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

Memories

As the years roll, when memories fade into oblivion, the only recourse that one can take to preserve the beautiful memories is putting them down in black and white…I miss…

The days I would hang on to the window hoping to see the smiling face of an uncommonly common man cycle toward my house every evening…

The days when the smartest woman in my world walk towards my home every evening and I running into her arms…

The days when I would simply give up my share of ‘yummy’ snacks to the little hairy thing born 5 years after me…

The days when I opened my new textbooks to smell them…

The days when daddy covered my notebooks with brown paper, and when they tore with the back of calendar sheets…

The days when I used to be thrilled to get ‘free’ labels to stick on my notebooks…

The days when I got excited about learning a new subject because history and geography came only after class 1 and botany, zoology, physics and chemistry only after class 6…

The days when I didn’t care about getting wet in the rains or getting leg sores…

The days when I would walk on the road and sing without people staring at me…and, then suddenly imagine myself to be riding the street hawk bike and speed past people like a tornado…

The days when I would feel an enormous sense of achievement and pride at being able to recite 10 bible verses…

The days when we’d go to early morning church services and wait for them for the whole year…

The days when an outing to the beach or fair was an annual event…

The days when playing was necessarily in the outdoors…

The days when being able to look into the well and spite into it when no one watched was a big secret…

The days when digging a pit with garden hovels was a big deal…

The days when watching wild honey being harvested from the trees in your house was common…

Ek choti si kahani...

“Oh my God, what’s this?” my domestic help let out a squeal as she entered the balcony to sweep it. The balcony was filled with all kinds of debris because my neighbors upstairs were renovating their house. “You tell them to clean up the place, I will only sweep it, am not throwing it out,” my domestic help said decisively. Being a Tamilian in Delhi is not a very easy thing, especially if Hindi isn’t exactly at your disposal, even if you had studied it with élan and even won a scholarship for scoring high marks! Well, I did all this in Tamil Nadu, where one emotion that unites ALL Tamilians irrespective of their class or caste is the raw hatred they feel towards Hindi! Incidentally, my accountant at one of my workplaces in Chennai refused to smile at me the moment he saw that I had studied Hindi in school! Boy, it is one of those things in life where you don’t have a choice! Mom and dad in their dreams of seeing their daughters in ‘comfortable’ central government jobs put us in Hindi sections despite the smirks from all and sundry!

Anyway, my help had decided that I must definitely talk to the neighbor, and I started composing my lines in chaste Hindi..aka..my text book Hindi. I decided that I must be my polite best even if the neighbor irritates me, which delhities do so well. Actually, am not exaggerating. If you are a single woman, a tamilian, dark, smart, and have a go-getter attitude with friends visiting you in cars, cycles, and autos, you have had it from the neighbors, even if you are living in a south Delhi apartment. Well, I don’t say that evry one in delhi is like this, but even sane, good people behave differently if you fit in the above description. Anyway, as I was rehearsing my lines near the sink, my eyes fell on the bathroom window! It was gone! Yes, the glass was completely smashed. The sight set me on fire, all my tamilian passion fueled the fires, a strange mix of tamilian pride and feministic anger surfaced and my chaste Hindi was in no time replaced with some choicest expletives from Tamil, Hindi and English. I rushed upstairs, taking two steps at a time and banged the door of the ‘over-smart’ North Indian neighbor. A 16-year-old guy opened the door and moved away to hold a doggie away from me. Of course, the doggie did mellow down the anger, but I was in no way prepared to face what happened next.

A middle-aged woman entered the room and greeted me with one of most beautiful smiles I have seen. I melted at the very sight and gasped for breath and words, forgetting all the rehearsed lines. I looked at the doggie for inspiration, he nodded. Taking that as some sort of divine intervention, I quietly explained to the neighbor about the broken glass and the debris on my balcony. She cheerfully said, “beta, aap nahi rehate ho nah, isiliye hum saaf nahi kar sake.” (Daughter, you are not here during the day dear, that why we are not able to clean it.) Then, I mumbled about the broken glass, which she accepted to fix soon, and then she enquired if I had had breakfast and that I must come to her place often and have food and even chat with her. I just looked at her wide eyed, smiled and hoping some of her cheer and love will rub off on me. I hadn’t understood till that moment the price of a smile…it is truly invaluable. It was such a beautiful start for my day, I continued to smile at every one and even wish people…a smile can make all the difference to you and people around, only if you choose to do it more often.

