Once, as a Paying Guest in Delhi University

I came to New Delhi for my Bachelor’s Degree, as a wide-eyed girl who had miraculously got admission in Lady Shri Ram College. The heart was beating like it had already got free entry into the hip and newly opened The Sugar Factory next door. Or received a proposal from the dark haired Darcy himself! The head was more cautious in its celebration. Delhi was the size of a Kingdom as compared to my home hamlet. One lady in The Doon Club had told me it’s full of cheats, cheap women and madmen. ‘Be careful, beta. You know what you need to guard.’ And she had looked at my belt. My own main worry was grades. LSR inspired and thus expected excellence. And being a hard-working, above-average girl may no longer be enough to hold my own.

But what pooped completely what was a half-party anyway, was the fact that I did not make it to the college Residence Hall. Utni bhi achhi rank nahi thee, I imagined Belt Lady (from above) telling her Bingo friends. I had to look for a PG accommodation. My father was silent as a mountain, and as supportive. Only the best had to be picked. Safe. Comfortable. No compromises! That another girl from Dehradun had booked one in National Park, right behind LSR, was enough to judge the book by its marble floor and bathroom tiles which no other PG offered for miles. Three months’ rent was paid and a two-seater booked. Diamond fingers pointed us to the various facilities which were being offered to the ‘girls who are like my own daughters’, as my parents and I followed our PG aunty much like Pip did Miss Havisham. 

Alas! Soon enough it was evident this aunty had three daughters and no room for more. All promises made to parents-with-wallets started dying till they became invisible like the rajma in the gravy. That is, before the gravy ran out completely for those girls reaching the PG late. Just plain white rice in the common room, followed by jam with Parle G in the room. Room? A third bed had been shifted in with a girl on top. Now we three slept so close we could share one quilt. After all, where was the cupboard space to hold three separate ones anymore? Where will the books go? And reams of notes? Cold drinking water would often run out, specially during exams, but never for aunty downstairs. Always positive, she would instead show us the 6 pairs of shoes she got for nothing from the sale at CP. We girls would be torn between requesting for a cold water bottle, or asking for the shoes! 

If life inside the PG wasn't exactly comfortable or conducive to studies, the walk to and from college was downright unsafe. With a shady Hotel V next door and a desolate nallah with pants-down men hissing and pissing inside, it wasn’t for nothing that the area was called The Rapists’ Paradise. So the “freshers” would wait in college for other PG mates to get done with classes, and then we would walk back together. It never stopped the mucky comments from being passed or random hits-n-touches by bikers, but it softened the blow a bit. Plus, running alone down the road felt worse. It was when a friend walking beside me got dragged by her umbrella down the lane one lonely afternoon, with me helplessly running after a screaming her, that all the leftover mirth and fun, of late-night gossips about who has a boyfriend or who wears a padded bra and whom PG Uncle winked at, went completely bland. Completely.  

I decided that day I needed to get inside that Residence Hall. Thanks to the powdered-milk water and cornflakes I had for breakfast for a year to help put my soul into getting the grades, and my hosteller cousin who pushed me to it, I miraculously made it. I topped the internal assessments! Our Victorian Poetry class was interrupted when a hosteller (always late!) sashayed in with the news. My name was on the hostel list. The whole class cheered like I had battled a crocodile alone. I cried big tears. It had felt exactly like that! 

By the time my graduation was done and I became a post-graduate student of Delhi University, Arts Faculty, with some library-cum-bank-cum-canteen allegiance to Hansraj College, I knew what to expect when I didn’t make it to the Post-Graduate Women’s Hostel in the first go and took up a room in Malka Ganj. Meanwhile, Belt Lady (from above) fainted over her Bloody Mary just hearing the name of the place, and Mill gaya kamra bahut badi baat hai, yaar, remarked a senior in college. 

But was I really prepared, still? 

