Your everyday superwoman

I am back in Mumbai and in the place that- even after three-or-thereabout years- continues to fascinate me. Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) is a world away from everything one excepts, imagines or even remembers.

More than the people, it is the place that is so magical; at least to me, it is a place that respects the need to explore and think about anything that strikes a fancy in one's mind. Traditional and conventional or absolutely unheard-of, one can comfortably find space to dwell on ideas and that is what I love most about TISS. Fewer pretenses than usual.

So yesterday, while Parul and I were drinking nimbu chai at the canteen a little late in the night (by Mumbai standards i.e.; in Dehradun the hour would probably be in the graveyard shift) one of the taayis came over and flopped in a chair next to us. In TISS- and I assume in all of Mumbai and the larger Maharashtra- any woman older to you is 'taayi' and the ladies we call taayi here are a bunch of wonderfully sassy women who keep the campus clean, run the canteen or watch over the laundry loads in the washing machines.

The taayis sometimes get take a few minutes off work and sit down to chat with people they are fond of and Parul is a complete taayi-pet in that sense. What I like is that Parul does not know taayi's name and the taayi does not know if Parul is studying or working. But there is a fondness between them and they talk effortlessly.

Parul tells taayi that she is leaving from here soon and returning to her hometown Delhi soon and as it invariably does when one is over 23 years of age, the conversation shifts to marriage. Parul, as is her usual reaction to the subject, throws her head back and changes her facial expression to the most distasteful look you will find in the book and says "karwa denge jab karwa denge; dekh lenge".

And taayi asks if she does not want to marry, to which Parul shakes her head vehemently and affirms her absolute dislike. Then she asks taayi about her wedding and the story we heard amazed me, not for its absolute, heart-wrenching struggles but for the simplicity with which it was related. No melodrama, no "mere saath aisa hua", no self-pity.

Taayi got married at the age of 12 years and by the time she was 13, she had her first daughter. 'A child giving birth to a child', Parul says. By the time taayi reached 19 years, she had 6 children and it was only then that she came to know about sterilization and had her tubes tied. In a year or two, her husband passes away and now she is left to fend for herself and her six children.

But she did and beautifully so. Her oldest daughter is 21 now and taayi says she will marry when she wants to. But here is the most beautiful thing. The second daughter, who is 20 now is married. Taayi explains that she married "dil se" and then had two children, after which taayi got her daughter's permanent birth control operation too. She says they should not suffer the same fate as she did and she says it without any hint of sorrow. When she shared this last bit, I felt I had shrunk to half an inch in size or that taayi had suddenly become eight feet tall.

How easy it is for us to get carried away by our own experiences and to let that dictate our ideas for our children or let it influence our opinion about things. But taayi kept it simple. Her children will marry when they want to and if they fall in love at 18 then they will get married at 18. Despite everything she went through, she did not let it poison her mind.

An everyday superwoman, like so many others. This story was heard in Mumbai but I am convinced could be just as easily heard in Dehradun or any other part of the country and the world.

Only-slightly discriminated against

Picture taken from http://www.chicagoemploymentlawyer.net/gender.jpg

TISS (we study and work in the area of social sciences (check here))is buzzing and active at all times, something I am much averse to. One hears of certain phrases and words liberally included in high-pitched conversations at the dining hall over tea or at a round-table conference in one of the classrooms amidst the thumping of tables, which are arranged in a manner appropriate to the name of the conference or at the tapri behind college over masala maggi and cutting chai. The more scarier ones are the 'isms', to which my mind frankly shuts down and which comprise in their scariest form "neo-liberalism", "post-modernism" and numerous other such "discourses" (I do not even understand what the last means).

One also hears of things like "do not have a voice", or "uneducated" or "disadvantaged" or "socially excluded" in reference to the under-dogs.

Then there is me. I am an average person from an average background and with an average understanding of the matters of the world (which in TISS translates to condescending half-smiles subtly-disapproving head-shakes). I do have a voice and it is especially audible when there is a need for an auto-rickshaw. I have received education- quite a bit of it and nothing that is connected to a rational career-pattern, if you ask my father; I am disadvantaged only to the extent of the company of pretty people I keep that tends to highlight my highly unflattering physical form and I am socially very much included in everything, most of all gossip that is of the derogatory kind, owing to my Punjabi genes.

