Dear Ms. Malala Yousafzai...

Khaleej Times (Life) / 2 November 2013

 

 

 

It is not just linguistic and social propriety that makes me address you by your full name. It is a lot more than that. You will be only as old as my daughter if I had one, but the conviction that you have done much more than what she might have done makes me want to attach the due reverence in my mention of your name. 

 At the outset, I must confess that I haven’t read I am Malala yet. I wanted to write to you with an open mind, unbiased by the details of your pursuits as purportedly given in the book. I wanted to write to you before I knew from the book what deeper wisdom lay in that 16-year old psyche of yours. I wanted to write to you before you became a hero in my eyes, for now when I see you, I go back in time and think of my adolescent years. I look at you and think of the other 16-year olds that I know. There is a difference between you and us. It is this difference that makes me want to open my heart and let you know how much I admire you.

 At 16, I couldn’t even think of what subject to pursue after school, much less talk about issues of social relevance. We didn’t live in a society as closed as yours; we weren’t impaled by laws, nor was fear a dominant reality of our every-day lives. We lived in a free, democratic environment, yet I didn’t have the perception of the world that you now have.

 I wonder if the insight that you now have is inherent or if it grew with you, given the conditions in which you were raised. Perhaps you were endowed with the qualities of a hero, and raised by a family that was open to political and social dialogues. Together, you had the most conducive ground to flourish into a child who thinks like a philosopher and speaks like a reformer. No, I can’t claim to have been brought up differently. We were liberal in our views too, we could discuss society and politics in our home too, yet I wasn’t a Malala. Nor are many other girls of this age. And that’s what makes me admire you so ardently.

 When I hear you speak, I wish I could articulate my thoughts with such clarity at this age. I still rehearse my words before I say something important, and often end up saying it wrongly. I wish I knew what I wanted to do with my life at least now. I am still a drifter in life. Your conviction stuns me more than your courage. When I was young, I was courageous too, but I now realise that it was less of bravery and more of brashness that sprung from ignorance so typical of those growing years.

 I couldn’t have said that I wanted to be the prime minister of the country even in jest, because I hadn’t the slightest clue about what it meant. But you know what it means to say this, and God willing, should you indeed become your country’s PM, I will learn that the dreams of 16-year olds are not mere toy stories. I will learn to take our youngsters more seriously.

 Malala (allow me the endearment), it’s hard to spell what makes me adore you. I assume it is more about what you ARE, than what you are presently doing. A child, yet not so. An adult, but not entirely so. A champion, but with no trimmings. A hero, but fearful of ghosts.

When I read the book, my view of you will get more luminous. But I will always primarily admire you for being a 16-year old that many of us couldn’t be, and one that many out there would like to be.

Wishing the best.

Till divorce do us part...

Khaleej Times (LIFE) / 26 October 2013


During my visits home, I spend the first two days gathering news from my mother about people around that we have known for long. Earlier, weddings, deaths, newborns and retirements used to constitute much of her neighbourhood reporting. But of late, I am treated to something that shakes me as badly as any other personal human tragedy — marriages on the rocks. The speed and spontaneity of conjugal breakdowns taking place in my vicinity makes me worry about the future of India’s much-prided family structure, which social theorists aver is not in peril despite the spurt in frayed relations.

A young girl in her mid-20s we know broke off her engagement for ‘incompatibility’ reasons. A couple barely into their third year of marriage called it off, owing to ‘irreconcilable differences’. Yet another with conflicts galore was clutching at the corner, and eager to let go, but hanging in there for their five-year-old’s sake. A marriage on the precipice is hardly a congenial way to lead the little one into life, but if they manage to work their way and claw back to some stability, it will be a unique victory for the child than for her parents.

Time was when parents got their sons and daughters married and returned to their retired existence, happy in the belief that their wards were well and settled. Not anymore. Parents these days live in the secret fear of having their daughter storm out of her husband’s home and breeze back into theirs, with the nonchalance of a hotel guest. Yes, she is plucky, educated and emancipated, and it’s heartening that she won’t take crap from her man or his people unlike women of earlier generations. But the definition of a bad deal in marriage has become so fluid and untenable that any lame excuse is reason enough for pulling out of a relationship that our parents and grandparents had maintained as holy matrimony. And that’s what disconcerts me.

Abuse and infidelity are unpardonable in a marriage and are legitimate grounds for separation. No woman can be excused for swallowing violence and misdemeanor in stoic silence. But mere ‘incompatibility’ and ‘irreconcilability’ as reasons? If that could be a motive to rush to a lawyer, a majority of us would have grown up in broken homes. In our parents’ times, compatibility was not even a consideration to keep a marriage. They stayed together, not because they made an enviable twosome in a tango but because divorce was not even a remote option to them.

We can indulge in endless discourses on the shifting dynamics of our society and the need to change our patriarchal patterns to give our women their due credit and status in a relationship. We can debate till the cows return home about the need to release marital relations from their constricted confines. We can argue that marriages cannot become emotional entrapments in a new, progressive social order.  Yet the fact that when a marriage fails, lives do fall apart and people do get severely singed remains.

Couples who head for spiltsville don’t do it alone. They drag their children and the rest of their families into the vortex of turmoil. No, let’s not take celebrity lives as templates. Life in ordinary Indian homes isn’t as flamboyant to make divorce and its aftermath tales of chivalry and personal triumph.

Of course, there is life after every crisis in life, and one is bound to tide over it sooner or later. But when a crisis stems from an indifference to the basic tenets of life and when it happens because of sheer arrogance and irreverence, it becomes ugly than agonizing. That more marriages are failing and nuptial knots are loosening because there is enhanced wherewithal for personal upkeep and disposal  is truly heartbreaking.

The theory of Relativ -ity

Khaleej Times (Life) / 18 October 2013

                                                            

 

It’s queer but the two things that give me a rattling sense of the passage of time are weekends and children, especially when we are in their birthday week.

“Wasn’t it only the other day that she came onboard?” many an amused mother would say repeatedly, relishing the sight of her young thing, birthday after birthday. For some reason, it’s only when we see the children grown that we realise our own age and grasp with disbelief the fact that they haven’t grown alone. We have aged with them, regardless of our frequent denials and clever attempts to conceal any apparent signs. Their rites of passage have been our milestones in life too.

So is it with weekends. The arrival of weekends, much as they are a relief from the mad routines, are also unrelenting markers of time. Sometimes, it feels as if we have hopped from one weekend to the other, the days in between obliterated by ceaseless chores. “Wasn’t it only yesterday that we were on a Friday? And here we have another! How time flies!” we often exclaim, sometimes with a shudder caused by the subtle connotation of it.

Apert from my awe at the fleeting nature of time and the fear that it inspires, I happened to experience something unique recently when I viewed some photographs taken at a family reunion in India. Frame after frame of extended family members flashed in front of me as I played the slideshow. I gazed on three generations of relations, most of whom I had not met in ages. I tried to travel the time machine to summon up frescoes from the past, shaking my head disbelievingly at the changes time had wrought in them — the irrevocable assault of age on the older generation, the slow yet perceptible takeover of maturity in the succeeding generation (to which I belong), and the spurt in the bracket of nephews and nieces, many of whom I have not even met.

What I felt in those staggering moments is hard to explain. There was a cluster of relations with whom I haven’t touched base in a long time, some that I haven’t even known, some whom I know from days in the past when writing letters and being in touch was in vogue but now felt distant and disconnected from, little ones who have now grown into handsome, young adults and some brand new entrants. I was staring at an array of my own people who knocked me into the realisation that a lot of time had passed by and in its passage we had forfeited many connections.

I am not sure if it is fair to blame it all on the pressures of life, although it is the easiest thing to do. We have fallen victims to the habit of crouching behind reasons and absolving ourselves of guilt and responsibility. But somewhere, haven’t we ourselves to blame for not giving enough to our associations in life?

It makes me think again – don’t we any more value relations and friendships in the way our folks used to before the Internet was born and the mobile phone was discovered? Is it that associations these days are merely need-based and not rooted in good old genuine affection and attachment? Have we grown too egocentric to reach out on our own? Or are we truly pressed for time?

I have been troubled by these thoughts for quite some time now. That recent experience has only added credence to that dull ache of lost affections in our constantly shrinking world.

Mark the irony – while the world is shrinking, gaps are growing! So much for the service of technology!

Can we ever hope to fill in those gaps? Do we have what it takes to reclaim and resurrect the crumbling citadels of lasting relationships?

Those pricey junks of life..

Khaleej Times (Issues) / 11 October 2013

                                 

 

At last count, there are two cameras, one VCR, one GPS, one music system, three mobile phones, two fixed line phones (one even with the primordial message recording facility with a cassette and a broken tape), and dozens of audio cassettes — all in excellent nick and ready to run a race. They all tumbled out of their hiding places recently, one after the other, when we did some spring cleaning in summer, and gave us that silly grin of a child who is caught behind a cupboard in a hide and seek game.

