ground with a chord of quivering connections. Quite like the paper bird, flying audacious sorties into unknown and unexplored realms, every minute, and every hour, fighting its own vulnerability and fears. Flapping, getting beaten back, and even losing height in the varying winds but enduring and lifting up on friendly gusts to soar in the end.

My spirit roams the skies today with that lone paper, as I muse, standing on the ground that a day will come when that lethal glue and ground glass line will snap and I am going to float away, into the unknown yonder, all alone, by myself, like that kite I gaze at, leaving behind everything that grounded me. I will be gone but the sky will not stay desolate for long. It will come alive with brighter, stronger, braver kites, their lines moving with life and energy.

Oh well, that split second of eternity will come when it will come. For now, I am one with those colour patches, shimmering in the teasing rays, symbols of man’s imagination and courage. Like the triangular frame in the blues, I am here on the ground, amongst friends and strangers, maintaining my path, steering out of harm’s way, gaining in height slowly and surely. The sharper my life skill the greater my ascents, as I loosen, pull back and pace out the leverage life gives me.

There are lessons up there, in the colorful sky. That speck rising high says fortune favours the bold. It proves you have got to use all you have. And that no one rises alone; several others gain simply by reference and the scramble to keep up. The spirit that lasts is the one that dances with the winds and the gales, changing step to match every gust, each breeze. The plucky champion that owns the steepest ascent has stayed focused on its own journey, unmindful of the pomp and aggression around. It has worked on out flying every other kite on its two engines of: desire and tenacity.

Smarter bus dispersal

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One of the most challenging events in a typical school today is the Bus Dispersal hour. A safe, speedy and smart see off is what every school works, hopes and prays for. 

The reason is not far to find. There have been spates of unsavoury incidents involving school buses. Remember the unspeakable tragedy of a girl who would be at the mercy of the bus conductor between the second last and her final stop. And it was only the other day that a year old boy came under the rear wheels of his school bus and died in the ambulance, on way to the hospital. There is a growing feeling that students are becoming increasingly unsafe in the school buses. Drivers have been known to drink and drive; some are not above misbehaving with girls. There is nary a day in fact that goes by without at least one alarming news item related to school buses. The air has been thick with talk of buses undergoing safety modifications including installation of CCTV cameras and speed governors.

Gone are the days when the kids would stream out of huge metallic school gates in a higgledy piggledy stream, happily chattering into the arms of relaxed parents. People lounged languidly in a laid back hush of expectancy I remember. There was a greater sense of security and far less turning around to watch the back. I don’t recall this jumping nervously in the skins at the slightest unfamiliarity.

Those were the days of a calmer, more content, well… perhaps even resigned and ignorant India. What we inhabit today is a war zone. There is anger, fear, even envy. A distrust of the government has so colored our pan-view that we are quick to believe the worst of the other. Unfair generalizations are the stuff social conversations are made up of. A civic awareness of rights and entitlements has replaced plain common sense and civility.

Schools try and compensate by laying out layer upon layer of security. There is a garrison mind-set geared to fool proof dispersal. It is a daily struggle to stay above board. 

The student strength and number of routes are only two components of a hugely collaborative effort. There are several agencies involved including the gate security personnel, private vehicle drivers, parents and support staff. A monitoring system is followed in most schools to try and ensure every student reaches home safely. There are cameras on the gates and regular dissemination of updated contact numbers of agencies involved.

In several institutions, the junior wings in particular, bus routes have been assigned class rooms as well as specific teachers who take attendance again at the end of the day, before leading their route students to the bus dispersal area. The children who use the second trip are supervised by teachers until it is time to board the senior buses. In this way, the double attendance works as a quick way to establish any anomaly.

Even so, there are the bad days. 

