A Mothers Day Reminder.

That thriving Ministry of Unending Advice, to plagiarize a recent phrase, works at its optimum when it comes to women. With motherhood, the giving of advice increases. It goes on to overtime if one is a working mother. By the time it reaches a single working mother it is on an overdrive. And since I belong to the last and final category, I am subject to much unsolicited advice on a regular basis. Come Mothers Day and I find all these happily forgotten, deserted pieces of advice revive themselves, coalesce into bright, fluffy, virtuous messages of felicitation and mushroom all around me. 

And I am beset with an ideal of motherhood that is linear, unidimensional, starts and ends with a smiling, self deprecating, self sacrificing vision of motherhood that has no resemblance to my lived experience of it, which is almost always the exact opposite. These are times then, that we need to stand in solidarity and proclaim to the world what our true experiences and perceptions are. 

I present to the reader today a few examples of my perceptions of such advice. And trust that these three descriptions will help you identify many more pitfalls and steer clear of them on that joy filled, unbound, wonderfilled, humbling journey of motherhood -

Advice: Children need their mother’s time. Hence she should be home and looking after them.

The actual fact: Children need a set of inputs. These include routine, stability, health, food, discipline, values, education, a clean and comfortable home, love, hugs, holidays, friends, family, hope, a belief in their abilities and a few hundred other things. 

It matters that they get these things. It matters less that these come only from their mother. Thing is if you are a lousy person, the advent of motherhood does not, by default turn you into a fabulous mother; you remain a lousy person. Having you at home to supervise an infant and assuming that your continuous presence is the best thing to happen to the child is a dangerous fallacy. It may quite possibly be the worst. 

Or you may be a nice person, but either unprepared or unwilling to be a mother. When this happens during examinations, we fail the exam. Similar things happen in motherhood. 

And so, when the world turns on the “Children need you” button, I listen politely (mostly) and then go ahead and un-listen. My children belong to the world. And the world is theirs. If I limit them to myself, I do them a great disservice.

I have been told so many times that parents do not wish to have care givers looking after their children. That I should not leave my children with maids and go off to work. Of course one must be lucky enough to find good care givers. But if you do find them, as I did, they have given so much love and care to my children, so unconditionally, with such commitment that my children and I have always held ourselves blessed to have them as part of the family. And no, I was not “lucky” to find them. I worked very hard to find them, and invested seriously in helping them stay with me. 

Advice: Women need to find their work life balance.

The actual fact: Work is part of life and vice versa. Actually if you don’t have life, you can’t work. Technically it’s called being dead. Now if both values are on the same side of the equal sign, what is there to balance? But, ah, there is so much pleasure to be found in guilt! And so we women run around in circles trying to balance 2 things on the same side, which is impossible, which is what the world wants. 

And so, when I am given the “Work Life balance” advice, my response has been “ But you see, I consider being a mother work and my work I consider an integral part of my life. What then do you suggest I balance against what?” In general an amount of angst is expected in answer to this advice.  But try answering it with a counter question. It usually turns off the advisor and one can go about one’s business undisturbed.

At the end of it both the work place and your children are relationships. Each can be negotiated to be sensitive to each other. Of course it’s not an easy thing to do. But then why did you ever imagine it was easy to be a mother?

Advice: Women should look after children because they are better at it. Because mothering comes naturally to them. 

The actual fact: The only thing women are better at is bearing the child and giving birth. One cannot deny instinct, but for human beings, mothering lies way beyond instinct. It requires incredible amounts of courage, patience, ingenuity, discipline, a powerful moral compass, love, and a few hundred other things. It has required a person like me to learn to cook, and cook well. Not once, not twice, as in a battle. But every minute, every hour, for a lifetime. Nature doesn’t give all of these to women  - we make the effort to find them. We choose, we prioritize and we learn to be good at them. And, unlike a battle, we get no knighthoods or medals or promotions for doing all of these. Our lives are not subsidized by the tax payers monies. We simply get up the next day and go on being a mother. 

And the other side of this argument has also fascinated me - if women should look after children because they are better at it, how about getting women to do all the things she is better at? Why only child rearing? And if this argument extends to the men, and if men are excelling at being chefs and tailors, why then, women should stop doing both these at home. Let the men do what they excel at, I say. We are a generous lot, us women.

I suppose one must thank such things like Mothers Day because it reminds us of battles that we sometimes forget to fight. I wish you all many battles well fought, many victories to savor, many cups of tea shared on sunlit verandahs with family and dear friends to celebrate motherhood. 

To Run and Not to Arrive

“The safest road to Hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts……..” Though Mr. Lewis may not have intended so, it is a statement of eerie significance to the institution of Patriarchy (in keeping with present day explanation techniques, here is the Google link to Patriarchy _ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarchy) One of the reasons that Feminists have had great difficulty in walking their own road is that it is so difficult to articulate that we are walking on the wrong road to start with. There are no milestones that say “Discrimination crossed, violation 3 km ahead.” Or no signposts that say,  “Steep abuse ahead, use bypass, ” or “Equality under construction, inconvenience is regretted.” Or even, “Men at work, go slow.”

Hauling ourselves out of this Subjugation Road has not been an easy task. We still haven’t succeeded. And from time to time we arrive at a State of Crisis. Usually this means that like the Queen in Alice in Wonderland, us feminists are have to run very hard to remain in the same place. Worse, from time to time we slip backwards.

