The left bank

 

My grandfather had a sister, a saga behen (own sister) as we say in India. Nothing unusual in that except that there has been no trace of her existence within the family in decades. That she had even existed in what is now called Bangladesh was just a chance discovery.

You’re like the Koreas, a friend quipped, alluding to the fact that North/South Korean divide has pulled entire families asunder. Still, in the Indian joint family structure where collectivism is key, it is bemusing that the only female sibling of three brothers remained unknown to their families for the longest time. 

In the Indian sub-continent, historically, Bengal has been the hotbed of socio-cultural activism. During the colonial era, Bengali Babus were the anglophiles that, at first, the British colonizers relied heavily on to consolidate their position in the region. But then, with Western ‘education’ and their subsequent political awakening, the Bengalis transformed to thorns in their flesh. 

 

To contain Bengal, the then representative of the Crown, Lord Conwalis I think it was, mooted its first partitioning circa 1911. The banks of the River Ganges that flows through the state became the East and West Bengals. Locally they were called apaar Bangla (Bengal on this bank of the river) and opaar Bangla (Bengal on that bank of the river). In the vivisection of India in 1947, East Bengal was made a province of the newly carved out nation, was renamed East Pakistan. Then, in 1971, with help from across the river to stop the genocide, it became an independent nation, Bangladesh. But the local reference continues to be apaar Bangla and opaar Bangla. 

My family originates from that side, although they retained no connections with it since they left its soil around the time of the partition of the country. But the parents never forgot their birthplaces, and in their childhood memories, opaar Bangla was like no other on earth. For years we have only heard stories of abundance in the fertile land they grew up in and the freedom to be they had as children in their respective joint families: the tasty hilsa fish, the numerous ponds they swam in and orchards overladen with fruit, the prajas (subjects) that cultivated their fields, the space they enjoyed, the football, the intellectual pursuits.

They spoke less about the horrors inflicted on its people, though the effects of that experience runs deep in remembrances of the oppressiveness of the colonial rule, the famine the foreign powers engineered, the freedom struggle that the young men joined into and were killed for, the sudden rise of communalism that put friends into opposing camps, the riots following the forcible partitioning of the nation that caused the river to run red… My father never got over the trauma or ever wanted to go back. Now, seventy years after she left her village as a bewildered teen, my mother has finally desired to revisit the paradise of stunning natural beauty.

Thinking of it as a pilgrimage, my objective became to find somebody in Bangladesh who might recall those times and the location of the villages my parents came from. At first, it appeared that possibly nobody in the know had survived time. Well, I thought, we have the village names, and perhaps they haven’t been changed too many times by successive governments! But, truth is, I wasn’t too hopeful myself.

Then, the very extended family network came through with a name and a contact number.  He was somebody’s relative, on a visit to Kolkata, and still lived in opaar Bangla. It seemed a godsend, and I made contact immediately. When we met face-to-face, the eager questions we asked one another were, and how are you related to so-and-so or to such-and-such family?

We compared notes on our respective family trees. We stared in surprise at our findings. We are blood relatives, the newfound cousin I shall call Umesh declared at last. The sister of my grandfather, apparently lost in the sands of time for two generations, turned out to be his grandmother!

I was eager to hear her story. Her grandson, however, couldn’t quite recall her name. Something-sundari was the best he could come up with. In the traditional naming of the girl-child in those times, appends like Sundari, meaning beautiful, or Bala meaning ornament, was regular. I suppose they were meant to enhance their chances in the marriage market, where child-marriage was prevalent then.

Anyway, the story of this Sundari is the story of three families of my father’s village inter-linked by marriage. Let’s call them X, Y and Z. My paternal grandfather belonged to family Z. At the turn of the twentieth century, the patriarch of family X was a renowned practitioner of ayurvedic medicine. A young man of family Y had become his apprentice and proved himself ably to his mentor. He was welcomed into the fold of practitioners of traditional medicine and thereafter married a young woman of the family, obviously with the patriarch’s blessing. His wife produced two children, but she did not survive too long after. He couldn’t be expected to rear the children on his own, and hence another marriage was on the cards.

Family Z had three boys and one girl of the same generation. The youngest of the three sons, my grandfather, had also married a daughter of family X. Meanwhile, the young man of family Y set his sights this time on the girl of family Z. This was Sundari! It seems they married, although family Z kept no record of it.

Why has there been no mention of her within her family of origin? Was it sexism - did her three brothers consider her gender a burden to be rid of and forgotten at the earliest? Did she marry for love? Was the match against family wishes, and so she was spoken of no more? Or did the fact of Partition lead to the unraveling of ties? 

Sundari stayed back with her husband and children when two of her brothers left for the other bank of the river with the rest of the family members. Her eldest brother also remained to dispose of the family property, but then was found dead under suspicious circumstances. The second brother also died soon after, and it was left to the youngest brother, my grandfather, to anchor the relocation of this large extended family. It all seems pretty curious, and so many questions arise, especially about the constraints imposed on little girls in that age!

I hear that she bore three sons and two daughters, survived childbirth and lived to a ripe old age.  So there was nothing wrong with her physiologically. Was she indeed as beautiful as her name suggests or was loyalty her strength? Was she happy with her lot as wife, mother and grandmother, or was it an imprisonment of sorts? Did she accept her family’s indifference to her plight stoically or was she heartbroken at being so completely forgotten? She died some time ago, and hence unfortunately, there is no way of knowing her side of the story, except as her descendants retell. 

The separation of family members is probably the natural fallout of the partitioning of any nation, but still why forget a person altogether, an only daughter of the family at that? There is no one to provide the answers, and today, I can only speculate whether Sundari’s life has been the stuff of fairytales or as tragic as those times.