 There was enough stuff to open a garage sale, but a dingy basement parking can barely be dubbed a flea market. Further, the risk of getting our ‘antiques’ mixed with the old, broken furniture and other junk dumped by fellow residents was high, and we couldn’t let the valuables that we have been preserving for so long be trashed as if they were worthless scrap! After all, we had spent time and money on them and at some point of time, they were our coveted possessions.

 A majority of the above items have been through one round of auction and they have had no takers. Now, who would want a VCR when movie watching has moved to Ipads and smart phones? I remember how once, another old VCR of ours in India was paid for its weight by a scrap dealer. The GPS, except for the fact that it gets a bit perplexed with Dubai’s roads and has little clue about Sharjah, is a pricey thing that even has roadmaps of Europe and other GCC, but it remains unsold. People are probably taking their road and geographic sense a bit too seriously, and giving the GPS the place it truly deserves as a vain accessory. Yet I would hate to call it a white elephant in our closet.

 Then the cameras! Do they even make film rolls now? The Advantix, with its odd specifications was a dud that we discarded from day two, but the Kodak  has captured so many moments of our life, and with such unmatched clarity. How can something that has recorded the happy nuances of our life be dropped in the e-waste box so stoically? Just because it has no practical use now, and there are smarter things on the shelves, you can’t render it totally dispensable and worthless in spirit. Can you? We have started doing that to people now, but that’s a different story.

 It is easier to chuck things when they go out of order. But if there is even the slightest bleep in it, you would want to either keep it, or give it to someone who just might have a use. The latter is a hard species to find now, for no one takes mobile phones that can’t click pictures, play music or have apps, even for free. Not even a ten-year old. Analogue cameras are long shots too in that respect. Old things weren’t smart, you see. They were just useful, and had long life spans. Anything that overstays in this world will perhaps be condemned to disuse.

My father’s first car was a second hand Standard Herald with which he shared a love-hate relationship. It would develop respiratory problems, heave and then stop breathing at the signal, or frequently sulk on a dead battery, thus thwarting our weekend outings. Yet, when he sold it off fed up with its tantrums, our hearts broke. A few months later, we saw the car in an alley, dissected and torn into parts.

 Had my father kept the car, it probably would have been a vintage beauty now. Old and infirm, yet precious. Alas, there isn’t enough room in our lives to carry and store sentimental baggage from the past. Someday, we have to empty them all into the waste bin and be free from clutter for good.

How green was my alley !

Khaleej Times (LIFE) / 5 October 2013

WE RECENTLY said RIP to the seventh indoor plant in two years, and I am depressed. Not just because we have lost another green friend to what now seems to be developing into a civil strife between my plants and me, but because they simply don’t understand how it feels to have someone slight you when you go to such great lengths to tend them, as if they were babies. They are ungrateful, I lamented, when the latest piece of our live indoor décor wilted and died. We felt betrayed yet again, like parents with defiant children.

 There is something fundamentally wrong with the way we are keeping them and we must seek expert advice on how to raise plants inside the house, I suggested. So we went to the plant counsellor, who is the guy at the shop that we get our indoor stuff from. Like a tough, uncompromising customer, I complained that his plants had high mortality rates and that I wanted each of my horticultural disasters to be accounted for and replaced.

He listened patiently to my rants, asked me questions like a shrink does his patient, and finally declared, “You are not keeping them in the best of conditions.”

I was mortified. I had even poked the pot mix frequently to check the moisture content. What more did I have to do? He said that I needed to keep the air-conditioner on, if not all day long, at least to keep the interiors cool enough for them to survive. 

That’s the beginning of this on-going battle between my plants and me. My metabolism doesn’t allow keeping the coolers on for more than 10 minutes. I shiver, my teeth chatter and my limbs go numb. Imagine me opening the door to someone, wearing sweaters, mittens and a monkey cap in the peak of summer! I must either allow myself to be scrutinised suspiciously or be ready to narrate my plant story if they would care to stop and listen.

 “I can’t keep the AC on for long,” I said. The plant counsellor nodded and looked at my husband. “In that case, it’s your choice. Either she or the plants stay.” That’s what he meant to say, I could see it on his face.

 We women have ways to read the malicious thoughts of men. My man nodded in reply as if to say, “I will chew it over, buddy, and take a final call.”

 I was glad that he wasn’t impulsive enough to call it quits with me at a plant store. There are decent ways of doing it, after all.

As we drove back home, I thought of the garden in our house in India. Lush and left to the care of nature, it’s a weed-ridden little yard tended by the elements. The greatest service that we do to the plants is water them in summer, and prune them out of our path when they grow over.  They weather all seasons and all conditions. They don’t demand to have the soil tilled and turned.

 I wish I could carry a bag of the rich earth with me to give my plants here a feel of home and habitat. I remembered how I don’t find time to go around, looking and checking on them during my vacations. I felt guilty about taking them for granted, and I compared them with the spoilt brats back here that died for no reason.

 Meanwhile, my husband might have considered the gardener’s choice between keeping me and the plants. But I know, for all his secret desire to get me a one-way ticket to Mars, he will keep me, because plants can’t cook and keep house.

Clueless about a cure

Khaleej Times (Issues) / 27 September 2013

SOME AILMENTS, like chewing gum stuck under your shoes, are hard to get rid of. Allergies, arthritis and migraines for instance. Regular in nature but less sinister in prospect, they are a nag than a pain and are the ones you don’t know what to do about.

You can’t ignore it, for it hinders your routine and throws normal life out of gear; you can’t cure it, because it either has no known cure or hasn’t been even diagnosed and tagged with a pronounceable name, nor can you bear in silence because it is anything but sufferable. All that you know is that there is a pesky disorder in your system that makes you walk vertical on the wall and run around in circles when your tolerance levels are breached. When I say run around in circles, I mean literally, between doctors and quacks, astrologers and time fixers, counselors and experts, and others (including strangers on the internet) who have had a similar condition and have somehow got it fixed.

 A friend of mine had been suffering from an all-pervading ache, so much so that she could tell the number of joints in her body at any point of time. After numerous visits to doctors of various specialties and endless rounds of medication, it turns out that she has ‘fibromyalgia’, from which there is no deliverance. Resigned to pain, at some point, she decided to shed a few pounds just to shape up and voila! The incurable got cured.

 Picture this. For months I have been suffering from a pain in the hand that has its origin somewhere in the shoulder and can’t seem to decide where to settle. I go to the orthopaedic, get some tests done and come home in a sling and some pills that would have killed me but for the insurance cover. I’m okay for some months and then the horrible condition kicks in again. Another ortho advises physical therapy apart from the wallet ripping prescription. I learn that my shoulder is frozen! The doc says I must have lifted a weight or suffered a fall. I don’t remember either. The physical therapist says it is age or diabetes. Neither of those, I aver.

 Meanwhile, the alternative medical practitioner to who I go for my migraine objects to the allopathic intervention in his holistic treatment. As per him, even external handling like the ultra sound, high frequency or gel on my shoulder can reverse the effects of his treatment. Now, I am left to decide what to tackle first — the migraine or the frozen shoulder. I choose the former and suffer the latter loudly, even as the homeo includes my shoulder in his notes.

 Friends back home have a new suggestion for thawing my shoulder — Ayurveda. I am tempted to pursue it while on vacation, but remembering my homeo doc’s warning against any interference, I desist. Meanwhile, the shoulder freezes to ice in the monsoons. I rush to an ortho in my home town, who puts me through tablets and physical therapy again. The physical therapist categorically says his is the only way to rectify things. Neither medicine nor mysticism can do it. I think of my homeo doc and waver, but put migraine on the back burner and go with the physio. I temporarily accept the opinion that alternative medicines are mere placebos. I choose to ignore my homeo doc’s contention that allopaths administer only steroids for migraine and if anything can cure my headache it is his little white pearls.

 Post physio, I return to homeo. Caught between multiple systems of medicine and healing, between hot and cold packs, I go by my instincts and put my body through rigorous tests of endurance and remedy, in the sole belief that something will work. Meanwhile, someone has suggested acupuncture and the occult to me.

 I am still gathering details; just in case all else fails.

Faith Revisited

Khaleej Times (Issues) / 20 September 2013

 

FOR A long time as a child, I lived in the unshakable belief that doctors could never fall sick and die. How could someone who had the power to make ailments disappear ever succumb to them? This naïve conviction was however shattered when a classmate’s doctor father died of a dreadful disease, and when I sought an explanation to it from my teacher, she said, “Doctors are human beings too.”

The fact that possessing an ability to cure did not insulate doctors from the scourges of the body was a shocking revelation that I accepted only after a long period of denial and disbelief.

