Hurriedly Scribbled #2

This one is a little late, but since my blog crossed 8,00,000 views a few hours back, today's countdown post is very much in order.

So, if someone were to ask you, what was the one thing you discovered in the year of life which just went by, what would you say? Really - its a question to which you must write an answer in the comment box below. What I want to see is if you can actually stop at scribbling one thing down. In an entire year, one could discover so much about himself, about life, about people. Can there actually be that one, overpowering thing which towers above all the other experiences of life, establishing itself in a position of dominance, from where it stands a chance of influencing and shaping your life?

As is apparent, I asked this question to myself. I often do, but I wake up to different answers. As of today, my answer would be, that the 24th year of my life was significant because it was in this time period that I discovered feminism. I am not sure if my discovery was related to unearthing a mini-feminist sitting crouched somewhere inside me, but I have definitely become more sensitive to the misogynistic strains which permeate the air we unconsciously breathe. Honestly put, its troublesome, to see how stereotypes relating to gender and sexuality are just accepted without challenge, and to find yourself become sensitive and reactive to them. Its an honest admission. I reckon I was better off when I could laugh at those of my ilk when others chose to make a joke out of them. This day, I cannot. I don't get messed up with anger, but rightfully indignant I do become when I see biological limitations becoming a curse, and social conditioning getting more regressive by the day. Try as hard as I might, I cannot laugh at what Kapil Sharma puts up as humour. It was funny for the initial bit, but to make a trend of laughing at women, servant class, and obese people - no, it just doesn't work any more. I did hear someone call Kapil the Shekhar Suman of our times, and with whatever little I remember of Movers & Shakers, I tend to disagree. Lets leave the rants at that.

A magazine I edited while heading the Women Studies and Development Cell, back in JMC

I don't like cooking. I don't want to cook. I always knew it was a difficult position to assert, but the fact that I would have to negotiate with not just individuals, rather entire communities to have this fact understood was not known to me. Ask Neha, please, how I routinely burn my eggs even in the simplest of recipes, or how I almost always end up adding extra salt in my maggi, sometimes even twice the amount of that extra salt, and you would know what kind of a culinary cripple I am talking off here. A few years back, I had even heard of a phenomenon called 'Mageirocophobia', which is the fear of cooking, and had conveniently adopted the label, till it was shrugged off by the dust of sookha aata on the chappati I was learning to flatten with a rolling pin. I can finally get them nice and round, but its only as enjoyable as a once-a-fortnight craft activity for me. I would enjoy painting the kitchen walls with vegetable dyes in an equal proportion. Unfortunately for many around me, this was the year I discovered Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, Simone de Beauvoir and Parveen Shakir. I discovered Virginia Woolf and via the might of her quill, I understood the possibilities which would have been snatched from the hands of a certain, fictional Judith Shakespeare. (Among many of my professors, Dr. Baran Farooqi I specifically need to thank here). I learnt how economics influences the social, and how soon the personal starts becoming political. Vague? Well, yet again, a coffee invite is open. By the way, do you have any theories about the origin of the concept of incest? Try researching, some awesome nonsense might raise its ugly head in front of your eyes then.

The above is only a minute fraction of what has been festering inside me since long. It was the most pleasant journey of my life which probably ended up turning me into a feminist. Probably. And no, it is not because of some harsh experiences related to my body or sexuality. Yes, those are avenues of study for anyone wanting to delve into the politics of gender, but this is not the trigger for me. My problems started surfacing with something much more basic, perhaps even trivial to the world - emotions. Caught teary-eyed in certain situations, I realized that my valid concerns were being overlooked, undermined, just because tears, or sentimentality have come to acquire gendered connotations. I was not always PMSing while I was trying to make the world understand what part of me was hurting and why. In case of conflicts, primarily with the other sex, it was always expected of me to see reason, logic, and abandon emotions as they stifle fruitful outcomes. I failed to find logic in situations which had feelings attached at the very core of them. If I cry, I am emotional. If they show temper, they are not. Its sort of baffling, and ridiculous. And this did not end till one day I decided I will not go down to the level of logic till they decided to rise to the level of emotions. The process of othering, which I always found ludicrous, is the only refuge my expressions in this case have come to adopt.

Aaqib Raza Khan and his magic lens, yet again

I have a paper on gender, two days from now. You can see I am decently prepared. Superficially yes, but I'll conquer my syllabus soon.

The 24th year of my life was also the one where I discovered poetry and mythology. And some fantastic relationships. I'll pen them down soon too. For now, 6 days to go!
(This post is an hour late, hence I quote the figure 6)

Looking Through Glass by Mukul Kesavan

They say, fiction triumphs where history and historiography meet failure. True enough. Through imagination and innovation, fiction tries to recreate those stories which are of little concern to historians - for history is not much but a political chronology, or a tale written about civilizations lost to time, or a record of battle won and lost. However, fiction is different. Fiction  seeks to carve out stories where to a non-curious, non-keen eye exist none. Even better is the experience when you see the confluence of a historian and fiction writer of great merit, as I happened to notice in Looking Through Glass by Mukul Kesavan. Mr. Kesavan is a professor in the Department of History in my university itself, though I never have had the good fortune of meeting him. I know it clear in my head what I have to say upon coming face to face with him - a simple thank you for giving me the best magical ride through the devastating annuls of Indian pre-independence history, from a post-independence vantage point.

Looking Through Glass is a novel that looks to recreate history, though not in a manner as simple as you would deem. The narrator, on a journey to Benaras to immerse his deceased grandmother's ashes in the holy Ganges, finds himself fall off a bridge into another time zone. He falls into the year 1942 from India of the 1980s and begins an amusing, but revealing tale of inevitabilities that were taking place in that period of struggle, where divisive tendencies had not only taken firm root, but were also raising their heads at ugly junctures in public and private life. The narrator, a Hindu, stays with a Muslim family - with a story and history of its own - passing off as an amnesiac. He almost acquires the role of the man of the house, till he starts on his way to Benaras, joining an anti-British rebellion en route. His travails in Benaras include meeting and dealing with a aspiring porn-film-maker, and rescuing an unwed, pregnant girl, Parwana - all this while being under the tutelage of a local wrestler giving regular sermons on the importance of celibacy for conserving strength. His journey continues to Delhi, Simla and perhaps back to Delhi (has been long since I read this beautiful work of fiction) - spanning the most crucial years of political wrangling regarding cartographic surgery of India and on ground violence devouring the peace of entire communities to forever leave them embittered. All this, being seen through the surreal lens of a photographer, who is an anachronistic observer in the setting.

