Baby

She stared at her daughter for some time. She loved watching her play with her grandson. It was all so noisy yet the mood of the day was calm and serene when they started playing.

He has your father’s dimples, the mother said.

After a long silence the daughter hummed

And  you know what?, I have heard your granny say your dad had a smile like that when he  did something mischievious.

Silence.

I wish your dad was with us, he would have loved comparing his nails with junior’s. They are fan shaped like an artist's a musician's.

Mom…..

I am sure he will play the violin like your dad … dear.

Silence….. Silence…..

But you need to admit this that  your kid got his hair from me.

Mom but you have straight hair.

So what ? But we both have the same shade of  brown.

Mom can you cut the crap- I am your adopted daughter. How can  Junior have anything in common with you or dad?

Silence

Oh honey I  really forgot that.

 I really did forget that.

The politics of parenthood

In the light of moral policing and security issues of IIT Madras where media and parents are extremely concerned about the moral decadence of their wards I wonder- What rights does one have on one’s life? It takes me to even larger question, why are we being born? The leap of questions would seem large but my justifications will soon clarify your qualms.

From birth I was reminded I was a girl and hence my role is to study the basic minimum stuff that would help me be a wife material and my education would suffice to teach my kids and therefore save the tuition fare. My uncles still believe it was a mistake letting me choose doctoral studies.

 Why are we as a nation so obsessed with having children and thereby designing their lives? To the extent that we go frenzy when the biological clock ticks away and in sheer desperation get married to any tom, dick and harry. I believe we live in a marriage and procreation obsessed nation where the beauty and true meaning of both the institution of family and commitment is absent. We marry and procreate as casual as a high school kids graduates from school to college.

Many of my friends ( Not all) who are single with a Phd mourn their singlehood and freedom. The one’s married mourn their decision and chaos. And finally what was this race for? For the building of a new generation. What is it about parenthood that makes us so gleefully vocal? Why are  the single and childless shunned by this society? And what does being a parent mean? Isn’t this turning to look like a wasted life?

I fail to understand friends who tell me I have not learnt the true meaning of my existence as a woman Just because I don’t change nappies and feed a baby 24 hours does not mean my life is meaningless. Then of course I am told motherhood has more to it. And I am fed with the Johnson and hohnson dreamy ads. But, I refuse to listen to the sermons of these individuals who fret over their baby’s teething and first step. I refuse to be fooled by Karan Johar movies of parent child love, where duty and honour inter twines to make a melodramatic mis-e scene.I am bogged down by the endless mails from my alumni announcing the birth of their progenies and reminding me I am last in the race. I calm myself and ponder why would I want a child?

I love kids, I really do, but I am not a narcissist to believe my life and this world revolves around my romanitic notions on parenting. I, infact see this as the biggest threat to humankind. In this so called divine intervention which I would call parental engineering we are so obsessed that we no longer enjoy the process. My peers fret over their diets, choice of maternal care, future schools, names, careers for their babies and all I see is a meticulous project plan under process to welcome an individual into the new office called ‘family’.

 Our children become our quests. We procreate to rectify our mistakes, to make amendments, and with the ease of designing our interior décor we design our children. We save, starve, and lavish over our progeny in the hope of recovering from them what we have invested. And no matter how much we deny this to ourselves our true colours come out in the right situations.

So for parents who ask “How dare you decide what you study”? “ How can you decide you are gay?” “ How can you decide whom you marry”? these are those junctures, those right situations when you suddenly realize your children aren’t  shares, fixed deposits and  flexi bonds and you did create them with lot of calculations.And suddenly you lose your marbles, for your children failed you.

I don’t understand who gives a human being the right to decide for another just because he or she is older. After all we all make, have been making and will make mistakes irrespective of our age.  Why is a younger generation and their hormones often blamed for deeming them incapable and us as parents or elders to be demi gods.

In the current debates on alternate sexual preferences, drug abuse and related matters at IIT a voice constant heard is about how much the management owes to parents who have trusted their wards to the institute. Which again makes me ask why does a parent worry so much?  I see this mother staying back at IIT with her daughter over a semester. She is here to help her daughter complete this course while the poor kid is under depression. I wonder what this means. Instead of telling your kid go home and relax you are willing to be by her side to undergo this torture. Is this parental love and responsibility?

