Being Bad

I was reading “Bad Feminist” by Roxane Gay the other day. In her book, she mentions how she came up with the term “Bad Feminist” and what it means. And what she said made a lot of sense to me. She says, “I embrace the term bad feminist because I am human. I am messy. I’m not trying to be an example. I am not trying to be perfect. I am not trying to say I have all the answers. I am just trying.. “ And that resonated with me a lot.

When I was a kid, I was raised to be a good girl. This was way before the word feminism was a part of my lexicon. Study well. Respect your elders. Don’t raise your voice. Cross your legs when you sit. Be kind. Smile. And when I was young, it didn’t occur to me to question any of it. But even then some things were obvious. I often heard statements like, “That’s not for girls.” or “Boys can do that, not girls.” and in some part of my budding psyche, I had the nagging feeling that something was not right.

I was raised a good girl because my mom was raised to be one. The term or concept of feminism wasn’t on her horizon either. Back then and honestly even now, the word feminist has only negative connotations attached to it. Like Gay says, ” I was called a feminist and what I heard was, “You are an angry, sex-hating, man-hating victim lady person.”” But I knew there was something unfair about the rules that governed a girl’s life.

The disruption in my good girl upbringing was thanks to my father. He still has a ways to go before being called a feminist because his feminism, while I was growing up, seemed selective. He was always very encouraging of my sister and me. He always encouraged us to dream big dreams, never told us we were limited by our gender, taught us to never believe anyone who told us otherwise, gave us the freedom to speak our minds and form our own opinions. But these freedoms still came with restrictions. He still controlled a large part of our lives and as we grew older the restrictions grew as well. You could say he was trying to protect us from an increasingly unsafe society when he controlled the way we dressed, or our use of makeup or our responses to harassment, but it was again not very “feminist” of him. On some level, I understand his concerns now that I am a parent myself, but back then it was stifling.

But his influence was huge in molding my character. I first came across the word feminist when I was around nine years old. I wasn’t exactly sure what it meant. All I knew (from my flawed understanding of the concept) was that feminists were bold. didn’t wear much makeup, believed they were as good as men and hated all men. See how flawed my understanding was? But I was all of 9 and since I had always been brought up to believe I was as good as the next guy, and since I was not very fond of the opposite sex at that point of time, I was all set to jump on board the feminist train.

It was also around this time I started noticing something else. Whenever I spoke my mind or stood up for myself, or expressed an opinion on something or tried to do something that was considered the forte of the male species, I was criticized or ridiculed. I was told I was being tough, that I wasn’t being “nice” and that I wasn’t behaving like a girl. Like Rebecca West said, ” I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.” It was hard trying to make myself understood and trying to make others understand what I was saying. As I grew up, my frustrations only mounted. I never managed to make many friends because of my beliefs and attitudes. And back then, I was too angry and too upset as well to have a reasonable dialogue with people. I also didn’t want to get into trouble because I was still being told at home that I had to be a good student and respect my teachers etc.

When I started college, I tried hard to tone down my feminist leanings. My parents still controlled a large aspect of my life including what I wore and how I behaved in public. So I tried to dumb myself down and not express my opinions. I tried to become nice and likable and sweet. I said things like “I believe in gender equality but I wouldn’t say I’m a feminist.” Cue- eye roll. A lot of it also had to do with the fact that the word feminist was and still is used as an insult in the part of the globe I come from. Even now, women are being vilified and harassed for speaking their minds or demanding their rights. But that was also the time I started reading up more about feminism and its principles. As my understanding of the concept grew, so did my conviction that I was a feminist and that there was nothing wrong in referring to myself as one. I finally came to the realization that it wasn’t an insult, and if it was, that was a fault in the understanding of the person using it and not me.

From then on, to this day, I have proudly referred to myself as a feminist. And any time someone expresses opinions that reek of ignorance of the concept, I’ve always tried to educate them. I’ve learned to be my own person and stand up for myself and speak my mind. I’ve learned not to be nice, or compromise for the sake of social acceptance. I educated my husband who in spite of being raised by a very strong woman, was ignorant of the tenets of feminism. And now, I’m in the process of educating my son who I am determined to raise a feminist. I’m not saying I’m perfect. I still encounter situations where I see and hear people making wrong assumptions about the concept and I don’t respond. I still hear women disavow feminism and although I get angry, I keep silent. It is tiring- this battle to be understood and make others understand. Some days I keep it and other days I’m too weary to do battle.

Feminism also has its flaws. There are multiple schools of thought and multiple definitions. There is black feminism, intersectional feminism, ecofeminism, womanism- the list is endless. My thought is simple and coincides with what Gay herself believes. “I believe in equal opportunities for women and men. I believe in women having reproductive freedom and affordable and unfettered access to the health care they need. I believe women should get paid as much as men for doing the same work.” So when someone tries to tell me they don’t believe in feminism, I ask them this- “Do you think men and women deserve equal opportunities in every sphere of life?” And if the answer is yes, I tell them they’re a feminist.

And on the occasion of this Women’s Day, let us all, men and women, make an effort to better understand and embrace feminism. Remember what Kathy Bail said, “Feminists are just women who don’t want to be treated like shit.” And no one wants to be treated like shit, do they?

Raising a boy

Parenting is hard. It is demanding, exhausting and mostly thankless. And as primary caregivers, it is often harder on mothers than fathers. You are responsible for your child’s well being- physical, emotional, mental and in most cases spiritual as well. You are constantly worrying about what your child eats, what he drinks, what he reads, what media he is exposed to, what sport he plays- the list is endless. But then, parenting has always been difficult. “It takes a village”, they say and they’re right. Only in today’s global society, you are the village.

