Sexuality and Old Age - In India or Anywhere Else

Ok, so this is a taboo subject … for all of us … in India or anywhere else, except may be in some of the tribes who have not been infected by our kind of “civilization”.

So what is it that I want to write about? Sexuality in old age, or the way society looks at it? I am not sure, for the subject is so vast and there are so many things to say, that I think I will limit this post only on one or two aspects.

First of all, I believe that

- the idea of sexuality for long has been confined largely to heaving, gleaming bodies entwined in lust, but bodies which are young, muscular or shapely.
- that in popular myths, sexuality is, all about lust and fulfillment of that through sexual intercourse and that too is when you are young in your body.
- That Images of people with lined faces, slacking muscles and shaking hands, embracing each other in a lustful way makes some of us feel uncomfortable and evokes disgust and shame.

Sexuality itself is such a taboo subject that we can indulge in it only through forbidden or voyeuristic pleasures or by sublimating it a higher philosophical plane where the body does not exist. In this scenario, sexuality in the elderly is not part of our collectively held image of the elderly in India.

In India, one of the collective images about the elderly is that of people who surrender in prayer to the divine, engaging in morning or evening walks to keep sickness at bay, playing the role of the babysitter/additional helping hand at home and/or waiting for death to come and rescue them. The other collective picture of the elderly (now brought to the fore by the media) is the healthy, smart, enthusiastic and independent (read deep pocketed) individual who doesn’t mind flirting with her spouse, goes out on holidays and has a good time.

I am not claiming that either of these pictures is undesirable. The issue that I am trying to bring to the fore is that what certainly happens in old age is that your body becomes less agile and one certainly feels less enthusiastic about sexuality as one did before. Immediate fulfillment of lust may not even be as important as it was before, but that does not mean that older people lose their lustfulness, their sexual arousal or their need for passionate and tender love from their partners.

Where I have a problem is that either older people are shown as “less than able” as compared to the youthful generation or their image is carefully built so that youthfulness is preserved in these characters. So even when they flirt or are provocative, they necessarily imitate the younger generation, and when get caught, they feel ashamed and have a strong need to hide it from others! (Remember one of the monthly income scheme ad?). My protest is towards inducing the subtle element of shame in these pictures. What is there to feel ashamed of?

Some of the recent studies state and I quote

“Humans have sex for several reasons. Sex serves many purposes not related to reproduction. Sex is a way to express love and it also provides the feeling of security and reconfirms the feelings shared between people, regardless of age. Sex has also been shown to calm people in stressful periods. Sex has a symbolic value, which is independent of age.

However sex between elderly people is often treated as a taboo by society. Whilst sex itself is a sensitive topic due to its private nature, sex between seniors is often treated with extra care. This attitude is especially common among younger people and it has been suggested that this may be caused by younger people's belief that the lust and ability to have sex diminishes once the primary reason for sex is no longer present.”

Quoted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexuality_in_older_age

(for more information, you may also like to visit http://www.apa.org/pi/aging/resources/guides/sexuality.aspx)

All that I am trying to put up here is that as people grow older, their physical and emotional needs become different than when they were younger. While sexuality is certainly not only about sexual coitus but also of passion, intimacy, tenderness and is emotionally fulfilling; physical intimacy and yes, the bad word "intercourse" does play a significant part in it. Therefore, why look at the older person as someone who is wise and tranquil and does not have an iota of lust in them? Can we for a change look at them as people who are matured (at least in age), and have similar need for a fulfilling physical intimate relationship with the desired partner, be it intercourse or gentle loving touch? Can we concede to ourselves that youthfulness may not be all that important to have a zest for life?

What are your views? What do you think?

Being Female!

I was quite stirred by an article called “Unwanted daughters” by Harsh Mander in the Hindu Sunday Magazine dated 29^th August, 2010  on a major recent study done on female feticide in India by Action Aid India and International Development Research Centre, Canada. 

The article among  disturbing facts like methods of killing the female child, neglect, illegal connivances of doctors and nurses, etc also talks about some interesting explanations cited up by the study that they believe perpetuate this evil norms in India.  The explanations talk about the paradox that how some of the progressive policies of the Government such as inheritance rights for women, higher age for marriage, etc make them much more of an economic burden to the families as further expenditure on the girl and any property owned by them would only benefit the husband’s family after marriage as also that the woman’s physical capabilities like child bearing, productive abilities, caring abilities become the property of the husband’s household.  Hence the article goes on to say that the female feticide is taking place  more out of economic and material reasons rather than a desire for make child over female ones. 

The articl  then goes on to suggest as to how only through long term social reforms such as society changing their view of women, parents willing to live with their daughters in the old age, stoppage of dowry and other practices and enhancing the social and economic power of women within families can bring about any changes in this most heinous  and inhuman practices in our society. It also brought the fact to the fore that some of urban areas and the educated class are also very much part of the female feticide trend. 

After I read the article, I was with two contradictory emotions, one was of understanding and some empathy for the families who were killing their female infants (understanding and empathy would not tantamount to supporting them) and the other was a slight hopelessness and shame as to whether our society will ever be able to look at itself differently and even if it does, how will it take for us to bring any changes in these customs and how aware are we, the so called educated and progressive part of the society which has at least in paper, the capacity to influence positive social reforms through activism, practice and awareness. 

While pondering over these, I also thought another incident that I was a part of in the recent past. 

I was working with a multinational organisation where large number of men and women work together.  The group that I worked with had the following demographic data: their average age is between 25 to 35, average education qualification ranges from postgraduate to MBA from prestigious institutions, most of them come from middle or upper middle class, most of them live in metros and have lived there for most of their lives, their take home salaries range between Rs. 15 to 30 lacs per annum.   The group had about forty percent women and sixty percent men. 

While working with this group, a particular narrative triggered off a question for them to explore the psychological status given to femininity in the organisation and we suggested that perhaps the status given to females and femininity in the minds of people (both men and women) were lower than the masculine traits and qualities.  This created a furore in the group and many of them, especially some women were outraged that we could even hint at a possibility like this in their organisation context, while some others agreed with the hypothesis.  

During a subsequent dialogue some of them argued that they never experienced any discrimination either during their growing up years nor do they experience any discrimination in their work places.  What was hard for them to understand that even if they did not personally experience this differentiation, that there was a strong possibility of its presence in their organisation context and that it was probable that they themselves would be blind to their own biases and prejudices.  The data that they presented in the context of the workshop, however, pointed towards a generally held psychological bias more towards masculine attributes and qualities as more desirable as compared to feminine attributes and qualities.  The argument presented to them was that since both men and women would possess both masculine and feminine attributes in themselves, whether it was worthwhile for them to explore whether such a bias existed in the group and the repercussion of it in their work context.  

This has been my experience in not only this organisation but in working with groups both within a work context or outside, that while most  people  condemn the overtly displayed patriarchal norms of unjust and  inhibiting practices, they often remain blind to their own biases and prejudices.  Most do not take into account that most of us in the world today are products of the patriarchal culture, values and norms and that our belief system, biases, assumptions and practices would be highly impacted by the super structure of the context.  Hence injustice towards  anyone who is weak in the eyes of the powers that be in any context when happening somewhere else, is easier to condemn but when it is happening within me or in my personal context by me towards others, or vice versa or towards others, we are often blind to it. 

If I were to talk about myself, I became painfully aware of my own biases towards femininity when I was looking at strong biases held by people and by me shortly after the 26/11 incident in India.  It is in my blog post called "Communalism Revisited" (http://sharbori21.blogspot.com/2008_12_01_archive.html).   

I believe that today being female is not just about having a strong voice, opinion, capabilities, competence, financial power, status and power, but also about being self reflective, being sensitive to the larger context and towards oneself, having a sense of respect towards self as well as towards others irrespective of their social class or milieu and above all, living with a sense of conviction, commitment and responsibility towards oneself and towards the context, and living with this question: How do I wish to live? What is the quality of life that I wish to build around myself and around others, what responsibility do I have towards the larger context and finally what am I owing up and what am I disowning?

And needless to say the same argument holds true for men as well but I believe women of today need to be more aware of what is happening within as much as they need to be aware of what is happening outside.  