This novel makes use of the technique of magic realism in a rather sudden way, at the very beginning. Its is not a very simple narrative, for it is a fusion of genres of fantasy and historical fiction. The novel is rich with rhetorical ploys where the author, in essence a historian, is conveying his hardened perspective on India's historical development to his audience, perhaps focussing on giving voice to the one community whose collective opinions had been drowned under the persuasive influence of its leader toeing a rigid separatist line. These tendencies of the author are distinctly noticeable in the way he creates his rather strong characters, ordinary citizens, supporting ideas which are in contravention of what was historically ascribed to them.

Mukul Kesavan

This novel doesn't stop at being a fantastical lesson on history. Besides telling you plainly that independence as partition were affairs larger than the exchange between Congress and the Muslim League, it also encompasses other interesting sub-plots, one of which is crude kind of sexual comedy. This is made visible in the section about Gyanendra, a film-maker aspiring to remake Kama Sutra, victimizing a woman, who can also be looked at as a victimizer in a way. One can, of course, not forget the fact that sexual violence was inextricably linked to the physical violence in the years leading up to Partition. By evoking lesser known streams of ideological thoughts on the idea of India and its various communities, the novel also makes a sincere attempt at political rewriting of historical facts. For throwing light on all this, the narrator has made use of flashback as well as flashforward. He has both, the retrospective and the prospective tools of analysis in his hands, because he picks up a nameless protagonist who has fallen into the lanes of history from a very contemporary reality. This narrator is in a position to see people struggle, but by the virtue of his temporal vantage point, sees how futile these struggles are because he knows precisely what turn history will take.

Lastly, the novel is so dearly loved by me because of the lightness of tone with which the author is able to convey the seriousness of matter. It is a thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable novel, which does not leave you sombre or depressed. And this is not to say that it is not hard hitting, or that it does not send its message home. 4.5 stars from me, and absolutely, highly recommended!

Book Details -
Author - Mukul Kesavan
Publisher - Penguin India and Ravi Dayal Publishers
Published - 1995
Book Source - Part of a course on 'Literatures of the Indian Sub-continent', Department of English, JMI
Genre - Historical Fiction/Fantasy Fiction
Price - Rs. 325
Pages - 378

Let's Grow Up Together

Dear PACH,

Can we call it the best group picture, like ever?

You're growing up into a terribly demanding kid. Kid, yes. You're that insistent, even nagging, and you cannot, just cannot stand any lack of attention from those who nurture you. I am a case in point. At the conclusion of your tenth edition, I had made a promise to myself, that for about a month and a half, I will maintain a safe, sane distance from you. But then, you crept into my dream, as a definite vision of what could a perfect incarnation of yours look like, and I jumped right back in. You see, I like holding your hand and leading you there, there where we all imagine you should be. I am privileged you grip my hand right back, and trust me. And then we travel together, in a caravan, of course, of a growing urban tribe of poets, and arrive at surreal junctions like the one which just went by. Lets talk a little about it to each other, shall we?

I was talking about you to Navin ji the other day, and one thing we concluded was that your setting this time was impeccable. Karan Bhola and Cheistha Kochhar need to be thanked for allowing us to meet you in the amazing, pristine, beautiful Sri Aurobindo Centre for Arts and Communication, which also serves as the Young India Fellowship Programme campus. It was green, and of course, that made our already hyper, young environmentalist, Aavika, chirp even louder with glee. We expected it, of course. That is one of the cooler things about you PACH. Your family has members who are known by their distinctive traits, distinctive preoccupations, distinctive inspirations and styles and perspectives on life - but they all seamlessly blend together to make you into the vibrant tapestry of gem-like thoughts. Hell yes, you're studded with all precious, not semi-precious, ideas, which are brought to table by people who dwell on comics, superheroes, first crushes, unrequited love experiences, nature, creatures, languages, family, bonds, individualism, devotion and innumerable other incongruous, yet complimentary motivations. You, its all you PACH. 

When we invited you to take it all out, and how you obliged us! 

Do you know the best thing about being where we were? The fact that we were under an open sky, not bound by any space. I could, for once, see poets relax, find their own comfort zones, walk around, freshen up their thoughts, loosen up their bodies and drink in both the chill and the sun with equal alacrity. May be you should always call us to places like this - which are free, so our thoughts could travel free. Well, poetry is a medium of travelling, to distant lands, to hearts of people - and this, of course, I learnt from Ekanksha, in an exquisitely worded introduction. Oh, introductions are the special things about you. People like talking about themselves, we love hearing about them - it all just adds up perfectly. PACH, perfection is boring. Don't be perfect - just always be better than what you were the day before. It has kind of been the trend so far, so, lets not pressurize you in that direction. 

The beautiful amphitheatre of SACAC

Three huge paragraphs, and I have not even arrived at the point, the pivot, the peak, the prime reason why this PACH was a touch above from the others. Actually, leaps and bounds ahead of all previous ones. This reason is a name - Ashok Chakradhar. A poet who is an institution in himself. While anticipating his arrival, we were hoping to meet a celebrity, one who would enamour us, meeting whom was what our collective dreams were made of. However, the actual tryst with him proved to be astonishing and humbling, both at once. In him, we met a listener, a poet and a teacher - not a celebrity. He came, he became a part of you PACH - and he took keen interest in both, knowing you and commenting on you. All good comments, goes without saying. 

