Mom, Get Married!

This post is not about unwed mothers or love-child but about stereotypical thinking leading to emptiness and about my ex-maid Nalini.

Examples are strewn everywhere, of stereotypical thinking leading nowhere, but we go on… It’s easy to imagine where we get our stereotypes from - parents, friends, teachers, religion, books, TV, newspapers, movies…

Nalini might have got it from movies because from what she said her parents were keen on getting her educated but all she wanted was to get married as soon as possible being a girl, which she did get at the age of 16 to someone who grew up to become an unemployed drunkard who beat her regularly. Now that’s another stereotype, men from labor class are wife-beating drunkards. I don’t know of their personal lives but most people from lower strata that I’ve observed are very family-oriented, hardworking, weathering all other hardships like no other.

And we all know that wife-beating drunkards exist in all strata of the society.

For some time she bore the harassment and played the martyred woman, gave birth to a son thinking a child will make things right. But things only got worse. She left his house with her son, to her mother and brother and started working as a maid but still took karvachauth fasts in the first 2 years in separation. When I questioned it, especially since she took an off for the fast, she said a wife has to do her karvachauth duties whether her husband deserves it or not. However, it seems with time she started learning from experience and soon discontinued karvachauth.
Her in-laws were harassing her even from long distance by spreading rumors about her. With the help of an NGO, she applied for a divorce. So while her offs for karvachauth stopped, she started taking monthly leaves for court proceedings. As neither her husband nor in-laws participated in the proceedings, divorce was granted in their absence. She continued going to court demanding maintenance money for her son.
After getting her divorced, her family tried to get her married next. Nalini was defiant to this, she said one marriage was lesson enough and all men are the same. Her son was 8 by now. She said he knew who his father was and would refuse to accept a step-father.

Nalini is a descent looking woman if you overlook her slight squint eye. She got some proposals which she considered half-heartedly. Of course, she took a leave every time a prospective groom came to see her. And then she rejected them.
“Men from villages are backward and strange. I have grown up in the city. I’ll have problems adjusting with them. “Men who are marrying for the first time will treat it as a favor” was another of her opinions. All attempts and threats by her family to get her remarried thus went in vain until fate intervened.

Fate is great because it is unpredictable and cannot be stereotyped (Thank god for that!). It strikes good or bad, man or woman, young or old en masse, without discrimination.

And so it had struck Narayan, eldest of four siblings, at a very young age when he lost both his parents. The boy altruistically dedicated his life to bringing up his siblings and getting them settled. As he neared forty he realized that his brothers and sisters were now too busy with their own lives to take care of him. He was still looked up as a provider and not as someone who had needs to live his life too. There came a time when he was desperate for someone of his own, someone who would love him and take care of him.
He cried his heart out to a well-wisher who was a distant relative of Nalini. Sad state for someone who had treasured whatever was left of his family and worked for it. When I see young men, with hale and hearty doting parents, disregarding marriage and family values and queuing up girlfriends instead, I think of men like Narayan, orphaned but dutiful, yearning for a wife and a family.

You might imagine that Narayan’s proposal went to Nalini next. But no, it didn’t happen straight away. Had it happened one cannot be sure if Nalini with her fears and stereotypical view of the world would have agreed. Narayan’s proposal first went to a widow with three kids. Both were to marry but did not because a widower brother-in-law of the lady in question stepped in and said he should be the one to marry her.

Now the relative thought of Nalini and approached her with his proposal.
The fact that Narayan had accepted a woman with three kids put Nalini’s fears about her son’s acceptance to rest. She was still resistant to the idea of marriage but her brother and mother were threatening to move away from the city leaving her in the lurch. She had to choose between marital security and independence.
Near the marriage date, Nalini’s nervousness returned and in the heat of an argument with her mother she nearly called off the wedding. Her 10-year old son then stepped in. He begged, “Please amma, you must get married.” That was the last of the stumbling blocks.

I missed the wedding as it was held at the opposite end of the city. Narayan and Nalini were one of the 19 couples that tied the knot in the mass wedding. When she came to meet me in her newly-wed finery, looking radiant and beautiful, she said it was great fun. The food was great. All couples were given free gifts of furniture, jewelry, cloths etc., Whoever organizes these weddings definitely deserves a pat on the back.

There is a lot more drama to the story especially from her ex-in-laws, from threats for stopping the wedding and seizing custody of the boy. Although Narayan forbade Nalini from moving court for son’s maintenance, he was determined to fight tooth and nail in court to help Nalini get custody of the child. Now the trio lives happily together.
Think of what she would have missed had she been adamant about her opinions. Her new husband’s happiness is like that of someone who has hit the jackpot, treats her like a precious gift, buys her everything, forbids her from working anywhere as a maid…far cry from the time when she was willing to slave for her unemployed first husband provided he did not raise his hand on her.

I am not saying that there is no basis for stereotypical thinking. There is and probably it helped her avoid wrong choices. On the face of evidence to the contrary, she dropped her stubbornness and gave life a chance. She deserves a good life....