When I was pregnant, I had this quiet conviction that I was going to have a boy. Once D was born, I was at a complete loss on how to raise him. I only had experience around little girls and I was completely flabbergasted on how to go about bringing up a boy. The initial months were easy- you just had to feed him and make sure he wasn’t too warm or too cold. As he grew, so did my disquiet. As a woman, I felt, I was more comfortable connecting with a girl than a boy. After all, all I had to do was teach her from my own personal experiences and those of my friends. I just had to teach her to keep struggling and fighting against the injustices meted out to her, in the same way I had been doing since I was old enough to understand being a girl put me at a disadvantage. I just had to teach her to not conform to society’s expectations from a girl, to fight against patriarchy, to tell her that being a girl did not make her any less of a human being. With a boy, I wasn’t sure where to start.

That was the time the MeToo movement started taking center stage and as I went about reading and doing research and wondering how to start parenting my boy, it hit me. Boys have never had to face any of the disadvantages that girls did. They were never told they weren’t good enough. Ergo, the challenges they faced were different. And they were complementary to the ones girls faced. I realized then that raising a boy wasn’t all that different from raising a girl. It is just that the issues they had to face were different.

The first order of business was trying to raise my son to be as gender neutral as possible. Which meant not conforming to the “blue-pink” madness when he was little to choosing his toys, the books he read and the messages he was exposed to. I’ve always let D pick out his own toys. I’ve never made a conscious effort to direct him to more “masculine” toys like trucks and cars. Granted he loves them but he also loves to cook and play house and I’ve never stopped him from doing those. I’ve never asked my son to “toughen up” and not cry. I’ve taught him in turn that everyone cries and it is yet another way to express emotion. The one time he told me that only girls wear pink, I told him no- colors are a personal choice and it’s not just for girls. He’s dressed up in skirts and tiaras and in superhero costumes. He’s sensitive and frequently needs to be held and cuddled and kissed and I’ve told him that’s a healthy way of expressing affection. He helps out with household chores- cooking, cleaning, folding the laundry, taking out the trash- all traditionally considered to be the forte of girls. I also make sure he sees his dad doing the same things so he understands that household chores aren’t divided based on gender. I’m doing this to make him self-sufficient and also to instill in him this belief that gender doesn’t define what one does or becomes. Hopefully, when he’s older and is bombarded with the kind of sexist messaging and imagery that is so prevalent in today’s world, he will remember these lessons he learned as a child and be strong enough to stand up against them.

This is a world of angry men and angry women. Women’s anger is righteous and stems from centuries of being oppressed, controlled and relegated to the sidelines in all walks of life. Men’s anger stems from a lack of control. It tries to silence the voices of others including women. For ages, men have been taught that they are in control of everything- from their destinies to politics, economics, society, and women. Why else would we still have men making decisions on women’s bodies? Every single mistake they ever made was justified with the nonsensical argument of “Boys will be boys”. They’ve had the world handed to them on a platter and have constantly been told that they could be anyone and have anything they wanted. The whole world was full of successful “men” for them to look up to.

But today, women’s voices are louder than before and it has led to a fundamental shift in the definition of what being a man entails. Today, being a man has come to mean being an ally to women. At least, that’s the way I prefer to think of it. And this means, instead of sticking to the age-old ways of raising boys, we need to raise them more like we raised our girls- to be sensitive, to be compassionate, to be helpful, and most of all to fight against the established world and social order that treats girls differently from boys.

Mind you, I want my son to be tough. I want him to be tough in the sense that he’ll stand up for what is right. I want him to be tough when he stands up against racism, bullying, patriarchy. I want him to be tough in the face of pressure from peers and from a society that will try to fit him into the stereotype of being a man. I want him to be tough when it comes to standing up for his beliefs and convictions. I want him to be tough enough to go against centuries of beliefs that make him the favored sex. I want him to be tough enough to fight eons of deeply entrenched patriarchal systems. I want him to be tough enough to shrug off the venom that will unfailingly be directed at him by a lot of his own gender when he chooses to be an ally for women. But beyond all this, I want my son also to have that innate toughness to choose the kind of person he wants to become- the courage to be his own person not shackled by anyone’s expectations including mine. That’s the toughness that I will welcome and strive to foster in my son.

I am constantly trying to raise my son to not be defined by his gender. And I know there are millions of mother’s like me around the globe trying to raise their son’s to be allies to their daughter and to girls around the globe. Hopefully, these little boys won’t be corrupted by the toxic world environment we see and read about every day and when their time comes, will be, along with the girls,  harbingers of the kind of change the world so desperately needs.

PS: After reading this some of you might feel that a lot of what I’ve written has been generalized. Like the fact that all men have it easy or that all women are angry about their lot in life. Well, there are men who have had tough lives and women who are perfectly happy in patriarchal societies but for the most part, what I’ve mentioned here it true. My writing might also seem very straightforward but as we all know, there are no blacks and whites to anything in life. I’ve just tried to articulate to the best of my ability what I feel and what I’m trying to do. 

The Cost of Conflict

When I was asked to draw a picture of my home, and I drew a series of chaotic loops, because chaos was all I had known in my short life, you wept. When I sat among the ruins of a railway station, my mouth open in a silent scream for my mother who’d never come, you wept. When my blazing green eyes bore into you from the cover of a magazine, reflecting the horrors I’d been through, you wept. When I crawled my way to a mouthful of food, naked, emaciated, trying to escape from the jaws of a patiently waiting death, you wept. When someone pointed a camera at me to take my picture and I put my hands up because I’d only seen guns being pointed at people, you wept. When in my quest to escape the horrors you inflicted on my land, my tiny frame washed up on a beach, you wept. And you weep now as you see me, bloodied, motionless and emotionless on an ambulance chair. 