Young college awareness

Young man Rohan has just turned nineteen. He tells me he sometimes forgets that he’s still a teen, he feels so grown up. Stepping into college portals clearly signals the outgrowing of the cocooned shelter of home.

It seems adult characters are being chiseled out of the undifferentiated child block. Within months of entry, the college student is actively shedding puppy fat. His fond mother tells me a little wanly that he’s stopped eating.  He is going through the lean-and-mean phase in the search for individual identity, which needs must include the physical. Besides, there are girls to impress at the college.

Quite recently, I visit their home, and see the college newbie looking exhausted, but elated all the same. What’s up? I ask. He has been walking miles, he says, and is just back from a student rally. We hear that thousands of students of different colleges cut classes to march from their institutions to another to express solidarity with the student body there. This rally is against police action against their protest against official inaction against student demands against the molestation of a girl-student earlier. It all seems a little complicated to me, but essentially, the student body is riled up.

I ask the question that probably keeps his parents awake at night, have you become a political activist? No, no, he says, we joined in only because it (the protest rally) was apolitical. For children born into the traditional family system in India, breaking bounds in such a way is an awesome feeling. What is important is the realization that in a democracy protest is a right, and they begin to understand the value of the adult franchise they gain at age eighteen. 

In the college world, political awareness is imbibed from the environment. In our time, decades ago, the campus was the hotbed of political activities. Political parties would run their recruitment drives through the student unions dependent on their patronage. Thousands of young people fell victims to their machinations, during the Naxalbari movement in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Some political people had wanted to ‘lead’ the rally, Rohan informs us, but were asked to leave. These students want no such overtones, or to have their opinions hijacked by party organizers.  

We tune into the news channel on television and find coverage of rally. We see the students marching along, and Rohan is a little disappointed that he is indistinguishable in the crowd. The elders around him though, are secretly relieved that he is not identifiable; nobody wants to be the unwitting recipient of political ire. 

Many of the young marchers clearly perceive the rally as some sort of college excursion or picnic. The musically inclined have taken along their guitars. They gather en masse to sing songs and join into street plays. It was peaceful, entirely peaceful, the young man insists, and it quite seems that way.   

Then the state minister comes on view, and he is like an aggrieved, martyred parent bemoaning bad behaviour of unruly children. He says that he was saddened by the videos shown to him of the incidents - aggressive students on a rampage, destroying property, beating up unarmed police personnel, abusing elders and so on. Lies, all lies, says our young man excitedly, nothing like that happened. I tell him to calm down and that ‘democracy’ means the other side too must be heard.  

It gets too much for him. We were there; we saw it all, he insists, everything was peaceful. I remind him that the incidents in question happened before their rally. Yes, yes, he says, but we saw the unedited videos. The police put 35 students in hospital, how come that is not being mentioned or shown on tv? The students involved in the fracas had recorded the police actions, and displayed them at the rally. Well, I counter, these could have been edited as well to show the authorities in a bad light, no? 

 

Or it just might be that outside influences did come in, in the guise of the students, to make mischief. Do you know, says Rohan, some ruling party goons locked students in at a college, so they could not participate in the rally! In volatile situations, anything is possible, and the young people are yet too naive to understand their implications. Small wonder then that parents that have suffered in the past are at pains to ensure that their children focus on studies and stay away from anything that might be deemed political. 

Memories of past times resurface in the elders, and they are fearful for the children. Remember those times, one tells me, how thousands were made to just disappear? Indeed, student unrest had been quelled with an iron hand in the past. We had heard little about that on news waves then officially censored. We had felt their effects however, with academic sessions completely disrupted in the ‘70s, and students unable to graduate because examinations were cancelled.

That government was voted out, and the Left Front came to power as the people’s party, and ruled for over three decades. Ironically, the present state administration in Bengal won the elections against all odds, sweeping them aside. The incumbent chief minister had been much admired for her grit and tenacity in standing up to their political stranglehold. It reflected in her party’s success in the elections, which had been once deemed unthinkable.

However, winning elections is one thing and governance is quite another. Despite election promises and good intentions, political mistakes seem to pile up. Anybody that doesn’t agree with them is now branded ‘maoist’ Rohan tells me, so we started to shout that we were Maoists! The point is the present administrative incumbent is fast losing the support of youth. In India, they are the new voting public, and now a sizeable demographic group. 

Most recently, the social activism against corruption carried by students in Delhi contributed to bringing down the entrenched state government. I suppose the political elders had forgotten that the young people are far more adept with technology and social networks. State machineries cannot even hope to control their communications through the informal grapevine. Political heavyweights need to learn from the past to respect the future.

Get up, stand up

I’m not a victim, I say. And realize to my surprise, that indeed, it is a thing of the past for me. The majority of the female gender in India is, or has been victim at some point in their lives. The abuse they suffer can be in many forms, economic, verbal, physical, sexual, and emotional. It is not only the illiterate that are affected; education and employment doesn’t always protect the others. Culturally, they rarely get help; rather their integrity is questioned. The trauma of an abusive experience hounds them, and perhaps gets carried into their social interactions.

Several decades ago, a Western woman journalist, curious about life as a non-white in London, decided to change her appearance and go undercover as an Asian. With wig, contact lenses, appropriate makeup and attire, she transformed from one race to another. The few weeks of subtle social discrimination experienced were a revelation, and eventually, she too felt hunted. While commuting on a train in the disguise, she heard two other white women patronizing her. They obviously assumed that being Asian, she wouldn’t have the language. It was not her appearance that irritated, they said, but her attitude.

The downtrodden expect abuse. That they are beaten into the dust and cannot hope to get up again, is projected in look and body language. Perhaps their unarticulated fears attract further aggression. Verbal or physical abuse is common sight on the city streets. Hardly anybody protests.  Many may even condone it, and outside interventions often make things harder for the victim. Like kicking pets in petulance, men in India tend to take their frustrations on those that can’t or don’t fight back. But mostly, society is immune to the abuse of women.

