Home can be two

10 March is Tibetan National Uprising day. A friend posted this poem on Facebook:

The Tibetan in Mumbai
is not a foreigner.

He is a cook
at a Chinese takeaway.
They think he is Chinese
run away from Beijing.

He sells sweaters in summer
in the shade of the Parel Bridge.
They think he is some retired Bahadur.

The Tibetan in Mumbai
abuses in Bambaya Hindi,
with a slight Tibetan accent
and during vocabulary emergencies
he naturally runs into Tibetan.
That’s when the Parsis laugh.

The Tibetan in Mumbai
likes to flip through the MID-DAY,
loves FM, but doesn’t expect
a Tibetan song.

He catches the bus at a signal,
jumps into a running train,
walks into a long dark gully
and nestles in his kholi.

He gets angry
when they laugh at him
“ching-chong-ping-pong”.

The Tibetan in Mumbai
is now tired,
wants some sleep and a dream.
On the 11pm Virar Fast,
he goes to the Himalayas.
The 8.05am Fast Local
brings him back to Churchgate
into the Metro: a New Empire.

— Tenzin Tsundue

It’s a reminder of the alienation that exiles feel. And the complicity of ‘locals’ in that.

Strangely, when I read the poem, my dominant feeling was homesickness. [And I fully recognize here that there is no parity between my homesickness and that of the Tibetan in exile. My homesickness is marked by the transnational privilege to return – home for me is a just a flight away, an expensive one that precludes frequent returns, but the possibility is open.]

There was a time when this homesickeness would trouble me, not for the fact of it, but because when I moved to Hong Kong, I felt the need to pick a side. And after five years in Hong Kong I picked Hong Kong. The end. Or so I thought.

Last month, I gave a lecture on Salman Rushdie’s essay Imaginary Homelands, in which he talks about writing in the diaspora. I reflected on an incident that happened when I was in Bombay in December. Or rather, as I was leaving Bombay. As the plane was taking off, I pointed out the city spread out below us to Nene who was peering out of the airplane window. Suddenly, I trailed off. V, who was sitting in the row behind us, poked me and whispered, “Are you crying?” And I realised that I was. Ten years after leaving Bombay, I realised that some roots are never severed. Something is always left behind.

I have finally realised that home can be two or more places. On does not have to pick a side. When I leave Hong Kong, there will be a part of me that will keen for it. I have put down roots here too. My ties to Bombay are the ties of birth, the ties of familiarity, of blending in, of roads that can be navigated unconsciously. My ties to Hong Kong are the comfort of safety and ease, the exhileration of the aesthetic beauty of the skyline and the buzz of the international, the jolt of the strange, and the nostalgia of the early years of marriage and learning to be an adult. If Bombay is family, Hong Kong is a friend.

I lived two years in Hyderabad too. I should have put down roots there. But I didn’t. The city didn’t take to me and I to it. I fled every opportunity I could, and when I had no reason to be there any longer, I packed my things and never looked back.

 

 

 

Did I have an arranged marriage?

Okay so this is somewhat facetious. So take it with a pinch of salt and hear me out.

I just read this book Hitched, about women in India and arranged marriages. It’s a topic I’ve been intrigued by, because till quite recently no one in my immediate family or friends circle had had one to my knowledge.* The whole idea of meeting someone briefly and getting married based on barebone facts made me very curious, and okay, uneasy. I wondered how it worked, and why educated, modern women continue to (sometimes) choose this route. As my friends and I hit our mid-20s, I saw more people in my immediate circle flirt with the arranged system but no one I knew went the whole hog, so I only got the most superficial glimpse.

The book is a series of interviews with women about their arranged marriage, mostly the whys and wherefores. I enjoyed it because I enjoy listening to jab we met stories. As expected, even though all were arranged marriages, each one was different. And yet, there were some commonalities:

1. It seems that 23 is the golden age at which the hunt begins, possibly so that the “girl” will be married by 25?
2. Many met in person only a couple of times before the engagement, and only after that did they meet more often, and were married within a year. In between, there were conversations on the phone or on chat/email.
3. They usually moved to the husband’s place, if not his parent’s home, when married. Though there were refreshing exceptions, I’m speaking in generalities here.
4. They selected their spouse based on instinct, a general sense of how he felt right.

