Things I don’t care about

But maybe I should?

This little gem appeared in the South China Morning Post in an article on the couple that founded Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the boutique hotel booking agent. I presume it is one of their tips:

“Book restaurants to guarantee your reservation. Say it’s a special occasion even if it isn’t. That way you should get a good table. “

Apart from the oddness of advising people to outright lie to get a reservation, what I don’t get is this ‘good table’ business. I understand if you’re in show business or a wannabe celebrity. Then, it is necessary to be seen and so you don’t want to shoved in a corner. However, otherwise, how does it matter?

I am sometimes quite happy to be shoved in the back if at a place that a lot of people I know frequent and I don’t want to run into them. I do not cherish being near the kitchen exit or the toilet entrance but if the restaurant is crowded I can understand. Normally, if you make a reservation this does not happen. If there is a nice view, I would like to sit by it, but overall, I’m not fussed.

I am not one of those people who enter a restaurant and make where I sit a point of prestige. Because more often than not, a table is a table is a table. Isn’t it?

Am I missing something? What exactly is a good table?

Mothers and Babies

Before I became a mother I could look at pictures of starving children and sigh but not flinch. Now I find myself in physical distress. My heart constricts, I feel actual pain and the tears come.

So this morning I found myself weeping into my breakfast as I watched the images from Somalia. The skeletal babies, their eyes vacant and gaping wide, as their mothers bend over them.

Any mother will tell you the anxiety she goes through when her child skips a single meal, when her baby doesn’t get down that last ounce in the bottle. And then there are these mothers, forced to watch their babies starve.

After I had finished reading both the Bridget Jones books and was desperate for something else by the same author, I came across Cause Celeb. A chicklit novel is an unlikely place to get a glimpse of famine and how the machinery that might alleviate it turns but there is one episode in the novel that has stayed in me. It is pointed out that until children are starving to the extent that they are skeletons, and newspapers can be provided with those images, nobody will bother. The NGOs (which is not to say that NGOs don’t have their flaws) have to hunt out these starving children and click pictures of them to get the world press remotely interested. It is almost as if babies have to get to that to that state of starvation for the world to care. Also a certain number of people have to die – and be verified to have died – from starvation for it to be declared a famine and the UN to kick into action. Otherwise, you know, it’s not really that bad.

I understand this and yet I am horrified by it. When I watch the images on TV, I wonder how long were the babies starving – a month? a week? – to get to this state so that we could see these images and then finally, reach into our wallets maybe. Are we really so horrible? When told that people are starving in Africa, do we really think “oh but that baby doesn’t look starving enough?”

I guess we are. Even now, because these images seem to come up every few years and seem to have almost become a permanent fixture for Somalia (though I guess are not so because if the world press is reporting it, it must be really bad), many will not be moved. I know I am so moved, almost desperate for those babies, because I am a mother. Because I know what it is.

And for that reason, I force myself to look, to not avert my eyes, to spare a thought, because really it is the least I can do.

The One

This article brought together two topics, one that has preoccupied me and another that has preoccupied many of my friends, for some time.

The first, the one I keep puzzling over, is the ‘why’ of marriage. It is something I kind of had an answer to but could never neatly articulate. De Botton does so:

..in the middle of the 18th Century, in the more prosperous countries of Europe, a remarkable new ideal began to form in one particular section of society.
This ideal proposed that married people should henceforth not only tolerate one another for the sake of children, extraordinarily they should also take pains to deeply love and desire one another at the same time.

…The new ideal set before the world the compelling notion that one might solve one’s most pressing needs all at once with the help of just one other person.

… The bourgeoisie was hence neither so crushed as not to believe in romantic love at all nor so liberated from necessity as to be able to pursue erotic and emotional entanglements without limit. The desire for fulfilment through an investment in a single, legally and eternally-contracted person represented a fragile solution to their particular balance of emotional need and practical constraint.

But what interested me more was the parallel he draws between the new ideal of marriage that emerged in the 18th C and the new attitude to ‘work’.
It cannot have been a coincidence that a very similar yoking together of necessity and freedom became apparent at around the very same time in relation to that second pillar of modern happiness – work.

… The bourgeois ideal of work, like its marital counterpart, was an embodiment of an intermediate position. One needed to work for money but work could also be pleasurable – just as marriage could not escape the traditional burdens associated with childrearing – and yet it did not have to be without some of the delights of a love affair and a sexual obsession.