On the road, the family group walking by, seemed normal enough, man, woman and small girl child. But as they passed, I heard the man say conversationally that he was fed up with ingratitude, and if the little girl made one more demand for food, he would smash her baby face to pulp. I looked up sharply, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I wondered if I was imagining things. The child and the mother said nothing; they simply walked on as if all was well. But then I noticed, they walked a little too straight looking neither right nor left, as if careful to not upset the man.

Another day, three little girls were on their way to school, along with a young man, most probably a member of their extended family, or a neighbour. The littlest girl had been unable to cross the road with the others, and remained stranded on the far curb. The fellow didn’t even notice that she had been left behind. Several bystanders at the crossing called out to attract his attention: Hey, hey, take this one with you! Then the man marched angrily back to the child and slapped her hard on the head. In shock and pain, she burst into tears. Slap yourself first, I shouted, walking up to point an accusing finger, the fault is yours entirely. He went quiet, embarrassed into behaving by the public scrutiny.

In days gone by, the joint family structure had several generation and extended families living under the same roof. The cloistering of women was extreme. During my mother’s girlhood in the 1930s and 1940s, young women couldn’t stand at the windows in case they caught the eye of some man before marriage, and they were forbidden from meeting any man alone. It seems to me that there was a positive to it too, in terms of their safety from predators.

Post-independence, nuclear family units became the norm mostly for economic reasons. It was instrumental in opening doors to women’s education and employment. However, it did not remove the feudal attitude to gender; it just made the access to women easier. In the new family structure, family ties remained the same. Mothers continued to view men as they were brought up to, as the superior beings to look up to. They trusted the male ‘family members’ in its extended branches implicitly.

It never occurred to them that by putting their little girls in their control they were putting them in harm’s way. The ignorance of the mothers allowed the uncomprehending children as young as four to be abused and molested at will. I know this, because it happened to me too. The home itself can be an unsafe environment for many women and girls. They are socialized early into the trauma of gender. 

Women may be unsafe in the marital home as well. In a traditional marriage, the spouses are almost strangers. It is customary to uproot the woman from her parents’ home, and throw her to the wolves, as it were. I once witnessed such a couple’s public interaction. The man strutted around like the proverbial rooster, and the woman’s insecurity was palpable. She wasn’t pretty, which was probably was the source of her insecurity. She followed the man, crying and pleading.

The more she did that, the more his ego inflated. Every now and then he stopped, and turned on her aggressively. Wagging his finger in her face, he hissed threats and insults. I heard him say she was so ugly she sickened him, that she was a burden around his neck, and that he couldn’t wait to be rid of her. She should have rapped him across the mug and stalked off. But instead, she just put her hands up piteously, as if to ward off his words.

 

It made my blood boil, and I stopped nearby and glared at the man. Other passersby definitely heard him too, but because the woman had a vermillion streak in her hair (signifying the marital state), nobody intervened. The social environment holds out no support whatsoever for the victims of marital abuse. It is traditional, instead, to consider a wife the husband’s property; with which argument, marital abusers count on escaping censure. 

I know, because I was in such a relationship, where this argument was repeatedly used. I was educated, but perhaps I too projected the characteristically abysmal self-esteem of victims. It didn’t matter that I changed attitude like a chameleon changes colour, to keep the peace and protect children and pets. Punishment for some slight, real or imagined, was imminent, and would be vicious. At a time when the marital and custody laws favoured the male, it was a hostage situation.

Not much has changed since then, however. The right to ‘control’ the women in their lives – mothers, sisters, wives, daughters, and others, continues to receive tacit social support. It matters not that the women may have outstripped the men academically.  In the social equation, they are expected to walk several steps behind and be the subservient gender even in this day and age.

After several years, I recently met my own brother. He is a non-resident Indian, and has been a citizen of the lands of plenty for several decades. We are closest in age, and in our younger days, were constantly at loggerheads. The special treatment he always seemed to get, especially from my mother, irked me no end. We have mellowed in later years, but still, I admit, that although we do not come to blows any more, we occasionally lapse into childish behaviours, reminiscent of our younger days.

The matter of our argument, the other day, was actually trivial. But I realized that his Indianness is entrenched in a time gone by. Despite living in a developed society for several decades, the conditioned cultural responses reactivate on the shores of the mother country.  In an instant, the general mistrust of gender of those past times came alive in him. He was like an alpha male that had to dominate the group and the women!  In his mind, possibly, he was being the elder, the male head of family, and quite unaware that that behaviour pattern could now be termed abusive. 

The revisit of the past brought me enlightenment. Although we were brought up in the same environment in the past, I have moved on, have emancipated from victim-hood. I no longer placate or change attitude. I am assertive, and relate on equal terms. Masculine intimidations are of no consequence to me today. They seem comically archaic, and I am free of their toxicity.  I’m not a victim, I say. Not anymore. I have been in the pits, and now I stand up.

O Calcutta!

It seems to me to be disrespectful to live in a place and know little about it. The structured and the organic conjoin in Kolkata. Modernity has wrought changes, but the influences of earlier ages are never eliminated. I decide to explore why it is as it is. 

Epistemologists say the name Kolkata is likely to be a tribute to deity, the warrior goddess Kali, or Mother Nature’s bounty. However, most newcomers to the city, and especially non-resident Indians, don’t see any godly connection, and are appalled by the congestion, the pollution and the noise. It takes time to recognize the indomitable spirit of the people and to experience their selfless giving nature, but few people are that patient. To others, although difficult to stomach initially, Kolkata, nicknamed the city of joy after a French author’s book, tends to grow on you.