What has been your experience?  I would be interested to know and be happy if you share.  :-)

Your Well-being Is Your Responsibility

Concern with well-being has been with man kind for as long as we remember. However, the definition of well-being and how we generate it and who is responsible, however, has changed over time.

There was a time when people left the responsibility of one’s well being to their clan, their community and believed that if all was well with the community or clan, their well-being was taken care of as also the reverse; i.e. if they had a sense of well-being with themselves, then the community as a collective also had a sense of well-being with itself. Often in such diffused state, individual’s sense of well being had to be sacrificed at the alter of the collective well being.

Then came a time when we were told that a sense of well being came with who you are in your roles that your establish with the world at large – be it in the family, at work, in the world and wherever else. If we maintained the balance in the relationship well, well-being would be guaranteed was the assurance. This created the misbalance that we did not know how to relate to ourselves and to others without the given roles and found a sense of identity only within the given roles. Any sense of well being that came outside the scope of roles were discarded and generated stress.

Today, I believe we are going through a phase in the world, where the basic message that is being passed on to us is that “Your well-being is your responsibility alone”. We are going through a phase when we are individuals first and collective later but unlike the clan or the role era, the collective tells us who we should be and how we should be without taking any responsibility for it.

We are told, nobody else can or will take responsibility of your well -being and hence the individual is to maintain and generate her or his sense of well-being irrespective of the context. So, for instance we keep getting message through ads of chocolate, cars or even bottled water, which generates instant sense of well being even when the situation surrounding the protagonist is potentially fearful, disconnected or stressful. We are also given lessons on positive thinking which would generate well-being but often times some of these messages do not take into account the contextual reality.

However, there is an associated message as well, which is while you are solely responsible for your well being, you must not disturb other people’s well being. This effectively means that not only you have to be continuously aware, competent and rational, you must also remain vigilant that you do not become a source of disturbance for others. On the surface of it, this sounds quite alright; if everyone took responsibility of their well-being, this world will be a happy and peaceful place. The problem occurs when remaining vigilant and aware at all points of time itself becomes difficult and when such things are simplified to such an extent that they become absolute, like a dogma.

Before I proceed any further, let me clarify that the kind of individuals and context that I am talking about here are largely urban, middle class, above school level and are mostly into employment or business or are professionals. I must also clarify that as a concept I am a great fan of positivity and positive thinking but I do take offence when they are passed on as an absolute reality without taking their context into account.

Let me state a couple of small stories.

Story number one in which a woman who is feeling quite direction less in her life. She is in her mid thirties, holds a responsible job and is intelligent, caring, perceptive and competent. The sense of confusion and directionlessness comes partly from her past history of stressful relationships and partly from her work context where she is new and is trying to find her feet. Despite her best efforts, she often finds herself on the verge of losing control over her emotions, falls sick quite often without any associated disease and ends up taking decisions that she regrets later on. In this situation, more often than not, she receives advice from her near and dear ones both at work as also from her personal context that she needs to sort herself out and only if she could do that, i.e. go to a therapist, practice yoga, take care of herself, has better routine, all such problems will be taken care of and things will come back to normal. This woman, despite doing all of the above, finds herself at the same crossroad and then starts doubting her sense of worth.

And what does the context do, while she stands on her head trying to “sort herself out?” Her mother who is critical, gets hyper critical about this woman’s problems out of her own anxiety, her boyfriend stays away from her because he was unable to handle her emotional upheavals, her work context demands the same amount of attention, care, concern and competence from her irrespective of her situation and they all pass on this message to her that “please stay away from us, take care of your situation and come back to us as a “functional” person as we are unable to take care of your dysfunctionality. We however, wish you well and are willing to bear the cost of your medical bills, will hire a counselor for your or even help you find a yoga teacher, offer you gymming facility, etc, etc. This in turn increases this woman’s low sense of self worth and pushes her to the brink further and further.

The context in this case, would hardly ever look at reducing some of the stress causing factors that may contribute to her lack of well being, e.g. her mother becoming less critical, her boyfriend’s hyper sensitivity to her emotional outbursts, her work context not demanding her to be always sensible, rational and fair, etc, etc.

Story number two is a multinational organisation where higher and higher responsibility, ownership and performance are demanded from the employees. The employees don’t mind, they see this as a rightful demand on the part of the organisation in return of the money, status, position, learning and value that are being provided to them by the organisation.

So far, so good- Right? Wrong. In a situation like this most of the time the employees would not know what to do with the stress and tension that they carry for a context that is ever changing, highly competitive and very demanding. One can of course argue that this is the way of the world and that people who come for this kind of work have made a choice. However my point here is not about the choice but whether just by making a choice, the responsibility of the generating well being becomes an individual responsibility or is it both? After all, if the context learns to take care of its inhabitants, the context generates its own well being as well. However, most of the time, organisations such as these would term such stresses as symptoms of lack of work life balance problem and would organize training programs to take care of such anomalies without making the slightest difference to the internal environment which is tipping off the balance continuously. Alternately the context usually not question the value frames from where such stressors are originating and whether they are an absolute must for the “development” and “progress” of the context.

Therefore it is not surprising that often who we are and who we should be are defined and dictated by the popular media and even when we hear a heart breaking story of a model taking her own life, it often comes in the garb of how her professional life created this stress and how does one stay away from the stress through individual effort while the context goes away scot free in the name of being a “high stress” industry.

The opposite is also true, i.e. there are individuals and groups who would never look at how they are contributing to the stress of the context and would demand that the context makes all the changes while they retain all their dysfunctional habits and patterns in relation to the context.

Till such time both the individuals and context look at each other as integral part of each other and that this relationship is not just contractual (work context), or societal (family, relationships), but are complimentary to each other and one will not survive without the other, but at the same time one can not subsume the other, this confusion and stress will continue to haunt us.

On a different take, why is a constant state of well being so important? What is wrong with unhappiness, struggle, sadness, confusion, anger, grief and lack of well being? Aren’t some of these great mobilisers for new path, new directions and new action choices? May be this calls for another post, later!

What do you think and feel about your well being?

self absorption - the favourite game

One of the thoughts that I have been with in the recent past is the thought of self obsession (and I am a master at it :-) .  Self obsession is quite a funny thing, it creates a make believe world which tells you all kinds of things about yourself, good, bad and ugly, but the one thing that remains constant is the delusion that you are the centre of the universe not only for yourself but also for others.

One of the ways this delusion works with us is in creating our image of ourselves in myriad shades and hues.   One such image is that no matter how much love or affirmation or assurance we receive, there remains a nagging doubt that we were not really welcome into this world either at the time of conception, or birth or to the people we were born.  Obviously this image is totally subjective;  there can not be any argument about this being right or wrong nor can there be any  moral judgements about its desirability, etc.  People who have a self perception like this do not really enjoy it, nor do they go around showing these off as  medals to the world.

So then what is my point? My point is that this alleged dislike of self is actually a deep love for oneself and it is so intense that this negative perception is next to impossible to give up. People so deeply care for this image of the unloved and uncared for self, that they find it very difficult to give up irrespective of the way their lives turn out to be or the innumerable acts of courage, passion love and commitment that they may display. The belief here is so absolute that it becomes imperative to crave for more love for this "unloved and unlovable self" hoping that at some point of time this need will be totally fulfilled by someone somewhere; but it never does. For this need to be fulfilled, one has to feel satiated, and in order to feel satiated, one has to accept the notion that one is lovable. However, this acceptance will then destroy this well nurtured image of the "unloved and uncared for self" and a new "self" would have to be created. This new self then will have to give up all the old habits, all old longings and and all old ways to be and for a while one has to live in a vacum of not knowing what is next. This is the most difficult path for most people to trade, the fear of loss of the old self and old ways to be and most of the time, this is where we stop and become stagnant and get caught with a frozen image of ourselves. 