No beds. Only string cots. Four girls in a room with a broken window which let in not just the bugs and bees but also the hoots of prospective suitors downstairs, night after night. One fridge, but use at your own risk. Eggs vanished as did Pepsi and rosewater. (There were whispers that it was aunty!) One phone charging point and two cupboards standing on bricks. And a rickety gate and staircase keeping us and our Maggi all safely in. Itney paisey mein itna hee, please, the seepage seemed to say. Where was one to go anyway? Any kissa that would happen in a neighbouring PG accommodation and uniformed men would come to make us fill up forms, ask random questions, and leave. That fine day we would see our aunty’s face, properly, without a face pack, even as we thirstily stole secret glances at the chilled Roohafza she served the cops, teasing us right under their noses! 

Only a month of it and so I lived to tell the tale. PGW's latest list was up and I was in! That same afternoon, even before the glue behind the list which was put up was dry, I moved all my worldly belongings to its D-Block. One rickshaw, one superman ricky-bhai, one kilometre and 50 bucks later I breathed. 

All this was more than a decade back. I am that much older today, and enough to acknowledge that whatever problems beset students in their life at the university also shape them. Chisel them. Give them extra layers of hide for survival, stomachs of steel and a confidence to ‘manage on our own’ where once we were like deer in the headlights. It is only when the shit starts flowing out of the pot to enter your room, and there’s no water in the taps for two days, that you scream the loudest scream. To ask for what is right, and your right. That's exactly what's making news today and reading which made me write this.

Girls protesting against regressive and discriminatory hostel rules, rallies against the lack of basic facilities in colleges and fee hikes are headlines. Even though I read about them on a chair far removed from the broken, shared ones I studied on, I cheer and support these students’ demands wherever I sit. I applaud groups like ‘A Room of my Own’, trying to get accountability in the PG business. And I respect that they found their voices, which are only getting braver by the day. You see, it's not just about 'managing on your own', somehow adjusting. College is about finding your wings for life. And nothing should come in the way of that!   

I wish I were still a student of Delhi University. This would be my postcard to the VC. One among the 10,000 which reached him recently.

On Compassion

I missed writing for a day I had pencilled way in advance. February 20th saw thousands of bloggers the world over write on Compassion – the satin ribbon that binds, should bind, one creature’s comfort to another’s pain, one human’s fortune to the other’s need. I checked the exact meaning before deciding to write this. It was always a big word for me, but it became humongous after looking at what it meant. So much bigger than all the big words I like to keep as friends. Way beyond mere Politeness, surpassing stray acts of Kindness and occupying a pedestal next to felt Humanity, no less. 

Even though I was saddened that the bus full of beautiful posts on compassion had long left, leaving me and my pending work behind, on the desk still, I caught myself wondering aloud if at all I would have had anything to say about Compassion. That unconditional giving of what you have and what the other doesn’t. At all times, under any circumstances and without the slightest hope for reward. The emotion that makes you feel one with the other; human, animal or even an old oak. The ideal definition of compassion. 

And then I think, what about in life?

Every Tuesday the scene outside our neighbourhood temple is like it is on no other day. A mini-fete. There’s a balloon-seller standing alongside the Kwality Walls cart, together and away from the two parallel lines of beggars sitting lining the holy walls. A flute-seller plays devotional tunes, but the hungry stomachs hear no music. They beg for alms. For prasad, orange over-sweetened balls, from those visiting the temple. People walk in and out, and some passers-by dig into the newspaper packet to give some around. Often without looking who they are showing concern on, with measured hands. Three grape-sized pieces per hand. Deed done. Then they scurry on. Away from the house of God to their own homes where piping hot chapattis are being rolled. Leaving behind a question hanging in the air to be plucked by those like me, sitting and typing away their thoughts.