When I was telling V about the book, and mentioned point 1, he said, “oh that’s like you.” And that got me thinking.

I met V when I was 23 and was married when I was 25. That’s a longer courtship than the typical arranged marriage, but a major part of it was spent separated because V had to move for his job. So we essentially spent one intense month in the same place. Then, like arranged marriage couples, we did a lot of telephone calls.

Okay admittedly, we visited each other once a month, and then I moved to Hyderabad so we could be nearer and we’d see each other every week, but then he moved to Hong Kong so it was long distance for a good 10 months again.

The point is, we knew each other for a couple of months before we decided to get married. And when we decided to get married, I was happy to get married the next week or the next month or whatever. And I decided to get married based on very little information and not a long association.

When V asked me to marry him, I said yes immediately based on a gut feeling that I had never had about anyone else. The same feeling a number of arranged marriage couples spoke about, about feeling right about the person. This is not a love at first sight feeling. I did not love V or even think he was perfect at first sight. But on third sight, I figured he was a solid bet. And he came closest to my ideal type.**

However, like some arranged marriage couples, I still felt the need to ask V if he could afford a house. Because at 23, working as a journalist, I sure as hell couldn’t. When I told a friend that I had agreed to marry V, she said, “What? What do you know about him? What does he do exactly? How much does he earn?” Urged by her, I asked V his salary. It was embarrassing, but although I was 23, I knew I couldn’t marry on love and fresh air. If I had dated someone from our neck of the woods, we’d be able to peg him somewhere. But V was from a different social milieu, my friends had barely met him, and so it became necessary to ask things one might not have someone from our neck of the woods.

It was understood that I’d move to Bangalore after we got married, mainly because V loathed Bombay, and I agreed partly because I realised I could not afford the lifestyle I’d like in Bombay. After we were married, I lived in my in-law’s place. Only for four or five days, after which V went back to Hong Kong and went to Hyderabad, but I’m trying to stretch an analogy here okay?

Now, obviously V and I did not have an arranged marriage. We met in a nightclub, our families did not know jack about each other until we presented them with a done deal and even then they didn’t know much because we are from different communities, we spent only over a month together in the same place, but we spent practically every moment we were not at work with each other even though I worked a night shift.

But the fact that V was a complete and total stranger when I met him, and I agreed to marry him at the age of 23 after knowing him for little over a month made me think that what we did had some similarities to an arranged arrangement, even if we did arrange it ourselves.

 

*Possibly the odd aunt or uncle, but even they were introduced and then sort of dated which is more liberal than some arranged marriages today sound like, even though they got hitched more than 50 years ago.

** An interesting thing someone in the book said: In your 20s, you seek out someone who is a replica of you – who shares your taste, your interests, etc. And when you’re older, you look for someone who is different from you but complements you. I’d like to think I was unusually mature in this respect, because even in  my 20s, I never dated anyone who was similar to me which is where there is a dire absence of men who read in my life. V was different from me in positive ways, he was organised, sorted, calm under stress, good with numbers.

Reflections on 100 Happy Days – 1

I decided to do the 100 Happy Days Challenge for a lark and because I want to take more photos with my phone for the blog and Instagram and I find I need a structure for that. Also, I’ve been accused of having a negative view of life, and I figured this might be a way of striking a balance, highlighting the bright spots, especially at a time of great emotional turbulence.

I found that the mere mention of the challenge made several people want to sneer. I never advertised that I was doing the challenge except on the blog and Instragram where I’m mostly followed by people who don’t know me in real life and therefore I’d presume could easily look away from any annoying exhibitions of joy I might post. However, I was observed by friends and family taking photos of stuff at odd moments and when asked about it, instead of lying, I mentioned the challenge which was a cue for such questions as: “Do you really think it’s going to make you happier?” (That wasn’t my aim, see above),“Are they really happy moments every day?” (Yes! I knew this even before I started the challenge. Maybe you need to do it) and “It’s so annoying all these people pretending to be happy” (Pretending? How do you know? Why does it annoy you?) Even on this blog, there were those who felt obliged to make the odd dismissive comment.

