Reshmi Pillai's Blog: In White & Black, page 2

Bangalore Diaries #9: Surprises & Friends Make For The Best Things in Life

I am now quite settled at G and my little apartment at Koramangala. It is a nice little corner building, with a balcony where we have some plants. We even have some pet crows, too

What Obese Kids Point Out About Parenting

Last week I was at the Mumbai Airport, navigating the snaking queue to check-in, when I noticed the family standing in front. This is what I love the most about travel. You get to see so many people and just watch them. Contemplate. Watch. Observe. Wonder. Smile. Be amused. Be intrigued. Just watch.

The family in front was a typical indian nuclear one – mother, father and a daughter. But what caught my attention was how healthy the parents looked and how obese the child was. The girl must be in her teens but it was difficult to differentiate between the mother and the daughter. For a second my glance drifted between both the mother and daughter, to figure out who was who. The child was filled out everywhere to the point that I thought the cheeks cannot fill out more.

This got me thinking about many children I see in malls, airports, railway stations, roads, parks and all over the place. One common factor that makes me sad and wonder is most kids around are Obese. The roundedness that we find adorable in their chidhood often turns out to be the reason they are bullied in their teens and a point of embarassment in their youth. Time to explore why is this generation more grith endowened than its predessors? 

Does this pose a serious question on our parenting?

I am going to take you through what I think is making this generation unhealthy and weak, and I think it is us, their parents. We are creating what is these days called in Kerala – Broiler Generation – a generation of kids bred on growth hormones induced broiler chicken and bakery products rich in baking soda. Can you imagine what a thing made of growth hormones and baking soda will look like? Something as fluffy as kids these days comes close, I guess:

Busy Families Are Eating More Food Made Outside: 

I don’t remember one day when mom said – let’s eat out! Possibly the only thing that we ever ate from out side in our childhood is 1 or 2 samosas per month. But today? Families have got busy, mothers have as busy a career as the father but the social norms of kitchen work haven’t changed. The kitchen is still considered the female domain with even the metro sexual man stepping in just sporadically. That makes take aways, order ins, dining out…the easiest option.

Fast Food Is Cheaper & Easily Available:

Supply meets the demand. With busy families any product that saves time will be lapped up and that is what marketers do. They created and continue to create foods which are easy to make and consume. One glance at the supermarket shelves gives you everything instant that you may need. 

From instant soup, instant idli mix, instant bhaji mix, instant paneer masala curry to instant fish or chicken curry everything is available. Plus to top it you get foods which will immediately satiate your hunger anytime, anyplace – chips, cookies, cream biscuits, cakes; you wish for it, you can buy it. Anytime, anyplace. The sad part is that easier and cheaper access also brings along unwanted and insoluble calories.

Smaller Families, Bigger Portions:

While 2 kids was the norm when we were kids, it was 3 or 4 during our parents time and it is 1 now. Add to this the fertility issues that our generation faces, the one child that is born is usually after much trial – both physical and emotional. I don’t have to explain the importance of that one and only child. Economic abundance and the exclusivity of the child will mean stuffing the child with everything the parents consider in-trend and the child wishes for. Even if it is a cheese, all purpose flour and sauces laden pizza slice at the age of 5!

Eating Habits of Parents Are Being Copied:

Parenting experts say children learn more from what they see, than from what you tell them. You cannot tell them to have fresh juice after they come in from the park while you gulp down chilled tetra packs of synthetic juice immediately after coming home from office. You take them to a mall, order a fruit salad for them and icecream for you and expect the child to enjoy it? Expecting a child to do something because the parent says so is a very 70s approach and it is a psychologically wrong approach and it doesn’t work. Aerated drinks, synthetic juices, flavoured milks and the likes, even cereals like chocos or strawberry or any other flavours contain more sugar than any usable nutrient in it. The more you consume it, the more your kid will do it and the damage is more permanent to their little bodies.

Physical Activities?