I would flatly say no. It is a calculative act. Because the IIT tag sells, the hope that the daughter gets a job, a prospective groom, the offers are endless. And this is not the first case. Many parents I have interacted to whose children are depressed asked me if their child would ever complete his/her degree rather regain sanity.

Lets accept it, we want children because we are bored, or want to strengthen our relationship with our spouse, or to compete with our neighbor, relatives, or to feel successful and get a sense of accomplishment in life. We want children because we worry what the society might tell us if we don’t have them, we want them so that they take care of us, inherit our property, carry our legacy, do what we could never in life. We want them because it is a natural human disposition to have a kid once you get married, as it is to join a college after you finish schooling.But maybe we forget that, they are independent beings in flesh and blood and we have no right to torture them constantly because we bore them for nine months and paid for their expenses. They never asked for any of it.

If this is parenting, I don’t regret being the last one in the race. For I don’t want to commit grave injustice to another generation to fulfill my unfulfilled desires. I am aware of the fact that some smart kid of mine will dig this up down the line to get his or her demands fulfilled but I hope I don’t stand on pedantic pedestal and lead him/her to the option of doing so.

If my child wants to be a homo, atheist, cycle mechanic, I want to be able to trust his decision and only when I can transform my mind to that level would I choose being a parent. And I promise I wont ever make the mistake of owning my child and would always respect his/her identity as an independent one.

And quoting from the tele show Satyameva Jayate I would like to end an age old debate on elderly respect Indian firmly believe in and is the foundation of every family. " It's not elders that should be respected and looked upto, it's the behaviour that should be respected and looked upto". So being a parent does not deserve respect perhaps we have learned from experience that not all elders show responsible and respectable behaviour.So why should they be respected blindfoldedly?

If anything should be respected it's behaviour and that would not give anyone the right over the other just because they are biologically older or hierarchically senior or at advantageous position to fund, curb and control your life.Perhaps we need to have perspectives and a decentralised approach to parenting where we consider children as individuals, where there is a scope for dialogue and a constant    reflexion that we don't do this out of mercy and every child deserves this from a parent.

Catharsis of a research scholar part 6- Chocolate the viagra for researchers

For someone never addicted or in praise of chocolate, my life turned topsy turvy when I landed in Italy for my internship. Was it the weather, alienation in a new land or missing my newly wedded life, I felt depressed. And this was precisely the point when an Italian friend of mine suggested Belgian chocolate. Though a foodie, chocolate never fit into my diet. I always associated chocolate to calories. But my first dose of Belgian chocolate made a world's difference. If I could put it in simple words I felt as if my worries were floating with me. And that's when I changed my perspectives on chocolate. I firmly believe in the power of chocolate. In fact it has harmonised, balanced, controlled my mood swings for the past 3 years. Every time I see bourbon, choco chip, dark fantasy, oreo and any other form of chocolate , I realise I am not the only chronic addict around. Some tell me it's a woman's thing . Beer to men as chocolate to women they say. I got no clue in this regard except for it is my key to sanity and a researcher should have few tricks up his sleeve and chocolate is definitely a resourceful one.

So for your seminars and viva's, presentations and paper writing if there's one magic ingredient you should look forward to it's chocolate... chocolate.... chocolate.

I would even prescribe it for loss of appetite and insomnia because it makes you feel lot better and suddenly generates the feel good factor. A bar of snickers is a worth a lunch in terms of calories.

I even have my favorites for different occasions like snickers on a day I had heavy meals and want to skip a meal. Bournville when I have stomach cramps. Mint flavoured chocolate when I can't sleep. Bourbon or Dark chocolate when I feel depressed and Cadburys raisin and nuts when I am extremely pleased with myself.

I never loved chocolates as a kid, in fact I thought it was kid's stuff and I was too mature to have chocolates. As an adult I guess I would feel pretty much the same if I was not a researcher and not forced to find cures for my insanity and frustration. So as I nibble on dark fantasy philosophising on the wonder drug for successful research I cant stop myself from reminding you all---- Chocolate is the viagra for successful research

The new church of facebook

The biggest crisis faced by mankind I hear these days are not, the nuclear weapons of mass destruction in Iran's backyard or the toxic assets floating in the financial underworld, but it is boredom and loneliness in our lives today. If loneliness and boredom were a sickness more people would have perished due to it. Man even kills, divorces, gets maniacal, suicidal for the same reasons. But unlike the Iran problem or the mortgage crisis man has devised cure of the aforesaid evils. In olden days, the church and religion sought to seek remedy for these ailments of mankind, but today the burden is on the shoulders of the "social networking sites".