As the world seems to unspool itself into a myriad unforeseen and untoward roads in this last decade or so, we Feminists are as confused and confounded as others. As a country on the other side of the world prepares for its new leader, along with so many others, Feminists are unable to shake off that sense of foreboding. (Technically – the Pacific Ocean is on the other side of the world but it is presently not throwing up complications of feminist ideology.) While much is happening in the amazing United States, this post will focus on one aspect that its immediate circumstances has thrown up – that of the women we are seeing. Why the US, you may ask. And this is because the West and the US specially have led feminist thought and action and for long the east has looked admiringly and hopefully to this land of shining freedom. But there now appear patches of rust and the brightness somewhat dulled and we feminists are hard put to run even faster, and faster, and….

So the women then and how they make us run faster –

Michelle Obama: Some time ago, a post on social media on the Obamas went viral – one where the Obamas went out for a private dinner and Michelle Obama found that the owner of the restaurant was an admirer of hers from a long time ago. Barack Obama joked that if she had married the restauranteur instead of Barack, Michelle would be a hotel owner’s wife? Michelle replied, no, the hotel owner would have been the President of the US.
 
To my deepest disappointment, she did not reply that if she had not married Barack, she herself would have been the President of the United States. And so, pushing aside her obvious potential to lead, Michelle Obama firmly placed women as secondary to men - she clearly stated that women could only be wives. And as she moves on, with grace and dignity no doubt, she leaves behind yet another generation of her country women who will not aspire to be President. They will aspire to be wives, mothers, social workers. They will aspire to dress well, speak well, be a good hostess, be charming, well read, intelligent, well educated. And become wives to presidents.

And so the adulation of Michelle Obama on this statement marked yet another gentle, milestone less mile along Subjugation Road. And the narrow, unpredictable, violence spattered road women are running on, shrunk yet a little more and we kept running…

But wait! There is actually a woman in the US who wants to be President. The funny thing is, she also made us run.

Hilary Clinton then: 1999 and the United States faced its second, unbelievable presidential impeachment process (after Andrew Johnson’s in 1868) initiated by sexual misconduct and abuse of power by the President himself. Involving harassment and exploitation of a 20 year old White House intern, (the President was himself 53 years old at that time) the circumstance left the country and the world stunned. Disgraced, impeached and bringing the issue of sexual harassment at the workplace to a new low, the President left the White House, his silent, stoic wife and young daughter grimly by his side.

And that is where Hilary Clinton stayed - stoic and silent by a husband who betrayed her trust in the most public manner possible. And as she stood by him, we ran faster and faster, desperately afraid that if she won the race for presidency, a generation of women living in discrimination and violence would slip off this slippery road we ran on – back, back into the relationships that belittled and stunted them. And bend them a little more with the burden of what society handed to them - that the acceptance of violence and discrimination is the only road available to them.  Once again, a woman with obvious potential, with access to  the  best resources the country could provide, Hilary  chose to put all of this to work only to fit into the box and a white pant suit.

And now for the woman who will actually occupy the White House from next month – Melania Trump. An immigrant model who came to America as thousands have over the years, she did what the other thousands had done – she chose the easier road. And became a mute bystander to a husband who spoke openly and belittled her roots of being an immigrant and a model. While she is yet to enter the White House, it will be only a miracle if she changes this role.

Each of the above ladies – all powerful and influential in their own right, could have changed the world for women. Instead they seem to  send out the same message – that women are secondary to men. That women must accept that men have more power. That women must accept that men will abuse. That women must accept that she cannot protest. And in sending out this message, each of them have contributed to making the world an uglier place, to making homes and relationships unequal and dangerous. And when women in powerful positions send out such messages, it means A Lot of Running for us. One would think with all this exercise the least us feminists could achieve was an incredible level of fitness and health. But even that doesn’t seem to be happening.

In the America of my dreams, Michelle La Vaughn Robinson would be President. Monica Lewinsky (the only one of the women mentioned above who dared to take on an American President – and won) and Hilary Rodham  would evolve into leading feminist activists and lead path breaking gender policies in the country. And Melania  Knauss would be a billionaire model and entrepreneur in her own right. They could be partners in fulfilling relationships, caring and proud parents, but each would have walked their own paths. And we could slow down a bit and catch our breath and maybe a cup of tea. But these are dreams. Presently we are too busy running to dream. And if we are not running, we are planning and preparing for a march. And desperately hoping something works… 

