Growing up Karen....

Do I look good....I hate you! Well...this is one refrain my neighbor mala hears from her, quite hip and popular, sister Karen every day. Poor mala! Let me explain a bit about this Karen, because she catches my fancy much more than mala. Now, Karen is this child-woman, whom if you approach her as if she were a child, she'll fix you with a grow-up-you-moron and when u wanna have a woman-to-woman talk, she'll baby talk! Nevertheless, we neighbors have a good time having her around.

Now, to the refrain part...Mala, with whom am good friends, tells me that Karen, on average, spends 1 hour every day getting ready with an assortment of cosmetics that will put even a fashion diva to shame...and, Karen looks quite good...in the sense all the cosmetics are just addons...however, every day, Mala and all of us have to be sensitive and each time she has a doubt about her looks, we need to tell that she looks good...but the moment we lose our cool, or are distracted with ourselves (vanity traps all women, you see) we are dead! Phew! You women are so carzy...I hate you all! Come on Karen grow up....

Disclaimer: This is purely fiction; any resemblance to any person living or kicking or fuming is merely coincidental.

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…

Pearls of Wisdom

www.warriorofthelight.comCopyright @ 2009 by Paulo Coelho
I decided to conduct a survey among my friends about what society considers to be normal behavior. What follows is a list I have made of some of the absurd situations we face in day-to-day life, just because society sees them as normal:
Anything that makes us forget our true identity and our dreams and makes us only work to produce and reproduce.
Making rules for a war (the Geneva Convention).
Spending years at university and then not being able to find a job.
Working from nine in the morning to five in the afternoon at something that does not give us the least pleasure, so that we can retire after 30 years.
Retiring only to discover that we have no more energy to enjoy life, and then dying of boredom after a few years.
Using Botox.
Trying to be financially successful instead of seeking happiness.
Ridiculing those who seek happiness instead of money by calling them “people with no ambition”.
Comparing objects like cars, houses and clothes, and defining life according to these comparisons instead of really trying to find out the true reason for being alive.
Not talking to strangers. Saying nasty things about our neighbors.
Thinking that parents are always right.
Getting married, having children and staying together even though the love has gone, claiming that it’s for the sake of the children (who do not seem to be listening to the constant arguments).
Criticizing everybody who tries to be different.
Waking up with a hysterical alarm-clock at the bedside.
Believing absolutely everything that is printed.
Wearing a piece of colored cloth wrapped around the neck for no apparent reason and known by the pompous name “necktie”.
Never asking direct questions, even though the other person understands what you want to know.
Keeping a smile on your face when you really want to cry. And feeling sorry for those who show their own feelings.
Thinking that art is worth a fortune, or else that it is worth absolutely nothing.
Always despising what was easily gained, because the “necessary sacrifice” – and therefore also the required qualities – are missing.
Following fashion, even though it all looks ridiculous and uncomfortable.
Being convinced that all the famous people have tons of money saved up.
Investing a lot in exterior beauty and paying little attention to interior beauty.
Using all possible means to show that even though you are a normal person, you are infinitely superior to other human beings.
In any kind of public transport, never looking straight into the eyes of the other passengers, as this may be taken for attempting to seduce them.
When you enter an elevator, looking straight at the door and pretending you are the only person inside, however crowded it may be.
Never laughing out loud in a restaurant, no matter how funny the story is.
In the Northern hemisphere, always wearing the clothes that match the season of the year: short sleeves in springtime (however cold it may be) and a woolen jacket in the fall (no matter how warm it is).
In the Southern hemisphere, decorating the Christmas tree with cotton wool, even though winter has nothing to do with the birth of Christ.
As you grow older, thinking you are the wisest man in the world, even though not always do you have enough life experience to know what is wrong.
Going to a charity event and thinking that in this way you have collaborated enough to put an end to all the social inequalities in the world.
Eating three times a day, even if you’re not hungry.
Believing that the others are always better at everything: they are better-looking, more resourceful, richer and more intelligent. Since it’s very risky to venture beyond your own limits, it’s better to do nothing.
Using the car as a way to feel powerful and in control of the world.
Using foul language in traffic.
Thinking that everything your child does wrong is the fault of the company he or she is keeping.
Marrying the first person who offers you a position in society. Love can wait.
Always saying “I tried”, even though you haven’t tried at all.
Putting off doing the most interesting things in life until you no longer have the strength to do them.
Avoiding depression with massive daily doses of television programs.
Believing that it is possible to be sure of everything you have won.
Thinking that women don’t like football and that men don’t like interior decoration.
Blaming the government for everything bad that happens.
Being convinced that being a good, decent and respectful person means that the others will find you weak, vulnerable and easy to manipulate.
Being convinced that aggressiveness and discourtesy in treating others are signs of a powerful personality.
Being afraid of fibroscopy (men) and childbirth (women).
And finally, thinking that your religion is the sole proprietor of the absolute truth, the most important, the best, and that the other human beings in this immense planet who believe in any other manifestation of God are condemned to the fires of hell.

