parenting

I wonder if people consider the philosophical and moral implications of bringing up a child.

One of the most common arguments I've heard for having children is the continuation of the family line. If a family wants to extend their lineage, why not write a well-researched account of its oral history instead? I would imagine it would problematise and enrich notions of who is a Muslim, etc., who is an Indian, etc. which we need desperately. It would take away academic (and by extension class, caste, geography and gender) monopoly over who writes these histories, and what kind of histories are heard.

But I digress. Not everybody cares about knowledge monopolisation and that's okay.

Another argument is having someone to take care of you when you grow old. This is a justified anxiety since not many of us care to die alone and it's comforting to have someone with whom you have an intimately shared history with. I imagine the economics of raising a child take care, partly, of this requirement. I think we may have enough to provide for ourselves when we grow old, were we to not spend on raising children. Of course, emotionally we may choose the intimacy of having our own children to share our old age with, rather than friends or other relationships. But that is not reason enough to have children, since it doesn't account for the personal liberty of the child.

I also want to protest against the hypocrisy of this justification: a parent-child relationship is considered emotional, and is operationalised emotionally, but the justification (particularly this one) to have a child seems rather transactional. In this sense, rural families who decide to have children so that they can pitch in economically seems to me a more candid approach to having children, although it is equally unjustified for the same reason: children are not a means to an end, just as much as parents aren't.

A third argument is that children are a source of company in an otherwise lonely world, or relationship. Let's not consider the latter situation, since children are not a means to make a parent feel better about themselves or their relationship with their partner. To the justification that children are a source of emotional joy and security, it's harder to apply the utilitarian critique because theoretically, parents also lend emotional support and comfort to their children. But does this always happen?

The question now is: once I decide to become a parent, do I also think about how to become a good parent? (By 'good' I mean, a parent who is emotionally caring and looks at a child not just as a source of emotional solace but also as an individual with rights.)

To understand just how difficult parenting is, let's compare it with teaching. As a teacher it is possible to have access to resources, planned training; to have the luxury of experimentation and personal space while working with children. Teachers get paid, too. As a parent, on the other hand I have almost nothing except anecdotal advice from almost everybody, de-contextualised resources, discontinuous support and a stupendous invasion of my private and/or professional life. What kind of support, really, do parents have on how to raise a child? Why does our society not acknowledge this lack?

There are some people in this world who have really made a muck of being parents. Their children are trying their best to be well-adjusted despite their upbringing. Their parents, in turn are trying to cope with dark moments of feeling defeated and self-betrayed. Both children and their parents have to eventually find support systems elsewhere. This process is immensely difficult because of unnatural and unjustified expectations that society places on parenting and children's relationship with their parents.These expectations also make acknowledging this social failure almost impossible: bad parents are rare and their children have bad luck.

In fact, I think it's really hard to be a parent because although they are encouraged to be one, they are hardly given any pragmatic support once this irreversible deed has been accomplished. Parents are left stranded and unprepared to handle the enormity of laying foundational groundwork in a child's life, entirely on their own. Is it enough that women can fertilise eggs and lactate, that men can generate sperm, that they have a stable socio-economic arrangement, that they get along with each other? Where is the child in all of this biological and economic preparation?

Perhaps people who decide to be single parents have had the opportunity to think a little harder on the philosophical implications of bringing up a child, since it isn't a natural extension of their current state in life. It is not enough to think about the potential changes in one's personal life (given that that is also a crucial component of the decision-making process) simply because being a parent is not entirely about you.

We need to free parenting from its essentialist trappings. Being a parent is not natural, simply because procreation is. We need to think of it as a choice, as a role that people need support and preparation for.

freedom and democracy

Excerpt from The Diary of a School Teacher, by Hemraj Bhatt (trans. Sharada Jain)

While watching T.V., I came across a news item about a Madhya Pradesh teacher who had advertised in the newspapers for a female friend to massage him and fulfil his sexual needs. The police, on reading the advert, conducted a sting operation on the teacher and took him to the police station. Here, they asked him vulgar questions again and again – just to enjoy themselves at the expense of his discomfort. The teacher, on his part, was visibly ashamed and kept apologising, saying that he would never do something like this again.

