Personal
Thoughts…Mumbai meri jaan!
I was in Mumbai a few days ago…and thoughts crowded around in my brain demanding expression. There is nothing vaguely coherent about these thoughts and so, I will put it down in bullet point. Just so that I can get the thoughts out of my brain!
- Everyone in Mumbai seems to know exactly where they’re going, what they’re doing. And they do all this in ONE BIG HURRY! I wondered why life was so fast-paced that one hardly had any time to pause and reflect. The price we pay for living in a metro perhaps?
- Traffic is truly insane. Only Bangalore can be worse! It took me close to 2 hours to go from Nariman Point to the airport! And my colleague tells me it’s a good day and that traffic is not that bad! Jeez!
- Every pedestrian seems to wait on the side of the road until the light turns green for the vehicles, and then tries to cross the road. If they want to kill themselves, they just need to throw themselves under the train. Isn’t that easier?
- The heat almost killed me the other day! It was unbearable and the traffic just made it worse! Getting into the Trident Nariman Point an hour ahead of the scheduled meeting was the best decision I took! And coming from Chennai, if I felt the heat was so bad, it really must have been bad!
- On the positive side, people really don’t care what you do, how you’re dressed and who you’re with. The last time I was there in 2004, and also this time a few days ago, I felt more secure in Mumbai than I have in Chennai in all the 26 years I have spent here.
- Another positive, the Mumbai airport is phenomenal. People tell me the Hyderabad one is better, but if it is anything like this, I am happy. I thought I would have to skip dinner as I got to the airport around 8. But, quite a lot of choice and plenty of stalls. Nice one! In fact, I liked it better than Paris. Less confusing.
- And finally, the view from Trident Nariman point almost made the traffic jams worth the effort. The bay looks breathtakingly beautiful. Here is a twitpic of a few days ago!
Feminism, society and other thoughts…
Regular readers of this blog will know how much of time and space I have dedicated in the past to feminism and social ills. They will also know that for some reason, my feminist rants have decreased in intensity and frequency over the past year. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that my blogging frequency has itself decreased over the past year. But, there is something more. I don’t feel like writing about feminism any more. One reason is that I do not want this blog, and by extension me, to be stereotyped in any way: feminist, right-wing, technical, random. It is not so much a deliberate refusal as a natural manifestation of my rather diverse set of interests. The second reason, albeit to a much lesser extent, is that I see no change. I seemed to have exhausted my energies in talking about all that is wrong with the world. Until now. I have no idea why I am so disturbed by the current state of affairs, but I am. Several factors come into play.
The results of the recent census are less than reassuring. They only add to our human development woes by confirming what we already knew. With a sex ratio of 914 females to every 1000 males, the sex ratio is negative. The female foetus, and subsequently the girl child, is biologically more resistant to illness and hence more capable of surviving hostilities. But not even this protection offered by nature makes the child capable of combating infanticide and sex-selective abortions. What can an unborn child do if the mother and her family are determined not to allow her to be born? Every indicator of human development shows that the female is worse off in India than her male counterpart: education, life expectancy, health…name it, and the men have it better. If you add to this concerns and indicators specific to the female gender like maternal mortality, you have a rather dismal picture.
However, the census is not the only reason I feel the need to talk now. Mom has been watching a Hindi soap dubbed into Tamil (disgusting, I know!) on Vijay TV. It is, to put it mildly, absolutely infuriating. The story of a young woman engaged to be married to the only son of wealthy parents. So far, so good. But every single scene and every single situation in the soap rankles by sensitivities. First, the girl is barely 20. She considers it her good fortune to have found a good groom so early in life and to be allowed to complete her education. And here, I was thinking we had stepped out of the 12th Century! And my grouse does not end with this soap alone. Every single soap I know on television, Hindi, Tamil or other plays to the same gallery. Young woman, married and has kid, abusive in-laws, drunken husband, struggling to complete education and resigned to fate….aaargh! Alternatively, the girl is happy and content with her husband, the car, the kids and the in-laws and has no life so to speak! Either way, all these stories revolve around marriage as the ultimate goal in life, rather than real happiness! And in case you didn’t realize, what they really want to convey is that the only way you can really be happy if you’re a woman is to get married and stay married to the right man! Give me a break! Are we really in the 21st Century?