What you see are a few, but there are millions like me. Millions whose voices you do not hear, whose pictures do not get to you, whose lives you do not know. Millions like me who have lost families, homes, limbs and life in our quest to survive. There are also millions who have had weapons thrust in their hands at an age when they should be holding teddy bears and schoolbooks. Millions who are asked to fight, but do not know what they are fighting for, or whom they’re fighting against. But that is another issue altogether.

I am tired of the world and all of you. Every time you see one of me, you weep, you vow to change and in a few days you forget. There are a few of you who fight tirelessly, but the most of you are secure in the knowledge that something like this would never happen to you. You are easily distracted. My problems and me are too much for you to handle. You do not know where, or how to begin. And even though I’m tired, this makes me angry.

I was always told that you people are intelligent and sensible; that you always learn from your mistakes and never repeat them. But you somehow seem to have forgotten to rectify the many mistakes that have made it impossible for me to live in this world. You seem to have forgotten all about the innocent millions like me, whose innocence is being sacrificed at the altar of your greed and your senseless every day. 

  

You make excuses of lofty ideals like “greater good of mankind”, “protecting the freedom of the individual”, “destroying terrorism”, “rooting out extremist elements” and what not. You fight in the name of religion, ideals, resources, beliefs, politics. You exhort people to war with entreaties of patriotism, and service of mankind and the like. You forget that all this makes sense only to you and others like you. 

For me, it means I get to wake up to bombs falling. I get to go to sleep to the sounds of gunfire. I get to see my family massacred in front of my eyes. I get to live a life without fun, without joy, without toys or even a place to call my home. I get to live a life maybe without limbs, or eyes or ears. I get raped and assaulted and killed. I try to escape and I die in the process. I stay and I get killed. If I do manage an escape, its months, years before I get to a place I can call my own. I sleep on forest floors and swim across oceans; I travel in jam-packed containers where I might suffocate to death. 

And sometimes, when I do get to freedom, you tell me you can’t have me in your country. That there are too many of us already, and we would upset the fabric of your country. I don’t understand. You deem it alright to destroy my home or you condone someone else’s destruction of it, and then you won’t have me in your own. You worry about your homes and your children; their right to be happy and run unfettered and unaffected by anything. While there are millions like me who have never known a day without war, not gone to sleep without the noises of destruction ringing in our ears, who have not known what it is like to be free, to not worry about waking up the next day, to not worry about their next meal or if we will lose our parents. 

I don’t understand how you can look at my face and not see your children’s faces there. I don’t understand this war or this conflict. I don’t understand the killing and the bloodshed. I don’t understand the terms you bandy about so casually to justify what you do. All I can do, is implore you to stop. To leave for me, a world where I can sleep in peace. A world where I will never be hurt by anything, in any fashion.  A world where I won’t be relegated to yet another iconic photograph..

(Images, Courtesy: Google Images)

What do I teach my child?

Terror attacks painting the globe red. Police shooting people. People shooting police. People shooting people. Kindergarten kids being taught to stand on toilet seats to escape shooters. Terror outfits kidnapping children and forcing them into sexual slavery. Politicians endorsing racist and extremist rhetoric. 

These are just some of the incidents that I read about in the past couple of months. And I’m exhausted. I’m tired of seeing the names of places attacks happened and people killed. The numbers simply make my heart go numb. These issues were there when I was a child and I hoped that as I grew up, things would get better. That the people in charge of nations all over the world would do the right thing, and make the right decisions. That we’d see an end to war, poverty, climate change, genocide, terrorism. That people across the globe would learn to live in peace. But the exact opposite seems to be happening. 

The world seems to be sprinting towards xenophobia, terrorism and more wars, with the death toll rising steadily. And my initial hopes of things getting better are almost non existent. As a mother, this scares me to no end. Growing up is a painful process. Its hard enough learning new things, making friends, going through love and heartbreak, losing your naiveté about the many things in the world, figuring out what you want to be in life and getting through the journey without losing sight of your inner child completely. Add to this the state the world is in right now, and we have a depressing scenario.

When I went to school, my biggest worries were about teachers asking me something in class that I didn’t know the answer to, or not scoring well on a test, or missing the school bus, or what I’d do if it rained during PE class, or how to avoid getting mud on my white uniform. Now that I’m getting closer to sending my son to school, the list of things I need to worry about seems endless and much more scarier. 

I need to worry about the bus driver. Will he or she hurt my child? Will he be safe with them? I need to worry about the security at school. What if someone gets in with a gun? Or a knife? What if my child is bullied? What if someone passes racist comments? What if someone bigger than him beats him up? What if the teachers don’t notice? What if they hurt him? Should I send him to a posh private school then? But will he be made fun of there as well? What if my child is caught in a shooting at school? Should I teach him how to get out alive in such a situation? Should I send him to self defence class? Will it do any good?

