growing up to feminism

My sister mentioned home grown feminism in her blog. Was there indeed something like that in our homes? At surface level, there seems to be no room for feminism or indeed any kind of radicalism in our kind of background.

But then just as feminism approaches us in the safe spaces of women’s colleges and from the approved habits of reading classics, it finds strands in the dampest of traditions and voices in the silences of history and memory. It creeps through the crevices of correct upbringing, through the pauses between the narration of stories and their moralistic conclusions. It soaks our consciousness through the women in our lives.

Through a mother who countered every outbreak of temper with- ‘this is not the attitude with which you can go out into the world and make your way in it’. Leaving no doubt that not ‘going out into the world’ was an option we didn’t have.

And whose deep affection for her sibling never stopped her from making it known what she wanted to study and what she ended up studying and who was to blame.

Through an aunt who had to give up her job because her husband was too busy climbing to the top to share in parenthood and who never stopped regretting it, and is never satisfied with the cliché that she is ‘behind’ his phenomenal success.

Through another aunt who was forever criticised for prioritising her job over family occasions and functions.

And another who started working at the age of 40 to prove a point and find her worth and revels in that space which not only keeps her sane, but is all her own.

Through a relative who had to drop out of school when she got married to a man 13 years her senior, but who took her 12^th standard exam when her children were at college.

And another whose minimal knowledge of English didn’t stop her from learning how to operate the computer, and use the internet.

Through the glowing admiration for and fond recollection of a great grandmother (a tonsured widow) by her sons and grandsons; their assertion that had she the opportunity she could have been the prime minister. What kind of role model did she and their memory of her make for their daughters?

Feminism also pokes us through the barbs directed at unwomanly women. And through the sympathy and condolences expressed to people with no sons. And the fear felt by the people with no sons when they read an ancient text detailing the awful fate of their souls as their pyres would not be lit by the rightful male progeny. And when some of them react to this fate with a laugh (however nervous) and a shrug, it is a triumph for feminism

over (with) a cup of tea

I always throw used tea leaves into the dustbin. I hate the idea of tea leaves going down the drain. They could clog the drain.

But that once, while I didn’t wash them down the drain, I didn’t throw them away either. I left them on the strainer.

They stained the strainer. They dried up. They threatened to fly. So I wet them under the tap. They stained everything that came under them. It took much heavy duty dish wash and detergent to get rid of those stains.

A year later, I threw them away.

Wondering why I made that tea then anyway.

It wasn’t the time, just before lunch. My appetite remained unsteady for a long time.

It wasn’t my kind of tea either. Too much sugar. Tea leaves boiled for too long. Too sweet and too bitter at the same time.

Am now trying to pacify the strainer. And we can’t work it out over a cup of tea.

each not to her own

‘Have you got engaged?’ A student asks me as the class adjusts to seeing me in a saree. The expressions on their faces showed that whether they agreed with this possibility or not, they were all looking for an explanation. They did not look convinced when I said I liked wearing it, but nodded as I proceeded to explain I usually don’t find the time required. That they could comprehend, but still the fact that I had not come up with a reasonable explanation showed in the incredulity in their faces.

This reaction coincides with the other response I invariably get every time people gather I live alone and their next question is what I do for food. “I cook’ I answer, a little proudly of course, but also as a matter of course. Instead I am asked - Really? Don’t u find it boring? Isn’t it tedious? Why don’t u have a tiffin system? Aren’t hostels better just for this reason?

Would these people have the same reaction if I was married and had a ‘family’. If I wear a saree, even if occasionally, I guess would not provoke any big reaction but more so, cooking would be something I would be assumed to be doing. The image of the mother comes to mind- the woman so admired because she is so selfless. Mother’s food is always for others.

So is there a problem in doing something for myself. Dressing up just because I feel like it. Not for anyone. Not on any occasion. And cooking for myself. Because I like to eat good home cooked food too. And can make it even though I have not, in popular terms, made a home as yet.

Go Fish

See A fish called Wanda. It’s a hilarious tale of the aftermath of a robbery with various members of the team trying to backstab and outwit each other over the loot. (incidentally, what is it about fish and films on crooks? Fish out of water, another film I recently saw, was on the same lines). Made in 1988, it has references to the secret service, KGB as well as Margaret Thatcher and a popular (but always amusing) take on the English- their characteristics and way of life. The best is when we are informed of one of the crooks, a Nietchze spouting temperamental fellow, becoming the minister of justice in (apartheid) South Africa! It has a great deal of situational comedy and some super cool lines like:

Aristotle is not a Belgian, the central tenet of Buddhism is not each man to his own and the London Underground is not a political movement.

I have known sheep which can outwit you. I have worn dresses which have more IQ than you.

Season's greetings

Recipes on plum cakes in special interviews with chefs, christmas special desserts in restaurants, red and white santa caps and christmas tree decorations on sale, santa clauses too in local markets ... everything is red, green and white! It may be an indicator of western imperialism, the impact of American television shows all running new and old episodes of 'the christmas spirit' but the way Indians, a majority of them non-Christians, have taken to Christmas and made it their own seems to hold out a hope. Hope of harmony, of cross cultural celebration, of festive spirit transcending religious barriers.