So I am part of the urban, empowered youth that is living in a cosmopolitan metropolitan amidst other urban, empowered people. Caste, religion, gender and other parameters of the conservative society are not of any relevance here and when I study about problems like gender inequality and patriarchy, I am supposed to think of a time from my small-town life that qualified "because you are a girl" as a satisfactory response and that I have left far behind me.

Or so I thought. As the lease for my current accommodation draws to an end, I have started looking for another place to move in and I see how I have been living in a bubble of equality and freedom. As a tenant, I have a checklist of things I am looking for, in the house I rent. So I want it at least semi-furnished and I want it well-ventilated with those big, sliding windows and I want it close to a market place or at the least, to a vegetable vendor's stall.

Apparently, the house-owner too has a checklist. And it reads like this- should not be a Muslim, should not be from a strange community of one of those North-East places, should not be working in one of those call-centers, should not be too modern and yes, should not be a female.

I have never realized truly how wrong I have been in thinking that the problems of gender, race, community and religion belonged to the more conservative small-towns and rural areas.

When I am asked what community I belong to, I feel threatened, even if I belong from one of your "acceptable" communities. When you ask me if I am a vegetarian or if I eat meat, I feel uncomfortable. When you ask me details of my work and raise an eyebrow at my flexible working hours, I feel insulted. And when you say you cannot give me your premises simply because I am female, I feel very discriminated against.

The absence of a window would give me some breathing trouble so I believe it is a logical expectation from a home but how the absence of a penis would be undesirable when you rent out your property sounds absurd, even to me and I am not the brightest things out there.

We are all talking about reservation bills for women in politics, facilities in schools to encourage the girl child to study, financial schemes to promote women entrepreneurs and others. Then there is something like the issue I just tried to put forth, though I am not quite sure I was successful at it, given my habit of meandering to other topics. But coming back, this is a very urban problem and one that, I am afraid would be labelled to the "middle-class" (that BTW, is a phrase so overused that it is frayed) habit of cribbing. The standard response I can foresee is similar to the response of the English teacher, Mr. Morgan from the movie "10 things I hate about you' when he says

"I know how difficult it must be for you to overcome all those years of upper middle-class suburban oppression. Must be tough!"

So I say, sometimes being middle-class and only-slightly discriminated against is a real pain.

The Punjabi Landlady

She is a cannon-ball, she is a torch ablaze; she is a hawk with her talons sharpened just now and her piercing, lazer-beam eyes evolved to spot anything remotely shady...
SHE IS THE PUNJABI LANDLADY!!

I had intended to write the whole post as a poem but my rather in-adept rhyming skills were killing the emotions oozing out, as pus does from a bad wound.

To be brutally honest, one of the reasons for my moving away from my Punjbai-centered North Indian hometowns was to get some breathing space away from my culture. Don’t get me wrong. I am a Punjbai to the core but our loud temperaments that only add fire to our mean, sarcastic hearts to everybody (yes, even people who are not family)gets tiresome sometimes.

So you can imagine the excessively-rude shock I got when I move into this incredibly beautiful place and open the door to the first person in my first every home and find out it’s my landlady, who adding injury to insult is a Punjabi.

I can still remember that day as if it were my last night’s nightmare. One would think that years of living in Maharashtra would have eroded the biting edge off the features that I will compile hereunder, but no Sir.

Your average Punjabi landlady will expect you to keep the house as clean and beautiful as if it were your own while at the same time expecting you to forget not in your deepest sleep that the mattress you are sprawled on is not your own.

She will make it so you see her face looming in front of you, teeth bared in-what she assumes is a smile- the moment you spill a drop of something as harmless as water; and the parched lips of the imaginary-bobbing head mouthing the words “it may be cold-drink or God-forbid chicken-curry the next time”. [shivers]

She has a knack of knowing, which would be the most ill-suited of times and will announce her presence then with the demand for biscuits or something that you do not have in your kitchen preceding her prodding feet. She will examine, during said visits, every inch of her precious house and pass rude comments on the bad choice of your bed-linen. Hey, everybody wants Egyptian cotton but it isn't your fault if, with your ungenerous pay the only place you can afford to purchase your bed-sheets from comprises a faded bed-sheet on a street-side topped haphazardly with other, faded bed-sheets in all colours and prints that wouldn’t want to wade through a drain in.