Chakradhar sir was eager to listen, laugh and appreciate. Whether it was Govind narrating his love story in broken Hindi, or Dipalie finding solace and silence in her beloved's grace; whether it was Mago's poem which tickled Newton and Einstein, or Anup's ingenious, rhythmic verses giving brief lessons on living - Ashok ji heard them all with interest and enthusiasm. Aditya's ghazal needs no commenting upon anymore. Aavika, our little environmentalist, impressed Ashok ji with her naughty Sunday song, dedicated to an imagined lover. I had a short vain moment when Ashok ji appreciated Daastaan, the poem closest to my heart after 'A Thousand Times Over'. He mentioned something about having tears in his eyes after my recitation, but I will let that pass, lest I not be able to control this pride knocking so firmly on my door. The true show-stealer, however, was this poet who calls himself 'Umar'. His poetic dimension was so well hidden from me, that to this day I marvel and sense disbelief in my heart regarding it. While Ashok ji, but obviously, was mighty impressed with his compositions, I could only let my tears lose in response. His words were filling me up so much, that I actually wanted him to stop! Now that, PACH, is something new I experienced. 

This capture is amazing for the smiles spread all around, especially on 'Umar' sahab's face

Ashok ji himself couldn't hold back, and he recited something in front of us which the world as yet does not know about. I'll keep the specifics of the composition to myself, since all my letters to you PACH are sort of a public affair, but what I will let out is that in my view, his poem was a PACH epic. It was long, but it only kept getting better with each succeeding part. The tone, the rhythm, the vocabulary and the recitation - each was a lesson, each leaving us absolutely bewildered. I felt certain emotions the dictionary has no terms for - and I know for a fact that I share this bewilderment with you PACH. There is no way you do not understand this feeling. Sir was full of grace, humility and the lasting image I will carry of his will be that of a teacher sitting in the midst of 35 odd students, teaching them about Abhida, Lakshana and Vyanjana...

In hindsight, I cannot believe sir gave me a high five for a naive comment during his recitation :)

And the shawl! Looked so perfect on him. You do very well know how much more I want to talk about Ashok sir, but then, there are other poets I MUST make a mention of. 

Dipalie said something very intriguing and remarkable about you PACH. She said, if the air around and within you is canned and carried to different places, will creative genies cast their spells on everyone they come in contact with? Essentially, she was giving voice to the shock and awe I experience when first time poets, or people who are still nascent in this realm of writing churn out completely incredible, top level verses. I mean, so many have come to your gatherings admitting that they never write, of if they write they don't write in a particular language, and that they don't share their creations with anyone or in public. Now, how many of those very people have gifted you surreal words and expressions you want to neatly and carefully compile together in a treasure trove of poems which will undoubtedly leave the world stunned? The number is too good to be true. 

Iti, Ekanksha and Mago - three outstanding poets PACH is blessed with

When we last met you PACH, people shared too much. Right from the beginning, where Ekanksha put our day long journey on the perfect track, till the very end, by those melodies stolen from Rafi sahab and Jagjit ji's corpus, each moment you breathed, I lived a little more. The Elephant in the Room, by Vaishali, left a giant impact on each heart. Navin ji's reflections on truth, which went from lived experiences, to philosophical abstractions to realistic deconstructions was akin to a compilation drawn from our collective childhood. Jyoti and Anup's duet was soft, lyrical, lilting. Anurag's composition reflected mature thoughts and word usage. Neha's poem, read in absentia, was rich with genuine devotion expressed in unforgettable phrases. Mansi always adds that spontaneity and ebullience to the group. Ghosts of Neha Bawa's past still haunt my heart. Iti, demure and dignified, touched each soul with her ode to the most special, umbilical bond which life grants us. 

In his smart winter attire, the writer par excellence

And, even though I feel out of breath recollecting such vast list of poem, each uniquely special and remembered by me, I cannot help but make a distinct mention of Kamal, whose poem was so amazing, that I cannot even begin to describe it in words. "Hum Aapki Kyun Karein?" is a simple question, but demands some understandably difficult answers. I want a larger world to read that poem, PACH - it had so many echoes which have so far only reverberated within the walls of heart. I invited him as the next guest blogger on Nascent Emissions - I think he will agree. 

The photographer-painter-poet

All these, each one of these, make you so special. PACH, you cannot be a lifeless concept. You are growing, one meet at a time. The pace of your growth has been scary, but hey, some crazy magic works here, remember?

I want all this love, disbelief and fondness to grow, as you grow. I want myself to grow, as you grow. You keep acquiring newer meanings for me, dear PACH. Its an enormously satisfying, calming feeling I am blessed with in time present. 

Winters are here. Let's promise each other some warmth and some awesome balmy days we spend holding each other's hands. 

With love and bright hopes for future, 

Saumya 

PS - I have to admit, that at times, so much happens during a single PACH meet, that I find myself incapable to registering and processing it all. It is for this reason that writing these letters is so important for me. This is where it all sinks in. This is all like being in love. For so many of us.

In the subtle glow of setting sun...

The Assassin's Song by M. G. Vassanji

Where should the bird fly after the last sky – Mahmoud Darwish

M. G. Vassanji is a known name in the genre of postcolonial writings who has dealt with demanding affiliations that manifest themselves at emotional, cultural, ethnic, linguistic, or political levels. In The Assassin’s Song, he places his protagonist in the context of harrowing identity investigation and a constant flux of experiences and values. As a Canadian writer with roots in what the West chooses to call the Third World, one notices in Vassanji’s works a striking preoccupation with shifting boundaries, his protagonist caught in the in-between world, and confused at the very premise of what to assert his belongingness to. In this quest, his narratives plunge into an investigation of the past, because it is from those nether lands of time that one snatches elements to complete the mosaic of his identity.

One way to look at The Assassin’s Song is as a bildungsroman narrative. It is essentially the story of Karsan Dargawalla, so is the son to the guardian of a Sufi shrine in Gujarat, called Pirbag, and is also its heir apparent. He is poised to take over his father’s role as ‘Saheb’ or ‘Lord’ of the shrine. The story traces Karsan’s struggle to come to terms with this pre-ordained fate of his. Like any other child, he has his interest zones – cricket being mentioned as one. However, the words of Providence come sealed in iron for him, and he is forced into reconciliation with his future as the Saheb, also in the face of a difficult relationship with his distant father. Karsan breaks free from his restricted, stifled existence at Pirbag when he receives an offer to study at Harvard.