Is this compassion, pure and simple, or an automated ritual? Can the feeling of real concern be fleeting as the blink of an eye, or last the time it takes to brush the dust off the pants where the hungry-dirty hand tugged, in askance for food? Pity is short-lived, for who has tears to spare in such evil times? Or guilt. It vanishes quicker than grass thrown in the wind. But then, does it matter? Someone gave something. Shared. 2 seconds, 2 minutes. The heart opened. So, does it matter – how real how staged how in return for extra blessings?

The idea of giving, material or in thought, to the other has to stem from some degree of compassion. Or so I wonder.

Closer home. 

I don’t have half the number of compassionate bones as, say, my own mother. (I’m still checking dictionaries to see what it means!). My mother. So many times I get bugged at her idea of “doing good” at the cost of her own well-being, time, energy, health and bank balance too. What could have made her ‘adopt’ a student and sponsor his studies through school? What makes her spend her holidays teaching girls and boys from schools we never went to about the natural wonders of planet Earth? What makes her keep bowls of food and water for strays who lose their path into our driveway only to find a home in the verandah till their dying day? I used to think she is in love with the idea of charity but I corrected myself when I realized I’ve never heard her talk about it. It doesn’t make it a better version of being compassionate but it does make it seem more real in a world which we love to consider a stage, and all acts our performance to a gallery.

To feel and do silently is beautiful because compassion sings then in the highest note of the octave. I’ve heard that music through others in my life. The most fortunate ones hear it. See it. Learn to emulate it too, perhaps. 

Have I learnt? I don’t know.

Sure, I feel empathy for feet whose shoes bite, like mine. So many people’s failures are mine and cries of grief emanating as if from my lungs. I don’t hurt with rude words, even less with actions. I do try, at least, unless you hurt me or mine. Those who work for me never leave, those I have worked for are kind enough to call me caring. But what do I do in deed which can confirm to me that I am a compassionate person? No alms giving, no adopting. No routine cause-hankering, no fancy charity fairs. No impulsive gifting, no unaffordable donating. I could almost be the most apparently cold-blooded person on your friend list who moves not a finger till she feels. Gosh! What do I do to prove that I am compassionate? 

‘Mumma, wipe my nose please, or puppy will get a cold from me’ and the thoughts break with a prick. Oh no, not again. Please let it not grow into congestion. He feels so uncomfortable. He even thinks his stuffed toy will get a runny nose.

And then I realize, just like charity begins at home perhaps compassion begins right there too, along with answers and definitions to big words which need have no absolute versions. Just like the thousands of bloggers who wrote so passionately on the 20th of February, I too was looking to get in touch with the compassionate corner of my heart… 

Spent sleepless nights when he slept hot with fever, feeling the heat in my every bone. Spent impatient days when I knew he’s burdened in office, and today he needs a respite, he looked so. In tending to their needs, keeping mine aside or feeling loved when the pain was mine, this time. One feels towards toy animals and dolls, the other towards everyone who touches his life. And as I admire those compassionate acts done by my loved ones, I learn on-the-go to see what compassion really, truly means. I also realise where we discover true compassion breathing silently is what we call home, because real love breathes alongside. And there can be no compassion where there is no love.

Is that a selfish kind of compassion I feel, unable to fully grow beyond the hearth, and embrace all in one unconditional hug? 

I don’t know. 

Do I want to know right now? 

No. His nose is running, and him I need to be with. Or his puppy will get a cold, and he will then be 'hurt in the heart'.

Human Rights and Mental Health

A couple of years back, I worked on a book called ‘Psychiatric Hospitals in India’. I took on the project as a content advisor and morphed into a co-researcher out of sheer interest. I was interested since psychiatry is a field I did not know the ABC of. But as I went deeper into writing, compiling, advising, designing sheets upon sheets full of everything to do with mental hospitals, illnesses, problems and recommendations, I realized it was not just that mental health was a lesser known field but also that it was not covered as extensively by popular media in my surroundings as maybe other similar concerns had been. 

Because in so many countries still, mental illnesses are stuff that stigma is made of. And a mental asylum a building housing men, women and even children who have been disowned by their families.