But enough crib. (Don't say it, I know)

Next. If you live in a society, do not be nice to the security guards or exchange trivial words with them for they are the harbingers of your daily routine, visitors you entertain and content of grocery-packets, to the landlady when she comes a’callin’. So if she asks you when you returned home last night, make not the foolish error of telling her anytime but the exact minute and second of the hour of your return for she knows. SHE ALREADY KNOWS.

Life, my children, is tough. And after my first experience in a rented house, why we would want to shove it down even more deplorable pits by living in the cursed home of a Punjabi is beyond my below-human-average-intelligence. A word of advice: go for the seepage in the Parsi’s house. Leave the large windows and marble-flooring in the Punjabi’s house.

Slaves of technology

At 8:25 p.m. tonight I was thinking of the work I had done and the work I still had to do before I could call it a day (or more likely, a midnight). My flatmate was reading the newspaper and thinking of the amount of studying she had left for the last day before her examination. We were both sending text messages all over the country simultaneously while I tap-tap-tapped data into my computer and she flipped channels on the television in between reading the latest mess-ups by the world's who's who in the political arena.

Then suddenly she puts down the newspaper on the bed and says "Damn, today was Earth night where we had to switch off the lights between 8:30 and 9:30 p.m. and I was going to do that". I said "well, lets". So we switch off all the lights and fans. But this is Mumbai and it it hot. So we draw the curtains and open the windows. There is a beautiful, cool breeze that flows in and surprises me. It is very pretty at night from my window and I wonder why I did not notice it before.

"But we are not doing it right", my flatmate mumbled. "How is that?" I ask. She points at my laptop- that, with its rotten cracked monitor, which obscures about 50% of the screen- was humming tunelessly on my desk. "But my work", I say, suddenly not so sure if I wanted to be the good Samaritan anymore. But on my flatmate's persistent nagging I reluctantly powered the ancient machine off, while calculating the extra hours I would have to put into my already over-burdened job to complete the day's target.

I turn around and my hostile expression changes to one of sadistic pleasure as I point to the television and emit a victorious "Aha!". "No way, I can't miss this episode of Brothers and Sisters", my room-mate wails but had to switch it off in the end, along with our mobile phones.

So there we were, twiddling our thumbs and wondering what to do now that there was darkness and more importantly, nothing to strain our eyes on.

But it turned out all right. There was left-over pulses and gobhi-aloo-matar from lunch that was heated by the light a candle and eaten with slices of bread, there was good conversation about families and dreams and regrets, sprinkled with a fair amount of bitching. There was the soft breeze coming in through the windows and the glow of the street-lights and the noise from the traffic on the roads and it seemed to me that we had thrown out our schedules, worries, television soaps, laptops and mobile phones across the it too.

The hour passed too soon but I felt happy and at peace. It was not just about saving the climate and the Earth... for me, it turned out to be about unearthing my buried faith in the beauty of little moments and simple things.

Jharkhand Traffic Rules (pun unintended)

Without frills, here is what I have observed of Ranchi traffic:

1. On an average, narrow road, there will rarely be at least one and usually all of the following:

a. Innumerable pot-holes
b. Iron rods that used to be part of a railway track protruding in the middle of the road to slash your car's tyres.
c. An auto-rickshaw parked smack in the middle of the road
d. 2-3 people peeing rather conspicuously
e. A cop (details in point 4)
f. A group of Deeghambar (nudist) Jainis.
g. Formation of 4 lane-drives by rickshaw-pullers so that you have to trudge along behind them.



2. People hang their clothes out to dry on circles that stand in the middle of the busiest crossings in the town, usually with a statue enclosed within them. I have seen towels, baby cloth diapers, shirts and so on hanging over dried, brittle flowers put a few millennia around some idol's neck. The show-stealer was a battered pair of underwear left to dry on the statue's outstretched arm.