 Followers of Indian spiritual leader Asaram Bapu must have gone through a similar experience when he was recently held on charges of molestation. Supporters of what has now become a loose Indian coinage for spiritual leaders, godmen, must have asked the questions many times over — how can someone who administers spiritual potions and shares religious wisdom so copiously ever fall victim to something so temporal? How can someone so exalted ever fall for temptations of such carnal nature? The answer to these perhaps will be the same as that of my teacher — they are human beings too.

 Accusations of abuse and cases of other deviant acts unbecoming of men of faith aren’t new or unheard of. Yet every time it happens, the world that hinges on them for succour from their everyday travails heaves in consternation, dismissing every document of proof as concocted. The faithful firmly reject the accusations, largely because they are so consumed by creed that aberration by those they accept as their redeemer is non-existent in their scheme of thought. Somewhere in their journey towards seeking divine solace and support, they overlook the fact that the men and women that they so devoutly define as holy are human beings too, liable to err like ordinary mortals. This by no means justifies unseemly acts by them, but it gives a whole new perspective to the way we look at spiritual leaders and religious preachers.

 The primary debate is not about whether such godmen and women deserve special legal considerations because of their illustrious standing and support in the society. That they are ordinary citizens who by dint of their deeds became slightly extraordinary, and this does not absolve them of any crime, is undisputed. The debate should be on to what extent we, as thinking individuals, should place our trust on people who promise to lead us to salvation and ultimate peace. How far should we go in seeking quick fix solutions to our everyday difficulties? What, ultimately, is our objective of pursuing people who we naively assume are immaculate incarnations?

 India is rapidly turning into a land of faith factories where divinity is super imposed on human beings by unsuspecting millions. It will be harsh and unfair to paint all institutions of faith with a skeptical brush. However, it would help to remember that these institutions are not ultimate havens of bliss or eventual centres of redemption. At best, they are pathways that can lead us to an evolved existence and at worst, they can be a nemesis of the ideals that hold our life together.

 In our eagerness to find explanation and resolution to life’s mysteries, we try to find short cuts to take us out of the wilderness. In the process, we make supreme beings out of ordinary mortals and put them on the altar, and when they falter and fall, we cry foul, chagrined and shattered at being betrayed.

 There is God and there is man. Between them are infallible spiritual conduits that are above physical parameters. They are few and far between. They walk this earth to awaken mankind from its slothfulness and instill goodness. We could do with some wisdom that will help us distinguish the genuinely enlightened from the human imposters of our times.

Those sad goodbyes

Khaleej Times (Life) / 30 August 2013

 

THERE IS a joke that I tell every time I am asked about my date of return after a vacation. “I don’t want to stay for so long that my parents get used to having me around them and my husband gets used to not having me around him.”

 While the latter half of the statement is more tongue in cheek, the part related to my parents is more fact than fiction. Its significance stems from a sentiment that has grown in me over the past few years about the poignant goodbye moment at the airport, which despite its familiarity and frequency is as heart wrenching as ever.

The smiles that lined the arrival gate a few days ago are now morphed into sniffles choking the departure door. Craning necks and teary eyes don’t see much inside the terminal, yet hands wave fervently and hearts merge into a unifying emotion of parting and sadness.

I remember the first time I left home to pursue higher studies after college. Wary about stepping out of home and uncertain about the nature of life and the world outside my cocooned existence, it was a watershed moment in my life. I carried with me a melange of thoughts, partly elated about wriggling out of parental controls and partly concerned about a life beyond their secured wings and cozy nest. I clearly recall the fear that plagued my mind as I boarded the train. I also remember my parents’ faces marked with worry and sorrow as the train chugged off. I must have spent many nights thereafter in tears, home sickness and nostalgia.

A moment of déjà vu occurred many years later when I left their home for good, this time as a married woman. There was an odd certainty about the departure, unlike the first one. I felt something prising me out of their life and putting me on a flight to my future with new relations and responsibilities. I must have spent months thereafter impaired in heart, and longing to be back in their midst. The sheen of marital bliss could not obliterate the ache for home and parents.

Years wore on. Life took me on many circuitous routes and taught me several vital lessons on joys, sorrows and inevitabilities. Visiting home and parents on vacation became part of an annual schedule replete with various duties. At some point down the years, my heart shifted base from my parents’ home to my own to where it longed to return after a few days of retreat. Yet when I left, I felt a stabbing pain of separation that was different from that of the early years.

 Now it was not about my sorrow. It was about theirs. Leaving them alone for another year was heart wrenching. I saw them grappling with the agony of having to go back to an empty nest, emptier than before. I had failed to see it when I left them alone first, but there is no mistaking it now. I realized that I had a world to return to, but they had none. We were their world and we were their sun and stars. Without us, they were mere shadows biding their time in the company of solitude. There was a time when they were our emotional crutches. Now, as roles reversed, they held on to us timorously, waiting for us to come and infuse life into their vacuous existence.

 I will spend weeks after my vacation in their thoughts, feeling their pain vicariously. I will relive the scenes at the airport — of sons, daughters, grandchildren and husbands carting away loads of love into the terminal, and a sea of heartbroken parents, grandparents, wives and children left behind until another time. The view from their side will be bluer than the one from ours, and their lives murkier till we return.

Vacation Vignettes

Khaleej Times (Life) / 23 August 2013

 

 

Like many Indian expats in the Gulf, I am pushing the last days of a rain soaked vacation in India. It is strange that vacations have such short life spans, no matter how many days you fluff them up with. They pass like a fleeting dream sequence, leaving us in a willingly suspended state of disbelief till we flock back to pick up our rants and routines.

Year after year, for a month or two, we fall into the rabbit hole of our native place, shrinking or growing in size to fit the contrasting conditions there, sometimes with groans, sometimes with cheer. Life assumes a different character and dons a curious cloak in the wonderland of our birth, and the starkness of the change that comes over us when we straddle the two worlds never ceases to amuse me.  Wasn’t it just the other day that I took off from the scalding summer sands and dipped into a verdant landscape awash in relentless monsoon?  The welcome drizzle, the puddles around my feet and the constant feel of rain in the air, the potholes in the roads and the frenzied traffic ushered in vintage memories as we steered on. The buzzing mosquitoes, eager to taste the perfume laced NRI blood confirmed that we were truly home. The pustules on our skin were the first welcome gifts we received. Cold, cough and allergies would follow suit, we knew. Those weak in their stomach would have more to anticipate. 

It feels immensely good to sleep in a room with a view, with windows thrown open to nature and the monsoon chill let in. I wish I could take a slice of these tranquil nights into the cloistered coops that we call bedrooms in Dubai. You don’t need a morning alarm here, for the roosters and crows are committed to their tasks. So are the blaring speakers from the local temples. Stepping out of home, you get chatty with neighbours, nod and wave to acquaintances from a distance. It makes you think about the isolated existence back there, where neighbours are tight lipped strangers behind closed doors, or at best, half smiling, semi-familiar co passengers in the elevator. There is something that alters in us when we touch foreign shores and adopt outlandish ways. 

I precisely know what is cooking in the neighbourhood in my home town, for conversations are rarely private. The dropping mobile signals inside homes make sure that people hold public telecons about personal matters, and it barely troubles them to know that they are being heard. It saves the curious cats around the area the trouble of snooping and eaves dropping. Gossip and gawking are socially accepted norms here that require no cover of pretence.

Self grooming takes a back seat when I am on vacation. It doesn’t matter if my hair is not blow dried or if my nails aren’t manicured. What I wear matters even less. I don’t search for the right costumes or worry about the wrinkles in a freshly laundered shirt. The romping lizards on the wall don’t freak me out, nor do the night insects that flit in only to become the lizards’ meal. I bashfully think of the ruckus I created on spotting a lizard in our Dubai home some months ago. I fail to fathom the reason behind my altered response to an identical situation back here. I give hygiene reasons for buying mineral water in Dubai, while I have little qualms in boiling tap water to drink while I am in my parents’ home.

Once in a year, we shift from a milieu of work and worries, and slip into a fairy tale setting. Along with our wrist watch, we reset ourselves to the changed environs. Like little children, we play pretend games and create make believe worlds, and like them, we fail to separate and recognise the truth from fantasy.

Picture Imperfect

Khaleej Times / (Point of View)17 August 2013

 

I HAVE been lately hassled by a repeatedly failing task — getting a decent photograph of mine taken. A friend has been asking me to get the pathetic profile picture on my blog changed and I haven’t been able to do it for a reason that I now believe is a veritable truth — I don’t have a ‘photogenic face’.

 I have tried everything — from taking simple self portraits on my smart phone to posing ridiculously in front of advanced SLRs; from getting a salon touch up before a photo shoot to flashing fake smiles and expressions. But they have all returned pitiable results of making me look like a caricature of what I truly am. The latest attempt even made me want to tag a caption of ‘a bloated, marinated chick pea’ to it!