Classrooms of Another Kind

We stared in stunned silence, our squabbles silenced by the building we were looking at. It was a large hall – if one could call four walls topped by a crumbling roof a hall. There were spaces for doors and windows, but no doors or windows. The tiles on the roof had fallen off with disuse. A fire in its indeterminate past had blackened the inside walls of the building and sent out wings of black soot from the gaping door and window spaces. No doors, no windows, no water, no electricity, no rooms, no furniture. And obviously, no bathrooms, definitely no. Lonely and neglected it stood a little away from the main village which stood  spread out on the slope below. We had walked 13 kilometres carrying our knapsacks, our kitchen utensils and provisions of food for the next 3 days to reach this crumbling, fire blasted solitary building on an isolated forgotten, forest covered hillside in Chhotanagpur. It was to be our home for the next 2 weeks. This was the first semester of my post graduate course in rural development. And in class, we had been told that these ‘rural camps’ would be the most intense and constructive learning experiences of our lives. That ordinary people and their lives were the best class rooms one could have. For the first few hours that October evening I may have made the mistake of thinking that this godforsaken  place and its people, could never serve as a classroom. But I never made this mistake again. ( I also redefined 'godforsaken'.)
In the years that followed, as I navigated the exciting and unruly world of rural development, I often returned to that building - in my imagination. Such wanderings of the mind were triggered by workshops and discussions on 'emerging frameworks' 'feminism and neoliberal govern mentality' and 'the intangibles of content'. My body would remain at the table as my mind returned to that abandoned building in Chhotanagpur. And I would remember how in the first 24 hours there, my life had changed forever. And how so much of what I knew including my feminism started from that building. Our professors had been right. The 4 rural camps (all of which included accommodation as mentioned above) changed my mind and vision for ever. Since this blog is about men and women, I shall focus on how this influenced my understanding and interpretation of feminism. Feminism was not part of my course on rural development and I began to read feminist literature only years later. But by then, the women that I worked with and for had already taught me much. And so, whenever theory, concepts, frameworks were argued about, what I would remember was what the women would say. And so, instead of sharing the round table discussions with you( you may wander away, as I did) let me tell you what the women said.
What women said: on the very first day of our rural camp, we were sent off individually to mingle with the villagers and establish a rapport with them. The morning having brought with it that special magic of Chhotanagpur, all our exhaustion and disapproval had vanished. I stepped out smartly and came up to a solitary women harvesting a field full of crop with a 'Hasua' (a locally made sickle) with a baby strapped to her back, Chhotanagpur style. She was friendly and  happy to talk till she discovered that I did not know what crop she was harvesting. At first she was incredulous, then sorry for my parents because they had a daughter as stupid as me, then summarily dismissive of me - Everyone repeat, Everyone knew this crop was Marua. The Hasua was waved in the direction of the waiting harvest. If I didn't know that, I had no hope in life and was not really worth her time. All this was delivered with one hand on hip, the other dangling the Hasua, pity and dismissal in her eyes and the happy baby beaming at me from behind the mothers back. Distraught, disbelieving, and all my pretensions of being intellectual and academic fully and effectively shattered on that half harvested Marua field, I climbed back up the hill, humbled and frantically re assessing myself.
What I learnt: The good fight is fought on fields of Marua, in household courtyards, under the neem trees, on the steps of the temple, on the local bus service and unfortunately behind the closed doors of our bedrooms. The more equal world we feminists seek is fought for and won and lost in front of and with our colleagues, friends, lovers, spouses, parents, relatives and very often with our children strapped to our backs. And what gives me knowledge and power is what I fight with. One feminists tool may be feminist ideology and theory. Another's  may be the knowledge of Marua and the skill to harvest it with smiling babies clinging to you. One needs to know which to use where and that each are powerful tools on their own.

What women said: A wonderfully articulate woman in the rural backwaters of Khulna, Bangladesh had once told me, “They say men are unimaginative. That they can't think of new things. They can't work hard.  I always remind such people – that is not true. See how creative they are - how many ways men devise to abuse their wives. See how much of hard work it is – every single day, getting up in the morning, having to decide – today how shall I harass my wife? How shall I beat her? How shall I create chaos at home? Shall I throw her out today? Or just shout at her? Shall I pull her hair? Or shall I just say nasty things to her? And even after all this, people think men are dull and lazy.” As an afterthought she added, “Tch, tch.” And spat out her ‘paan’ juice.
What I learnt: The perpetrator is consistently evolving, and working hard. Therefore the protestor must constantly evolve and work hard too. Hence - feminism is a movement, not a revolution.  Challenging and changing the system therefore happens slowly, brick by brick, through simple, mundane daily activity and behavior patterns.  It does not work on a one time upheaval, after which I can retire. And so I learnt that if I was to be a feminist, I could never to give up. Never stop. Is it exhausting? Yes. But you could always stop to rest awhile and at that caravanserai, meet interesting women like the Lady of Khulna....

What women said: A young woman leader in Jharkhand,  was a great believer of bringing separation, abandonment, divorce cases to the panchayat and resolving them in public. When I asked her why she did so, wasn't a divorce a private issue? She looked at me thoughtfully and said "Think."
Puzzled, I said, " Well it does appear to be what most people - "
She cut me off with a "hmmmph" and glared at me. "Don't talk about most people if you want things to change. Most people are donkeys. I say, divorce could be private yes, but only if a marriage is also private. Now, if a marriage sees the participation of the whole family and community, divorce also should, should it not? Divorce, after all is one of the logical extensions of marriage. If everyone was feasting with me in good times, they have bought their tickets and boarded the bus. They have to be part of my tough times. That responsibility is theirs as much as mine."
What I learnt: Feminism in practice is best based on arguments that are logical, rational and compelling. Weeping, wailing, raving, ranting, screeching, sympathy, acing the martyr act - all of these may work to attract attention. But once attention is attracted, we must have something relevant to say. Personally I would be happy only with the argument part of it, all the other things exhaust me. But how can I take away the joys of others? For myself, I stand in solidarity with a grass roots women's rights group in Jamtara (Jharkhand) who argued with their local mosque that if it allowed the system of triple talaaq, they should  rule that triple the contract price should be given to the divorced woman by her divorcing husband. What was the argument of this women's group? - That the rule of 3 should apply to everything. The local priesthood had been stumped by this gem of an argument, as was I. But they got their way, and in the end that's what matters.