The TV channels played this clip on loop. Several questions came to my mind. What do these channels want to convey by showing such news? What is worth showing and what is not? What was so great about conducting a sting operation on a poor teacher?

In a country and in a society where nothing is immoral if done on the sly, who gave the police and the TV channels the right to define morality?

This teacher could have fulfilled his desires without the advertisement. Then the police and journalists would not have known about him. But he expressed his feelings. What does freedom mean in a democracy?

Hemraj Bhatt (1968-2008) was a assistant primary schoolteacher in a government primary school in Uttarkashi. He was the only official teacher in a school for 51 children, ranging from classes 1 to 5. He began keeping a diary which was translated and published after his death. His reflections provide insight not just on his daily struggles to provide meaningful education to his children but also on the entire education system itself. Read the full diary here.

a friend and a therapist

Friends you can count on are rare. Friends who help you through depression are an even rarer subset. But should your friend also be your therapist?

I speak for myself when I say no, she should not. In the throes of depression I cannot see things which are fairly obvious. She makes the decision to be the calmer of the two and attempts to show these things to me. But this decision comes at a cost--she has to overcome her own fear and shock and try, at all costs, not to display it to me. She has to discard everything she's doing and concentrate entirely on me. No matter how she's been feeling, she must rally enormous emotional forces from within herself and use them to systematically counter every argument my corrupted mind throws at myself, at her.

But every time this happens, she is put in a terrible position of grappling between love and helplessness. Unlike my therapist, she has had no training in clinical psychology; any strategies she comes up with are ones she creates on her own, based on her intimate knowledge of me, the connections she makes from the history we share and her learnings from previous conversations. She never stops learning, she never stops trying for me.

But she's my friend. She's not a therapist. She comes from a position of love, and it is this same position which overwhelms her each time these conversations happen, because it is beyond the scope of our love to provide me with ways to cope with depression. Her love convinces me that I need these strategies, but it cannot always provide them to me. There is nothing right or wrong about this, and neither is this a limitation: this is a fact.

If you have someone like this on your life, don't take them for granted. Talk to them whenever you need to, but if you want help, go to a therapist or a doctor. Just like self-medication, forcing them to be your therapist is harmful and unfair on both of you. Remember that every breakdown you suffer from, they suffer with you, and somewhere it is worse for them, since they do not have medication or therapy to fall back on. You should.

'Zindagi Gulzar Hai'

There comes a time when you realize that you have surrendered a part of your heart to a book, film, television series or a professor because they leave you moved. The writer, the artist becomes a presence in your mind separate from your experience of their work.

With each redefining moment of watching Kashav's story I feel a complicated mixture of love and alarm at its intensity. I sometimes cannot believe this story has actually been written.

Sultana apa, you have my heart. Don't let me down; I won't be able to bear it.

[No spoilers, please.]

can we be counter-imaginative?

It was half past eight in the evening. I was cycling back from university to my hostel. (The road approaching my hostel is hardly a road; it has bumps the size of small hillocks. I usually stand up and ride this rough stretch.) I was emerging from an unlit, dark 400 metre stretch of this road when a group of four men suddenly jumped in front of my cycle, shouted "Ha!" and ran away, laughing. 

I stopped in my tracks and tried to understand what had just happened. Was this an issue of safety, human dignity, violence against women? Why did they do this? And suddenly, a thought entered my head: what made them behave specifically the way they did? This wasn't a spontaneous outburst; it was a planned, unwelcome flash mob. Even if it took them a couple of minutes, they had obviously devised their scheme carefully. It had been executed with perfection. In addition to this, it takes a fair amount of controlled recklessness to jump in front of a moving vehicle in the dark. It was imaginative.