 That might sound a tad bit self-deprecating, but let me clarify. Not being photogenic is not the same as being not good looking. The matrimonial advertisement that my parents ran in the newspaper at the time of groom hunting for me described me as ‘fair and good looking’, and I don’t dare to doubt their estimation and conviction about me. Yet the photographs that they took of me at that time in our home camera were such that many a men lost a great opportunity of having me for a wife by saying ‘No’ in haste.

 What goes wrong between a face and the camera it gazes into at is a mystery to me.  How can a fairly good looking face turn so gross in its replica? Greater is the mystery of one wanting to look endearing in a pictorial representation of oneself. I have met many people who have reservations about posing for pictures and shy away from any attempt to have them pictorially documented in an album.

 It is hard to convince them that pictures are mere moments caught and preserved for posterity and they barely have any bearing on their personality. If it is mean and nasty comments that one is concerned about, then consider this — how many times has someone really said that you looked like a hag in a picture or said you are a photographic disaster or a camera man’s disgust? I have had people tell me that I looked tired, a little fat or a little tanned, but never has anyone remarked that I looked grotesque. People are civil, trust me.

 We have no need to create impressions with our photographs unless we are stars and celebrities. We have no obligation to Photoshop our images unless we are creating a fashion profile to launch a career in modelling. To those in the show biz, it is imperative, for it is what the world sees of them. It is what they live off and survive on. It is the facade that sustains their lives. The next time we ogle at an ethereal looking movie star’s poster, let us remember the agony of having to look good in every shot they give and our freedom to look whatever the camera pleases to make out of us.

 No one who knows us will love us differently because of a poor, graphic depiction of the real persons that we are. Knowing what we all are in real, matters. Photographs are impressions twice removed from the real persons we are and we create these images for two reasons — to lock in moments and to enhance self esteem. Whether to build memories or a myth, being photogenic barely matters. What matters is the joy of saying ‘cheese’, and I’ve come to fully accept this idea now.

Tail piece: For reasons best known to her, my mother-in-law had insisted on her son seeing me in person instead of my snaps at the time of our proposal. Had he seen my pictures, would he have rejected me? Oh well, it doesn’t matter to know that now!

A matter of Opinion

Khaleej Times (Issues) / 10 August 2013

 

GUESS WHAT the two most disposable items in our personal kitty are — things we have been endowed with in such large measures that we will burst if we don’t disburse them regularly? Money and material?

You can’t be kidding. None of us ever believe to have been so lavishly provided (for we are always a tad bit short of it) nor do we pop if ever it’s in excess. Try again. It’s what we ladle out unasked, happily and at will. Two things we are pleased to give for free, but never to take, even with love. You got it. It’s opinion, and its twin, advice!

There is only one difference between the two — while Opinion is self serving, Advice is philanthropic in nature; at least seemingly so.  Both are born of a fertile mind that is brimming with responses that we consider significant and urgent for the smooth running of the universe. It’s so hard not to respond to things people do and say. There is so much going on around us that we need to speak about it, primarily because we are all entitled to it.

Whether it is about a deviant political system that we can’t do much about or our neighbour’s choice of new car or a friend’s life changing career decision or a distant family dispute in which we don’t have even a cameo, it’s difficult not to pass our personal judgment. Funny, how many of our own domestic arguments have been over someone else’s life and their decisions! We debate as if there’s no authority over us in the related matter. We spar as if our own happiness depended on it. It’s equally hard not to tender advice to someone who really doesn’t need it from us, yet as citizens of this universe who are concerned about the wellness of our fellow beings (ahem), it’s impossible to disregard our responsibility. So, from the bottom of our heart we counsel, knowing full well that the listener is not obliged to accept it. We plod on with our selfless services, in the vain delusion of being the all knowing wise men who have the key to all problems in this world, except our own.

Oh, we know what ails the society, we know how terrorism can be countered, we know how the errant son of a friend can be tackled, we have suggestions for the economists, we have sound advice for our children, youth and politicians, we know where the other man should put his money to maximize returns, we have solutions for someone’s allergy, migraine and weight issues…we know it all! And how we are raring to let the world know about it!

The opening up of the media has only made opinion making and advice tending easier as a vocation and a pass time. News time on TV has become views time, with people suffering from verbal diarrhoea permanently pasted on panels; the comments section in online newspapers have turned into a malicious riot zone where abuses are hurled and exchanged; the social media has expanded the scope for unrestrained expression further, and in this unzipped version of the world, we have become virtual vending machines for opinion and advice, revelling in our freedom to purge our views and slap it on the world.

Amidst all these thrives a community that is distinct by its intent, style and relevance — thinking people who send letters to the editor. They are writers and philosophers in their own right, holding and proffering genuine views. Their earnestness and the absence of frivolity in their endeavour make them a unique cluster of opinion makers. I hold them in high regard and have immense love for them, for it was as one among them that I started my writing career several years ago and it is in their company that I continue to thrive on this Opinion page.

Loving sob stories

Khaleej Times (Issues) / 3 August 2013

 

HUMAN BEINGS, as a rule, love tragedy.

That might be a scandalizing opener, but nothing can be truer than this contradictory revelation about our innate love for the sordid and solemn aspects of life. For all the fear and forbidding sentiments we have of adversities, there is a strange allure in matters of misfortune that keeps us engaged in them for longer than we may please. Let’s put ourselves under the scanner briefly and examine this curious predilection we have for the dire dimensions of life.

 What keeps us glued to the television more — breaking news about a major terrorist attack and a massive earthquake or tame reports about changing political equations in our country? News about a horrendous gang rape or the details of a foreign minister’s state visit? A talk show on domestic abuse or a panel discussion on the country’s economic prospects?

 I must confess that the three most enduring television reports I have in memory are of the twin tower collapse in NY, the siege of Mumbai by terrorists and the South Asian tsunamis. There have been better, awe-inspiring events in the world that might have characterised human existence in the past few years, but none of them have left imprints of the kind the above events have done. It wasn’t appetizing in the least to watch the tragedies unfold, yet the appeal and mystery of doom that I previously mentioned probably outweighed any sense of revolt and horror that I might have felt in those moments. I shuddered, shook my head and clicked my tongue in disbelief, but didn’t stop the TV from running for hours on end or lapping up exhaustive details from newspapers. I am fairly certain that I was not alone in feeling or doing so.

A journalist friend once mentioned in the passing that crime reports enjoyed the maximum hits on their website and it was impossible to gloss over this curious factor that kept many news joints from shutting shop. It brought home the point that the world essentially survived on the gross and grotesque, without which it would have been just another monotonous patch in the cosmos.

 Concurrently, the rule applies in our private lives as well.  The message on the T-shirt of a young man I saw in the metro the other day read, “If you are truly happy, don’t let others know.” It echoed a thought an old friend once gave me as a tip to happy living — groan and stay safe, for that’s what the world loves to see you doing. Your happiness can incur wrath and envy. It was a bizarre piece of advice, but it probably carried a weird nugget of truth.

 Either for reasons of keeping envy at bay or for our irrational fear of tempting misfortune by openly expressing our joys in life, we have made it a habit to conceal the pleasant and reveal the unpleasant. We revel in narrating our tales of woe, and feel vindicated. Even in adverse times, when the heart affirms hope and the mind instills faith, and somewhere in the green room of our existence we feel that it really didn’t matter if we didn’t make it, the mouth bawls ceaselessly just so the world takes notice and sighs with us.

 We need audience that sympathises with our narrative; so we embrace our sorrows and stay tagged to them even after they have tempered down. We tuck them away in memories and look in time after time. It is as if the retrieved pain compliments our pleasures and completes our existence.

Man, by nature, fears evil, shuns pain, despises misfortune. Why on earth does he still harp on the nuances of the unseemly, and bring forth more distress than he deserves? Like the protagonists in Shakespearean tragedies, why does he hurtle himself towards his denouement aided by his own projected love for catastrophe? Clues anyone?

Food for Thought

Khaleej Times (Life) / 12 July 2013

  

A couple of weeks ago, I was casually talking to my friendly grocer about the commencement of Ramadan. “You seem to be very eager about it than us. Do you fast too?” he asked.

I shook my head in panic at the mention of fasting and hastened out of the store fearing that I may betray my gastronomic frailty to a man who was shortly going to eschew food and water during the day for a whole month. As I hobbled home, I gave his question on fasting a renewed thought, reassessed my capabilities and quickly realised that I wasn’t cut out for it. The instant negation of the proposition was followed by a torrent of other thoughts on aspects of abstinence and avoidance.

