Father Saluted: He Raised His Daughter With Courage And Integrity

Soldier For Women.

He Stood Up For A Woman With Courage And Integrity

Blogadda is running a cool campaign. They are asking bloggers to blog about those men who stood up for women.

Time to salute and honour these men.

Yes the men. Yes they do support/stand up/fight for women. There are millions out there. Thankfully.

And for those who claim that women do not need any help or support, I would say that I am a proud woman who is not afraid to show her vulnerability. Of course I have needed/still need help/support now and then. The need was/is not gendered, but in my case it was provided by men, sometimes.

So the subject is pretty close to my heart. But it needs, as far as I am concerned, a little twist in the tail err the title.

Father Saluted.

He Raised His Daughter With Courage And Integrity.

If I have to talk about a man who stood up for me it has to be my father. 

My father. A midnight's child, born in August 1947. He grew up in the nascent republic of India. People were loving their hard earned freedom. They wanted to build a fresh, new country on the foundation of one of the oldest civilizations of this world. This new India needed educated professionals, my father fulfilled this need. His family needed his presence and support, my father was/is the dutiful son/brother/husband/father/father-in-law.

When I, his first child, his daughter was born, he welcomed me to this world eagerly. 

Was I born in a country where a girl child is unwanted? No, not in my case. I was cherished and nourished. I was lavished with love, I was spoiled, I was pampered and I was scolded and disciplined, when the occasion demanded.

Most importantly I was raised as a modern Indian, without any discrimination. I got the same opportunities as my brother, sometimes more so. My parents and my extended family were/are responsible for this. Yes it needs the effort of an entire society to create a just and loving environment for any child to grow up in. I never thought of it as my incredible luck. I always took it for granted.

I grew up with my head held high, I got the best of education. My father did not stop there. He would continuously push me to be more practical, to be able to take decisions, to form my independent opinions. What he did then, now is called Life Skills Training.

While writing this,  images of me and my father pottering about flood my mind. In school as part of arts & craft training, we were taught various things like collage making, mask making, paper pulp (ugggh it sure is a stinky process) and painting on earthen flower vases. I took to pottery painting like a duck to water. I just loved it and pretty soon I was painting on vases, ash trays, flower pots, little decorative pieces etc. Soon friends and family started buying these pieces from me. In this my father was my champion cheer leader, motivator and of course chief investor in my teenage business venture. He would 'loan' me money to buy the raw material, but when I went to repay him the money after selling off the pieces, he would ask me to keep the principal along with the profit!

Apart from these, my father had/has a weird kind of faith in me. He thinks I can fix almost anything or suggest a solution ranging from a broken leg of a chair to his sitting problem in his office. I am not sure what was/is the source of this faith, but I remember grumbling to my mother in my teenage that I am not Jill of all trades and my mother laughing about it. Now I am filled with humble pride. Yes humble pride, you need to experience this weirdly harmonious emotion to know it exists.

Those were the days before D.I.Y., specially in India where there was a surplus of cheap labour floating around, needing work. Yet I remember working with my father painting and varnishing the cane and wooden furniture in our house, fixing odd things in and around home. He is a great proponent of do-it-yourself. I also helped him change the odd light bulb, I remember him explaining to me why a tube light needs a choker.

While growing up he dragged me with him, sometimes it used to fill me with teenage angst, but mostly I enjoyed doing stuff with him. Apart from the hands-on work, I remember sitting in  car garages, while the mechanics worked on the car, visiting carpenter's workshop, mulling over how to reuse an old cumbersome almirah, pouring over paint samples, selecting material for the curtains (they were all tailor made)...the list is pretty endless.

My father gave me my first pocket money at the age of 12. It was Rs. 40 for a week and I was told that I had to manage my own money, keep it safe and spend it sensibly. I remember how proud I was and how jealous most of my classmates were.

The next year was also big year for me. It was the year when I was asked to go to school alone. School was 20 minutes walk from home and along the way I had to cross two majorly busy roads. I remember my mother being worried. But my father insisted that I should learn to navigate  the streets on my own.

Learning bank operations on my own, followed hard on heels, along with going to pay the odd electricity/telephone bills, filing a complaint... By the time I turned 14, I was not only responsible for going and returning from school on my own. I had to make a detour, go to the junior school, pick up my younger brother and bring him home too. Most of the kids my age had their mothers coming to pick them up and there I was, the big sister, being responsible for my younger brother.

I was never ever sent somewhere with my younger brother as my guardian/companion. A common occurrence in India. Or was when I was growing up. A practice which I find really humiliating. Every-time parents send a younger sibling, especially male out with the elder sibling, especially a female, the girl's confidence takes a beating. She is told she is not capable of being in-charge, but someone who is younger to her, but a male, is. He can look after her and bring her back home safe.

But I am diverting. Lets get back to my story.

Of course I was not totally happy with all the extra work and responsibility that was heaped on me. There were fights at home, arguments and screams. But when we both had cooled down, my father would explain to me that rights/privileges like being independent, having my own pocket money had some counter responsibilities/duties like going to the bank or bringing my brother home from school.