Which brings me back to the idea of using imagination to devise strategies which can counter, or attempt to counter sexual violence. This is, of course, applicable only in situations where the survivors of sexual violence wish to put themselves out there, once again, without any guarantees of safety or success. Apart from the survivor's personal choices, it also depends on the kind of sexual violence we are trying to devise strategies for. It may seem exceedingly difficult, for instance, to come up with a strategy to counter rape as it is happening. But can we come up with a way to respond to being ogled?

There is some work being done around this idea by Blank Noise. 

The question of context is never far behind when thinking of issues of sexual violence or really, any social issue. There are no universal values, and there can definitely be no "10 Ways To..." counter being forcibly objectified. That said, we definitely can benefit from imagining, visualising, discussing and hopefully experimenting with strategies to counter this kind of daily violence against women, within our specific contexts.  

Initial thoughts on possessing a shaved head

1 The slightest breeze feels like waves of wind flowing over my head.

2 I still have to shampoo! Because dandruff doesn't go away with hair.

3 The kajal in my eyes and earrings seem to stand out more - maybe there is a facial proportion answer to this.

4 People, known or unknown, are franker with their reactions - they laugh or widen their eyes in a way that I cannot miss.

5 I have to rearrange the way I dance to hindi songs because I can't use my hair anymore.

6 It really does feel light up there.

7 Looking at my reflection in the mirror is an exercise in self-discomfort. It's sometimes hard to get used to the way my face has changed.

8 I don't feel nice when my roommate says, "you look like a boy!" And I wonder why.

9 There is a slight but significant shift in the way most men see me. It's as if I have become an object of curiosity instead an object of sexual overpowering, if only momentarily.

10 Women come and tell me how they have been wanting to do the same thing for a long time now. I know how that feels, because it took me three years.

11 I sometimes forget I don't have hair anymore, when I absently run my hand over my head.

12 It surprisingly doesn't annoy me when people stroke my head, but I can imagine it must be for others.

13 I suspect people ask women a lot more questions than they do men, when women choose to shave off their hair.

14 People ask a lot of questions.

Life, this endless conversation with yourself

Silent in sanity, audible--
In madness.

Zohra Sehegal, The Telegraph, 2004

Ab ki baar...

And a close favourite:

Seeing there is no place left for reason or humanity.

Source

"People are lego." - Shibani

arriving

4:23 pm: That feeling of wonder when you know that you have been in two different places in the same day. In the morning you were in one city: an entirely different experience which made a different person out of you. And then you crossed over to another city, setting on its horizon. Changing cities like a chameleon. It takes time to arrive to another place, even if you've been there before. 

dreaming of you, a letter at a time

Dear You,

Millions of terrible things happen around the world everyday. Sometimes headlines make me wish I could extinguish every tomorrow in store. But I can't and more importantly, that would be running away from problems.

So don't feel stupid if you have faith in people. I cannot prevent the heartbreak that you will experience when your trust is broken, when you are let down, when you are left behind. This will happen often to you with many people, and it might also happen often with one person. But don't feel stupid about putting your faith in people.

Of course, protect your heart. From abuse, exploitation, and sometimes your own low self-esteem. But don't put it in a cage. Don't shield yourself from love. Don't shield yourself from disappointment. They are both wonderful teachers. One day, after the hurt has passed, you might even be able to smile about the sunny days.

You might struggle with this conflict - whether maturity means to stop seeing the world through a kaleidoscope. But please know that the nice thing about maturity is that you can decide what it means. For me, it currently means being able to do my laundry on time. (I'm awful at it.) People around me, younger than me, are doing their laundry effortlessly. I cannot explain to you how easy it is to begin feeling, "Everybody around me has their laundry shit sorted so well. I'm such a fool. I'll never be able to do my laundry as well as they can." I might be biased, but this line of thought only pulls you down, down, down. I cannot explain my faith to you, but it will be alright. Trust me.