Naysayers notwithstanding, I plodded along. And here’s what I think on the other side:

1. Did it make me happier? The challenge website suggests that people who completed the challenge found it had a positive impact on overall happiness. I think the idea is related to positive psychology. While I’m happier having completed the challenge, I can’t definitively say this is because of the challenge. It just so happened that in the last week of the challenge something big shifted in my marriage. With this big stressor removed, I feel lighter and happier. But I can’t say that the challenge didn’t help me cope during a difficult time either. Focusing on and treasuring happy moments in the day should have some, if only momentary, positive effect.
2. I was surprised that people seem surprised that one could find a happy moment every day. Someone even asked me: “Do you plan (i.e. set up) the moment?” No, I don’t, because I don’t need to. Something happy, however small, does happen almost, if not every, day. I already knew this because I was already in the habit of treasuring the small stuff. In that sense, the impact of the challenge might be more greatly felt by those that don’t do this regularly. For me, it’s normal to savour certain moments in the day, the difference with the challenge was that I stretched it out longer because I photographed it and also thought about which moment to feature.
3. My methodology was to intermittently think about which moments I could feature. If something pleasant happened, I’d mentally file it away as a contender. In that sense, it was a little like a mini daily happiness Olympics where at the end of the day, I’d decide which was the most meaningful moment to share. It became a way of reflecting upon not just one, but many good times.
4. It was interesting to see how something that at the beginning of the day I was quite sure was going to yield the happiest moment, might not necessarily do so. For example, one day I was quite sure that a dinner with friends was going to be my happy moment for the day, but when I was taking a photo of the food to represent it, they had so many annoying comments that I ended up posting something else. Another time, I was sure a birthday party my kids attended would be the happy moment, but it turned out to be something else quite small.
5. I recorded a moment for each day diligently, though sometimes I’d forget to do a photo, and then go back and take something to represent the day. Only in the week that I was in Bombay did I skip this daily record because every single day was so filled with joy and it was too hectic to record individual moments. There were only a couple of days when I cheated and used a happy moment from one day to cover the next day, either because there were two standout moments in the day or because a particular day was flat with no moment to highlight (this happened literally twice).
6. Contrary to what I’d been hearing, I didn’t see a lot of people doing the challenge with me. In the blog world, just one. And on Instagram, a handful. None of these posted show-offy or clichéd photos and they’re from different parts of the world so it’s quite sweet to see slivers of their lives.
7. The challenge did get me into Instagram, which I’ve wanted to get into but never knew how. As a side effect, I’m now following a lot of models and getting my fashion fix. I’ve also always had something to post on the blog, even if readers might not have loved these kinds of posts. It brought back a bit of the diary element to the blog.
8. There were moments in between when my enthusiasm did flag and I began to think 100 days was very long. But I’m one of those disciplined people that rarely gives up on a project embarked upon, especially if I chose it. And now that I’m done, I’m feeling a void. In fact, I might pick up another feel-good project – either the What Went Well exercise suggested in the Brain Pickings article or this .

It’s interesting to look back on the posts and see a pattern in the things that make me happy. I did a chart and will post my analysis tomorrow. (Yeah, you’re not done with hearing my drone on about this).

Schooling dilemmas

So. When we finally decided on a school for Benji, I thought I was done with the angst-ridden admission process. Apparently, such luck was not on the cards for me.

Benji never quite took to school. After the first couple of weeks which kids naturally take to adjust, he was still unhappy to go. He seemed disoriented and never really told us what was going on. Increasingly, we got the impression he didn’t like his teachers. I put it down to his shyness and retiring personality, and figured there was not much I could do. We had one episode which disturbed us enough to go to the school and talk to the supervisor, and while not entirely satisfied with their handling of it, we let it go and hoped for the best.

A few weeks ago, I met the mother of an Indian child in Benji’s class. I asked her how her daughter was liking school. She hesitated and then said that her daughter didn’t seem to enjoy school anymore. I was surprised because this little girl was one of those who skipped to school on her first day and never shed a tear when her father left the class. She is very confident, outgoing and articulate, the polar opposite of Benji’s personality. Yet, she was unhappy.

Her mother told me a couple of incidents in the school relating to the class teacher. What she said coincided with my impression of the teacher from Benji. Since this girl is much more articulate, I got a clearer picture. I realised that while Benji’s personality might have something to do with his unhappiness at school, there was a problem with the school itself. The teacher was probably inexperienced and scolded the kids excessively to maintain order in the classroom. While this might be par for the course, if she managed to browbeat a child like that little girl into disliking school, it gives me pause.