Not that I am against marriage or relationships, or that I think these things are irrelevant to happiness. I do believe that relationships (of whatever kind: friendships, marriage, family et. al) are important to happiness, but do not believe that my life’s ambition should be to find the right man and get married. It is the focus on marriage to the exclusion of all else that I object to, as to the glorification of suffering. Why is it considered a feminine virtue to suffer in silence when subjected to all kinds of torture? And really, why is every soap I know so regressive in nature? Why does a woman have to be an all-forgiving, all-accepting person?
And finally, the obsession I see all around with having a male child. I grew up in a family of girls, and never in all these 28 years of my existence has anyone ever made me wonder why I was born female. Girls are pampered and cherished by practically every member of my extended family. This is perhaps why this obsession with having a boy is so alien to me. Friends, colleagues and so many other people I know want a male child, despite having a daughter, sometimes two. What’s the deal there? I’ll never get it!
I really think we need to stop telling our daughters that Sita is the epitome of Indian womanhood. We need to stop drilling into their heads that they will never be happy unless they have a man in their lives, no matter how much of a bastard, pardon my language, he really is! And also stop telling them they need to have boys to continue the family name! But, as I said earlier, some things will take a long time changing. I only hope my generation steps out from these societal confines and dares to think differently. I hope.
India…
Over the last two days, I have been meeting people from other countries, many of whom have only heard of India over television, but never visited. Some others have distant memories of this country and find that the country that is, is no longer the country they remember. India has changed; irrevocably, and in ways that were completely unimaginable 10 years ago.
Personally, I find that I have ambiguous feelings towards the whole issue. A part of me presents the new India with a pride, a pride in having come this far, a pride in having the capacity to match some of the best in the world. Another part feels ashamed of the traffic, the indiscipline and the sheer chaos that characterizes much of India. Yet another part yearns for some unknown, lost innocence that seemed a part of my childhood, that I don’t find any longer in the children of today.
I am trying to put these conflicting feelings in words as I experience this inner struggle between pride, shame, embarrassment and nostalgia. On the positive side, I feel truly proud that people who came into India 20 years ago, find it unrecognizable today. Better roads, better cars, greater material comforts and impressive buildings, all speaking success stories that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago. I feel happy that there is nothing that is not available in India. I feel proud of what we have managed to achieve since the pre-liberalization era of the 1980s.
I also feel embarrassed that despite our obvious economic progress, we remain indisciplined. We have no idea how to use our roads, how to respect the traffic lights or how to follow traffic rules. I feel ashamed that while we publicly applaud Anna Hazare’s efforts at eliminating corruption in the public sphere, we do not think twice about offering a cop a hundred-rupee bribe to let us go for jumping the red. I also feel ashamed that our sex ratio is a pathetic 914:1000, while we continue to wax eloquent about the Indian tradition of worshipping the Mother Goddess.
I sometimes wonder if my western education and the short time spent in France have made me an incorrigible cynic. But, I would be happier seeing my country develop not just in economic terms but also in human terms. I would like to see some concrete action against the most damaging social ills like corruption and bureaucratic inefficiency. I would like to see social development getting as much focus as economic success, at the risk of sounding like a card-carrying member of the Communist Party! I also hope to see the freedom of speech and expression being defended as passionately as it is today, even if that freedom is inconvenient to me. I hope to see more people believe that the most important thing about a democracy is the freedom to debate, discuss and disagree on the most critical issues facing our nation today.
And I hope my hopes and dreams materialize in my lifetime. I hope that one day I will leave India, and also hope that one day my India will make me regret my decision to leave it. I hope to see my country win that many more World Cups, but also hope that cricket doesn’t become the only binding force in this country of 1.23 billion. Only time will tell if my hopes and dreams will be realized.And I hope that day comes soon enough!
