Nature and its fruits. And Love?

I just finished reading today’s newspaper. The Delhi Development Authority has decided to throw open its fruit orchards to the public. Orchards of mango, guava, ber, jamun, mulberry and star fruit will now become public spaces, with lights, jogging paths and adequate security measures. The entry to DDA’s 18 orchards will be free, thus encouraging people to come and connect with nature and its fruits. 

Nature and its fruits? 

I close my eyes and imagine... 

Hundreds of mango trees stand pregnant with fruit in front of me. The sun is sweating to somehow reach the undergrowth. To touch it. To nourish it. Here and there, in those yellow patches, I spot fruit flies drunk on juice. They are dancing around plump mangoes which have fallen, as if hungry to be consumed, so ready they are! My nose smells grass and moss and bark. My ears hear the bees, the parrots, the falling fruits and also those faint whispers when the wind meets the leaves, making them shiver with an ‘I love you. I love you so much, Meenu’.

Wait, who said that? Is someone there? I see a red stone bench, a little in the sunlight and a little in the dark, as if yet to make up its mind to show or not to be seen. A boy and a girl sit huddled there, as if they were one. Someone is sobbing. Lovers, of course! Lovers professing love, discussing love, feeling love. Just the trees hear them. Only the mangoes understand. And none of the parrots can repeat their secret passion to the big, bad world of honour and blood … 

Nature and its fruits. And love.

I walk up to my book shelf and neck bent, finger the spines. 

Kalidasa’s ethereal Sakuntala, in a bark-garment, walks in the forest of her hermitage. Her girlfriends tease – ‘With you beside him the mango looks as if wedded to a lovely vine.’ King Duhsanta, spying on Sakuntala’s beauty, is smitten. He sees ‘how her lower lip has the rich sheen of young shoots, her arms the very grace of tender twining stems, her limbs enchanting as a lovely flower.’ 20 pages later there is an invitation to share the bench, if there ever was one, as Duhsanta says – ‘O girl with tapering thighs! … out of kindness, you offer me a place on this bed of flowers sweet from the touch of your limbs, to allay my weariness.’ She blushes with fire, he burns with it and her friends excuse themselves and leave. Love happens. Marriage follows soon after, but alas, it belongs not to the sylvan, fertile surroundings but to the world of the court, and its many laws. Many androcentric laws. About purity of roots, ‘varna’ and ‘uninterrupted succession’. And a woman who is ‘never free to do as I please’.  

I see a red stone bench … a boy and a girl sit huddled there, as if they were one. Someone is sobbing.

To lush regions of harmony, spiritual health, love and fancy, Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ belongs. Fancy, did I say? Yes. Make-believe! The woods, so symbolic of wilderness, are seemingly away and apart from the city-bound civilization. The traditional pastoral festivities release the escaped lovers’ energies for the continuity of life, but which in the end, sadly, are held in check. How? The city has its rules for the formal bonds of marriage. Very strict bills one needs to fit! This ‘contagious fog’ of terms and conditions can creep through the world of shady trees and reach the bench … brutal quarrels, a deranged lover, predation, jealousy, shame and disgust ensue to kill … ‘And therefore is love said to be a child because in choice he is so oft beguiled.’ Therefore.

I see a red stone bench … a boy and a girl sit huddled there, as if they were one. Someone is sobbing. 

I suddenly remember what this guy in Siddharth Chowdhury’s ‘Patna Manual of Style’ saw in Indraprastha Park, New Delhi. In his words – ‘I heard some voices from the covered pavilion that is right in the middle of the park. I thought I heard a faint female shriek for help … I found a young couple on the floor, the girl still in her school uniform, with her nylon zebra-striped chaddi and salwar around her knees and the boy bare-assed on top of her. Without thinking of consequences I ran in to save the girl and gave the boy a tremendous kick. The girl started saying ‘please, please, please’ and the boy … tried to run away… but not before some choice slaps from yours truly.’ He was just a goodly confused passer-by. No. He wasn’t a cop with a baton. But he could have been a cop, or someone serving the opaque and impermeable code of morality, of which one size fits all, and flouting which leads to such ‘dheeli chaddis’. 

I see a red stone bench … a boy and a girl sit huddled there, as if they were one. Someone is sobbing. 

The newspaper flutters in the fan’s wind to draw me back. I read yet again.

