THE QUEST FOR IDENTITY AND THE FIGHT AGAINST STEREOTYPES

Those of you  who have studied psychology would be familiar with Eric Erikson’s theory of human psychosocial development.   One of the interesting stages that  he describes in his theory  is adolescence which he says is the period in one’s life when the quest for identity begins. All of us have gone through it ; some of us twice -once as teens and again as parents! ( Of course the later stage is probably more painful because we are often at the receiving end as emotional punching bags of the frustrations of this quest)

Can you imagine how much more complicated this identity issue becomes when you are in a different culture trying to assert yourself on one hand  while attempting integration on the other?  

This is what  author Randa Abdl Fattah deals with in her novel  “ Does my head look big in this” . Targeted at the teen reader this is the story of a Palestinian teenager in Australia who decides one fine day to start wearing the hijab. This girl, Amal is the only child of doctor parents who had immigrated to Australia even before she was born. An Australian by birth, Amal is raised there and is in every way a typical teenager having her good and bad times with friends, parents and extended family in Australia. As part of her quest for identity she decides one day to adopt the veil. For Amal, it is a personal choice –a way to define her identity as a person of Arab Islamic origin. She spends a lot of time thinking about it and finally decides to go for it. Her parents counsel her to think it over carefully because what she plans to do is not just adoption of a clothing but a way of asserting her identity. Amal’s mother who is a successful dentist who also wears a hijab tells her the consequences of taking it up – it would mark her out as a Muslim in a world that has labeled them as terrorists. It would involve more struggles in getting jobs. But Amal is firm and from then on the story is about how she deals with the prejudices of the western society –her snobbish private school , the nasty so called “popular” girls, the support of her friends and teachers to help her cope with  the implications of her choice.

A very confident  and academically bright student, Amal  convinces her principal that wearing a head scarf is not a violation of the school uniform rules. Ofcourse, like all teenagers she has her misgivings on the first day when she walks into the public sphere wearing her head scarf. The author describes it beautifully! As she gets used to the stares, she realizes for the first time that being “covered” makes her free of being “judged” by others on the length of her skirt, the depth of her neckline and her hairstyle. She finds that she is suddenly able to connect with rank strangers simply because they also happen to be wearing the head scarf. For her, at that moment it becomes a symbol of cultural identity.

She fights stereotypes of being the oppressed Muslim girl . She defends her faith when she says that she is successful in whatever she does “because” of her faith and not “in spite” of it! She argues beautifully in passionate teenage rage about how people who  resort to violence in the name of Islam don’t know a thing about the religion! Politics is different from religion she says at one point and those resorting to violence are making political statements and not religious ones. She cites example of the Israeli violence on Palestinians and the IRA violence in the UK asking why these are not branded in as acts of religious fundamentalism.

On the personal front, Amal’s family is not exactly a ghettoized one as they live in an up market multicultural neighborhood where her mother encourages her to reach out to other neighbors. A typical teenager, Amal has her rebellious moments at home arguing with her parents, her crushes on boys and her  stress of having to live up to her parents’ high levels of  academic expectations. Parallel to Amal’s story is that of Leila, of Turkish origin,  whose parents want her to quit her aspirations of becoming a lawyer and get married. Leila’s mother is extremely conservative and thinks too much of studying is not good for girls. This is where the author gets Amal’s mother Jamila to explain about the difference between religion and culture.  Jamila explains about how Leila’s mother was from a village which had a certain kind of behavior expectation from girls and this was what she was imposing on her daughter. She tells her that Leila’s mother could not read the Koran as she was illiterate and therefore went more by what the village dictates said rather what the religion advocated.

This book  takes me back to my teens when I was going through similar experiences like that of Amal’s as a South Indian living in Calcutta.. I was the “Madrasi” who spoke a language that the locals could not understand. I picked up quarrels with anyone who teased me asking if I ate “idli dosas” and whether I spoke “Andu Pandu”  ( their version of Tamil sounds ) at home! At home I was fighting my mother who wanted to impose the South Indian identity on me by making me wear “pavadai”, pottu, flowers in my hair and too much of gold! It was a struggle trying to come to terms with who I was and what my culture stood for! I remember feeling ashamed of my culture on one hand while being proud of it on the other.

I suppose many of the teens from Asia who are living in western countries are facing the same challenges as Amal and I faced. It is like a trial by fire. You want to integrate but you want to assert your identity too. It takes many more years and a lot of growing up before you are able to balance the two. But stereotypes are never easy to live down. It still irritates me when some North Indian tells me “ You don’t speak like a south Indian” . I mean what is a South Indian supposed to sound like? Do I have to prefix every sentence I speak with “Aiyayo”?

