On SlutWalk

Chandni has an excellent post here on Slutwalk in response to this very disturbing piece by Seema Goswami who writes for Brunch. It is amazing how dangerously misguided our co-called liberal intelligentsia are.

Mainly, people have a problem with the word ‘slut’. Why are women calling themselves sluts, it seems. Because:

1. That is the term the cop in Canada used. The implication being if you are a slut, you are open to rape. And ironically, that is the mindset most people seem to have despite their many ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ (for eg. Rape is bad BUT women should dress properly, no?). So the title of the protest is meant to draw attention to that very mindset, and to show solidarity with the original protest in Canada. Is that so hard to grasp?

2. To spell it out further, by calling their protest Slutwalk and dressing as scantily (or not) as they please, the message is this: even if I am skimpily dressed, even if I have many sexual partners, even if I sell my body for money, YOU have NO right to touch me except with my permission or to harass me. It really is that simple. Note that for the India Slutwalk women were encouraged to wear whatever they usually wear. Because in India, just by virtue of being a woman you are in many men’s eyes a slut and therefore up for grabs. What you wear doesn’t really matter as the legions of us who have been molested in salwar kameezes will testify.

Now let’s get on to this ‘responsibility’ debate, the source of the many ‘buts’ of the women-shouldn’t-be-raped-but variety.

The disturbing analogy Seema Goswami used (not even original in fact) is of an unlocked house getting robbed. Apart from the horrifying fact that she is comparing women, as Chandni points out, human beings, to a thing that can be locked up and stored safely somewhere, she is also just wrong legally and morally. It is not the responsibility of homeowners to lock their houses. It is the responsibility of other people not to encroach on property that is not theirs. If they do, they, the encroachers, will be punished.

The problem with people like Seema is a failure of the imagination. They cannot imagine a world in which people and their property could be safe just like that, without lockdown. Where perpetrators are held responsible for their crimes. But believe me, such places exist where women can dress how they want and walk around at any time unafraid and where houses can remain unlocked. When you live there, you taste freedom. And that is what we should aim for as a society, not make excuses for the perpetrators of crimes.

Even if by wearing skimpy clothes, women are calling attention to themselves, this is no reason for anyone to take that as an invitation to grab, no matter how lustful their nature might be. Should all bakeries in India go into lockdown because we have a nation of starving people? Should all advertising be banned because shops invite you to buy but do not give away the advertised ware for free?

A couple of the other criticisms of Slutwalk as suggested in this article in HT are:

1. There are far more pressing concerns for women in India. Yes, yes, there are always more pressing concerns. Though I think the right to be safe in the streets is pretty basic no? And would benefit all women, regardless of class etc. After all, what it is seeking is a change in the mindset across the board. Even so, this delaying tactic will always be conveniently deployed. During the Independence struggle, women were told yes, yes, let us get independence first and then we will see about your rights. Luckily the women stood up and said “no can do, we want our rights now thank you very much” and that’s how we got the right to vote from the very beginning. Dalit women are often told let the class war happen first and then we’ll see to your rights. Well, you know what, the class war may never happen so how about making some changes in your society here and now. So while it is quite obvious that women have a multitude of problems in India, being unsafe and then being blamed for causing a crime is a fairly serious problem. Changing the mindset that underpins this problem will solve a lot of other problems. Even if it was just a small problem, applicable to only a minority of women, it still bears redressal. This argument is like telling me, the road in front of your house is broken up but go fix the other thousand roads that are messed up first. This article on the Saudi women’s right to drive is one more example of how sometimes one needs to tackle the small things first. Though, in the case of Slutwalk, I do not believe safety is a small thing.

3. Women are objectifying themselves by dressing as sluts. First of all, the women in India were asked to dress any way they chose. Most of these commentators don’t seem to have read the memo properly, so scared off were they by the word slut.

“Earlier feminists had railed against popular culture’s reduction of women to body parts — breasts and buttocks. This belittlement of women as nothing more than sexual objects was regarded as one of the most degrading things that patriarchal societies had done to women. Yet, this new generation of feminists want to dress in clothes that reveal their breasts and buttocks and demand this ‘self-objectification’ as a ‘right’? Again focusing attention onto their bodies? Is this false consciousness gone mad?” says Amrit Dhillon in his very confusing piece in HT which he seems to imply that the organizers of Slutwalk are the ones equating how we dress with the right to rape.

First, feminism has developed. We now believe in the right of women to wear what they please without fear – be it a bikini or a burkha. I don’t see why showing a breast or buttock should result in objectification. It is still a person walking around attached to that breast and buttock no? The problem is with the seer who can only see a breast or buttock. And if these people persist in seeing women as objects, that is entirely their problem. It only becomes my problem when they touch me. And in certain societies this seems to happen no matter how women are dressed.

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Sex is power

It took me five years of marriage to admit to myself that while I enjoy sex occasionally, I don’t really want a lot of it. Suddenly I found myself in the clichéd “honey, not now” role. This was kind of astonishing because before I got married and in the early days of my marriage, I had a lot of sex.