The Delhi Development Authority has decided to throw open its fruit orchards to the public. Orchards of mango, guava, ber, jamun, mulberry and star fruit will now become public spaces, with lights, jogging paths and adequate security measures. The entry to DDA’s 18 orchards will be free, thus encouraging people to come and connect with nature and its fruits. 

Nature and its fruits. And love? 

'No Boring Babu'; Outlook's Irresponsible Journalism

Exactly a day after the world witnessed the humongous response to #SelfieWithDaughter, seemingly joining hands to support daughters in particular and promote gender equality in general, I read this piece in Outlook India’s Deep Throat Column, by a female journalist. Read:

“No Boring Babu

The portfolio of a junior bureaucrat, who is posted in the Telan­gana CM’s office, is a mystery. She used to be posted in a district earlier. But things changed all of a sudden after the elections. The lady is present at every meeting and seen in almost every official photograph sent out by the CMO. But what she does exa­ctly is a puzzle. She makes a fas­h­ion sta­tement with her lovely saris and serves as “eye candy” at meetings, admit leading party politicians. In fact, it’s this burea­ucrat who calls up other officials in the CMO and asks them to come for meetings. She knows exactly what time the CM will arrive and leave the office. The lovely lady, known for her ethnic style, recen­tly stunned all by appearing in a trendy trouser and frilly top at a fashion show. And for once, she wasn’t sitting in an official meeting. But this appearance too made for a great photo op.”

It also carried a cartoon, which was later removed.

Do you too think this is troubling, sexist and full of insinuations? Made more shocking by the fact that it is Outlook India printing this? (Alas! Like fools we cling to the hope that some reputed media houses are free from the scum of sensationalism.) 

The young IAS officer under question, Smita Sabharwal, had qualified in the UPSC exams with an AIR 4 back in 2001. (Yes, that means she’s been in service for 14 long years, something that the journalist would not have called ‘junior’ if it was her own profession being talked about.) Presently she is Additional Secretary to the CM of Telangana, Hyderabad. Over 2.5 years the district she was collector of, before coming to the CMO’s office, saw visible changes for the better. Residents of Medak and Karimnagar swear by her honesty, her dedication and her work. They responded to this piece of irresponsible journalism by talking about programs and processes she initiated and executed. 

Thank god for that. Else, I may have lapped up Deep Throat’s journalistic innuendos verbatim over dinner tonight, creating my very own version of this soap-y "truth"!

Which, actually, is a habit we as people are coming to enjoy; that of swallowing-without-chewing news which at best is half-concocted and at its worst fully false and even defamatory. Three humour pieces, 30 status updates and 300 tweets on any issue of socio-political import are created and shared only by looking at the breaking headlines. Who has time to wait for the real news to come in, which, when it does after a few days of replayed tamasha on TV, is something no one is interested in? Of course we need the press. But it’s time we asked ourselves - Are we giving the media too much importance? Are we laying at their feet the thinking caps we were all born with? And, are we killing with it our ability to critically examine, argue and really draw out a thought-process instead of hammering on tables because apparently the ‘nation wants to know’ and it’s always comfortable to take a #tag’s side? 

The nation does want to know. It should. But from whom? Now that is a question. 

What is the nation if not the people who inhabit it? That’s another question. Look at the language contained in the few lines of this article. By a woman, for a woman, sans proof, sans responsibility but with an over-dose of sly insinuations. (If the journalist was playing Taboo and was not to use the word ‘slut’, she’d had won with flying colours!) It isn’t Smita making for a ‘great photo-op’. It’s the ignoble parade of most media houses which slut-shame even as they try to be pillars for exposing unfairness and injustice. It disturbs me that educated professionals from a sex we’re trying to uplift have no qualms deconstructing clothes and provoking lines of thought based on invented reasons. Would this have occupied news space if this Additional Secretary was a man? The journalist didn’t feel the need to do her ground work before talking about another woman. All she needed to do was ask politicians about this ‘not boring’ “eye candy” and create mystery around a woman who ‘knows exactly what time the CM will arrive and leave office’. And it gets published! 

What role is journalism playing here, really?