Keep smiling always…

with lots of smile....signing off...

ammukutty

Understanding the meaning and quality of space

A discussion with a colleague about space got me started on this whole debate of space…the need for it and occasionally, its denial or even nonexistence for the uninitiated. Let’s start from the basics…when exactly do we understand the concept of space, aka, individual space versus community/shared spaces. In India, having an individual space is a luxury, whereas in the developed countries it is a fundamental rightJ why is it a luxury, and in some cases, considered a curse, in India? One obvious reason of course is the paucity of space, what with just single families owning acres and acres of prime property at the heart of the city. The poor of course are left to ‘share’ the leftover space, besides the leftover food of the rich and the mighty.

I have heard many a lament about nuclear families, the dying of the unnecessarily glorified joint family systems, the importance of family dinners every single day, even if people of the family come home at different times! But, practically speaking, aren’t nuclear families more workable? Is it really necessary to indulge in mollycoddling with one’s extended family members every day? Don’t family dinners every day bring in their share of problems? I mean, when I am working on an important deliverable at work or when I have this irresistible urge to have a MacD dinner, should I numb my feelings and revel in the joys of a family dinner? With changing lifestyles, food habits, preferences, and even waking hours, shouldn’t the society and the family remold itself?

I believe, to satisfy one’s needs, we have created structured institutions that have brought in their own share of problems that have no simple solutions. I see structures, such as the ones in which women definitely moving into the husband’s house with proper markers of marriage, giving up careers to tend the parents-in-law, men working hard to earn an extra buck to give the son the best so that the son in turn will support his old parents, make people to share a compulsive space at the cost of the realization of conscious choices. However, with industrialization and globalization, one is constantly faced with choices! Ten years back, I didn’t even know that I had a choice about the kind of clothes I could wear! Extrapolating the idea, a lot of us didn’t know, or rather still don’t know, that we had a choice about our beliefs, our religion, our clothes, our identity, our profession, our partners, and our food habits! But, today, the world I see has changed so much that I cannot exist without being conscious of the choices before me and making informed choices! I can no longer be without exercising my free will. And, when I exercise my free will, I am at loggerheads with structures that have failed to change with the time!

I do not advocate for the ‘going away’ of the family, but I definitely advocate the need for the people who make up the family to meaningfully relate to the trends of the world. An interesting example is choosing one’s partners. Today’s world presents one with a multitude of opportunities and scenarios where you need to make quick and correct decisions, whose consequences you are ready to face. Sometimes, you even plan to mitigate the risks! We make such foolproof plans that will simply not go haywire. However, when a girl and a boy like each other, the biggest opposition seems to come from the ‘seemingly caring’ families! In such a scenario, isn’t the family playing a detrimental role in building an individual’s confidence in one’s choices? Especially, when the individual is supposed to be making choices every single minute? Does this point bring us back to the question of space? Can today’s family adjust to the needs of the changing life and accommodate everything with positivity and love? I find it hilarious when people say they love their children, but hate their childrens’ choices! In such cases, I find the family redundant and pointless! In such cases, the family contributes to shrinking an individual than in building one. How can families, which are fonts of love and emotional bonding, be reduced to places where an individual’s ability to express and live is smothered in the name of duty, caste, religion, and tradition? How does one assert one’s space, more because if I don’t start asserting my space at home, I can assert it no where else?

I believe, that to become a developed nation in the true sense of the word, we need to understand the essential difference between individual space and community space, love and control, emotions and values, care and helplessness, and individual choice and a prescriptive lifestyle. We need to share our resources not our mental spaces, we need to share love not our individual minds, we need to share our food not our food habits…

To be continued…after more enlightenment;)

My daddy, strongest

My association with my daddy goes back by about 3 decades; 3 decades filled with every conceivable emotion on earth. Of course, the first 3-4 years are shrouded in the mystery of childhood, the rest are clear, etched in my mind for posterity.