In hindsight I realize he was helping me become my own person and teaching me  to be independent and to take decisions.

This is just a small slice of my pre and early teens. To this day my father continues to be my rock, his faith in me is my strength. At the age of 28, I won a very prestigious scholarship to a foreign university. I was 28 and single, meanwhile a somondho/rishta came for me. My father did not even bother to consult me. He said "my daughter has own something which most people dream about. I will not stop her. I am sure she will get married at the right time, to the right person." He is the father I had the confidence  to call one fine day and declare that I have met a guy whom I want to marry. My father calmly replied back "I trust your judgement, if you have chosen someone, I am sure he is worthy of sharing your life". 

So is my father the soldier Blogadda's campaign is searching for?

Of course he is. He is one of two chief architects (the other being my mother) of my life. His ideas, principles, his beliefs he passed onto me. With his efforts he molded me to be who I am today. He could have taken the easy route and raised me traditionally. It could have been simple, certainly cheaper and much less trouble. But he did not.

He stood up and poured in all his time, energy and resources to bring me up to be an independent and modern Indian woman who knows who she is and is mighty proud of it.

I salute him.

Thank you Baba!

This post is a part of #Soldierforwomen in association with BlogAdda.com

3 girly stereotypes...

Was speaking to a young cousin of mine in her late teenage. To my surprise the cliches which were prevalent during my teenage are still there and the girls are still falling for those. Some of the cliches that I found  very prevalent are listen below.

If you are a girl, these are some of the things or behavioral patter that society/media/peer/boy friends expect you to like and follow...but if you think about it, they are pretty clichéd and just another stereotyping excecise. Ultimately limiting a girl and taking away her individuality.

• Pink has to be your favorite colour...says who? Oh well if you are a girl, the idea is that pink has to be your favorite colour-- baby pink, hot pink, fuschia ...it is so tiring to see girls dressed in pink (right from the really young ones to the teenage girls), shoes and accessories too, decorate their rooms in shades of pink, even have pink birthday cakes and pink cocktails. This colour has become synonymous with all things girly and is used to portray girly traits like innocence and sweetness. But in the process it has become so boringly clichéd.  Come on girls it is time to move beyond pink and explore other colors-- the blues, the greens, the russets, the maroons, the reds, the yellows...there is a whole vibgiyor  waiting for you....

• Cuddly teddy bears...God knows which movie started this trend...as far as I remember all the movies in my teenage had a scene or two where the heroine cuddles a teddy, be it QSQT or Maine Pyar Kiya. Val Days meant an Archies card and a small teddy for a gift. Archie and Hallmark sold this whole range of teddies in various sizes. It was the dream of every teenage girl to receive the biggest teddy in the shop as a gift from her boy friend. Even now I see pics of young girls posing with teddies. Maybe for young girls teddies still hold a lot of excitement but for an old pro like me it is exceedingly boring and clichéd and very 90s. And if the teddy is pink, you cannot go more filmy than that. Come on girls time to let go of the teddy and move onto something better...explore other favorites.

• A man has to propose-- to my dismay many of my ultra modern girl friends are also waiting for the men in their lives to propose marriage to them. These women otherwise so very confident and smart, seem to turn completely traditional when it comes to proposing.  Come on women be pro active, take the bull by the horns and just pop the question. Been there, done that and as a result can gloat over it for a lifetime. There is lots to gain, believe me. As for the young girls, stop dreaming about the knight in shinning armour coming to sweep you off your feet. Yes I am saying this even after reading all those M&Bs for the last 15 years. In real life, it just does not happen that way. For starters you fall for guys your age, who are just as clumsy and inexperienced as you and they have not been given given any reference books on how to please girls. So stop expecting all things romantic and make a team effort of create romantic times with your boy friend. 

I am sure there are many others. This is just my reaction after speaking to her. If you have some in mind, please do share.

Disclaimer: The photos are all taken from Google images.

Bhopal Gas Tragedy....

Growing up in the 80s and 90s in India, we kind of grew up with the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. It happened when we were in primary school, for me it happened the year my brother was born. Before that my association with Bhopal was through my General Knowledge class where I was taught that it was the capital city of Madhya Pradesh. So when the newspapers carried news about Bhopal I was naturally interested. It was a name I had learned recently and I wanted to know what the newspapers were saying about this city. I was too young to realize the full import of the incident, though I remember my mother explaining that many people had died. As a child I was fascinated by the fact that many animals had died too.  One newspaper image still lingers in my memory, of that a small boy curled up dead clutching a dead animal, probably a goat. What a tragedy it was...the nation was stunned, its citizens shocked...newspapers were full of it, whenever elders met they discussed it. Political parties made full use of it, indulging in blame game and the Communists blamed the US imperialism and  the central government to their hearts' content.