How do I explain all this to him? I recently lost my grandmother. D was close to her. He could recognise her in pictures and he would watch videos of him with her. So when she passed away, and a few days later he mentioned he wanted to see her, I had to tell him she wasn’t there anymore. He was confused and I had to tell him she had gone bye- bye to see God. Its hard enough explaining the concept of life and death to a child. Imagine having to explain why people kill other people, why wars happen, why people of a certain color are considered better than other, why his colour and his culture might make him the butt of jokes, why he might be persecuted for his beliefs or his choices in life or his sexual orientation, why he could be shot dead in his school or his home or any other place where he should be safe, why he shouldn’t trust anyone completely, why he should always be careful, why he shouldn’t be confrontational, why he should just put his head down and walk. Imagine having to teach him what to do if he’s caught in a shooting, or if someone is picking on him, or if someone thinks its ok to make fun of his color, or if someone is using racial slurs against him. Can you imagine the sheer list of things that a child needs to be made aware of at a tender age? And can you imagine how much that would affect their young minds? 

At an age when they should be climbing trees and laughing till they’re out of breath and singing nursery rhymes, we are teaching them to look at everyone and everything around them with fear and suspicion. We are not just fighting against monsters under the bed now, we are fighting against real monsters and real issues. We are bringing up a generation of children who will soon forget what diversity is like, what peace is like, what a happy world is like. We already have a generation like this in many parts of the world; who’ve never known a day without war. We are leaving a legacy of terror and war and prejudice and discrimination for the next generation. Unless we start to make a difference right now, the world is going to be a bleak place to exist for our children and the generations to come. It pains me to think that I’ll be sending my child out into a world like this; where he will have to learn to navigate such choppy waters. It pains me that I’ll have to see him lose his innocence and hope bit by small bit and stand by helplessly. I can only hope that things get better, and teach him to hope for the same as well.

Like Pope said, Hope springs eternal.. 

Image Courtesy: Google Images 

The Hatred for Love?

Mankind has always been afraid of what it couldn’t understand or what didn’t fit the “norm” as prescribed by society. And that fear was very evident this past weekend the we all woke up to the news of the horrific shootings in Orlando. Over fifty people shot and killed. For what? For believing that love needn’t necessarily be between opposite genders? For identifying themselves as something other than the gender they were assigned at birth? For daring to go against the “norm”? 

I might have been thirteen when I first came to know about India’s famous third sex- the hijras. Alternately feared, reviled and worshipped, they are always shunned; and somehow manage to eke out a living partly from begging and conducting religious ceremonies and partly from sex work. Back then, I didn’t know all this. I just knew they were not “normal” and were to be feared. As I grew up and leant more about LGBTQs and their lives and how in spite of them being not the “norm”, they were still human beings, I realised how majority of the people around me didn’t have a clue about the lives of these people; and even if they did, how mistaken they were. 

And the more I read and understood, the more I realised that a lot of this fear had to do with the way we are brought up from childhood. As children, we are taught to act and behave in ways that are acceptable to the gender we are assigned at birth. If a boy expresses interest in dolls, or dancing or dressing up, he’s given a stern talking to and told to not act “girly”; like any hint of feminity in him is to be feared and quashed. Same goes for a girl who expresses an interest in anything even remotely masculine. Boys don’t cry. Girls don’t do fistfights. Boys don’t play with dolls. Girls don’t play with guns. The list is simply endless. And as you grow older, the list just keeps growing. A guy holds another guy’s hand- “Dude! Let go! Thats so gay!”. Two girls are extremely close friends- “Ugh! I bet they are lesbians.” The stereotyping starts and even if the intention is plain affection, people stop doing the things for fear of being labelled so. 

And for someone who actually happens to be gay, the plight is so much worse. The bullying, the ostracism sometimes even from ones’ own parents, the blame games and the trying to “cure” the condition. Friends cutting you off. Sniggers at the workplace. The hushed whispers among relatives and acquaintances. And the anguish that comes from not being able to make others understand that you are as much normal and as much human as they are. 

Why can’t we stop this conditioning and this fear from getting the better of us? Who has taught us that gender needs to be absolute? And if you belong to a certain gender, you simply have to behave in a certain fashion? Why should men be tough always? Why is it that if he isn’t, it is considered a blot on his masculinity? As someone who comes from a religion that has always celebrated gender fluidity and having been brought up by a couple of people who never thought that I should be defined exclusively by my gender, I find this hard to fathom. But then, I’m not surprised. 

The first time I spoke to my mother about LGBTQs, she was confused. She couldn’t understand how it could be so. Having grown up in a conservative household, I didn’t blame her. She had no idea people could be this way. But, she wasn’t judgemental or dismissive. She was honestly curious. And once I explained to her that this wasn’t something that could be cured or something that was an illness, she was understanding. “To each, his own”, she said. “As long as that person is happy, its nobody’s business”, was her thinking. 

Can’t we all think this way? Just because your religion forbids it or because you don’t think the same way, does it mean everyone else would follow you as well? My religion tells me that the cow is sacred and to not eat its meat. I can point out millions of Hindus who enjoy beef. Can we all say with absolute conviction that we follow everything that our religion prescribes? No one can. Religion is only supposed to be a guideline on how to live your life. It isn’t supposed to be something absolute. And then again, isn’t all religion about love. Doesn’t every religion teach us that God is love? Just because someone’s definition of love doesn’t match ours does it mean they are wrong? 

Condemning someone for being gay and telling them only heterosexual love constitutes love is like telling someone from the USA that idli -sambar is the best food in the world and bacon is bad. Do you see how silly this is? You’re a man and you love a woman? Go ahead. Good for you. You’re a man and you love another man? Good for you as well. Why does it have to be so that only one is right? 