The other kind of delusion that I often experience is when people talk about being in love.  Some people talk about being in love with someone special and they describe how the other person becomes the centre of their lives; how without the lover their world will become bleak, meaningless and empty!  How without the person, they would not be able to live even for a day and the world would lose it meaning!  I have often wondered whether it is the love for the other person, or is it the love of the idea of being in  love with the other person?  Aren't we in love with the "self which is in love with the other"?  Often when I hear lovers killing the other, I doubt whether the killing was for loss of love or was the killing for loss of status in the lover's eye?    This is also another form of self absorption when everything else and everyone else cease to exist except the image of "self" as the centre of the universe.


the third kind of self absorption that I come across is when people talk about sacrificing their need, their desire, they wants for others and when it has become a steady pattern of their relatedness with others.  I am of course not talking about extreme situations here nor am I including instances when people sacrifice  their needs for others in dire need.  I am talking about people who have made this into a steady pattern of relating to the world and who firmly believe that this is what is expected out of them by others.  In other words, their sense of self worth is derived from the extent of "sacrifice" they make for others, irrespective of whether it is needed or not.  Often the others are helpless spectators or are unwilling victims to this blackmail as the "sacrificing' one has to be given his or her dues and would almost always have the superior position in the relationship.  This too is an intense self absorption where the others are merely entities in a drama that are needed for the drama to be enacted over and over again.

How does one deal with this?  well, perhaps the first step is to accept that life exists as sets of opposites, i.e. we are simultaneously good and bad, loved and not loved, accepted and not accepted, liked and disliked, courageous and cowardly,  loving and despising, efficient and incompetent, and many many such contradictions.  Life is but a set of contradictions and these contradictions are what  make life worth living for self and for others.  If this is accepted, one may then can look forward to move out of self absorption and relate to the world afresh and anew.

Amazing women in my life - part 2

Today I am going to tell you the story of my cousin  Neelu.  She was born in early 1930s in Rangoon, Burma.  Her parents later settled down in Kolkata and Neelu was largely brought up by her mother.

Neelu's childhood was not very pleasant, she grew up watching her parents fight;  mother struggling to make two ends meet but at the same time trying to give her the best of education and comfort that she could provide. Neelu went to a convent school and had many friends.  She was a gregarious and  lively person, who loved to live!  She loved food, she loved outings, she loved the good things in life, she loved gossiping, she loved meddling in other people's lives, she loved helping others, she loved cooking and most of all, she loved being appreciated, recognised and loved.

In no time Neelu fell in love with a young musician who also happened to be the landlord's son.  Needless to say their union was not looked upon kindly by both sets of parents - to boot, the two families belonged to two sides of Bengal who were  diametrically opposite to each other in their culture, in dialect, in food habits, in their beliefs and values and more importantly in the way they treated their women.

Neelu being the passionate person that she was, followed her heart and married the man of her dreams and they lived in the same house as before, i.e. she continued to live with her parents and her husband moved in with them.  This was not taken very kindly by her in-laws.  However, the husband also being the independent kind, did not join the family business and instead went on to becoming a professional musician and soon became quite famous in Kolkata.

When I came into Neelu's life, she was in her early thirties and I was three years old.  It was her mother K who brought me up.

My earliest recollection of Neelu is warm and fuzzy.  She was this busy big sister who was much older to me, was glamourous and went to work every day.  She had expensive tastes in sarees, jewelleries, perfumes and in make up. Her sarees ranged from gorgeous cotton hand-looms, to fine silks to sophisticated chiffons and such other materials.  She used to import Max Factor make up for herself and to me her make box was a treasure trove of  many hued lipsticks, eye liners and many other unknown lotions and potions.  Every time she would open that black and yellow striped box, I would try and get a whiff of the wonderful odour of the contents of the box.  To me they seemed like a magic box, and she was the magician who created magic with them.  And, she had shoes with heels, the stilettos that I lusted most after the most.  Since we were forbidden to wear her heels lest we fall down, all my experimentation used to be when she was away at work.  During one such time, I also fell down and cracked open my skull, but that is another story!

In that household, apart from me, there was another small girl who had the same status, i.e.  part orphan  as me.  Her name was Tini and she was Neelu's sister-in-law's daughter.  Her mother too passed away suddenly leaving Tini and her other siblings.  In Neelu's eyes, both Tini and I were like to two little kittens who would be pampered or scolded depending on whatever mood she was in.  Intrinsically Neelu was a very generous and affectionate person and whenever she was in the mood, she would offer gifts with both hands to most people.  I remember she used to take Tini and me to a big departmental store in kolkata and send me to the book store while she would wonder off to the jewelry or the saree counters.  I would explore the book racks, bury my nose in the new books to smell th em and then pick up one or two that Neelu would buy for me.  oh, how I loved to smell the new books!

Neelu would do many other things for the two of us; she would use her slightly old silk saree to make dresses for me and for Tini.  She would cut our hair at home and experiment with new styles on us.  She would design our dresses.  The  part that I liked the most was when if we requested her to give us a makeover, she would open her make up box and work on our faces.  I felt like a little princess with my made up eyes and lips and would insist on not washing my face even when it was time to sleep.

As days progressed, Neelu's life started changing.  She had a baby and the baby needed special care for a while, and at the same time Neelu's health started deteriorating.  This was where her mother took charge of looking after the baby, so that Neelu could continue with her work and manage her own life space.

Neelu's married life started developing chinks soon after their child was born.  As she got busy with her work, baby and other paraphernalia of life, her husband got busy with his booming career as well as his female fan club.  Neelu started putting on weight, started having frequent mood swings, had an early hysterectomy and  started relying more and more on her cooking skills to win over her husband's heart.  In all of these, she forgot to look after herself.

During this time, I observed her losing her sense of aliveness and becoming more bitter and more critical of herself and of the entire world.  Her gift of the gab did not help much as it became more of a weapon to lash at people rather than relate to them.  On other hand, her mother was being looked up to as the agony aunt for the whole world and their cousins, and this obvious comparison did not go down well with Neelu.

There is not much to write about the rest of her life as it went downhill rapidly from there, not so much in terms of financial stability as they were very well off, but from her sense of well being with herself.  Her marriage continued but the joy went out of it.  Neelu's only son did not give her much joy either as he turned out to be quite similar to his father, uncaring and insensitive.  Her huge sense of pride never allowed her to share her pain with anyone else and may be that was why she never really found it easy to allow anyone to get too close to her.   Hence she would offer generously but would never ask for help.

Neelu passed away suddenly, one day prior to 9/11, but not a single day goes by when I don't think of her and her passion and zest for life.  She was a kind of woman who was born to live life in its fullness, with vigour, courage,  kindness, passion, possessiveness, envy,  jealousy, generosity,  etc along with the attendant liabilities.  My sense of "joie de vivre" came mostly from her, watching her embrace life in all its positives and negatives with a "never say die' attitude.

Amazing women in my life - part 1 (continued)

As I was saying in the last post that I came into K's life when I was three and she was over fifty years old.  When I look back I think it was a big liability and responsibility for someone who was not young, had ill health, was not financially self sufficient and was dependent on her daughter and son-in-law.   I think K was a kind of woman who acted without any fear of consequence and took criticism with a pinch of salt - for her it was something that had to be done and since no one else was doing it, she would take it up without hesitation.

But the story here is not so much about  K and me, but of K herself.  As I was growing up in that  household, I was also learning to be invisible and to be an acute observer of the goings on around the place.  The person I  observed most was K and the world around her.

K was a hard working person, but more than hard work, she had this amazing ability to pull all the suffering people towards her.  Whenever people felt sad, unhappy, troubled, confused, angry, helpless and victimised, they would seek out K and pour their hearts out to her.  K would listen to them patiently,  offer them her advice or a kind word or just a patient ear, sometimes she would confront them, sometimes she would help them with cash or in kind and sometimes she would just simply hold their hands and cry with them.  She was this  kind and helpful "Chhordi"(middle sister)/"Ma"/"Pishima"(aunt)  to the whole world;  be it to her brothers and sisters, to her nieces and nephews, to her husband's brothers and sisters, to the  dhobi,  the grocer, the neighbourhood rickshaw pullers, the newspaper vendor from Bihar, the annual  shawl seller from Srinagar, the neighbours or friends of friends who had heard about her from someone else.  So much so that even many years after my mother's death, my mother's brothers and sisters kept coming to her to pour their heart out whenever they were in any kind of distress - the absence of their sister did not impact this relationship at all.

K was not a very patient woman; she had asthma, she was short tempered and she was also highly opinionated.  This side of her was more visible to us, people who shared the intimate space with her.  I used to receive an extra special dose of her impatience in terms of the frequent scolding and physical punishment.  At some time I think I got used to this routine but it also taught me to make myself invisible as much as I could and it made it easier for me to observe her without being noticed.