The fact is I knew from the start that the school was traditional and the teachers might not be the finest. However, the school had a good reputation and I was hoping Benji would be fine. Unfortunately, he has not been, and I realised from that conversation that it was not just him.

So I began to look at other options. Both the husband and I want the kids to go to preschools in our district or nearby, so that restricts our choices. We are willing to raise our budget but do not have an unlimited budget. Finally, the only candidate I found suitable was a new school that opened last year and seemed to be more international, though it substantially more expensive.

Just after I set up the interview at the new school, Benji seemed to have miraculously settled into his old school. This doesn’t mean that he’s loving it, but he doesn’t seem actively unhappy to go. Give him a choice between staying at home and going to school and he’ll choose home, but he’s not howling every morning before going either. He seems more willing to talk about what he’s doing at school though still not super enthusiastic.

After some discussion, V and I decided we would consider the new school only if they were willing to let Benji repeat Class 1. Our reasons for this are twofold: 1) I finish my PhD in three years, and V wants to move back to India. If Benji goes into Class 2, he’ll finish preschool in two years from now and we’ll have to find a primary school for him, and then shift him to another school in India one year later. We’d prefer him to just spend three years in the same school. 2) Benji just about made the age cut-off for Class 1 when he started last year. According to his class teacher, he is behind on some things. We were thinking it would benefit him to be the oldest in the class rather than one of the youngest.

At the interview, however, Benji performed very well and shocked even us by answering almost all the questions correctly. We were surprised mainly because Benji normally clams up in front of new people. It was testimony to the skill of the principal of the school who drew him out very gently, which is one of the things that gives me a good impression of the new school. Also, we were impressed by how much he knew. Clearly, in terms of learning, the old school had done its job. However, I was never in any doubt of that, though since the impression they gave me was that Benji is behind on stuff, I was proud of how much he knew and confidently he answered.

Although the principal recommended that Benji could start in Class 2, she was willing to put him in Class 1 and we could revisit it in December and see if he could be moved up. So we got our wish, except we’re not sure anymore.

Pros of the new school

1. Principal who seems experienced and to understand schooling and children. This is my impression. I am not sure of her exact qualifications because there is not much transparency on this.
2. A more international approach, which means less expecting kids to be automatons and better communication with parents.
3. A better curriculum and pedagogy (though I’m not unhappy with the curriculum at the old school).
4. Very nice facilities and a bright and cheerful environment. (All things being equal, this is high on my priority list, though it’s nice to have).
5. We can keep Benji in Class 1.
6. Almost all parents who have visited have been impressed with the school, and I have read one good review from a parent of a child who goes there.

Cons of the new school

1. It’s newness. This is the biggest one. It’s not so much the track record or the primary school placements that worry me, than whether the school can remain financially solvent with less students and the crazy rents. Recently, there was a case of a school (ironically one under the management of Benji’s old school) losing its premises due to increased rent. With a school that has been around for ages, this is not something one would think about. But what if the new school shuts down? Am I crazy for giving up a place at a stable though not ideal school for a fledgling one?
2. It is more expensive (but we can manage this)
3. It is further away (but not unreasonably so).

Pros of the old school

1. Well established
2. Decent curriculum and facilities
3. On the cheaper end of the fee scale.

Cons of the old school

1. Very local approach in terms of expecting kids to be super disciplined. Not great communication with parents, or admin system.
2. We can’t keep Benji in class one.

Okay, so it’s looking like a choice between a mediocre but well-established school that Benji is not that happy in versus a start-up that looks really exciting but doesn’t have a track record that I instinctively feel Benji will be happier at. Also the relative merits of keeping him in Class 1 vs crossing the bridge of where to place him in 2016 hence at that point (though I would have start looking into that fairly soon if we let him proceed to Class 2). The choice was much easier when Benji was visibly upset by his existing school. Now that he’s not obviously upset, all the other factors magnify themselves.

Opinions anyone?