While we looked forward to our physical exercise classes at school and our playtime after school, take a peak at what is happening today. The exclusive child and the resultant obsessive parenting is leading to parents making life hell for schools. Physical activities at schools will mean the child will fall, bruise, cut and the likes. Parents on the other hand want an atmost protected life for their child. So they are at logger heads with the school curriculum which gives even the slightest pain to their sunshines. The schools have found an easy way out, they are constantly reducing the physical activities in the curriculum directly impacting the physical frames of the so called sunshines.

And what happens at home? The father insists that the child should go out and play while he himself remains plonked on the couch, in front of the TV all through Sunday.  The mother insists that the child should go to the park and play but she herself will sit on the park bench and browse through FB. Remember a child learns what it sees! How do you expect the child to not be addicted to the television or the tablet?

Making a baby is the easiest task in the list of being a good parent; Our parents dedicated their entire lives to the task, time to ask are we up to the job requirements?

Bangalore Diaries #8: A Day of Beginnings & Endings

I still haven’t got any message from B, as I check my phone, immediately after waking up. It is just 7:00 am,

Bangalore Diaries #7: The Day When Naming Relationships & Desperation Stuck

Continuing from Bangalore Diaries #6, I am at the apartment I was shifting into at Ulsoor, after B dropped me here, told me not to sign an agreement and find a place in areas like Koramangala, HSR Layout, Marathalli etc. I take the lift and there one of the two girls, who are my flatmates,  welcomed me into the apartment.

The room isn’t furnished really. There is just a double mattress in there. The good thing is I can bring in anything that I like, you know have a personalised interior design; the bad thing is it will be tough to manage till I do that. I just have a stroller to call a luggage so I put it in the room and settle down to have a chat with my flatmate.

I sit down to tell her that they should not close their advertisement looking for a flatmate on Facebook (that is how I found this place). I told her about the apprehensions raised by my fiancé and that I’ll be staying there only till I find a new place. Yes, I called B my Fiancé – Not my friend, not my boyfriend but Fiancé. There is a certain power exerted by a relationship which has social approval and that was the moment when I realised that. Saying that my friend or boyfriend has suggested that I should be staying elsewhere does not seem even justified. But when you say Fiancé, there are no questions asked. It is as if when there is a social approval, the person has a right to say what he said.

If I say, the boyfriend is apprehensive about me staying here. I would be asked, “How can he decide where you would like to stay?” But if I say, the fiancé is apprehensive about me staying here, it somehow becomes legit for the guy to say that and for me to accept that.

I realised how deeply seated are the notions that we grew up with. Naming a relationship is as important as the truth of the emotions in it, if not more. Irrespective of all our casual relationship talks and modern thinking influenced by the world at large especially the ones on the western side of the planet, an Indian woman still wants a name to all the important roles she plays in her life. I realised though within the confines of our relationship it never bothered me to get a name for it, to the world at large we needed to say what we are – to each other. More than anything the name is a justification for all those overflowing emotions and silly behaviour around each other.

I was dabbling in these thoughts as my stomach rumbled. I had only eaten that Idli from B’s lunch box since morning; it was going to be 2:00 in the afternoon and I was really hungry. My flatmate was sweet enough to make some poha from flattened rice and offer it to me. The two girls are sisters and were from Bihar. While the younger one was preparing for CAT, the elder one was an IT professional. She told me they were happy to find me – a Hindi speaking flatmate in Bangalore

Saying Yes To The Life That Choose Me

I am at my Mom’s native today and as usual I am battling the quintessential ‘M’ question. One thing that none of my relatives can understand is why a 32-year old woman would not want to jump at the chance of getting married to the next prospective groom who comes her way? Isn’t 32 really late anyway; what with her younger cousins already getting married.

No, I am not debating here about the ‘M’ question but about how our life is a series of mysterious forces at work. Atleast some are. About what I plan to do about them.

I won’t say my life today is because of a series of choices I made. That’s too unrealistic. A fairy tale of sorts. A better way of putting it is – it is a consequence of a series of decisions I made. And I’ll be honest, I stand by all my decisions. Some proved wrong, but I stand by them.