Apart from looking after the household, K's major preoccupation was two fold - one was playing solitaire with her pack of cards and the second was knitting. She could finish making a pullover or a cardigan in four days' time.  Her knitting was so legendary that people from many places would come to learn knitting from her or to learn new designs. My most prominent recollection of her is K sitting on one side of her sprawling double bed either knitting away or playing solitaire and the visitor(s) sitting on the other side, pouring their hearts out to her.

K was also an avid reader; she would keep all the contemporary Bengali magazines and newspapers and would read them in the morning with a cup of tea. Her day used to start early at about four a.m, she would have a bath, start cooking and finish by 8.30 a.m to have the second bath of the day.  Then after seeing her daughter off to work, she would settle down with another cup of tea and her stack of newspapers and magazines and read every article, every story, every poem in them meticulously.  Once in three or four months, she would donate all her magazines to a local library.

She used to treat the domestic help as people whose rights was more than equal as compared to the rest of the household, i.e. our routine was subject to the convenience of the domestic help, e.g. we had to have our baths on time and have lunch on time so that they could have their baths and lunches on time.  We were strictly instructed to address everyone either as elder sister or elder brother and no name calling or disrespectful behaviour was ever allowed. Anybody disobeying that rule was in for  strong disapproval and a dressing down from her. Her simple logic was that these people have left home to come and work here and hence they were entitled to more privileges than us.

The tragedy in K's life was that while on one hand, she was the pillar of strength for people in the larger context, her relationships with her husband, her daughter and her son-in-law were at best tense.   I still remember the day when a woman in her thirties came to see K in a summer afternoon.  I was standing besides K, holding her saree pallu and peering at the stranger woman who was slowing unfolding the tale of betrayal to her.  It seemed that K's husband had married this woman or was living with her and that he had stopped visiting her and paying her any money.  She needed money for survival and hence she came to K to seek help or to look for her "husband".  K listened to the story with a stony expression, handed the woman some money, closed the door and headed straight towards the bathroom.  When she emerged, we were all horrified to see her dressed as a widow; she had taken all signs of marriage off herself.  She then calmly declared to the family that from that day, she did not have any husband and that no one should ever try to talk to her about the man in question as she did not know who he was anymore.

At that time for a woman to do this was shocking enough and more so for a woman in her fifties.  The family could not get over it.  The daughter was angry, enraged and sad; her son-in-law thought this was highly immoral and the rest of the relatives gaped in horror and shock. Neelu, her daughter and others tried very hard to change K's mind towards the husband but K remained unmoved.  This status did not change till the man in question died some 15 years later.  K never spoke to him and never saw his face again.

This stubbornness of K earned her a lot of animosity and resentment, specially from her daughter who could not understand her mother's decision of disowning her father.  This slowly deteriorated their relationship to the extent that mother and daughter did not often speak to each other, although they lived in the same house.

K was misunderstood and resented for her righteousness and her stubbornness from her immediate family members (even often from people who received help and support from her) and was loved and revered by people who were part of the distant family, friends and acquaintances.  

The other interesting thing about K was that I never ever saw her praying or doing puja or going to temples or anything remotely religious; but I experienced her as highly spiritual, conscientious, righteous, kind and courageous.  As though the world of religiosity had very little meaning or significance for her; for her, her world was literature, drama, poems, knitting, taking care of people, being fiercely protective of her own, offering help and support when it was most needed and standing her ground like a lioness without fear and most importantly, without shame.

K would often tell me that my only duty towards her was to stand on my own feet and make my father proud.  I knew I wanted her to be proud of me more than anyone else... K passed away suddenly when I was 20 years old, three months before my first job and my first major achievement.  This was one person who would have been happiest for the "ugly duckling" she picked up from nowhere, seeing her spread her wings and turning into a swan in her own right.

I miss you K, I miss you very much.

Amazing women in my life - part 1

When I was three years old, I lost my mother - unfortunately I would never know her.  However, what I heard about her from her husband, her brothers and sisters, her in laws and her friends, gave me a picture of the kind of woman she might have been.  The picture was one of a kind, warm and loving person who put others' interest before her and who at times and mostly in private was temperamental, passionate and strong.  This picture was not very helpful to me because people kept comparing me to her as I was growing up and I grew up listening to a continuous lament of "how could you turn out to be like this being her daughter"!  For the life of me, I could not manage the confusion, rage and frustrations that I felt being compared to a person who was not even around for me to even dialogue with  Being the only child, I did not even have siblings around to tell me otherwise.

The second most influential woman I had in my life was my Pishima (Father's elder sister - paternal aunt).  She decided to raise this 3 year old kid when she was in her early fifties, suffering from asthma and a nearly broken marriage.  To top it, she was also living with her daughter and son-in-law, who did not look very kindly upon her endeavour to help others.

As I look back today, I believe this is the single most influential factor in my life which has shaped me into whoever I am today, both positively and negatively.

My pishima was an extra ordinary woman.  Let's call her K.   She was born in the early 20th Century in Dhaka,  Bangladesh and was the 3rd born in a large family of eleven brothers and sisters.  K was very good in her studies, was a gold medalist from Dhaka University and also the apple of her fathers' eyes.  However, while studying there, K fell in love with a  young  man who was her elder brother's friend.  This young man was very good looking and to boot, was a brilliant and talented painter who studied in Shantiniketan.  She fell for him, hook line and sinker, and eloped with him to Rangoon (now Yangon, capita of Burma), thus breaking her father's heart forever and never saw him alive thereafter.

K and her husband S lived in Rangoon for about 3 years before moving back to Kolkata, India.  The relationship which started on a high note of passion and love, was on the wane and was giving way to bitterness and angst between the two of them.  Thus, while they remained married, K was bringing up the children by herself through hardship and struggle while S went on to look at greener pastures of life.  This is when their elder daughter died of Beriberi and K was left only with the younger daughter.

K brought this girl up, provided her with the best possible education within her means and the young girl, my cousin (lets call her Nilu) grew up and took the responsibility of looking after her parents. Meanwhile, she too fell in love with a young artist and got married.

I came into K's life after my mother died and when no one was willing to look after me lest I became a liability.  My father was too unsure of himself to feel confident about looking after a young child.

K decided to bring me up, and I was brought to her house to stay with her, her daughter and son in law.

(Thank you for reading thus far.  If you are interested, keep looking out for the next post, this is to be continued....)

irrational rationality

The other day I was talking to a friend of mine, who is a young talented poet, actor and a writer.  We were talking about a post on FB  and I asked for her views.  Her response was that she felt strongly but she wanted to think before she wrote.  I asked her to write about her feelings and not her thoughts and she said she would try, but never did write.  Another friend of mine, in her early 30s talked to me about how often she struggles with knowing what her feelings are, i.e. is she feeling angry or is she feeling sad and how important is it for her to "know" her feelings before she  responds.

These discussions provoked me to write this post about how I come across people, both men and women, who are very cautious about coming across to others as sentimental or mushy.  It is as though, expressions of passion, of anger, of love, of irritation, of reactivity, of loss, of joy, of desire, of longing, of disgust, of lust, etc, must always be moderated, thought through, considered, and then expressed cautiously like squeezed out portions of toothpaste from a tube!

What is interesting about this game is that it is never ending, the more you play, the more lost you are, because feelings don't come with meanings, they gush out without any barrier, flood your inner world.  Feelings make you feel alive, make you feel at one with yourself, they are the key to your inner world.  It is the world of feelings that also holds the key to our creativity, our passion, our zest for life and our will to live.  The more we try to understand our feelings before we act, the more are we operating from our need to control our world of future action and positioning ourselves firmly only in the world of consequences,   In the world of consequence, there is no present, only past and future and both are beyond our control.   The present is the only reality we live in and that can be experienced through our feelings.

Hence I wonder why do we keep playing a losing game with ourselves?

Mothers and Daughters

My daughter is nearly 26 years old ... though to me she still is a pre-teenager, sometimes a baby and sometimes a grown woman.  One would say, what is new, all mothers would say the same thing about their daughters?  That's true, and I would not disagree!  The point of mentioning her age here is that I gave birth to her on my 26th birthday and if I look back, I certainly did not think of myself as a young person, nor did I have anyone doting on me like I dote on her.  This however, does not deter me from trying to control her life at times, albeit unsuccessfully and is met with grave resistance from the other side!