And more often than not, the hospitals are far from asylums but places which, knowingly or otherwise, violate human rights of the mentally ill patients. And this is something that you and I do not read about in the national dailies. Because somewhere, we either tend to not notice or make unseen that semi-nude “mad man” with a matted beard talking to the trees on the side of the road.

Today, on Blog Action Day, I pen a few paragraphs of information on Mental Health and Human Rights. I am no human rights activist in the true sense of the word. I am not even taking action on the patient’s behalf in this case. I am simply showing you the picture and the perspective that I gathered along the way. Maybe hoping to bring about a change, a change in the mindset which still uses words like ‘mental’, ‘psycho’, ‘schizo’ and ‘retard’ in a loose, irresponsible and utterly insensitive way. 

Health, as a right, was included only recently in the United Nations ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’, as Article 25 (Universal Declaration), stating ‘Everyone has a right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being of himself and his family...’ When we talk of Mental Health, it took a series of revolutionary minds across the globe to emphasise that persons suffering from mental illness shall enjoy the same human rights and fundamental freedoms as all other citizens. They shall not be the subject of discrimination on grounds of mental illness. They have the rights to professional, humane and dignified treatment and will be protected from exploitation, abuse and degradation. Elimination of prejudice and stigma attached to mental illnesses will be aimed at and regardless of age, gender, ethnic group or disorder, they will be treated in the same manner as other citizens in need of health care. 

In short, the world recognized the fact that the basic human rights and freedoms of the mentally ill should be respected at all costs. The relationship between mental health and Laws of the Land was established, and even though a dynamic one, laid down set criterion for the treatment of the mentally ill under various governments and nation states. 

The Indian scene 

We revel in our heterogeneity. On good days we celebrate it, on bad days we have an identity crisis and want to enforce our own. Multiplicity of political systems and social ideologies add to the diverse scenario. Under the circumstances, not just availability and accessibility of mental health care but the implementation of human rights issues itself becomes a problem. Varying ideas of privacy, social stigmatization of patients, interpretations of right to refuse treatment add to the problem of implementing a universal idea of human rights of the mentally ill. But where once the ‘asylums’ were prisons for the hopeless, things are a changing for the better.

Health security for the entire population is being accepted as an essential requirement that should be guaranteed by the government. The Mental Health Act of 1987, a national statute, recognised the lack of humane treatment of the mentally ill and codified guidelines about the human rights of the mentally ill much before National Human Rights Commission was even established. The landmark judgments included no mentally ill person shall be subjected, during treatment, to any indignity or cruelty. No mentally ill person shall be used for purpose of research unless such research is of direct benefit to him, or such a person’s consent (or guardian’s consent) has been received in writing. Many more movements and efforts towards ensuring protection of human rights have followed, with the Supreme Court and the National Human Rights Commission acting as catalysts towards bringing about a constructive change in mental institutions as well as treatment of patients. What was espoused? 

That ‘everyone in need should have access to basic mental health care.’

This principle components of this idea gave birth to a list of human rights that the mentally ill enjoy (published in 2008 by NHRC). Let us see some of them here:

1. Right to a decent life.

2. Legal safeguards against abuse.

3. Right to appeal, rehabilitation services, privacy, freedom of communication.

4. Right to necessary treatment in the least restrictive setup.

5. Right to social and economic security.

6. Right to family and community life, employment.

7. Right to protection against discrimination. 

The human rights of psychiatric patients in India are in conformity with the developed nations.

The problems?

Despite progressive legislations and zealous spread of awareness, conflicts and vagaries arise when human rights of the mentally ill are under question, not just in India but universally.

What happens when a mentally ill patient refuses treatment, drugs, hospitalisation or food? Is force-feeding ethical under all circumstances? Control and restraint of violent conduct of patients and seclusion of such patients in psychiatric institutions is another contentious issue. Is exclusion from voting necessary, and does it not encroach on the human rights of the mentally ill? How do you deal with the social stigma attached to mental illnesses and mentally ill, which leads to infringement of rights of the patients in a social context?