And to those people who think that “these gays” are corrupting our children and making them follow their path of blasphemy, and would I like it if my child turned out it be “one of them”; being gay isn’t a lifestyle choice. Its not like deciding to go vegan or deciding to grow your own vegetables. Its just the way a person is. And if at all in the future, my child or anyone I know comes out to tell me he or she doesn’t fit the norm; I don’t care. As long as he or she is happy and at peace, I don’t care two hoots about what anyone else thinks. But I do want them to live in a world that is safe for them, a world where people are accepting of them and they don’t have to hide who they are. I do not want them to live in a world that is hell bent on making them invisible, and trying to portray them as people who are not whole or complete or normal; and trying to cleanse the world of them. 

The world is big enough for all of us. Just live and let live. 

(Image Courtesy: Google Images)

H is for…

And the alphabet of the week is… *drumroll please* H!!

H is for Home/ House- Ahh.. I see. You are wondering why I clubbed the two words together eh? You’ll see soon enough. All of us have an image that pops up in our mind when we hear the word “home”. Its the same for me too except, I have a collage in my mind as opposed to a single image. In spite of being someone who believes in the very cliched statement “Home is where the heart is”, the word still conjures up in my mind a mish- mash of images. And the reason is plain and simple- memories. You see, being the daughter of someone who worked with a national bank for over two decades, my childhood was one great, big adventure. I was a true nomad. Moving once every two years, sometimes once every year- new home, new people, new school, new friends- it was all great fun. And every home I have ever lived in, has gifted me at least one memory I treasure. I remember the house we were living at when my sister was born. We lived there till she was a year old. It was also at the same house that we bought our first car, where I made a ton of friends, where I learned to love unconditionally, where I gained a pet and lost one. My own home is full of memories – happy and sad, and so are both my Mom’s and Dad’s ancestral homes. Even all the places I lived in with S in Singapore (we have lived in quite a few) have gifted me millions of memories- some as inconsequential as an amazing night in to some as life altering as loss.

H is for Heart- Amazing how something described as a “hollow, muscular organ” in scientific terms can symbolise a myriad of complex emotions and feelings. From silly usages like, “I heart you”, to words like heartrending, heartbreak, heartening, hearty to idioms like after one’s own heart, break one’s heart, with a heavy heart, took it to heart, have a heart, wear one’s heart on one’s sleeve, heart and soul; the possibilities and meanings that the word evokes are endless and encompass a whole gamut of human emotions. Fascinating? Or maybe its so only to me. Hazards of being a voracious reader and a language nerd I believe. Moving on..

H is for Hope- All of us live in the hope of something better. From the time we are old enough to grasp the concept, hope rules our lives. We go to school hoping for a good education. We take music classes and dance classes hoping to nurture or talent or get better at it, We go for tuitions hoping to better our grades. We go to college hoping for a great career. We stick with a job we hate hoping it will pay off in the long run. We hope for a great holiday, a better life- if not for us then for our future generations, and these days, with the state our world is in, most of us live in the hope that we will wake up to see another day.

H is for History- One of my favourite subjects since school. I have always been fascinated with things that happened in the past. After all, they are the events that shaped the future and set the stage for our entrance to this planet. Its the legacy that has been left to us by the billions of people who lived and died before us. Its a peek into a way of life that seems so far alien to us that it comes off as fantastical. It makes you sit up and wonder how people got things done back then and at how much society has progressed in the centuries since. I find it fascinating- this journey that mankind has made from prehistoric caves to postmodern, minimalist apartments, from crude drawings on cave walls to art on the ipad; remarkable! And its not just the history of our world as such that I’m talking about here. I love personal histories too. All of us have our own histories. Who we are, where we come from. Our families, cultures, religions, the people who rear us – all shape the kind of person we have become and continue to shape the kind of person we will evolve into.

H is for Hair- which I have very little of, by choice (well mostly). Heh. I have short hair- always had short hair. I have gone through stages when I let it grow out and experimented with styles that were more suited to long hair but I have always found that I am happiest when my hair is short. Weirdly, the shorter my hair, the happier I get. I don’t know why that is but am sure any self respecting psychiatrist will love to analyze this in depth. 😛 heh. I know, I give myself too much importance sometimes. Anyway, weird or not, short hair makes me happy. Its convenient, yes. It takes me just minutes to blow dry my hair and brush it into place. Its easier to leave my hair loose and not tie it up. But beyond all that there is some part of me that feels insanely joyous every single time I settle into the stylists chair and hear the snipping of his scissors and see my hair floating to the ground. And every time that happens, a smile inadvertently blooms on my face. 😀

H is for Handwriting- something that is rapidly becoming extinct thanks to the pace of technological progress. I am someone who likes to scribble. Not just scribble here, on this space, but also in journals, notebooks etc. There used to be a time when scribbling used to be a nightly ritual for me. I would sit down at my desk and jot down at least a couple of lines before sleep claimed my weary self. Even after I got married, my habit of scribbling continued. Anytime a story idea pops into my head, or if I am writing something for S, I invariably put pen to paper. When D was in my tummy, I started a couple of notebooks for him. One wherein I jotted down everything that I was going through and feeling weekly (thanks brat for that book) and one, a journal in which I wrote down things far more important that I wanted D to know. It is filled with topics that range from family to books to movies to politics to religion and culture. I had planned for it to go on even after D popped out but since then, I have been so strapped for time that the journal gathers dust on my desk while I now have only extremely hazy memories of what my handwriting looks like. Just yesterday a friend had shared a post about letter writing on Facebook and me and a few friends of mine who would regularly write to each other got to reminiscing about how much fun it was. But these days, with the advent of social media and whatsapp and a ton of other applications that make communication easier, handwriting has become a skill that you seldom use. To be honest, the only times I use the pen these days are to sign purchase slips in stores or while signing for  package. I need to start scribbling more, starting today.