Affirmative Action: A Beacon of Hope

A couple of days back, Kiddy, our little kitten, had a bad accident, and I had to rush her to emergency care at the Tamil Nadu Government Veterinary College and Hospital. Despite all the talk and negative perceptions about the type of care given to patients in government hospitals, I had to go there because Kiddy’s condition was really serious—she was mauled by two grown-up cats; one them her own mother!

In the hospital, she was immediately attended to. Her wounds were bandaged, glucose was administered, and an x-ray was taken. In about 2–3 hours, the entire process was over and I was told to return the following day when Kiddy’s trauma would have subsided. As a young child, well even as a grown-up, visiting a medical college was something big, even if getting into one was next to impossible, what with the high cutoff marks and the near-impossible-to-crack syllabus, which only the truly brainy can aspire to be part of. And, the doctors who passed out always maintained this steely exterior of the learned, whose mere shadow venerated the ground it fell on.

Well, all my stereotypes of the doctors and medical students were about to change. Yes, there was something very strange and different about these students. They were medical students who would soon become doctors, but lacked even a trace of the hype that surrounds such students. Something has changed, yes, something definitely was different. And, it was unique to Chennai. Because, in Delhi, the medical college students participating in the much-touted, but demented agitation against reservation, were clearly different—they had this aura about being the very learned or brainy students, which only reinforced the stereotype I carried about them. But, I wonder where their brains went when they took to novel ways of agitation; they started sweeping the roads to show what will happen to them if reservation was implemented! Clearly, if I was being treated by these students, I will be treated as if I were a thing to be studied! Not as a human, who had just one life.

So, back to the Chennai medical students, who were very different in their approach—
very methodical, but with a sense of simplicity. They could have easily been a cousin or a relative. One of them was getting a syringe ready when I turned and he quietly said, sorry maam, did I spray the water on you by mistake? Such humility! The chief doctor was equally nice. So well-qualified to do her job, but with such elegance and simplicity that with just her simple hello or how are you, she could reach out.

As I was growing up, there was always talk about how doctors needed to be compassionate when they treated their patients. But, if your family atmosphere always made you feel superior to lesser mortals (the depressed classes) how can you reach out compassionately to, for example, a riot victim, a drunkard, a child rape victim, or a victim of domestic violence? Especially, if your patients come from backgrounds you have no scope of knowing or the backgrounds that you so abhor. Then, those patients will naturally become a lab specimen to be studied! But, how is that medical students in Chennai are so different today? Are they seeing a sister or a brother or an aunt in their patients? Have they become compassionate? Which, I believe, to be the first qualification to be a doctor! Is there a special paper on compassion? Or, have their backgrounds come closer to the backgrounds of the common people? I guess the latter is the reason, and it has happened because of affirmative action. The students today was naturally dark-skinned, come from government schools, talk in the local Tamil dialect (not a sankritized dialect), and do not believe in pollution (because they come from the so-called polluting or backward castes). These students are my hope for the future…a future rebuilt…a past reclaimed. No wonder, Tamil Nadu is one of the progressive states in the country. Am truly happy to come from a state that hasn’t batted an eyelid before implementing reservation. Our doctors are more effective because they combine medical science with compassion, which comes not from sympathy, but from empathy.