One has to often make that difficult choice of integration vis a vis maintaining one’s cultural identity when living in a different culture. I have relatives living in the US some of whom send their children for Bharatnatyam and Shloka classes . I also have some others relatives whose children speak no Tamil or Malayalam and do not eat any “Indian” food at home! I don’t know whose life is easier.

One does not have to practice everything that defines you culturally to actually assert your identity. I do not believe in the caste system but I cannot negate my Brahmin roots. There was a time I used to be ashamed of it taking upon me the sin of all the oppression that generations before me had imposed upon others in terms of the purity pollution issues. But today I am more comfortable with it. I do not carefully mind my Tamil language to ensure that my caste dialect does not slip out. If it does slip out and people want to stereotype me then it is their problem- not mine!

I wonder how it is for my daughter who is the child of an interreligious marriage. She has negated religion from her list of identity descriptors. But people still want to know what her religion is. Some of them assume that she is Christian after hearing her surname. Both groups annoy her. I try to tell her that religion may be unimportant to us but for many others it is an important parameter of identity. One has to understand that and deal with it. But I think in other ways she is she is more grounded as she has not had that many upheavals in her cultural environment. The India of today is more integrated than it was when I was growing up. One is not classified as “North Indian” or “ South Indian”. The IT sector has made the South a “cool” place to live and work in . There are more inter marriages and more children like her.

However that does not reduce the “teenage angst”- the frustration of not knowing what or who you are. As a mother I have in recent times  had to deal with a lot of “Whys”. I don’t know at what point you reason it out and what point you assert your authority as a parent on some issue. Sometimes her logic is more sound than mine. When I tell her not to wear shorts while taking public transport as there is no telling what kind of creeps travel in them, she in turn asks me why then do I post messages on social networking media saying “ My dress will not be influenced by a man’s inability to control his behavior”. I have no answers. She is as stubborn as I was when I was her age.

Life has come back to me as a full circle! I seem to now have again the job of dealing with the issue of MY  identity –as a mother and as an idealist. I may think that I will NOT deal with these issues the way my mother did but every time I open my mouth these days I hear my mother speak!

STATUS UPGRADE

I am sure many of you have watched the movie – “ Pati, Patni aur Woh” ! Literally translated it means husband, wife and “the other” ( could be man or woman I guess). Now imagine a situation where the     “ Woh” gets a status upgrade to “Patni”. How would you describe her feelings? Elated, thrilled, relieved?

As the person to whom this happened, I would  it  was  all of this plus a feeling of amusement because the  “upgrade”  came a week before our seventeenth marriage anniversary!  Ahh! For those of you  who are thinking “ No wonder she wrote a post  titled Three is a crowd”  let me prick your bubble! The reason was a  bureaucratic error that we did not realize had happened until about a year ago. It is a very interesting story and can rival a middling TV serial in terms of the originality of  plot!

The main protagonist of this interesting story is the Ministry of External Affairs. I will not call them the villain because that would be trivializing their contribution to the plot. Mr. Salman Khurshid’s ministry  is the central actor with the requisite shades of grey. My Pati Dev ( husband) is .....ummm... the comedian? An absent minded(hassled) guy who has more important matters to think about in this world than verifying whether the name entered in the column “Spouse”  is  that of his father’s  or his wife’s !

Now let us use the flashback mode of Indian films and travel back in time to 2003.  Mr. Absent Minded Prof (henceforth to be referred to as AMP)  was going about his work in his routine manner until he was asked by his boss one day to get ready to go abroad for an important meeting. A typical Taurean who dislikes any kind of sudden changes to his schedule, he was thrown off balance by this request. Matters became worse when he discovered that his passport was to expire about a month later. And you know how very helpful our fellow Indians can be? They frightened him with stories about being denied a visa on a passport that was near expiry. Meanwhile things got a little more complicated when his mother fell down and had to rushed to the hospital for an emergency hip replacement surgery. So here was our AMP rushing between office, home and hospital. He also realized that now he did not have the complete time or attention of his very own “personal secretary” (aka WIFE) to help him with the passport issue. So he decided to delegate the job of passport renewal to a travel agent.  The deed was done and the visit completed. Life came back to normal with occasional shake ups as more foreign trips flung themselves unannounced on poor Mr. AMP.