What women said: A women's rights activist from the grass roots of my beloved Chhotanagpur was often offered alcoholism as an explanation of domestic violence. And told that her women's rights group should work on removing alcoholism, then domestic violence would easily disappear. And I was never tired of her response to this. First she would confuse them by asking he group how many of their freinds and family drank regularly and how many of their drinking freinds/family had domestic trouble. As the weakness of their argument began to present itself to them, my freind would launch her final attack - "And now," she would ask, " If alcoholism gives rise to violence, how many people in the drinking corner, on the way back home and inside the home does the alcoholic man beat up?"  No one but the wife? Yes, she thought so too. Did the group have an idea why the wife stood out in this alcoholic haze? Yes? Ah, she did too. And then, having got the group to the foot of the stairs, she'd start pushing them up, one difficult step at a time.
What I learnt: The root cause of the problem should drive feminist thinking and praxis. At the end of the road of every patriarchal system lay one common principle - women are secondary to men.  Anything else was an aside. A drunk man beat up his wife only because he saw her as secondary to him. Not because he was drunk. And so, if we wish the break down this system, feminists need to focus on equality, not necessarily prohibition.

And so it went, my Feminism of the grass roots, learnt in that language. What interested me the most was the depth of wisdom of my teachers. And the extent of their often amused contempt for the men they knew and saw. As in one animated, angst ridden discussion on how violent our world had become, one of the older women in the group said it applied only to the men. Only the men had become violent, the silly creatures that they are. And we asked -  the women weren't? No she said, women were not as silly as the men. They did fight their battles though, they had more honor than the men. Her tranquil reply to our agitated questions was "Termites" - you can't see termites. You can't hear termites. You can't count termites. And the outsides of the furniture they attacked was left untouched. Yet once the termites got at it, everything was emptied out from inside - everything  broken and eaten and digested. The woman smiled to herself in satisfaction and I can still see her moving her hand in a circular motion, fingers outspread, saying, "All gone! All empty inside!" - as she said it," ander sey khokhla!" And hence, armed with my battle mascot, the Mighty Termite, I ate and digested my own demons, learning much from my Mighty Teachers. That would be material for another post though.

-

Dissent and the feminist dictionary

A time of protests. Which in a state of democracy, all must participate. But I cannot yell - a bit of trouble with the thyroid. And besides I hate being yelled at so I shrink from shouting at others. Can't say nasty things either. My hostel room mate from school still maintains that I am the only black spot in her life - as her room mate and best friend I did not learn either to drink, or to swear. And yet, as a feminist, as a single parent bringing up two daughters in a city like Delhi, as a Bengali, leaning heavily to the left, I must contribute, I must give advice. Let me choose my first identity for this post - that of a feminist, and share with the protestors a few words, re-defined by the feminist experience. Here you go -
Dissent:   a difficult word in a dangerous place.  So when you use the word, be prepared. Do not, under any circumstances, expect love and affection, bonhomie and understanding. Drink some Horlicks, put a tube of Boroline in your pocket and prepare for arrest, assault and worse.  Here, I must admit to having limited experience. Us feminists have not got as far as dissent. We are still in a difficult place with the idea of consent you see. So if you are cleverer and luckier than us and can get to a less dangerous place with dissent, we’d be very willing learners. We could still help with the experience of assault though.
Secular, unlike what you may believe is a very limited word, with a marked tendency of closing doors instead of opening them, if you are not careful. Being secular involves only one of our many identities as active citizens. But it seemed a good word to use and so we feminists signed on to it. As soon as we did we discovered to our dismay that now everything in our lives from science to sex would be interpreted through this one identity. And worse, we got labeled as being grumpy because we are apparently never satisfied – even with the good things in life. Our advice on this one – choose your causes carefully. Sometimes, when you choose to stand facing the sun, the shadows, instead of falling behind you, wrap themselves around your ankles and yank back. And instead of standing strong, you find yourself face downwards staring at ground zero.

Sedition, to quote an unforgettable English teacher of mine, is like shot silk. What you see depends on which angle you are looking from. Shift your position slightly to the left for example, and you’ll find that what seemed decidedly green now looks saffron. Feminists have occupied this space for a very long time. There seem to be very few things in our wish list that do not seem to be anti state. Looked at one way or the other, in one country or the other, everything we are or do has some time or the other been or is anti state. Voting, not voting, marrying, not marrying, divorcing, having a child, not having a child, having one child, having seven children, having a child outside of marriage,  working, not working, working full time, working from home, emigrating, not migrating, staying in the house, not staying in the house, wearing clothes, not wearing clothes, wearing certain kinds of clothes, standing for elections, not standing for elections, having a mobile, not having a mobile, being a porn star, not being a porn star, drinking alcohol, not drinking alcohol, loitering, not loitering, - this list could go on. We have been to jail and worse for most of these. Our advice on this one – look for the fabric and not the colours on the fabric. The fabric holds the inequality, the colours are the conspiracy - meant to blind you to the real thing. In India, dowry was long seen as a cause of discrimination and violence against women. In East Africa, exactly the opposite practice of dowry – bride price was perceived as the cause of violence against women. And in both places, it was always the brides who faced violence. The colours shifted, yet the inequality remained the same. And yet, in India, feminists spent years of very hard struggles to change laws and attitudes towards dowry - only to realise that we had been looking at it from only one angle. In these times of eternal access to information, look carefully at all the colours before you say ‘sedition’.