Part of this does have to do with availability. There was an excitement attached to sex as a 20-something because it was not that easy to arrange. By which I mean, the sheer logistics of finding a place to have sex, apart from finding a person to have sex with. So that probably added some excitement to the whole endeavor in addition to the whole forbidden aspect of it.

Once one is married with kids, the sex drive is supposed to slow down because of all the responsibilities of “grown up life”. And then there’s the inevitable staleness of having sex with the same person setting in. For me, it’s more about intimacy. When I’m emotionally not in tune with my husband, I find sex intolerable.

However, even when I am emotionally on a high with my husband, I no longer find myself jumping into the act like I used to. I’d rather spoon and sleep. And if I’m honest, my sex life slowed down before I had a kid and I don’t really have so many “responsibilities” as a married person. In fact, I lead an easier life than I used to simply because my job is easier and Hong Kong is an easier city to live in. So I am probably less tired and more rested now that I used to be. But somehow, when I was in Bombay, I made sex happen despite the odds.

It made me wonder about my early days of much sex. Did I enjoy sex all that much or did I enjoy the idea of enjoying it?

There was a time when women weren’t supposed to have a sex drive at all. And then suddenly, women reclaimed the right to enjoy sex and went about proclaiming loud and clear that they did. Which was, of course, very necessary.

However, I think, somewhere along the way sex became equated with power. By projecting ourselves as sexual beings, we were reclaiming a space hitherto reserved for men. We were saying that we could have sex on demand and could want a lot of it too.

But did we? Really? Want it I mean? I am no longer convinced I really wanted all the sex I had. I think what I wanted was the feeling of being a liberated person, of enjoying sex like a man. Similar to the reasons a lot of women smoke (though sex is much less injurious to health than smoking, especially if practiced safely) or the way many women feel obliged to flaunt how much they enjoy drinking alcohol and in copious quantities too, like a man.

I think it has become a little boring now. Just the way I feel people telling me how much they drank last night boring. Are we really being rebellious by flaunting our appetite for sex? Hasn’t that rebellion already happened (or maybe it has just happened in the corner of India I inhabit)?

We might save ourselves a lot of energy by examining whether we really want all that sex all that much. Maybe it will turn out that like Samantha in SATC, we do. Just as long as we realize we don’t all have to be Samantha to be free.

Edited to add: Or maybe it is all part of self-exploration and discovery, just like binge drinking is when you’re 20. An interesting counterpoint here.

Once upon a quince

I am reading this book called ‘Once Upon a Quinceanera’ which is about how the Latin American tradition of a big 15th birthday bash has taken off in the US. For a description of quincenera, see here.

It has become a huge deal in the US with families going all out and splurging on this party. However, it also a bit problematic because:

1. Many of these families are not that well off and they are spending a huge amount of money that some might argue could be better spent on a college education for the girl in question.

2. For a feminist, the tradition itself is a little questionable. Basically, the quinceaneara is like a mini-bride or a pre-bride, essentially a young woman who is being signaled as worthy of the marriage market and a lot of the associated rituals at the party point to that.

So the author of the book sets out to investigate the hooplah with initially quite a skeptical mindset but then she discovers some things that change her mind:

1. It is no longer assumed that the girl is being prepared for marriage. In fact, it is often seen as a replacement for a big wedding bash because parents are more pragmatic that they may never see their daughters married off.

2. The quince is an occasion to celebrate the girl herself, to tell her that she is special, that she can be whoever she wants to be and that the community is there to support her. It is a coming-of-age event and the tradition is slowly being extended to boys too. In the run-up to this marker into adulthood, the quince will hopefully reflect on who she is, what she wants to be, who are the important people in her life (she generally gives a speech thanking these people).

3. Planning the party becomes an opportunity for mother-daughter bonding. Many of these teenage girls had not interacted that much with their moms before the quince preparations.

4. The quince is also a way to acknowledge one’s ethnicity, especially for the second-generation who would be very Americanised.

Anyway, I was most interested in 2), the coming-of-age aspect. In ancient times, a coming-of-age ritual was an important part of growing up, signaling the entry into adulthood and the clear transitioning from one stage of life to the next. Modern youth seem quite lost and there seems to be a demand for customs of this sort, if the popularity of Bat Mitzvahs and now quinces in the US is anything to go by. I was wondering, what would be the coming-of-age ritual that signals adulthood for an Indian woman. For many, would it be marriage? Or is the first time you have sex? Or when you move out of home for college/work? Or when you get your licence or voter registration card?

Also, Dipali in her post on what mommyhood has taught her, mentioned how having children expanded his circle of interaction and how she learnt so many new things. I think marriage does this too. I learnt so much about a different culture by being married to my husband (never will I smirk at a South Indian accent again, for example, unless with the family and they are laughing too). My sister is married to a part-Mexican and so my niece is one-third Mexican. So I now wonder if she will have a quince…

And finally, the book articulated for me the importance of godparents. A Mexican quince is a family production… every aspect of it paid for by a sponsor/godparent among family and friends. In doing this, the sponsors are doing more than contributing financially. They are signaling their role in the life of the quince, to support her in achieving her dreams, that they have a stake in her success. This is the role of a godparent, to be there to pitch in when needed. This is also why I baptized my son. I am not a religious person but I feel the ritual has significance. It is a way to acknowledge that this circle of people who surround my husband and I as we raise our son have a stake in him too and that we all commit to supporting him and to bringing him up with certain values. It is a way for us to acknowledge the village and for the village to acknowledge their responsibility in raising our son.