Travelogues of merchants and scholars from Persia and China date the region to centuries BCE. It is mentioned in the Mahabharat, one of the country’s ancient mythological epics. It was there during the Maurya and Gupta periods and in Mughal Emperor Akbar’s rent rolls in the sixteenth century. In short, this region had inhabitants for well over two millennia before Europeans appeared on the horizon. There was also an established trading post. Burra Bazar, close to the river, was probably this business hub. The old, old trading houses are still standing, although now in urgent need of repair and restoration.

The British, though, claim to have discovered the area through Job Charnock, a representative of the East India Company that came to these shores towards the end of the seventeenth century. That strikes me as absurd; just as it must have the Native American tribes when Christopher Columbus was credited the discovery of America. Like, hey, we were here first!  

True, not much concrete evidence remains of the ancient Indian architecture. This is most likely because the people of the age didn’t use brick and mortar for their dwellings. Their homes were eco-friendly, made of mud, thatch, tiles, and regularly recycled. Temples and tombs, however, were constructed with more lasting materials and they are testimony to the local talent. 

 

The British captured three villages, Sutanuti, Gobindapur and Kalikata, to create their headquarters for trading. They put their cultural stamp on their holdings razing everything else to the ground. The eastern bank of the Hoogly tributary of River Ganges bears impressive British architecture since. The roads built were named for their convenience - Dalhousie Square, Esplanade, Strand Road, Outram Ghat, Princep Ghat, Hastings, Curzon Park and so on. Being unable to pronounce the tongue-twisting Indian names, I suppose, they called the city Calcutta.

In the new millennium, this city has been renamed Kolkata. Street names change more frequently here. Whosoever comes to power in state governance, exercises the right to rename, perhaps following the British. I look up a few on a map of the city and then try to find them on the road. It turns out not such an easy task, because the same place might be referred to with different names! It can become confusing when people forget Chowringhee Road is now Jawahar Lal Nehru Road, or by habit, remember Harrington Street instead of Ho Chi Minh Sarani.

New constructions also appear atop the old, changing the faces of things quite completely. A Bank Street, for instance, is shown on a map to run alongside the waterfront on the Kolkata side for miles. But the location of this road is still a mystery to me. On every try, I am stumped at the Howrah Bridge, because the flow of traffic goes straight onto and over the bridge. I’m missing it somehow, or perhaps the newer flyovers have been built over and across it, to make ‘Bank Street’ just another discarded historical name.

Amongst the first British projects in India was the garrison to station the troops. Fort William, founded in 1702, is still there, as are the various living quarters built within, for humans, horses and armoury. Post-independence it has been taken over to serve as cantonment for the Indian Army. Although there have been later additions of housing and schools, the heritage of older structures, including the cannons, still look in top condition. The military story from inception to today is meticulously recorded in a little museum inside the Fort. 

Fort William was a strategic placement for the British. On the bank of the river, and shaped as a polygon of six or eight sides, and gateways on each side, enabled rapid deployment of their enforcers to one direction or another. The establishment of this regional military headquarters became a bone of contention between the foreign settlers, and the Muslim monarch of Bengal. Nawab Siraj-ud-daulah’s foresight of British expansionist intentions, led him to attack the Fort and succeed in driving the British out.  

But consolidation eluded him. Within a year, his own uncle betrayed him to British cunning. The bloody battle of Plassey was fought in 1757 and the Nawab was vanquished and killed. That put an end, for a while at least, to local aspirations. The Crown established Calcutta as the capital of British India. They wanted it to be known as the City of Palaces, and accordingly, the buildings constructed were massive, ostentatious displays of British architecture, high-ceiled spacious rooms, wide main roads, handsome parkways and boulevards, and deep, concealed drainage. The capital of British India flaunted imperial superiority to this part of the world. 

 

I’ve often wondered why only a part of Calcutta is so beautifully laid out, while much more was steeped in poverty and squalor. I rationalized that the Calcutta of yore must have been a pretty small place. The locations of their architecture probably demarcated the limits of the city built by the British. The population explosion thereafter must be responsible for sections to become dreadfully congested, with narrow streets, and run down structures. Pity, I thought, that the Indians had not learned from them to value space. 

I realize now that my grasp of the history is pretty weak. Calcutta had actually been bigger than what I imagined. The imperialists were not in the region to integrate cultures. They were white supremacists, here as masters.  Calcutta was developed in two distinct parts, and their names are self-explanatory - White Town and Black Town. The land, the funds utilized in the opulent construction projects of the former, as well as the human labour pressed into service were of course, taken from their new subjects in India, probably as reparation costs. 

 

They indulged racial discrimination to the hilt, relegating the natives to Black Town, north and east of the city. Dispossessed of their own lands, the Indian people were pushed further inland. The waterways and access to the river came under the aegis of the British Raj that did not hesitate to collect taxes. Deprived of their traditional livelihoods of cultivation and fishing, they huddled together in shantytowns. Poverty and squalor become their lot, and eventually the characteristic of all Black Towns held in the iron grip of the colonizers, backed by imperial military might.

Meanwhile, education was introduced in accordance with British educational standards. It raised a new class of Bengalis, the anglophiles, the educated, rich, upper caste Hindus. They were inducted into the lower levels of administration and the Baboo culture became the backbone of the bureaucracy. The Baboos profited from British presence. Their large town houses situated just outside the White Town zone probably as a buffer, shielding the masters from the serfs. Manipulated by the colonizers, many Baboos were against their own people.

However, education became a double-edged sword for the colonizers. Many Indians quickly became discerning, politically savvy intellectuals. The seeds of nationalism against British occupancy began to take root. Calcutta became the hub of the freedom movement launched within the first decade of the twentieth century. The sepoy mutiny (the upsurge of Indian soldiers), took place near the capital.  It was said that what Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow. 