H is for Healing- People say time heals all wounds. Although not entirely false, the statement isn’t entirely true either. There are certain wounds that no amount of time will ever heal. True, the sting goes down as time passes. That pang in your heart everytime you think of that someone or something eases a bit but the reminder always stays. You never heal completely. You move on. You invite new people and new experiences into your life. Along the way, you transform into another person. But at some secret place deep inside of you, that hurt still throbs. Maybe someday you will get to a point where you are able to make peace with whatever it is that hurt you, to smile and let go and learn to move on. But, someday, something will remind you of it and again there will be that slight twinge and you wonder if you ever completely heal. (This is my feeling about a terrible loss I experienced. It might not qualify as a loss for most people but, there are some people close to my heart who know and understand and have been through the same. They will know what I am talking about.)

H is for Honeymoon- Ahh. The period that most people qualify as undoubtedly the best part of one’s married life. I disagree but then, I wouldn’t know too much since me and S never had a proper honeymoon. By the time our wedding was done, we were kinda broke. Plus S had just moved to Singapore and hadn’t had the chance to explore the place. So once I set foot on Singapore soil, we started our forays into every single nook and cranny of the city state. It was an amazing time to be honest. We were on a budget even then so we had to really plan all our outings but we had tons of fun. But if you ask me if it was the most magical time of our married life, I would have to say no. It was one of the best times but each day, me and S are making more amazing moments so its hard to pick out one and say, “Yes, this was the best”. 🙂

Oh, and before I forget, H is also for Hugh Jackman!! Undoubtedly the sexiest man alive.. at least for me… And of course after S.. Duh!! 😉 😛

(Images Courtesy: Google Images)

Off My Bookshelf – 6

Title: The Book Thief

Publisher: Picador

Author: Markus Zusak

(Image Courtesy: Google Images)

OK. So now that I am officially back on the blog I need to continue writing. Easier said than done. Between managing li’l D and everything else in my crazy day, I have to find the time to scribble something here. Of course, I could entertain you with everything that happens in my boring day but, I choose not to do that. See how considerate I am? Yesterday, I was going through my old posts and I realized I had this “Off My Bookshelf” label going on. And I thought, why not write about this amazing book I read after a long long time.

I find it hard to find time to read these days. And even when I can get my hands on a book, it takes me weeks to finish it no matter how interesting the book is. “The Book Thief” was recommended to me by more than one friend. Now, war has never interested me. There has been more than enough war in the world, in history classes, in courses in college. There have been reams written about the atrocities, the concentration camps, the death and destruction to last a lifetime. How a diminutive man with a toothbrush moustache could wreak so much destruction on the world and almost result in the extermination of an entire group of people, is beyond me. So when I picked up this book, I was hesitant. Did I want to read more about the blood and gore? But once I started, it was hard for me to put this book down.

Zusak brings to us the horrors of the war for sure- through the words of death himself who is the narrator of the piece. But he does it in such a fashion, that instead of becoming yet another book on war, this becomes a life affirming tale of the triumph of good over evil, of how in the midst of all that hatred and carnage, there still existed people who had the courage to do good. Sounds cliched? The theme maybe, but the execution is so poignant, the characterization so brilliant that Himmel Street and its occupants haunt you even when you are done with the book. You keep wishing you had a chance to meet them, talk to them, understand them and somehow, keep them safe from what was to be their fate.

“The Book Thief” is not just about the war, it is also the story of Liesel Meminger, a girl who loves words so much, she steals them. It tells of her journey from book to book, word by word. About her journey from on board a train, to 33 Himmel Street and ultimately to Australia. About the people on Himmel Street- their loyalties, their struggle, their pain. About their suffering during the way, their losses and ultimately their deaths. And all this without even once being overtly dramatic about anything. Zusak’s style is simple and to the point- no embellishments. His language is everyday. He doesn’t strive for the deep or symbolic. He relates the story as it is.

But even with those words, he weaves a certain kind of magic. There are certain lines that stay with you long after you are done with the book, like Death saying, “I am haunted by humans.” or Liesel saying, “I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.” But my favourite bit of the book remains this- “I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn’t already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race-that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant.”

Somehow for me, this sums up the whole human experience. This book is definitely one to treasure. If you haven’t read it already, I suggest you do. 🙂

Welcoming the rains!!

And the monsoons are here. Any one of you who has been reading this space for even the smallest length of time will know this is my favourite time of the year. I am someone who adores the rains. And this year, when the monsoons started I was in my hometown. Yup! I was in God’s own country. I had just finished an exam and was back home. S was down to see me for a couple of days and he had gone back. It was a Monday morning. I remember waking up to the sound of the leaves of the guava tree at home gently swishing in the rains. I nearly jumped out of bed and whipped aside the curtains in my room. Instead of the bright sunlight I am used to, it was the gentle grey blue morning light of the monsoons that greeted me. It was pouring rain. The trees and shrubs all around were glowing bright green. There were puddles in the road in front of my home. I could see the stray umbrella bobbing up and down on the streets. The smell of Amma’s tea was wafting up the stairs. I had nothing worthwhile to do that day and I was blissfully happy. I spent a couple of hours that morning in bed lingering over my tea and a book. Ocassionally looking out of the window, enjoying the lashing rain, the pitter patter of the raindrops against the glass windows and the stray bolt of lightning that shook me out of my reverie.