I do wonder why this surprises me and angers me still - this gall, this utter lack of respect towards public servants, for instance, and a fellow human being at large. If it isn’t already fashionable to misread, mock and malign them with each passing prime time, it will be. Just like it is already in vogue to find the easiest scapegoat, the government, to disown our responsibilities as citizens . Please tell me how we as a collective seeking services motivate the ones who are working up good in the yellow corridors? By playing with their dignity, with as much liberty as we use to make police uniforms dance to item numbers in movies? Does few-and-far-between mean naught when it comes to good officers? 

And if it’s their job to serve you, pray, what is yours?   

I don't know Smita and know not how this story will unfold, but at a larger level I do know that no matter how many like her, #DespiteBeingAWoman, work their years away in public service, popular journalism will read and look like exactly this above. Because as a nation what we don’t want to know is where we as people are responsible, or even where we are being irresponsibly spoon-fed tasteless food 24X7. 

Our taste-buds have been that dumbed down, and our antennae for Trending News always on alert. Not a good combination, don't you think? 

Beating the Written Word to Pulp

When I was a child, I would see my mother giving Mills and Boon to my older cousins. They would banter about the ‘stories’ and I would look at the cover, and blush. A man and a woman in a semi-hug, eyes half closed and expressions of physical love. ‘Why were they reading this?’ I would wonder. In school, surrounded by Patrician Brothers and all things disciplined, the library was a “holy” place. And Blyton to Drew to Wodehouse to maybe Robin Cook to Quiz books to perhaps Jeffrey Archer to definitely Limca Book of Records a traditionally set way. Sidney Sheldon exchanged hands between friends and Harold Robbins only in the inner circle. Blush and hush remained, somewhat. I read the classics, felt safe and sane. And a prudish Miss Muffet too.  

It was on the very first day of pledging 5 whole academic years to studying Literature that I was made to grow up. A professor distributed ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’, aghast that we had not read it. Suddenly, the sword meant the male organ in ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ and all references to ‘pen’ and ‘orbs’ in ‘MacFlecknoe’ were exactly those too. ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ was a political satire and George Eliot was actually a woman, writing under a male pseudonym. So many wrote hidden in attics away from all eyes, and an equal number put sex and their sexuality out there just as they deemed fit. I was amazed.

I read Literatures from all continents, and I gradually grew. Not just away from the blush but into a woman who now realized the importance of that Voice – behind the printed word, and in between the written lines. The politics of Silencing too! Reality unfolded, and not just the art of expression but the Right to Express took on a new meaning. And the right to be Read. Just like raising your hand and getting a chance to answer was important to a child’s evolving mind, so was picking up that pen and letting it write for you what the mind held inside. For so many, that moment between the pen and the paper meant reclaiming a sense of Self, true bits of it that social norms and graces often stole away.

And I was introduced to the idea of a ‘Banned Book’, much like the letter ‘A’ in scarlet an adulteress was supposed to wear on her lapel once...

[To read further, please click here.]

To Tarun Tejpal: The Alchemist of Desires?

Mr. Tejpal,

The cat is out of the bag. While they still try to ascertain if it’s black in colour or white, the crow has certainly flown away, never to return and sit as honestly, fearlessly and with as much dignity on letters which stood for all three – TEHELKA.  

Since news is all about numbers circled in red and flashed till the lights go off, let’s begin with what your site shows me. On searching for stories on ‘sexual exploitation’ covered by Tehelka, this is what I find. What a big number! More than 500 times, you have told us the truth and nothing but the truth, be it on trafficking of little girls or the ‘saint’ Assaram losing his halo. Losing his halo. Why, makes you think, does it not?

First – What you did, allegedly 

A woman journalist has accused you of sexually assaulting her on two occasions during a media event organized by the publication in Goa, earlier this month. Let’s put it differently. A woman whose father was your colleague once, and who is good friends with your daughter – someone who ‘had so deeply respected and admired you for years.’ If you fail, it will not just be at a professional level but at a very personal level too. You also know how shamefully that failure, if at all, will come about, for it would be proven beyond doubt that you assaulted someone who considered you a ‘paternal figure … responsible for offering me my first job, and always just a phone call away whenever I needed his advice on a story or life.’ 

After the first episode of what you call in your conversations ‘a drunken banter’ ... 

[To read further, kindly click here.]