When the partition of Bengal was mooted in 1905, political activism gained momentum with the boycott and public burning of British goods on the streets. It forced the British to shift their capital from Calcutta to Delhi in 1911. Perhaps in retaliation, they vivisected Bengal and handed the East to Pakistan in 1947. Although the former East Bengal is now a country, Bangladesh, that physical, emotional and economic setback inflicted on the region, it is yet to recover from. 

 

But the Indian psyche is not built to hold onto grudges for too long. Through centuries of being invaded, conquered, annexed and colonized by different culture, we are able to take the worst misfortunes in strides. The sense of nationhood remains through oppression and democracy. We become comfortable with all outside influences. They are assimilated into the culture and Indianized.

The English language is now one of the twenty-two official languages in the country. The colonial architecture has been preserved in all its glory even so many decades after Independence. Buggy rides reminiscent of the British Raj continue around the Victoria Memorial even today. We own it all without prejudice. As part of Kolkata’s historical cultural inheritance, they remain, as they ever were - Black Town, White Town, and what-have-you.

Social attitude and family reality

Children in traditional India lead more sheltered lives than their counterparts elsewhere. Helicopter parents control the purse strings and their lives. It is social duty to do so, because they are judged by their children’s achievements. But family structure is rapidly changing in today’s India, and so must the social attitudes.

Education is priority over everything else. The family’s social recognition depends upon results - how the children do in the high school Board Exams, in college, in university and so on. The parents want their children to go up in the world, hence, the proper exposure is of paramount important. From middle school itself, extracurricular activities or vacations are sacrificed for coaching classes to prepare the children for the next step in life. There is no let up to keeping noses to the grindstone. It is for their good they are told, for their future.

The transition from high school to college is most stressful, especially for the parents. Adolescents beginning to explore the world outside without supervision is concerning, because who knows what influences will be picked up to alienate them from cultural family values! 

A teenager, Runu, stands on this threshold. Much time is spent in weighing the pros and cons of the different institutions. On the one hand, there is a far-away governmental institution, where costs are subsidized. For the adolescent, it is opportunity to be free of parental supervisions. On the other hand, staying in the city brings down establishment costs, but extends the parental watch. And it means attendance at a more expensive private institution; hence more strain on parental resources, because the children are still economically dependent. 

The immediate family and the social circle of involved relatives and friends agonize over the course of action for college admissions, reminiscent of the joint family structure of days gone by in India. Where siblings and cousins were brought up together, with several generations living under the same roof, it was not customary for the individual to think or act independently. 

 

Westernization and the partition of the country destroyed the joint family social unit, and instead, small, independent nuclear units became standard. The circle of people involved in decision-making became smaller, restricted to parents and their children. However, older age groups sometimes behave as though the traditional collectivism continues, whereby somebody’s business is everybody’s business.

In my opinion, young people need to make their own choice in the matter of their future. Runu should not feel pushed to live out somebody else’s dream, and later blame them for it. He needs to discover what his aptitude and interest pointed to, and state them clearly. I insist to his parents that they let him do so and support him to their best ability, and not the other way around. My input bases on the experience of another family, traumatized by change.

Fact is the social unit is again in transition. The education and employment of women has put them in touch with their own identity, as distinct from husband or family. There is power struggle in the home. Men may want to continue with things as they were, but women are less tolerant of second-class citizenship within the home. Consequently, separations and divorce have risen sharply.

The new family unit then is becoming parent-and-child/children, and the parent mostly, is the mother. A matrimonial bond is traditionally supposed to last seven lifetimes; hence a fragmentary family is an affront to social attitudes, and bias is clear. Social sympathy sides with the man, and the social circle is more concerned with his needs. The woman is generally blamed for the failure; kinship support deserts her. The responsibility of child upbringing remains hers, nevertheless.

Shibani is such a single mother and Santanu, her only son. Since she is also the breadwinner now, she opts to send the boy to a military boarding school. In the absence of the father as a role model, she reasons, the school training would instill discipline in his life. His mother doesn’t have the time to hover, and all she can do was to keep track of academic results.

She dreams of a far better future for them, expects him to achieve certain targets, and he consistently delivers. But her goals are those that society values. She looked forward to him becoming a doctor, or an engineer. Only his success in life will assuage the pain and guilt she is burdened with over the breakup of her marriage and the family unit.

Unfortunately, Shantanu dreams different from his mother. Neither medicine nor engineering interest him. That his aspirations are quite in another direction, he doesn’t share. Shantanu had learned early to look after himself and appears quite self-sufficient. However, he has withdrawn into himself and shares little of his thoughts and aspirations with others. He also trusts none - least of all, the adults in his life.

His mother pushes him to appear in all the relevant entrance exams, and dutifully he does so. He passes them all with flying colours and top institutions in the state offer admissions. But on the very day they are scheduled to complete the admissions process at a top college, Shantanu is untraceable. His mother waits in vain at the admissions office, devastated as her dreams for their future slip out of her grasp. 

Caught between his own aspirations and social expectations, Shantanu meanwhile, has fled from home. He takes up residence in a district across the river, and a job as a delivery boy to support himself. He stays put for a few weeks while he thinks out the direction of his future. Mother and son thus live in the same state, with no contact whatsoever between them.

Fortunately, Shantanu finds his course in life, and returns a few weeks later. The absence of a father figure and role model in his life to provide seasoned counsel is stark. His choices clearly lack the experience of life. He enrolls in his favourite subject at a very ordinary college nearby. One college is as good as another, it is the subject that matters, he reasons in his inexperience. No quite, I say when I meet him. The equation is small pond versus big pond. A small place doesn't hold out too many opportunities for the future. In the work world, the value to a potential employer is the institution he graduates from, and bigger is better.