Where the mind is not free

I was sad to learn that MF Husain passed away, not so much because he died (the man was 95 after all) but because he died still in exile from India. It was a sad day for our country when one of its greatest artists and a free thinker felt so unsafe in his own home that he had to flee. Justice Kaul concluded his judgement quashing the cases against MF Husain thus: “I have penned down this judgment with this ‘favourent’ hope that it is a prologue to a broader thinking and greater tolerance for the creative field. A painter at 90 deserves to be in his home — painting his canvass.”

Exactly.

It is sadly not surprising that many even in our so-called educated and enlightened Facebook circles would not agree. Not surprising because we are the new macho India, ready to take “offense”, spoiling for a fight, quick to take on intolerance with intolerance.

Since it has now become the done thing to air vitriol against the Pakistan cricket team and crow over their defeat wishing blood and gore upon them and their families, since it has become polite dinner party conversation to say such things as “all those Muslim buggers should be shot”, why should one be surprised when you find people siding with the violent mob? Oh, they may not – though some of them will – come right out and say it was right to attack the galleries showing his work, destroy his property, harass an old man and threaten his family. They will say: “But he should not have hurt our feelings, no?”

I’m sorry your feelings were hurt. Even MF Husain was sorry and said so. That was not his intention. But he has the right to express himself, and you have the right to – and can very easily – ignore his expressions. He is not after all doing some Clockwork Orange scenario where you are bound down and forced to see his work and be indoctrinated by it. That your feelings were hurt, unfortunately for you, does not give you the right to be violent and should not give you the moral excuse to condone violence.

When we condone the suppression of freedom or thought and expression, we are shackling not just the “offending” artist but ourselves. Today it his him who has given offense, tomorrow it will be you, yes, you with your jeans and your t-shirt and your habit of stopping by at the pub on Friday and socializing with boys of (gasp!) different religions. Oh wait, that already happened. And then too we had those not-so-subtly siding with the violence, the aunty brigade who said “yeah, but, good girls shouldn’t be drinking no?”

How many times has history taught us this lesson that we, caught up in our hurt sentiments and frail feelings, ignore.

First they came for the Jews


and I did not speak out


because I was not a Jew.


Then they came for the Communists


and I did not speak out


because I was not a Communist.


Then they came for the trade unionists


and I did not speak out


because I was not a trade unionist.


Then they came for me


and there was no one left


to speak out for me.

Why do we keep forgetting that when we hand over the key to our – yes ‘our’ ‘your’ ‘mine’ not ‘his’ – freedom to the mob, we are designing our own enslavement? Today it is MF Husain and you can smile smugly that he got his just desserts. Tomorrow it will be you.

We must also be careful not to turn into the very face of what we hate. You purport to hate Muslims because you say they are violent, they are terrorists, they are cruel to their women. Then you say let’s be violent, strike terror and be cruel to their women (and ironically our women too). How is any purpose served except a new cycle of violence and chaos?

I admit I am susceptible to this trap too. So disgusted am I by the vitriolic right wing, the religious fundamentalists and the women-haters that I sometimes wonder if the only solution for the liberal would be to toughen up, get armed and take on these people head on, fighting fire and with fire. But then what would be the difference between them and me? I have become what I am fighting against. I have to keep reminding myself of this when the rage takes over.

We have a powerful model for an alternative in Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence. We were warned of how violence begets only violence and of the much harder but more morally and philosophically sound path.

But because I am angry, I will go one step further and ask the ever increasing tribe of offendees. What exactly were you so offended about? Normally I hear two things:

1. That he painted Hindu goddesses nude. I’m not sure why that is offensive. In his judgment, Justice Kaul points to the long tradition of the nude in art and of the equally long and glorious tradition of nude and even sexualised representations of Indian gods and goddesses. This is the amazing thing about the Hindu tradition – that it does not obscure and pussyfoot around sex, it celebrates it. Now, of course, in every spiritual tradition there will be those who tend towards the belief that salvation/nirvana is to be attained by abstaining from sex and those people who are celibate are the truly pure. In fact, this is possibly the Muslim tradition and most definitely the Christian one – we are asked to believe that if a woman is really pure she can give birth to a child without having had sex. So that’s the way you want to play it? Back to the days where we pretend that women have no sexuality then? Okayyy. Forgive me if I find this new puritanism and the enthusiasm with which even young women are condoning it barf-worthy. Again, be careful when you hand the keys of your freedom to the mob that functions as the moral police.