Then in 2012 I decided to renew my passport and also apply for my daughter’s. As part of the procedure I took both mine and AMP’s with me to the Regional Passport Office. It was only when I submitted the documents that it was pointed out to me that may be I was not the wife. “What”!! I asked (exclaimed)  the counter clerk. She showed me the name listed against the column “Spouse”.  I tried to explain that this was an error-a man cannot marry his own father ! But then representatives of the MoEA are rather lacking in imagination and so all  I could do was submit my own application and take  the other passport away to demand of Mr. AMP how did this “incestuous” situation come about! The poor guy as you can imagine was flabbergasted! He almost started behaving as if I was accusing him of being a bigamist!

We then started working on getting the problem “fixed”. The web site of the MoEA is rather unclear about such matters ( told you they lack in imagination!). We went from pillar to post and meanwhile this “offending”  passport which had delegated me to the “Woh” status expired. Now that was in a way a relief because we could now apply for a fresh passport providing all the details required to establish the fact that I was the “WIFE” !

After a lot of effort we got an interview date ( I did not realize that one had to be glued to the computer screen with finger on the mouse at a particular time of the day).  It took more time to explain to Mr. AMP that unfortunately the interview date could not be at our choosing – we had to take the first date and time that the system offered. So, grumbling a lot he agreed to take the afternoon off and go for the interview while I left for Coimbatore on official work!

Well, the man was given all details of the documents that he had to take. But did he remember them?  He did, except that he forgot one important document – MY PASSPORT! So he could not go beyond the A counter ( or was that the Z counter?). The person scrutinizing the documents apparently felt that the marriage certificate was not enough to prove I was the wife. He wanted to be sure that we resided at the same location!

The next time I decided to take no chances. Fortunately for us we were able to get an interview date the very next week.  We decided to consult with a friend who had recently renewed his passport as also that of his wife’s and son’s. We were sure that he was the right person to consult given his unique status as a man who was married earlier and has two children through his previous marriage and one through his current one.  He is also older ,closer to AMP in age and given his life experiences can deal with him with more patience. He told us to go prepared with some additional documents – a recent photograph in which we were both there together and also be ready to get an affidavit from a notary if required.

As we got the documents together, I added for good measure, our wedding invitation and my father-in-law’s death certificate ( last being a master stroke)! This time AMP took the whole day off and I accompanied him for moral support. Unfortunately, the guard at the entrance of the Passport Seva Kendra did not recognize the need for me to be with him. So I was left standing outside texting my beloved every ten minutes until he texted back “ DON’T TEXT me! It is distracting. I will TEXT you “ ! So there I was gazing at my phone for a while until I decided that I would have to either go home or do something to occupy myself there. The going home option did not seem right because remember I had those wedding photos, wedding invites etc which might be required at short notice? I had also located a Notary’s office nearby and I knew if required I might have to get an affidavit done and send it across to AMP inside. I sat there on somebody’s compound wall watching all the people getting in and out of the Passport Seva Kendra. Ladies with newly delivered babies ( I should have got my baby a passport along with her birth certificate!), old couples, burqa clad lovelies and political types…! I also started a conversation with a couple of others who were similarly waiting. Unfortunately they were all men and so I could not ask them to accompany me to the coffee shop across the road! Soon, I found that I was like the “boy on the burning deck” as two hours passed, then three ! Three and a half hours later I got a text that said- “Photo taken and fee paid”.  I was now getting ready to go but did he come out? NO! The wives of my three male companions sailed out one by one. The last one had gone one hour after my Patidev. She told me that if he did not come back in another fifteen minutes we would have to come the next day! I was just planning to scroll on to the passport.gov on my phone to verify what she was saying, when I saw him coming down the steps looking harassed and every bit the AMP! “ What “ ? I asked. “Over” he replied. Looking at the receipt I realized that Dad’s death certificate, our marriage certificate and my passport were the only documents that was required to prove who I was!  He did not have to pay any penalty fee either ( “ There was a nice Asst passport officer –a Malayalee lady who waived it for me” he said with a grin)

A week later, we received a call from a policeman who wanted to come for “verification”.  I wondered what he wanted to verify –whether it was the address or my residence there as the wife! Whatever, before I could change out of my uniform of frayed track pants and T shirt, our friend from the home ministry had arrived. As a matter of common courtesy I offered him some tea. He declined. Water? He declined that too! Meanwhile I was hoping the husband would emerge from the shower. I mean what sort of conversation can one have with an honest cop? After about six attempts from me at hammering the bathroom door down he emerged and ran out to meet the police man in equally disreputable pair of shorts and a T shirt. The cop gave us both the “once over” and then asked if we had received the passport. I shook my head. He took the husband’s signature on a document and also his thumb print. After he left I asked my AMP- “What was that document you signed?” And guess what he said? “ I don’t know”!!! Really…..! He could have easily signed a document admitting to having committed some local robberies!