Never worry about where you will end up. There is no end, as long as you are alive. There is no race - it looks very much like it, I know. You might go to school, then college, then you might decide something for yourself. And it might seem that everybody around you is huffing and puffing, their breathing choppy, their eyes big and worried. I know I musn't assume things, but I'm quite sure that even when you come into the world, talk of this great race will not have ceased.

As life has taught me, this race is a very sticky illusion. It is one of the many things that many people take very seriously. The choice is yours, of course (but I cannot help declaring that the race seems straight out of the pages of Alice in Wonderland. What was that? Italicisation. All names of texts must be slanted like that when you type them out. That's a whole other discussion. Oh, I do wish I could talk with you sometimes.)

Just like it's a mistake to believe that simply because everybody is running, so should you, it's a mistake to believe that the people in the race are bad people. That's the tough thing about maturity. Disagree with people, it's exciting and often healthy. But try, if you can, to not quickly dismiss something you don't agree with.

The other thing I wanted to talk with you about is my imperfection. I am responsible for you, but I might slip up sometimes. I might do things, say things that will hurt you very deeply. I might make mistakes. You aren't here but I already worry about that sometimes. That I might make mistakes with you. We'll both be learning about each other, you and me. I will have to earn your respect just as you will have to earn mine.

I don't know anything about how to do it right. I will simply trust my reasoning and instinct, and the reasoning and instincts of the people I love. People believe that mothers are supposed to be right, always. Actually, it's another one of those make-believe things that people take very seriously. Tell me when you feel I'm doing something wrong. Don't be afraid. Do it in a way that is comfortable for you, but always know that no matter what, no matter what, my heart burns with love for you. 

I am not trying to excuse myself from the wrongs I will do to you. But you need to know that there is no such thing as an experienced parent, simply because every child is different. We'll both make mistakes. Hopefully, we'll always be able to talk about it.

Sometimes I feel like I'm waiting for you each day. I don't know where you are, but I see your face in every child that I tell a story to. I hope I don't dream of you too much, I don't want to burden you with unconscious expectations when you come true.

Okay enough. I can't wait to raid the fridge at night and have Parle G biscuits dipped in Bournvita with you and her. Come soon.

Love,

मम्मा 

happiness is a warm gun (the beatles seem to have a song for almost everything, sometimes)

source

सवाल

तुझसे नाराज़ नहीं, ज़िन्दगी 

हैरान हूँ मैं

तेरे मासूम सवालों से 

परेशान हूँ मैं 

 ~ गुलज़ार, तुझसे नाराज़ नहीं  (मासूम)

"It's like I have a beautiful, perfect doll in front of me. And I want to break it."

Hello

Tomorrow, I am travelling alone to Himachal Pradesh. I have never travelled alone like this before and the thought fills me with an unlikely mixture of satisfaction and excited curiosity. Satisfaction, because I have honestly acted on an impulse after a very long time and excited curiosity, because despite spending hours poring over websites, books, maps, blogs and talking endlessly to other travellers, my mind is a beautiful, snowy blank when I try to conjure feelings or images about the next fortnight of my life.

This trip is a thing of my dreams. When I thought about my itinerary, all I could think of was, "I want a river nearby." I know what I'm going after on this trip - it's that river. But what happens before, during or after - I don't know. And to know that this trip is such a mystery fills me with happiness. It is humbling and comforting to know that I desire things, but I can't design anything beyond that feeling.

I don't know everything about why I want to travel alone. A few reasons come to my mind like snapping fingers:

The freedom to go where I like, when I like, how I like.
The freedom to be lost somewhere, the freedom to go after something.
The space to choose within the choices that I create, and not choose between what I want versus what a fellow traveller wants.
The freedom to make personal, quirky travelling traditions and break unrelatable, rusty ones.
The freedom to be careful about something, and carefree about something.
The relief of being responsible just for me, the challenge of doing most things on my own.

Knowing me, other reasons why I want to travel alone at this moment may keep revealing themselves to me throughout my life. That thought makes me smile and it is a part of why I am writing this right now. I read this post recently and I was filled with a beautiful, blossoming nostalgia - a longing to be there once again, but a happiness to know that it happened, and that I was a part of it too.