Today my aunt asked me, “Do you look back and have regrets?“I said, “Regrets? None at all.“

I don’t regret resigning my plush corporate job, I don’t regret spending a year and a half wandering and deciding I want to write, I don’t regret being in a relationship that was doomed from day one, I don’t regret that move to Bangalore because I believed my life was there and no I don’t regret deciding that words will be the only way. No I don’t.

This is not a heroic tale. I did not script this and I would not have scripted it this way if I had a chance to. It happened like I said as a result of a lot of decisions which I thought were the best at that point.

For someone who does not believe in destiny but the workings of the universe, I would say the universe was getting me to my story’s stage.

I would like to believe that I am at a stage in life where I am on a new page. A new chapter awaits. It isn’t that the old chapters won’t have a connection. I carry their wisdom into the new one. I have the choice to get back to the 9 to 5 routine of a job and get comfortable. But I chose words. And I stand by my choice.

I told my aunt, “I don’t have regrets, but I have pain. Anything that I had ever planned in my life never came to being. So I take a lesson out of it and just want to live the day. I am scared of hoping, dreaming even planning. I want to see where does the story go.“

“And everyone in the family thinks why no marriage? Because I don’t look at marriage as a solution to every problem. With so much action in my life, I don’t even think I have any space for it as yet.“

I don’t know where I am going but I know I am moving. I know it is a good thing to keep moving. I know I am on a path. And every path leads to some place. Which is my place, I may know someday.

Till then I say yes to the life I choose. I say yes to my story. I say yes to every criticism I face. And I say ‘Love You’ to every tiny voice that eggs me on.

What a Nation Laughs at is Serious Business

What does India laugh at?

On fat women, thin men, short women, lanky men, dark women, bald men, women with big breasts, men with big paunches….the list is endless. If the content of the comedy shows, that was live currently on Indian television, is anything to go by then India laughs on body shaming the most!

This disturbing social behaviour yet again came to light when recently actor Tannishtha Chatterjee slammed Comedy Nights Bachao Taaza for ‘racist’ comments. The show based on a roast format got on the nerves of the actor when the organisers found her skin tone as the only factor to roast her. Atleast the said show is based on the format where you know you will be pulled up. What about the supposedly most popular comedy show on Indian Television currently – The Kapil Sharma Show. A lot of the comedy sequences of the show are based on the lip size of one of the lead actors or the bulk of another actor or the looks of another one. Forget the actors on the show, from the live audience that participates on the show the ones unfortunate enough to be picked up to feature on the show are more often than not body shamed. And that comprises the script of India’s favourite comedy show!

This is what India laughs at! Body shaming, racist comments and bullying. 

Unfortunately just like making people laugh is a serious business, the insights into what people laugh on is an even more serious business. It is the revelation of the social psyche of the nation. The deep rooted bias running through the veins of this nation stands exposed in what it takes joy in slamming.

And the phenomenon in our country is not laughing on, it is laughing at. 

Be it Kapil’s show or any other comedy show on air currently, the comedy is not in the situations, it is on the characters. All these characters represent a segment of the society and more than comedy it showcases the bias that these people face everyday. Leave apart the live audience grinning away or the recorded laughter notes, these shows highlight where the fabric of the society is frayed and splitting. They show where our empathy should lie and that fine line where we are converting into something that is not human.

While on this, I remember an incident which happened about an year back, at my workplace. A group of 3 women. All three are successful professionals with a robust personal life of their own. In terms of body type, skin tone and looks – one an average looker, second – good looking but has crossed the border of being called obese; been working out and the effects have started to show. Third – very good looking and definitely obese by social standards but the big frame more than compensates for the fat. The three are friends, often doing things that friends do. Kitty parties, shopping and the likes.

One fine day the entire workplace is shocked with the news that the 3rd one died after an unsuccessful bariatcic surgery! And anybody can guess it was anything but a direct result of peer leering and pressure concentrated on body shaming.

Just two days back I went to the parlour to get a facial done and the beautician promptly finds it her basic responsibility to suggest to me that I should get a skin whitening pack added. Though it was obvious I asked her what effect will it have. She very proudly told me that I will become fair and that will make me look more beautiful. I lost it at this point and vehemently turned down her suggestion while telling her I don’t want to be white. I love my dusky skin tone.