Of Sambhar and Simplicity

Very recently, I went on a salivation trip. It was 7:30 am and I was reading my morning newspaper when suddenly my nose lead me to this piece of steamy-spicy news from a few pages on. Chennai’s traditional breakfast – idli, sambhar and filter coffee – was the most nutritious breakfast any Indian metro could produce. The survey had studied those hogging, skipping and skimping breakfasts, and the winner was clearly the white powder-puff delights. (No, I was not disappointed. I personally know that Punjab’s Delhi’s breakfast it could never have been. The butter on the parantha would only have made the trophy slip from it's hands). As I devoured the pictures, I marked the coming Saturday as one reserved for execution of the gastronomic temptation that had just made my beaten coffee instantly look dead-beat, and how.  

Now, mine is a family that loves to watch the family-income-called-peanuts get baked in patisserie ovens or tossed in stir fry vegetables, lay peppered with cheese or boil in the soup cauldron – all of that in kitchens other than mine. The end of every month sees us doing two important things: One, woefully go 'Sigh!' looking at the puny amount of savings left after our monthly consumption of it (literally); and two, burp with shameless satiety and start looking forward to another month of trying new eateries around. Since burps speak louder than sighs, we always ignore the latter and welcome the peanuts home to be consumed, in their entirety.     

Mine is also a family that likes to watch its weight, well, most of the times anyway! Mister cycles 25 kms every morning and Missus runs around a toddler 24*7 sans any house help. Hence, what comes dipped in hot chocolate sauce out of the ovens is never eaten with a pinch of guilt, for we are burning it. Today, after learning that Chennai breakfast is the lightest on our coronary arteries, our faith in one of our favourite South Indian restaurants has been reinstated even more. Just drive those 9 kms to a certain roof, under which such healthy aromas and tastes flow freely. Shamelessly, I use the term ‘South Indian’ in that typical semi-literate way in which most of us from the northern side of the country do – that is, very broadly and carrying within its banana leaf folds cuisines from Andhra, Karnataka and Kerala too. 

And I want to talk about one word that comes to mind when I think South Indian Restaurants, and that being Simplicity. 

Banish thoughts of pretentious 5-star hotels, where dear idli recognises not itself, or the masala of dosa rests uncomfortably on Italian crockery. I talk of those eateries where dinner for two still costs within 500 bucks - generous limitless servings of sambhar, papad and chutney included. The décor is plain, usually with a hint of green but nothing fancy. The table tops are sun-mica sheets and the chairs make no attempt to look antique. Of course there’s air-conditioning, but the walls are mercifully clean of bloated food pictures, or abstract looking art. The menu card does not resemble your medical bill, and the heart beats remain calm. The food is served in classic steel crockery and with matching cutlery and glasses. The tissue papers are pink or yellow and more often than not fail to do their job. The bathrooms will offer you the facility you need, without ivory lining the floors or buttons you know not the use of. The servers make no attempt to sound like they are on a cross-country linguistic run. The cashier, usually a serious looking moustachioed fellow, sits guarding not just the registers but also the marigold-laden incense-smelling deities, who, as if intentionally made so, are always the ones to steal the show with their finery.

Notice also how, soon as one steps over the ‘Welcome’ mat and into such abodes of Gods and godly foods, all ideas of ‘status’ and ‘class’ are left outside, as one and all sit comfortably on those simple chairs and tables to dig the complex South Indian dishes served so humbly (McDonald's is another such leveller, but a near-fancy one). What pizzas could not manage, uttapam does, as use of forks and knives are put to the winds and hands realize how the word ‘handy’ was born. The carefree environment promotes talking as much as you desire and as loudly as you please. The servers are always smiling, respectful, ready to refill, to clear, to bring in more, to recommend the sweet and finally get the saunf and mishri in a tiny steel petri-dish. And no, not any strata of Delhi minds standing outside on the road of their favourite South Indian Restaurant and waiting out their 45 minutes to grab a table for 5, reservations or no reservations. Now, isn't that healthy thinking and healthy living?

If only health actually translated into wealth in the coffers! Sigh! But then, what of that. My peanuts have arrived into my account. And chances are this month will see us dipping them in sambhar more often than before, and it's going to be finger-licking good.

Burp! Oops, excuse me, please!

China, the Hairy Dog and my Spectacles

China is always up to something naughty. No, I do not just mean playing hopscotch on our side of the LAC. I speak of more important matters! For instance, last Christmas I bought an air-filled Santa Claus for my son. When the cycle pump did the needful, we all realized how this Santa was indeed Chinese. Then, only this Holi, the Made in China water gun read ‘Holy Hey, I Love India’ on a multi-coloured flag, and I had to dump the incorrect version of the national symbol and language by removing the sticker as soon as was possible. Even the toys at the red lights are getting more expensive, and their lights and jingles hardly lasting more than a day now, when once they sang for a good number of Chinese New Year days. I feel cheated! 