And thereafter began my love affair with Mr. Salman Khurshid as I started “tracking” the passport status online. I saw Salman Sahab’s photo about three times a day for three days until I was convinced that he was probably the most handsome politician among the present lot. He was also very much on TV thanks to the Chinese antics in Ladakh. So he drew me like a magnet on to the other screen too!  I began comparing him to his predecessor..! I seriously think I was developing a crush on him. Ofcourse, crushes have their life time. Mine ended on the evening of the 2^nd of May when I saw the message “You passport XXX has been dispatched   by speed post”. I bid goodbye to Mr. Salman Khurshid and started looking out for the post man.

The poor guy never realized that a woman was waiting at the other end of the door when he rang the bell the next morning!  “Passport kondu vandurkingla” was my opening line. He nodded and wanted to meet the passport holder. After about ten minutes of discussions he agreed to give me the passport provided I could furnish my photo id that proved that I was the WIFE and also my husband’s photo ID that proved he resided there. And then with trembling hands I opened to the page that had the family details. And sure enough against the column Name of the Spouse was MEERA SUNDARARAJAN!!!

( An experience that might seem funny but is not! I urge all of you to please review information that you provide in your passport application. The Passport Seva system is really professional and state of the art. It keeps out the touts who used to rule the roost. However I wish it would be easier to get a passport submission appointment! One cannot just keep refreshing the page on the site waiting to “click”  or “pounce” the moment the clock strikes. And lastly I think it would be better if the  MoEA can be clearer on their website about the documentation required for submission of an application. As of now it is only the affidavits that they mention clearly)

THE "MAGIC" OF IMAGERY AND ASSOCIATION

The human brain is a very interesting organ.  Among the many things that it is capable of doing , what really amazes me is its ability to bring the sense organs together and perceive things that go beyond the  the normal action of that organ. Let me explain this a bit more.

We all know about how the sense of smell can trigger other senses. For example when we smell something delicious we automatically start feeling hungry.  This sense of hunger can also be triggered by pictures of food. But the most amazing thing is that sometimes even words describing food can make us salivate in anticipation! The credit goes as much to the person who wrote those words as to this wonderful organ inside our head!

I have always been a person who is very susceptible to the  imagery  of words. When I read a book I actually see the characters in my mind. I can almost taste some dishes simply by the descriptions.  But I must say that sometimes the real thing is a let down! I  used to read a lot of Enid Blytons as a child and one of the things that I thought might be the  most delicious dish in this world was – buttered  or jam muffins. I used to read those parts over and over again particularly the sections about how the butter or jam would be oozing out of the muffin. But unfortunately, when I actually tasted a muffin, it was rather disappointing!  Of course, I tried to console myself saying that maybe we don’t get the real thing in India.  

My grandmother was a great one at creating imagery by her mere words. She often described to me how as a child, she and her friends used to take tamarind and roll it on the mortar used to grind spices along with some salt and chill powder and then stick to the end of a “irkuchi” ( the mid rib of a dried coconut frond often used in the making of broom sticks) and suck it like a lollipop! Believe me folks, no lollipop tasted nicer than what this tamarind one tasted in my mind. Ofcourse I tried doing it at my grandparents place but once I dropped the pestle on the ground and  was scolded badly  I never again went near that piece of granite! But the longing remains.. even today.

And no it is not just food that is susceptible to imagery. Good imagery can also trigger our sense of smell. I remember reading a book by Anita Nair about a Kathakali dancer who had to spend a few years in London. He misses his home and everything about it. There is  a section where she describes beautifully how he misses bathing in hot water “fragrant with the smell of burning firewood”. It took me back to my childhood at my grandparent’s place in Srirangam where there used to be a huge copper pot in which gallons of water would be heated  on a firewood stove for all of us to have our oil baths. The  entire room would smell of burning firewood and so would the water.  Of course you might say that I was able to relate to it because I had a previous experience to fall back on . But one must give credit to the writer for triggering that memory.  And yes, in the same book she describes how our hero misses eating hot rice with “ More kachi” .. comfort food at its best! I could almost smell the coconut being ground to make that curry and the smell of mustard seasoning it after it was off the fire!