  

Two snaking rows of second graders can cross each other, a couple of frisky ones getting dislodged into the wrong row unwittingly. It may happen that a child is facing a bus a trifle uncertainly and the mere appearance of a teacher prompts him to quickly hop into the bus that was puzzling him! Children have a talent for losing track of time. While the whole world is going crazy hunting for them, some may be blissfully sliding and swinging in the KG Park at the back. The small ones also happen to have a penchant for escorting the ailing to the Sick Bay and losing themselves in the experience. 

There could be explanations galore but the mind of the parent waiting at home goes whirl-pooling thus: has there been a kidnapping; could the child have fallen into a man hole or else, God forbid, run over by a BMW; she could have been lured and raped; a custodial conflict pick up seems like a possibility and on and on the tortuous mind goes visualizing one gory scenario after another.

Nine and a three quarters time out of ten, there is likely to be a simpler explanation. It is very unlikely that a child has gone far and in harm’s way from the school campus. There are small things however that can be of critical help at crucial times. Entering accurate information for instance, in the identity cards and school diaries; labelling the child’s belongings; keeping the school informed of any contact update; all this helps. 

There are systems that have been worked out. At the heart of this elaborate blueprint are people. And nowhere in the school is an empathetic co-operation between everyone involved as critical as at the time of leaving school. It is a tricky hour. The students are excitable, teachers low on energy, bus drivers in a rush and parents in a state of expectant anxiety. At such a vital hour, many a times, the secret to success is patience. 

It is good to remember that checks and balances are in place and given time, everyone will be home, sweet home, sooner than later!!

Whose dreams?

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The world stands in judgement of mothers far more than it judges fathers. Perhaps the differential stems from the order of nature. In the animal as well as the human world, mothers remain the primary incubators and nurturers. Their bodies, emotions, thoughts are invested to a greater degree and in more immediate ways. Motherhood transforms their lives in a far more essential manner than it changes a father’s daily routine. Of course, there are demands on him to provide and protect but the degree….it is a matter of degree….

And then along comes the judging, following either of the two trajectories. If their children mess up, the Moms did not guide enough and should their kids shine, they are living their dreams through the children. I have never been able to make up my mind on which of the two views is more unfair.

For the sake of argument, let’s base the unfairness on outcomes. In other words, let’s presume that criticism when kids go tangential would be more acceptable than judging Mothers whose sons and daughters end up authentically autonomous. Why would people accuse these proud mothers of fulfilling their personal ambitions through their children?

It is true that a sizable animal population does not care for their offspring once they have been given birth; some species are born independent but the female cobra, mammals and birds care for their young until they are able to strike out on their own. This nurture ensures the survival of the species. It is owed by one generation to the other. I would go so far as to call it moral parenthood.

The level of nurturing would rise with every step up the biological kingdom. At the sophisticated stage of mankind, parental responsibilities ought to go far beyond the basic provision of food, clothes and shelter. In a complex and conflict ridden world, who else but the parents will primarily ensure the right software programming in their children’s hearts, minds and souls that will keep them safe and growing in the world outside? Granted that parents make mistakes but so long as there is love and desire for the young’s welfare, it all pretty much falls in place.

Recognizing and acknowledging and showing the kids that they are worthy of harbouring a dream is step number one. Next comes the path to realizing those ambitions. With so much information clutter swirling in their spaces, a little bit of filtering does no harm, it is in fact critical for some clarity and focus. It is the modern parents’ responsibility to be well informed and socially savvy enough to be able to function as a sounding board for their children. They are certainly not stoking their own embers by facilitating the path ahead for their young.

I would challenge anyone who says it is all right to leave the children to figure it all out for themselves today. These are tough times. Never has a generation been so far out and so in need of an anchor as this one. It would be too dangerous a waste to leave them without a moral compass and a clearly outlined work ethic they can use to climb a ladder they have defined for themselves.

Modern parents cannot use the excuse their own parents did viz. that they knew no better. It is not about living one’s dreams through the offspring. It is about placing your own dreams on hold until you have brought up your kids to nurture theirs and be well on their path to realizing them.

The coat

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Does life imitate the movies or is it the bioscope that is inspired by blood and bones?