I have been away from coffee for a while now, thanks to my well meaning homeopath, and it has brought unspeakable agony into my life. To the filter coffee loving South Indian that I am, the doctor’s diktat has been nothing short of extreme deprivation and I must confess that I have cheated on it a few times, unable to rein in my cravings. Every time I broke the coffee code, I experienced mixed emotions - guilt at having broken the rule, concerns about neutralising the medicine, fear of the treatment turning ineffective and frustration at my inability to overcome a weakness.

I haven’t fasted in a long time, at least not in the precise sense of the word that means staying hungry for a prolonged period of time. For two reasons – one, my system completely disagrees with any such ordeal, triggering systemic mayhem in my body and mind that turns me into a raving ogress. Two, fasting in my religion allows for many concessions that make sure that the stomach is not entirely empty at any given point in time. We even have special ‘fast time food’. To me, allowances of this kind take away the sacredness and purpose of the act and it was better that I didn’t indulge in them and be happy about not going through some religious formality. If I had to test my endurance and faith, it had to be the real way – the Ramadan way, and I am convinced that it requires utmost restraint and devotion to the cause to complete it without demur. It takes more than ordinary willpower to be able to honour it for a whole month. And that, I presumably lacked.

It is this expression of absolute commitment, conviction and worship that makes me hold this holy month in great awe. I realise with a stir in my heart that here’s someone moaning about giving up coffee for a health reason, and out there, millions have willingly given up food and water for long, sweltering hours for a spiritual purpose. I can cheat on my doctor and have an occasional coffee, but there can be no leeway in matters of the Divine. The strength that such a devout act of abstinence imparts is immense and this strength in turn sustains one’s unflinching belief in the ultimate.

For a month, every evening, when the prayer call for Iftar permeates the sultry summer air, and human activity winds down for that moment of tryst with the Divine in the alleys of the world, I will stand witness in silent reverence to the palpable presence of the Almighty in the cosmos, manifested by the act of total surrender and salutation. It will be long before I gather the mental tenacity and physical ability to submit myself to such a test of faith and self restraint. Some day, I hope to be there, where the Supreme sublimates the senses. Until that moment of truth arrives in my life, I can only emotionally partake in the piety and gaiety of Ramadan, and mentally connect with the month of fasting and the days of feasting in the end.

New Age Addictions

Khaleej Times (LIFE) / 28 June 2013

 

There was a time when letters between home and here took nearly fifteen days to reach their destinations. But that being the only way in those days for a newly-wed woman just landed in the Gulf to send home detailed accounts of her new life and setting, and for my parents to administer large doses of counsel and reassurance to a suddenly distanced daughter, we used to indulge in them with great relish and patience. The long, hand written epistles sometimes got lost in transit, taking with them chunks of filial emotions that couldn’t be retrieved from any ‘draft’ folder.  The Friday calls from the public call booths were luxuries that only provided the pleasure of hearing the voice of family members. It is amazing how times have changed now!

On a recent flight from home, I happened to travel with a young bride who spoke at least ten times to her family between the time she checked in and switched off in the air craft. At the immigration. Security. They removed the pickle from the baggage. Had coffee. Boarding the aircraft. Seated. All well. Now switching off. Will call as soon as I land. The parents had only four hours to wait before they could call and text their daughter again. She will be on Skype, every day. It was as if nothing had changed, except for the spatial thing.

The other day, a hassled mother lamented that her teenager never took her calls when he went out with his friends, and it made her sick with worry. Kids barely out for a night or husband on a three day tour, why do we fret when we don’t hear from them every hour? Makes me wonder if we have become paranoid about situations in life or we have just got ourselves into wayward habits fashioned by inventive conveniences?

With life getting chic and cozy as never before, what was once an indulgence has now become indispensable, what was once luxury has now become pre requisites, in the absence of which we feel severely challenged and disoriented.

Take tissue papers and television for starters. I have been out of kitchen tissue for three days now, and the cloth napkin I am currently (re)using makes me feel antiquated by several centuries. We know all about environment and such, but the tissue culture is something many of us can’t shake ourselves out of for the life of us. In the kitchen, living room or in the bathroom, its presence defines our modern existence and sense of hygiene. 

Just as we can’t conceive an existence without television. The dunce machine has made us all imbeciles, stuffing us with junk and jelly, yet almost everyone — from a toddler in his pram to an oldie past his prime is irreversibly consumed by it. It’s as if life never existed before the tissues and the telly! How did our grand dads and moms live out their old age without the soaps and serials? How did we grow up without Play Station, Facebook and Whatsapp? How did we suffer the summer without air conditioners? How on earth did we survive before E-mail, Google and Wikipedia? And did the Bing Bang happen only with computers and mobile phones?

Several decades ago, when my mother got married and left for my father’s home many thousand kilometers away, there wasn’t even a telephone to call her family upon reaching! As a child, I remember living in a house that had no bathroom inside. We had to go to the bathroom in the compound every time there was a need. Now there are western toilets inside the house, and we complain that they aren’t attached to the bedrooms. With time, we have fallen into moulds and conditions that have turned us into unspeakable fuss pots and heaven help us to get out of our newfangled habits and tendencies!

A Silent Dialogue

Khaleej Times (LIFE) / 17 June 2013

Me: “Hello Conscience, Are you there?”

Conscience: “Always here.”

Me: “Sorry, I’m late. Had problems logging in. Was unable to connect with you. The systems here are severely corrupt and virus ridden these days.”

C: “I can see that.”

Me: “It’s frustrating. Why don’t you do something about it, so that I can reach out to you more often? My doubts and fears are growing like weeds in a vacant field.”

C: “Do you think I created the viruses and allowed them a freehand to sabotage your system? They are of your own devising. You are letting them ruin your network with the unscrupulous use of data that I diligently supplied 
you with.”

Me: “I know that my system is laden with junk that will take more than a lifetime to clean. But there is so much out there in the world to download and devour. The inducements are too many, and with newer technologies, it has become easier than ever to possess them. I just can’t seem to have enough of anything. Do you think I am greedy, my conscience?”

C: “I don’t think so. I am certain about it.”

Me: “Don’t be so harsh. Help me. I need deliverance from this ceaseless craving for unnecessary apps, features and programs in my life. What do you think makes me want more than what my system duly needs? Speak to me about it.”

C: “Foolishness, greed — that’s what it is. I can only laugh at the man who believes he can earn through devious means and still be happy. I can only shrug at the man who is abundantly provided for, yet strives to add to his over flowing resources just to fulfill his whims. I can only pity the man who lives in the fallacy that there is bliss around the corner and chases the mirage of ‘just a little more’.”

Me: “Is money then sin, and craving, a crime?”

C: “I don’t contend that money is sin. I have reservations only with the bizarre ways in which you try to make and multiply it.”

Me: “But life is getting tougher by the day. How will we face the future if we don’t add and horde?”

C: “Point taken, but not all your moves are for securing your future. You have found it convenient to label your greed as need. You have lost sight of the difference between the use and misuse of money. You have overstepped the boundaries of fair and unfair means.”

Me: “You are complicating things. Keep it simple for my understanding.”

C: “Is that a smart phone? Haven’t seen that before.”

Me: “You see it? Swell, eh?”

C: “Did the old one conk off?”

Me: “No. I changed it for a fad.”

C: “And that watch..seems new too..Rolex?”

Me: “Not there yet. Some day, perhaps.”

C: “Ever fancied a Ferrari?”

Me: “Ferrari? Me? You must be kidding.”

C: “Why, if you try hard enough, you can have it, some day. Mark my words.”

Me: “Yeah…? That’s swanky thought! Wish it were true. But, hang on. This is absurd. Why on earth do you think I need a Ferrari?”

C: “For the same reason that you need the latest smart phone or a Rolex or a fifteenth pair of shoes or seventh pair of goggles or fourth apartment or thirty percent returns on investments. You will ask for it when your aspiration becomes ambition, and ambition becomes avarice. The greed bug can push you to extreme acts of deceit, power and possession.”

Me: “I had no inkling about this greed thing. You never said this to me before. Thank you for the red flag. You truly are an Anti-virus Guard. Will you stay with me always and protect my system from crashing?”

C: “Reach out any time, son. I’m online twenty four by seven, for all those who seek me.”

Life's Learning Curve

Khaleej Times (LIFE) / 11 June 2013

As a student of a convent school, I have endured many hours of what was then intolerable torture in academics – Moral Science classes. I used to harbour great dislike for the period that choked me with lessons on abstracts that made little sense to me at that young age.

Love, prayer, truth, honesty, charity, gratitude.…the lessons on values took me around the same bends year after year and I coursed through them with a yawny face and drooping eyes, barely making sense of what the teacher spoke. 

We also had a test to take every month, which made the ordeal worse and wearisome. The geography class with its latitudes and longitudes were the only equals in boredom to the weekly platitudes of the Moral Science class. The only thing that made me cram it with much distaste was the high scores the teacher granted us despite our pathetic understanding and expression of ethical matters.