Years passed, the civil society movement around the tragedy grew as we were growing up... the anniversary was commemorated each year, there were rallies, candle light processions, gheraos, protests and people wore black bands to show solidarity and news papers carried articles to trigger public memory. NGOs mushroomed working with the victims and fighting for justice. So the incident lived on, sometimes ebbing away, sometimes coming to the forefront. The court cases started, and along came the controversies and the frustration at the long winded judicial system. Various studies started coming out, how the health of the population was affected, how the environment was affected. Two messages came out very strongly-- how government, bureaucracy  and Union Carbide were responsible and how people were pinning their hopes on the judicial system to bring justice.

Years later in college and then later in universities, I interacted with groups working with the victims,  watched theatrical  performances  on the disaster, art exhibitions. Studying human rights the case came up for discussion in the course of my study. For me it was reliving the incident. I got to know more facts about the tragedy which had happened years ago, an incident which was not personal yet deeply personal, a tragedy which did not touch me and mine, yet had an enormous impact on me.

Over the years I have followed the fight for justice, most times through news papers, sometimes by wearing the black band, or donating a meager amount of money or visiting a public meetings, lectures or debates.

It was not only the fight for justice for the people affected, for our generation this fight was to affirm our faith in our justice system. Some horrible tragedy had happened when we were kids and we had expected that by the time we grew up justice would be delivered! What a wrong expectation that was!

Way too many things had already gone wrong, too many mistakes by our bureaucrats and government, we thought that the judiciary would poke its finger in the right place and pin responsibility onto the guilty. The judiciary was to be our savior. Because otherwise who else was left? The next step is the dreaded 'rebellion' by the people driven by frustration and voicelessness. No we did not want that...we wanted to have  our faith in the Indian Constitution and the rule of law reaffirmed. Today's verdict is such a massive let down...I am not angry, I am disappointed. My first instinct was to ask myself whether the Chief Judicial Magistrate is under political pressure or God forbid taken a bribe? Then I recoil from my own thoughts, I do not want to reach that level of cynicism. I am part of young India, we need to take the nation forward, not give up on it.

Somehow in this rush to be developed, the poor has gone out of favour in India. The poor and the disadvantaged are considered unpleasant aspects of the nation who need to be swept under the carpet or pushed into another hastily patched slum which is more like a black hole. All we want to show the world is our IT engineers, our rich industrialists with unprecedented personal riches and our English speaking, accent faking youth working in call centres. Thankfully India is much, much more than that and we Indians are proud of our diverse background. So what if we are developing and riddled by multitude of problems, we have our dignity and our faith for better future. If only our politicians, bureaucrats and judiciary believed in it too!

Which guys to avoid in search for the 'eternal soulmate'...

Disclaimer: This post is written in fun without any intention to hurt or harm or offense to anyone. Please do not take it seriously or personally.

Dedicated to: All the women in my life and the men too.

Scared: I am a little scared of men and their women and their reactions to this post. O men and beloved women please do not attack me with swords or sticks....I am kinda harmless!

Few days back was talking to a friend about how to choose a guy to settle down with. Both of us, in my friend's language 'have hit the jackpot'...but there are other single ladies out there who are close to us and whom we want to see happily settled with the right guy. Now had this been 2007, I would have said there are no right guys, men are rotten bastards on the whole...so no hope for us single women etc etc etc. But out of no where my Mr. Right did pop up, so I have shed off my cynicism, taken up optimism and hoping that the right guys would pop up for the rest of my gal friends.

Every girl knows the sort of guy she wants-- smart, kind, honest, loyal, responsible, presentable (TDH-- reference for men T for tall, D for dark and H for handsome), settled, well educated, with a good sense of humour etc etc etc. I am not going into that. Instead I am writing about the kind of men to avoid in your search. This little list is made from the purest of pure grains of golden experience of a gaggle of my friends and yours truly. Have a good laugh. HNY.

Top 5 types of men to avoid while in search for the 'eternal one'...

1. The fence sitters: Oh these are all around us. It is not that there guys are unkind or uncool or unsmiling...it is just that they are indecisive. They can be in a relationship for 2/3/4/5 years, they can be lovely dovey, dutiful, mushy, tender, understanding...but they will not settle down. If the girl is hoping after 3/4 years of a steady relationship for a romantic proposal, a ring and the question....she will be left hoping. It never comes, finally the girl frustrated beyond measure, pops the question herself, deluding herself into thinking that maybe he is too shy. So she is taken by real surprise when he says he is not too sure. Not sure...but the relationship is 3/4/5 years old...oh yes, and he loves her...but. This but is here to stay in the relationship, grows like a baby and settles between them and refuses to go away. I have seen girls in such relationships starting to question themselves and the whole wide world in their quest to know why their men are not settling down. The other million rupee question in their mind is how to make the man get down from the fence. Oh well short of an earthquake, you can use dynamite but you have to impeccably plan so that the man falls on your side of the fence. But ladies please do remember what happened to Humpty when he fell. Jokes apart, will not say that these men should all be shelved. Know of one guy who after ages of waiting, finally settled down with the girl and is in 'happily ever after', rest are all waiting for the 'but' to melt. The pace at which global warming is happening, maybe the 'but' would melt soon in a hundred years or so. But one thing is for sure,though these guys never marry you, but at the same time they never leave you! Bingo so we already have the eternal, waiting for the soulmate bit!
   