Karsan finds himself enjoying the new life in a new land, where he is given a greater chance to discover himself, his interests. It is also in this new life that he develops a different and closer relationship with his father through numerous epistolary exchanges. He discusses Keats with his father, who sends caveats enclosed in envelopes for him. In a sense, it makes one feel, as if the son is trying to expose to his father the vast expanse of unexplored land around, and the father is trying to rein the child within the secular, secure and sacred confines of the domestic space.

Karsan emerges in the novel as the figure of a wanderer – much like Nur Fazal, his divine ancestor was. Also in the wandering spirit, one can see the autobiographical imprints of Vassanji, who has also located and relocated, from Kenya, finally living in Toronto. In the image of Karsan, thus, one can see the personal conflicts faced by most native as well as diasporic members of postcolonial societies. Thus, woven into the fabric of Karsan’s personal struggles for identity are universal echoes emerging from postcolonial sites.

Among other things, The Assassin’s Song is about the danger of taking a neutral position in a world that demands certainties. The faith followed by Karsan’s family, the keepers of the Pir’s flame, is neither Hindu nor Muslim, but this doesn’t count for much in the heat of communal riots, when convenient labels have to be put on everything. The Assassin’s Song, in more ways than one, comes out as a novel which is fiercely secular, but not secular in isolation. What the novel does beautifully is to problematize the neutrality of someone who does not align himself to any one religion. The narrative puts to test the idealism ensconced in the notion of secularism by holding it as a source of conflict in the mind of Karsan when it comes to surviving in a world so vehemently bent upon demarcating itself into cocoons of narrow sectarian identities. Vassanji, an Ismaili Muslim, here draws on his own experience of belonging to a small religious community.

This bildungsroman story culminates in Karsan’s return. He comes back to that very place, and perhaps that very fate which he had desired so much to evade. In a sense, the novel reveals that all freedom is illusory. Even while travelling beyond his native realms, he was, somewhere deep down, the heir of Pirbag, the one entrusted to carry forward the secular legacy of Nur Fazal. After the devastation wrecked by clash of faiths, Karsan returns to his domain – the place which was his – and it is with ease peppered with slight anxiety that he takes on the role of the next Sahab of the shrine.

In this end, Vassanji doesn't tell us what to believe; he merely shows us the various stages of a person's exploration of self. At the conclusion, though the prodigal son returns, there is no sense of finality that a reader may get after journeying through various geographical and psychological terrains with Karsan. It can perhaps be said that exploration of self is a continuous process. Identity evolves with experiences. It is not to be found at the place of one’s beginnings, but can often be located in a faraway land, where distances come to signify affiliations in a stronger manner. Often, identity demands acceptance. Karsan’s moment of greatest disillusionment came, perhaps, when he discovered that the eternal lamp illuminating Nur Fazal’s dargah was not a manifestation of miracles, but a fraud of sorts in which his mother was complicit. But later, Karsan understands the necessity of miracles to sustain faith. To conclude, a quote from the first chapter would be apt, where words and sentences combine to give a sense of what form would Karsan’s quest for identity acquire as the novel proceeds.

“That is the important question I had to learn. What lies beyond the sky? What do you see when you remove this dark speckled blanket covering our heads? Nothing? But what is nothing?”

The author

Verdict? Very strongly recommended. Never did this before, but this novel takes 5 on 5 stars. 

(The above article is an exerpt from a paper I wrote in college, as a part of my course on Postcolonial Literature)

When Colours Turn Muddy

Is Holi really the festival of colours? Well, in some imaginative, idealistic notions, it must be. However, as a non-participant on Holi festivities, yesterday I saw less of an iridescent display of colours, and more of black faces, muddy water and police patrol-plus-barricading, enough to give a feel of an imminent curfew. Is that what the festival of Holi has come to mean and symbolise?

Within the comfort of my house, I smeared colours on the faces of a handful of neighbours. Not for once did I feel like stepping out. Not alone, at any cost. Why? Because Holi has come to mean a threat to me and my body. I am sure a lot of girls would agree with what I am trying to convey here. There are so many outstation girl students I know, who, if devoid of a large and protective friends’ circle, lock themselves up in their rooms, too scared to venture out till late afternoon, when the Holi festivities have subsided. What kind of a festival is it which restricts a girl’s mobility or makes her feel unsafe ?

It doesn’t start (or end) on the Holi day. It begins much before. A week in advance, suddenly, the guys of your city get a free licence to accost your bodies with water-balloons, often also filled with colour dyes. Now, I am not saying that girls are their only target, but perhaps my exposure has only been limited to that aspect of their festive mischiefs. An innovation I recently came to know off, via troubled rantings of a college friend is stuffing water balloons with eggs and then using them as a harmless Holi weapon. How cool? Right? No. It is not. It is harassment, to say the least. On our way from college to an all-girl’s market trip, I and two other friends of mine were hit by two water balloons in a moving auto. I know the pain and the impact it created on my arm, and can only imagine how my other friend, who was hit on the cheek, would have felt. All this in the name of festival fun. Needlessly said, the girl’s day out had to be cut short, for who would want to roam around in market places with wet clothes, clinging to one’s body. The world is not short of ogling men now, is it? Oh, and it was not some innocent five year-olds who had played Holi with us in their own twisted way, but lanky teenaged lads. I wonder where do they adopt this tradition from, if it can be called that. One more water-balloon assault later, I decided to stay away from travelling to college till Holi gets over.