The numbers gave my report card some mock dignity and put me in an imaginary, feel-good spot. I knew that my performance in the subjects that really mattered left much to be desired, yet I lived in the deluded notion of having excelled in some subject, albeit boring and worthless in my juvenile view.  As we moved up the grades, Moral Science wilted and faded out of our curriculum.

Subjects that promised to build careers and propel professional growth gained primacy. We earned proficiency in natural and social sciences, specialised in our streams and trotted up the social ladder bolstered by our degrees. We conducted our lives with élan, indulging in jugglery and trapeze acts to win applause, and stamp multiple stars in the report card of our lives. Yet, somewhere, there was a strange void threatening to tip the scales of our seemingly smooth existence.

Apparently adept, yet feeling deeply inadequate, there was some essential cog missing in the wheel. The report card with all its phenomenal scores wasn’t complete, and I finally figured out why — Moral Science, as a subject, had long since quit the course of 
our lives.  

The accumulation of scholastic knowledge that we prided ourselves on, looked wasted in the absence of ethical understanding. The profusion of wealth that we flaunted around seemed shallow without moral bearings. The sterling quality of our report card tarnished when we misplaced our fundamental values. We knew things were amiss and we panicked, and one day set out on a nomadic journey to find the missing element that would bring us eternal peace and joy.

We hired self-help books and philosophical guides to set the moral compass of our lives right. We attended inspirational lectures and listened to wise men in the hope of putting our mental mechanism in order. We swallowed the words of wisdom that they prescribed like antibiotic capsules. We sought instant relief, making entreaties for divine intervention. We returned to classrooms, where they gave us spiritual tonics.

In effect, we began to take Moral Science lessons all over again, this time consciously, in pursuit of that elusive elixir that will deliver us from the secret sufferings of our body, heart and soul.

Every time I am in a spiritual classroom now, I wonder if whatever I am presently hearing aren’t mature versions of the basic principles that the teacher had tried to drill into us several years ago during the Moral Science period. What was then a mere subject that helped me spruce up my academic record, is now the guiding principles of my adult life.

The ethical seeds that were carelessly thrown in during my childhood, later sprouted and then spread to become a canopy of life lessons. For a student still grappling with the vagueness of virtues and vices, rights and wrongs, it traces a learning curve. It supplemented my grades then. It sustains my life now.  Between then and now, what has changed is the attitude.

Log in and blog on

Khaleej Times (Issues) / 1 June 2013

 

Although the Web log made its entry into the world of the tech savvy geeks in the late 90s and crept into the creative toolbox of the literati in the early 2000s, it was much later that blogging found a place in my life.

 By the time I adopted it as an effective medium to transmit my creative produce to a world that I naively believed was waiting to gorge on my words, it had become such a popular phenomenon that anyone who could log in could just blog in. As a juvenile user tickled by the prospect of plugging all that I punched into my Word file into the world, I revelled in it, going on a non-stop writing spree.

Time was when my writing was greatly over-shadowed by the certainty of rejection. Days were when the process of writing involved hours of hunching over the writing pad, racking brains, scratching head and chewing the pen. As a wannabe journalist just out of college, writing was a passion that stayed confined to the above antics that typified a struggling writer. When a piece reached a point from where it could no more be improved with my modest mental resources and half-bloomed literary flair, it was sent out to a newspaper or magazine, which promptly attached a regret slip and sent it back to me in my ‘self addressed, stamped envelope”. The regret slips grew in number, owing to either my incompetence as a writer or to the publications’ disconnect with a wildling with no creative spark.

Rejection is a crushing experience, in matters of literary pursuit as in matters of the heart, but if it impales you to the point of bleeding from your vital spirits, then it spells definite doom. I must have been plain lucky to not get sapped by the constant rebuttal. I continued to juggle with words and thoughts, frolicking in my passion like tree sparrows in spring. I found a new joy in dancing like no one is watching. The audience that posted regret slips became non-existent to me and I indulged in literary capers that were largely liberated from apprehension of failure and anticipation of success. Writing for no one was like winking in the dark, someone remarked. It wasn’t easy to not let myself be impacted by the futility of my endeavours, but I stayed at it, happy to just wink in the dark.

Years later when a book was ready, the demons of rejection re-entered my life. “Good stuff, but not for us,” was the common refrain of the publishing bosses. There is no way one can fathom the reasons for rejection in any given domain of our life; one can only put it down to the misalignment of stars. Tagging anything else to it – incompetence, injustice or prejudice — can be defeatist. Self-doubt is equal to atheism and can stunt you for life.

Eventually, when the book materialised after jostling though the odds, it felt like having touched the finish line after a marathon. The delight was of having completed an arduous task. Winning or losing was inconsequential.

Then the blogs made their grand entry, opening up exciting prospects. Writers from the creative camps around the world came out of their MS Word clinks and went into a celebratory mode. You didn’t need publishing bosses to assess your aptitude or a rejection slip to dismiss your skills anymore. If you had it in you, you could write and get the universe to follow you.

Things are only getting better. It doesn’t take two to tango anymore. You can go it alone and get your book out there with E-book self-publishing tools. You can pick your latent talent and just ‘kindle’ it! There is one story every man can write — his own. And in the new Web world, there is no room for regrets and rejections.

An Ode to a Roaming Man

Khaleej Times / 25 May 2013

I have just turned away the third sales person to ring my doorbell in a week.

It is not very often that I respond to peddlers at my doorstep, for two reasons – one, my fear of the unknown assailant on the prowl in the garb of a salesman, and two, my abject incompetence to curtly refuse a person whose wages depend on the benevolence of those like me.

The former, based on theories floated by people that opening the door to strangers is an invitation to danger, has me tip toeing to the door, squinting through the eye hole with bated breath, trying to get a view of the distorted form outside and figuring in my mind if that’s the typical look of an intruder. Alas, there is no way to tell the good man from the goon these days, and I stay put behind the doors, knowing in my heart that it might have been just another genuine guy desperate to meet his sales target.

I have always had a soft corner for the roaming vendors who brave everything from sun and sand to rain and rudeness just to take home an incentive, keep a job or eke out a living. My earliest memories of them include encounters with them on the roads and rails of Mumbai. I harboured an unknown sentiment for the persistent knick-knack sellers, just as much spite I had for the nagging eunuchs at the traffic signals, and I often bought little things that I really didn’t need, but could spare money for. It gave me a sense of having done a good deed. I didn’t forget to respect them for earning a living than getting it free.

A little later when India ushered in consumerism and technology in a big way, a dogged tribe of door-to-door salesmen came armed with cleaning equipments that promised squeaky-clean homes to a populace swept by urban dust. The vacuum cleaner man was exceptional because he was undeterred by refusals, and he returned to coax and convince with baits that were hard to resist. They have been the hardest sellers I have ever seen.

Slowly, the number of people ringing our doorbells with assorted merchandise swelled and they began to annoy us. Some people back home put up warning signals on their gates – Salesmen, beware of dog. I often wondered if it referred to an animal inside or a resident. Such was their conduct when a daring salesperson walked into their premises.

They were bothersome indeed, yet they were intriguing. Tucked in their bags were entire curio shops that spilled out odd things from remote control covers to toilet fresheners; from sarees to scents; from potato wafers to pillowcases. They were unsophisticated but had a unique flair for selling. Some even used sentimental ploys, and we often ceded to their plea. It was another act of good deed that we could afford.

The ubiquitous salesman has become a fixture in our lives. He now meets me on the road, handing out pens that often don’t work, incense sticks that give me headaches, children’s books that I won’t read and a host of other items that I really don’t need. I comply out of kindness sometimes, but it is impossible to be so all the time. I know that their subsistence depends on my decision, but I can’t take a new credit card every time a young banking executive makes a sales pitch; I can’t buy membership to aqua parks when I don’t enjoy them, I can’t have five different water cans lined up in my kitchen, I don’t need more than one newspaper to read…

It’s hard to say ‘No’ and watch their face fall, but when said with an apologetic smile, they accept it gracefully. Behind them I say a prayer and hope that they meet their target for the day.

Battling Space Invaders

Khaleej Times (Life) / 18 May 2013

WE WOMEN are a weird, possessive lot. Many of us are possessive not just about our men, clothes and jewellery — in no particular order of importance — but also about the physical space that we permeate and perform our everyday antics in.

We brook no incursion into the domestic territory over which we hold supreme authority and we are categorical about it – stay out of our premises or bear the brunt of undiluted female wrath. Here are some caveats on our behaviour, for all — including husbands, friends and relations — to remember.