I don’t know but I have my list of incredible moments that seem to happen only in the movies.

And my all-time favourite is the coat scene.

People talk of the horrors of physical deprivation and hurt but there is an ache of the inside that is way higher, touching a point beyond the labour pain high of 57 del on the scientific scale of pain. Invisible on the outside, it rages deep within, rising in the throat and creeping in sour waves into the pit of the stomach. The chill converges on the lungs. There is the fearful headiness of a reckless, roller coaster ride. Your vision is blurred by regret, self-berating and lonesomeness.

Time for the coat!

And as though on cue, it is at these quiet times of desperation that the Knight Errant appears out of the mist in a soft focus in the movies, the music dims and the hall goes still. There is a magical connection. Two pairs of eyes meet and a wave of hope and strength and kindness is transmitted from one to the other and the broken begins to build back, right there. That one gesture injects her with glowing steel in the veins, making her as good as new.

It is my definition of the most beautiful human transaction ever! 

Did you ever have this happen to you? Have you experienced or witnessed and acknowledged pain in all these years you have treaded this earth? Cast a cursory look around, particularly in idle mode at the traffic lights, there are several there, crumbling inside like a wedge of carrot cake or a ball of ice lolly under that public mask of nonchalance. Some are probably on fire inside, like their throats have been taken by the guts. Of course they drive with numb limbs, grey lead in the toes pressing on the accelerator, hurting, crying, and scarring inside while those with the power to wash it all away stand outside these high walls of need, unseeing, unhearing, and refusing to take off their coats!

When faced with pain in fact, the most common reactions range from outright denial to an outraged defensiveness. Listen, cut the drama and let’s move on with it, shall we? There are so many tragedies taking place in the world? So many people do not have the time or the luxury for all this sighing and feeling. And what are you crying over this, I have seen worse. If you heard what I have gone through, you would shut up with gratitude!

The coats of empathy either do not exist in real life or are few and far between. For the most, we do not respect others enough to accept their pain. We are scared to engage outside of our own comfort zones. Even though we know that we ought to look at them with gentle eyes and say in a grave voice that we understand, we bluff them and ourselves by saying it is just idle nerves; and this on a good day. On the others, we tell ourselves that their cry for help is a personal attack on us.

Dear God, let me be otherwise. Give me the strength, the kindness, the faith to be the one holding out the coat.

Neanderthals

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The country is in the throes of an inexplicable regression.

Cover up or get raped! This sentiment currently riding India’s public spaces gets steadily strident and sinister. Stay safe with traditional clothes. Dispense with jeans and shorts if you want to preserve your modesty. Cleavage is sure to invite dirt. So watch what you wear and how!

The sneaky, lying voices emanate from everywhere. A clicking of the tongue that originates from the inside of homes, extending to the legislative cabins, echoing on roads, TV studios, peepal panchayats, school corridors and police stations; why will women not listen and stick to the Indian mores while picking their clothes. More and more, in this pluralistic, populous, progressive, democratic home of the Indus Valley Civilization, half the citizens are being told to shore up against the other half under layers of clothes. There is a siege within; a social deceit in the avowed “good and safety” of women.

The diktats are not new. What is scary is the deliberate denial of the collaborative nature of correction needed. There is a vengeful focus solely on the molested. No one will talk of what the molesters ought to do. It is presumed that he can’t help his testosterone throwing him into epileptic spasms of salivation and penile erection at the sight of female flesh. He is XY, the most potent sample of a biped and beyond redemption as far as lust and lechery go. Legs, arms, midriff, silhouette, even eyes at times, he is not fussy; it can all set him off like a pack of crackers. Horrors of horrors, they would have you believe he is particularly turned on by a whimpering, resistant, petrified and unresponsive victim of sexual assault.