Freedom: the toughest journey in the world. Do not assume that you will get it free - the price we pay for freedom is the highest we can imagine. Do not assume that you can get there alone - others are essential to your freedom, including, never mind your existing outrage against them - your oppressors. Do not assume that freedom is a place you arrive at - it is a process and as soon as you sit back and relax, you slip back to where you started. Do not assume that freedom is a public idea that sits outside of you - it upholds very clearly feminism's belief that the private is public - you cannot champion for freedoms that you yourself do not practice. Do not assume that freedom is about violence and angst only - it is about peace and tranquility, respect and dignity, and quite often grace and laughter. I have never seen a photo of Aung San Suu Kyi without that flower in her hair. Our advice on this one - if you want freedom, get ready for a never ending journey, not arrival - this journey does not have a destination.

The protestor may well ask, am I arguing for a world where dissent, secularism, freedom, is difficult and so should not be striven for? I argue and work for exactly the opposite, brave protestor – a diverse, equal, sustainable, exciting, dynamic world where everything is an equal partner in Life. This post is only to remind you that we are far from there, that the road there involves a lot of ugliness, that you stand where you do because millions of others have fought all their lives for your freedoms and that the journey, though well worth every battle, is a long,  weary and often lonely one.  There is no quick fix to get there, no free lunches. And finally, our advice on this one- as the feminist adage goes - you cannot destroy the master's house with the master's tools. We need many new tools to make the world a better place. And new tools need new ideas, new friends, new investments, new languages - work on these, they make the journey worthwhile. Don't waste your time on sloganeering - a feminist friend protesting violently in a group against the Miss India contest outside the contest venue overheard a nearby group of boys wondering why this group of women were yelling. One of them explained seriously that maybe they had not got tickets to the show, like the boys. Another boy said wisely that my friends group  was yelling in anger and sorrow because they weren't chosen for the contest. Needless to say, my feminist friend has worked very hard on new tools, cut down her sloganeering and redone her wardrobe.
I trust this set of protests will contribute to this body of learning. And one day we shall become a better people. The world a better place. In strength, support and solidarity.

What does Mr. Gupta do?

A primary principle of patriarchy is to keep women busy. Always somewhat puzzled and exhausted by this constant need for women to be doing something, I have tried to promote the need and use of solitude for women. Often to be violently opposed by the women themselves. If they did not find enough to keep themselves busy with there were always the social obligations. To me these mostly seemed to consist of incomprehensible  events in the lives of indeterminate relatives. Even in a family as unusual as mine, I reluctantly conceded that the men had a slight edge over women in escaping social obligations.

I found souls in solidarity, yes, but they were few and far between. A college professor swept aside our interest in jewellery saying if we were clever enough (she was) we should be able to see through the fact that jewellery and other such 'ladies business' are designed to keep women's minds busy with silly things so that they will not claim power. At that time I was willing to make that immense sacrifice of not going to Chamba Lama any more, but was not clear what power really meant, so I wisely decided to wait. Later in life I found that Chamba Lama did not interfere with my access to power. But I found my professor was right in a hundred other ways about the silly things and power. And I found that every time I or any other woman decided to move away from the silly things, we faced a battle of sorts.

Even within her home, any such deviation by the woman invites apprehension, anxiety, suspicion - depending upon what kind of family yours is.

"Ki rey, all alone on the roof? Why so sad?"

"A few minutes to rest by yourself? Sciatica, again?"

And then, what if these battles are fought outside the home? I found, as I went along that the experience of these battles was the experience of power. And that these battles were fought with the strangest of weapons.

One of the advantages of belonging to an eccentric family was that as one grew older, one became entitled to one's own peculiar eccentricities. When we were younger, eccentricities were limited to those already established by parents, uncles, aunts, older cousins, grandparents, etc. but I was older now and entitled to my own. And so, around the time I turned another decade and announced my intention of travelling  solo every 6 months, my family took this proposal with pragmatism and interest. Not so the rest of the world.

Besides, I was in India. Indians, as a people do not travel alone. In recent years, it has become acceptable for men to travel alone for work. In the very recent years a minuscule number of Indian working women have attempted this Unindian task. But these too are linked primarily to work related travel. And hence its acceptance is tinged with sympathy for the woman whose unforgiving job takes her away from the safe and happy confines of her home and family.

Used to fielding questions about travelling alone on work, I quickly found that acceptance for travelling alone for leisure invited sympathy, an unhealthy curiosity, puzzlement, or direct attack - depending upon who your co travellers were.

If I naively explained that I was travelling to Place X for a break from my everyday life and had always wanted to see Place X, co travellers would nod and smile,

Ah, I was on holiday! Travelling with Mummy and Daddy?

Not exactly, no, I was the Mummy now and -

Aha, travelling with the children then?

No.