The ideas of normal is so deep rooted in our social fabric that a slight deviation and we go berserk.We want to correct it immediately, confine it to our mediocrity and define it as normal. Or accepted! The thing is when we stop looking forward to these jokes and start seeing them for what they are – a bully’s offensive remarks that is the day we start being normal.

Normal people co-exist. They aren’t obsessed with making clones out of every other country man or woman.

Kingdom of Ironies or Hypocrites?

Do you know when a guy has a few greys, how do our people react?

That Salt & Pepper look suits you, btw.

…and do you know when a girl has a few greys, how do our people react?

Why don’t you dye that, it looks so horrible. Don’t worry about any hair damage, just hide it.

Yes sir, welcome to India. It does not end here, here is something that women in India face on a regular basis.

 

A naked goddess (Kali) is worshiped with feverish austerity and some dolts in the country go berserk if a woman’s cleavage peeks from a dress she was wearing. It is national headlines! Forget the actress, let a common girl go about wearing a short skirt or a halter neck top. She is worshipped with the graze of lust, at the minimum and the maximum? Well the rape and molestation cases are a dime-a-dozen.

Goddess Saraswati is worshipped all over India as the goddess of knowledge and art. Young boys and girls are taught she is the epitome of art. They are taught to be like her, achieving the pinnacle. And then when young girls form a band and want to give the gift of music to anyone with a soul, the religious gatekeepers ban them. Girls don’t need to art the way!

The vedas have a goddess of love, carnal desire, lust, passion and sexual pleasure – Goddess Rati. She is also the consort of the god of Love. But a woman talking about sexual desires and sex in India is in very clear terms available and asking for it!

India has a goddess of wine called Varuni but condemns women who drink. And god forbid if they drink in the company of men! I know a friend who thinks that if a women can drink in the company of men, she can do anything! For him a woman drinking is the last gate to her chastity and thereafter it is an open house.

Wasn’t goddess Parvati ambitious when she said she will only marry Lord Shiva. A god and a hermit at that! India cheered for her while watching Devon Ke Dev Mahadev. Why then is an average Indian girl made to take up the 16-mondays fast just like the goddess and counselled to marry the first prospective-groom who comes along. Because marriage is all about compromise and adjustments, the wise words come up. Why is she made to have no ambition, in life and in career?

Why the two faces India?

Why worship the female form when you cannot respect the manifestation in flesh & blood? You really want the goddess to bless you? Worship the goddess in your life. Don’t subject her to physical, mental or emotional abuse or even indifference. And watch her flower into the goddess who will gift you nothing less than heaven.

Do you know how a volcano works? It is basically just pent up frustration of a patient phenomenon. Did I just equate earth and women. Well, so do the vedas.

The Thing That Is Wrong About Obsessive Parenting

The sign of great parenting is not the child’ behaviour,

The sign of truly great parenting in the parent’s behaviour.

– Andy Smithson

My father has a very special love for animals. Every house we have lived in, he would manage to feed some or the other animal. At our last house it was a cat, in the latest one it ‘s birds. Sparrows, pigeons, parrots…many can be seen chirping around all through the day but mostly, it is the little cute devils, sparrows. Some days back I noticed one of them building a nest – straw by straw, tirelessly. (though was it one or a couple building it, I would not know; they all look the same to me). I saw the nest being completed, then eggs were laid, the mother sitting around and then heard a chirping of a different decibel. Small and sharp. The chicks were out and then one day, what I saw was a beautiful, lovely sight.

The mother bird was teaching the chicks to fly. The little fellows kept falling but the training was relentless. And at the end of it the chicks metamorphosed into individual sparrows.

The mother sparrow is still around. The kid sparrows are around too. But I don’t see the mother get them food. Though she used to when they were in the nest.