But are words the only medium through which imagery is created? I would say not. For me music is another medium which does it. The ear hears more than mere sound.  For those of you who have heard the Hindustani Raag “ Pahadi” ( literally meaning mountainous) may understand what I mean. Whenever I hear this Raag I am transported to the mountains. There is one instrument that creates in my mind the image of  flowing water– the Santoor!  I have never been on the Dal Lake but whenever I hear Shiv Kumar Sharma play his Santoor I can see myself on that lake. Similarly are there are raags like Poorvi, Yaman,  Pooriya which make me  watch the sunset in my mind. I also see the cowherds coming home with the cattle. Raags like Lalit can almost  make you see the first rays of the sun while Raag Megh can bring the dark clouds of the monsoon sky in front of your eyes! Ofcourse if you are so inclined you may even feel those droplets touch your eye lids!

While music and words can trigger the imagery, there are times when it happens rather spontaneously. How many times have you listened to a person with that lovely voice at the other end of the phone and been disappointed by the way s/he actually looks?

The human mind is very creative. We just need something like a small trigger to set it going in a certain direction. Ofcourse how far it would travel depends on the mind’s own desire to travel that path.  The ability to associate a thought with an image is a kind of coming together of the senses. This is what I guess  makes humans so special. 

And with something like this between our ears, who needs a magic wand?

( Do share with me what triggers your mental images and what are those images)

THE TOILET POLITICS

I know Indian politics is akin to a dirty toilet but folks this post  is not about that!

I have been meaning to write about this theme for a while.   The idea came to me last week when I was attending a seminar at a reputed agriculture university in southern India. A woman co participant came up to me and asked if I knew where the ladies  toilet was.  I pointed her  towards a corridor which had the signboard “Toilets” written on the wall.  She went  there and returned almost immediately. Even before she could say why she was back, I guessed the reason.  The door was locked!!!  This is a practice with most government institutions

I discovered this  quite early on in life when I joined my bachelor’s degree at an agriculture university in another southern state. We used to have one smelly room adjoining what used to be called “Ladies room” which about 300 female under grad students had to use to relieve themselves ! The various departments of course had their own Ladies toilets but they were all locked with privileged entry status only for women PG students and professors  from the concerned department!  If you were a visitor and female, you would have to pray that you were near an area where there were enough bushes ..!!

I also encountered in the same agriculture university where I was last week another  interesting facility “VVIP toilet” !!!! I mean, why? Do very  important people excrete gold?

While lack of adequate public toilets for women in this country is a big problem, there is an even bigger problem that exists in terms of general access and use of toilets . In  a hierarchy conscious society like ours toilets are, rarely viewed as public conveniences. They are more like private privileges allotted to you because of your position in society by birth or some other status.  

Those of you who have watched the movie called “ Help” would recall the scene where white American women in the Southern States led a campaign that they called “Separate but equal” – protesting against allowing their domestic help of African origin from using toilets inside their homes. Now, this is something that is very common in Indian households. Even in our own home, my mother in law had a specially designated toilet allocated for them. This toilet is outside the house and very inconvenient to use when it rains. We (MIL and I)  have had innumerable arguments over allowing them to use our toilets at least during days when it was raining. Sometimes the light in this toilet used to fuse and my mother in law did not want to spend money on replacing the bulb . Her logic was ‘At least we are providing them with a toilet. Look at the neighbors, they don’t have a toilet for their servants” ..Anyway, I won the argument many years down the line when she was bedridden and needed a full time care giver. That was when her caregivers, domestics and herself all began to use the same toilets .  Now, after her time we have done away with this distinction. Everyone who visits the house or lives in it uses the toilets that the house provides. The rule is that “Use any toilet but  keep it clean”.

I wonder why entry barriers to toilet access exist in our country. Many schools have separate toilets for teachers and students ( though my daughter’s school doesn’t). Offices have separate toilets for “officers”/ “Managers” and “staff”!!! People justify it on the grounds that people from “certain classes of society”  do not know how to maintain and use toilets and hence the need for segregation! But I would say why not use this opportunity to teach them how to? It would serve a public cause in a country like ours where invariably all toilets (public and private) are generally unclean!!!

But  in this  quest for equality should men and women use the same toilets? The reason why I think men and women need separate toilets is because toilets are places for fulfillment of biological needs. Men and women being built differently use toilets differently and hence the need for gender segregated toilets!  Besides, women in most cultures are rather embarrassed of being seen in the same space as men while attending to this need!  And one must remember that toilets are not just places where you relieve yourself. You also use the space for adjusting your clothes, combing your hair – imagine how embarrassing it might be for a woman to have a man walk in while she is adjusting her clothes..!!! Even if it is a single cubicle “gender neutral” toilet in an office it would be equally  embarrassing for a man to open the toilet cabinet and chance upon a packet of woman’s sanitary napkins. Men find it as disgusting to use a blood stained toilet bowl as women who complain of men peeing without putting down the toilet seat ( not to say either of these conditions are permissible even in a single sex toilet).  