Oho! Travelling with the Daddy! (Twinkle in eye)

Again, sorry, but no. No Daddy in the picture, you see -

At this point the expressions would become either embarrassed or stern and either way conversation would become stilted. And I was usually left to myself - which was the point of my solo travel anyway. There have been times on trains, buses, airplanes, where escaping my co travellers is physically difficult, the intense curiosity of my co passengers has cut through my usually formidable reluctance to engage.

I was once asked very early in such an interrogation after I had replied to a few questions in monosyllables, as to

"What does Mr. Gupta do?"

My interrogator in that train  compartment was a middle aged, balding shiny shoed man, his waist barely contained in his belt and his pompousness barely contained in his behaviour. Realising I was travelling alone, he turned cocky, insufferable and raised his voice slightly when speaking to me, as one would do to a naughty child. He had been staring at my every move and listened intently when the ticket checker looked at my ticket and checked past me, as they often do - "Malini Gupta?"

This had prompted the man to ask what Mr. Gupta did. He was leaning forward, eyes gleaming, avidly curious and bent on getting what he wanted. At this point I had a vivid vision of the hundreds of questions tumbling about in his head that he wanted to ask me - each question wanting to get ahead of the other and all tripping up on his tongue.

Unwilling to let this moment go, I leaned forward, grinned and said in a voice slightly louder then his, that Mr. Gupta had a fisheries business but I suspected he was actually a gun runner as he had been to jail twice. For the east of the journey a hush would fall over the coupe if I as much as changed my position in my berth. I carefully listed these weapons.

There were other times that there were no opportunities for either entertainment or weapons research. On one such occasion,  a long train journey across central India, I settled in to my side berth in a near empty compartment. After a few happy hours of solitude a large group boarded the train, filling up the compartment with shouted conversations. Of this naturally Bengali group, a set of garrulous, luggage bedecked, fully socked and shawled ladies marched into my little space. One of them proceeded to occupy my berth and made a subsequent attempt on my mind. I had to share my berth with her till night time, and retreated to one side, looking out of the window or reading my book. My reluctance to talk she promptly assumed to be sorrow at having to travel alone. I was aghast at her intrusion and assumption but she was on the warpath already. She told me in a voice quivering with righteousness that it was dangerous for a woman to be alone. My reply that a mob could be equally dangerous, she swept aside ruthlessly.

I was sad, she said, and that was why I was opposing her.

I was happy, I said, and that was why she was opposing me.

She was unmoved. The dangers a single woman faced were from her own mind, she said.

Not from the minds around her? I asked pointedly, but it went unnoticed.

I should have been able to take it in my stride but her fervour of conversion caught me off guard. She lectured me on 'improving' my mind- read books on the lives of good women, amulets, charms, astrology, ashrams. I was intrigued by the ashram and asked her how the ashram could help. Because it would help me fill my mind with correct thoughts.

At other times, I would have argued through this. But this time I was tired, I didn't want to explain myself. I wanted nothing but to be left in peace to read my book. The last thing I wanted was this fervent, aggressive person stamping around inside my head. And so I spent a rough night, desperately side stepping her advice, her horror of my solitude and her inability to listen. At dawn, exhausted, immeasurably irritated I crept out and opened the door of the bogie. I sat down on the steps  and lit a cigarette. The smell of the cigarette, the clickety clack of the train soothed me. I looked out, breathed in deeply of the fresh day, watched the hills and forests slip past and assured myself hat the world was larger than the lady's mind.

Click. The door opened and the indefatigable warrior peered out. Seeing me sitting on the steps she started to speak but caught sight of the cigarette in my hand. Her eyes went from the cigarette to my face and back to my cigarette. Her mouth snapped shut, eyes went blank and she retreated without a word. I sighed and stayed sitting for as long as I could. By the time I went back to my berth, she and her companions had left to join their larger group in the next compartment. The accoutrements of battle were diverse, I reminded myself.

What I found interesting was that though most people were curious about my travelling alone, sometimes irritatingly so, mostly people were puzzled. But as yet, I have never found this to hamper my experience, besides having to answer a few questions that people should not ask in the first place. And so, along with my own experience of travelling alone, grew my understanding of what I was expected to be as a woman my age, exactly how much of that I was not, and how I chose to deal with that gap. Over the years, it has truly been a journey of discovery of many kinds. One that I would recommend to all. Try it. You might find some good stories to tell, some innovative weapons of war. God knows guns could do with a rest.

The Yelling Universe

I am firmly of the belief that it is always our 'estranged faces that miss the many splendoured thing.’ The Universe is perpetually and incredibly busy spinning in and out of black holes and untiringly trying to talk to us and show us things. It is obviously as persistent as we are dimwitted.

But in all our lives there comes a time (quite a few if you are a willing and quick learner) when the Universe loses its patience, holds you by the scruff of your neck and makes you see. Or yells out its message at the decibels of a jagrata loudspeaker in South Delhi. And once you do manage to hear and see, you can never be the same person as you were before.

Of course this very excellent theory is based on my personal experience. And though robust research would not count self admission of changed attitudes and perspectives robust enough  I shall tell you anyway – that’s why I am writing this blog.

Some time ago, the immensely popular Bollywood film – Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham was showing on TV for the ‘n’th time. And being the ardent film buff that I am I was watching it with my daughters for the ‘n’th time.  I shall tell you only as much of the films story as is necessary for this blog.