Even as I fail to see what is so shameful and vulgar about the nude body or human sexuality, I also fail to see why religion is placed on this untouchable pedestal. It is almost as if religion is afraid. Rest assured your religion will remain and you can even believe in pure virginal women, even if the odd painter paints a nude. The singer Madonna has satirised the figure of the Virgin, and far from being offended as you’d think we would be and despite the best efforts of the more hard-core groups, her music has become a staple in Christian homes. We grew up dancing to Like a Virgin and Life a Prayer, in the video of which she seduces a priest. Partly, we didn’t pay much attention to the lyrics but even when I understood what she was about, I was just amused. In Western art, artists like Michelangelo have tried to push whatever boundaries they can in sexualising the Madonna. Dan Brown made some big insinuations in his Da Vinci Code and by and large people just took it in their stride. The general attitude was we will continue to believe Jesus was celibate and Mary Madgalen was a peripheral whore. Fine then. But Madonna is free to sing her songs and dress up as a whore while calling herself the name given to the Virgin Mary and Dan Brown is free to write his books.

2. The other thing I hear a lot is “Why doesn’t he paint Muslim Gods nude’?” Why indeed? Not that I think people must be forced to stick to their own religion or even their own culture in the subject matter of their painting. But Husain answers this question – even though it was not asked – in his interview with Tehelka: “Some conservative Muslims told me, why don’t you paint on Islamic themes? I said, does Islam have the same tolerance? If you get even the calligraphy wrong, they can tear down a screen.” He believed Hinduism to be more open, tolerant and flexible. His paintings were a tribute to that. For his daughter’s wedding invitation he painted Shiva with his hand on Parvati’s thigh. He believed Hindus were ready for a conversation that Muslims were not. Why is that not seen as a compliment? Why has tolerance become a byword for weakness?

3. The final thing I hear is “so Qatar is more free than India? Ha!” That is to miss the point. It is to not see the tragedy of a man at 95 having to take refuge in a totalitarian state because a democracy cannot ensure his safety.

Please read Tehelka’s interview with MF Husain which I think is the definitive interview with the man.

And read this article which summarises Justice Kaul’s enlightened judgement – and then read the judgement itself. It is an amazing document, citing the many precedents in case history in India and abroad dealing with the subject of freedom of expression, obscenity and offending people. You’ll be surprised to see the long tradition of the courts in India striking down the right of people to suppress the expression of others on the basis of being offended, the last being the Bandit Queen case.

Brothers and Sisters

MadMomma had a post some time ago on the ideal number of children to have (or rather that there is no ideal number). During that discussion, someone brought up that it’s better not to have two girls because sister tends to get compared. Say what? But apparently this was a sentiment shared by quite a few people – majority of them did not have sisters – that sisters would not be able to get along because they would get compared.

I’m not sure what that even means. I suppose it means to each other because they are the same gender?

Now first. I have a sister. Were we “compared”? Yes. My sister was constantly told how dark she was and my mother was even asked how it was possible that she had produced one dark-skinned kid and one fair. In our presence. Yeah, people are classy like that. This did not make sister angry at me. It did give her something of a complex but dark children in India always have that.

To make matters worse, there is a tendency on my dad’s side of the family to favour the younger child and to blame the older child for everything. My mum was very firmly against this but I happened to be my father’s favourite. Although my mum tried to make up by siding with my sister and it helped that my dad was actually not around for nine months of the year, my father’s favouratism did affect her (though my dad denies there was any). Did this make my sister hate me? No. She remained as protective of me as ever.

My sister was Miss Perfect in school. Unfortunately, she was blessed with a sibling who was scatty, forgetful and rebellious. She covered for me as much as possible – and I mean literally! She would actually cover my school books, iron my uniform, and run home if I forgot my PT shorts. The former was because she couldn’t bear to be associated with a messy person, the latter was because she genuinely did not want me to get in trouble. Despite her best efforts, did people compare us? Yes. Did I get a lot of “you are her sister? Oh!”? Yes. Did it make me resent my sister? No. It did make me roll my eyes when teachers called me her name instead of mine, but that was because I cherished their embarrassment when I glared at them. I’m evil like that.

Did I get a lot of hand-me-downs by virtue of being the younger sister? Yes. Did I care? No. I was happy to wear my sister’s clothes. When I stopped liking her fashion choices, I stopped wearing her clothes. My mum got it. That was when I was 16 though. And I still raided her closet a lot. Did she mind? No. She raided my mum’s closet, and sometimes my dad’s (checked shirts were all the rage in college).

Did we fight? Yes. On several occasions, we drew a line down our room and screamed if the other person put a toe over it. But we also converted our room into a lab/toy hospital/teaching centre and spent entire summers closeted inside with a Do Not Disturb sign on the door. We knew each other’s secrets. We covered for each other. We would be up late into the night chatting. I knew all the intrigues of her friend’s circle (and they knew I knew) and all her friends. She knew all mine. We would even follow each other into the toilet while the other was pooing (gross I know! But there were urgent matters – boys – to be discussed) so we could keep talking.