That said, there was an interesting mix of tele-con and txt that happened between us this evening. Since she lives in Delhi pursuing her higher studies, our connecting mediums are mostly the mobile phone and occasionally the internet and often the distance created by such mediums are difficult to manage, specially in awkward moments.   

Anyway, to come back to the point of discussion - She is supposed to submit her dissertation by a certain date this month and my understanding was that only after that can she come home.  Therefore, when I called her this evening to enquire the progress obviously due to my vested interest, she responded quite gallantly that she may not even finish the paper before she came and that she has organised herself accordingly.  My response to that one was one of "what are you saying, isn't this why you postponed your trip home? And now you would not even finish that, etc, etc"  I guess my tone of voice touched a higher pitch bordering on panic and irritation which said "how can you be so irresponsible?" without actually saying it!  My daughter responded exactly as expected, with counter irritation and annoyance and advised me to not think too much about things and that she would manage what belonged to her.  "Fair enough", I thought, but some small voices were still screaming inside my head, conjuring up images of my daughter standing in a school dress being scolded by her stern teachers for not finishing her homework on time (which actually never  happened during her school days - She was a straight A student), etc, etc.  I mumbled something about her dinner and then, there was silence ...absolute silence ...  neither of us had anything to say to each other ...  After a while, I mumbled some other inanities and disconnected the phone and started wondering what just happened.

After a while, I received a txt from her apologising for "snapping" at me and how she ought to learn to control her temper, etc and how much she loved me.  I felt very good that she wrote that but also felt a little guilty about making her feel bad about herself.  This was not the first time that things like this happened between us, but every time this happens, I ask myself what could I have done differently.  I am sure, she asks herself the same question every time.

The whole relationship between mothers and daughters are so very different from the relationship between fathers and daughters.  I am of course generalising here and  looking at my life history and comparing the two.  For me it is easier to compare as I grew up only with my father around and no mother, and in my daughter's case, her bonding has been stronger with me than her father especially since she stepped into her pre-teen period.  

I guess daughters find it difficult to move away from their mothers even in their moments of deep anguish as being members of the same gendered world may make it quite difficult to not empathise with the other.   As for mothers, apart from responsibility weighing heavy on their shoulders, both affection and anxiety mixed with "I know her more than she knows herself" would make it difficult to just let the daughter go on her own adventure of life.

If I look at my daughter, I think that she looks at me both as a hero for the courage, hard work, grit and competence as well as perhaps the only person who she believes would love her unconditionally no matter what, the only person with whom she finds a sense of "home".   On the other hand, I can also see how she at the same time looks at me with slight doubt, irritation and anxiety of "she just might lose her marbles if she is not all put together the way she ought to be".  And the swing of this pendulum is what makes our relationship very interesting. 

Therefore on one hand I try hard to be put together (and not be my "mad mad" self) and make things worse as she can be friends with the "mad mad" self only and not the "sane" mother and yet when we are friends, I am continuously wondering whether there is a line that we ought to draw and go back to being parent and child and I can never really figure that one out.  

We are great friends at one level, there are very few secrets between us, except may be what we intensely dislike about each other but that too comes out quite freely on our moments of anger and outbursts (we both have mastered the arts for that one).  On the other hand, there are moments when I need to put on my Mommy face and be there for her especially when she is intensely unhappy and tensed with herself.  

Having had almost zero experience of being mothered, I sometimes desperately search for a role model to emulate and at other times accept quite sagaciously to myself that I need to make this role and if I have not yet in 26 odd years, then I may never do it and why bother, etc, etc.  My daughter on the other hand, believes in post modern thoughts and being a thinker and a feminist, her logic is "you are what you are and there is no point of comparing oneself to any parameters since all parameters would stink of one dated politics or the other".  Fair enough ... I think, suitably chastised like a good student, this is where I learn from her.  But, but, but ..... what about her expectation of being mothered?  Am I being a good mother to her at all times when she needs me to be there?  Am I?   And  when I look at the good mommies around me who are trotting around like proud mother hens, talking about or fixing  marriages, buying jewelleries  and "securing" the future of their daughters, I seem to be like a crane sitting among proverbial swans wondering "how come those are not my priorities"?  The only priority I can think of is what would make her life meaningful and what would make her content and I seem to be going by whatever choices she is making for herself as of now.  Is that necessarily good or necessarily bad, or is there something in between?  I wish there was a mommy somewhere for me to answer all these complicated questions!

I know if my daughter reads this post, she will laugh and then will tell me "again you are thinking rubbish thoughts !!!"  But I guess I would never really know.  Does any mother ever know?  

what is it that prevents us from self caring?

i have not been exercising for the last five months - before that i have been a regular gym person with a personal trainer and i felt great.  every morning going to the gym was a chore but i dragged myself there and went through the rigorous routine.  at the end, i felt energetic and good.


i have also not been singing - for a long time - i have the harmonium at home - no one tells me not to. in fact friends complain and nag but i don't.  my vocal chords have not given up on me, they still sound great when i sing, but i have, on them.


i learnt yoga, meditation and chanting and when i practice them, i feel great but i have never been able to do them continuously for even five days.


i am supposed to take some vitamins and other medication to keep up the general well being (especially at this stage of my life) and i don't take them regularly.  the only medication i take regularly and without fail is my thyroid medication because it is otherwise i will become "fat".


i have often not understood the nature of this resistance. this resistance of not looking after oneself, of not  being regular about keeping one's own physical well being as a priority.


and i have seen this in so many women, younger, older, earlier generation, my generation, next generation, cutting across economic and other social classes .... very similar.  they have manifested themselves in many ways --- through no regular or no medical check ups, addictions, ignoring early warning signs of impending illness, not providing enough nutrition to oneself,  demanding or seeking very little emotional nurturance .. i can go on.


it is perhaps easy to dump all of the above only to the social coding for women, to patriarchal systems, values and frames.  And to a large extent it is so, but i think that this is a fairly simplistic way of looking at this issue!


some of my own inferences about this are:


1.  perhaps partly based on some of the social psychological conditioning, some women have not learnt to value her own life as much as she values the lives and well being of her loved ones.  it is easy to look at her as the ever sacrificing mother but may be it is more than just sacrifice.  Sacrificing one's life is a matter of giving up something which is of value, only then the sacrifice makes sense.   But here i am arguing that the question of sacrifice does not even arise as here the life is not valued much, here it is others' lives which are of value.


2. what is valued are perhaps what some of us seek:  whether we are needed or not, whether we are desired  or not, whether we are of service or not, whether we are loved or not, whether we are important to others or not, whether, whether, whether??


3. i also believe that simultaneously in the modern urban educated class we have learnt to value our products, our competence, our intellect, our ability to create, our ability to provide for, to support, to demands and protests on behalf of the system, our ability to build; a lot of our power we have learnt to value.


4. When it comes to caring for the self, there is perhaps  a sense of shame attached -  although for me and for a lot of other women I know this concept of shame does not manifest itself when it comes to our sensual and sexual parts ... taking care and embellishing ourselves come relatively easier than actually looking at ourselves as a human being who is important enough to be taken care of.  In so many of our cases, this taken care of is expected from others or it is relegated to one of the least priorities in our lives.  I wonder whether there is a fear (perhaps not even known to us) that if we do take care of ourselves fully, then we may not need anyone anymore?  is this a way of making ourselves a little more vulnerable than we actually are?  Is this our way of keeping ourselves "a little less than" to ourselves, lest we forget what we have been taught over centuries and find our own internal voice?


5. The last inference that I am making here is about being born as a woman and it is based on an ongoing discussion with a friend and some data from the lab that we have been running together for the last six years on gender.  In most of our work and also from my personal experience i see that there is a tremendous anger and resentment of having born as a woman, of being the disadvantaged one.    No doubt that given the social system and the history, this is a reality for many of us that stems from our personal life experience, but in today's context for many women, this is not a personal reality.  For many women today, certainly in the urban education part of our society, the experienced reality is more about being treated as an equal, of having opportunities, etc, and hence it may become even more difficult to even experience this disquiet as one's own.   During my work in corporate forums, with students from management schools, with professionals from NGO sectors,  from many conversation with women, I detect a sense of helplessness, a sense of choicelessness, and a sense of resentment and rage.  What is important and scary for me is that more often than not, this feeling is either not recognised or  denied or projected onto others and perhaps pushed deep down in our unconscious,  only to surface to propel us towards acquiring more power and prowess or towards blackmailing oneself of not being good enough in one's own esteem or holding conventional targets like the social system, patriarchy as solely responsible for our victimhood.  