Since his article is supposed to be about marriage, his conclusion deals with that and is also nicely expressed:

We cannot say, as cynics are sometimes tempted, that happy marriage is a myth. It is infinitely more tantalising than this. It is a possibility – just a very rare one. There is no metaphysical reason why marriage should not honour our hopes – the odds are just powerfully stacked against us.

Today, many are unwilling to buy into such poor odds and are rejecting marriage altogether. Others have tempered their expectation of marriage being all things at all time, that marriage will “perfectly fuse together the three golden strands of fulfilment – romantic, erotic and familial” Instead, and I suppose I am part of this group, we believe that marriage will satisfy these different needs to varying degrees at different times but that the stability and convenience of the supermarket is worth it, even if one does get better produce in specialized shops. While rejecting the idea of ‘The One’, we have made our peace with the notion of the ‘more-or-less One’, someone who more-or-less fits the bill of our requirements, though understandably might not quite be there on some counts.

But what about our attitude to work? The great conundrum of our generation, it seems to me, is not so much trying to find ‘The One’ in terms of life partner, but in terms of ‘the perfect job’. Unlike marriage, most of us cannot afford to reject the idea of work altogether. So what is the alternative?

Help or hindrance

One of the defining characteristics of being an adult Indian woman, especially a married woman, in India is that you begin talking about the household help. Sit with a group of married Indian women at a party or in the building and more often than not, the discussion will veer around to complaints about the maid or how to get a good one or how expensive they have become. When I got married I swore to myself that I would not become one of those women.

I still stick to my decision not to go on too much about domestic help just as I try not to go on too much about my child because basically going on about any one topic can get boring. Moreover, if this is an unending problem it might be better to take a breather from it and talk about something else.

But, now that I am older and wiser, I do not trivialize those discussions anymore. The fact is that for a woman running a household – and the job of running the household is primarily left to women in India – having decent help is pretty important, just as important as having decent employees is to any company. Just because the domain of the discussion is the home doesn’t make it trivial.

Poet Mamma wrote about how domestic help in India can be a cause of great stress for women in India. I agree.

My experience of domestic help in India is that they range from needing a great deal of supervision/management to being incompetent. Many of those who are good at their jobs have been trained through such arduous supervision/management over time and they are now in short supply.

I used to think that part of the problem is that they are so badly paid. However, now I am not convinced that that would solve the problem. I think attention to detail and pride in attention to detail – essential qualities in good household help – are just not high up there in the Indian work ethic. I see this in a lot of other professions in India but it seems to inflict household help in a big way. I definitely think that household help should be paid better. But from what I have seen, even substantially raising the salary does not ensure competence, leave alone excellence. While the ones that are good at their job are not necessarily the ones that are well paid.

My mother’s approach to handling the household help is rigorous supervision in the first few weeks of work. Honestly, if I had to work for my mother, I would have probably quit in a day. On the other hand, most people who work for my mother realize that she has a kind heart, although she wants things done her way and is quite a nag. Her friends, relatives, and now her daughters are often at the receiving end of phone calls appealing for help for the maid – kid’s school fees, husband’s job, how to secure a house, medical issues etc.

I prefer a more businesslike approach. I would prefer if helpers agreed on a salary, did your work well without having to be nagged or told, came to work on time and took leave as previously agreed, just like any other job.

But when I had to manage household help myself, I realised that a more laissez-faire approach doesn’t work. One has to project this kadoos image, otherwise you are perceived as a softie and all hell breaks loose. So you either turn into this nagging Nazi or be walked all over, especially if you are young.

My one experience of managing a household help in India scarred me enough for me to vow to just do everything myself when I moved to Hong Kong. Luckily, in Hong Kong it is possible to do everything oneself especially if there are no kids. First, houses are small. There isn’t copious amounts of dust. One does not feel obliged to cook complicated food, even for parties (I am shameless in this regard.) You don’t have people dropping in announced so it’s fine if your house is a bit messy during the week. Buying groceries is convenient – one has the option of a supermarket or a ‘wet market’ like in India but both are not a hassle to get to even in pouring rain (going to the bazaar in Mumbai’s heat/rain can be a trying experience) and the quality of produce is generally acceptable.