2. The indecisive ones: I know no 1&2 sound synonymous but there are vast technical differences. And that is, even though these indecisive ones float their profiles in bharatmatrimony and shadi.com, register themselves in dating agencies.. they do not know whether they want a relationship or not, whether they should trust a girl or not...the list goes on and on. At least the fence sitters get into a relationship, these indecisive ones are stuck at the initial contact stage.  God forbid if a girl shows interest in them. Trying to establish contact (please mark my choice of vocabulary) with them is like playing a game of snakes and ladder. For every step the girl takes, the boy would go back two steps. So you must be thinking why doesn't the intelligent girl just stop trying. I wonder the same thing as well. Then finally in my experience these kinds of guys stop communication with these girls on some flimsy excuse and the girl is left wallowing in hurt. A must stay away in my opinion. See an indecisive one and run a million miles. Good for the figure and the soul!
3. The MCP: Reference for men, MCP matlab male chauvinist pig. At the risk of sounding cliche, I have to include the MCP, cos otherwise this list would never be complete. This variety also we see all around us. Though their domination was high in previous generations, in our generations their numbers have lessened but not vanished. So beware girls. For the uninitiated, innocent girls, a MCP is any guy who thinks way too much about himself, infact self importance often makes him puffy. He has never heard of women's liberation, thinks feminists should be hunted down along with terrorists and put under lock and key. Thinks women should sit at home while he goes out to earn the bread. He expects to be served hand and foot and cooked dinner, would never lift his hand to help at home. Sometimes they even have fundamentalist ideas. Then life for the women in his family gets restricted under ghunghat or hijab. These men do not bat an eye in having sex with different women while finally marrying the girl from his caste choosen by his parents for a huge dowry. In his moral code, he can play the field while married, but heaven help if his wife, so much as looks at another man. Women usually fall for them because on the surface they seem suave and sophisticated and even chivalrous. Please girls do not make that mistake. This is serious warning.
   
4. The mamas boys: Oh well all men are more or less so, but some go over the top in being mama ka gullam. Indian mamas have full arsenal of tears, sentiments, stories of sacrifice pain, tyag, sufferings to control these sons. Once the sons get married, their momas never stop crying or falling sick or being dukkhi. So becahree beete jai bhi to kaha jai. On the whole if the son is not  a total whimp or the mother does not interfere into the couple's personal space or son's career or daughter-in-law's dressing......these men are safe bet. Special warning for the Bong women, any man who is called babu, bubu, bubun, bulbul, khokon, khoka, shona etc etc etc...please stay away. Their umbilical cords were not cut properly!
   
5. The career men: There are some men who are wed to their careers. Come what may they work. They are workaholics and in office if they are the boss then they are after the whole office to become workaholics too. In home they enjoy their women just like they enjoy fine whiskey or cigar-- occasionally and in moderation. Known wives who have spent their lives waiting for the workaholic husbands to take a break and take the wives for a vacation or spend some time with them. Nah almost never happens. Instead expensive gifts come two days after missing yet another anniversary or birthday to appease a sulking wife so that the home is well run again. These men also often neglect their children.
  

This list can go on and on--the flirt, the flighty, the pathological liars...but I do not want to dishearten all those single women out there.So ladies please go out and search sensibly for your Mr. Right and I am confident that he would pop up from somewhere or the other.

Life

Do you know the first thing that came to my mind when I saw this photograph? No, it wasn’t New York or Rio de Janeiro.
The first thing that comes to my mind is my life. In fact if you think about it, all our lives are a bit like this. Every minute, if not every moment, we are given numerous choices. Sadly this is not an ever so original thought of mine. I vaguely read something along this line long back in Richard Baach’s ‘One’. Some are simple ones like what will we be having for dinner, or which dress to buy, while some are earth shattering ones like what major to take for graduation or whether to shift cities and take up a job etc. If you are confused human being like me, I am sure this decision making process is really tough on you. Personally I hate decision-making, my frail nerves are just not made for that activity. If I had my way I would make my mom take all the decisions for me. But she, smart lady refuses. Hence I have to take decisions about my life.
Now once a decision is taken it is like setting off on the way to New York. No one guaranteed that the way is trouble free. In fact it never is, life for most part is like Wild West movie, sans drama, where there is danger lurking at every nook and cranny. For me I go by Murphy’s Law, which goes something like this—what can go wrong, will go wrong ( as far as I remember Murhphy was an army general and he was talking about battle field, but hit right on life as well, wise man). And hey Mrs Murphy has added her bit too. Check it out in the pic. Since I am a Libra, my brain is mostly ding dong—sometimes I am all Murphy or at worse times his wife and the rest when the sun shines or rain falls (this bit to clarify that I do not do photosynthesis for cheer) I am all cheerful and positive. Sometimes I think my destiny gets confused over me—they (God and my army of angels) cant actually figure me out—one day I am more positive than all the Feng Shui props put together and then there are days when I am down in doldrums, chained and sulking in Count Dracula’s (do you know Count Dracula was a harmless Hungarian count who never did any harm in his life, let alone suck blood?) castle.
Anyways to get back to the photographs with which I started, there is a saying that life is at crossroads. I say life is always in multiple crossings and a bit like TOEFL exam. Once you have selected your option, you cannot go back and undo it. You just have to jhello whatever you get cos of selecting that option.
Hmmm pretty heavy for early morning, isn’t it. Ok I stop, need my fix of coffee and am sure so do you if you have read so far.