What perhaps I have dictated is a minor ordeal, if one may even call it that. The pain my arm experienced subsided in no time. There are, however, many hideous tales of Holi molestations I have heard from here and there, which stay on to pain girls till years later. Holi is a licence for men to touch, run and even maul a female body. Have you ever felt a male hand touching you at inappropriate places under the pretext of colouring you up because that is what the tradition demands? Have you ever seen men, ostensibly your family members, first drench you in front of a crowd, and then admire the shape of your body as the intoxication of bhang strengthens? I am not claiming this is the rule. I am only saying that this happens too. I have been lucky it never did with me. But many of my acquaintances have not been so fortunate. Even worse, many, I am sure, are not aware how an excuse of Holi is used by men to intrude into what is their space, the threshold of which should only be crossed upon gaining consent.

All these thoughts came running to my head after I saw a large gang fight break out in a slum dwelling visible from my house. All faces were painted black, the only difference perceivable being in the shape of bodies distinguishing men from women. Intoxication and loud music perhaps gave a fillip to whatever the argument was about and fight of the muddied faces kept on getting stronger. What caught my attention in this madness was a woman caught in the exchange of blows, who could only manage to wriggle free when she was thrown outside the fighting group to land on her haunches on the wet ground. The next I noticed was a police van hauling up the ruffians (that’s how they all looked) and dead silence returning to the field of frenzied celebrations.

May be this is not the way the civil classes celebrate Holi. They have their other civil ways of making this a festival of fun, amusement and entertainment. Holi is said to be the festival which is a great leveller. All faces, coloured in similar hues, are made free of distinctions of caste and class. The one distinction that does remain, however is that of gender. Perhaps that is the reason why a DU girls’ hostel had to seek a ban on a Holi procession, alleging obscenity in the all-male parade taken out in Delhi University’s North Campus every year. The girl residents claim that crude remarks and indecent gestures made by those boys amount to harassment, and this despite being accompanied by police each year. This is the condition of our education eden, infiltrated, of course, by some who are labelled ‘anti-social elements’.

Amid all these harrowing feelings about Holi, what gives me pleasure is the soft touch of my ten-year old nephew’s fingers applying variegated hues of gulal on my face. It gives me pleasure to see sweet gujias being exchanged among neighbours and relatives who scarce find an opportunity to meet in their otherwise hectic schedules. It also gives me pleasure to see the sweet playfulness dissolve and dissipate, for one day, hierarchies within families. And the best piece of news I heard was from Benaras, where the widows this year celebrated a floral Holi. Radha and Krishna, whose Holi celebrations shade our legends and folk songs, would be happy to see a dash of colour in the lives of those consigned to colourlessness. It were the sufi peers who saw Holi as the coming together of communities and smearing on each other not just gulal, but love. I wonder where the spirit of Radha Krishna, of the sufi traditions of Holi is lost.

Still, I do hope you all had a wonderful Holi, which was safe, vibrant and full of mirth!

Image Source - Photographs by the hugely talented Snigdha Manoli Menda. Used with permission. 

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte - A Classic I Love!

“Charlotte Bronte’s story of a plain orphan girl whose superior qualities are finally acknowledged and who gains the reward of love and power has become the modern version of the Cinderella tale; for Jane not only wins her Prince Charming but does so by steadfastly asserting her independence, becoming thereby not only his consort, but his queen.” – Margaret Bloom

There is something extraordinarily unique about Jane Eyre. Not only was it an extremely

popular text at the time of being first published, but it continues to revel in its popularity and readability around a century and half later. And this, despite being subjected to harsh tones of criticism, for not one, but many of its aspects. Jane Eyre is a text for a winter morning – to run warmth through a cold atmosphere. It is a text which girls read and re-read, and snuggle with in their quilts, losing themselves completely to the travails and passions of the eponymous protagonist. It is a text invariably occupying a position of pride in a confessed literature lover’s library. It is not just a text which is read and appreciated; it is one which is absorbed.

Having said that, what is it about Jane Eyre that makes the book relevant till date, not just for literary aficionados, for the average common lover of fiction? It has got something to do with Charlotte Bronte’s ability to convey the most personal emotions in a vivid and touching manner, and then to convert that personal into universal. In her own words, Charlotte Bronte is known to have said that she did not believe in the surface imitation of life. She was interested in unravelling the deeper human nature, by exploring its depths. “I want to voice the inner tragic experiences of human beings”, said Charlotte Bronte. She was interested in the ‘inner photography’ of life. It was thus, quite natural, for the story of this headstrong, independent and lonely girl to strum the chords of familiarity in every reader’s heart. Charlotte Bronte’s passionate narrative made this story transcend the border of specificity and become a general sketch of a woman’s life in Victorian England.

Jane Eyre is today deemed a classic. It is a canonical text, loved by generations of readers. It primarily belongs to the bildungsroman genre, because it follows the journey of Jane till her adulthood. It has for its heroine a woman plain and ordinary, but only in so far as her looks are concerned. Charlotte Brontë herself described Jane Eyre as "small and plain and Quaker-like". She is a passionate, headstrong young woman, confronting the world with her morals, integrity and ideals firmly in place. She is a woman who undertakes a lonely adventure against patriarchy, and also against oppressive existing notions of love. Bronte advertised it first as an autobiography. The title page of first edition says - ‘Jane Eyre: An Autobiography edited by Currer Bell’. Currer Bell was, of course, the pseudonym adopted by Charlotte Bronte. Curiously, this adopted name is gender neutral, for in the Victorian market, the gender of the author was an important determinant of the saleability of a novel. It goes without saying that female authors’ works were read lesser than those of their male counterparts.

The whole novel can be demarcated into five distinct stages – Jane’s time as a child at Gateshead; her experiences of oppression, as well as friendship and affection at Lowood; her job as a governess and her tryst with love at Thornfield; her time spent at Moors with Saint John Rivers and his sisters; and finally, her union with Rochester, back at Thornfield

Charlotte Bronte was revered for her characterization. She has given the world two extremely memorable characters in Edward Rochester and the eponymous, Jane Eyre. And, in bringing them together, Bronte has gifted to the world an amazing, passionate, intense, unconventional and cherishable love story. Jane’s love for Rochester, and his for her, manifests in the many walks they take together. Jane is influenced so much by Mr. Rochester’s company that she finds her "blanks of existence were filled up; bodily health improved; [she] gathered flesh and strength." For her, Rochester’s "presence in a room was more cheering than the brightest fire". Now, why would any romantic heart not sigh at such emotions, which are also emoted so well! It is said that envy is one of love’s most intrinsic facets, especially in the initial stages of an affair, when passions are smouldering hot. In Jane Eyre, envy manifests as a sure-shot sign of love held in Jane’s heart for Rochester. In fact, Rochester exploits this particular fallibility of lovers to help Jane discover her true emotions for him.