Children of fragmentary homes are alienated from society itself for no fault of their own. While unable to comprehend the trauma they have to go through, they internalize it. They feel the outsider, compelled to reinvent the wheel, to relearn things by trial and error. Society needs to be aware that many of its traditional practices are fast becoming obsolete. A change in social attitude to family reality is necessary eschewing the entrenchment in social inequality.

Street corner GPS

I’m rather challenged in spatial orientation. I mean my sense of direction goes haywire on the road in Kolkata. It is tough to figure out locations, and their street signs are a little difficult to spot too. I don’t worry too much, however. Navigational help is around the corner, and it comes free.

The street corners of Kolkata buzz with activity, from first light to late night. They are the centres for adda (gossip). Everything is discussed, the local news, sports, politics or personal issues. They may have card games there too, and gambling. Makeshift stalls for tea, snacks and tobacco spring up on the sidewalk, to do brisk business. The corner serves the same social purpose for the ordinary that exclusive clubs do for the wealthy. In both places, men need clubbability, like ships need anchors. But the roadside intellectuals are rather more street savvy. 

I venture in to explore an area in the vicinity of the Howrah Bridge some call a bad place. Wholesale goods are auctioned there. Hand-rickshaws or thelas (pushcarts) line the street ends, waiting to be engaged, to carry people and goods to different parts of the city. They run on human labour through the seemingly mazes of lanes and bylanes of Kolkata’s congested areas. Getting lost is pretty easy in those places, and on my own, I go round in circles.

Many street corners of the city double as stands for transport vehicles. Each stand is specific for a type of vehicle – for taxis, for auto-rickshaws, for rickshaws, etc., and mindful perhaps, of road hierarchy, the types don’t mix. The transport walas (drivers) are weather-beaten men, almost uniformly dressed in lungi (long loin-cloth) and baniyan (vest), which younger men might vary attire with jeans and tee-shirts.

 

Each though, carries their trademark long red gamcha (towel). It helps with the sun, the rain, the cold, and the carrying of weights. They are patient, they can wait hours, perched on their vehicles or squatted on the sidewalk. The chaps in this place speak Hindi, not Bengali, as do most of the traders, which shows how diversity has infiltrated the city. I guess the ‘bad’ perceptions may also be parochial! 

I stop at the corner to enquire where the roads might lead to or come from. Surprised at being addressed, they all stare at me. Finally, one of them asks instead where it is I’m trying to reach. Nowhere actually, I say and smile at the incongruity, just roaming. They find it funny that I would choose such a place to roam in. But still, they need a destination to be able help. I say Kolkata, which is silly really, as we are in the city, but they rightly assume I mean its central region. They explain the one-way only rule is enforced here, and hence it seems wise to keep going with the traffic. They point out where I can join the flow, and how to return to the centre. Accordingly, I go across the river over the bridge, u-turn at the railway station, and then, via the flyovers, head back to more familiar climes.

Another time, another turn becomes wrong. I find the sides of the road closing in, and the surroundings progressively shabbier. I realize I’m in the heart of a close-knit minority community, and its residents are suspicious of outsiders coming in. Few women are about, and those that are, are keeping conservatively covered. I’m obviously out of place in that environment, and it is being noticed. The rule of thumb of following the road no longer makes sense because it’s now a dirt track. 

No help for it, I have to stop to ask directions. Several young men are lounging about on the street corner. I attract their attention and they gather around, curious about what I’m about on their turf. I mention the landmark seven-point crossing. They know where it is, and how to get there. They tell me I’m actually heading the opposite way. Their instructions to going back include plenty of turns, and I’m getting confused.

The first thing though, is to move, because a queue is building up behind me. I decide on taking one turn at a time, with the first one right there. Drivers behind me, and those in oncoming vehicles, begin sounding their displeasure, but the young men jump in to help. With their arms outstretched, they stop the traffic on either side, and hold them back until I manage the turnaround in the narrow space. I wave my thanks as I drive away in the general direction they explain to me. A few street corners later, my way forward is clear again.

Many localities in Kolkata have their own distinctive community flavour. In the more congested old Kolkata, especially to the north of the city,  pockets of various religious minorities focus on preserving their customs and rituals. In the more affluent southern areas, the social milieu is more diffuse, more liberal perhaps, but neighbours hardly know one another.  

Near railway stations, the roads become thoroughfare. There is a constant stream of people that have just stepped off one or are on the way to catch the local trains. They commute daily from their homes in the villages far from the city.Fortunately, for millions of people employed in the city, the Indian railway network is the largest in the world, and it is their only mode of travel. 

When they set off from their homes early morning, it is still dark. Their families are asleep when they leave and when they return. They are so focused on getting to work, or catching the train home, that they are quite oblivious of their surroundings. Honking at them makes no difference; they walk in the middle of the road, as they do back home. The only way to drive there is to trundle along behind them.

I take a turn to get away from the crowds, and that road keeps winding on and on, left then right. I follow it with the hope of coming upon a main road soon. Eventually, I see a row of cycle-rickshaws at the end of the road. Beyond them, between two buildings, there is an opening. Something seems to glint beyond. I stop and roll down my window. The group of men squatted on the roadside, look on impassively. Elder brother, I say, is it possible to go down that way? I gesture to the passageway beyond. 

No, elder sister, they reply, pleased with my respectful form of address. I realize I’ve reached an absolute dead end. The glint I saw is the railway tracks just beyond, and the opening is a shortcut to the station.  It’s their corner, they line up their vehicles on one side, pick up passengers coming through the opening, and move on down the other side of the road to take them on to their destination. They tell me I should have turned right instead of left, to reach the main road and the bridge further on. A passing man sniggers that the only way out now is in reverse. But backing the car around the winding bends I passed earlier doesn’t seem a great option.