Anyway, coming back to the question of privileged access to such public conveniences,  I would like to share an incident concerning such toilet use in a reputed non profit organization in my city . This organization initially did not have separate toilets for men and women. But when the women demanded a separate toilet the men agreed grudgingly! There were more men in this office than women, so they built another toilet in the back yard for use by drivers and support staff . But the Regional Director of this organization that was supposedly working for equality continued to have his privileged individual use of the attached toilet ( which incidentally had two doors but the other door leading to the room next door was permanently shut so that it would remain his private toilet). The women on the other hand did not have such distinctions. All the  women( Managers, officers, clerks, receptionist and support staff) used the women’s toilet quite happily.  So who was perpetuating social discrimination – the men, the women or the leader of the office? Of course if you ask the men they would tell you that it was women who began the entire discrimination issue by demanding a separate toilet for themselves!!

Eating and defecating are some universal human needs but we seem to use these very same needs to further our class/ caste divides. I think it is pointless talking about ending socio economic hierarchies unless we are ready to rid ourselves of some deeply of these deeply entrenched biases!

 

WHEN THREE IS A CROWD

Seven o’clock in the evening is an odd time for me to switch on the television.  But switch on I did and found myself watching some channel that was showing a poor rehash of the lovely Mahesh Bhatt film “Arth”. For those of you who have not seen this movie, it is about a married woman whose husband is having an affair with another woman. She tries her best to save her marriage – talking to the “other” woman, pleading with  her husband to give their marriage another chance and finally when nothing works she tries to start life afresh-all alone.  The movie I was watching was rather awful in terms of the cast and the acting but somehow the theme seemed to hold me riveted to the screen. So, in between stirring the curry on the stove, I kept coming back to the living room to watch the film. When the husband came in, I yelled from the kitchen “ Don’t change the channel. I am watching that movie” . He told me later he was “shocked” that I was watching such “crap”.

Well.. ‘crap”  or not, I watched the movie almost until the end! Actually, now even  I am surprised how I did that!  I guess because it had something to do with the theme- the worst nightmare for every woman -her husband having an affair.

I sometimes read these articles where people say that no third person can break up a marriage- that the third person’s entry is a logical consequence of an unraveling relationship. I am not so sure about that. I mean, relationships go through phases. Each phase has its own complexity. When you are young and just married there is all the time in the world for each other. Then  you become parents and the relationship undergoes a change.  For women in particular, this is like a watershed – we lose our looks, freedom and become stressed. Some marriages cope well with this change while many don’t. But that does not mean that they break apart.  Or do they create conditions where one of the partners – the husband ( most probably) starts looking for someone else? Or may be that someone else walks into his life and he realizes that this is what he wants .. If that is so then it is probably very unfair to the wife because, lets face it- the wife is also undergoing the same turmoil in the marriage. It is just that women are socially conditioned to respect the sanctity of the married relationship.

But let us look at this from the  point of view of the “other woman”. She is actually not an opportunist. A victim of her need she finds herself in a situation where she is emotionally involved with a married man. So what does she do? She tries to demand more of his time and falls apart when he leaves her.

And men… well in the Indian context I would say they probably have the best of both worlds. They continue being married , enjoy the joys outside, keeping status quo. Some of them are forced to take the decision and make that choice between one of the two women.  And I  guess women who marry previously married men are probably  more insecure in their married relationships  because they have had a first hand experience of what this man is capable of!  Complicated isn’t it?

As a wife I think an experience like dealing with the husband’s extra marital affair can completely ruin your self confidence. It might be easy to say that she should walk out  but most women don’t because marriage and motherhood makes you most vulnerable.  So we try to ignore it, forgive the guy or try for what is called a “fresh start” ! And the saddest part of all this is when it happens about a decade or so into one’s marriage. There used to be TV serial called “Saans” made by Nina Gupta who plays the mother of teenage kids whose husband starts having an affair with her friend. A woman who has never had a career, she finds herself suddenly having to think of life alone with the kids when she decides to walk out of the relationship.