3. As a vehicle-owner in Ranchi, you have the following rights:

a. You may drive anywhere. People WILL stop for you. (more of this in point 5)

b. You may park anywhere. You are the public. You own all public property. Moreover, if somebody has parked on the road and is obstructing traffic, it is your right to double park at the same spot, as long as you leave just an inch short of enough space for the next car to move ahead.

c. You can spit out tobacco or paan or anything you may be eating out of your window, while driving, without concerning yourself with who may be driving right behind you on a scooter or in a car, with the windows rolled down.

d. If you own a two-wheeler, no traffic rules apply for you. You don't have to consider one-ways, red-lights, no u-turns, indicators given by vehicles in front of you or even dividers- yeah, that's right, just jump over them.



4. Traffic cops in Ranchi have very well-defined job descriptions. If you are a male cop, you will spend your time alternatively mauling your crotch and digging your nose out. Cops have been known to do both. You will glance casually at people driving past you on the wrong side or without helmets and so on. We understand that the job can be tedious and draining and it is completely natural for you to disappear without any explanations, while the crowd goes berserk.

If you are a female cop, congratulations. It means you have been selected from among the multitude of women who are so clever they stand right in the middle of the road while attempting to dictate traffic. We know you are utterly helpless at managing people, which is why you have been recruited. There are a few passengers who try to caution the driver about the cop stopping the traffic from their end. To which, the standard reply s "Ladies police hai."

There, you have been given a satisfactory explanation.


5. Finally, in a place with similar traffic conditions, one would expect countless accidents, brawls, and arguments. But not Jharkhand. See, despite nobody caring about anything but getting from point A to point B conveniently- occasionally stopping at points C and D for vegetables or other errands- each driver understands that the others think along the exact same lines. Therefore, nobody would mind if you cut across in front of them from the wrong side or if you stop the car suddenly in the middle of the road to take a call. It is ALL ALLright.

Jai Jharkhand!

Vampire-Friendly

The book Twilight- the story of which has been described briefly here - has raised several questions in my mind, the least of which is my unexplained obsession with it. It is, by all standards a very average book. The story is the kind that would appeal to a 16- year old silly girl who would read, starry-eyed, about the beautiful vampire and his deep and passionate feelings for what is essentially his meal- a girl. It would appeal to the teenage hormones because it would be the perfect imaginary prince that every girl dreams about- for whom she would be the focus of all life and the universe. Which is why I am disturbed by the fact that the book has found its way into my mind as well- 23 years old; not an encouraging sign for someone trying very hard to grow up and be sensible. This book made me realize that growing up is a lost cause and so I could happily indulge in guilt-free bakwas.

Now that the maturing issue has been dealt with, I have thought of a few ups and downs that would accompany my knowing a vampire. The good news first.

1. I would be able to actually hit somebody hard with my baseball bat, since vampires are supposed to be very strong. It would enable some use to my beautifully dangerous piece of wood that has been lying around useless since the time I bought it. What fun that would be! “Mr. Vampire, I am feeling disgruntled about nothing in particular. Would you please come over so I can vent my anger by smashing my baseball bat against you?” For an almost zen-like calm!

2. It would be so much easier to travel the world- piggy ride all the way! I had recently had to struggle for a couple of months to arrange for finances that I needed to show in order to travel to a foreign land. When I couldn’t I had to deal with the disappointment of not being able to go. Imagine being above all the visa and foreign law hassles. “I feel like visiting Germany for the Oktoberfest this year. Mr. Vampire, would you please give me a piggy-back ride to Munich?” Pack your bag, and be there in record time!

3. No need to share your food with a vampire. If, of course he can resist killing you and that could be a concern for you. But overlooking the minor detail, I know who I would take with me when I wanted a no-sharing gluttony experience. At the movies, where friends invariably and much to my irritation must always want a fistful of popcorn from my bucket, a long swig from my pepsi; no, no make that my DIET PEPSI and must always want to taste my precious nachos. With a vampire, all you need to do is rob a blood bank for a few units of blood, put it in a plastic glass with a straw and hand it to the vampire. No desire on either side to taste what the other is having. What a perfect life!