A rich boy meets a less rich girl. Both are attracted to each other and also equally aware that when it comes to marriage (most Bollywoood films head in that direction) the girls family will not be considered equal to the boys family. Moreover, the boy’s father is grumpy, arrogant, cold and distant and the boy naturally hesitates to tell his father who he wishes to marry.

The girl’s father on the other hand, is a widower, an amiable and virtuous man, a good and loving father and provides his two daughters with a spontaneous and boisterous upbringing. He owns a picturesque and profitable sweet shop in Chandni Chowk– an ancestral family tradition of this Dilliwala family-and completes the stereotype of the vibrant and vivacious Punjabi household.

To cut a long story short, the untimely and sudden death of the girl’s father pushes the boy to take a decision and he informs his father of the girl he wishes to marry. As expected, after the standard melodrama and histrionics, the boy is disowned by his rich and bad tempered father. But the boy stands by his true love and leaves home to marry the girl he loves. Years later, we are told he takes the girl and her sister to far away England, sets up his own business and provides very well for his wife and her sister.

Now every time I had watched this film earlier, I would go misty eyed at this part. The course of True Love would always bring tears to my eyes – how brave the boy – all alone yet so honourable in love. How dignified the girl in her sorrow. How heartless the world. But this time the Universe was ready for me. At this point of the film, it caught me the scruff of my neck and screamed. And instead of going misty eyed, I thought – but – what happened to the sweet shop in Chandni Chowk?

This thought sauntered in and took up residence in my head. The tears disappeared rapidly. Hitherto unknown thoughts made their presence felt. And now, instead of the linear direction of True Love, numerous multi dimensional and parallel versions of possibilities was what I began to see. Let me describe a few:

Version 1:

Grief struck at her father’s death, the girl realizes she has been foolish in neglecting to learn about the business. She sells her chiffon sarees and pearls on OLX, raises enough money for an MBA course, puts the faithful retainer in charge of the sweet shop for 2 years and decamps to Singapore, younger sister in tow, to obtain the MBA degree.

5 years later, she wins a prestigious Entrepreneur of the Year Award and her sweet shop gets added to the list of Places to Visit in Delhi on The Lonely Planet.

Much richer now, she marries the faithful boy and joins his business as an equal partner.

Version 2:

  The two sisters are heartbroken with their loss. They go to the reading of their father’s will with a heavy heart but sit stunned as the few lines are read out; “ I have done my duties as a father. Now you need a mother. Since you have none, go to the Eternal Mother – at any of her pilgrimages – She will show you the way.”

The obedient girls did what Babuji told them to do. Makemytrip gave them an excellent deal for Kolkata so off they went.  After visiting Kalighat, they wandered around the city and it seemed to them that every second shop was a sweet shop. And what a collection of sweets! A hundred ideas sprung up in their minds in that fertile soil of many generations of ‘halwai’ genes.

One day, as the elder bit into a Baborshah, she asked the younger – “Are you thinking what I am thinking?”

The younger, giving due respect to the succulent malpua she was eating, nodded vigorously.

Seven years later, the sisters’ new food tourism project won them the Business Innovation of the Year Award. The girls were 7 times richer than what they started out with.  They also had amongst the two of them seven new admirers and the older was in the process of choosing between the new and the old.

Version 3:

Intrigued by her son’s commitment to his unusual choice of a girl friend, the boy’s mother decides to meet the girl herself. As soon as she enters the colourful, warm, welcoming home behind the sweet shop, she is acutely aware of the absence of women in her own home and life. As the two girls fuss about her, she slips into a dream, thinking how easy life would be if there were more women with her.

Quietly, surreptitiously, a clever little voice that was waiting exactly for this moment, whispers inside her head, “There could be, you know – all you need to do is work!”

Seven years later, the two girls and the boy’s mother own a hugely successful sweets catering business. It wins the Business Diversity Award as it employs only women. Its transport department has only women – women drivers and delivery girls. The milk men are milk women.  They bank with an all female bank branch. All the chef and cooks are women. Women customers get wonderful rebates.  At the award ceremony, this unlikely trio holds aloft the trophy and exclaims – “Celebrate Women! We do!”

The father and son, sitting in the audience, one still grumpy and the other ecstatic, clap their hands.

Version 4:

Wandering around in what feels to her like an empty house, the girl realizes the enormity of her misplaced priorities. Instead of singing in lonely places, she should have been helping her father. Instead of dancing at the victory of the Indian cricket team, she should have been building her business. She decides to take charge and organizes a memorial service for her father. After the memorial service, she has a dream. In her dream the white clothes of the people, the strings of green leaves and marigold flowers (her father’s favourites) merge into the Indian flag. She realizes that her faith in the Indian Cricket team was misplaced patriotism.

She changes her wardrobe to designer khadi, revamps her shop to sell traditional Indian sweets, made the traditional way. Seven years later, the shop has seven franchises in seven different cities. In seven seven star hotels they conduct traditional Indian sweet making courses. The two sisters are featured on the cover of Time magazine, “The Sisters Sweet” And the lover boy, being allergic to khadi, designer or otherwise, has had to exit this version.

