Homecoming

I am home! Yes, after 4 + 1.5 years, I am home! After, almost half-a-dozen years and tasting ‘freedom’ and all that comes with the package, it’s almost surreal to think am actually home. A place where I wake up to a steaming cup of coffee and at least one person ready for a short conversation. Even if choose to stay quiet, I simply have to walk out to my favorite place outside; the stone bench to enjoy my coffee and news paper.



The stone bench--my favorite place.

Frankly, I had my doubts about returning home, since I had almost worked up the reputation of a prodigal daughter! But, what I didn’t expect was the reception of the biblical prodigal son, well minus the ring and the fattened calf, that I received! A lot of people keep asking me why the hell did I return; yea, why the hell did I return? Mmm…my job, basically is fun in Chennai and yea, I wanted to be with folks for a while in the big house that my dad gets as his staying quarters.

Okay, the house. It’s a beautiful old building that has really huge rooms; but of course no privacy, in the modern sense of the term, in any one room! Talk about family bonding ;) it’s lovely nevertheless. Couple of rooms face just greenery and a park, which is sometimes visited by Egrets! Now that am down with Typhoid and I spend long hours in bed and gazing out, I have seen some kingfishers, some blue birds, and even a brown-colored koel! And, of course the song of the koel is ubiquitous. There are several little dogs and cats who also keep us company besides our own pets. As if these animals aren’t enough, once in a while our neighborhood snake also makes an appearance!


Can you spot the long, snake? It's a Cobra! AT least ma says so, though pop, poohs poohs it as a water snake! But, in such matters, experience has taught us to take ma seriously. :-)


Then, yes, the majestic Badam tree that greetes me every day in the morning; lush, huge green leaves on the tree and brown, dry leaves on the ground. Sometimes, all these leaves are collected to a pile and set on fire, which keeps burning for a while and spares the neighborhood of mosquitoes for at least that night! Enjoy some of the pictures…



The Badam Tree



The Brown-Colored Koel


The greenery from my room..:-)


Some of ma's jasmines.


Ps: If you want high-resolution pics, just click the pictures; next time round I'll keep the appropriate radio button selected! Technology, half the time seems is conspiring against me!

Disgust

Bitterness, fermented
Spiraling expectations
A lost heart
A rotten soul

Anger, rusted
Gnawing at the pit of the stomach
A bygone era
A fallen hope

Questions, unanswered
Silent hanging
A lacuna of desire
A lake of bile

Marbles, held intact
Godly obedience, consent manufactured
A sea of want and need
A search in darkness

Parents, children, control and many other things...

Of the many unifying factors of religion, such as women subjugation, stratification, and special status to a select few, is the elaborate rules on behavior, especially with respect to children. And, mind you, am not talking of children in terms of one’s age…you could be well past your ‘adult’ age or you could even be over 25 or 30, but you will be still a child to your parents, and hence you are obliged to follow the detailed rules for children about their behavior and life.

In this context, let me delve into the actual day-to-day realities of some children. As a growing Christian child, the virtues (and of course the carrot of long life, as if good health and fitness never mattered) of being an obedient child was drilled into me, as it was into all the other poor unsuspecting children. Even before we knew it, we were given tags as Christian, obedient, girl, sweet, intelligent, etc…and, one tended to hold on to these tags, even if they gave you no returns…well, the returns were roads of gold after death. But, our minds/intellects were dwarfed so that we don’t ask questions like, “If I obeyed, I would have a long life, which keeps me away from the golden roads!” Then, why should I hanker after a long life here? If I have a long life here, I must try and fit into those tags, which are incidentally given to several Christian children.

This piece is not about religion, rather about the power that certain relationships have due to religious sanction, and hence the prelude. The relationship that parents have with children enjoys much more that just religious sanction, I assume. It has societal sanction, with financial backing. At this outset, the chances of a short change for the weaker party is quite high, and my assumption is most of the children are short changed, except a select few who wage a war, who walk out of the house, who run away, who stay and question/rebel, or become artists…

Well, there might be reasons to why parents behave in a certain way. It could be due to religious, patriarchal, and market forces. However, what happens to the independent free will? After all, isn’t growing up a child a huge responsibility? Especially because the child has no means for developing an independent idea or will? Can a child grow on its own? Is it truly possible for a child to just be on its and develop into a fine individual, well again how does one define what is fine and unfine? Is that why we have scripture to tell us what is right and wrong? But, then why are there so many different types of scriptures, which are most often at loggerheads with each other? And, it hasn’t just stopped being at just loggerheads, rather, we today have armed battle…and who are the arsenal…the poor, unsuspecting children, grown on the much fermented anger of the parents. Dovetailing this idea, I have known of so many children being the actual deliverer of hatred between families. In such situations, do parents treat their children as their arsenal? The ultimate weapon—a young body indoctrinated in the scripture of hatred for the other; without any scope for love or humane ideas, because all of these ‘unnecessary’ emotions have been systematically removed so that the child can be customized to take on the enemy!

If you have noticed, elder children, usually speak the parent’s language, and most often are clambering to take on the ‘parent’s’ role more because that role is the role of power. And, what parents don’t see is that, they make their first-borns their ally! Is this because people marry young (especially those that are immature enough to think of marriage as an escape) and have a child immediately? Is their long-time desire to control comes delivered in the package called ‘first baby; now do what to you want to do!’

This, of course is not a plea for apology or a call to understand a ‘first child’; it’s in fact a way to be re-born…to choose one’s emotions…to break away from set patterns…in Steven covey’s language, to break the social mirror…and rewrite one’s destiny; to be the controller of your destiny and not let others control you…

Some thoughts…

Again, as is the case with my writings, this was also spurred by a rather angry exchange between two sisters…

So much for the prelude…my case is this: Too much of ‘modern’ thinking is makes people extremely individualistic, inward looking, and absolutely averse to any kind of collective work. Obviously, the next question is, how does one define modernism…

At the risk being ridiculed by many clear-thinking people, I attempt to construct my ideas here. I do believe and understand the idea of space and independent thinking and ideas, but at what cost? Who calls the shots about whose space can be taken and whose cannot be. Where is mutual aid? Where are the responsibilities that come with living together?

I have always been a proponent of people over the age of 18 having their own home and that policies need to be lobbied for a change that will enable young people support themselves financially and socially. However, given the ‘development’ that our country has seen in the last 60 years, I guess this type of living is out of bounds for the majority in our country. In that case what does one do? Wait till you are 25 or 30 when you are financially independent to make your move? But, by then the social fabric of family catches up, and familial obligations rule the roost with the need to create families without really going into hows and whys reigning supreme in one’s mind.

Given this scenario, do we even have the concept of space? Of individuality? Of the realization of one’s dreams? Of the collective failure that we as a family, community, and country are facing? Is it possible that the whole nature of space is either eulogized or ridiculed? Have we failed to balance? Have we failed to understand the other because each one of us is so busy looking only at ourselves? That too only through the eyes of the other, in which case we fail by default!

Then, the question about balancing…is there a real balance? Many a young people have untold problems about their parents, which incidentally is healthy especially considering catastrophic effects of being in the my-parents-are-god state. The point is when the situation is such that one has live with one’s family and there’s no way out, how does one make it work without threatening the basic fabric of life? This is where problems with too much knowledge and no application comes. When we understand too much about patriarchy and its hold on people and how it has destroyed women’s and chidren’s lives, isn’t it more important for young people to change this world order sensitively?