My earliest memories are of a very young daddy; incidentally, for some weird reason, I never feel daddy looks old, ever. Even now, I feel he looks the same! “It’s all in his genes,” ma says about his family. Talking of dad’s family, I find them to have a strange mixture of everything. Looks, health, brain, wealth, every damn thing, probably it’s that potent combination that carved my daddy’s personality. Yeah, going back to my memories, I remember daddy taking me on his cycle. He fixed a baby seat for me along with a foot rest. Now, I wonder if he made the foot rest himself coz he’s good at metal carving; I vaguely remember ma talking of some lovely metal carving he presented her, which she misplaced! I was once down with a severe attack of jaundice. Every evening daddy used to ride me on his cycle to the naturopath, who was at least 7-8 km away from home. It was such a lovely ride for me. I knew all the land marks, some bushes, then open grounds with sand, with grass, etc. Daddy used to keep talking, rather would continue to answer my constant prattle. There used to be places where there used to be tones of mosquitoes, he would tell me to close my eyes and mouth. Probably, he took his breaks from my constant chatter!

The next memory is how Naveen (a close cousin and a friend) and I used to fight for pouring water on the chicken’s cut head to ensure that the blood doesn’t clot! Such bloody kids we were! Dad used to cut the chicken so damn skillfully. Soak it in hot water, defeather it, smoke it a little and then rub turmeric over it. Finally, he will make pieces of the right size and cleaned the gizzard so skillfully! We used to be so riveted by that sight. Too bad, I didn't pick up the art:( Then, Naveen and I used to carry them one after the other to the kitchen, where ma or grandma or athai would cook the chicken.

Once, it was time for my little sister’s birth, ma was in the hospital, I was left at my Grandparents’ place, which I loathed royally. I hated being there. Daddy couldn’t see the tears in my eyes and took me home and comforted me. I remember that night very clearly because I knew daddy didn’t sleep that night, I could see his cigarette light the entire night. Now, I know why he didn’t sleep that night; ma delivered my sister that night all alone, and dad just couldn’t forgive himself for leaving ma alone, neither could he see tears in his little daughter’s eyes. Maybe, that’s why he fell so completely in love with the little one who was born on that night, the little brat, Christina Priya Dhanuja! Boy, she had loads of hair on her head. It's her in the snap with mom and dad.

One day, my sister threatened to run away from home, she was just 5 at that time! She started walking only to return in a couple of minutes. Dad was waiting for her and suddenly she jumped screaming, aiyo paamabu! It was a little viper! Daddy deftly caught it and killed that little devil!

Then, came our trips across the country. Since dad worked for the railways, train travel was free! Every year, ma would plan the trip and dad would write the pass and take us to Bangalore, Mysore, Salem, Kerala, Bombay, Delhi, etc…

Our church skits…dad used to make those lovely angel wings, our models, and even design our clothes! I remember once I was dancing on the stage, and I saw one figure in the audience sitting very far from the stage and enjoying so thoroughly. It was my daddy, I still can’t verbalize how happy and protected I felt at that moment. I remember palm sundays...how his hands transformed some plain looking coconut sheaves into snake pits, snakes jumping out from a basket...actually, our grandfather was much better at it, making all types of mats, fans, dolls, etc...

Then, there used be a huge sapotta tree in our house. The fruits used to be the size of an apple! Am not exaggerating! We used to have so much fun plucking those fruits. Dad would organize the whole thing…the bed sheets, the people to climb (all the kids in the neighborhood, including my sister), and then arranging the fruits in the manner in which they would ripen perfectly. There used be honey combs on trees sometimes, and dad used to so neatly collect the honey for us. There used to be these coconut-plucking sessions he would organize with some professional climbers. Lovely times they were…

Then, came the idea of getting me a cycle. Daddy said, you learn to ride the cycle, I’ll get it for you. I said I knew; it was one of the best white lies I ever said! Of course, dad forgot my lies and taught me to ride the cycle.