I wonder how many of the above are linked to our sense of self neglect or whether there is a link at all? whether somewhere there is a fear that if we do make ourselves as priority number one then we may actually not need anyone anymore? perhaps there is a fear of actually owning up how self sufficient and complete we are in more ways than one? is this a way of making ourselves a little more vulnerable than we actually are? Is this our way of keeping ourselves "a little less than" to ourselves, lest we forget what we have been taught over centuries and find our own internal voice? Is there a fear of losing the world that we know of as of today and being 'home'less? i don't have the answers ...only have some guesses ... what about others who read this? what do you think?

illegitimacies and identity

there have been countless times in the past when i have written my blog, in my mind, organised my thoughts, even put the lines the way i thought they ought to be; but never really "typing" them on this page, as i am doing now. why do i do this? well, in some ways, that is what i am going to write about.

i believe i am a woman of substance. I am over 51 years of age, live in India, been married, had a child, raised her, been divorced, been in relationships, worked full time as also loved, fought, claimed, offered, received, rejected, accepted, reached out, ran away, denied, acknowledged, hated, ignored, cared for and been loved.

i have had a difficult and a very interesting life .... difficult because that is how i feel about the experience, and interesting because it still fascinates me.

the idea of illegitimacy can occur in people's lives in many ways ... through owning and disowning, by status and power, and by being rejected and by rejecting. legitimacy in the sense that i am talking about is not about social status but also of what belongs where in our emotional world.

i remember as early back as when i was 3 years old, the status that i received from my father were that of "being his wife" and "his companion". my legitimate status of being his daughter was held in strong evaluation by him and was never approved. in fact he did not know how to approve as he always looked up to others for approval of himself. His legitimate role of being a father to me could not fulfilled by him emotionally and psychologically. he would use me to fulfill his aspiration of being approved by his highly disapproving family members and as a result, no matter what i did, it was never enough; i could never be a "good, desirable daughter'. what i mean by "his wife" and "his companion" is that he expected from me (as a child) to understand his pathos, his grief, his loneliness, to approve of him, to be his friend and companion and to redeem himself to an utterly unforgiving and insensitive family system.

the primary roles that emerged for me in my mind were as follows:

- the resourceful one and
- the rebellious one

they are a trifle contradictory to one another as being resourceful is not good enough if they are not being put to proper use in a context, and being rebellious did not offer enough scope to me to be a part of any context and put my resources to any use. in the world of action, thus, i remained a whole unto myself and kept testing, flirting, toying with the idea of being a part of a larger whole.

in the world of relationship then, being a rebel would mean always looking at what am i deprived of, and being resourceful would mean negotiating a place for me by being useful in the context. so metaphorically i would offer endless possibilities in a relationship, but in reality would block every avenue of any actual union and merger and a movement forward.

this is the illegitimacy of the identity that i am writing about. the illegitimacy is about not knowing what is your rightful place in a context and even if that is spelt out, how does one experience it the way it ought to be as i have had no positive experience of it in my growing up process from my primary and only care giver.

so i stumble, i fall, i get up again and start all over -- only to realise that i repeating the same thing over and over again -

what i have figured out as of now are some of the blocks ... one of them being a cruel and utterly insensitive attitude towards myself. when i am faced with a negative situation, i turn to myself like a hired assassin, a cruel and hostile killer, a tormentor, and i tear myself into pieces with a pervert glee which screams "you deserve it, you bitch".

i know when this entity came into my life ..as early as when i was 6 or 7 years old. i used to be beaten up by my aunt and other relatives quite mercilessly and at some of those moments, i would turn to them, tears in my eyes but with utter contempt on my face and would tell them "how much more will you beat me? at most, you will kill me, right?, go ahead, do it, but i will not listen to you...". i can see the same entity today who is saying the same thing today but this time, to me, to my other voices which are seeking a fundamental shift.

as of now i don't know what to do with this one .... except to be patient and loving to it. it has blazing eyes, its mouth curled cruelly upward, fists are clenched and the heart is beating fast, really fast and it is not ready to forgive anyone.

i can only wait, with love .....

finding a friend inside you is actually a good thing !! i am now having more dialogues inside my head and sorting out things there rather than excitedly telling A or some other people about it and then starting the whole spiral of analysis, arguments, counter arguments, blaming, accusations and counter accusations ..... what a spiral.

now when i feel that the head is buzzing too strongly and people sitting around me can hear them, i walk about, get a glass of water, think of a song, visualise nice things ....

actually feel more empowered within myself by doing all these ... it helps me get a grip on my bitterness, my caustic criticisms and contempt of others, my disapproval, my disappointments and my hurt feelings. OK, the down side is that the dialogue or monologue becomes lengthier and sometimes, i have to ask "who is it who is talking just now"; scary, sounds like i am going mad? nah, actually i am feeling more sane than before.

i have never believed these feel good or do good books or theories which said that one should control one's negative thoughts or feelings and replace them with more constructive and positive ones. actually they work quite alright. one does not have to do it all the time but once in a while, or more than once in a while, it is a good thing to be able to see you thoughts, converse with them and put them aside rather than bringing them out there in front of every one else and then wait to be crucified.

also the need to bring them out perhaps is more out of wanting to make the other person see my point of view, hoping that they see their wrong doing, or agree with mine, or take corrective steps, etc, etc. all of these create dependency of an insidisous kind --- while i believe that i am acting out of my "free" choice but actually i am waiting for direct or indiect approval or agreement and feeling angry, disappointed and resentful when not being provided.

then the whole feeling of i am one down in the relatedness sets in and the downward spiral begins.

what seems to be working for me is to be able to have these diaglogues and also to continuously remind myself that the world does not work according to my needs and that every one wants their way -- this is the nature of the world -- like driving in indian cities - you have to decide whether you will be destructive in yoru driving passion, give way to road rage or to drive to the best of your abilities and get to your destination.

having a destination works -- at this point of time, my destination is to buy my own home .. someday i am hoping i would be able to do that. i would like to have my own home, decorate it the way i want to, live in it the way i want to, and die in it the way i have to.

do i still feel sad, angry, hurt, disappointed, etc, etc ? of course i do, but they dont dislocate me as much. i am able to have a functional, civil relationship with others and i feel good about it. i dont think anyone wants my raw side and i dont think i am ready for the same of others.

reconfigurring ........

to begin with i wonder whether i have anything to write? may be, may be not. Hmmmm, there is an internal feeling that i am ignoring and trying hard to remain untouched by it.

so, who have I been in the past three to four days? partly me that i recognise, partly me that i wish to reconfigure. for example in conversations with people, i can hear my repartees or responses or opinions inside my head but i am not expressing them. it is a kind of experimentation but also is kind of fun. Fun is being in control and not being this blabbermouth, putting your dirty foot in your mouth, being the loud, obnoxious, hurting creature who others rather avoid.

it makes me a little distant, little cold but i think it is worth it. why would i want to express my opinion so freely, or blurt out what am i thinking or feeling to others just like that? i don't think most people even want to hear what you think or feel unless it concerns them : i.e. they are affected by what you say or you are saying something about someone else in who they are interested.

i think i kept this blog open to the world, which i will still do, but i also had emails going to thousand and one odd people and i am going to reduce that number to may one or two. i really believe people don't care. like i think i don't care about how most other people think or feel.

the second reason i am reconfiguring the interpersonal interface is because i believe that i invite a lot of abuse and bad behaviour towards me by being me. i attract some of that like magnet. and when they rain on me, i act courageous and receive them all like a samurai. Samurai, my foot, i am just so used to being treated like shit that i believe i can handle all of them. but no more, i will not invite shit to rain on me any more.

that would effectively mean i would be polite, politically correct (most of the time), friendly,nice, non controversial and distant. at least for the time being i have to be just that, otherwise, i am really letting myself be beat up for no apparent reason.