The rickshaw-walas watch in silence as I back away to the nearest pavement and wait there. Some rickshaws are taken and ready to move. Their drivers look at me uncertainly. They are unsure of my intention, and seem to debate being patient or being belligerent. I wave them on their way. There is just enough room for them to go past, and they head out. Thankfully, passengers are aplenty the line of parked rickshaws clears quickly, and I can continue with my manoeuvre. The drivers that remain courteously move their vehicles up to provide me a little more space to help me get right around and retrace my route.

The class conscious groups in Kolkata looks down their noses at the riff raff that gather at the corners. They are loud and individuals may be quick to confront, or even come to blows over perceived injustices. Moreover, they may be illiterate and vice ridden, so the respectable barely acknowledge their existence. Street corner people are perceived the lowest of the low.

But their social responsibility is second to none. These savvy people become first responders in any emergency. Their help is immediate even for a total stranger. They spring into action to clear traffic jams if the police are not around, or as additional help. They also regularly intervene to resolve street altercations.

The one thing they are undoubtedly expert at, are road directions. Ask about locations, shortcuts, traffic flow and road conditions, and they are instant sources of information. They know ways in and out of the locality, like the backs of their hands. A satellite-dependent GPS is a must in the West.  In Kolkata, we get by with these human equivalents.

The end of fear itself

Mary Kom, the living legend. Bear in mind that her country of origin is India, and her achievements of five world titles in boxing, is mind-boggling. But can the film inspire families around the country to allow their women-folk to step out of traditional gender roles? Or will the tale of her success remain bittersweet for the many nameless, faceless women of India, themselves casualties on the road to self-actualizing?
 

The Mary Kom biopic released in India this month. Her life story, packaged in a Bollywood production, sweeps the audience along on an emotional roller coaster. We are in awe of her grit in demolishing the sexist bounds girls her age are afraid of confronting. We marvel how her boxing dream sustains her through travails. The images portrayed are iconic, and have dramatic timing. Against the backdrop of destructive insurgent standoffs in the Northeastern states, a young girl finds the boxing glove that inspires her career. Again, conflict flares and curfew ensues when she is to become a mother.

We too rage at the sporting ignorance of the federation officials, and at the injustices meted out to state and national players. Our tears well up with her collapse onto the ring canvas in sync with her child’s loss of vitals during her comeback championship bout. Together with her supporters, we will her to find strength in helplessness and get back to her feet. Her pain as person, woman, daughter, student, wife and mother resonates as our pain, because so many women in India are or have been in like situations. 

Although all around the world, women’s movements have cried themselves hoarse in protest over the invisible glass ceiling in employment organizations, in India it is barely realized. Entrenched in gender roles, most women probably do not believe they are worth any better. We cannot hope to see anybody else have the self-belief to speak out, let alone throw a chair in protest at the powers-that-be. It may be telling that, although in the last fortnight, the film screened in theatres in the rest of India, its release is as yet held up in Kom’s home state of Manipur!

In the social structure of the country, women do occupy positions of power, but their climbing the rungs of achievement on their own strengths are rare. Far more often we hear of the incumbents being somebody’s mother, sister, wife, daughter or daughter-in-law. In short, behind every successful woman there is a man to pull the strings, and wield the power. When this is the socially accepted construction of a woman’s life, it is no surprise that their self-worth is also dependent on forces outside of them. Against that norm, the woman that values herself is an oddity.

We love the men that stand up tall in her life - the father, a wrestler himself, for his turnabout from stiff resistance to support of his daughter’s dreams, the husband for his calming counsel, devotion to family and commitment to her career, and of course, the curmudgeon coachfor his unwavering focus on goal, without whose guidance in training she acknowledges she can never be a champion.

We are also secretly jealous, because very, very few women can boast of kinship support that respects or even tolerates the development of their individual identity. Rather, most women that dare to be “unwomanly” in a patriarchal society are not only left open to gender exploitation in the outside world, they also face the severest backlash at home. The pressures of battling several fronts often break down resolve, and in abject despair, most become apathetic shells of their former self. In the ultimate analysis, they lack the killer instinct.

What holds the women back from achieving their goals? In one word: Fear. The undifferentiated fear that is all consuming. The fear is of stepping outside the mythological lakshmanrekha (invisible boundary) that tradition constrained them with so many millennia ago. The fear is of performance, it is of making mistakes, and of being a failure. The fear is of the unknown, of what inexplicable terror or danger might lurk in the shadows. The fear is of other people might think. The fear is of bring shame to family.  The fear is of being abandoned.

Women of this country have been taught through generations that they are custodians of culture and carriers of the tradition. They are bred to be dependent. This perspective has probably become interwoven with their DNA. Hence, fears are their constant companions and rule their lives. In one memorable scene in the film, the protagonist warns the official, Don’t scare anybody so much that their fear ends altogether. Women of India need to take heart from it.  Fact is they have nothing to fear but fear. Conquer it, and they become impervious to the men’s most potent weapon of control against them - emotional blackmail.

Mary Kom is not the first ever woman in the country with the drive to break new ground. There have been many that have tried before to fight for gender equality. Like the same wine in older bottles, they too were held hostage to stereotypical assumptions – that they would become boys if they played boys’ games, that nobody would ever marry them, that they would bring dishonour to the family prestige, ad infinitum.  Through earlier ages, innumerable women have thus been felled by the wayside for their audacious attempts to reach out and break the glass ceiling. They were not defeated in fair fights but through their greatest weakness, the desire to maintain relationships.