While I was still in my ‘why me?’ mode, I read how a zoo in China went ahead and dressed a Tibetan mastiff in furry brown coat, putting it in the African lion’s cage (which was on breeding leave). Even though the dog did a damn good bark-a-roar, the zoo visitors caught the act and returned home feeling very cheated. The dog lost his job and the zoo its credibility. In the mean time, I gained some comfort in numbers, of those who, like me, believe that China is indeed always up to something naughty.

And then, the spectacles happened. (I cannot entirely blame the ‘Made in China’ tags which I have been obsessively watching out for whenever shopping in malls or Monday markets. But I tell you, I am sure their minuteness had a role to play in giving me my first pair of spectacles.) 

It dropped like a bomb, my eye doctor’s "Number toh ha’, par bahut zara sa. Just wear them while working on the computer, driving or watching TV." The solace of the latter half of his verdict fell on deaf ears, blind eyes and a mind busy with - There go my eyes. It will be downwards from now on. The glasses will get thicker, the eyes smaller. The death of the kajal pencil the reign of soft-cloth-to-wipe-them-thus in times of dal tadka or rainy days. Shades of eye shadow bye-bye and shadows under eyes hello. How will I wear my favourite polka dotted hair band along with my glasses, without crowding the back of my ears? No more use in fluttering of lashes to work my way into my husband’s wallet or that look-in-the-eye which tells my son, stop fussing in public! Hai, I am blind. By .5 and .7 but I am indeed blind, and will only go blinder and then blindest. There’s even a minus there, already.

"Let’s go get you some sexy ones," he chirped gleefully, as if sadistically happy for getting the No Number in My Eyes certificate, after this routine visit to the eye doctor spelled trouble only for me. Three stores and 30 brands later, I had not found a pair that suited my fancy. This was going to take some time, and convincing, he must have mused. So, with carpe diem stamped on his face the next day, he took me to the last-but-only optician central Dehra Dun had to offer. History repeated itself as glasses all shades and shapes went into the rejection box, even as the man behind the counter thought it was inspirational saying "spectacular spectacles" with his lovable pahari accent (and looks) to every piece he pushed towards me.

The 157th one was on my nose when my man said - "This is lovely. You look like what you should – A Writer." There, he had used the W-word, knowing fully-well how this will seal the deal in my head. And it sure did! Two days of unconvincing samples, convincing flattery and eventual emptying of wallet later, I had become the proud owner of my first-ever pair of spectacles.

As they lie harmfully under-used but harmlessly sleeping over the latest-most important news from China, I wonder if my husband had tricked me into buying these by saying the W-word, just like the zoo-keeper in China tricked his people with his version of a lion. What if my readers see through me with my glasses, even as I don these "writerly" ones under all self-delusions of not just looking like a published author but writing like one too? And what if my bark writing is a give-away of how I too, like the dog in the lion’s cage, am just another wannabe with the right paraphernalia but barking in the wrong place and at the wrong time? A lion with a dog’s bark or a dog trying to roar? Worse of all, a dog thinking he is indeed a lion, and daring to write about it too. Phew! 

So much for these ‘spectacular spectacles’ and for my husband’s 6/6 eye sight! They are going back in the box, where they belong. I am not that blind, and certainly not as yet. 

Now, why can’t I see the darned box anywhere? 

Tina Ambani's 'must haves'

I must have so acted ... I am unable to recall the role played by … It must have been transacted … He (Anil) must have attended the meeting, I do not recall as the meeting took place long back in 2006.

- said Tina Ambani 

To most questions of the interrogators to do with the allegations that the company Swan was the front runner for her husband’s Reliance Telecom in the 2G spectrum allocation, Tina Ambani had the above to say. Now, if I understood business well enough, I would be sitting on CNBC showering my biz acumen around or getting it printed in peach-coloured news papers. While that I cannot dream of doing any time soon, here is what I can do – think and think back!

I wonder if you see what I see - the epic usage of 'must haves'. 

To read more, please click here.

Time(is)Now to see what Arnab Goswami needs

No, not a microphone!