Did I get to do stuff earlier than my sister ever did? Yes. I went on my first out-of-town trip to Goa with my sister’s friends when I was 15. My mum was a chaperone but it was 20 boys and girls aged 17. I went to socials and dance parties when I was 15 with my sister and her friends. I waxed my legs earlier. Did my sister complain? Yes. But she also fought for me to have these privileges – be it leg waxing or shorter skirts – although she halfheartedly grumbled about it sometimes when convenient to her.

When we were younger, we used to tease each other saying “I wish you were a brother”. The main reason we wanted a brother was that we would have been introduced to more boys. Also, we had this fantasy of the protective older brother. Now that I think about it, though, I got all the advantages of an older brother with my sister. She had a tonne of platonic boy friends, the most coveted ones from the boys school. They hung around our house all the time because my mum was cool. My sister was even into soccer so I can discuss football like a guy. She did engineering so she is into gadgetty stuff too and can repair things, and she is bloody strong. And I had the advantages of a sister – someone you can discuss even your vaginal problems with. This is something you really appreciate when you’re pregnant by the way.

I don’t know if brothers and sisters can have the same closeness as sisters. Because girls discuss everything, we communicate in a way boys don’t. And because there is so much shared experience. So in retrospect, I’m very happy my sister was not a brother.

Now the flip side of the comparison debate. V has two older sisters. Was he compared to them? All the time. Sil1 was Miss Perfect, like my sister, headgirl, top of the class (my sister wasn’t, I trumped her there), and all that. Sil2 was also Miss Perfect though she tended to be late for assembly and then hide out in empty classrooms. V was Mr. Fuckup, always late, always on the dishonour roll, failing every subject. His sisters famously disowned him once when he was spotted in the canteen eating in an, erm, messy way. Did this affect them in any way? Yes. The Sils were embarrassed. Did it affect him? No. He continued to be a ruffian. Thankfully for them, his grades got so bad he had to change schools. (This by the way is the man who is very spiffy – or used to be till three years ago – and earning pots of money in the corporate world now).

In short, I think this comparison logic is nonsense. There may be reasons siblings don’t get along but being compared happens whether they are the same gender or not. And it affects the relationship only based on other things.

Sil2 has a different take on whether having a brother or a sister is better. She says she is closer to V than Sil1 because Sil1 was very bossy. There was only a two year gap between Sil1 and her, and a two year gap between V and her. But I don’t see V and her sharing the kind of confidences that I share with my sister. In fact, she probably shares more confidences with me than with V because V, being a typical male, just does not take the conversation so far. Like when Sil2 adopted her baby, V said, “Oh that’s awesome news!” (all heartfelt, of course) and then quickly ran out of things to say while I then went on to have a full 45 minute chat with her sharing all the intimate details like how she felt when she first held the baby etc. I’m sure she has more proper chats with Sil1 than V but she still says she’s closer to V. Hmm.

Anyway, which would you rather have – a brother or a sister? Do you think siblings of the same gender have more potential to bond?

Job Sob

I found this in one of Sidin’s old columns:

Not a lot of people are “meant” to do something. They just say that to sell bad books. Salman Rushdie might make an excellent, and content, supply chain management consultant. Who knows? You will find various amounts of meaning and satisfaction in various things. Choose your compromises wisely.”

Sidin’s column is one I keep forgetting to read and then when I do I find myself snorting and chuckling, so maybe it’s a good thing I don’t read it too often considering I’m in office and all that.

So, the above quote, I think is the opposite (at least in sentiment) of the last post, which is very follow-your-heart types. The truth is I am ambivalent on the job satisfaction thing.

I think my contemporaries have hit a stage where some amount of angst sets in. Settled into a career but not exactly at the helm of it. I hear many friends complaining about how they don’t feel engaged by what they’re doing, that they’re not really passionate about their jobs, that they don’t feel fulfilled.

A lot of this comes from the sentiment that Sidin expressed – that we are led to believe that we are “meant” to do something, that we should find our “calling”. Well, I think, if my calling is to correct other people’s English then that is seriously pathetic. I am more comfortable with the idea that this “calling” concept is a big myth, just like the myth of “the one”. That’s not to say the odd Florence Nightingale or Christiann Amanpour won’t pop up now and then, just that most of us have less intense feelings about our jobs.

As Sidin says, there are a range of options and compromises to be made in order to feel happy. Don’t feel unhappy just because your job doesn’t make you leap up your tail wagging every Monday.

Some Donald Trump-type person said something on lines of how you should do something that makes you happy to go to work every morning. Well. Good for the Donald (if it was indeed him who said it) but I think that’s a little unrealistic. Anything that you do every day is bound to become a bit of a drudge even if you started out liking it. Like my husband likes to cook but if he had to cook every day he’d get a bit cross. I understand. Sometimes you just want to chill on the couch with a book. Okay, a lot of the time. That doesn’t mean you hate your job.

I also think this whole idea of “being fulfilled” may have also gone a bit too far. As long as your job doesn’t make your skin crawl (like number-related stuff makes mine) and you enjoy aspects of it, you’re fine. It would be great if what you do is what makes you tick. However, sometimes just by virtue of doing it everyday it can stop being enjoyable. In fact, one of the reasons for my brief foray into law was that I didn’t want to turn my hobby – writing – into my job.