later once i find my foot firmly planted in my own soil, internally, that i would then let go of some of these boundaries.

how am i feeling about doing this? not very nice but not very bad either. i am slowly getting used to being this .... only sometimes i am letting go. i am not feeling reactive, which is a very good thing. i am feeling distant and constantly reminding myself that no one else holds the key to my sense of well being, except me. no love, no friendship, no intimacy can bring to me what i cant bring to myself. and that is that.

on the other hand, i know people wish to reach out to me and they want me to reach out to them. it is just that i am not sure i want to reach out to them in my present avatar .... like i said in my facebook status message, most people may say it but in reality most people don't like the raw, the intense, the despaired, the depressed, the opinionated, the ugly, the crass, the nakedness. they like it with a filter of decency, of politeness, of civility so that they feel protected. In their place i think i would also do the same.

i also believe that there is no such thing called "deep love" or even if it is there, i have never experienced it. what i have experienced both within myself and from others are affection, attraction, fondness, caring with a proviso. i.e. provided it works for them.

i guess what i seek is absolute selfless love, and no one can provide it to me nor can i give it to anyone. it sounds silly and final and stupid but so be it.

i have to constantly remind myself in my interface with the world that the other person has a world of his/her own and is with me only partially and that is what we all get from each other and then it does not hurt that much. the longing for a full and absolute union remains but by now my heart has accepted that it is a grand fantasy.

encounters with identities

I had a very interesting day recently.  it started with a petty fight with A over a very petty thing but we brought out the worst in each other.  was not very pleasant way to start a day, but ..... :-(

i went out of the house, went to my work space, vowed to myself to be "absolutely and completely" self sufficient (as though there can exist a reality like that) but i think i gave it a good try!  i finished lots of odd things that were just pending.  i vowed to start driving again; i guess it was my way of putting myself in the driver's seat again!

then the strange things started happening - i started meeting various facets of my identity or shall i say, various facets of women's identities, all of them on the same day.  

came the first encounter.  some one who i did not know from before, came to meet me.  the more i listened to her, i told myself, it is amazing that i had to meet her this morning when i am so full with the same issues at least on a transient mode;  need to feel needed, feeling trapped, feeling intensely unhappy with self, yet, looking for way out, trying to make sense of things and not given up hope.  talking to her made me question "what is it that women look for"? i could not come up with any answer.  this was one facet of me/all women which is trapped in "being needed" mode and the only mode the being has known to express itself is to offer oneself like an infrastructure (non assertive, proper, obsessive, caring, efficient and competent) but keeping the righteous moralistic upper hand to whip the "wrong doers" who dare to refuse her offerings.

then came lunch with an old friend, who was in the city for a short while and was leaving soon after. After we caught up with each other, during the course of the conversation she started talking about not really knowing what would make her happy.  again i thought how similar the line of thinking was and yet it was not the same ... perhaps we were barking up the wrong tree.  perhaps the real question to ask was whether we were intrinsically happy or unhappy?  it was as though all of us have this invisible emotional switch that has either a off or a on button for having a positive self regard and a basic sense of contentment for who we are, and not desperately looking for affirmation of it outside of ourselves, or it is most times switched off for some of us.  It is that facet of me/all women (may be for men as well) which screams "i wish things were different, i was different, others were different, only then, oh, only then, would i feel at peace with myself and with the world"

anyway, the lunch session had to close abruptly as she had to catch her flight and i came back home with my lunch packed and had a TV lunch. 

After that as i was sinking into the peaceful slumber, the cell phone rang and at the opposite end, was the voice of some one who was completely drunk, feeling rather hopeless, self deprecating and condemning and was in need of help.  i went over to her place, spent some time with her, took care of her a little bit so that she could physically become better.  my encounter with this women put me in touch with this facet of me/all women (may be men too) which has the intense need to punish the self by bringing on shame, guilt and anger.  This facet keeps whispering in our ears how worthless and unlovable we are, makes us feel desperate and lonely and then as last resort, we scream for attention and simultaneously push people away by refusing to be helped, attended to and to be cared for.  This gives us the golden opportunity to reinforce the belief that we are completely unworthy while the real anger is with the world that it is vicious and uncaring and unloving and hence we need to constantly grab its attention, and thus completing the loop of convincing ourselves that the act of grabbing attention was shameful, feel guilty, to only repeat the act again and again.

my last encounter was with a very dear friend of mine, with who i was supposed to have dinner and spend the night over with.  as we sat and chatted, i was seeing the other in me and simultaneously the stark dissimilarities.  She was this facet of me/all women which is inherently melancholic, has a short handle on reactivity and anxiety, dynamic, assertive, caring, loving, wise, balanced, matured, open and accepting of others in more ways than one.This is the facet which is very rich and very beautiful and attractive and yet is utterly unconvinced and/or critical of its inherent richness and beauty but is totally convinced about  its competence and functionality.  This makes it into a great companion and a work horse but seldom gives it space to enjoy its own beauty in all its aliveness, be it scary, stormy, dark or welcoming, full of life and vivacious.

i went to bed with this thought that while the day started with a fight which made me feel quite empty, hopeless and futile, at the end of the day, with all those encounters of various identities i felt more real as though i had to meet each and every one of them today to feel the richness of life and what it has to offer and how every encounter is only a beginning of new direction and not an end in itself. 

Thank you life! 

civility and me

Rush reached Jammu this morning for a holiday with her friends. She will be going to Jammu, Leh, Srinagar and other places for about 10 to 12 days. Her hosts are her friends parents.

I called the hostess this morning to talk to Rusha and give her some more contact details in Srinagar. During the conversation with the hostess, it occurred to me that i am really not very civil by the given standards of civility in the civilised society. Not that i have never really been cognizant about it, but sometimes it becomes a little too obvious. for instance, i think I should have called up the hostess in advance and thanked them for hosting my daughter and for taking the trouble, etc, etc. However, in my mind, my daughter is 23 plus years old and is an adult and so is her friend. So if between them they have decided to go for a holiday, it is perfectly fine and calling up her friends parents meant, being extra cautious, which i did not see any need for. however, it is Rusha who reminded me to do the thanking and so i did, profusely, a little late in the day, nonetheless!

however, i guess that is not the way everyone will see it. as for me, i keep missing these finer points of civility and propriety from time to time in almost all settings. For instance, saying "thank you" does not come to me very easily, especially if i experience someone doing something very earnestly and sincerely. i think saying "thank you" would be demeaning that gesture, that heartfelt emotion. Saying nothing and accepting what has been offered feels far more gracious to me but i see the point that others may hold; that without articulation, people may not know how one is receiving what is being offered.

my upbringing was in utterly chaotic condition and a fairly mixed culture. one of the households where i spent most of my time during holidays, had this culture of "we are the first among equals" and hence whoever came across to their household, was expected to feel obliged as they were allowed inside and spoken to. No individuation was allowed there, only homage.

the next household where i spent some time, had a laissez faire environment. anyone was welcome and was expected to stay longer, eat, rest, etc. however, neither the guest nor the hosts were allowed any private/public boundaries as everyone was treated with the same overt bonhomie and freedom, which i guess, could trigger off paranoia and claustrophobia in highly private individuals.

the hostel had its strict rules and boundaries but then it was hostel and one was supposed to break rules. so rules and boundaries in hostel were taken in as something that was imposed upon us free beings, and was meant to be broken. Certainly by me as i see in hindsight, not all of the brethren (or sisters as the case may be) shared the same ideology with me.

hostel was fun as it continuously threw up options for defiance and conformity and one had to balance between the two and one could (i guess i certainly did) feel content in the ideation that one was taking that "highly autocratic world" with a pinch of salt in one's stride as independence was just a step away, if only one had wished harder for it!!!

Those were days of freedom of the mind and not of the body. I remember saying to myself (and sometimes to my tormentors both at home and at hostel) " what best will you do? you can kill me, that is all, but you can not imprison my mind"!!! lofty words for a sprightly 11 years old those days.

to come back to what i started this blog with, civility and me are not really a cosy twosome. I am often lost and little in the face of proper civility of the world (and i think i still hold it away from me with a barge pole). My sense of being civil with people is to be familiar, direct and honest, which is not the best route taken, if not the least. Most people in this world would like a bit of cover up, a bit of smile and just a hint of familiarity so that they do not have to wonder what to do next. In this way, the rules of the game is familiar, everyone plays them the same way, no chance of a same side, no chance of a penalty or a free kick, just a little dribbling here and there, no body blows. No sir, there is no place for contact football here.