So you have these loathsome creatures rubbing their prized maleness against you in buses; the boob pokers who will elbow into your chest pretending to look elsewhere as the young, growing girls wince with pain and shame; ass grabbers, snaking out of the crowd to grab a handful. Fairly dutiful around their immediate family women, they then step out into the streets, these roving masses of testosterone, stripping women with their eyes, doing them right there in public, boring into them.

Lo and behold, the unchanged, continuous, purest descendants of the Neanderthals. A girl’s upbringing has metamorphosed but quite clearly the baby boy book has not been updated. As a matter of fact, their growth has been in the skill of double dealing. In the same breath that he uses the word “sexy” with intent to compliment, he blames victims of rape for having invited sexual assault with their “hotness”. On the one hand item numbers extol ‘jawani’ and ‘badnaami’, on the other there is this all pervasive moral din over culture and tradition. The rules are different. A guy sporting his tight butt in body hugging jeans is celebrating his masculine frame but a woman sporting a low neckline is begging to be violated. Biceps on a man state power; a trim waist on a woman spell invitation. The horrific sanction extends to men in positions of trust and responsibility. Try sharing the chiller with them and they will be quick to tell you how men will be men and how even boys are not spared. 

The numbskulls do not want to see that it is not about the right to expose but about the right to exist without shame, fear and guilt.

I have two daughters and I am scared witless. How do I have them balance their education with conformity? Having brought them up to breathe progressive notions, how do I sell oppression to them guised under the cowl of tradition? What good really is the visible progress made by the successive generations of women in their family if the end goal is the go back into hiding? Do they need, for their own survival, to acknowledge that no one really cares for the autonomy, dignity and authenticity of women? That just a scratch below the skin of modern civilization is the molten, pre-historic “burn the witch” hatred. That the men in their lives may view their independent thinking as an attack on their masculinity, deserving to be mocked and put down. And that the tool they will call in might be rape wherein lays the truth that sexual harassment is not about sex. The deal is about power, control and domination.

It has been said over and over and bears any amount of repeating. As much as the violations grow so must the protests amplify. To summarize therefore and reiterate and register again and yet again:

Rape is violent

Rapes are mostly committed by men women have little reason to suspect

Rape has nothing to do with the dress of the victim

Rape visits the weak and the timid, kids included


What you and I can do right away is to:

Stop laughing at rape jokes

Boycott movies that glorify rape

Speak out when the victim is blamed

Engage men in addressing this criminal attack on those who hold up half the sky

The ax forgets but the tree remembers. In remembering, we can give this daily, horrific occurrence a language that will snatch it out if its "unspeakable" yellow, ticker tape.

Letting go

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I hear it a lot.

“You have sent such a tiny little girl all that far away!!” 

The refrain comes from various quarters, family, close and extended; even friends and those seeing her for the first ever time.

My reaction is uncertain. I am never able to pin the proportion of concern, blame or awe in that phrase. Is it an exclamation? An accusation? Or plain, good old disapproval? They could even be marvelling.

It is true that she has flown a distance and most certainly, her frame might be called petite. Add to that her chronological place in the family; being the younger will always peg her as the junior, the little one, the kid sister, and the smaller, irrespective of the passage of life she might be traversing at the time of these observations.

She has been travelling yes, living with strangers, moving over unfamiliar territory, discovering her pace in alien cultures, sustaining on exotic fare and foreign air. I have gone over the map of strangeness she must have to traverse over and over. Are there moments of crushing loneliness that first night in a strange bed? How often do the bouts of anxiety strike over the local security systems and formal procedures? What is the degree of denial that takes place in situations she is not at ease enough to seek help? How wholesome and healthy are her emotional negotiations in spaces she has no prior knowledge of?

It takes a lot. There is the pre-departure preparation. The mandatory drill of Visa acquisition, pondering over luggage content and weight, airport transit Visa where needed, currency exchange, baggage tags, first aid box, online familiarisation with the country she is approaching, establishing some form of contact with what will be her nodal host agency, working out her international communication protocol over differing time zones….it is unending. 