In the preface to the second edition of Jane Eyre, Bronte had asserted ‘conventionality is not morality’. An iconoclast, she then set out to demolish many of the set ideals and norms of caste, class, gender and occupation which the Victorian society was mired in. One of the myths she broke was that of love. She succeeds in propounding and concretising the New Love ethic, which endures till date as a state to aspire for. Though a story of immense struggles faced and braved by the protagonist, romantic union comes as a succour for the readers who are drawn to empathetic depths in this tale. The classic notion of subsuming of two lovers into one as an essentiality towards consummation of love is challenged throughout the novel by vehement assertions of independence, but Bronte does a flip towards to end when Jane is seen as perfectly blissful in becoming a part of Rochester’s being. However, this Cinderella-esque ending does well to give a sense of closure to the continuous tribulations Jane faced in her life. There is no need to rate a classic, but still, even among classics, I have books I hate. Since this is one I love, I think 4 stars on 5 is what I will give it, and I will end this review with quote reflecting Jane's marital bliss - 

“I have now been married ten years. [...] No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am: ever more absolutely bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. I know no weariness of my Edward´s society: He knows none of mine, any more than we each do of the pulsation of the heart that beats in our separate bosoms; consequently, we are ever together.”

Reflections on Mahesh Dattani's Tara

Mahesh Dattani’s is one of India’s foremost playwrights – someone who takes keen interest in wading through the tempestuous waters which our society finds itself struggling with, by adhering to ideas, notions and practices which scarce are servants to reason or logic. Dattani sees in society what others conveniently ignore. He calls them the ‘invisible issues’ of our society, permeating our culture, affecting our daily existence; yet, people somehow collude to maintain a tacit, steadfast silence on them. It is once in a while, that a voice like that of Dattani is heard, who in his own, carries the voice of many other voiceless characters nature has given birth to and society has destroyed. “Giving Voice To The Voiceless” is the title of one of the works referred while writing this paper, and how apt does it sound in terms of describing Dattani and the essence of his works.

Tara, earlier published as Twinkle Tara, is one of Dattani’s plays, which deals with notions and conditions of gender. In a poignant story of two Siamese twins, this play unearths the many dishonourable tendencies which exist in the underbelly of our society even today when we have come around to fooling ourselves into believing that we celebrate womanhood. Tara also does well to depict the dynamics of a family which is dealing with a situation society does not define a precept for. It is a unique situation – bringing up twins, who were conjoined at birth, separated after a surgery and who now live with one artificial limb each and extremely fragile health conditions. With ease, yet with force, Dattani depicts the bizarre, but universally accepted philosophy of women playing second fiddle to men. Woven into the narrative of the play are issues of class, of conflict between the modern and traditional lifestyle, of the inexpressiveness of filial love, and the clash between new and old value systems.

In an interview with Lakshmi Subramaniam, Dattani had himself made a statement – “I see Tara as a play about male self and female self, and the male self being preferred in all cultures. The play is about the separation of self and the resultant angst.” In these lines of Dattani, it becomes amply clear, that this play is being enacted as a microcosm of the practices and psyche of the society. History has been witness to a cruel and inherent bias against its female members since ages. Societies have come and gone, but the politics of gender have never been completely erased from its face. Invariably, it is the society which assumes a deterministic role over the life (and body, as we will discuss in later paragraphs) of a girl, which ordains tenets for their existence. This ‘society’ is usually a male set-up; if not that, it is heavily patriarchal or patrilineal in character. 

Discrimination against women is not limited to India. However, when it comes to conducting an academic inquiry into prejudices which females suffer merely by the virtue of their biological characteristics, India is a land rich and vibrant with stories and practices and rituals which can put one’s beliefs in right and wrong to shame. In Tara, in which the family is constructed as a credible, average Indian household, grappling with a unique problem, the bias against Tara, vis-à-vis her twin, Chandan, is clearly visible, without the need for any ornate dialogues or visuals. This bias is present in the way Tara is treated by her father, in the way Chandan is expected to conform to certain roles and abstain from certain activities, in a repentant mother’s lament for the future of her daughter, and more than anything, this bias is present in the story of Tara’s birth. This bias, perhaps, is also visible in the telling of this story, which will be understood once the process of Tara and Chandan’s separation and the gender politics there-in is understood.

As mentioned earlier, Tara and Chandan are conjoined twins. Birth of conjoined twins is an extremely rare phenomenon, and in most cases where they are surgically separated, only one of the two survives. Chandan and Tara, however, carry with them the promise of living as two separate individuals. They have perfect chances of surviving after surgery, with each important organ present in each body. There is, however, one issue. The boy and the girl, together, have three lower limbs, and chances of the limb surviving on the girl are more, as stated by Dr. Thakkar, also present in a significant role in the play. In a cruel judgement, the mother of the twins, Bharati, with the help of her father, convinces Dr. Thakkar to graft the leg onto Chandan’s body, where it does not survive for long! Thus, there seems to be something destiny ridden in the way both twins are again made equal – they both now boast of one Jaipur foot each. What is interesting to note here is the application of gendered role of a girl. Since time immemorial, female body is seen as a means for comforting, rejuvenating and even entertaining the male body. Going a step further, it would not be wrong to assert that female body is also seen as an instrument for alleviating male deficiencies and deformities. The body of a girl has often been seen akin to a territory, with many claims to it, which passes on from hand to hand, which has human (man) making decisions for it. Poor Tara, even before being given a chance at a full life, is deprived of it, because the classic male-child-preference psyche operates here, in this case. There is a certain cold ease with which the mother (microcosmic representation of the society), strips the girl of the right to live as an able bodied, complete woman and seizes from the girl which is biologically, and hence naturally hers.