The fact is that my job involves writing – even when I was a journalist – but it is not the kind of writing I do in my free time. It helps that I am good at my job and I can do it with ease, which was really the point of the last post. If you have to pick a job, pick something you’re good at. It makes doing it every day so much easier because you can be done with it quick and without stress. And pick something that somewhat interests you – so I like being in education, rather than finance (For now. Who knows when I might go knocking at the banker’s door?) – because again it makes it easier to spend a good chunk of the day on.

But fulfillment, passion, I’m not so sure about that. I don’t think it’s possible for everyone to find work that absolutely fulfills them. And I also think we need to find stuff to be passionate about in our jobs. Like I have a lot of drudge editing but I also have a chance to write speeches, write ad campaign slogans and blurbs and shape how the university is marketed. I love those parts and put my heart into it. By the way, I took the job thinking it would be just drudge editing and I was fine with that. I do a lot of my own writing on the side, as you can see.

But if you really feel so strongly about matching your job with your passion, then go do it. If you were really passionate about it, you would. I know most of us aren’t loaded with capital but we have more resources and networks than a lot of people who have gone on to do much more. So go do it. Take that leap, take the stress that comes with it, take pay cut and do it. Then if you fail, maybe you have the right to complain.

Above Average – thoughts

I didn’t intend to write a review of Above Average because I am never happy with my reviews of anything but Amitabha, the author, stopped by and asked what I thought (and I cannot help feeling a bit thrilled about this) and also a couple of commenters mentioned their impression of the book, so I thought I’d give mine.

Overall, it was above average. Ok, that was cheesy, I know, but I couldn’t resist. I don’t think it is the greatest work of literary fiction to come out of India in the past decade but in the genre of popular fiction it is good, actually very good. Yikes, this is why I can’t review anything. I can’t do a succinct grading without feeling self-conscious. Let’s just say I liked it. And I think it’s a little more literary than the average popular fiction also.

Books by Indian writers – except the big names like Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh etc. who are beyond the pale on this – tend to be in two categories. There are those where the grammar is a little awkward and, unfortunately, Chetan Bhaghat’s books fall into this category. It’s a pity because his books generally have a great concept and storyline but the awkward grammar and typos keep me wincing throughout. I don’t blame Chetan Bhaghat here so much as I blame his editors. I’ve read a couple of other books in this category and now I realised I just can’t do it. Above Average is in the other category, where the English is fluent and at places almost lyrical.

I admit I’m biased towards these kinds of books because they take me back to India. Somewhere in between Above Average I found myself thinking “Oh, maybe we should go back to India after all” and I thought I had resolved that question. That’s why I used to read even Chetan Bhaghat’s books, because it took me back to that place and those experiences. And yeah, I have a soft spot for books about engineering schools becuase of my sister, they’re so close to home.

I found it a little hard getting into Above Average though, I’m not sure why. Maybe it is because the narrative jumps around a lot. A lot of writers today seem to have adopted this cinematic montage style of narrative and I get it and usually it’s not a problem but I found it a little difficult sustaining a particular mood with this one. Or maybe it was because I was expecting to plunged into an IIT campus and instead I got suburban Delhi life initially.

Ironically, when I look back, this honest portrayal of ‘Society’ life is one of things I liked most about the book. I think I like the parts set in Mayur Vihar best – the friendship between Bobby and Rindu, the little crushes and attachments that develop in a society and the violence that erupts.

I also really liked the insight it gave me into the male mind. This is a story told intricately from the male perspective; the female characters are very peripheral. And although I cannot be 100% sure, I think it’s a very typical Indian male perspective, though Rindu is a bit more pensive than the average joe. In particular, I was intrigued by the way men communicate with each other. As I’ve said before, I grew up in a very female-centric environment and it was a shock to me to realize how uncommunicative men are, how they gloss over the important stuff with platitudes. I’ve always suspected that there’s more to men than they let on and this comes through in Bagchi’s novel. Both that there is some depth to the male sex but also that they communicate in a very obtuse way – the scene with Neeraj where he leaves him after something really poignant has happened to go watch a film, this sort of thing would be unforgivable among women. Neeraj was the odd one out in thinking so. Apparently, it is perfectly normal among men – even if something dreadful has happened – to say “chal yaar I have to go” and bugger off. In fact Rindu was unusual because he hesitated. There is also a pettiness to men that is normally perceived to be the premise of women. I think it was a pretty honest non-caricatured portrayal of masculinity at that age.

Overall, it was authentic. The characters were real, interesting and sometimes surprising. I liked there there was a caste element – now that I think about it it is astonishing, or maybe reflective, that so many novels obscure this point. I can’t comment on the authenticity of the IIT bits but the portrayal of a middle-class boy coming of age in a big city rang true.

Hmmm, and I think that’s all I have to say. Whew.

Above average

Reading Above Average by Amitabha Bagchi brings back memories of my sister’s engineering days. Above Average is about an IIT student – there really seem to be so many around about IIT life. Wonder why the IIM’s don’t inspire similar novels, maybe IIM life is too glib, not as earthy as IIT life.