But something prevents me from making any such inferences. For the past few years Diwali and Id have been falling around the same time- a gap of a day or two between them making for one long holiday. The markets were buzzing, everything was gay and glittery. I sent out greetings on behalf of my family to all on our email list wishing them for both festivals. I know it was naive on my part but i didn't anticipate the reactions. Some were simply astounded that I clubbed the festivals together. Some were angry that i had tarnished my grandparents' name by making them wish on Id. One relative, living in the gulf, replied saying it made sense to wish him as he was in a 'muslim country' but why subject others to it. Most of them noticed and had something to say, either immediately or through the whispering network that characterise family communications. none of them ever cringe when wished 'a merry christmas' or reply similarly to greetings on the 'season of giving'.

so as for composite culture, we arent there yet. Meanwhile, I will return to polish off the plum cake.

to poetry with love

Poetry came into my life along with love. As I struggled to make sense of the strange bunch of emotions which deliciously complicated my being, I began to articulate in verse. The internal struggle on admitting that another person could enter and hold any power over my domain, the independence of this personal domain itself so newly acquired and hence so precious, found an outlet in words. But words about other things- opinions and emotions- asserting this independence and in this assertion containing the connection I denied. I think I could then qualify for the ‘bad poet’ of the generation, but poetry I did write.

Love brought in poetry to my life but I never wrote about love. But as love receded, the poetry drained out. Though I found and lost love after that (to one I owe the joys of hindi and urdu poetry), but never did I recover the well springs of verse. I tried to suck it out, now trying to word lost love but the stray phrases petered out, like promising dark clouds of summer, leaving behind the frustration of inadequacy. Prosaic I called myself, often wondering whether the love I have found since has also been that- prosaic. Later, I even stopped reading poetry, thinking I had lost the capacity to connect to verse

That’s when Neruda came into my life, unannounced, unexpected, in the form of a film. And my eyes turned to verse again, trying to find meaning in the now unfamiliar pattern of words. (oh why cant they be all straight lines, from one end of the page to another, paragraphs which cut at the appropriate frequencies, arguments which are introduced and concluded). Love is so short and forgetting is so long, he said. Poetry and love belong to the same old trunk of memory, shoved into the farthest corner of the attic but never abandoned. Indeed, it’s the memory of love that makes me turn to poetry again. Not to pick up the pen ever perhaps (so other contenders for the ‘bad poet’ title can relax!) but to reconnect to the personal domain buried under experience, caution and all such clichés of living.

living the 'easy option'

Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.”
Oscar Wilde

I never thought i would be a teacher. Teaching was considered 'the easy option' and a job 'most suitable for women' as it 'was hardly a job' and 'just good pocket money'. Even as i outgrew that socialisation and began to question it, it remained a scary option. After being so critical of all my teachers it was not very comforting to put myself in that place.I just drifted into teaching, dont know how long i will continue, but its humbling, challenging and frustrating all at the same time.

On family and festivals

Festivals. We have too many of them. And I don’t care for most. Leaving my atheism aside, most festivals if not about sundry gods, are in honour of brothers and husbands (why never mothers or sisters). If they are about women, they are concerned only with the married woman (husband still living, mind you) or pre-pubescent girls. The only good thing about them is the food! Each festival comes with a detailed menu of goodies which are specific to it, on which it seems to have a virtual monopoly.

Diwali, in particular, has much going against it. It has become an excuse for socially sanctioned bribery and unbridled consumerism. But diwali has a subversive quality to it. ‘Our diwali’ (as I tell all non-south Indians) is the one festival where we go against all rules. We seem to be insulting Narakasura, the evil asura king whom Krishna defeated. But aren’t we honouring him instead? After all didn’t he in his death ask people to celebrate his destruction with lights, new clothes. Or are we affirming the original dravidianism by refusing to follow Aryan ritualism even in the moment of its supposed triumph over the dravidas? Is this the explanation for the thumbs down to rituals, to purity? The only other tamilian festival I value is pongal. There is something endearing about the vision of tamilians, spread over as they are, stubbornly celebrating the onset of harvest in one tiny part of the country and searching for sugarcane, tamarind and such season specific products in parts of the world which follow very different time-tables.

Coming back to diwali, for me diwali has always been with family. And over the years, my extended family has been making less and less sense to me. The feeling I know is mutual. But come diwali, I wander back. To diwali-eve late night card game sessions. To endless retelling of family stories and jokes, of which one will be new and everything else has been repeated a million times. To drop off to sleep exhausted with food and laughter. To be woken up an hour later to have oil applied to our hair. To sit in front of gods defiantly munching on snacks without a mandatory offering to them. And that too without having a bath. To being pushed into taking the bath in the lure of new clothes.

But increasingly diwali is becoming poignant in its nostalgia value. For in the past year and half, three people whom I most associate with diwali and who are (perhaps not coincidentally) the nicest people in the family are no more. Next diwali I know I will trudge back home seeking the familiarity of the festival I like and the family I want (at least during the festival!!!), but wonder if it hasn’t changed forever…

on a poem

Across
by vikram seth

Across these miles i wish you well.
May nothing haunt your heart but sleep.
May you not sense what i dont tell.
May you not dream, or doubt, or weep.