India of the Commons Relieved...

Without going into the nuke debate, I am happy that the UPA government won the confidence motion. Happy to wake up and see the papers. I am sure millions of common Indians are as relieved as I am. Another election preparation immediately would have been an economic death knoll for the poor and the middle class.
The communists ever since Indians discovered that ism have proved to be unreliable and irresponsible and in all the instances in history the reason for government's downfall. They do not have the power to do anything constructive, just destroy. Don't even start to think of giving the example of West Bengal as achievement. WB has elite rule, not communist and a bloody big mess it is, even without Singur and Nandigram.
And who is going to be the next PM of India? Advani? So that we have some more communal violence in the name of Ram? The very thought is immensely scary. 'They' make India shine through burning her. Time Indians realised.

The Feminist Me

I guess I was born a feminist. I am told that all Libra women are fiery feminists trying to find justice in this unjust world and I am a true blue, rubble kicking, justice seeking Libra.

My first clash happened with my father. I remember when I was a kid an advertisment used to come of VIP Frenchie or some other underwear. Now they used to show a VIP Frenchie wearing man and a bikini clad woman drooling at that man. Everytime this ad used to come my dad used to say "This girl's dress does not make any sense" and I would immediately challenge him saying "If this woman's dress does not make sense, then neither does this man's...why dont you say something about him too?". We used to launch into a verbal fight but over the years I have noticed that my father has stopped making such biased comments.

Next round was regarding ghomta or ghunghat (women covering their head). Aparently my grandmother used to do it and my dad loved seeing his mother in a ghomta. Now I have a huge problem with ghomta. Why should we women be covering our heads? My father said it has to do with the concept of lajja (shame). Lajja? What am I ashamed about? The fact that I was born a woman in a traditional society? Sorry I refuse to be ashamed of my womanhood. Again I won the round and my father stopped such discussions. I tried remembering my mom ever covering her head and except for a few vague pujo bari memories I dont remember her ever covering her head. Sometimes I think my father used to say these things just to tickle me and make me fight with him. Because when I would get all huffing and puffing, splutter femminist jargons, he would smile at me, making me further enraged.

My suspicion got further reinforced by the way he and my mom has raised me and my brother--without any kind of discrimination. Ok sometimes I was positively discriminated and did not have to do certain chores cos I was a girl! Most importantly it was installed into my brother from the earliest time to respect women.

Getting back to feminist story in schools and colleges I used to have huge discussions/fights (afterall I am a true blue Libra, I can never ever resist a hearty discussion) with boys regarding this. However sensitive and sensible a guy is, the moment he hears the word feminism, something happens. Men treat this whole concept of feminism as some of huge threat like it is a beast about to gobble them up or something. In this regard I am proud of us women, leave alone hyperventilating at the mere thought of something, we live in patriarchy and yet manage to have a jolly good time, insipte of all the shit men throw at us.

When I shifted to JNU, I had huge expectations from it, afterall I was joining one of India's premier institutions etc etc. But JNU girls' hostel was a huge eye opener. On the rare non vegetarian days some of the girls at mess table would drool over the food. But they would eat only the gravy of the chicken/mutton/fish. I was really surprised. On asked they said "humare ghar main banta hain papa/bhaiya khate hain while mom and me, we eat the gravy". Now these are not goan ki ladkiyan. They are all LSR/ Lady Shriram College girls now studting in JNU. Next shocker was when a girl announced that she was pro dowry. Pro dowry? Yes otherwise she will not be getting any part of her dad' property. And another chirrped in " I can understand adarsh (principles)...but what if adarsh ka chakkar main mera shadi nehi huyi to (what if I do not get married while trying to stick to my principles)?" So much of premier insittution and progressive women.

I was interning in UNHCR, preparing an Afghan women and her daughter to move to Canada. This lady has had a really shitty life, nothing compared to what I have heard so far. She was training to be a doctor when talibans came. I will write about her some other time. Anyways I was accompanied by a translator, a young Afghan girl. All three of us sitting in the tiny counselling cabin on a hot, sweltering Delhi summer day came to the general conclusion "some men are bastards". This lady was speaking in Pashto while I in English, yet we did not have the slightest difficulty communicating this.

In my present office, we keep getting battered and shattered women (from acid attack victims to rape victims to victims of domestic violence). Each one's story is as heart wrenching as the previous ones'. Sometimes listening to them we wonder are men human beings or some other being?