From being mere eye candies in the office space, we are now making ourselves counted as policy makers in the boardroom. That in no way means we are abdicating our control over the home territory. The kitchen is still where we rule the roost. We would like everyone personally associated with us to know that we don’t allow alien presence there, although some of us are now forced to give the power of attorney to cooks and maids, thanks to our blue-chip interests. We lament our loss of total ownership, but we realise that we live in a ‘something for something’ world.

If we invite you home, be only a guest. We appreciate your desire to lend us a hand, but we expect you to understand our compulsion that makes us inherently despotic about the way we handle our kitchen affairs. Though we perform the same tasks in our individual territories, we differ in styles and manner. You can’t rule country A like you rule country B, so we expect you to respect the differences.  We know that you have your own personal writ that you may not like to be challenged when we visit you. Trust us, we won’t offer assistance and mess our clothes up when we come over.

We are fussy when it comes to scouring dishes and cleaning the table top, about chopping vegetables and rolling rotis. We are fastidious about the way we lay tables and arrange glasses. About the way we stack clothes and water plants. You see, there is something sacrosanct about our space and we cannot allow it to be sullied by external influences. For some reason, we can’t handle interference. We wheeze and begin to get seizures when we see invasive acts from you. We were born with the belief that no one can do our things better than us. So, please desist from offering us services. It is not easy to be polite when you insist, even if it’s out of love and obligation.

We are extremely personal and touchy about our bathrooms too. It has taken years to train our husbands and kids to be civilised in their use of the bathroom and we wouldn’t want you, as guests, to come, break their good habits, and turn them into barbarians.  The last thing you’d want is our young ones to come and whine in front of you, “Mamma, they have turned our bathroom into an aquarium. Won’t you scold them?” It can mean RIP to our precious association.

The bathroom now isn’t just another dingy space with a permanently whirring exhaust fan, soaps, shampoos and toilet rolls. It plays host to phones, laptops, newspapers and best sellers. It’s not a place where you conduct essential biological businesses alone. It is where executives confer, students cram and writers think. It is where harried souls find peace in blissful isolation. We intend to maintain the serenity of this space, so please tread in and out of it with respect. Inspect before you exit. Wet floors, sprinkled seats and stained basins can make us hysterical.

Slam us, but we can’t change; for that’s how we women are designed and conditioned. But we are not the only ones in the world to be possessive about our spaces or to build virtual boundaries around our domain. Think about it at leisure.

The Big, Fat, Indian Wedding

Khaleej Times (LIFE) / 3 May 2013

Attending AN Indian wedding is like living a delirious dream, or in Bollywood terms, it is like partaking in a Karan Johar blockbuster stuffed with glitz and glamour.

 From sober settings and modest marquees, our wedding milieu has now become theatrical, involving a curious, yet engaging, display of money and mirth. Opinion is deeply divided over the need to be ostentatious in our personal celebrations, and I leave it to the idealists to spar over it and arrive at a conclusion. Today, I would confine myself to incidental things about the Indian wedding, reliving the amusement that we get so little of these days, thanks to our distance from home. I may be excused if the references seem tilted more towards women, but it is inevitable in the current context.

It isn’t important who is getting married. What’s relevant is whether you are going to be in the cast, and should you decide to be there, no marks for guessing who the central character in it will be. You! That much is undisputed. So you need special costumes and jewellery to grace yourself with. The ones that have been hibernating in the closet either don’t fit or they have already been displayed at weddings and family gatherings. Who said people don’t remember what you wore on a certain occasion many years back? There is sufficient record of it in every home, courtesy of digital cameras in every pocket worth its size.

So you arrive at the venue and step on the carpet, the choker necklace or the Band-gala sherwani doing exactly what they are designed to. Stifled, yet in control, you traipse down, feeling like a celebrity on an Oscar night minus the media fever and flash. You imagine that all eyes are on you. You can’t afford not to imagine, for you have invested heavily in your looks.

Inside, there is a galaxy of stars outshining each other — men fidgeting in their suits and sherwanis, women fumbling with their sarees and stilettos, and children, oh so garishly cute! There is a ceremony taking place in the middle, but you can barely see anything, for shutterbugs and videographers have invaded the space. So you settle in with a group in a circle and catch up on things. Men discuss stocks and work, and women, everything else under the sun.

It is time for the main event and you are handed flowers to shower on the couple. You throw the petals from where you stand and they fall on the polished pate of a man three rows in front. Everyone has blessed everyone around with flowers and dry rice. There is a man at the far end who is not blessed, for he is caught in Sudoku. Some people can be oblivious to even earthquakes. Blessed souls!

There is a snaking line waiting to greet the couple and hand them a lifetime’s worth of unwanted presents. There is a spot discussion within your group on who’s giving what and you are smugly satisfied. Some hurry to shove extra currency into their envelopes. Together you decide to have the meal first. The buffet is too elaborate for you to decide on your fare, so you ask around for what’s delectable, palatable and avoidable. Someone quips that he has had better food in the dhaba in his neighbourhood. Half filled and half empty plates get dumped and everyone departs with ambivalent stomachs.

A month later you receive a pile of pictures in your inbox and you painstakingly sift through them to find a snap or two that feature you. Feeling mightily pleased, you save it for posterity as a record of your ‘esteemed presence’ at the extravaganza.

P.S: We shall talk of the gross, superfluous nature of our wedding ceremonies another time. For now, let us just be a little frivolous and foot loose. Come on, it is not necessary to be staid and strait-laced all the time!

Being Politcally Correct

Khaleej Times (LIFE) / 11 May 2013

These are turbulent times in the history of mankind at all levels existence. Strife is the general setting and hostility is the dominant sentiment.

Peace goes begging as we take to combat and conflict in all spheres of civilised life. I can’t put my finger on it, but there is something amiss – between nations, between people, between hearts. Let’s keep love out of this. It is too abstract, and by now, abused as a tool for living. Its presence is as ambiguous and misleading as its absence. Let’s not drag hatred into it either. It’s a rudderless, nonsensical thing that has gained undue importance in our lives. There is something more immediate and practical than these that is lacking - discretion in conduct, tact in language and an overall felicity in our interpersonal transactions.

Life, quintessentially, is a ball game played between the goal posts of Yay and Nay. Playing it well means making the right passes and build up that will take you to the right end. How many times have we goofed up and ended up scoring own goals by going wrong with our choice between Yes and No! How many times have we mishandled situations, made the most politically incorrect statements and pushed relationships into their graves!

Diplomacy, taken as an art of negotiating, bargaining and appeasement, is a trait not many are endowed with. Whether between countries or individuals, obtaining a desired outcome by using tools of inducement is a hard task that requires a unique power to influence. I have often been intrigued by this sphere of human interface, a failure of which has pushed countries to war fronts, and the triumph of which has improved equations and situations between warring people.

Many of us are absolute disasters when it comes to effective communication, posturing and use of soft power. Imagine you have a gripe, a genuine case of disapproval or an act to condemn against someone unsympathetic or even intimidating. What do you do? Spell it openly and face aggression, or bite your tongue and avoid accruing resentment? While the former can be catastrophic, the latter will make you vulnerable to habitual bullying. It is a tight situation that many an international diplomat will find himself in, as much you and me in our every day travails. When people defy reality and challenge opinion against their own conscience, a dialogue can progress only if one has an aptitude to bargain or beguile.

While this takes away the freedom to express facts as they are, a deft diplomat who knows to choose between force and enticement waits for the opportune moment to broach issues afresh. It is an on- going process of negotiation and persuasion, hammering hard nuts in the hope that they would crack someday. Ask wives who have been at it, devising ways to wangle out the elusive ‘Yes’ from compulsive Nay-saying husbands.

Avoiding a conflict is as much a strain on our civility as it is to resolve a standoff. Whether in the firing line or as a mediator, it takes immense charm and tact to keep either side in good temper. A man wedged between his wife and mother would agree that knowing when not to speak is as critical as knowing what to say. In diplomacy (at home or outside), it is a matter of timing, as they say.

A play that I recently watched laid bare the dilemma that formal negotiators often confront during the course of official arbitration. It also drove home the point that persuasion is not a matter of mere coercion. It is related to the conscience and can fructify only when the people involved put themselves on the same page. Diplomacy is not just about answering loaded questions smartly; it is also about disarming an adversary with one’s heart and mind. It is all about creating conducive atmospheres for people to relate and connect.

Coming full circle

Khaleej Times / 26 April 2013

 

Every time I teach The Seven Ages of Man by Shakespeare to my students, I feel a tremor in my body — an inadvertent mist blurs my eyes — and I experience an emotional turbulence that is deeply spiritual. Reading classical poetry has always been a meditative experience to me.

The verses that hold a mirror up to life and its vicissitudes affect me profoundly, and sometimes they push me into pensive contemplation like it invariably happens with The Seven Ages.