Getting anything done is simple – there can be communication barrier when trying to get the local plumber or electrician to come but once they do they do a good job or they say right away that they can’t do it and they also tell you upfront what they will charge. Even though you are speaking two different languages it all gets sorted out without the miscommunication that seems to occur in India.

It also helps to be married to a man who has lived away from his parents for at least a year. So he is used to doing housework himself instead of seeing it as the woman’s job. I had done very little housework before I moved to Hong Kong, but it’s not rocket science. V and I split the work pretty evenly – it was quickly discovered that I was a dud at cooking so V handled that and I focused on cleaning up. We basically did most of the housework on weekends. It gave me a sense of pride and relief that I could manage on my own without a hlper.

Then after about a year and a half, V’s friend asked him if we’d like to try out a part-time helper who was looking for work. We decided to give it a shot. Part-time foreign helpers and live-out are technically illegal in Hong Kong but they are still a common phenomenon because many helpers like to make a quick buck on the side, particularly on their statutory weekly day off.

This one arrived in a miniskirt (which she changed into shorts I think) and got cracking with a pair of earphones blaring music into her head. I didn’t have to tell her what to do. She went at the house like the pro that she was and in two hours V and I found ourselves staring at our sparkling home openmouthed. We were hooked. We also had a great deal of respect for these people who do a much better job than we ever could.

I have experienced three helpers in Hong Kong and never seen the level of incompetence that is rife among their kind in India. The helpers here are able to work independently up to a certain standard. They know what has to be done and they get on with it. If you want things done a certain way, you have to tell them or show them once and generally, it’s done.

Admittedly, I am a hands off kind of person. I am bad at delegation and if I have to instruct too much, I’d rather just do it myself. I am not too concerned about things done my way as long as the end result is presentable. This is not the case with most people but even my more exacting friends here are satisfied with their helpers. We do not often have conversations about our helpers because there is not much to say.

This is however not a universal state of being. Many people in Hong Kong are unhappy with their helpers. The helper discussions on online forums are always active. People ask me who I am leaving my child with when I come to work and when I say a helper, they expect me to follow up with a complaint and when I say that I am very happy with my helper, they look beyond surprised.

The attitude of the Chinese to helpers is similar to the typical Indian one. Here, the helper-employer relationship is regulated by law – there is a minimum wage, conditions of employment, statutory leave, a labour tribunal that is not unsympathetic to the helpers etc. But within the parameters of the contract, many families work their helpers to the bone, knowing that for many of them making the job work is a necessity. They are also treated like second-class citizens.

I think to some extent this inability to see helpers as human beings – or to see them as a different class of human beings – results in some of the problems between employers and helpers both in Hong Kong and in India. But it doesn’t explain everything. I have seen many examples of decent helpers in Hong Kong but very few in India.

Once there are kids, whether one parent is at home or both are working, it is very hard to manage without help. I know people in the US do it, and I frankly do not know how. I think if you happen to have a difficult child (say even a baby with colic), it is extremely hard for two people to manage the child and all the housework, especially if one or both parents goes to work in the week. It would put an incredible stress on relationships.

Poet Mamma mentioned that one of the attractions of moving to India was the availability of household help. I am in the opposite situation. My primary reason for NOT moving to India – and V agrees with me here – is the lack of quality household help. I would not be able to manage a small child in India and stay sane with the quality of help available. If you asked me the reasons I am in Hong Kong, right now the biggest one would be my helper.

People Like Us

Some time ago, I was chatting with a friend and she said something on the lines of “I was talking about people like us”. It made me think. Who are people like us?

Demographically, people like us (I’m doing away with the quote marks out of convenience) would be characterized as Indian, urban, middle-class, English-speaking, Gen X or Gen Y.

But there is vast variation in this group, and many of the people included would not be, according to my friend and I, very like us at all. We had a much narrower definition.