Arnab Goswami is gifted. You see, he is that species of human kind which develops voice/sound amplifiers on its vocal chords resulting in thundery claps slaps, triggered especially on smelling a rat (smelling, since hearing one squeak is near impossible at his volumes). Goswami’s pharyx, larynx, sharynx combined can hold court sitting atop Qutub Minar, talking down to we the people somewhere on the ground where we belong (especially if we bribed our modem wala Rs. 100 to speed things up, etc). Of course, along with all-just-all politicians, bureaucrats, ministers and their families who he would gladly banish from the Republic of India just like Plato wished the poets away. Why do you look at me in pure disbelief? As if you do not know what's breaking the news these days! So, coming back to my point - Arnab Goswami does not need a microphone. Because Arnab Goswami is gifted.

What Arnab Goswami (AG) needs?

1. AG needs to meet Charlie Sheen. Just generally, and not because their favourite shared activity includes threatening-thrashing like teething toddlers! And then, who knows, ‘Anger Management 2’ might find a new hero, especially since Charlie has his real time anger to manage, while AG is usually flaunting his on his courageous panelists – suited booted and on prime time!

2. AG needs to stop using the words ‘scam’, ‘shame’ and ‘suspend’ in the same sentence, more than twice at least. Research shows the three appear, in exactly this order, at least 60 times every hour of Views Hour. English language is full of alternatives, especially when it comes to the letter ‘S’ (some done right are apparently even therapeutic). Fear predictability, AG. Dig those lexicons in the next commercial break and see the difference in your speech, if not your tone. And if Fortune wills it, it might better your waning TRP.

3. AG needs to do some volunteer work, in his free time that is. AG needs to teach Moral Science to the responsible, corruption-free citizens of tomorrow – in the neighbourhood Shishu Mandir. Why? Oh Lord, who better than Me Lord of Papers and Sources who knows what’s wrong with the world and right with himself, who can spell self-righteous in 56 different ways, point his finger in 65 different directions – all without ruffling even a hair on his head. Plus, he’ll be a great hit with the kids. All he’ll need to do is remove his suit and walk into class in his Superman outfit which he never removes from underneath. Isn’t that great?

Google image

4. AG needs to take on some endorsements, especially since the usual guys are in-and-out of jails and the advertising industry is suffering. While hair gel (please ignore the picture above) and neck ties have been offered to him already, access to a secret contract that I have a copy of right here tells me that a new brand of Chyawanprash is going to be launched – named ‘AG EnerG’. One spoon a day only can sky rocket your dreams of becoming the human microphone, or next-loudest-thing on TV - hands flying feet stomping, complete.

5. AG needs 3 things, combined, just before his show goes ‘on air’. A glass of lemonade (with real lemons please), a champi with Navratna Tel (thanda thanda cool cool!) and a sprinkle of Nycil, to prevent those bouts of sudden itch springing up in nooks and corners, making him sit as if suspended an inch above his seat and needlessly scratch all those papers in front of him. Only a suggestion, AG, and only because of so much heat!

6. AG needs to eat what Dilli loves to feed – no not butter chicken with butter naan and sirka pyaz. Dilli wants to send him a year’s supply of the "Chill Pill" yaar, absolutely free. Their only condition? That next time he sits on his throne, once, just once he should look at the camera and talk to them. He looks here and then he swivels around to look there and forgets to see the seer in the whole process – the India that is actually sitting at home, waiting to know who is being broken on the news!

7. Most importantly,

AG needs to ignore this post, 

It’s just a vent for hurt, no more. 

Last time I was on my flat's Level 3,  

I heard his voice booming out the TV, on Level G. 

I ran down screaming, please hold on for me, 

 But my decibels no match for my dear AG’s,
And on-and-on he went, orating without me. 

Sigh! Now that it’s off my chest, do tell me, 

Have you forgiven me this post, dear AG? 

Oh! It's not just me who wants to know, you see,

It's what ‘India wants to know', and right now, really!

Jolie's mastectomy and my aunt's arthoplasty

As I write this, my aunt undergoes a knee replacement surgery. Both her knees will be metal soon, for arthritis has eaten into what she was born with. As I write this, I also see a piece of front-page news about Angelina Jolie having underwent mastectomy, as prevention against the risk of cancer, which her mother died of. Two surgical stories in a day, totally unconnected, or are they?