Everytime I have a discussion with a man on this issue, he points out to me that all men are not like this blah blah. He too has been hurt by some girl. Now a days women have been misusing certain laws. But could any man please justify how so far for centuries men have been misusing all the laws ever made and how come no one ever protested???

Or is this question too feminist?

Kolkata-- My Home

This is a double posting, also posted at http://kolkatacitydiaries.blogspot.com/
I was very excited when Payal floated the idea of a blog entirely and exclusively dedicated to Kolkata. KOLKATA-- my home, the place where I was born and brought up, to express my feelings better I borrow Spivak’s words “Well, you know, I have a mother and that’s Calcutta…” (In an interview/discussion, ‘Postmarked Calcutta, India,’ [1990], Spivak stated to Angela Ingram). I wanted to say so many things about Kolkata and I felt this was the right place to do so. But ever since I have not been able to write anything.
Every time I thought of writing, I would start asking myself what do I write about--- the city herself, the educational places I went to—my school, my college, my universities, or the places I visited/visit with my parents or the places where I hanged out with my friends at various stages of my life spent in Kolkata or about new things that are happening to the city? In the middle of it, I would feel too overwhelmed and just drop it.
I was born in Kolkata and grew up there. All my education till masters has been there. I left Kolkata in 2002. I keep going back because emotionally Kolkata is my home but also practically because my parents and other family are there. But every time I go back home I find there is some change—a new bridge has popped up, a road has been turned one-way only, few more portholes in the roads, the people are little more ruder and hassled, the city a lot more dirtier, more old houses demolished to be replaced by fragile looking multistory buildings, latest shiny mall just next to a slum, another crazy government scheme being tried out, one more useless, destructive bandh around the corner…the list goes on. I stare at amazement and let my friends and cousins guide me through the maze of new developments. Walking on the roads I try and identify the old landmarks—some beautiful old house, maybe a tree, an old favourite shop… ninety nine percent of the time I find these old symbols gone—a Mac Donald’s or a CCD has taken its place. People rush past me but I hesitate, I feel this structure was here only last time I came, so maybe it is still there somewhere…only I cannot find it.
Every time I am there in Kolkata I remember the eternal lines from Salman Rushdie’s about how it feels to be away from home i.e. India and in my context-- Kolkata. Rushdie in Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991. (1991), tries to recapture his lost home through his imagination “…physical alienation from India almost inevitably means that we will not be capable of reclaiming precisely the thing that was lost; that we will in short, create fictions, not actual cities or villages, but invisible ones, imaginary homelands, Indias of the mind.”
While reading Rushdie I realized this is what I actually do. When I am stuck in Delhi, trying to survive in its rude world I keep thinking about Kolkata and how my life would be so much easier there. I remember the small things like how people are friendlier, how you do not have to fight with the taxi driver unlike Delhi autowallahs (auto rickshaw drivers) so on and so forth. I remember the first six months all I did in Delhi was compare it to Kolkata and needless to say every time Kolkata won hands down.
But like every other person away from home I eulogize home a bit too much. When I am away from Kolkata, she is perfection itself—a utopia of my mind. Even slightest criticism about her gets me all defensive and ready to fight. But when I visit Kolkata suddenly the rosy picture that I created in my mind gets a little dimmed, reality takes over. The city is not all of joy; it looks shabby, downtrodden and extremely badly maintained to my critical eyes.
Lately my sense of disillusionment is tremendous with my city—all I see around me is fake development—a few malls which is taking away business from small and medium scale shopkeepers and where middle class Bengalis go to confirm their status or some such silly stuff, a few more cineplexs which have made cinema watching a very prohibitive and expensive affair, some fancy restaurant opened, one more designer/ brand opening a show room in the city and some more multistoried buildings. Funny thing is Kolkatans are seem really proud of this. Don’t get me wrong, I am not against all of this but these are being done at what cost? Who actually gains from these-- an emerging group of nouveau riche with black money to spend rashly? But what about all those middle and lower middle class people trying to survive in the city? Isn’t the city becoming more and more prohibitive for them? What about maintaining the Bengali culture? Isn’t it getting lost somewhere in the tussle between the pseudo Bangla speaking communists and the mad rush for globalization? I remember reading an editorial in Anandabazar Patrika a few kalipujos back where Sharmila Bose had bemoaned the fact that diwali has so taken over kalipujo and her sense of disillusionment and loss when she comes home from London to celebrate kalipujo only to find Kolkata does celebrate diwali.
What about some resilience building like some solid infrastructure most importantly some really good roads, cleaning the city up (the corporation alone cannot do it, if the citizens do not grow their civic sense ASAP), get the drainage system into shape so that every time there is a heavy downpour people are not stuck in their houses for 2/3 days, maintain its heritage (stop demolishing old houses to build these monstrous multistoried buildings—every other city like Delhi, Mumbai—they all have put a ceiling on these horrible buildings, but Kolkata goes on merrily) planting some trees (look at Delhi, some judicial tree planting has dealt with the pollution problem to a large extent and also as the Congress government is claiming helps in making the weather a bit better), reopening some of the locked out mills and factories so that people can get back their jobs, deciding not be do another bandh like maybe for ever, what about maintaining some wholesome “bengalines” (there seems to be no middle way—either it is those who refuse to speak in anything other than bangla and who see great central treachery in everything or there are those who cant understand bangla staying in Kolkata) and last but my most favourite daydream stone the garbage spewing, lying, conniving, corrupt and idiotic politicians to death!
I know reading so far you may get confused and feel but then every city in India is going through this transition. Yes they all are, but I can say about Delhi that here all this transition is balanced with growth, new roads, over bridges, new suburbs, new buses—these things do keep coming up to supplement the other part. Sadly I don’t see that in Kolkata—there it is all lopsided. And I fear if it continues to go like this one day this city of joy would crumble and then no amount of crying can save it.