 

But the one thing I missed, was getting drenched in the rains. I don’t know if it was because the thought completely slipped my mind while I was devouring book after book, or if it was because it had been drummed into my head since I was a kid that the first rains of monsoons would invariably make you sick. It wasn’t until I was back in Bengaluru and the rains started here that I reaized I had missed out on the pure joy of being soaked to the skin in the rains. And what reminded me was something that still makes me smile.

 

I was back in Bengaluru and was sufficiently miserable- missing my own home and missing the rains I loved so much- when it started raining here. I live in this huge sprawling apartment complex here. The thing about apartment complexes is that you tend to be isolated from a lot of the life that happens outside its lofty walls. The place I stay is supposedly one of the poshest areas in Bengaluru where people are always well mannered and everything that you could possibly want is available within the four walls of the compound. Kids here are either playing tennis, or roller skating or swimming during their spare time. I guess any other game does not qualify as sophisticated enough. Young mothers power walk in the evening accompanied by their maids pushing their precious cargo around. Old uncles and aunties get together in the evening to share the latest gossip- of course, in impeccable English without a trace of even the stray accent. You get the general idea.

 

 

(Picture Courtesy: National Geographic)

 

But if I look out my bedroom window, I am privy to yet another world. There is this small housing colony in a tiny pocket road right opposite my bedroom window. Row after row of tiny apartments with just the teeniest amount of privacy is what you find there. The pocket road terminates in a cul- de- sac and every evening without fail, all the kids from the colony gather on the road to play various games- badminton, cricket, hopscotch and what not. You find kids of all ages and sizes there. The noise they make is excessive but then, kids will be kids, no matter what. The day the monsoons started here I was sitting and reading in my room. I had my ipod on to shut out the noise the kids were making when suddenly I realized it was excessively dark in my room. I switched on the lights and peeked out the window to find the sky filled with angry, dark clouds and in a few minutes, fat drops of water started falling. To say that I was beyond happy would be an understatement. I was ecstatic. As it started pouring and I stood there looking out the window at the rains, I saw something that made me smile even more. The kids outside had all stopped playing and were hooting in joy at the downpour. They had their faces lifted to the sky, some of them were dancing, some were whooping and running around in circles, some of the older ones had lifted the little ones onto their shoulders, there was the sound of manic laughter all around.

 

And the best part was, except for a handful of parents who were chasing after their children yelling at them about getting sick, everyone else were standing by with indulgent smiles on their faces. It was in that moment that I realized what I was missing out on. The sheer joy of being a kid, of getting drenched in the first rain of the season, of being so utterly carefree, not bothering about mobile phones getting wet or your brand new leather wallet or spoiling your new pair of shoes. Not worrying about getting places in the pouring rain. Just the joy of welcoming another season, no complaints, no frowns- just sheer happiness. That was when I realized that my enjoyment of the rains till then had been superficial. I had just managed to look at the rains from the cozy comfort of my bedroom, curled up with coffee or hot chocolate and a good book. I hadn’t, in ages, bothered to enjoy the rains the way they were menat to be enjoyed- by being right in the middle of the deluge. And as I walked away from the window, I resolved that next time I was home, I would enjoy the rains the way they were mean to be. To hell with getting sick and walking around with umbrellas. I would get drenched. 🙂

A Letter to the Girl Child..

Today is National Girl Child Day and the first thing I read in the paper today morning was this. How very fitting!! After all the protests and impassioned speeches and heart- rending articles written about the issue, this is what it all boils down to. 10 years!!! Oh yeah! That’ll stop them. I cannot fathom why a great nation like ours that boasts about a tradition of revering women, a nation where you have as many goddesses as gods chooses to treat the issue of the safety of women so lightly. I was beyond frustrated when I read the report today morning that I thought I wouldn’t write anything here. But then I thought, I have to say something for my own kind. So here goes.

Dear Girl Child,

Today is your day, or so the powers that be have decreed. Why do we have a National Girl Child Day?, you wonder. There is no National Boy Child Day. At least I couldn’t find one. You see, our country, irrespective of being a place where women are worshipped and revered ( as you might have heard), is not a safe place, especially for our kind. Its a miracle you were even born. Most people in this country don’t prefer a girl. After all a girl is too much of a burden- your education, getting you married off- its all going to take a lot of money. And its not like even if you get a job your earnings are going to go to your parents. Its your husband’s family that has a right over it. Also, people think that girls tend to rebel more in their teenage and are more liable to bring “shame” on the family by their actions. So most often you don’t see a world outside of your mother’s womb. But if due to some reason that’s not possible and you are born, they’ll still try to get rid of you. Statistics say around 3 million girls are lost to infanticide in this great nation every year. Am sure the actual number is much higher.

Lets say you survive this too. Growing up isn’t easy. You face discrimination everywhere. You may or may not be sent to school. If your parents decide educating your brother is better for them then you’ll be stuck at home doing the household chores. Lets say you survive that too. Even after you get a job you will never be promoted or paid as well as your male colleagues. And if you thought childhood was a happy place, think again. Not in this country. You have to afraid of everyone. The bus driver who drives you to and from school everyday. The uncle next door who’s always giving you chocolates and asking you to come in and watch TV with him. The guy walking in your direction along the deserted road. You will be taught to dress “properly”, to “cover up”, not to show skin, to wear your duppatta properly, to hold your books/ file in front of you, to ignore catcalls and comments and lewd invitations, to ignore lustful stares and groping hands. Good girls should never react.

