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.

In the guise of a stranger

Poverty, as the world has understood, is India’s unique selling point. Any documentary or news spot telecast on the region, tends to underscore that fact. The first time I visited the West, an elderly lady on the bus I was riding in, asked in a loud whisper whether there were any buses in my country. I politely assured her there were, although, No, ma’am, I wished to say, we ride tigers and wear snakes! Abject poverty has become the cultural stereotype of all things Indian.

A quarter of the Indian population is deemed to live below the poverty line – “bpl” is the largest social category now. But the line itself is arbitrary, probably a statistical index based on some international standard of fixed income. Millions of people don’t reach that standard in a country where labour is plentiful and cheap, but they manage to get by under their own steam. Small trade, hawking, contractual labour or domestic help are usual modes of earning, and returns may be also in kind.

But for many others, poverty is the business project, milking the universal stereotype for all it's worth. After every natural disaster, scores of victims appear in localities. One such group of adults and children took up ‘residence’ on a busy street corner and soon began to terrorize passersby for alms. Encouraged by the adults with them, the small children ran on to the streets after auto-rickshaws, and other vehicles, to accost anybody alighting. Emboldened by people’s self-conscious compliance, the children grabbed hold of people’s hands, legs, bags, or clothes, refusing let go until some money changed hands.  It had become an easy method of extortion.

But in size, the children were mostly under eye-level, and drivers couldn’t always spot them coming on to the road. In exasperation one day, I confronted the adult man with them that seemed in charge, about their antics. I began to tell him off soundly for his completely lax parenting skills, causing them to run wild and endangering the little ones. In the midst of my strident lecture, the man muttered that they were not his children. These people were not related to one another at all. They were professionals, con artists simply playing at being a destitute family, to profit off the national disaster.
 

On another day, I noticed an old woman standing alone at the crossroads. She was small, and the length of sari she had wrapped around her body and head, was well worn. Considering her age, it seemed a little odd that she had come out that early in the morning. Passers-by glanced at her as they went by, mildly curious as to whether she was lost or turned out of her home.

After sometime, she shuffled up to an older man that seemed preoccupied with his own thoughts, a piteous expression on her face. The man was a little startled with her approach. She stood with drooping shoulders, but all the same, in his way. He fished in his pockets for some coins that he dropped on her palm and hurried away. She was not lost or anything. She was in her element, in the begging business. This crossroads was her beat for the morning, and she was working it well, getting several people to donate to her cause of being old.

I watched with interest. She told a white-haired man the poignant story of how she was forced to beg because her sons, controlled by their wives, had stopped caring for her. She went up to a young man next. But it was a mistake, and in a moment, she tried to get away from him. But he wasn’t about to let her off so easily. Why not, he called loudly after her; a little work won’t hurt you. You want money, don’t you? Come, sweep the floors, wash the bathrooms, you’ll get money. No work, no money. She turned away, pretending to be deaf.

She tottered over to a corner to regroup. Surreptitiously, she counted the money she had managed to collect. The notes in her hand might be enough for a couple of meals. She seemed to debate whether to push her luck or call it a day. The mean young man had lost interest in baiting her and was gone, so she turned around for another foray.

In the end, she encountered a lively young woman in a bright red and orange sari. She embarked on the tale that now that she was old, she couldn’t find work any more, nobody would employ her. You’re telling me, mother, the young woman said laughingly, I work too, you know. She reached inside her blouse and pulled out a small coin purse. She pressed some money into the beggar’s hands. If we don’t help one another, who else will help us?, she said cheerily to everybody else as she went on her way. 

That empathetic sentiment must be counted on in target choosing. The art of begging in India seems to me to be somewhat like that of selling refrigerators to the Eskimo! Poverty is as universal here, as ice must be out there, hence to be convincing is not an easy task. The old woman didn’t go after anybody that was clearly well off, the joggers and walkers, for instance. No, her targets were the people of the harder working class, like the lower level office staff or domestic help, hurrying to get to their place of work before their employers arrived or left for theirs. She probably felt that they had more heart, and in most cases, she read them right.

I’m sure few on the beggars’ radar in India are particularly fooled by the sob stories dished out to them. They know the score, and yet they give, willing to share, although nigh have-nots themselves. If the rest of the world would look beyond the poverty in India, they could find juxtaposed with the dirty and ugly, an ample measure lesser know cultural traits of India to be really impressed with. 

Firstly, social collectivism exists among the general populace, characterized by the truly hospitable spirit. They may be shy at first, but there is little hesitation to include others seemingly worse off within their universe.  Ask them, and the gods will provide, they say with karmic conviction. And finally, deeply ingrained in the psyche is a stronger spiritual belief. They are brought up not to turn away anybody that come to their door. Who knows, God may appear at any time in the guise of a stranger. Every such encounter is a test, and none want to risk failing it. 

 

Signalling ambiguity

Ever quite so often, I wish for a dashboard camera. Pictures that would capture in a trice the happenings on the roads of Kolkata would indeed be worth the thousands of words I labour to express – sometimes funny, sometimes heart-warming, and sometimes exasperating. On our general confusion with the traffic signals, for instance, they would speak volumes!

For decades, things were easier, and only three lights used to be there, red, amber and green. They were positioned on wooden or metal posts on the left corner of the road or in the middle of the traffic island with lights facing four ways. It is customary to drive on the left in this country; hence, an automatic left turn at crossings was the norm.