People like us (to name a few characteristics off the top of my head):

1. Spoke English as a first language, even to our parents.
2. Grew up reading Enid Blyton, watching English movies and dancing to English songs and probably missed out on the whole of 80s Bollywood.
3. Wore shorts around the house and sometimes outside the house.
4. Didn’t wear a bra at home even in front of our fathers.
5. Ate meat. Ate with cutlery, rarely using our fingers. Ate a mix of Indian and non-Indian food (or at least Indian versions of non-Indian food).
6. Were not exposed to a world where brothers and male cousins lounged around while the girls ‘helped’ out. Rather, all young people did very little work around the house. Mothers, though, tended to do most of the housework, dads rarely cooked.
7. Had cousins living outside India so had some access to pop culture beyond India.
8. Did not have a life that was completely secret from our parents; our parents – at least our mothers and eventually our fathers – knew our childhood crushes and later our boyfriends/girlfriends.
9. Starting drinking alcohol and went out pubbing when we were at least 18, for some of us earlier. And our parents knew we were going. Having a drink with parents was not a big deal.
10. Didn’t have to sneak our party clothes out of the houses. We got dressed for a night out, in short skirts and strappy tops or whatever, at home.
11. Were part of families where arranged marriages in our generation were rare. Our parents would be nonplussed by a request to help ‘arrange’ a marriage and would have to probably consult some friends as to how to go about it.

There are probably more, can’t think of them. An overarching commonality was religion. We were all Catholic and/or went to English-medium convent schools in Bombay. It is possible for people of other religions to be like us, though I don’t know that many. It is also possible for there to be Catholics who were/are nothing like us.

On the other hand, even among people like us there were differences:

1. Some people’s mums worked, others’ didn’t.
2. In some people’s parental circles, women smoking was common, in other’s not.
3. Some people’s parents were religious, other’s not.
4. Attitude to drinking and partying varied in the late teens. The ones whose parents had a strict curfew or a ‘don’t drink’ policy carried the glamour of partying into the next decade while most people like us, by our late 20s just saw it as something to do, sometimes.
5. Attitude to travel. Some parents were ok with out-of-town travel, in mixed gender groups, even in late teens, others were ok only with an adult chaperone, others were ok only with all-girl groups, others were just not with any kind of travel except with family.
6. Which college you went to and whether you studied arts or science/commerce.
7. Some had stable families, others didn’t.

What I have realised having gone out into the world is that while a lot of people seem like us, scratch the surface and they are not. For example, V and his sisters seem to be people like us. So imagine my surprise when I went to his parent’s home and realised they are really not. The difference being that the liberalism is self-created, it doesn’t even go one generation back, so they are not deeply shocked by conservatism, they just shrug it off or are somewhat amused.

For example:

1. They did not bring their boyfriends/girlfriends home to meet their parents, or even let their parents know there was a boyfriend/girlfriend.
2. They didn’t go out partying with their parents’ knowledge permission until much later in life. They sneaked out.
3. My Sil’s wedding was probably the first non-arranged marriage in the family and caused much drama.
4. They spoke Malyalam to their parents.
5. Girls kind of ended up eating last in their parents home. Nothing explicitly stated, it just happened.

The point of this post was that if I restricted my discussions to people who are really like us, I would be talking about a group so small as to be statistically insignificant – basically the seven or eight girls who formed my core group of friends in college, and that even within that group there were differences that would make the actual people like us countable on one hand.

However, in listing out the commonalities, I realize that there are quite a lot of them and that while the group is small, if I allow for some characteristics not applying to some people, it might not be as small or as diverse as initially thought. So maybe ‘people like us’ is a fair characterization after all.

What Benji Did -2

[By popular demands and also because I realised I should document this stuff]

Benji danced

To distract the Benj, V sometimes puts music on for him. Sadly not Mozart, more like hip hop and R&B. When Benji figured out that the sound was coming from the player, he stared at it in fascination. Unfortunately, once under my lax supervision, he also lunged for it and grabbed the ipod, thereby ruining the player. I was secretly happy because I’m not a fan of music at bedtime and V is, so the ruined player solved my problem (I did NOT, however, as suspected by V urge Benji to break the player). After much effort, V managed to get the player to play again. The other day, we plopped Benji down on the bed in front of the player and he started rocking his body back and forth. V felt he wanted the music on so he put it on and Benji started bopping his head and his body – basically dancing. Then V started dancing and Benji was too delighted and started moving more. Then I started dancing and Benji stopped dancing and gazed at me with a ‘God woman you can’t dance’ expression. Hmph.