And if you do have the guts to react, trust me everyone will blame you. Their favourite phrase is “you asked for it”. Irrespective of your age, you will always get blamed for whatever happens to you. You got groped on your way home from school? Why you should have been more careful! Someone passed lewd comments about you? Well, you would have provoked him in some fashion. And even if something horrible happens to you like rape, the first question out of people’s mouths will be “What was she wearing? And why was she out so late at night?”. It could have happened at 7 pm but still. You might have been wearing the most conservative of clothes but still, you will be blamed. After all women should never be as good as men. You should always be a few steps below him. You shouldn’t enjoy the same independence, the same freedom he enjoys. As night falls, you should retreat to your homes. The night is for just the men.

Oh this is a democracy you say? There are rules. Yes there are. But none to protect us my dear. Even if the most heinous atrocity is committed against you, the max someone is going to suffer is 10 years in prison. The law makers in our great nation say “life imprisonment” but in a nation where circumventing the law is so easy it happens on a regular basis you can be pretty damn sure that’s never going to happen. So even if someone violates you and kills you the maximum justice you are going to get is seeing the perpetrators going to prison for maybe 10 whole years! You see there are tons of “human rights” groups in the nation that think that taking a life is a crime. Your life does not come under the purview of their belief system I guess.

Shocked? I can imagine darling. I am just stating facts here. You were born into a country where there are double standards. Our nation hasn’t progressed much from the days of the Manusmriti. For the most part, we are still chattel to be passed on from father to husband to son. Our roles are just those of a daughter, a wife and a mother. Any identity we may have outside of it is not important. We might have had women politicians and actors and singers and industrialists, but we will still be judged by the clothes we wear, the way we behave, the roundness of our rotis. You and me, we live in a nation that doesn’t love its women my darling, and on this day all I can wish for you is that you have the courage to be yourself- a person not a doormat, your own person, with the freedom to be what you want to be, go where you want to go and be an individual with your own thoughts and opinions. I wish you have the courage to stick with your beliefs no matter what. I wish you have the spirit of a warrior. And I hope in a few decades something changes in the world.

Love,

Pooh

PS: It being National Girl Child Day today, the newspapers had some well- meaning companies/ institutions publishing messages to save the girl child. One of them, for an educational institution no less, read  something like – no girl, no mother, no life. Is that all what women are needed for? For the propagation of the species? It was a new low point in my day.

Every Man is an Island??

Are there times in your life when you feel like an island? Like you are isolated from everything that happens around you, and I don’t mean it in a bad way. Its like you know there are a million things happening around you and yet, you are perfectly content to ignore all that and continue what you are doing. It happens to me. Sometimes I’ll be walking along the street, listening to music and I’d find myself completely isolated from all the craziness around me – people talking, cars honking, the noise of the street vendors. I’d feel like I was in this cocoon, and as the world was going on doing whatever it is that the world was supposed to be doing, I was in limbo. Its this feeling of absolute contentment and peace and it never fails to me cheer me up.

But this feeling hits me most when I am reading. As such, I am oblivious to everything else the minute I have a book in hand. Right from the time I was a kid, it took nothing more than a book to transport me from the world of reality, to one of my imagination. And that continues to this day. Today morning, I was taking a break from my studying to flip through a book. Although I read only for almost fifteen minutes, that time was more than enough to put me in a stellar mood. For those short fifteen minutes, I was an island- away from this world, lost in a world created by the author’s words and my own imagination, with people who do not exist in the real world yet are perfectly real to me. And this happens to me almost anywhere, anytime I open a book.

I still remember the time I was working in Singapore. I would always carry a book around with me (I still do), in spite of the fact that I could not read while travelling, and that was pretty much all the time in a day that I got to myself. But a book was a constant presence in my handbag. Some days, after work, S and me would make plans to meet up someplace for our usual grocery shopping or dinner or to just walk back home together. Now, our workplaces were pretty far apart. I had to commute to office by bus and S took the train. So he ended up beating the rush hour traffic on the roads, and I was almost always caught in traffic, or at every red light there was. To coordinate our arrival at our chosen destination, I would always start first and message him when I was almost halfway through my commute. And that would be his signal to start from office.

Now S is usually a stickler for punctuality, and insists on getting anywhere on time. But some days, he would get caught up with work or he would begin to leave and something would come up to hold him back which meant that I would reach way before he did. And then, I had to wait for him. Waiting for people is something I hate doing. I avoid it at any cost. But then again, some days I simply didn’t have the choice. So while S would be on his way or trying to get out of office as soon as he could, I would be either sitting at the metro station or at a cafe somewhere with a book in my hand. I always preferred the cafes to the metro stations. There’s nothing like a hot cup of coffee, or a mug of hot chocolate, to make your waiting more bearable.

So there I would be, sitting by my lonesome self in a Starbucks or a McD, steaming cup of coffee by my side and an open book in front of me and I would become an island. I would be so completely lost in my book, that most often I would not even know when S walked in and sat across from me at my table. I wouldn’t notice if he messaged me. Once, the lady sitting next to me at the counter had to point out the fact that my phone had been ringing for a while. I become that oblivious to things. But, I love that feeling. For one, when I was working, finding the time to read uninterrupted was pretty much impossible. Also, when I get to read like that for a while, it almost always melts away my irritation at having had to wait for S, at the traffic, at the work that almost always manages to find S right as he is about to leave for home and at everything else I feel is wrong with the world.

And when S comes along to pick me up from wherever I am, and I am forced to turn back to being a part of humanity again, I am a happier person. I feel that a few minutes of solitude was all I needed to make me whole again. And as I close my book and link my hands with S and he asks me, “So, how was your day?”, in spite of all the craziness that happened, I always smile up at him and say, “It was perfect”. 🙂 Guess being an island for a while works wonder for me.. How about you?

Image Courtesy: Google Images