The signal posts of yesteryears are still standing. They also function, although greenery growing around them may obscure their lights sometimes. We have juxtaposed modernity now, with more rows of lights hung up ahead. The multiple new green lights qualify the single homogenous green light of old, and are redesigned into a green arrow to point out the direction more specifically. There are as many arrows as there are roads diverging from the crossing. Rendered necessary, I suppose, now that the numbers have increased, of people, and correspondingly, of traffic.

For additional help, single lights, red or green, are placed on the left or right of the road. The information the ordinary driver needs to drive safely is obtainable partly ahead, partly on the left, and partly on the right. Unfortunately, in the midst of heavy traffic, these are difficult to spot, let alone collate on the fly. Most people don’t bother their heads with them, and just go with the flow. It is so much easier to follow somebody else. It must be our herd instinct, do whateverthey are doing, right or wrong! 

The rules have changed from yesteryears, and the automatic left facility no longer exists. A “no free left” signboard stuck halfway up on the old traffic signal post says so. But how many of the drivers in Kolkata read English, anyway? It is thus unnoticed or just ignored. The point is the free left still exists in the minds of many drivers. Without the specific signal, yes, it is often freely appropriated; leaving behind those that can read feeling stupid!

I notice at several crossings, the “go left” green arrow comes on some seconds after the red light stops all traffic on the route. Vehicles bound for that direction begins to move, but after a few seconds more, that green light goes off again. Must the left-bound traffic already on the move stop again ? On a right turn, they must stop, of course, because traffic on the straight will soon be oncoming. But on the left turn, certainly no such difficulty exists. Still, I prefer to wait for the clear signal. However, for many other drivers that initial green arrow is go-ahead enough to keep going. Seems to me that if so, the signal too should stay on for the entire duration the channel is open. Surely, common sense dictates that! 

In many places, timers next to the signal lights count down the seconds. They look very precise and efficient technological tools. Motorists can see for themselves how much longer they have to wait for the go signal, or conversely, how long the channel will remain open. To my mind, though, it is the major irritant we can do without. The timings programmed into them are abysmal.  It may be that many of these signal lights have manual overrides, and the fault lies with their operators, since it is their duty to ensure that traffic on any particular road is not backed up too far too long. And what easier way to clear the traffic jams on one route, than to freeze the signal lights on the others until it is!

Often, despite the timer having already counted down to “00” (zero seconds remaining), motorists continue to be greeted with the unblinking red light. This may go on for an indefinite period – I’ve counted 30, 60 and even 90 more seconds sometimes with the timer frozen on zero! Why install them in the first place if their purpose is abused? They are meant to be an accurate gauge of time, in this case for stopping or for going, but appear to become the instrument of somebody’s whim.

Furthermore, if the signal operators forget to remove the override at the end of their day, it carries forward to the next. On an ordinary working morning recently, traffic was light. Before rush hour, those out early could beat the logistical delays, and they probably expected to do so. At a crossing in front of a hospital, the timer had already counted down, but the signal remained red. Since there was no obvious emergency happening there, may be the light was malfunctioning. Drivers soon became restive. Several just drove off. Unwilling to run the red light, some stayed put. That frustrated those behind them. The hospital zone was then treated to their high decibel venting, until finally, finally, the signal turned green! 

On many routes, the red and green signal lights are turned off during the very early hours of the morning. Only the amber continues to flash, warning people to be careful and responsible as they drive along. It makes sense for that hour, because traffic is anyway so sparse. The motorists don’t have to waste time just waiting on empty roads. But again, there is inconsistency; on some routes, the red and green are active, despite the traffic being just as sparse. Hence, minutes of stoppage time are mandatory. Many drivers don’t bother to wait. Instead, indulging their needs for speed, they zoom right through the intersections. The onus is on others, the more sedate motorists, to forget the signals, just get out of the way! 

The little red and green men, signalling at pedestrian crossings, are meant to light up in opposite to the main traffic signals. Their task is to alert pedestrians when it is safe to walk and when not. That is, the standing red man shines to halt pedestrians when the motor traffic is on the go, and conversely, the walking green man shines to indicate that their getting across the road is now safe. Situations arise however, that would be comical if they weren’t potentially dangerous. Somebody connects together all the ‘red’ lights in the signals, and all the green ones too. As a result, pedestrians are cautioned “don’t walk”, when the traffic is at a standstill, and encouraged to “walk” when the signal light to motorists too is green for go!

Perhaps it is just as well that most people on foot in Kolkata ignore the traffic lights completely. They don’t labour over ambiguity and cross precisely when they deem it right to! With the technology to guide safe road travel frequently going awry, in their minds, it is much safer for them to take charge of their own lives!

But if, out of sheer frustration, motorists begin likewise to ignore the lights, and follow their own ideas on the road, it becomes a very different, even ugly story. Road safety depends on traffic signals being unambiguous. The technology is meant to ensure that they also are consistently precise. Traffic signals are there to help people on the road be safe, not to raise the general stress levels. Doubts created in the mind compel motorists to second-guess themselves, become dangers to themselves and to others. We need clarity on the road, not information overload nor tactics disrespectful of the public’s intelligence.