"Man lives not by bread alone by each word that comes from the lord", says the Holy Bible said.

I think skimming through Facebook will baffle even the Holy Bible. For the average man's day begins with logging on to Facebook and swimming in the ocean amongst countless messages, replying to most and reading the rest. And perhaps this process feels so cathartic the people give up food, sleep, bath to just swim in this ocean of opinions.People are practically jobless that they have developed an involuntary tic to keep posting messages that seem trivial or irrelevant. But that would be too myopic a statement because deep within this problem has facets that needs more probing.

Why is this sudden urge to show off your kid's anxiety of going to school? The need for world to know you are mailing from the train on your laptop? That you have cooked something fabulous though god knows how it tastes? The sudden urge to show off your closet, your kitten ( I did that too), your sneakers, your face from every angle, you hugging every god damn object and person, all the countries you travel? Why is there a need for objectifying you love for your husband or wife by typing muaaahhhhhhhs on facebook when you could do it in private?

It definitely does have nothing to do with sharing information, let alone any wisdom. It's all a cry for acceptance, it is all about, hey I am alive, tell me something nice. It becomes a topic of conversation at tea breaks and lunches at offices, sometimes a break in the monotonous married life, an opportunity to gain acceptance for unpopular people. For those who never post anything, they benefit the voyeuristic pleasure of knowing what's happening in who's life. In a way we are all caught up in this bubble of so called social networking world .

But what it actually does is turn us off and make us irritated with the overdose of narcissistic hunger that does not get satiated despite years of posting nonsensical good morning and good evening messages. Messages we don't even pause twice to think or read and the tic disease attacks us, we end up posting it and even before someone else has read it they have clicked the like option. We like everything from WOW (women on wanderlust) to Burberry sales, Economic times to lingerie discounts. We even like the insults offered by others because we hardly realise we have been insulted such is our narcissistic craving to be acknowledged we like every person who mentions our name , posts our pics, toys with our feelings.

Facebook has become our new Bible by which we are dictated, controlled, comforted, guided, mentored, tutored by this world. You need advices on your baby's teething, you need to give gyaan on marital life, criticise inefficiency of Punto, decide on how to burn up your hubby's cash, poke, slap, join in any political dialogue you login and you are transferred to a new world.

Your judgement day is here too, you post taglines and wait at the banks waiting for someone to comment or like it and you crib if it does not happen. You feel you are outdated, when you look at the heroes with 52 comments on a good morning message. You pacify your ego saying my friendsaren't jobless so they don't comment while you tell yourself " They are jealous of me". And your judgement like the stock market is decided every day. You wait for the opening next day with new strategies of winning adulation and it continues the same nonsense of good morning, my dog is shitting, croquettes are yummy, baby has diarrhoea, hubby gifted D damas, We are in Honalulu, thank you, farewell, he is dead, damn democracy, Size zero bye bye, Kellogs K works, It raining, one page protests, invites, wedding pics and ...... honeymoon pics, showing off articles you read.................. and before you realise it, you have all joined the new church of Facebook where you religiously , ritualistically pay respects every day tolerating every crap, believing that suffering leads you to salvation.

Unlike our counterparts in Middle East where netizen activism stirs social action we prefer the dumbing down of our senses in nonsensical showing off and swim in the cesspool of blissful ignorance. And as Marx had once said, "religion is the opium of masses" and we dutifully pay respects to our new found faith as we have had to our religions in the past.

Animals are beautiful people - Candy

I was not brought up in a pet friendly family or a better way to put it would be to say ours was a pet agnostic family. My folks were not animal haters though any idea of bringing home a pet would be met with negative responses like, “if the dog bites you then you will get fourteen injections in your stomach” or “the cat would steal the milk and fish in the house”. And with no pet owners in and around our colony there were no positive reinforcements either. So with the breadwinners not opening up to the idea we were always in want of a pet through our childhood years. The closest we ever came to owning a pet was to catch some minnows from a pond or a stream and putting them in Horlicks or Bournvita bottles.