And this is one of the things that I love about the animal kingdom. Be it birds or any four legged beast, their parenting style makes so much sense. They give life to their young ones, nurture them but don’t fend for the young ones once they are big enough to do so. They don’t mark any territory for their sons and daughters. They don’t defend them when the kids have grown into individuals. Mostly importantly they let their young ones fall. They watch them fall but don’t move an inch to pick them up. They allow their kids to chart our their own life journeys.

And this is exactly what is wrong with human parenting. A lot of parents do not know when to let go. The love is so much that the attachment levels far exceed healthy relationship requirements and the attention levels are near obsessive. A trend much more prevalent in the current generation of parents for obvious reasons.

Unlike the generation of our parents, the current generation had much lowered levels of sexual health. Making a baby has in itself become a task. A child is conceived after much efforts, trails and tribulations. In many cases involving medications and at times even surgery. The child is so precious that it becomes the centre of the couple’s existence, their inter-personal relationship changes, sometimes the marriage even goes for a toss but the child still remains the centre. And this is the point where parents start damaging their own offspring.

Parents do not own up to this and possibly they don’t even realise that when they are over protective about their child, over concerned and eventually over possessive, they are damaging their child beyond repair. The child never learns life skills, is unable to cope up beyond the boundaries of the parental support, is forever dependent especially emotionally, has zero decision making skills and never develops survival instincts in relationships.

There is this story I really want to narrate here:

Once when a worm was hatching out of its cocoon, a man happened to witness this. He sees the worm struggle mammothly against the shell. While there were other worms too struggling to come out, he takes a kind fancy to this particular worm. To ease its struggle, the man breaks a part of its shell. What happened next is the biggest lesson in parenting.

The other worms struggled to get out but they eventually did and flew away as beautiful butterflies. But the worm he helped, by breaking the shell, never flew.

Why you ask? The strength that would have developed in its wings while struggling out of the shell did not. It stayed a piece of slimy moth, crawling for existence all its life.

Dear obsessive parent, this is what you do to that piece of your soul.         

Do you know every time you have said that your child took a particular decision because her friend from the next block must have influenced her or your child thinks a certain way because her colleague is a bad influence on her, you have done nothing but shattered her faith in herself. You have made her ask:

Why doesn’t mom think that I can take decisions, too? Am I that bad? Am I always wrong?

Please do your child a favour. Be an animal. Practice responsible parenting. Let them seek their journeys. Let them fall. Watch them get up. Let them make mistakes. Watch them become wise. Don’t break them, help them make themselves.

Offer your wisdom. Please don’t offer your hand.  

Dear Journalist What Are You Smoking?

Browsing through my FB feed today, I happened to read a blog by a senior entertainment journalist – Soumyadipta Banerjee – where he has written an open letter to Fawad Khan urging him (and other Pakistani artists) to leave India. After my precious 4 minutes of reading, the title of this blog is exactly what I wanted to ask him. Seriously sir, what is it that you are high on? Reads a lot like misplaced patriotism.

The said open letter spews venom in the name of misplaced patriotic emotions and coming from a senior journalist who had advocated cultural exchanges in the past this is such an emotional but irrational rant. Don’t get me wrong, sir. I am not advocating that cultural exchanges should be kept separate from the political tensions of the countries  and should be encouraged with a country which is waging a proxy war with my country. No, not at all. In fact, in my opinion, there should be no exchanges, at all. At any level. At this point.

Unfortunately, you, despite being a journalist don’t sound much different from a nuisance-creating political party or an attention hungry playback singer. Atleast they have their agendas and those are pretty result oriented. Definitely not pardonable but you know we have be ignoring those jokers all this while and will continue to do so. You will consider that we are a country that even tolerates KRK.

But you Sir, do you know what the problem with your rant is? You got so emotional about the Uri Attack that it fogged your mind to the extent of not asking the most important question – why? When our government and the complete political and security machinery knows the kind of neighbours we have; when they have past incidents to prove the intention time and again why are the security levels not impregnable? Why will our jihadist (who disapprove any form of entertainment) backing neighbours be hard hit if their artists are sent back? Why not a full stop on every trade and transaction and only cultural and sport exchanges?