I once had a domestic help who married  a married man (a bit of a tongue twister). Ofcourse I thought that he had duped her by not reveling his married status but she told me that she married him out her own free will.  And her husband like our former Chief Minister was quite happy to have a “manaivi” and “tunaivi”. He fathered four kids ( two each from each of these women) and lived what he considered a blissful married life (lives). I wondered why a sane girl would make a choice like this. My friend says that it is the fascination of having someone “belonging” to someone else suddenly notice you and prefer you to her. Gives her sense of power.. ! Guess in a country like ours these are the only few opportunities that women get to experience power..! But it is inexplicable when movie stars like Hema Malini settle for playing second fiddle..

Man they say is polygamous in nature.. I don’t believe it. I think it is just that our society makes it easy for men to get away with polygamy. So they indulge in it whenever possible. Women on the other hand have to face more social repercussions when they do something like this. So they tend to be more responsible in any relationship.

Whatever, whether it is men or women, three is definitely a crowd and such relationships are best left to movie scripts and romance novels. Trying them out in real life messes with everyone and complicating life..! It does not help either the Pati, Patni or the Woh

 

Standing out in a crowd

My daughter pointed to a T Shirt at a shop window  in our neighborhood. It had the message       “ Everyone reads my blog” printed across it.

“Come on mummy you should buy it” she urged.  When   I laughingly refused saying that it would actually be a lie if I wore it as only a few people read my blogs, my husband pitched in saying that he could get the manufacturer to personalize it with my blog URL.  I was horrified at the image of being a walking advertisement for the “Chronicles…” I would rather die than draw attention to myself in that way.

But I guess I belong to the Jurassic age.  The aim of most people today is draw as much attention to themselves as they can. Wearing T shirts with these funny and sometimes obscene messages is only one way of doing it. And believe me, some of the messages on T shirts can be pretty outrageous!  They are all the more hilarious  if the personality of the wearer does not match the message. One wonders how the T shirt got on that person.

Let me share some of the messages that have caught my attention.

There is an extremely fat man who jogs in the  area where I go for my morning walk. I once saw him wearing a T shirt that had the message “ Kiss me” splashed across it. A very friendly man, he often waves out at fellow walkers. Unfortunately people didn’t wave back on that fateful morning. I saw all the aunties’ give him that disapproving look while the wannabe aunties like me turned their faces away lest they burst out laughing.

Then there is a watchman in the same area who gets off duty when I complete my first round. One can see him get on a cycle heading  back home. I saw him once pedal away in a T shirt that had the message “Trust me, I am a virgin”!!! Poor chap. I am sure it was a hand me down from some employer. It looked weird on a fifty something man like him who had coordinated it with a blue checked lungi!

My daughter told me about a beggar she had seen near out house wearing a T shirt with the words          “Sorry girls. I only date models” printed across it. She was so amused that she came back home immediately and wanted me to come with her to see this sight. I guess the beggar must have got this as part of his alms. Of course one cannot discount the fact that he may have become a beggar because he was dating models.

I have seen more scandalous messages than these at odd places and on odd people.  Some of them are so scandalous that we notice them no matter what we are doing. We were once running at Nizamuddin station in Delhi trying to board a train to Haridwar when we saw what I think is THE MOST SCANDALOUS message on a T shirt of all times. It read “ The more hair you lose the more h—d you get”. The man wearing it was your average middle class train traveler like us with loads of luggage, wife, kids etc. I am sure he never realized what that message on his T Shirt meant.  When we finally boarded the train, the first thing that my husband and I mentioned to each other after catching our breaths was “Did you see the guy in that T shirt”? The daughter was very curious to know which “guy” which T shirt. She was too young to know what that message meant though we would not have put it past her to read it aloud and ask us the meaning in public. Thankfully, Mr. T.Shirt was not on our train.

T shirts with messages find their way into our wardrobe through various means- there are those which we get as part of school/ college reunions or some company event but I am not sure how T shirts with such outrageous messages get sold. I sometimes wonder whether people buy such T shirts on an impulse for fun and then get cold feet passing them on to watchmen, dads, uncles or beggars? Whatever,  the T shirt does get the attention it deserves and sometimes because the personality of the wearer is so opposite to the message!

I think T Shirt messaging is one of the newer art forms that is developing. It is a rather fun thing though few would acknowledge  noticing a scandalous message. Some probably don’t notice it at all. For them it is just some print on the front. I guess it will take on new dimensions once the messaging moves on to local language.

But I am sure you will agree with me when I say that it is definitely a way of getting people’s attention.. making you literally “stand out in a crowd”. Something that many aspire for.