On a final note, here are some stereotypes to mull about:

o Heaven is fluffy clouds.
o God looks like an old man, white hair, white robe.
o Beautiful girls are unattainable.
o Old women all wear polyester and have blue hair.
o Big boys don't cry.
o Its OK for women to cry, since women are weak.
o Plain-looking women are more faithful than beautiful women.
o Men will cheat because...well, they're men.
o Boys are expected to sow their wild oats, but women are supposed to remain chaste.
o Blonde women are dumb.
o Redheads are hot tempered.
o Black men have large genitals.
o Blacks are lazy.
o Asians are good at math and science.
o Girls aren't good at math.
o Smart girls are geeky.

Never mine but i felt the loss!

I remember the times as a toddler when I used to play with my doll and have tea parties with my friend. The doll was mine and the tea set was hers. We used to make lovely pink juice by smushing bougainvilla flowers and green juice with leaves from the garden and serving it out in the small cups and saucers. We would then fake as though we were drinking it and make more. So many giggles, dirty fingers and fun. And then my friend's family decided to move to a new neighbourhood. I watched her leave. The tea set went with her and I did not make bougainvilla juice for a long time. It was never mine but I felt the loss.


I remember watching the boy in the house across ours from my window. They had just moved in recently. I was in my teens and he must have just joined college. I had this huge crush over him and would make appearances outside just in time to catch his eye. He would barely acknowlege me but that did not deter me. One day, I was returning home from school in my bi-cycle, when I saw him on his motorbike. He had a girl in his pillion seat, clinging to him affectionately. He was never mine but I felt the loss.


The above accounts are true and I can perhaps smile at how I grew through my losses of things not mine!




Today, I watch news about children being abused. Be it a boy who is waiting to be executed in Iran because he killed a man trying to molest him, be it a toddler who has been maimed so that he can be a beggar, be it a girl who dies in childbirth because her body is just 13 years old, be it a child who is abandoned by parents who cannot afford to feed her... These children are not mine, but I feel the loss.

An Awesome song!

कागज़ के फूल

वक़्त ने किया,
क्या हसीन सितम,
तुम रहे न तुम,
हम रहे न हम,
वक़्त ने किया....

बेक़रार दिल इस तरह मिले
जिस तरह कभी हम जुदा न थे
तुम भी खो गए
हम भी खो गए
एक राह पर
चलके दो कदम
वक़्त ने किया .....

जायेंगे कहाँ
सूझता नहीं
चल पड़े मगर
रास्ता नहीं
क्या तलाश है
कुछ पता नहीं
बुन्न रहे है दिल
ख्वाब दम बा दम

वक़्त ने  किया........

Maine dil se kaha dhoondh lana khushi.......

Sometimes you just tend to forgive people because their presence means life to you, because u still want them in your life. So forgive and forget.....
i did :) :)

On Another Valentine’s Day

The jogging tracks of the Sports Complex were deserted in the morning, except for a few die-hard morning walkers who braved it out in the particularly foggy morning and a Sunday....off and on a silhouette would emerge from out of nowhere.... It was quite cold today, brrrr.... who would have thought that in the middle of February it would be so cold and foggy.......a fellow morning walker taking the anti-clockwise route as I trudge along clock-wise....few familiar faces... hint of a smile or a nod in acknowledgement......my hands deep in the wind-cheater pockets that I wore over my jogging suit...




I try to walk faster...chilly wind against my face... but my gaits are small... my steps not fast enough, reflective of my general laid back attitude...in no particular hurry to reach a destination or to compete......people overtake me invariably and casually in my clock-wise track......people who don’t seem to really try very hard to walk fast...they walk normally, sometimes in two’s and three’s, talking amongst themselves....people walk with the earphones glued to ears listening to music...or they talk incessantly over the cell... totally engrossed....I wonder always what is it they talk about?



I prefer to walk alone, at my pace, it is my only me-time. As I walk, I think about life, future, country, people, ....random stray thoughts criss-cross my mind in no particular pattern... Today’s Valentine’s day? What’s so great? Rose Day, Teddy day, Hugs day ... eeks....rampant commercialisation of a tender emotion....yet how the people lap it up... creates stress among the youth who do not have a special someone....they are made to feel inadequate, is it fair?.......just exhibitionism.........scratch the surface of the professed love....hollow inside... like those heart shaped balloons..........shey!!!


I hear soft voices ahead of me...have seen this rather odd couple off and on...they walk anti clock-wise... the man, salt and pepper hair, tall and stately..with the characteristic military moustache, and a woman ,diminutive, salt and pepper cropped head, in a Salwar suit and a sweater...walking unsteadily, swaying from side to side with her affected gait......head bobbling a little...eyes not totally focussed... the man was speaking to the woman very tenderly in hindi..... ‘see you have walked 100 meters already, you can do it.... , just another 100 meters, dear.....I am with you... think you feel cold?...as you walk, you will feel warm”,
 .......then I hear a shout of laughter...a young girl with loads of spotted bangles, that characterise a newly married girl, jogging with her new husband... they were racing with each other in the jogging track in fog...teasing each other and laughing all the while... had no eyes for anyone else but for each other...they kind of brushed past the older couple...the woman almost fell, but the man was very quick to hold her fall, ‘nothing to worry dear’, he said, ‘I am here’ ever so softly....and then I had crossed them...