Compare that to Bhujji’s childhood and one would wonder if she was growing up in a zoo. Her father – Pappiachayan, was a true animal lover and kept a wide range of pets. If a sulphur crested cockatoo was not exotic enough, he had a piranha and miniature blue frogs for company and the list was endless. All these happened to be in a two bedroom flat, with wife and kids for equal measure. Pappiachayan would spend hours cleaning, feeding and petting these animals, often getting rebuked by Kochu that he spends more time with the pets than the kids. Bhujji’s favorite was the guinea pig and a daschund called Rachael.

We have had always liked the idea of having a pet after we got married. We did a few trips to pet shops in the city but did only window shopping so far. But because of us not being in the same city was not letting us materialize the idea. Then suddenly one Saturday afternoon we found ourselves in Shivaji Nagar and we just gave into the temptation and brought home a kitten. Or to tell you the truth it was her eyes, her blue eyes which took our heart away. We have named her Candy, with the hope that there would be another pet on the way later and we would name it Sugar and thus we could keep calling out Sugar Candy.

Though I think it’s difficult for us to ascertain whether it’s a queen or tom, as its just maybe a month old, but I am sure it’s a girl because – it doesn’t eat anything and looks size zero, keeps meowing all the time and seeks attention and the best thing she like to be done to her is to keep caressing her all day. Also I have had a few scratches already. I am sure Bhujji might be sharpening her claws reading these lines but again she should be elated that the family has a female majority now.

Though my initially fears about leaving her alone all day still remains, I am hoping that she would device ways to keep herself occupied once she’s older. She doesn’t do much of cat stuff now, like scratching the sofa, running behind insects, sleeping all day but with a little initiation I think the instinct will kick in. I hope she would turn out to be a very well mannered cat and not something my parents feared for. By the way, my folks are visiting us for Easter in the coming weekend. Fingers crossed.

Why a Women's day

Year after year my perspectives on this day seem to change, rather evolve nah!!! evoke thoughts unprecedented in the history of my self( complex statement muahahaha!!!).

What does this day signify to me? I am free and can write about this luxuriously, I can afford a cup of coffee at a cafe and read Arundhati Roy and debate on third wave of feminism. I can afford to spend time with my lady friends planning a girl's trip or shopping at cotton street to beat the heat. And I don't need a special lunch, a poetry session, a body check up at discounted rates to remind me it's my day. I rule my world because I dare to think and act differently and had the luxury to do so. So what does this day mean to me? How does it change my life? I did not message anyone in particular today. I decided to observe the women around me to understand what this day meant to them . It was rather an introspection.

It so happened that today the holi celebrations coincided with women's day. A friend of mine was upset about holi and said it is an antifeminist celebration.If you look into the folklore after all holika was burned and holi commemorates this story.I understand her sentiments but I joined holi celebrations today for a different reason.We'll come to that later.

At a cafe I met few excited women gathering for scoops of ice creams of all flavours available and reaffirming the fact that today was ' the day' granted by their guide for celebration.To them celebration meant ice cream at cafe coffee day. I wonder why they needed a women's day at the mercy of some guide to celebrate their womanhood. Can't they do this often , don't they own their own space and time and we are doctoral students the cream of this country?

I skimmed the newspapers to find buffets and sarees sales for women today and some of my friends said this was the best day ever to shop. I wonder what they do at clearance,christmas,new year and diwali sales. After all if you are born woman dont you shop till dead? Do you need some damn free market to fool you to believe its your day?

At office my hubby said some guys took women for lunch and other wore purple, green and white today. I wonder what good that would bring to anyone is it even a gesture of courtesy? Besides if you are at G.S you are obviously better than any woman out there because you are financially and socially independent and you dont need anyone to prove solidarity by dressing chic.

Late in the evening I heard few friends discussing Tishani Doshi's book release at Besant Nagar. Again a chic elitist crowd who beleives they understand every poem, keerthanand ghazal and adorn themselves with fab India clothes and innumerable beads at such occasions do they constitute the class that needs women's day?

And to end with the media's promise of Kellog's K and Women's horlicks to remind us how healthy we need to be and size zero is nirvana. Then paranoia over cervical and breast cancers and obsessions with women's healthcare checkups. Are we the women who need this day to celebrate. I am having tough time helping friends forgive myself and themselves for gaining few pounds and to top that kellogs and horlicks turn my arch rivals.

Aren't we way up the ladder to do any of these activities on any other day? Atleast I am. Then what makes this day special to me?