Educated for her times, married soon as she was ripe, a devoted wife, a radical mother and a selfless grand-mother is my aunt; her only weakness being a complete intolerance for pain. A head-ache meant the sky has fallen, a tooth ache that the world is ending. And then one day the doctor announced she needs to undergo double knee replacement, sooner better than later. It meant a long hospital stay and nerve-wrecking pain, with painful exercises to follow for weeks. But, the voice on the other end of the phone line was excited like a little girl’s as she told me she had given her assent for the surgery and fixed a date even. The signature on the lease for painless living seemed to be working already.

And then today I read about Angelina Jolie, the woman who has success, talent, beauty, motherhood, charity stamped in every atom of her existence. Living her life queen-size - with her name and her fame and her family! How she, in order to defy her cancer causing gene, got both her breasts removed and replaced, to avoid the c-word from marring her body, her life and her very existence.

In their own circles of life these two totally different women “met” in my mind, as they overcame and brought to light two of the most basic fears which sit camping within us all.

The first fear that they shook off was that of medical science and surgeries, and all that’s known and unknown about them – the doctors, the risks, the bills, the hospitals and life after. We usually ignore the pain, trust our chemist’s suggestion will work, try homoeopathic or maybe yoga instead, pray a little extra, suffer a little more for a few years, and finally one day sign the dotted line with a heavy-hearted “I’m 80 and I’m ready to see my OT”. We delay, because we don’t trust tomorrow in the hands of those we don’t want to trust. And when they do take that pain away with a nip-tuck-stitch, we thank God for saving our lives and go home good-humouredly cursing the doctors’ apparently inflated bills and the nurse’s even more inflated attitude. Seeking delayed help may still be useful. But seeking when we need it can never be futile. These two women unknowingly awakened me to what I call my Medical Responsibility towards myself. An assurance I make to my body and not just an insurance I sign for my life. A stitch in time saves nine, if we understand the rhyme, we’ll all do fine.

The second, perhaps bigger, fear that was shed was the fear of societal gaze, and what it may see and say. Hospitals are not just impersonal but they impersonalize too. Strangers sponge you, dress you, empty your U-bag and hand-over that bed-pan. For a person like my aunt, agreeing to this would not have been short of agreeing to walk the ramp in a bikini. Too much courage was needed on her part to shed the cloak of self-consciousness and just become a patient patient. But while her suffering the “disrobing” is short-lived, Jolie agreed to challenge the societal gaze permanently. In times of breast implants and augmentation, mastectomy is popularly perceived as a loss of appeal, appearance and to some as their womanhood itself. Call them gender biased notions or those generated by the male gaze, the idea of what it constitutes to be a woman is most often related to what the women have or what the men lack. To be an Angelina Jolie and then to be brave enough to let go of these notions, in order to prevent what may never actually set-in is enough to shatter certain gender stereotypes and perhaps metamorphose the male gaze into something that looks beyond what appears and goes deeper than what meets the eye. And only a very brave heart can promise itself this post-operative happiness, an operation where the gaze is permanently removed from the mind and thrown for the winds of change to consume. 

And this being my two-pence on what’s trending today – at my home and in the world! People are setting examples and re-writing their stories, everyday. We only need to spot the right ones and read the message in the bottle in time. And for the rest of the hours, we need to wish ourselves and everyone a happy and healthy life. 

Sarabjits and Us

Have you heard of Tihar Haat? It’s a humble store running out of Tihar Jail and selling goods made by the inmates. Plants, rugs, namkeens and biscuits, durries, weaves and the tastiest ever muffins, for the price of nothing, come home with us every time we visit. What marvellous fortune to be staying next door to not just one of the most VIP areas of today, but also one churning out such wonders - neatly packed and nicely priced. However, not many share our excitement, or our muffins and namkeens for that matter. Made by prisoners? How can you buy this stuff? Are you sure about hygiene? Some of them have blood on their hands. Ram Ram! You really think this is a good idea, letting goods made by criminals enter your homes? While we continued to think it was, everyone we spoke to wrongly rejected the place as nothing but an off-shoot of evil minds, idle hands and sub-standard products.

Then one day a certain Sarabjit succumbed to his injuries - brutally beaten to death in jail after decades of being a prisoner across the border. And suddenly, we found tragedy. Swarms of protests, posters, rallies and ranting against our neighbour began. We felt for the grieving family on TV and screamed in one voice that those responsible for this murder should be brought to task. That this Sarabjit be provided the best medical treatment in our country. Justice, as it’s popularly called, was demanded, as is usually asked for.