Two way tickets to abroad...

Why IIT grads abroad are returning to (Indiahttp://www.rediff.com/money/2008/may/15iit.htm)
This was came in rediff. Like the title suggests some super brainy chaps (the article did not mention any woman now that I come to think of it) prefer to come back to India. More in the stlye of “ghar aya mera pardesi” (‘my’ stranger returning home). This returning home phenomenon is being called reverse brain drain.
In my office which employees lawyers and social workers, out of 40 employees in Delhi, about 5 to 6 are people with foreign degrees who chose to come back to India and work here.
So it is time for Indians returning home, not just from engineering or software background but other fields as well.

Logical Women, mmm, maybe Women and Logic?? Oh no...

‘Women Love gadgets more than Gucci shoes. Surprised?’ http://in.news.yahoo.com/hindustantimes/20080512/r_t_ht_tc_software/ttc-gadget-queens-c38d903.html
This article came up on yahoo page when I went to check my emails. Sometimes, if I have the time I read a couple of articles with catchy titles. This was one of them. Hmmm so women, especially professional women prefer laptops and mobile phones to diamonds and designer clothes! Why am I not surprised? The women this article talks about all seem to be busy professionals and I am sure needs to be every bit as organized and efficient, if not more, like their male counterparts. Why do at every instance of women being efficient or rational or logical such surprise is generated?
What is the surprise? That a bunch of extremely busy working women would prefer carrying a laptop or a cell phone going to office rather than wearing Gucci and Prada. Isn’t it time we gave women a little credit for all their efficiency and stop being surprised at it? The very idea of this inconsequential bit of news being turned into research and eventually an article seems insulting to me.

Kanyadaan

Vijay Tendulkar's Kanyadaan
Directed by:Lillete Dubey
Cast: Rajendra Gupta,Lillete Dubey,Joy Sen Gupta,Radhika Apte and Raghaav Chanana

I went to see this play almost by fluke. It was shown in Delhi’s Kamani Auditorium as part of the 10th Delhi theatre utsav (Bharat rang Mahotsav) on the 15th of January 2008. By the strength of the crowd who had gathered outside Kamani waiting patiently for passes to come from God knows where, it seemed that this play is pretty popular. The play opened almost to a full house. It started off pretty well. Set in the early 1980s about a politician father, an activist mother and two siblings-- brother and sister who seemed to be sharing a good rapport. Things were going ok with good racy dialogues till the girl announces that she has fallen in love with a dalit boy whom she wants to marry. The dalit boy is from a poor background, new to the glittering lights of Pune, not used to the confines of brick and cement houses, a poet, a drunk and an abuser to boot. The girl realises that the man is abusive but she decides to marry him. Her parents and her brother also are aware of his character. The father eggs her on in the name of being true to what he preaches that is social integration with low castes. The mother and the brother are deeply apprehensive and they try to warn the girl and also the father on the grounds that she was brought up in a different sort of atmosphere and that she cannot adjust with this guy or his family or their mud hut in some remote village. Though they made sure to clarify that their problem was not certainly the cast of this guy.
The characters in this play are very stereotype—the mother even though she is a feminist and a social activist bows down to the father at every stage be it during her daughter’s marriage or when the daughter had enough of her drunk abusive husband and wanted to return to her parent’s house, the brother has not much role expect to serve tea and console the mother and the girl is merely foolish and obstinate which she conveniently blames on her father’s ideals and upbringing and the father who among the lot was the only progressive one is shown at the end to bow down to his principles and admit defeat when his own interests are at stake. The dalit boy’s character is shown to be a contradiction, someone who is a poet and a wife beater, he doesn’t hesitate to kick his pregnant wife or use his father-in-law’s name for his benefit and he is always drunk. The excuse for all these shortcomings in his character is his being a poor dalit of scavenger parents who while growing up saw his father beating his mother. At a time when India is grappling with caste issues with caste becoming a political factor like never before and the Indian youth being divided along caste lines this kind of theatre hurts the cause of the dalits more than anything else. I don’t have a problem with the dalit boy’s character expect that central to it was his dalit-ness. Had it been just a boy from an unspecified caste then maybe it would have been more successful in portraying the wife abuser. But sadly the character was all dalit and everything else was because of that. Aren’t upper caste men wife abusers or drunks or manipulative? Are all the above-mentioned vices low caste specific? Isn’t it time we stopped kidding ourselves?
The sad part was that the play was full of anti dalit dialogues and the audience was all claps. At one point I got confused thinking was I missing some underlying thread, which everyone else seems to have got.
The play is also very anti- feminist. It actually sends out a message that women are supposed to stay in abusive relationships because their father’s taught them not to run away from any situation in life. Now isn’t there a whole lot of difference between being irresponsible and accepting abuse?
I am surprised that eminent personalities are doing such plays. If dalit writers have attacked Tendulkar for anti dalit writings I fully understand and support them. I read some of the critics of this play. Most have said that even though this play is set in the 80s it is still relevant now. If by that they mean the play’s portrayal of the upper caste mentality towards the dalits then surely it is relevant.
Superb acting and stagecraft lost in a bad cause.