I think what made this day special was my interaction with the workers and cleaning crew at hostel who played holi with me. No matter what history the festival had, today women from two classes danced and played a festival of colours. We touched each other the woman who cleans our toilets and we the scholars enjoyed moments of pure bliss. We know we come from different walks of life. They strive in squalour yet shine our corridors and clean our filth. We toil with work unintelligible to them sometimes futile to their life too yet we shared moments that united us for an hour. I asked them what women's day meant to them and they laughed and one of them said.....

"The same fights, violence,lack of water,electricity, food and money, nagging in laws, cranky children, leaking roof,clothes to mend, demanding supervisor, unkempt latrines... and yes 100 bucks as a token if lucky on every March 8 with a nutrine eclairs completes the celebration".

They need a women's day and some leisure and some rest , some fun not us who can have it any day any time.

The saga of my ten rupee

If you have not tried this you definitely should. I had a torn ten rupee note in my pocket for quite sometime. I often end up getting a hundred rupee note changed into smaller denominations rather do something about the torn note. He ok let this ten rupee note be a ‘she’ ( I often called it a he because of 'Gandhi' being imprinted on it. And I wonder why can’t they have a woman on it for a change- “chauvinists”) was a loser, a turn down in my pocket. Frankly, I thought it to be my companion. Every time I opened my purse there it lay my tattered note. But it started irking me recently when I visited tiffanys. Tiffanys is the café for the moderately elitist on our campus. A tea there costs Rs 7 while the poorer sections went to Campus canteen. A tea there cost Rs 5. And the baddddd elitists went to Café Coffee Day also known as ‘CCD’ on campus with the tagline ‘ a lot can happen over coffee’ and all I can see happening there is emptying of my purse. An espresso there can cost Rs 24 and mind it its subsidized. I love campus café for the health of my finances, tiffanys for the proximity to my hostel, lab and library and CCD I go in my manic and depressive phases.

So if I stick to Tifanys and Campus café the ten rupee is my average budget and hence definitely a concern. So not wanting to part with my hundreds I finally decided to part with my tattered ten rupee.So on my way to the post office to post a love note to my hubby ( The cost a researcher pays to do research in peace) I visited the State Bank of India. It so happened that last night I had a vivid memory of my stingy old grouch of a uncle stocking tattered two rupee and one rupee notes that were torn and tattered in a small ponds cold cream carton ( yep we are Indians and mortals and we love hoarding so that we can amuse ourselves with such stuff). My uncle then told me his annual visit to the nearest banks where these currency notes were transformed to brand new ones.

I was a kid and mesmerized by his description then. But as i grew I had perhaps brushed this memory with so many others under a pink carpet when I grew up ( ok if you want it blue call it so but remember it happens inside my head). Yesterday night precisely at 11.58 it came back to me, this memory like a de javu. I began to wonder if my uncle was kidding or some cashier really liked transforming old tattered currency note into brand new one. And if they did what would they do to the old ones? Shred them?

So to test my hypothesos, as I finished posting the love note the next day, I entered SBI and went to the first counter and boldly asked with a broad grin- “Madam, where can I exchange this”? The lady being very polite, glanced at the tattered note and told me “ The cashier”. She showed no look of amazement so I realized my uncle’s practice was sane and legitimate but a couple of Btech jerks looked at me as if they would rather light their cigars with a tattered currency note rather beg for an exchange at a counter. This perturbed me but I decided to proceed to the next counter. The cashier a man with Leukoderma all patchy and for whom I had some sympathy immediately dismissed me on my request saying “ Go to the next counter”. Had it been my moody day I would have insisted on a note from him and him alone. But since it was a sunny day and I had three slices of butter toast which apparently brought positive vibes in me I left to the next counter. I took a deep breath and finally asked the lady “ Can I exchange this, I swear a conductor tipped this on to me”.

She smiled and finally took out a bundle a fresh one of new ten rupee currencies and gave me one in exchange of my old friend the tattered note. Hmmmm what do I say? It feels nice in my pocket and I have not decided where this one is going to be spend but it feel nice.

As I was folding it into my pocket the typical girl’s style of folding it into four I remembered by conversation with a baker who said we receive currency notes from women folded into 100 possilbe folds as if it were a bedsheet. Whats it that makes you want to fold it like this and not into two like the men?, he asked me. You end up tearing all the notes”.

I smiled to myself and folded the currency into two and strode wondering how long would I have waited with this tattered note had my grouchy uncle not appeared to me last night.