My sister didn’t go to an IIT. She didn’t even aspire to one, knowing her capabilities well. That she was aspiring to engineering at all was a surprise because my sister wasn’t one of the academic toppers in school. I think it was the surprise of scoring the second-highest in our school in the SSC Boards that fuelled the ambition to get into engineering college.

And boy, did she work for it. Her only concession to herself was to do her 11th and 12th in Xavier’s which wasn’t a college which students who wanted to do engineering or medicine went to. The other students in Xavier’s are interested in a lot of other things apart from academics – sports, music, theatre, or generally just hanging around – and so the campus lacked the competitiveness that pushes students to excel academically in colleges like Ruparel.

My sister managed to enroll in the three prestigious tuition classes that coaches students in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. She had to beg the tuition teachers because they did not take students from Xavier’s seriously. At that time, I think it was Rs 13,000 per tution. Part of the problem with Xavier’s is that they take attendance very seriously. You need 75% attendance to pass and you cannot miss class just to attend tuitions. So my sister would be in college in town all day and then rush back home, eat lunch, and head to Ville Parle for tutions. Then she would come back home and spend the whole evening doing homework and the night studying. Rinse and repeat. She started this schedule in the 11th in preparation for the 12th.

She was scared of the dark and being up alone at night spooked her. She would hole herself up her in room and my mum would keep a flask of coffee and some snacks for her so she didn’t have to go anywhere. If she needed to go to the loo, she would race down the corridor. I could hear her thudding by in my sleep and once she even fell down.

In the end, she scored 98.6% in PCM (god those acronyms!). While the rest of her friends were rejoicing at their 70% or that they had passed at all, my sister was crying. Her percentage wasn’t good enough to get into the top tier engineering colleges like VJTI. It wasn’t even good enough to get a free seat in the second tier colleges. She ended up paying for a seat in one of these colleges.

It turned out to be a good choice because the college was not as geeky as some of the other engineering colleges. Nevertheless, engineering was tough. The first year she got a KT (keep terms) – in a totally unexpected subject – and was completely shaken.

Like the IITs, there was a hierarchy of students in terms of their smartness, not necessarily in the exams. Unlike the IITs, the pecking order wasn’t determined by grade point average but by the US universities they would eventually go to. There was a guy who was guaranteed a scholarship in Stanford. These were the cream. Then there were those who would get into some coveted schools like Purdue, again with a tuition waiver.

And, of course, the students from IIT were spoken of in awe because US universities would even send them the application packages for free. My sister’s friend Rat had a couple of friends in IIT and they were generally considered ‘cool’. This was because not only were they were academically brilliant (and not just in textbook learning) but they were well-read, into music, generally rock music, and smoked weed. These kids could pick whichever US uni they wanted to go to and a scholarship would follow.

My sister’s tryst with IIT was in her final year where she did a dissertation under a supervisor from there. This was unusual, because she was from a second-tier college. Securing this was a quite a coup. I remember driving to the IIT campus with her and being strangely disenchanted with how run-down it looked. This was the vanguard of Indian technology?

Of course, I would later discover that this kind of shabbiness is characteristic of most Indian universities and not an indication of the academic brilliance within. In fact, the dishevelment of the surrounding has seeped into the people who feel a need to be shabby too in order to look ‘intellectual’.

When she graduated, my sister’s aims were modest. She wanted to get into the University of Madison, Wisconsin. That was her dream. I have no idea where she built this dream from since we had never heard of this school before. But she had set her mind on it. Unfortunately, she was rejected.

Her friend Rat, who was smarter and had got a scholarship to Purdue, told her not to give up. She crafted a letter for my sister, explaining why she really wanted to study in Madison and why some allowances must be made for the vagaries of the Indian education system if the KT was what was behind the rejection. It worked! Madison admitted my sister, although without a tuition waiver.

Luckily, my sister was not the lone soul going to that school. Every year, practically the entire batch of her college went to the US. So there were bound to be seniors in any college in the US worth its salt. She understood how the US funding system worked before she got there, and she had friends scouting for job possibilities. When she got there she secured a teaching assistanceship and got a tuition waiver.

Then the struggle began all over again. Engineering in India doesn’t prepare one for engineering in the US which is very hands-on and grounded in fundamentals. She had to pretty much learn everything from scratch. That was a period I was a bit disconnected from my sister but I cannot imagine what a struggle it was for her, the pressure to keep her teaching assistantship because she knew my parents couldn’t afford the tuition and the loneliness of life in a new country.

Neverthless, she always did well for herself. She kept her teaching assistantship and then got a research one. Her supervisor was a terror but she survived him and he even wrote her a glowing recommendation. She did an internship that secured her a job after she graduated even though the economy was in the doldrums. It wasn’t what she wanted to be working on but it was a good job. And she’s moved on to other jobs, which continue to be very technical unlike most engineering graduates who are often in management positions or in general IT. Till recently, I never quite understood what she’s working on. It’s not an easy ride even now. She has to keep struggling, keep learning to keep up.