Benji cried

The other day V pretended to beat me up. He wasn’t even physically making contact, so there was no sound to alarm Benji. Benhi, however, looked very distressed and started howling. My helper and I were very thrilled with him and rewarded him with many kisses while V looked very sheepish. Later, I pretended to hit V. Actually, I gave him a few smart slaps. V pretended it hurt. Benji couldn’t be less bothered. Then this weekend we decided to test it out again (I know, we’re very mean). This time, Benji kept looking at me unsurely. If I smiled at him, he would smile back. So then I pretended to cry. Benji immediately started howling. I am very thrilled that Benji is protective of me. It is also amazing how kids have a sense of what is upsetting about violence, even if they have no template for it (we do not hit each other, we have never hit Benji, he doesn’t know that hitting can cause pain) and also to know who is capable of hurting whom and also to love their mother more :).

Benji screamed

Benji doesn’t speak yet – though V claims he said Appa and I claim he said Amma – but he does yell. He shouts ‘A’ and “ahh’ and “Ehh” loudly, screaming them out. If you say something back, loudly or softly, he will yell back. It is amusing, but not for the neighbours I guess.

Benji developed a will

Before when we used take objects away from Benji, he would be easily distracted. Now not so much. If he so much as senses you are going to take something away from him, he arches his back and wails. Completely with angry let face, tears and all. It is quite funny. Also loud.

Mumbai

I have nothing much to say.

Between 2002-2003, when there were a series of bomb blasts on trains, I was a journalist and was caught up in doing my job. We distilled anything we felt into our pages. Needless to say, we came to work the next day on those same trains every time.

I was more scared, outraged, pained and panicky after the 2006 bomb blasts although I was in Hong Kong at the time. When I heard I called my folks immediately and texted my friends, waiting anxiously for them to check in, doing a roll call of everyone I knew who could be in the vicinity of the bombs and realizing that it was really impossible to keep track of everyone.

The 26/11 attacks were different because they were so outrageous and we found ourselves watching the whole thing play out live.

This time, I feel only sadness and tiredness. I didn’t bother calling my parents as soon as I heard as it was early morning and I didn’t want to wake them. I didn’t text my friends. I have decided that my friends and family will be fine and if they are not fine, I will be informed, and there is no point clogging the phone lines trying to get in touch with people and then panicking (thankfully needlessly so far) when I can’t.

I also feel a sense of futility. This is not the first attack, nor will it be the last.

PS: Bhagwad has an interesting post on Train Accidents vs Terrorist Attacks. Please read and think.

Freedom at Midnight – not

This post by Bhagwad drew my attention to the Delhi police commissioner BK Gupta’s nugget of wisdom on women’s responsibility for their own safety. Newspaper reports differ on the exact words of the commissioner (which is also a problem with the media. Don’t they have recorders? I’m presuming he was speaking in English since he was addressing a FICCI gathering so why the discrepancy in his words).

Anyway here is a sampling of what he purportedly said, the gist of which remains the same:

“You can’t travel alone at 2am and then say Delhi is not safe. It would be ideal if a woman takes her brother or driver along. It’s wrong to say the Capital is not safe for women” (From Bhagwad’s blog)

“You can’t go out at 2 in the night and then say that you were a victim of a crime… We all need to take some precautions. You can’t carry crores in cars with your employees knowing about it…Similarly , if you travel alone after 2 am and become victim of a crime, the police alone can’t be blamed. It is advisable that a relative or friend is with you at odd hours… Delhi is as safe as any other city. It is just about the perception.” (TOI)

“You cannot travel at 2 a.m. and say that Delhi is unsafe…You should take your brother or driver with you. These reasonable precautions are expected to be taken by all Delhi citizens” (Daily Bhaskar)

In reaction, we thankfully have a slew of women’s organizations calling the police commissioner out on his misguided comments. We also have the usual brigade ready to side with the commissioner in the interest of women’s safety armed with their trusty analogy – “be reasonable, if you leave your house unlocked and it get’s robbed, it is irresponsible no?” The reason the “lock your house” analogy annoys the hell out of me is because it is what we are told time and time again (most recently with regard to Slutwalk?). The implication of that analogy is twofold:

1. Women are comparable to houses or possessions that can be locked up for their own safety. The fact is that it is not possible to live a full and free life under these kinds of restrictions. Women are not inanimate objects or cattle. This police commissioner says 2 am, the Bangalore police says 11 pm (that they cannot ensure safety of the city if young people are out of the streets after pubbing post-11 pm), a vast majority of the Indian population might say 8 pm, and some people might say never (and who can argue with them because the fact is that women are actually unsafe on the streets at any point, day or night). This common sense is so variable it might not be common sense at all.