You see, after the Universe has done yelling, you don’t quite hear the same. Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol will no longer be the same for me. But I don’t mind, because in their place spring up a thousand ladies and gentlemen all doing the many splendoured thing.....

Domesticity. And radical social change.

A long time ago, a friend of mine and I sat talking about our future. At that time life was just opening up in a million exciting ways and exploding in all directions – both good and bad. We sat on a little wooden bench in a tiny shed in the remote and stunningly beautiful hillsides of the Chhotanagpur plateau wondering what the future held for us. Twenty years down the line who would we be? Where would we be? We felt it may be an easier task to have a hold on what we would not do, rather than what we would. And my friend and I then set ourselves 3 indicators, which we swore to avoid.  These indicators, true to our then somewhat romantic and intellectual pretensions, took the detailed shape of these 3 visions:

1.    We were standing in a poorly lit kitchen, hair coming loose from a hastily tied bun, wearing a synthetic saree with a blouse that was not matching, cooking over a blackened ‘kadhai’. We looked fatigued and virtuous.

2.    We were running after our infant children, with morsels of food in our hands, pleading and cajoling them to eat a little – just a little, ma. We looked dumpy and virtuous.

3.    We were meeting after 10 years and our conversation was limited to nappies and recipes. We looked vacuous and virtuous.

We made a pact right then, and promised to avoid doing all the above three and use these as our indicators of failure in the years to come. Our joint horror of domesticity, the influence of Bollywood and our own rather non conventional mothers are visible in the details and nature of these three indicators.

Did we succeed? I would say yes. Has it been easy? No. The pressure to conform is immense.

In the twenty years that have elapsed  since that day, my friend and I stayed faithful to our pact. We have stuck to avoiding our indicators, sometimes slipping close to one, sometimes making herculean efforts to avoid another and often, standing aloof and apart and watching with disbelief as other eminently sensible friends and family ticked off one indicator after the other. “Why can’t you be like everyone else?” has been a comment we have heard often. “Why can’t others be like us?” my friend and I have wailed.

And in these twenty years, these carefully detailed indicators (our apologies to all readers who wear synthetic sarees) have turned out to be one of the most potent influences in my life. Every time convention and custom called one of these indicators would rear its head. For example, as I prepared for a parent teacher meeting, chose a plain saree and tied my hair in a severe bun to look the role of a sincere and hardworking parent, one of these visions would rise up in all its melodramatic flamboyance,  and  I would hastily back track. Mostly I have arrived at parent teacher meetings looking, well, let’s say, different from everyone else in the room.

Just in case the reader is beginning to imagine us as anarchists or feminists or activists or all of them together and pictures of austere, angst ridden, dowdily dressed, statistics quoting middle aged women are beginning to take shape in your head, let me assure you that only the middle aged, feminist and activist bits are true. Both my friend and I are proud home makers and contented parents to 2 children. Our homes are full of things we love – books, music, children, friends, family, dogs, gardens, paintings, maps, food and more books. We have travelled the world. Like most others, we have had our share of good times and the bad. If you meet us now, you will see two contented, eccentric, determined women, with a clear and usually singular opinion on most things in life and not shy of voicing them, ready for a good laugh and a good trip, a good book and a good cup of tea. We are mostly tranquil, sometimes grumpy and yes, a few times also sad. We have our kitchens (excellent ones, mind you) but have not been limited to them. We have our children (lovely ones, you’ll see) but have not been limited by them. We have our conversations (soul satisfying, as always) but they are never virtuous. By our standards, we succeeded.

And since this is a blog about my own experiences, I cannot end by only telling you that we succeeded. I must tell you how I succeeded.  Here then, are my tried and tested strategies of response when conformism and virtuosity are leaning heavily on your door. Mostly such bulwarks of social stability exist in the form of the general population who spend an immense amount of resources trying to get you to follow the herd. When they do,

1.    Learn to smile. But smile knowingly and enigmatically. Most people find women who smile knowingly a little scary, if not creepy. Do note the difference between smiling ‘nicely’ and smiling ‘knowingly.’ The latter has an element of superiority. Smile especially in times of anger. Hide your anger, but show your smile. When I have responded with anger, the argument has turned righteous and virtuous, and I have been left isolated, furious and worst – I have lost the argument. But when I have remained silent and smiled slowly and knowingly, I have always won the argument. Additional benefit of this strategy: Enjoy the confusion one creates by choosing not to respond exactly at the time when people are gathering around to watch you explode. 

2.    Pick a non committal word or phrase that allows you to respond, but not give anything away. Like “Really?” or “Is that so?” or “Indeed.” My mother tongue, Bengali has an outstanding phrase in this category –“Tai, na?” Apologies to my non Bengali speaking readers – it is almost impossible to translate. The primary objective here is to refrain from committing to anything you will regret later and/or participate in a pointless argument. The combination of this phrase with Point # 1 or with a raised eyebrow can give you 95% success.

3.    Have role models of who you do not want to become. That works better than having role models of whom you do want to become. If social pressure becomes too much and you start thinking of replacing your one dish party menu with a 4 course sit down meal, instead of sensibly completing the chapter of the book you were reading, train yourself to respond to this situation by remembering Auntie M.

4.    Have the correct friends. This one is the most important.

Since you will definitely benefit from this short hand book on initiating radical social change, do return the favour and share your strategies too.