Every time I read this gem from the greatest of Bards, I witness the bioscope of my life roll behind my eyes, unravelling the obvious as if they were great mysteries. The intense emotions that this succinct chronicle of human life evokes are the same as the ones that I experience when I am in the company of old people. Trapped between their eagerness to quit life and death’s reluctance to embrace them, I see them as representations of my own future (should life allow me that long a lease). They remind me of a quake-ravaged town, once blithe and buzzing, now reduced to a stub of tenuous yet defiant relics.

It is not easy — neither for them nor for those around them — to cope with the time wrought inadequacies that afflict them and gradually turn them into pale shadows of their vivacious past. To those of us straddling the middle age and already pounded to pulp by modernity, having old people in our lives is becoming a vexing proposition. Yes, let us squirm in our seats at this caustic statement that we know is true, but will never for the life of us admit. We woefully share stories of senile persecution at home with friends and colleagues, giving pictorial details of the old folks’ imbecility and singing paeans to our endurance. Yet we refuse to accept at the confessional of our conscience that they have indeed become intrusive and irrelevant. God bless us!

Living with old people brings with it heaps of difficulties and truckloads of predicaments. There will be innumerable instances of disconnect that can push the limits of our patience, but they aren’t the only ones to have given us trying times. Didn’t our young ones do it at one time and did we whine then? Tantrums, obstinacy, weird demands — which of these didn’t they hassle us with? Shouldn’t the unconditional love that defined our parenthood hold good when we take our old folks into our fold?

Someday, we shall all be there too. If you thought you were prudent enough now to make flawless blue prints for your old age by learning from their behavioural inconsistencies, think again. Will our dwindling resources and floundering mental faculties enable sound reasoning and rational thinking then? Can a mouldering body bolster a buoyant attitude? If we feel harassed by their expectations of us to be their ‘extended limbs’ as someone recently put it, let’s take this as time for reciprocation.

The people we are talking of as ‘infirm’ today were people of immense worth in their prime. The geriatric frustration at losing their ability to synergise their diminishing powers cannot be stressed enough. The impatience to reclaim their due place in the changing contexts of our lives drives them to commit bizarre acts of self-assertion that we view as ‘childish’ and insufferable.

A long view of our old people would represent a revolting mob pitted against their robust wards. Zoom in your view, and you will see a nursery of aged infants — ‘sans teeth, san eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”

There is no anti-aging treatment that can defend any of us against this eventuality. It’s a humbling thought that can help us accept the angst-ridden presence of old people in our lives with less distaste and more empathy.

The Demise of Political Hope in India

Two recent events that hogged the Indian media headlines and gave us fodder for inconclusive debates and discussions prompt me to write this piece. One, the tragic death of a student leader in Calcutta and two, the mass judgment and rejection of India’s young political icon turned whipping boy of the ruling party, on the back of his debut speech as the second in command of the Congress. The two episodes raised several questions in my mind regarding the prospect and participation of India’s youth in its political future.  

The former brought back memories of my college days when pitched battles between the police and students were commonplace in the heart of Kerala’s capital. In smaller towns where student unrest wasn’t rare, the dissonance was heard in spurts and it rarely flared and assumed violent proportions of the kind that could be potentially fatal. Campus politics straddled two levels at that time. One, to which a majority of youngsters - mostly boys - belonged, adopted it as an activity that was an essential part of campus existence, one that gave them macho image among a bevy of girls and a group of peers. It provided them with all the necessary ingredients to make their stint at college a blockbuster, complete with stunts and bravado. The student leaders were heroes in their own right, fighting for privileges as trivial as a clean canteen to graver things like conducting elections and forming college unions.

Political leanings for the followers were largely a matter of chance than choice, and allegiance to a faction was more often than not based on factors that were whimsical than ideological. College elections were high octave events that were fought with as much verve and fierceness as public polls. For those in the fray and their committed followers, it was a chance to foray into the larger aspects of professional politics, and for the followers, it provided the experience of participating in the political process that upholds the democratic tradition of India. To the leaders of the parties that backed them outside the campus, the youngsters were pawns in a bigger game – adrenaline driven and impressionable, they helped in spicing up the slugfest outside. Some of the young, uninitiated ones fell victim to the vicious plans. Politics in the campus was largely indoctrinated and influenced, and it rarely produced icons of the kind the country had much use for in the future.

Not many of the above, neither the leaders nor the foot soldiers, carried the spirit forward to become politicians; fewer still became officially anointed leaders or representatives with a distinct political voice. They moved on to become professionals of other kinds, the political heydays becoming just a blast from their past to be recounted in personal memoirs and alumni gatherings. Political activism, which was a favoured occupation within the campus confines, petered out of their life for more than one reason. The situation doesn’t seem much different more than two decades later.

Politics, in India, is a sullied word, and a career in politics is viewed with disdain, thanks to the conduct of men and women who claim to be advocates of advancement and champions of change for modern India. The history of Independent India has given very little reason for its people to consider politics as a serious vocation. Although no one discounts the importance and role of modern politics in matters of democratic governance and public policy, there are very few takers for the job among the educated youth, for it neither commands genuine respect in the public eye nor it offers complete fulfillment in one’s private estimation. How many young boys and girls that we know mention politics as their chosen career option even though they root for a strong leadership to manage their macro economic and social affairs? In a country where social sciences still don’t get the preferred ticks in college application forms and in a civil society where the responsibility of governance is easily passed up as someone else’s job, the probability of youngsters taking up roles of national obligation is abysmally low. India is a nation of strong opinions, a lot of which emerges from the young and the restless, but the vociferous voices either become a din that achieves little or fizzles out in collective frustration. No family, except those inheriting a sterling legacy, wants its progeny to take up the cause of nation building and political stewardship. Those who willy-nilly chart the forbidden course lured by the heady mix of muscle and money power it might offer, end up being wannabe administrators with minimal exposure and maximum ambition, a lethal combination that in no way improves the prevailing situation.  When the scope of political activism stays restricted to protest marches and sloganeering fuelled by the parent bodies to achieve their larger motives, and when political proclivity is fired by limited private goals, there can be neither true leaders nor staunch followers. The upshot of such rash adventurism will either be trivialization of political maxims or radicalization of ideas, both of which will leave collateral damage of different kinds.

In a country that sets out on democratic adventures of all kinds, where the eclectic mix and the elitist miniscule co-exist (although in severe conditions of feud and discord), where political equations are so fluid that policy making often takes a beating at the cost of national interest, the dearth of able statesmen and administrators signals bankruptcy of a disturbing kind. This is where the second major event of the past weeks, namely, the crucifixion of a political scion, which his opponents started and was then duly completed by the mob and the media, comes in.

Was I disappointed? Yes, I was acutely disappointed, for till recently I had hoped that the youth idol would someday grow in stature and assume the cosmic form. The nation badly needs an iconic change. It needs reprieve from time worn ideas of the old school that brawls more and governs less. It needs fresh blood in its veins to surge ahead. When Rahul’s speech plonked, it was my hope for this major alteration in the nerve centres of India’s body politic that crashed. It is certain that I was not alone in mourning the fall of the glass citadel.

 We don’t expect the Prime Minister to give us quick fixes to the running list of our problems, but we at least want solemn promises that would drive us to the voting centres in the elections to come.  There is a clear difference between a leader who says “Yes, we can,” and one who says miracles don’t happen. The impatience of a billion plus population cannot be assuaged with existential aphorisms. The million mutinies of a chagrined nation cannot be doused with sentiment and philosophy. I don’t intend to indulge in any kind of Rahul bashing here, but I can’t imagine the electorate handing over the future of our nation to a Cambridge educated youngster who has yet to learn the ropes of nation management.  It isn’t enough to inherit legacy and earn a degree in International Relations to run a country.

Whether Sudipto would have stayed a commie for life and been someday on the Politbureau is anybody’s guess. Whether he had harboured political dreams of larger dimensions is unknown. If he had had greater political ambition that could have transformed him into a national figure of any political worth, then, his death is a huge national loss that we all must deeply mourn.  

The new generation lacks bonafide political aspirations that would eventually lead them to serving the public with a fair amount of legitimacy and credibility. Those who do steer towards the vocation are pitifully deficient - either in education or experience or both. The intellectuals who graduate from universities may have the right tools that could shape public policy and influence public opinion, but they unfortunately are not the faces that greet us on the hustings. If we need erudite men and women to govern us, we must nurture them when they are still young and receptive by providing the right climate to grow and spread their political bough.  It might be irrational to imagine that this can be realized in this day of confused and misplaced polity. But it is certain that the gaps that exist between the campuses, scholarly retreats and the house of the people will result in major tectonic shifts in the democratic crust of India, and the impact it will have doesn’t augur well for the world’s largest democracy. Against this back drop, the demise of a student leader and the fall from grace of an erstwhile hero are tragedies that call for a solemn candle light memorial at our town squares.