 

Would it have been easier to have her closer home?  For the family, most certainly, that would have given us a greater degree of control and ease of operation.  Her cheery, tongue-in-cheek presence would have buoyed up the evenings. There would have been the joy and pride in her steady growth and accomplishments. One doesn’t need J K Rowling’s imagination to fathom the bonus reason there would have been to spring up from the bed each dawn. But the thing to ask is, “Who is this about?” Is it about the child and her unpainted canvas or the parents who would be wary of risks? What is owed, how much, by and to whom?

What will it be for our young? Order, safety and convenience or lives free of fear, guilt, shame and self-doubt? Years lived inside high walls of custom and tradition or the core autonomy of being? The excuse of having borne external decisions or the consequences of one’s personal courage and conviction? A morbid hark- back to what might have been as against an edgy touchdown amidst unfamiliar challenges?

It is the reason I go clinical on the drive to the airport. There are the constant backward glances at the passenger seat, in vain attempts to frame imprints of her face. The goodbye hug is over before the mind is able to record her aura sharp enough to last until her next visit home. As we re- enter the silent home, echoes lunge out from spots she has just vacated. There is nothing left to do but to track her flight. It is only when she lands safely that the slackness comes.

It emerges all over again that parenting really is in letting go, in allowing them their spaces to evolve, in making it possible for them to meet life at the front door, in acknowledging that flesh of your flesh they might be but they are individual persons with a life map their own. Attachment, need, togetherness are merely the illusory fuels that crank the business of living. Truth be told, there is a song that they hear in their heads, a path uncoiling ahead. There should be happiness enough just over some shared notes. Not to bemoan or sigh therefore, but to cheer and whistle them on!

Tally ho !!

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I feel tormented by it and have nowhere to go. My colleagues poke fun at me when I approach it, reigning in their faces just short of a smirk. As a matter of fact, they do not bother with that tiny courtesy on occasions. They are quite open in their enjoyment of my discomfiture. They peer over my shoulder, feigning a patient calm, as I wipe, place, press, rub and try again. Brought up to be a nice girl, I step quickly out of queue and wait a slow slot to step back; all the time, my blood pressure steadily spiking.

The stress begins right there on approach, some hundred metres from it. Something heavy spirals up from the pit of my stomach as I move closer, the dread grasping and clenching my throat in a sour grip. An inexplicable sadness steels up and the feet slow down. But there is no escape. It has to be done.

Is it my gene blueprint that is unfriendly and reticent, not forthright enough to be called at will? I have wondered at the pattern and texture of my skin. The frequent rejection must say something for my unwholesomeness. I wipe and clean and blow some seven and a half times but at each turn: woe! Sneaking a look around to make sure there are only some close friends around, I have tried standing on one foot, even raising an arm once to strike that one potent, all successful stance. Tapping, shaking, and caressing….all to no avail.

The idea was to regularize and simplify and assist. Who would have thought it would challenge my self- belief? With every rebuff, I came away smaller. I struggled with rectification projects, seeking technical assistance, sheepishly requesting human masses of flippancy for sympathy and the magic cure. All I got were those gloating expressions of fake sympathy. Oh yes, we will do something, the person is not in today, try next week, it could have been done the day before and so very easily but where was I?!

It isn’t much to look at. There is the small black box, tacked on to the wall, drawing sustenance from an unremarkable wire. It is no-nonsense. There is only one or the other; it is red or green, no amber please. Despite the dust and grime of an intrepid, daily human contact, it inspires an emotion called reverence. You want to fold the hands and bow, “Please accept me today. Show me the uplifting green.” Standing there in a puddle of frustration at the succession of petulant reds, I have achieved an intuitive understanding of why the antediluvian man began to worship inanimate objects. What else is there to do when the tangible asserts?

I understand the Fingerprint Attendance System is a fool proof monitoring gadget but what is one to do when it insists you are not you! Which of us speaketh the truth? I am at war with this machine here. Tally ho!!