The author - Mahesh Dattani

A carefully placed conversation in the text of Tara is about one of the most hideous cultural practices of that India which considers its daughters as curses. In a scene between Tara, Chandan, their next-door-neighbour and extremely garrulous Roopa and Bharati, a practice of drowning infant daughters in milk is mentioned in a rather subtle and casual way. Though the deed of choking daughters on a nourishing white fluid is ironic and hideous, the essence of that scene is not in creating awareness among the audience that such practices in India exist (In Gujarati community specially, as per the play). The catch in that scene is in the attempt of Bharati to stop Roopa from revealing to her twins this practice. Why does she do that? May be, an acute undercurrent of guilt operates in her system. May be, she equates, in her mind, the act of killing an infant with what she did to Tara, by depriving her a chance at a full and healthy life. 

More intriguing is the character of Mr. Patel, Bharati’s husband, who had no role to play in Tara’s deprived existence, but who sure is the reflection of a quintessential male-head of the family in a patriarchal society. Patriarchy is a social system in which the male acts as the primary authority figure central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It is also a system in which division of labour is clear and roles expected from gendered selves pre-ordained. There are not any premeditated, conspiratorial acts conducted against the woman; patriarchy is more of a way of living. As evident in the play, Tara is dearly loved by her father, but Patel has lofty expectations from his son. He scolds his wife for making a sissy out of him when he observes him helping in some domestic chores. He insists on taking Chandan to his office in the face of his absent interest, and doesn’t take the suggestion of replacing him with Tara in the office trip too kindly.What their daughter is worthy of is some human consideration and compassion, but nothing beyond. This ethos is articulated in a powerful dialogue by Bharati addressed to Chandan – “It’s all very cute and comfortable when she makes witty remarks. But let her grow up. Yes, Chandan, the world will tolerate you. The world will accept you – but not her!”

Bharati does try to reduce her burden of guilt by showering enormous maternal affection on Tara. She, realizing her sin, leads a stigmatized motherhood, consequently suffering nervous breakdown and metamorphosis. She cultivates disproportionate compassion for Tara in an effort to seek salvation and exonerate herself by donating a kidney to her daughter, but not before Dattani makes it amply clear that the affection of mother-daughter relationship is subordinated and subjugated to the demands of a patriarchal society. Therein lies the tragedy of the narrative. Patel, her husband, is not in favour of Bharati donating her kidney. In fact, he goes ahead and finds a commercial donor. When confronted by Bharati, Patel replied rather sternly, without any cushion, that he does not want Bharati to donate her kidney “because I do not want you to have the satisfaction of doing it.” This one sentence is ponderable, and has disturbing socio-cultural interpretations. Bharati is still insistent, and even succeeds in her desire of giving Tara a part of herself, but she, her husband and the society fail miserably in letting Tara live. As mentioned in one of the essays on this play, Tara eventually wastes away and dies.

One of the saving graces of Tara’s life is perhaps the kind of special relation she shares with Chandan. Chandan refuses to join college unless Tara does. He recognizes his sister’s interests and personality and accepts that she might be a stronger person than him (“I’m sorry if I don’t have your strength!”). He calms her in her moments of distress and understands her more than is in the capacity of anyone in the world. A dialogue which surmises Chandan’s love for Tara most aptly is, “No difference between you and me? That’s the nicest thing you have said to me.” In Chandan’s words we witness a lament of everything that cannot be. The relation between him and his sister is special, but is ridden with emotional tribulations of the harshest kind. Metaphor and perhaps prophecy for the separation of these two souls, so much in communion with each other, is visited at the very beginning of their existence. Two operation tables being put together and then pushed apart – two loving souls brought close and then violently separated, never to come back together again. The image of separation at the operation table translates into jarring emotional parting between them, the effect of which is so profound on Chandan, that he escapes his identity, becomes Dan and sets out to narrate Tara’s story, essentially trying to find a completion to his own. The place where Chandan (or Dan) falters is when he becomes the agent of perpetuating the wrong done to Tara in her life. Chandan had always been interested in writing, and when he sets down to write Tara’s story, he writes it as his own tragedy. He apologises to Tara for doing this – “Forgive me Tara. Forgive me for making it my tragedy.”

Dattani’s play, as would be evident by now, has an overwhelming relevance to contemporary realities. It is important to ask in this context, how appropriate is it to use the medium of theatre to send across messages which are strong and which need to be sent across. The function of the drama is not merely being to ‘reflect the malfunction of the society but to act like freak mirrors in a carnival and to project grotesque images of all that passes for normal in our world’ (‘Gender Discrimination and Social Consciousnes Tara by Mahesh Dattani’, Khobragade Grishma Manikrao). “There is inseparable relation between the play and the audience. Every setting, action and characterization in the drama is performed keeping in mind the audience and viewers of the play as every act has to be played live and in as it is manner.” – Writes Vivekananda Jha is his paper on Tara, titled ‘Discrimination of Class and Gender: Mahesh Dattani’s Tara. Jha also adds words of appreciation for Dattani by stating “As a playwright, Dattani has peerless power to transform his script into living and natural performance.” Tara is specifically relevant in our times of burgeoning foeticide, infanticide and increasingly adverse sex ratio. When a sentiment is enacted on stage, there lies more to it that mere words. Non verbal communication plays a great role in conveying to the audience what readers might never be able to read in between the lines. In an interview about Tara, Dattani clearly mentions that evoking sympathy about Tara’s character was not the single-fold focus of undertaking this writing exercise. It was also to shed light on the feminine side of males, which when expressed, is met with disdain and disappointment. 