Goodbye Bombay, goodbye to Vini in Bombay, and hello to the mystery that awaits me two thousand kilometres away.

Menstruating, and what it means to me

This was originally an extensive conversation with me in the bathroom. For me, most of them either end up as amusing footnotes in Oral Bathroom Literature or in my journal. This is one of the rare times I felt like sharing it.

Menstruating for me has always been in an intense but interesting time. I feel happy, very alive and constantly in tune with what I'm physically feeling. Many times, I take my body for granted mostly because I see it as an instrument to do something, get somewhere but never as an end in itself, something which demands attention and provokes thought - not simply a reaction. There are a few things which make me think of my body, and none of them are insights, doubts, creative, exploratory or questioning in nature. They don't linger in my head for too long because they are reactions. Once they are suitably addressed, they don't raise their heads again until the time comes. There's physical pain, sexual urges, temperature differences and hunger. The most I can extend this physical self-awareness is to fatigue, feeling fresh, urges for nicotine, alcohol or particular kinds of foods/drinks, the awareness of being watched and extreme fear and anger. Another level could be added for addiction but I can't say this for myself - yet. (or maybe, I'm not aware of them)

Comparing this to how sensitive I am to my thoughts, beliefs, perspectives, judgments of people and their own of me or others - and how creative, curious, skeptical, judgmental, saddened, overjoyed, inspired, discouraged, enraged (and a universe of other emotions, many of which I'm sure I haven't experienced yet) I am by them - I feel there's been quite a lot of injustice done! Why do I never dream of my body? Why do I not engage with it as exhaustively as I do with my mind? Why is thinking as an activity restricted only to my brain? Why does society sometimes consider it girly, superficial or 'gay' if some people take extra efforts to take care of their bodies?

Whenever I have been attuned with my body, it's given me a lot of peace. Whether it's breaking out into a run, dancing or walking in the rain. (once I can get over my laziness and go for a shower, I don't want to get out!) I think what's best is having a feeling of fulfillment and release, like a high. I think people who run or exercise often know how this feels, but we've all experienced it, one time or another in our lives. I guess that's why the fascination with hallucinogenic drugs - it's another medium to experience being one with mind and body.

What happens when I menstruate, is that there's a conversation with my body for around five days straight. And since I overlook my body a lot, these days are like getting to know myself all over again. There's a slight pain, very different from any other pain, which makes itself experienced a day before they begin, and that's when I feel my body says, so hey, let's catch up tomorrow. You free right? I could think, it's not like I have a choice, or I could think, when was the last time I was so aware of my body? Let's talk! Taking the latter perspective helps not simply because it means lesser conflicts but also because you get to know so much about yourself, even as a person.

Once, my college friends and I had a long discussion about menstruation and how we felt about it. I realised my physical condition during, before or after my period matters tremendously in being able to be positive about it. I guess I'm lucky that I don't undergo deep pain and discomfort during this time. It's relatively trouble-free and mostly an enjoyable experience. I don't think I could be this carefree if I had to miss going out and stay indoors with a hot water bottle, guzzling fluids and pills to keep sane. I know friends who have to do this and it's no wonder they feel Nature has dealt with women unfairly. But I also feel it has a lot to do with our culture, because that plays an unarguably enormous part in influencing the way we approach anything.

There is an entire culture of negativity around menstruation which is another unfortunate result of living in a patriarchal society. Why 'sanitary' napkins? The whole idea of menstruating being seen as something very unclean is manifested in the fear instilled in girls and women about needing to keep the whole process as quiet and unobvious as possible. Why do we freak out so much about being caught with a 'stain' - can't it be treated with the same equanimity as a coffee stain? I'm not saying, "parade your menstrual stain with pride!" I'm saying, it's okay. Like people have coffee, women menstruate. Anybody can spill, right?