2. The other implication is that the victim of the crime bears some responsibility for the crime being committed. This is the implication whether you are talking about women being assaulted at night or houses being robbed. It is wrong. It is not the responsibility of people to lock up their possessions or their women as if they are possessions. It is the responsibility of people to keep their thieving hands to themselves and if they do not, it is the responsibility of the law to come down heavily on these people. It is not expected of law-enforcers to make excuses for those perpetrating a crime in order to make their own jobs easier or to excuse their inability to do their jobs.

Note that when a crime is committed people do not “blame the police alone” (as Mr. Gupta reportedly suggests in quote no. 2). Rather, the first to be blamed is naturally the criminal. If, however, the rate of certain types of crimes is very high then the police will of course also have to take some responsibility for failing in crime prevention (as would say a risk officer in a bank who failed to spot risks or frauds and do enough to ensure they don’t occur, that being after all his/her job). Who people should not be blaming even a little bit is the victim.

The suggestion that women enlist a brother or employ a male driver to escort them is not only distateful it is dangerous. It promotes the erroneous idea that women need protection from men, that a woman without a brother or a husband is exposed and vulnerable, that girl children are a big responsibility (this is what many women are told when they give birth to a girl child) and by extension a liability.

It would be more productive if we did away with this idea of women as the ‘fairer sex’ in need of special protection and brought them up to walk about free and proud, capable of defending themselves if need be (and we must depend on our police to ensure that this need will not be every night, for the rest of history) and secure in the knowledge that if someone tried to harm them, they as law abiding citizens would be supported by the police who would strive to bring the criminals to justice.

Many people have pointed out that women need to be out at night for work. I don’t think women should need to justify why they need to be out at night. So what if we want to stay late at a friends place chatting but decide to come home, yes, on our own without male escort in tow, at 2 am? Why must that be a ridiculous proposition.

Every society needs some amount of risk mitigation, and for that we have the police. Why must we be asked to enlist our own private armies for our protection? A society which requires private guards for women, even if they are called brothers, is a society in deep trouble and we need to just acknowledge that instead of making it sound like the women are stupid for venturing out without protection. Just as is a society that imposes a curfew on half its population in its capital city no less. Curfews are meant for wartime and states of emergency, not to go on indefinitely for centuries.

The propensity to commit crime is probably never going to be driven out of the human psyche. Again, for this reason we have the police. It is deemed by most societies that one of the primary jobs of the metropolitan police is to ensure the safety of the city both during day and night. If the police commissioner believed this to be an unrealistic expectation, he should have said so when offered his job. If after taking on the job, he feels unequal to the task he promised to perform, he can step down. If he feels, he has limited resources, he can bring it to the attention of the public.

It would have been more reasonable for him to have said: “I am sorry that I am unable to perform the duty vested in me by the citizens of Delhi to ensure safe passage for all its citzens at night. I would be able to perform this very necessary task if I had XX more men or XX more money”. Or he could have said: “The police of Delhi will do everything in their power to ensure the safety of its women at night. If there are crimes, we will go after the suspects no holds barred. We will not delay registering complaints. We will organise more night-time patrols. We will cooperate with citezen groups to organise neighbourhood watches. We will liaise with the government to ensure better street lighting. We pledge to respond within 10 minutes to a 999 call. We will do our best. it would help if citezens pressure the government for XX funds to execute our plan. We promise results in five years.”

It turns out that according to one report he did cite examples of what they are doing. He named women police commissioners, beat policemen liasing with neighbourhoods (and even submitting applications for electricity – something I think is quite unnecessary for an allegedly overworked police force who seems to be struggling with its primary duties to be undertaking but their intentions are good so let’s not condemn them) and conducting self defense classes for women. All very good and Mr. Gupta should have stuck with just that instead of revealing his misogyny in all its glory with his pearl of non-wisdom about women and their nightly assault-provoking adventures.