4. A vampire friend would give me interesting insight into the life of people all through the ages that an average, 200-year old vampire would have seen. And if by any luck he is even older, he could be able to tell you how Cleopatra was not very pretty or the inside gossip about Napolean’s well-publicized fear of cats. Imagine a world where history is not dull!

But there would be the cons as well.

1. On the flip-side, there is the obvious and persistent death-threat. A vampire would be lured to your scent at all times and in the given scenario, it would be inadvisable to take a bath so as to not make the scent stronger and therefore your life, shorter. The arrangement suits me fine during the cold, winter months but summers would be a definite problem.

2. The danger to my life would be heightened by the fact that I check my blood sugar at least 4 times a day. Prick; blood out; oops! Sorry Mr. Vampire, would you mind putting on the scent-obstructer around your nose and mouth that I have kept for the purpose?
Not checking my blood sugar would also mean death, though it would be a slower and a more unpleasant form of it.

Evaluating each side, the pros do seem to overshadow the cons. Any vampire out there, reading this post, kindly add me on FB. I will be the one, whose "looking for" detail on the FB info bit would say "vampire friends".

The woes brought on by the quilt

Mumbai is the financial capital of India and its economic powerhouse. It is the headquarters of almost all industrial giants like Reliance, Tatas and ICICI to name a few. My research revealed that the city contributed 10% of factory employment, 40% of income tax collections, 60% of customs duty collections, 20% of central excise tax collections, 40% of foreign trade and rupees 40,000 crore in corporate taxes to the Indian economy a couple of years back.
Over the past decade, India has seen an IT boom with the establishment of high-technology firms here and Bangalore and Hyderabad have been the areas where the development has been concentrated in. Bangalore is also known as the Silicon Valley of India.

Travel up north. New Delhi- the capital of the country houses all major political leaders of the country. It is the government base; the place where all ministers, MPs and MLAs live. In the given lousy perception of politicians in our country, we can then say that Delhi houses some of the most grumpy, selfish and corrupt politicians in the country. And also some of the most grumpy, selfish and corrupt people in the country.If I were to try and find a common explanation that would link the above statements to one source, a quilt would be it. Your average, seemingly harmless and comfort-providing quilt. After much research and analysis, I have concluded that our country is the way it is because of the quilt. Here is how.

Mumbai and the other places down south are economic powerhouses because they don’t have to struggle with the idea of waking up at 7 in the morning on a cold, foggy day and an even more daunting task of leaving that warm, snugly quilt to walk barefoot on the cold floor and into the freezing bathroom and wash their faces and brush their teeth with chilled water. No sir. They wake up happy and warm, fans running at full speed, splash some cold water on their face, which they find refreshing, whistle as they fill a bucket with cold water for their bath and speed off to work. I am guessing they would be a tad bit more efficient that our shivering Northies.

Students could have been so much more brilliant had it not been for the inviting warmth of the quilts that beckons them to chuck the books away and sleep. There has been no research to establish this, but I can confidently vouch for the fact that come winters, the nutritional intake of families invariably dips since the mothers want to snuggle in the quilts- all decked with woollen caps and warm shawls- to knit sweaters, eat peanuts and watch the soaps on TV or read Rupayan.

I read over the Internet that sunlight helps the human body build vitamin D, which is very crucial in determining the mood of a person. It has been seen that in cold countries, the chances of people getting depressed is very high because they do not get enough sunlight for the cells to produce vitamin D. Delhi people get no sunlight during winters. It is mostly foggy. So they are depressed. Depressed people are grouchy people who do not trust anybody. So they become selfish. When one is selfish, one would do anything to get what one wants, without thinking how it would affect society and the country. Political leaders too, are humans. At least by anatomy if not by inherent characteristics. So I’d say the quilt plays a major part in killing the conscience of our leaders by not letting them get any sunlight and therefore positive, happy thoughts.

I do not suggest that by getting sufficient sunlight or by taking vitamin D supplements, our leaders will be straight, honest and responsible people. Or that Delhites would be a little less ill-tempered. But it is my belief that a little more sunshine and a little less of the unholy quilt would bring some change in the demeanour of the Northies.