I also feel the way girls are brought up and educated has played a huge part in the way boys and men also approach menstruation. It was made such an embarrassing thing in school - you're in eighth class, a normal class is going on and suddenly, all the girls are told to make a line and walk off to the hall. Oh, it's that again. The biggest irony is that despite all the efforts taken to exclude boys, (we knew that) they knew what it was about anyway. All that this exclusivity did was reinforce the idea that menstruation and anything related was a girl thing, too embarrassing and taboo to be discussed with guys. What fart, really. Would it have hurt to take boys along as well, treat it like another lesson in biology? No, it would have made it natural, a part of a possible conversation with other men and women and a way to better understand sexuality. When we're in eighth, we're anyway looking for ways to talk with the opposite sex. Introducing menstruation to both sexes would have given us lots of food for thought to chew over with each other.


Treating menstruation so oppressively has had other offshoots as well. Female masturbation, for instance. (oh gosh, that needs another whole entry!) With this entry, I'm trying to make an effort to break free of my own inhibitions about menstruation. If you have any and want to break free of them too, let's talk about them now. It could be anything other than inhibitions too: questions, rants, sarcastic quips (though if you know me, do not expect me to get them), observations, reservations, beliefs, anything. Let's have a conversation!

वो दिल की सुनें, करें..

Not every now and then comes a film that stays with you. Long after the friends have left, long after the conversation, long after the soundtrack.

Go, watch.

 .. ना डरें, ना डरें 

(Poster Source)

Going, going

 'ले लीजिये', Piu's parfoom, Chikan, चाट, भूतनाथ, Hazratganj, Jo's इमामबाड़े के कबाब, Royal Cafe, पलटन बाज़ार, Sunrise Bakery, Ghantaghar, मेरा पुराना देहरादूनी घर, Malbabu, फकीरे की दुकान.

निगाहें मिलाने को जी चाहता है..
                                                                     ~ सहीर लुध्यान्वी, दिल ही तो है

"To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;" *

It could happen with anything you're studying, anything you're doing, even if it is out of a conscious choice based on what can bring you the most happiness, the highest fulfillment. You could have that one black smudge, the one subject, area, task, you just hate thinking of, and cannot ever compel yourself to enjoy doing. When I think of my decision to do a BA, to do it in English Literature, then my black smudge would be tomorrow's exam.

Till a few minutes ago it was paper IV - an unhealthy, vague, presumptuous pool of literatures not meant for the cauldron they've been wearily stirred into. I do not like most of it, and I certainly have had an eyebrow raised this whole year on the why, how and what of its structure. More on this later.**

But tomorrow's paper is worse. It is a wild frenzy of areas that has captured my heart and left it pitilessly gasping for more. Tomorrow's exam is a sin, because of the way all that sheer magic and restless wonder will be mutilated to serve a purpose I refuse to recognise has anything to do with my education.

What does it mean to write an answer to a question you feel you may never be able to answer fully? It's not simply about the fact that I feel I haven't read or experienced enough. It's more to do with the withering inadequacy of words. "Without contrariness is no progression", could you apply this idea to Yeats' The Second Coming and Sailing to Byzantium*? I keep madly dithering between the nervous intensity these words make me feel, and the shove to write a genuine answer that won't haunt me later as written "in partial fulfillment of her Bachelor's degree in English Literature."

My best 'answers' have been written during the mayhem called Prelims. I had no fear of being judged by our professors, I wrote what I truly believed in and got away with arguments I tonight surrender to cynicism. What if I get a uni-dimensional, tea-deprived, answer-key automaton for a checker - this previously lighthearted rant is what now has the power to stop me from being honest, from being ready to take a chance on my beliefs, from being open to perceptions and different angles of looking at things, from being creative, a little cheeky and insatiably in love with fresh ideas. What on earth am I doing then?

Answer: There seems to be no end to the hypocrisy we face in our education, and what it means to be educated.

Burning bright

This poem, and this poet, are incredible.

Recommended reading:

Late at night, aloud to self, in the dark. And then feel it burn the back of your mind.