I was taught during my MBA that numbers narrate the best stories, so sir here are some for you. Pakistan’s direct export to India is about half a billion, India’s direct export to Pakistan is 7 and a half billion and informal trade, mostly through Dubai, is estimated at 9 billions. Do you really want to hit where it hurts? Urge the Indian government to put a full stop to all of this trade. A blanket ban. That is the ban we need not artist banning.

When cockroaches start getting into the kitchen through the sink drain, we spray insecticides into the drain. We don’t stop cooking in the kitchen or using the sink, sir. I empathise with your patriotic feelings. I am no less an Indian than you are and a patriotic one at that. My heart bleeds to know that my fellow countrymen have died while protecting the borders. And I don’t believe these candle marches and arm chair social media activism bothers the concerned much. You wrote in your letter that Fawad Khan lacks courage, conviction and guts to stand up the the jihadists and the government of his country that backs them. Sir, it will do us no good if he stands up or not. Because even if he does, either he won’t be taken seriously (which jihadist listens to a filmwala) or he will be killed. But if our government stands up to truly implement the security protocols, trust me the roaches won’t come in.

Sir, if you really think everything that is wrong is with the other country, look at the compensation offered to the martyrs, by your own. 2 Lakhs by the West Bengal Government. Something similar is given to a drunkard who dies in a drain after consuming hooch! That is the value assigned to the life by the government that you are baying the freedom of artists for. Our governments have been long practising the policy of being a pacifist, which is rational too, but that sir, with an irrational neighbour is the problem. We are not hitting them where it will hurt. Yes, we can throw their artists out. Big deal. Art will find voice in Europe, US or any other part of the world. But we, dear sir, will be behaving like the errant child who wants his neighbour’s kid out of his house, right away, because his own mother gave the extra chocolates to the kid.

You know what every voice that is baying for the banning of these artists sounds like to a common Indian? It has a sound of impotency. Don’t want to ban trade, economics suffers. Don’t want to foolproof the borders; takes effort. What do we do? Let’s punch the soft targets. Let’s take out our vengeance and then go back to our routines satisfied that we have been patriots of the highest order.

Its show time sir. And you just assigned yourself the role of a jester. In jest of course.

I Smell A Memory

Do you have a smell memory?

Every time I buy a used book, the first thing I do is part it in the middle and tuck my nose right in. Taking in the smell. The smell of all the hands it has changed, all the places it has been to, all the stories it has seen happen and all the hearts it has soothed. And the unforgettable, the smell of aged wood pulp. And you know, every time I smell an old book it takes me back to my school library. To a glass cupboard through which till then I had seen the books neatly arranged. I go back to 5th standard. To Nancy Drew. To the first book I got issued on my brand new library card. Every time! The old book smell is what I associate with my school. Hundreds of books have crossed my hands since then but the memory is of that Nancy Drew book remains.

Smell memories are said to be our strongest memories. Some are happy, some are sad, some bring smiles, some tears but the recall is quick and the impact unrelenting. It was B who first pointed out smell memories to me. He has a very sharp memory. It seems like he remembers everything from his childhood. And every time he narrated one of them to me, he relived those moments and for me it was a movie I was watching. Featuring his childhood, teen years or even some of his recent past. That day he happened to pass by a property that once used to be a cinema theatre. He had watched many movies there with his college best friend. The place was being converted to a mall now, but the construction was still going on.

When he narrated this to me, he said, “You know I can still smell the bondas and chai there. And you know old theatres have this typical smell of faux leather, wood and people. It is still there. Does it happen to you? I always remember smells. And every time that smell meets my nostrils. I remember the place or the person or the incident I associate with that smell.” I was amused. I could not recollect any smell memory right then. So we moved on to the next story.

But he was right. Smells bring back memories. And very distinctly. They have the power to change our moods right away. Swing to extremes. It was only after that conversation I realised now much we live through smells. If someone would want to write a life story through smells, it was possible. Every place, every person, every moment has a smell. I wonder, like there are blind people or deaf people, are there people who cannot distinguish smells? How clean would their slate of memories be? A pity.

I think the strongest smell memory I have with B is that of chicken fry