And me? I was actually the one who consistently topped the class and then the school. I was always quite embarrassed about this though. I tried not to draw attention to it. I shocked everyone by choosing to do Arts. Partly, I wanted to be a rebel – anyone with my percentage was expected to do Science – and partly I knew I really didn’t enjoy science and I hated maths. Ironically, the teachers at my school convinced my mum to make me take maths in junior college; Xavier’s was the only college that offered it. What a pointless exercise, the only sore point in my otherwise blissful college life.

I sailed through college thoroughly enjoying everything I studied. I did some extracurriculars and mostly I just hung out with my friends and had a good time. I chose to graduate in Literature although Economics was a more sound choice from a career-perspective. I loved every minute of my third year, when we studied nothing but literature and I thank God for giving me the privilege of spending a whole year studying something useless that I was passionate about.

I realize that I have never really push myself to do things I don’t do well, ever since I left school. In school, I tended to copy my sister and I did a lot of things because she was doing them. I got into athletics though I’m not really sporty. I learned to play the piano though I’m not really good at it. Thankfully, my personality came into its own around the time I was in class X.

Whenever I’ve tried to push myself into something that’s not me, I realize it’s not worth the effort. I did Maths in junior college and did well also, but I don’t see the point. I briefly studied Law and again hated it. Thankfully I almost died and I realised I didn’t want to keep living in order to go to that dusty law college and pore over ruling that made little sense to me from a justice perspective. I took to journalism like a fish in water, even though I struggled with reporting because of language barriers. In Hong Kong, when I worked in financial journalism, again I struggled and I find that’s it not worth it. It means more money, but I’d rather do something that comes more naturally. The funny part is that I was good at it – there were financial magazines offering me jobs and much more money than I now make.

It’s not that I don’t know how to struggle. My first boss was a complete bitch. Her aim in life was to break the spirit of those under her. Those that didn’t break became her friends. I came so close to giving up many times but I stuck on. My boss in my last job was similar, though I don’t think she realised how hard she was being. I left both jobs on my own terms, with both bosses asking me to stay.

I’m not one of those people that gives in easily. I like quitting on my terms. But I also don’t stick with things that don’t suit me. Doing engineering was not a natural fit for my sister. She would have most naturally been a teacher, and an excellent one at that, without all this struggle. But she wanted to prove something to herself and the world and she did it. I never see myself going through all that trouble.

All around me, I see students pushed into careers that don’t really suit them and struggling to keep up. I don’t see the point. I came first in class throughout and sure I put in some work, but I didn’t kill myself to do it. I probably make less money than an engineering graduate but I make more than enough. And I’ve sailed through life because I was drawing on the skills that life gave me. I wasn’t swimming against the current, except the current of expectations of other people who expected me to take Science. I think whatever you pick, if you’re good at it and put your heart into it, you’ll probably do okay in life. So why choose the arduous path?

Coffee or Tea

Chandni had an interesting post on one’s beverage of choice.

I have always loved the concept of coffee – the aroma, the conversations it always entails, the coziness of coffee shops. But on the whole I think I drink more tea.

If I track things historically, I started out as a coffee drinker. We graduated from Bournvita (yech) to coffee as kids quite young. We always had coffee in the morning, a special brew made by mum, and tea in the evening. It never occurred to me ever to break this sacred pattern, and request coffee in the evening.

In Hyderabad, it became coffee all the way, because there was so much of excellent coffee around. Apart from my morning cuppa of Nescafe at home, my cousin and I had a ritual coffee at Kamat’s every evening (with an idli for me). The cups are pretty small so we’d have one and sometimes share another. The waiters there knew us well and would oblige with extra decoction, no added sugar etc. as needed. Sometimes, we would be there twice and thrice in a day. I miss those days and those conversations and of course, the coffee, which remains in my mind the best coffee in the world.

Because of Kamat’s coffee, I didn’t drink coffee in Hong Kong for over a year. Nothing could satisfy my longing for filter coffee. Hong Kong people – those that drink coffee – have a very Americanised palette. Although their local milk tea (or lai cha) is very close to Indian tea (it is filtered boiled a lot and filtered through a stocking!), their coffee tends to be over-strong with inadequate milk. Starbucks here is awful – I think they over-roast the beans. I have now made my peace with Pacific Coffee and discovered some speciality coffee shops with really good coffee which you can brew at home too. What I have not discovered is a friend to have the kind of soulful coffee chats I used to have in Bombay (where a friend and I famously once sat in one coffee shop from 10 am to 6 pm) and Hyderabad. The coffee shop experience in Hong Kong is more solitary and a time for me to catch up with magazines I am too cheap to buy.

At home, I briefly fell into the reverse pattern from Bombay. It would be tea in the mornings, and coffee in the evenings. Then I got pregnant and all of it stopped. My only allowance was iced lemon tea which is a general favourite and readily available everywhere in Hong Kong. Iced lemon tea is my drink of choice with food.

Hong Kong seems to understand that a person could well be both a coffee and tea drinker at once, and therefore does not oblige one to choose. They have a drink called yin yeung which is both coffee and tea. It’s pretty good too.