Reality, go away…

After copying and pasting other people’s ideas and thoughts, the ones that resonated with mine, it’s time for me pen down my own thoughts…well, does it really matter? People rarely stumble on my blog; even if they do, they don’t find my writing compelling enough to stir out a response. But, is that the only reason why I must write…for people to respond? Nothing could be more pathetic a reason a write. But, what could possibly be a reason for one to write…to lighten yourself? Or, for a transient high at seeing one’s ability to commit to virtual screen the subjective reality of one’s thoughts? Now these are more pathetic reasons to write…well, to say that am writing just because I want to write, without any expectations—I don’t want you to respond to what I have to say…am not inviting you for a discussion…am not even hoping you would have read so much to get till here—I believe is a ‘safe’ reason to write.

Somebody I admire a lot once said, “for some reason fiction dances out of me, whereas nonfiction is wrenched out.” She couldn’t be more correct. In real life, dreams happen/dance out of you as if they were there always, like a pleasant green meadow or a clear sky. And, events (reality!) are so out of place (wrenched out of you) like a parched dry land in the middle of an enormous ocean! Why do these things happen? Is this some sort of mystical law? The law that unites/homogenizes all things? Is this the law of subjective reality? Is my reality something so very far removed from the reality of person A? Is person A’s reality only a dream for me? Then, the law of unity doesn’t apply anymore, because my universe is governed by a different set of laws. Then, in that case, I need to be in a different plane of existence, where I don’t have to compete with someone whose reality has been only my dream. That person can never become an ‘ideal’ for me. I need a different world…a world that has no control…a world where I can be what I am…where I am not told to behave like a woman…where I don’t have to stay ‘where’ I am supposed to be…where the dalit is not a dalit; just a human. Where people don’t crush each other through economics, skin color, ‘God’s word,’ body type, or institutions like marriage, patriarchy, and capitalism.

How much longer will it take for dreams to come back…reality is sickening!

Simi, please shut up!

After watching the latest episode of We the People on NDTV last night, to say I am numbed is simply an understatement. Of the many things that irk me about NDTV is the type of people they give air time! Simi was one of the panelists, and guess what type of solutions she was rattling of to contain terror! Stop paying taxes! Wah! What else can she think of, even at this hour of intense grief and anger? Even at this hour, Simi is bothered only about how her ‘hard-earned’ tax money is spent! So, if she doesn’t have to pay taxes, she’s ok with the terror attacks, eh? What skewed logic does this excuse for a human have!

Then, she tells Barkha to go atop some high-rise hotels and check out the flags flying in the slums around. She says, you’ll not find the congress party’s or the shiv sena’s; it’s Pakistani flags! I wonder if there are countries where one can be given life imprisonment for talking nonsense. First of all look at her ignorance and stupidity in equating the congress and the shiv sena! Then, the outright illiteracy when she declares the muslim/islam flag to be Pakistani flags! Can’t she see the coincidence? Is she also blind, besides being stupid? God help this country from idiots like these…

Weird Ad Sense!

A rather odd-looking antique car zips past dry fields. In a twinkling of an eye, you see the reason for the oddity—the headlights are replaced by half-naked young boys. Another young boy dressed similarly tries to take a shorter route to reach the car’s destination on foot! He runs just in time to climb down into the Raja’s chandlier before the Raja, coming by car, sits for his food. There’s just time enough for the half naked boy to climb into his spot in the chandlier and pop a mouth freshener that whitens his teeth enough to replace a light bulb. He shows his teeth in a plastic smile just in time for the ‘lights’ to be on before the Raja is seated for dinner! There are several other boys munching the same mouth freshener and replacing light bulbs in the garden where the royal ladies are playing shuttle cock. They are also there around the fence of the palace with their smiles; they are there in every nook and cranny of the royal chambers, ‘lighting’ up the palace. This is an ad for “Happy Dent,” mouth freshner!
What a strange way to advertise for a mouth freshener! Is this absolute death of creativity or the outright arrogance of the upper classes that has blinded them to their own stupidity? Isn’t there a law or something that prohibits such brazen display of feudalism? By the way, isn’t feudalism and slavery illegal? Isn’t this a marker of human rights violation? All said and done it’s just a horrible excuse for an ad that must be banned on the basis of supporting illegal practices and also for lacking in basic aesthetic sense.

Hey patriots!

Beware of the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry, [who] infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How will I know? For this I have done. And I am Julius Caesar

Strange Fruit

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

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?

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there maybe in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story. Avoid loud andaggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let not this blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in theface of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things ofyouth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You area child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.Therefore, be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams; it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

--- Max Ehrmann, 1927