friends and me

i am another one of the millions of friends fan all over the world. i dont remember when exactly i started to watch this serial but i guess for the last 7/8 years friends have been an integral part of my life. i cant tell you how many times i have seen the reruns of each episode!

even now some tv channel lacking fresh programme airs this serial. or maybe they do it for people like me whom they know would be watching it even if it is the hundred and eleventh rerun!

a lot has been said about this serial and the people who acted in them. i dont want to go into that. rather let me share how this serial impacted me. when i was in india i used to watch it just like i used to watch some serials, maybe i liked it a bit more than others!

then i went to live abroad for about a year. the whole day i used to be busy in school, but come evening i used to dread going home. i could never figure out what to do once i am home. no i think i hated opening the door and entering an empty house alone even more than spending the vening alone.then i discovered that one of the channels air this serial from 7 or 7.30 p.m. so every evening i used to go home and switch on the television for an episode of friends. these actors so well known to me appeared every evening without fail and include me in their warmth. reruns felt like friends sharing some old story which everyone knows yet something which people cant resist talking and sharing! once i saw friends i stopped feeling so lonely and could go about doing my own work. then the evening didnt seem like never ending and school work claimed all my attention.

even now i watch friends reruns every evening thanks to star world. it is like a welcome back to my home for me and my room mate. we just let the television play while we potter around the house or work in the kitchen. at times we dont even watch it, just the familiar music makes us feel good!

i know many people dont like friends, many think it is slapstick...but it has helped me a lot in my life especially at times when i was alone...

I finally managed to see Before Sunset (1995) with the same cast of Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke. and what a movie it turned out to be!

i actually realised yesterday night while watching this movie before sunrise that i have grown up. ok i am sure you must be thinking that i have totally lost it. no i havent, let me start from the beginning...

till yesterday i kpet telling my friends that i hardly feel like i am hitting 30...i still feel like i am 20 or 22...i dont know at which age i just got stuck and my realisation that i am moving with the years stopped somewhere along the line...

i dont know how it stopped but it had and when my birthdays came or when i checked the calender or thought back over the years i would feel kind of surprised...like 'how come i spend so many years...i dont actually remember the experience' or something along that line...

then yesterday i was watching this movie before sunrise...i had watched the sequel before sunset before...so this movie was like watching something backwards...u know u know the present and then u take a trip back to the past....and while watching it i felt like i was taking a trip back to my own past...
and for the first time maybe i thought so intensely but without emotions about my past and i realised it is just that my past...i have travelled a long distance since then and have actually moved on...

suddenly the last 10 years became so clear to me...it is like so far i had lived in them but for the first time my consciousness registered them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is that wierd? i am sure it is not....am sure there are others who have lived life this disjointed...

jab we met

'Jab We Meet' is the latest movie out and it has created quiet a buzz. The trailer looked promising so I went to see it. I didnt have much expectations out of the movie but it unfolded really well. After a long time I actually had a great time laughing in the movie hall. Kareena Kapoor as Geet is every man's dream. I am sure every woman watching this movie must have thought secretly "hey I am a bit like this" or " hey I could be also like this if only...". The point is her character is like a rubber ball which refuses to stop bouncing. While I was watching this movie I was caught in the fantasy of it. After I came out of the movie hall I was thinking do we actually meet characters like Geet in real life. Or are Geets only found in movies?

Before Sunset

Yesterday I saw Before Sunset (2004) yet again. This was the second time I had seen this movie and I enjoyed it even more than before. I have not this Before Sunrise. Somehow I dont want to see it, you actually dont need to see that movie to understand this movie. It is complete on its own.

Everytime I watch this movie I take this fantasy trip where this incident happens to me. I meet this guy for a brief time and then loose all touch. And then suddenly one day when I least expcet I meet him again. Does these things ever happen in real life? Or it is something which just happens in books, movies and to others?

I briefly forget that there was actually no one in my life like this who can come back. So I go back a bit further rearrange my teenage and create this meeting with a fantastic guy and then fast forward and come to present where i actually bump into him. This fantasy has a lot of potential and you can actually emerse yourself in it. To me fantasies are like a cup of good tea, it is to be enjoyed slowly . Sooner or later it finishes but till it is there have all the fun you can have from it.