That is all we ask, that the police do their best. If they fail, they failed trying and not making excuses. At least one can respect that. Imagine the CEO of a bank saying “Arre what can I do, recession” for a decade or longer?
He/she would be out of a job. The problem lies with us and our propensity to accept excuses and mediocre governance and not demand our full rights as citizens. We are always asked to adjust and adjust we have for time immemorial (either adjust or cut corners) – women and the poor of course are asked to adjust more than anyone else, and poor women most of all. Our defense mechanism in India is to say – at least we are better than XX. Then suddenly, we realise with a shock that we are on a list of the five most unsafe countries in the world for women – sharing the limelight with Afghanistan and Somalia. (http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/india-fourth-most-dangerous-place-for-women-survey-112349)

What we need to realize in India is that a country will never progress if we set the bar at the lowest common denominator and take heart at mediocre execution. We have to look to those who are doing better and push our public servants to do the same. We need to hold our public officials to account and this does not happen by nodding in sympathy when they fail in their duties and accepting their inevitable and stale excuses.

Another favourite excuse in India is limited resources. I am not buying this anymore. We have one of the highest tax rates in the world. India believes it can afford a nuclear defense programme, something quite expensive to run. But it apparently cannot spend on a competent police force which is needed every day by everyone. Where are your taxes going really? Amit Varma has a series on his blog tracking the absurd ways in which our hard earned money is put to use. I do not believe we have limited resources because insufficient funds are collected to taxes. I believe it is because our public servants help themselves to the resources with abandon. Some resources are just left there, waiting to be eaten up.

I do not see why the police should lack resources. We should not have a manpower problem in this country. If people are calling the police with irrelevant complaints (such as lack of water supply), why not start a call centre (of non-police but trained people) to screen calls? Aren’t call centres our claim to fame? If the police budget is insufficient, the commissioner should make it clear to the people. If he felt he could not do his job with the resources provided, he should have refused to take up the job, or made it clear what he could achieve when he took it up.

That was not the only odd statement the police chief made. Here are some more (from this article):

Citing the examples of New York, Johannesburg and London, he said: “The crime rate is much higher in these cities, including that of rape.”

It apparently did not occur to him that the crime rate is higher in these cities because people actually report crimes, especially crimes like rape. They report them because they can reasonably expect their police force to act and not make excuses like ‘why weren’t you more careful’? They report them because rape victims are expected to be treated with sensitivity, not branded forever by society as a ‘shamed woman’ and raked over the coals by a justice system that has a low conviction rate for rape.

He also said: “No one in the world carries millions in a car. It only happens here. In Germany, they say if someone carries 500 euros with him, he would definitely be murdered. Strangely, here we like to carry millions with us”

Really? Will anyone from Germany verify this bit of folk wisdom? Forgive me for doubting the hearsay of the esteemed Delhi police chief. Is he suggesting that Indians carry millions with them by car because they have faith in the police force to protect them should anyone try to steal that money or because the likelihood of the money being stolen is low?

The police chief also washed his hands off thefts, burglaries and snatchings. “The bag of my daughter who lives in London was snatched more than once. It happens,” he said.

OMG! Enough said I think. So everything ‘happens’. Why do we need him, I wonder?

Finally, if I sound angry, it is because is this not an academic question for me. It is a question of daily life. It is a question of being told to adjust and adjusting and still having my breast pinched hard when I was 12 years old and walking to school in my uniform. It is a question of my friend having a guy masturbate down her back in a train. It is a question of women of all economic classes being restricted from certain jobs because it is not safe at night. Our cities are not safe – not for men, and definitely not for women. The police need to accept that instead of passing thebuck onto the victims.

Ambitions

So you know how I also say that parents must not foist their unfulfilled dreams and needs on their children and let their offspring’s hearts lead them where they will? Well, before you worry, I still believe that and all.

But parents are allowed to dream, aren’t they? Last year, my sis, my Sil and I had babies. Here’s a list of our collective aspirations for our kids. Not your standard engineer-doctor, or at least not completely.

Benji: He’s liked to look at art since he was a kid, absolutely stares open mouthed at the paintings in our house. So I’ve been harbouring hopes of him being an artist. Little kids in Hong Kong nowadays all play some musical instrument or another and although these lessons must be damn annoying for them, they look super cute with their little violins. So my alternative career for Benj is cello player. Yeah, I’m specific like that. Piano-violin is too clichéd.

La: Sil always wanted to be a model or actress in her erm youth so she harbours this hope for her daughter. Never mind that Sil is high-flying corporate type now. La is a big drama queen so this seems like an apt choice for her.

Sibear: Sister and bro-in-law want her to be either a scientist or a sport star (preferably tennis star). Sis and bro-in-law are both scientists. They are also tennis fans. But they said basketball is ok also, or any other sport she wants to be awesome at.