On marriage, dowry, blogging etc…
This morning, I came across a new blog. Delighted to discover a blog I had never read before, I scrolled down and what do I see? A letter from a “concerned” mother. Before reading this riposte to the mother, I suggest you read the letter itself. This strikes me as wrong at so many levels that I do not know where to begin. First things first, the mother blaming a blog for her daughter’s attitude is a bit much. She says she spent sleepless nights agonizing over the fact that her daughter of “marriageable” age was spending time reading Tbg’s blog! I mean, what the hell? So what? Is this a case of passing the buck?
However, the letter brings up more fundamental, social issues that must be addressed. First, she refers to her daughter as being of “marriageable age”. Now, is there no other identity for that poor girl, except that she is of marriageable age? And that brings me to my point. What is marriageable age anyway? To me, marriage is a commitment. It is not about the wedding ceremony, the money or even the house and the car. It is about wanting to spend the rest of your life with someone. And to get married simply because you are of a certain age, and not because there is someone out there with whom you really want to grow old, is a crazy notion. I am 28. My parents are retired. They want me to get married too. But not because I am 28 and it’s time for me to get married, but because they want me to be happy with whoever I am going to be married to. If that person takes a few more years to surface, so be it. I do appreciate her concerns when she says that they need to get her married before they retire. Money is definitely an issue once they are retired and it will not be so easy to get her married after that. But does that mean you push her away to the next person who comes along? Whatever happened to compatibility and all?
Second, she says that her daughter finds something wrong with every person she meets. I am extremely sorry to admit it, but it’s true that very few men are actually marriage-material. In the past year, I have met about half a dozen men. All potential grooms. But, each has some problem. One was commitment-phobic, the next was insecure about himself and my intelligence, the third only wanted a singer-wife, and not necessarily in that order. You can’t settle for someone simply because he wants to get married to you can you? If the daughter says no, I am pretty sure there is a valid reason for it. And the mother must try and understand why things are the way they are.
Third, and nobody seems to have pointed this out. The father dumps the blame on the mother. “She is your daughter. Explain!” So, she is your daughter when there is a problem but his daughter when she gets that big, fat pay cheque? Convenient excuse this! Does the mother really want a man who would pass the buck and blame his wife for something that should actually be shared responsibility? What kind of message are you sending to your daughter? That she must settle for a husband who will only claim ownership/responsibility for successes and not for problems?
Fourth, this attitude that women must adjust with husband and in-laws come what may, is total crap! Adjustment is required in any relationship, but it must be mutual. And we must understand that adjustment is different from compromise. You can adjust about the food, the mattress or the TV, but you cannot, and indeed, must not compromise on basic value systems and equality within a relationship. Why do so many families bring up their daughters telling them they are better off miserable in their in-laws’ place than happy in their own homes? Being a woman does not mean sacrifice or being willing to do so. Being a woman means being loved and cherished for being you, being respected like you would respect the other, being treated no differently because of your gender. Why can mothers not get this simple fact? Why do we have to martyrize our daughters just because our society expects them to be all-giving and all forgiving? I just don’t get it.
In the midst of all these accusations, the personalized attack on Tbg (which seems to have escaped unnoticed as well) is unforgivable. Whether Tbg is married or not, happy or not, has angels or demons for in-laws is irrelevant to the current discussion. I think someone should teach people to disagree without insulting.
And finally, the daughter’s demands don’t seem all that unreasonable. She wants a man who will stand by her, allow her to be herself, not ask for dowry and agree to a relatively simple marriage. I am sure such men exist. This is the basic minimum any self-respecting woman will ask for. As for dowry, any man who asks for one or condones his parents’ demands deserves to be castrated (ok…am getting a bit carried away…but still!) for his attitude. A man should want to marry this lady’s daughter and not the money, the car and the house she will bring along! Is it such a bad thing?