Grey areas remain in the legal technicalities and implementation, questions of ethics and professionalism. Grey areas are also housed within our own minds, and mentalities, in our social attitude towards our mentally ill. These being the two biggest deterrents in ensuring human rights of the mentally ill.  

To you and me, no amount of knowledge about the issue is enough. But what can be more than enough is spreading the little knowledge that we have. Human rights are a social issue. Apart from information and awareness, a deep-rooted Concern for a fellow-human can weave miracles. This here was just a step towards facilitating a better understanding of mental health and human rights. I hope it helps, even as it informs, in stimulating our collective consciousness towards creating a more humane and accepting environment for the mentally ill in particular and other beings in general. 

Human rights matter. Because humans do. 

[With information drawn from 'Psychiatric Hospitals of India' and a heartfelt thank you to it's author and world-renowned psychiatrist Dr. Sridhar Sharma]

Sounding the Red Siren against Sexual Abuse

In the year 2000 I moved from my secure, joint-family, small-town setting to become a student of a reputed college in New Delhi – raring to go, promising to make the best of hostel life and continuing wide-eyed in this big city with flyovers, McDonald’s and something called pubs.

As a part of Delhi University rules, every student enrolled in the Bachelor’s programme had to give a certain number of hours to social work to get their degrees at the end of 3 years. This idea was run under the National Service Scheme (NSS) and while some colleges simply handed over the certificates, mine made us do our bit, every minute of it. Most of us cribbed. It involved our meagre pocket money being spent on commuting to far flung places and spending free time earning good karma - something which we considered ourselves too young for. Out of the array of activities, I picked teaching in a Jhuggi Jhopri Shishu Mandir about 8 kilometers from my college hostel in South Delhi. And 40 hours in a month is what I had to complete, which meant going everyday for an hour. 

Once I got over the idea of being stared down as I entered the slum cluster and learnt to ignore the catcalls welcoming ‘madam ji’, I started enjoying the teaching greatly. A class of about 60 students, all 4-6 year old in their dark blue and white uniforms would welcome me with a sing-a-song ‘Good morning’ and repeat their letters and numbers after me in the same sing-a-song voice. It was tough, to make them sit still on the mats and listen. All they wanted to do was dance to songs they sang themselves. A few days into it, and I started a story telling session, where the last 15 minutes of every class were to be spent in sharing personal tales. I had noticed a few children never participate and while I did not want to force them to, I thought this activity might interest them. 

I was not prepared to hear what I heard. 

“I don’t talk to him because his father came to kill my father with a knife one night, because my father stole a fish from his stall” – said a boy with an Om tattooed on his wrist, telling me why he refuses to sit next to the other boy.

“Her mother is a prostitute. Everyone knows that. Other women are saying she is a witch too.” – said an older looking girl pointing at a little one sitting in the back row with an angry scowl permanently etched on her brow. 

A series of real stories shocked me awake from my small-town-to-elite-college-comfort. Were they pulling my leg to unnerve me? I was still wondering if I should let this exchange go on when out came this –

“You see that girl in the corner? We don’t sit with her. Her father does dirty things to her. She is very dirty and if we sit with her, our father will also do those things to us. So our mothers told us to keep away from her. Maybe she also does dirty things to her father.” – giggled a couple of boys and girls together, completing each other’s sentence with a misfit excitement punctuating their sentences. I looked at her, as she fixed her gaze on the floor with a steely tenacity. That explained why she always sat alone, opened not her mouth and did not participate at all. She sat right there and her moving shoulders told me she was sobbing, something I had noticed so many times before without realising that this little 4-something girl has been crying all this while, even as the rest of the class sang ‘A sey Anaar Aa sey Aam’.