I had a sudden lump in my throat...... two distinct phases of love that I saw unfold in the course of one morning during a routine morning walk...on a Valentine’s day....a Sunday....

Heard of any good news lately????

"I have stopped eating. I have stopped drinking. I rarely breathe any longer because I'm going to hear something on television telling me that I've done something that's about to kill myself,”

                                        - Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, USA

Reporting facts is fair enough but making sweeping statements on the whole society or nation based on one-in-a-million incident is negative. It is also negative to highlight only the worst and shameful of incidents and not the ones where people do good to others.

Taking it positively, one might say that bad news is comparatively occasional and good news too many to qualify for a special mention. But then how many take it that way? Not many because the bad news is often sensationalized and repeated over and over again to imprint a lasting negative reflection of the society in the collective minds of the society.

It is no wonder that the average Indian (especially in blogosphere) is a cynic. People do not believe good news when it does come or are always looking for excuses that diminish the good news. That’s the effect of watching the 24x7 bad news splashed in our living rooms.

So why is the media so negative? Why does the focus have to be on the doom and gloom? As an answer, here are some more quotes from Brent Bozell.

"We seek to entertain an audience rather than enlighten an audience,"

"There is the old song that says that good news is no news. Bad news is great news. In the final analysis, it is all about ratings."

So ratings are important but how much of all of this is fact or fiction? Is the world such a dangerous and depressing place?

Well, the answer is: not really. On closer inspection, we see that what passes for a crisis in the media is really not a crisis at all.

A few years ago, I remember one Hindi TV news correspondent going about the city of Delhi after a bomb blast claiming that Dahshak (terror or fear) has taken over the city. To prove it, she interviewed a constable on duty at India Gate. From the casual attitude and body language of the constable, he might as well been munching peanuts. In answer to a question, he said, “So what? It’s a usual day.”

The reporter continued undeterred, “As you can see, dahshak is everywhere.” One wonders if there was so much dahshak, why is she roaming around freely in the city, why not give up the job and sit at home trembling in anticipation of the inevitable end.

But she doesn’t do it; in fact, everybody goes about his or her daily routine firstly because there are more than 100 crores of us in this country. Even if 100 people die in a bomb blast, your chance of dying in a bomb blast is roughly one in a crore.

News reporters have started using superlatives like dahshak and fear at the drop of a hat. What used to be merely ‘concern’ at one point of time has now become ‘fear’. All this is leading us to worry needlessly about things that are most rare. And this is because these rare incidents are sensationalised, personalised, and repeated in various versions of “breaking news”.

The dahshak actually sets in when we have seen stories often enough, especially crime and victim stories, and then we start to change our lifestyle, our opinions. We don't go out as much. We don’t interact with certain types of people. We'll choose more society flats with gates, security booths, high walls, no windows. Sales of pistols and security systems increase. In short, we start to believe we live in a world where things are "out of control." Have you noticed that many have started asking “What is the world coming to?”

You really see fear most in crime stories. Just watch your local news channel for a few minutes and you may think that crime is everywhere.

Next time you start thinking in these lines, just keep this in mind - Covering crime is cheap, fast and efficient so you see more of it. Ask any news reporter, he will agree.

The mainstream media is in fact trying to generate audiences and profits more than providing solid information. Solid information is made up of statistics, facts, experience, professional language rather than speculation, criticism, hysterics and flowery language.

Speaking of solid information, no one seems to figure out global warming. All I have noticed is that summers have become wetter in Bangalore, and winters have become chillier. Remember the Time magazine coverage: "Be worried. Be very worried." But what about 30 years ago, when some in the western media said there was an impending ice age?

If it is any consolation, Americans are as much unnecessarily worried as we are. In the 1990s, the American murder rate fell by 20 percent. But the number of murder stories on their network newscasts rose roughly 600 percent. Well, I am sure the situation in India is more or less the same.

Some people argue about the right to know. But are people ready for this kind of knowledge especially when presented in this imbalanced perspective? Many of us still live sheltered and protected lives. News that shock us also make us feel above the society and the first ones that we start suspecting and mistrusting are those who don’t belong to ‘us’ – implying those who don’t belong to our family, region, religion, social status and so on.

Thus the problem aggravates. Which brings to mind the idea of responsibility: to whom much is given, much is expected.

Any ideas on how the media can be made more responsible? Here’s what I thought of for a start.

1. With the exponential growth of media, lack of good analysts has resulted in several inexperienced people making it a free-for-all. Media houses should give proper training to the highly visible correspondents and news script writers on how not to sensationalize and dramatize but report matter-of-factly.

2. Write to press about each sweeping statement they make. Ask them to give proper statistics backing these claims.

3. Spread awareness about the sensationalist and shock value of news.

4. Learn to see through news without the drama and frills. Learn to separate facts from fiction.

5. Make judgements based on own analysis.