TRANSMIGRATION VS TRANSLATION

We were at a cinema theatre a couple of weeks ago. Being early for the show  I was trying to kill time looking at the posters of the upcoming movies. That was when my eyes caught sight of a poster which seemed to ring a bell in my mind. I was wondering where I had seen something like this . My daughter enlightened me by saying  “ This is the Tamil version of the movie Delhi Belly”.

“ Delhi Belly” is one of the wackiest movies that I have seen in recent times. Set in Delhi, it has a crazy theme involving the consequences of a small mistake made by one of the three friends who live together- they exchange by mistake a stool sample with some diamonds which they were unknowingly asked to pass on to the bad guy.. And after that it is pure fun. Toilet humor certainly but you laugh till your sides ache.   I am not sure how it would translate on to the Tamil screen.  Actually, I don’t think it would translate  into a Tamil/ Chennai context at all.

Before you accuse me of being biased, let me explain why it would not. For starters, the film “Delhi Belly” is not in Hindi, it is in “Hinglish”. Most of the dialogues are in English with a smattering of Hindi. The characters are all from the English speaking class of the capital and the humor and situations  are peculiar to that culture! It would be very difficult to translate them to the Tamil – Chennai context. In a conservative city like Chennai where a Tamil movie is likely to be set it would be quite difficult to come across a journalist like Menaka (Poorna Jaganathan) or someone like Sonia (Shehnaz Treasurywala). Not to say that they do not exist but they would not strike a chord with the audience if they were to be featured on screen.

What I am coming to say is that humor is very culture specific and one has to stay rooted within that culture to enjoy it.  People who watch Tamil movies are part of a different sub culture which has its own brand of humor. I would like to take the example of a lovely film made by Hrishikesh Mukherjee in the 1980s called Khubsoorat starring Rekha and Rakesh Roshan. It was a light, lively family story with some clean humor. However when it was made into Tamil (I think the name of the Tamil version was                 “ Lakshmi Vandachhu”)  it was terrible!!! It started out as a scene by scene copy of the Hindi film   but went on to end in some kind of emotional melodrama which was completely out of sync with what the Hindi one was all about. Actually, I was surprised that the Tamil version was made into a mess like this because in terms of story it was culture neutral – it could happen in any part of India. It was a simple story of a carefree and fun loving girl who goes to visit her sister’s in laws and shocks them with her behavior. The Tamil movie made this girl into a cancer patient who was trying to live out the last days of life through laughter.. WHY ????  I was so annoyed when I saw this film that I grumbled all the way home. It was with great effort that my father soothed me saying  “In Tamil culture unless there is melodrama no one thinks watching  a movie is worth it”.

Then there was another film “Golmal” –again a product of the late seventies / early eighties. I don’t remember the name of the Tamil version but I think it was very loud. While not denying that Rajnikanth gave it a different but entertaining new treatment to the character played originally by Amol Palekar, I think the character of Utpal Dutt was annoyingly  over dramatized in the Tamil version. 

I hear that “Three Idiots” has also been made into Tamil. I shudder to think what that would look like !

However, before you think that I am against Tamil movies and Tamil culture, let me tell you that it works both ways. There was a beautiful Tamil movie called “Alaipayudhe” starring Madhavan and Shalini which was remade into Hindi. I do not remember the name of the Hindi version but when I saw it , I realized that the characters played by Rani Mukherjee and Vivek Oberoi were not real and believable like the ones in Tamil were. The Hindi characters were too glamorized and filmy.

And ofcourse everyone knows the damp squib that “Dayavan” was. A remake of “Nayagan” it can only be referred to in the worst possible negatives.

I do realize that in a country like India which has innumerable cultures and sub cultures it is not an easy task to remake films in different languages. Actually, I think one should not even attempt remaking them because it loses the flavor that makes the original one unique. It might be a better idea to simply use sub titles and introduce the movie to audiences in another part of the country. It would help others understand and appreciate better the culture in which it is set and over sometime do away with cultural stereotypes.

It is a pity when something that is good is turned round on its head and pounded out of shape just so that someone from another culture can relate to it. It is like trying to make pasta seasoned with mustard seeds and curry leaves. When that happens it is not pasta. It becomes upma and really who wants Upma made with Fetucini or Fucilli? And is it fair to the Italians if I can enjoy their cuisine only when it resembles and tastes mine?

But who can explain this to an avaricious film maker? It is obvious they  cannot see anything beyond currency notes. If something has done well in a certain language I guess they want to transmigrate it to another language forgetting that it might not fit. And they do this secure in the knowledge that there are only a few who may have tasted both Upma and Pasta. Those who eat pasta rarely come into contact with Upmav and those who eat Upma might just think that this is a change… What a world!!!