And here I sit today, wondering without answers, as his name vanishes from everything that we see and read - What does all this mean?

Is it because he died in the prison of our arch “enemy-state” that we got so angry? Or is it that no other tragedy was doing its rounds at that time for prime time - that time we tell the time by?

Is life really so fickle that one day we other, and the next day we mourn? Or is it because for death there is sympathy but in life there is no time to think to know to even care?

Statistics and numbers of prisoners lodged in jails are floating around now. Numbers. Big numbers. This side that side and all over everywhere. Sarabjit was a nameless number for most of his life, and just a name and a number when he died. The person that he was was never alive to us, and so could not have died on us – and no amount of money or days of state mourning can make it seem otherwise.      

However, we found tragedy, the news channels found a topic, and two nations found more politics.

There’s nothing more there. If there was, dear Tihar Haat and it's muffin-making Sarabjit would not be dying of unnatural causes either.   

Wanna be (below) 18 till you die?

Oh! You're not 18 yet? Well, what do we have here, a Juvenile! No no, you can't vote or drink or marry or drive or be called adult. You can't bunk class, stop the adolescent acne and moods, and prevent mommy from pulling your cheeks or giving you a tiffin box for school. You can't do that and much more as yet, my child. But you know what you can do? You can rape, and get away with just a rap on the knuckles! Just a rap. You can be a monster-on-the-loose, and the safe hands of Law will still carry some charity lollipops and candy for you.

Feeling lucky, huh? But you won't be forever below 18 till you die, and you will die one day. We all do. We all will. Oh but then, on second thoughts, you needn't worry about death either actually, for your very being died the most shameful death the day it raped and took another's life! And dead men can't die - whether below 18, 18 or way above. Double congratulations! You are safe - both from punishment and from death.  

In the mean time, we the passers-by will just sit praying and hoping for the Thorns of conscience within you to maybe prick your peace - unless the Thorns too, tragically and like the Law, think you're just a kid deserving of a chance for reformation and education. After all, if the inches in the pants can grow, why can't the inches between your ears, says the Law book, right?

May you never rest in peace as you walk this Earth!

  

Someone died today

Someone died today.

So many days of rage and sadness. A frustration screaming out of every woman whose being has been violated and every man who dreams of a safer haven for his women. They have been days of posters and banners, fires and effigies, prayers and more prayers, shouts and rallies, candles and flowers, authority and mobs, violence and water canons. They have been days of news and views and opinions on television, of debates and more debates, of discussions and negotiations, of blaming and hiding and pointing and denying. Days of black and white ... and all shades of grey in between!    

Someone died today. 

And with her we feel has died a part of our own being - a part that trusted law, believed in fair justice, relied on security-providers and lived a life free from fear. A part of us that dreamed of simple thinking and secure living. Of family planning and ageing. And dying a natural death. Not an imposed one, nor a man-made one. A part that believes, and likes to believe, died an untimely death within all of us.

Someone died today. 

But this 'Something' that She has left behind all around and inside us should not! We've done a lot and worked really hard. It's time to sit, and think. No, not who to throw the next stone on or whose face to blacken in the next protest. Not which social site needs our voice to be heard or where to light the million candles. 

It's time to think. 

It's time to look, within. 

It's time - to know ourselves, so we can know, understand, respect and appreciate others - our children, our neighbours, friends and family, and even strangers. It's time to connect the human way, through understanding. Because the human thread is the only shared thread running amongst us, we who revel in our diversity and uniqueness of community/caste/creed need to first become one big breathing mass of humanity. No, not for a cause alone, but for everyday of our lives. Not sporadic voices of support in times of evil, but a feeling of oneness and sameness, by virtue of being humans together, by virtue of wanting to protect and be protected in return.

Someone died today. 

But Humanity remains. Find it. You need it, and more importantly, others need it from you. 

We make the world and make up the world, both - we give birth, we rear, we educate, we set examples, and then we cover up, we hide evil, we kill our daughters, we sell those who remain. We vote, we support, we choose, we enjoy favour, we give power and then we blame those in power, abuse them, ask them to leave. 

We want change? It is within. We just need to sit down, and think!