But as Tbg points out, this lady has been adjusting (even compromising) with an unhelpful husband and in-laws for 27 years. Does she not wants things to be different for her daughter? Or does she, like so many other mothers, think their duties are over as soon as the daughter is married off? What about the rest of her life? Is it ok that she be asked to compromise and adjust with someone or the other for the next 40 years? I don’t understand why we are so obsessed with our daughters getting and staying married that we lose sight of the real goal: happiness. I am not a mother, but I am a daughter, arguably of “marriageable” age! I do want to get married, find that special someone to grow old with, have children and a family of my own. But, all this cannot and must not be achieved at the cost of my self-esteem, my independence and my career. Happiness is not a destination, it is a journey. And for that journey to be comfortable, we must allow our daughters to first be comfortable in their own skin and not expect them to live up to the expectations that this society has from us! We’re are in the 21st century and it’s time we started behaving that way!
Memories…
…are dicey things. Sometimes, they are delightful, making us happy and content. And at other times, we desperately wish to forget and move on. Yet, we can’t really really forget instances that are sometimes branded in our minds like a hot iron rod. Sometimes, I wish I could turn the clock back to two weeks ago, when she was still alive and well. Sometimes, I wish I could reverse the happenings of the last two weeks and pretend it never happened. Sometimes irrationally, I wish I could bring her back so she can spend just a few more months with me. It’s been two weeks now that my grandmother, one who I called Amma till her last breath suddenly decided she had enough of all of us and went away, so far that she cannot ever come back. Although I have lost someone very special before, it did not hit me with as much force as this loss has. Maybe when Nandini died, I was younger and stronger. Or maybe it is because I never ever imagined I would have to face a world without her to run to for comfort.
In the past weeks, I have tried verbalizing my loss to family and friends. Tried telling them that she was my mother in every sense of the word, except that biologically, she was my grandmother. She fed me, nurtured me, scolded me, pampered me and even blamed me sometimes when things went wrong. I wouldn’t call her my second mother. In many ways, she was my first mother. Before I was old enough to understand that behind my mother’s tough exterior was a genuine love for her child. My earliest memories of Amma involve wailing and crying that she was going away somewhere without me. As a child of five, I couldn’t imagine spending a single day away from her. My parents were free to go where they wanted. As long as Amma was around to take care of me, I would wave a happy goodbye to my parents. Those memories have suddenly turned from delightful to bittersweet. Never did I imagine even 15 days ago, that very soon I would have to face the prospect of spending the rest of my life without her constant and reassuring presence. My last conversation with her was on a Saturday 2 weeks ago. I called her from the car showroom to tell her I had booked a car. I will never forget her delight at hearing the news. Neither will I forget her promise that she will take that first ride with me in my brand new car. That was not to be. Barely 4 days later, she decided that the knowledge that I was buying a car was enough happiness for her, and passed on quietly. And totally without warning.
I am perhaps being completely incoherent right now. But, while my mind accepts that at the age of 75, she was bound to go some day, my heart still yearns for her presence. I now wish I had been just a little more patient at her constant badgering about the house, the car, my finances, my marriage and everything else she deemed important at any given point. I now wish I hadn’t brushed off her concerns quite so callously and at least taken the time to explain why things had to be the way they were. I am certain she knew how much she meant to me, but I now wish I had told her at least once in her life that she was not just my grandmother, she was my mother. People tell me that I should be thankful that she felt no pain, no suffering. I know that. My mind accepts that a painless and quick parting is much kinder than a long-draw, painful one. I know, rationally speaking, that this is how she wanted to go. Without pain or suffering. I also know that no matter what happens to the soul after death, I still have her blessings and all the love she has to bestow on her beloved grandchildren. And yet, the heart refuses to accept that she is actually gone. Irretrievably.
I know that this will perhaps make no difference to her. But it does make a difference to me to say this. She was the best grandmother any child could have hoped for. I know that all I have left of her are my memories of her to carry through my life. But loved, she was. By each of us. All of us. I choose to write about it because this is the only way I know to pay a tribute to someone who meant the world to me. And the best tribute I can possibly pay her is a promise that I will be happy. Just the way she wanted me to be.