When asked what gave him the idea for writing Tara, Dattani mentioned it was a medical journal elucidating on Siamese twins and goes onto add , “It was the inspiration but I think by then having written Dance Like a Man, I was prepared to take on the gender issue head on, and I think that was a powerful metaphor. Again, you know, the play is misread and, you know, people tend to focus on the medical details but that’s really not what the play is about. It’s a metaphor either for being born equal as male and female and sharing so much more and with the surgical separation comes a cultural distinction and prejudices as well, but on another level, it could also deal with the individual having the male and female self and half the female self is, whether your gender is male or female, is definitely given the lower priority.” In this journey which Dattani undertakes to shed light on the way gender is perceived and constructed in our cultural milieu, he more than succeeds at touching the hearts of his audience (as well as his readers). He gives Tara an identity, which is strong enough to become a metaphor for the various wrongs perpetuated on women kind in our society, whether in infancy or adulthood. Or even in after life.

REFERENCES

·         Mee, Erin, Collected Plays by Mahesh Dattani, Penguin

·        Jha, Vivekananda, Discrimination of Class and Gender: Mahesh Dattani’s Tara

·         Mukherjee, Tutun, ‘I do not write merely to be read’ – An Interview with Mahesh Dattani, The Hindu

·         Acharya, Pankaj, The Socio-Psychological Aspects of Discrimination in Mahesh Dattani’s Tara, International Research Journal

·         Manikrao, Grishma Khobragade, Gender Discrimination and Social Consciousness In The Plays of Mahesh Dattani: Tara

(This essay is an abridged version of the paper I wrote as a part of the optional course, titled 'Indian Writing in English', during semester I of Masters in English Literature at Jamia Millia Islamia)

Ice Candy Man by Bapsi Sidhwa - A Review

 "I feel so sorry for myself—and for Cousin—and for all the senile, lame and hurt people and fallen women—and the condition of the world—in which countries can be broken, people slaughtered and cities burned—that I burst into tears."

There are important strains of narrative which often history forgets to recollect. There are voices of countless millions which are muffled in discourses which tell us of our past. Thankfully, for the readers today, where the historian fails, the literary writer emerges and succeeds. It is a writer who dares to construct a parallel track of history which talks not of politics, or war, or heroes, or leaders, but of the silent sufferings of the oppressed masses who are most affected by events which can be considered watershed moments in history. 

One such watershed moment in the history of not just India as we know it today, but the entire sub-continent is the Partition. Scholars have remarked that partition is one of those events which has not died, which continues to live on in the hearts and minds of people - which is an inseparable part of the story of the birth of our modern nation. However, partition was not just about Jinnah, Gandhi, Nehru or Mountbatten. It was not an event which can be surmised in statistics of death and destruction. The partition had many stories behind it, one of which Bapsi Sidhwa, is her acclaimed novel - Ice Candy Man - has tried to unearth. 

Ice-Candy Man is a novel which shows you the pre-partition and post-partition world through the curious, innocent and observant eyes of Lenny - a 10 year old daughter of a Parsi household. Ridden with a deformity in her leg, Lenny is under continuous care of her Ayah - Shanta - who is perhaps the most influential person in her life. Ice Candy Man is essentially Ayah's story. It is the story of her world - the one of domestics - and of her  many harmless affairs with men belonging to her social strata. Of the many who admired her and had particularly obsessive-possessive tendencies towards her was the titular character - the ice candy man. Ayah, after flirting with ice candy man, finds comfort in the warm and affectionate presence of another of her admirers - the masseur. Our titular character does not take Ayah's transgressions lightly, and wrecks revenge on her in the worst possible way. 

Besides the story of these individual characters, the story of a nation is taking shape in the background. India is on the verge of partition, and Bapsi Sidhwa, in her novel, has unravelled the impact the impending partition was going to have on the Parsi community in Lahore - a community which can be called the minority of the minorities. This community has a history of mixing within the cultural landscape of place like sugar in milk - but with an event as large as the partition looming large in front of their eyes, they could not remain totally detached from the fanaticism of communal politics being played out in front of them. One of the most powerful characters of the book, in fact, is a Parsi matriarch, called Rodabai - Lenny's Godmother - who represents a very firm and progressive facet of Parsi women in the pre and post-partition society. Ayah, being a Hindu residing in Lahore was one on whose body the frenzied destructive dance of partition had been performed - whatever little salvation could come her way came from Rodabai.

Bapsi Sidhwa, herself being a Parsi, has written a novel which is so credible in its delineation of characters and events, that it is not difficult to believe that a Lenny, or Rodabai, or Ayah might have existed in Lahore in 1947, to see their land being ravaged by the forces of communal hatred. This novel had earlier been published under the title 'Cracking India' - to signify the cracks which had occured not just on India as a geographical entity, but to emphasize on the fragmentation which had occured in psyches, cultures and among people. There are strong autobiographical tones in the novel, for Sidhwa also had a limp in her leg - identifiable with the narrator of the novel. The narrative dwells on not one, but many issues - political, communal and sexual. She does a wonderful job particularly of reflecting on the female condition. Even better is Sidhwa's prowess at characterization. The character of Ice Candy Man had been one of the most interesting and complex characters I have come across in fiction - and his psychology has been the toughest to decode. 

This novel was also adapted into a film by Deepa Mehta, called 1947 Earth. A great cinematic experience, the film however does not do justice to the novel's narrative, because it foregrounds the love story between Ayah, Ice Candy Man and masseur, leaving out the portrayal of many important issues Sidhwa dwells upon in the book. 

The language of the book is comprehensible - the only problem a reader might face while reading is in terms of the continuity of narrative. The book follows a simple linear narrative technique, but takes a lot of leaps between scenes which make it difficult to keep pace. However, it is a novel to make you cry, to make you think, and to stay with you till long after as a blatant, but sensible reminder of all that was not considered important enough to be reported by historians. A 3.5 star book for me, but strongly recommended. I would have tagged this at 4 stars, but I read a few partition books in quick succession, and a few turned out to be a tad more amazing than this one. 

I would also like to recommend two more works by Bapsi Sidhwa - Water and The Pakistani Bride - both of which take up serious social issue and present them to you in a manner which makes you sad, angry and finally leaves you in a contemplative zone.