My class was suddenly transformed into a very disturbing reality that I had no idea about, that no one had told me about before this day. I dismissed the class and waited for the principal of the school to come. The girl, Sapna, kept sitting where she sat. I asked her to go home and she nodded a no, saying "mummy has told me to stay here till the building gate closes at 4pm." I approached the principal and told her what I heard, showing her the girl insisting on sitting here. I could not believe my already numb ears when she said this to me:

"I know, beta. It has been going on for a very long time. We can’t do anything about it. These slum dwellers are like that. Let’s just do our jobs and not get personal. It’s none of our business. Plus, we have so much to worry about anyway. She sits here till I close the premises to leave around 4 pm. Then she goes home too. She is usually the first one to arrive." I wonder what shocked me more. The reality of the girl’s sexual abuse at the hands of her own father or this principal’s complacency and acceptance of it as something we cannot and should not do anything about.

Back in college, I related the story to a professor who took it as seriously as it was supposed to be taken. She visited the Shishu Mandir with me, called the girl’s mother and asked her what this was all about. The mother, shuttling between sobs of helplessness and determination to not let us interfere in her household matter told us this – "Yes, he does dirty things to her. Every day. So, what can I do? He’s the father. We have nowhere to go. If I leave him, this girl will die of starvation. At least this way she is fed and even studying to become successful one day. I just look away, even if she calls me for help. What can I do? The neighbours saw him fondling her once and the word spread. Thank God we were not excommunicated from the jhopris. Where will we go? Maybe it’s just a bad habit of my husband’s and it will pass. I hope it does. I do want it to stop. I have told her to stay in school as long as possible. I hate it too. I try to stop him. But then, he is feeding her, educating her and getting her new dresses too. What more should I ask for?"

And the girl still sat in her favourite corner, with her shoulders moving, knowing what her mother was talking about, re-living it in her mind as she did on her body, day after day. My professor contacted an NGO which worked for the rehabilitation and care for the girl child. After many meetings and even a little force, the father admitted to his crime and agreed to undergo counselling, between bouts of crying. 

My 40 hours of teaching were over, but this horrific story became a permanent chapter in my book of learning. I remember asking after Sapna from a junior who was assigned the same Shishu Mandir for NSS but she had no such student in her class. A year had passed already. 

This is the first time I share this story. Thanks to Rekha’s and Roshni’s blog posts spreading awareness about Sexual Abuse and the Girl Child, as part of Time to Sound the Red Siren Campaign by UNICEF India and Protsahan. As I look back with the eyes of a 30 year old mother and not a 17 year old teenager lost in a big city, I understand so much more than I did then.  

I see and read how sexual abuse is usually at the hands of a person known to the victim, say the father of the girl in this story. How, knowingly or unknowingly, we become abettors in the crime, like the girl’s mother, the principal, the whole jhuggi community and even those little children. Most importantly, I see how there is always recourse and hope, considering that Sapna’s father shamefacedly admitted to the crime and willingly sought counselling to stop his ‘habit’, something that seemed to be a burden for him to carry too. 

Be it making noise on public forums or whispering it in responsible ears, anything can help in stopping sexual violence against the girl child, or any child. It takes very little, and what it takes is well worth it!  

    [This post is in collaboration with Protsahan and UNICEF India‘s Time to sound the Red Siren campaign. Sexual abuse cuts across class, ethnicity, religion and origin. Millions of girls in India face obstacles in their lives, experiencing various forms of discrimination, exploitation and abuse on account of their age and their sex. Each year, an increasing number of children in India face sexual violence. Recently, there have been cases of rape that have galvanized global attention and sparked mass demonstrations and widespread debate on the issue of sexual violence directed at children. However, there are many cases that go under reported. Fear of social stigma and victimization often stop children and their families from reporting these crimes. Since much abuse is hidden from public view – and because it is too often tolerated – the numbers do not reflect the true magnitude of the problem. When violence occurs, the physical wounds or bruises may disappear but the mental scars may not.]