May what my pen this peaceless day
Writes on this page not reach your view
Till its deferred print lets you say
It speaks to someone else than you.

I am not great with poetry but loved this one. but then had a long discussion on and dissection of this poem with a friend. he thought it glorified sacrifice and is an exercise in self-torture. for me it spoke of the quiet dignity of unrequited love. love is magic and often, love is pain, but it is also primarily about self. how we talk to ourselves when we are in love tells us a great deal about our own self.

Finding a home

“You cannot have both- freedom and a good apartment” informed the property dealer. It has been 9 months now but I still remember the look he gave me, because this was the look which was mirrored in the various faces I encountered as part of my search for a rented accommodation in the city I had just moved into. All those faces conveyed various versions of the same conclusions they were making in their minds about my ‘character’.

What I was looking for was a place which would be my home. The hallowed notion of home conveys I think a sense of independence and privacy- it’s the place to be yourself. But this was precisely what all these owners of property found objectionable in my context- how can a single woman be allowed to be herself? Most owners of properties consider that they are doing their tenants a favour by leasing out their apartments, the monetary benefit is not seen as an equal deal- surprising even in our market society. So they can lay down any number of terms.

My problem started with the fact that their terms didn’t not include a person like me. Many turned me out because they wanted “families”. They added that they were a decent set of people and couldn’t take risks. That apart, I got to hear lectures on Indian culture, it seems Indian culture is dependent on my returning home by 6pm everyday. Otherwise it under grave threat. Moreover Indian culture is threatened by having male friends over at my house. One couple debated in front of me whether a male colleague could come home for tea or not and what would be the appropriate time after which he should be turned out. Half an hour said the wife, the husband wasn’t sure why the colleague should come to his house at all. Other than colleagues one is not expected to have a social life anyway.

One man gave me a long lecture on how he doesn’t like noise, loud music, too much clatter etc. I was actually surprised when he agreed to finalise the deal me that evening. But within a few hours, he said they wanted families with children, how he was going to apply the noise/ clatter restriction I am at a loss to explain.

For those who found the idea of a single woman as an acceptable tenant of course had their own assumptions. I was to be like their daughter- they told me. I was touched but the sub-text was clearer- I was to be answerable to them just like to parents. The assumption was that a single working woman had very little things to do in life- work and then come back straight home!

On narrating such experiences to people, I also got friendly advice on how I should go and ask for an out of turn allotment of the campus accommodation. The outside world is harsh, I was told. This seemed to me to be another version of the same argument that my potential landlords cum torchbearers of morality were giving me. It sounded much like – the world is unsafe, don’t go out in the world. Instead of trying to make the world safe by going out and making it confront your presence

What I was looking for was a house where I would not be told when to enter and when to leave, who can visit me and who cant. Some very basic stuff I thought. Instead I encountered a whole set of people who not only demanded a virginity test as it were, but thought that it was a most ‘normal’ demand to make. My reactions shook them; they had only my dubious character to fall back as an explanation.

The threat of a single woman I realized was indeed immense. This was the figure
society was most anxious to keep away from its collective understanding of itself. The only way it could deal with the multitudes of single women who don’t seem to be disappearing is to suggest hostels or hostel-like situations.


Eventually and interestingly, the person ready to rent out a place turned out to be a very old, illiterate, religious woman (our prime example of patriarchy). While being obsessed with cleanliness, she has mostly tended to keep her reservations on my life to herself. This when, ‘young’ and ‘educated’ people refused the second they found I was not a ‘family’!

what are memories all about

finally i decide to write. the gap between creating this blog and putting these words down probably explains much abt me. i want to do so much but mostly keep postponing them all. not that i am doing something very important but i do manage to push out the most important things away...
anyway to come back to what did actually make me start this...i was intrigued. not by the blog business actually. but by poeple's desire to be "back in touch" with older friends in their life. i was introduced to this group called orkut where one has communities of one's school and college aparrt from a mind-boggling variety of interests.a whole of people reported how they had got in touch with thier school mates, neighbours from old times...i got excited. i wanted to know whether there was any possibility of meeting up with some of my childhood friends, people i had lost contact with suddenly as i moved cities or even those who moved off after school. i was curious- what did become of them. but with this curiousity was linked another one- why this curiousity afterall? would i even make sense of these people if i met them now. what after we had updated each other(forget update, in most cases it would be almost a blank) would we have to say to each other. lives have meandered and changed many courses since. often leaving most of us in opposite banks of the tale. but we still seek to meet, to find out.
i think some of this is the power of memories. we all live with our memories and to connect to someone from the memory is a chance to liink up with our whole self all over again. perhaps i think there is some essetial me whcih has lived thru all this time and the possibilty to connect offers one a hope to find out that essense. of course the idea of an 'essence' is problematic, so in that sense it is good i havent really come across my older worlds. but the possibilty remains attractive.