The tenacity of Mary Kom lends substance to her legendary status. She keeps her goal in sight no matter what. Through thick and thin, her talent remains undiminished. When the father forces a choice, the pressure shows, and yet her gaze is unwavering as she chooses boxing over the familial relationship. It makes the Arjuna Award for her exceptional prowess significant – Arjun the warrior-prince of the Mahabharat could shoot out the eye of a fish on a rotor at a distance because of that extraordinary ability to focus.

Although the earlier women innovators remain in the shadows today, Mary Kom’s success actually vindicates their belief that woman can do this. For them it is bittersweet - they couldn’t make it, but somebody finally did! This country and many others around the world could do with a reevaluation of gender roles. May be, just may be, the story of one woman’s journey to the top adds fillip to a new trend in women’s development.

In the cinema hall, the audience jumps to its feet as the national anthem plays at the end of the show. They applaud, perhaps the person, perhaps the presentation, perhaps both. I wonder whether they will, thereafter, apply any of it to bring change into their own lives. Or will the majority soon distance from proactive action, and instead, re-view the biopic as just 123 minutes of filmy entertainment…

Save the last dance

In modern India, older age groups have a problem. Actually, they may even be the problem. After decades of nurturing others, they forget how to nurture themselves. Society forgets about them as well. Elsewhere in the world, we hear 60 is now the new 40! But that memo, for sure, is yet to be received here.

I visit an upcoming housing complex. Their marketing executive tells me that the place is self-sufficient. Residents do not need to step outside the area for any activity or entertainment. With a few thousand high-rise flats, it is like a little town in itself. He reels off the modern in-house facilities, now an inseparable part of urban living – shopping mall, multiplex theatre, gymnasium and health spa, children’s play centre, community hall, and so on. He is eager for me to understand that they have thought of everything. 

What about senior citizens? I ask. A flourish of his arm takes in a passageway with about a dozen armchairs. I stare in surprise. Is that all the activity retirees merit – a sit down and chat? It is almost like waiting to die. That the elderly are viewed as completely spent is disquieting. The metabolism may have slowed down, but the minds are still active, thinking, creating. May be more, in fact, now that the distractions of youth have been seasoned. I dream of ageing gracefully, not of being relegated to a trash heap of uselessness!

For years the older age-group shoulders responsibility for the future. First, it is more important to focus on a good education to go up in life, then, there are job priorities, and finally, family and children take precedence. The little time remaining in hand for them must look bleak when the social consideration they earn as returns is poor. Surely, the ageing deserve something a bit more imaginative!

Society may not mean to discriminate, but its majority associates this group with little other than medical needs. It pushes the elderly to think negatively about themselves too, when the opposite is just as true. Now that responsibilities are largely over, it is opportunity for them to refocus on the self. Post-retirement, one finally has time to develop freely what has been left remote for years. Maybe childhood aspirations saved in some corner of memory could be resurrected. Discovering the simple joy of learning new skills, for instance. 

Certainly, the assumptions of suspended animation need to be question, and yes, a few waves created in chasing dreams. From my very long-term memory, I dredge one up - Dance.  I was captivated with it, but was then too young to join the class the three older girls in our joint family were going to. Later, they told me. Alas, by then, the older girls gave up on it, one by one. The family was convinced that, by association, so would I. Dancers only get fat later on, they told me, better to learn to sing.

A dream shatters at a very impressionable age. It is not forgotten, just buried in memory as failure, never pursued again. I imagine putting the pieces together, to see what comes of it.  Out of respect for the childhood goal, I could at least give it a try. In fact, the exercise might be more interesting than the chatting envisaged as the appropriate old age pastime. 

My age-mates laugh at my craziness. Seriously, time to stop, they tell me in parental tones, you’ve danced around a lot before in your life. Yes, but that was a different spin of dancing. Bouncing around is perhaps a more appropriate term to use - changing subjects of study, changing job fields, and changing homes.

I suppose they mean for me to have stability in my life, to be completely predictable, and like furniture, to just be there. The mistake is in thinking there is safety in an environment controlled to keep everything the same. Fact is the only constant in life is change. Accept that, and one is ready to adapt to any new reality.

I set about finding the dance school to attend. I look them up and decided to ‘phone a couple located close by for details. Initially, they are most welcoming. I’m just the kind of enthusiastic person they need in their class, they tell me. There are two broad categories, Indian and Western, and under them, innumerable styles and specializations: bharatnatyam, kathak, odissi, salsa, samba, zumba, and more besides. For an absolute beginner, Indian or Western makes no difference. At the moment, it is more a question of what might be a little easier to do. The schools promise guidance, and incidentally, telephonic admissions are also possible.

In the end, I ask the most important question, the age limit. They assure me there isn’t any. Student over a-year-and-a-half in age is all. They misunderstand. At the other end, I clarify. My query puzzles them. Adult? They respond tentatively, like it is a question. I tell them I’m in search of a senior citizens class. The silence wafting down the telephone line is telling! I can feel their interest wane. Senior citizens don’t do these classes. But there is a sop. I can join in with the kids in the beginners' class, if I want.

I decide on not for now. Surely, senior citizens have the gumption to organize their own activities! It may feel a little awkward at first, but to just think, they don’t need to impress anybody or please the world any more. When there are no classes for seniors, go to Plan B. The point is to learn. Technology is freely available, so why not take advantage of online instructions. I search the ‘Net and find a slew of tutorials. They all say joining an actual class is the best way to learn, and I couldn’t agree more. However, a saying in India is that having a blind uncle is better than having no uncle at all. 

The dance is, at last, for me! I decide to choose something with rhythm. I close my eyes and make a stab at the computer screen. Salsa, it is, a sexy dance from Cuba. It may be an ambitious project, but well, I’m not about to become a performer. The aim is to prove that this also can be achieved. I try to emulate moves from the video clips. They don’t look impossible to remember. Right, left, right … Left, right, left … Like walking. With a wish held this long, touchwood, I might even get it.