The world of civility alludes me. I am learning from A, a little bit of it. He has his own idea of civility, which calms people, makes them comfortable and yet not too familiar at the same time. When i watch him in action, i admire the ease with which he makes his moves (no pun intended here) and everything seems to just fall in place.

I, in contrast, is often like a bull in a china shop, or more like a overbearing family dog which is waiting for the guest to come in.

ha, ha, i like that analogy. I find many a similarities between me and dogs. the strongest similarity is dogs need to be trained in manners and so do human lets, and i was not trained in any of the above places i mentioned. they did not even know that i existed as a part of the household, i was always an addendum, an extra, watching the play from the sidelines, who, at best, could have been utilised to take the water into the field during breaks. the coach of the Sansara never really had time for me.

Today as i await entering the half century of my life, i look back in amazement and in gratefulness of what all life has offered me, in all its splendours and glory and in its utter ugliness and horror. All of them contributed to making the me of today, someone who is still a little lost, different and of course, still gloriously, uncivilised!

may 3 2008. 9.56 pm

watching the self is a fascinating pastime or an occupation - whichever way one looks at it! i have been wondering at this idea, well not wondering, but been observing actually.

it seems to me that people in general have two kinds of predispositions. one who have a predisposition of well being, irrespective of their back ground, their personal history, their current context and future. they most times seem to have an ability to be cheerful, to look at the world with wonderment, have a sense of calm and be happy with themselves. so when they meet others, they are usually welcoming, attentive, relaxed and people like to be with them.

and then, there are these other sets of people whose predispositions are to have a sense of non-well being with themselves. no matter where they are, no matter who they are with or what has been the context, these people will have a sense of gloom, a feel of something being incomplete, something missing, a tense body, preoccupations with past and anxieties about the future and most of all, they are not relaxed. and predictably, when they are with people, they are highly vigilant, defensive, preoccupied and other people are often left with doubts both about themselves and these people.

of course, life or people are not as black and white as i have outlined above. there are all kinds of shades in between and people come in all shapes and sizes. but if i were to look a broad pattern of having a sense of well being and having a sense of non well being most of the time, then i would categorise people in this two category.

i fall in the second category. my sense of non well being has always been my companion for as long as i remember. i never questioned it in the past, in fact, i had accepted that as the only way to be.

today i question it, i ask myself, what is it that generates this sense of non well being?

i have some answers but all such answers are cliched. i am not interested in looking at the answers as well. But I believe, that for most people, who share this sense of non well being with me would agree that it is a debilitating feeling most of the time, to be in this state. And only sometimes, once in a while, when we are in a state of well being, we are actually breathing more, smiling more, accepting life without being vigilant, able to look at the future without being worried about it and actually being able to enjoy the "moment" - every moment of the present, which is passing away and will never come back to us again.

and on those rare of the rare moments, there is a tremendous feeling of being connected and being one with the earth, with life ---

being one with the insects, the birds, the leaves, the honking cars, the passers by, the passing clouds, the Internet, the TV, the nameless faces, the madness, the ugly, the depression, the manic high, the undesirable and the most beautiful.

only, those very rare moments that i often feel that i am fully alive and i feel grateful.

self worth and relationships

Have been feeling low, down and out for several days. When I look at how I feel, there are several so called reasons for it, feeling unloved, undesired, low on confidence, lack of hope, lack of direction, lack of purpose and the whole host of it.

After moping for several days i am feeling more enraged and irritated towards myself. One thought that keeps coming to me is that if I were to face a person who was like who I am at the present moment, what would I have felt towards him or her? one single answer that comes is : "CONTEMPT" in capital letters.

I would have felt contemptuous, helpless, angry, tired and irritable. This constant whining would have got at me faster than it is hitting others. I think A has been quite patient and sweet with me, he is coping with whatever i am dishing out to him with grit and hidden resignation and may be even a little bit of despair.

Who would want to love a woman like me, this way? If i am whining about feeling low on self worth, etc, what is the other person supposed to do? At best the other person can try and help, be a problem solver. but basically apart from just listening, what else can any one do?

I hardly ever smile, I am sulking most of the time as though the whole world owes me big time and they have not paid their dues. what the fuck!

I am more and more getting convinced that this deeply entrenched sense of "low self worth" (behind that a very firm belief that I AM COMPLETELY UNLOVABLE) can not go, until I start gazing inward, but not in an analytical way. I have done that way too many times. By now I know every cause, every 'why's of every 'how's. that does not help. in fact what that does, in a way, is to strengthen this whining that 'oh such a bad thing happen to me, therefore, what else will i be, but this, that and the other".

my internal gaze would have to be more spiritual, more meditative. I am not sure I alone can do it. when i try to do it, there is tremendous resistance to it. I feel very restless, my mind races off and i feel like running away. It can be quite distressing at times.

but I also know that meditative practice is a discipline and not something that happens in a day. I am hoping that one of these days, very soon, I will be able to settle with that discipline within myself.

meanwhile can I experiment with smiling? not just a physical mouth open teeth showing smile; i mean, can i smile at myself and smile inwards?

As i am writing this, one of those restless, disbelieving and laughing voices in my head is saying "what the fuck are you writing, you stupid idiot, do you even know what the f*** does that mean"?

and it is right. I have no clue about what i am saying, but I am hoping, that instead of knowing, I can experience it somehow, soon.

the "JUNO" in all of us perhaps!

I have often described insights coming to me as snowflakes falling softly on my head. I don't know why i use this analogy as i have never experienced snow in my life. it is possible that the way i receive these insights are not like 'wham', 'crash', 'zing', but more like a soft whisper in my head.

i was thinking about my mood swings and irritation and impulses and wondering whether one gets a hang of handling these things or does biological changes overtake who you are. Just at that precise moment "the whisper in my head" told me that actually i have always been like that, moody, unpredictable, impatient, with little sense of boundary management, volatile, enthusiastic, impulsive, hyper, enthusiastic, ..... sounds a bit like a teenager with raging hormones!!

Except, I am no teenager, i am nearly 50 years old and this is by and large how i have been most parts of my life.

i guess, in a way, i never really grew up.

oh, i am not crying about it, nor do i regret it but it does seem like a long time to be in this state. what accompanies this state is a continuous sense of dissatisfaction of what life offered me and mostly what it did not; every point of receiving a gift from life is laced with a doubt of whether i was worthy of receiving it!

i cant remember for how long i have been in this state. seems like forever. my mood changes more often than the clouds changing their position in the sky! and it often changes towards being grumpy or feeling heavy or being restless ....

I also see the rage that has been my constant companion over the years. in fact it has a form, looks like a figure with a orange flame like thing around and it is moving, shouting, screaming in
rage. i can't hear what it is saying but i can see the colour and i can see the movement. it is very real. when i see it as separate from me, i can see my rage and then it is easier to manage but most times, it is smart enough to disguise itself as irritation or impatience or restlessness and then i give in. 'Wham'! it comes with its full blown attack and i realise only post facto!

in fact, people feel i am quite loving but at the same time they are quite afraid of me. their fear is more about my being not predictable. the worse part is i don't realise when i am not being that.

and i can see what they were scared of post facto and i don't blame them.

most times my lovingness come to me in gushes like a flow of a stream which is sometimes dry and sometimes overflowing with passion. people at the receiving end can not handle this. they are not prepared to be smothered by it or being bludgeoned to death with my irritation or indifference!

i think being a teenager also means not having received any valid parenting at all. which is true in my case. so how does one parent oneself? i guess the fact that i am in touch with this is a step.

sometimes i look at my daughter and see how similar and how different she is vis-a-vis me. there are times when she is parenting me like a mother i never had. i guess for her, having a mother like me has been tough. but she has grown up to be quite alright.

i miss not having a mother .... very very much .... and i have always stopped myself from grieving, saying what is the use? i guess real grieving has never happened.

I think time has come for me to start 'mothering' myself and being a person and not a perennial teenager!

Even 'Juno' grew up! :-)