My sister used to be sick when she was young, and so on some days he will take her to the doctor. The route used be through my school, and I would spot them riding away. Once my sister turned and started squealing for joy coz she saw me, I also screamed for joy and all three of us waved to each other…This whole blog will not be enough to write all the memories I have about daddy’s histrionics. However, I have written all that I could…

At work, dad rose from a very low rank. Today, he’s a Senior Section Officer. It fills me with so much pride to be his daughter. Dad, is completely a self-made person. He built our lovely house. While he was building the house, he caught a funny accent, the accent of the construction workers. Now wonder they adored him:)

My daddy is a daring individual, a master craftsman, a great actor, singer, whistler (I mean he whistles so beautifully), and a sweet person at heart. It's so strange to see someone, who's seen so much life, to be so excited and happy about life. He's one person who's taught us, his daughters, to appreciate the beauty of life and be happy in any situation. Every day, we learn so much from him.

Recently, he fell very seriously ill. But, God stood by daddy through the entire ordeal, yes, by daddy, who stands by us always.

I love my daddy

Periya ammu

(Actually, I am ‘only’ ammu, but with the birth of the little one, the focus shifted to ‘chinna’ ammu, and I became periya ammu, at least for daddy, heee…)

Ps: You can see more of 'our' memories in Christina's blog at http://forgottenfloods.blogspot.com/

The Schindler's List

“It’s a very moving movie, I thoroughly enjoyed it, I even copied it on to my system,” declared one of my friends about The Schindler’s List. So, I decided that it’s time I saw it. This Oct 2, 2007, I watched it finally after several years of its makingJ Just thought I should share something about what I felt about this movie and the questions it raised in my mind about human sentiments, the universality of life, pain, man’s thirst for blood shed and violence, the arrogant ideas of hierarchy of class and caste, genocide, etc…

The photography is undeniably great, even for someone like me, who’s completely illiterate about the role visuals play in a movie. The entire movie, except a couple of scenes, is shot in black and white. But, not even once did I feel the need for ‘color.’ I wonder if it was the movie or the visuals that makes the audience fluidly slip into the movie and remain right inside this poignant replay of the utter chaos and break down of human values.

The movie starts with a family of Jews observing the Sabbath…then, suddenly, you see hordes of Jews being treated so mercilessly—they are told to ‘register’ themselves and move to bigger cities. Everyone, including the elderly and the children, are supposed to register. The pain of being pulled out of your homeland and to resettle and be treated like a pack of dogs is so beautifully expressed in the movie. Slowly, the situation changes from bad to worse as Jews are pulled out of their homes and things are flung from roof tops, much to the glee of their German neighbors. Holding their heads in shame and unable to grapple with the threat to life, the Jewish families run out with whatever they could take with them and pack their large suitcases. Their suitcases are conveniently confiscated by the German authorities before the Jewish families are herded into trains taking them to their certain death.

Just as when you think God, has all hell broken loose? Can’t there be a solution? We see Oskar Schindler, a multimillioner and a womanizer entering the fray. The rest of the movie is about how Oskar saves ‘his’ Jews from certain death. He comes up with one excuse or the other to save the life over 1100 Jews. The fine play of emotions and the terse dialogues keep you glued to the movie. The number of Jews that Schindler saved might be just a fraction of the 6 million Jews who were exterminated in the Holocaust. However, this act stands testimony to the power of love in the face of certain death.

It left me wondering about why this whole genocide was committed? Was it because of the ethnic superiority that Hitler poisoned his people about? What happened to the conscience of the German people? Even if the Jews milked the land of all its wealth, did they deserve this? Men, women, children…all treated alike. All gassed and burnt! This was not revenge, it was something else. Why did they harbor so much anger and jealousy about these people that they systematically annihilated them? Have the times changed now? Are things like Gujarat and Iraq a replay of the Holocaust played out in bits and pieces? Can the situation change? If we are in a situation as Oskar Schindler, would we throw stones and spit at our neighbors or stand up for them?

Do let me know, what you think…we can discuss.