I have decided I want Sibear to be a doctor/dentist. Actually, in the midst of one of my many ailments one day, I thought it would be cool if Benji became a doctor. Then I would have a medical professional at my beck and call. However, V pointed out that Benji if he was a typical son would be most inattentive and probably tell me not to be such a moaner. So I thought Sibear would be a good choice for in-family-doctor since she would be obliged to be polite and listen to my woes.

Any: La’s sister is still too young for a definitive profession to be decided yet; however, she is very feisty so could well be a politician/local dada. I have, however, decided that if Sibear falls through on the doctor plan, Any can take her place in providing her aunt with sage and patient medical counsel. If Sibear does fulfill my dreams, then Any can become a dentist. Because I have a lot of teeth issues too.

So there is my humble plan for my and other people’s offspring. No need for career angst or anything; all they have to do is oblige.

What Benji Did

People complain that I don’t put up pictures of my son on Facebook, some of you may even be wondering why I don’t write about my son.

I think it’s because when I’m with my son, I’m in the moment. I enjoy my son purely. There is no ambiguity. It is a joy I share with my husband and my helper. We discuss what my son did and we giggle. Every now and then my mum or sister will ask, “what did Benji do”, and I will tell them about his latest antics and they will laugh too and say: “I wish I was there”.

A friend once commented that I am a negative person. The fact is that my joys are in the moment and savoured. I don’t always need to share them and when I do it’s with limited people who are very close to me or who happen to be there at that exact moment. I can’t actually elaborate on my joys in the same way in which I can articulate my pet peeves.

Anyway, here is my attempt to capture and present to you some of the joy of being the mum of my son who is the bestest boochie-coochie boy ever. Here are some of his latest:

1. The very latest, he pooed on me on Sunday. That is, he did such an enormous poo it leaked out of his diaper and onto me. When I realised, I just sat there and screamed “aaaargh!” Benji of course looked at me quizzically, innocent of the idea that an adult might not like to be pooed upon. V said: “What are you sitting and screaming? Take him to the bathroom and wash him.” I said “aaarrrgh” again and then gingerly lifted Benji by his armpits and ran to the bathroom where I plonked him down as fast as I could and after aiming the shower at the most poo-covered spots, instructed V to bathe him. I don’t think this is the first time Benji has pooed on me. But it’s been a while. I was just so grossed out.

2. We can see traits in Benji that he has inherited from us. He has his father’s propensity to sweat profusely on his head, like his father he doesn’t like the sun and frowns if he happens to be passing through a sunny spot, and he has his father’s eye for the girls. If he spots a pretty girl, young or old, he will grin and grin (even if she is not looking at him) and sometimes gurgle and shout to get her attention. It is quite embarassing. He even did this to the billboard of a model once. I’m thinking it would be safer to keep him in Hong Kong till past his teens as there will be less chance of the Chinese girls reciprocating his attention here. And from me, he has inherited a love of books (i.e. pulling them off the shelf, rattling them around and then watching them fall to the ground in a heap around him) and a propensity to make complete nakra about his food when he is tired and then realizing after two minutes that he likes it after all.

3. Benji does not sleep with us but rather in a room shared with our helper. She volunteered to sleep with him because she saw me looking sleep-deprived every morning. Benji greets the day at 5.30 am, if we’re lucky 6 am, by shouting. This is because prior to that everyone is trying to ignore that he is awake. V or I (normally V) go and get him into our room and plonk him on the bed between us. He beams at us delighted by us and life and everything. Then he gets bored of us and starts to whine so we give him a carton or a plastic bag or something and he attacks that.

4. Benji likes to bang things so we thought we’d get him a little piano. We picked out a cheapie one which turned out to be a good thing because Benji sometimes prefers to turn it over and bang the other side. He also much prefers the box the piano came in to the actual piano. I am now focusing on finding him boxes of different sizes and colours.

5. Benji’s favourite place is the bathroom. This is because it has lots of mirrors. It is clearly not the most hygienic play area for a child – especially as he particularly likes to bang the flush tank – but it does keep him entertained so…

6. Benji’s main occupation is to put things in his mouth. His mouth is closed, ironically, only when he is really sleepy. Then he purses his lips and makes an increasingly loud Mmmmm sound until someone picks him up. His other main aim in life is for someone to carry him all the time. Unfortunately for him, most of the time we do not oblige.