Mumbai musings

• Either Mumbai has changed or I have changed, or both. But things seem to have settled down. The infrastructure seems better. The roads are less pothole ridden if not pothole free. The pavements are walkable on. Granted I basically stayed in my neck of the woods, Bandra, except for the one rogue trip to Mumbai Central via a local train to pick up MinCat, but that’s my impression.
• Things are expensive but I have wrapped my head around it. Also the dollar is in my favour.
• Holi is not as crazy as it used to be, again in Bandra. I did read the now expected report about a woman hit in the eye while commuting to work by train. But I was not pelted with balloons while walking on the streets even the day before Holi, which is a change.
• The highway to the airport blew me away. Admittedly, it was Holi and so traffic was probably lighter than it might otherwise have been. But 15 minutes from Bandra to the airport is insane. In a good way.
• The airport itself is gorgeous. I noticed this on the way in where there are these beautiful installations showcasing the cultural diversity of Maharashtra, but it’s on the way out that you really get a sense of it. The building is beautiful, and so different from typical airport architecture and inside are all these striking columns and lovely chandeliers. Only problem is the mosquitoes, which are present even inside. I was complaining about this when I came in and my uncle jokingly advised me to carry one of those electric racquets. So imagine the hilarity when on my way out of Mumbai, at Immigration, one of the officers stood up and started swatting the mosquitoes with exactly such a racquet. Although our queue broke into laughter, mosquitoes are not funny as I know too well, having nearly died of malaria.
• As always, I come away from Mumbai feeling fuzzy about the warmth. It’s not just the people I run into who know me, and who often greet me with “How are you, darling?” as if I’m still five years old. It’s even the regular shopkeepers, waiters, people on the street, etc. Maybe this is because I am obviously priviledged looking and reek of money. But I see these same courtesies extended to everyone. Probably not at rush hour on a local train. But almost everywhere else.
• I did not get the slightest creepiness from anyone on the street no matter how I was dressed. It may be the extra kilos, though I must say I still cut a vaguely slim figure in India. But I did not warrant a second glance from the men on the streets and for that, I am truly glad.

It makes me feel a tad better about moving back to India someday.

 

We’re special. Not.

Mincat sent me this post about unhappiness in Generation Y. It has stirred up some backlash in the US with many young people claiming that their angst stems more from unemployment in an economic downturn than any delusions of specialness, which may well be true. But some of what that article says does seem true to my peers by which I mean urban upper-middle-class 20-and-30-somethings in India.

What my peers seem to expect of their careers is money, a position of some status, and fulfilment. And they want this fast. It doesn’t help that some people seem to have achieved this and posted their success on Facebook. It also doesn’t help that the mantra we hear all around us: if you work hard enough, or even better, if you want something bad enough, it shall be yours (possibly because the Universe will conspire to make sure you get it).

I’m not sure if I grew up hearing that I could be whatever I wanted to be. Even if that message was as pervasive then as it is now, I never internalised it.* Either I was born with the humble gene or I learnt it from my parents who were neither grand nor had delusions of grandeur. I did hear that I should work hard and my parents would support me. That is all.

I’m always confused which generation I belong to. I think it’s X, and that may account for the watered down message. Our generation was susceptible to the message that we should find our passion and pursue a career in that. Even that was tempered by parents who were first or second-generation strugglers and therefore prone to steamrolling their children’s passion into more practical goals like a career in engineering or medicine. My parents did let me pursue my passion, but in retrospect I can see that they emphasised the work hard part more than the passion or the returns. They supported me in the rough times that come as a result of not quitting. (eg, when my boss was being an asshole and I really wanted to quit my job, my dad drove me to work every day).

But this is not about me. It’s about people around me. It’s one thing to discover what you’re passionate about and make a go of realistically building a career in it. It’s another to expect that said career is your birthright. It is not. Nor is it guaranteed that if you work hard you will be successful. There are millions of people who work hard and are not successful. There are also some lucky souls who do not work hard and are  successful.

There was an interesting article I read on Chinese graduates doing internships at the start of their careers and their chances of success. The children of professionals and connected parents had the highest chance of success simply because they already knew how to function within The System. The earnest and hardworking children of poor peasants rarely got offered internships. Nevertheless, it’s the stray success stories from adversity that get highlighted to us as role models, as if hard work alone guarantees success. If only. The wisdom we pass our kids should be more like this: If you’re not from a wealthy and influential family, work hard and you have a better chance of being successful if you’re lucky.

Whenever I hear of people pursuing offbeat careers and leading a comfortable life, I always try to get the backstory. Who is propping them up? Often, someone is. Very rarely does someone do something alternative without extreme sacrifices and lifestyle compromises which most of us would be loathe to make anyway. Getting the offbeat jobs that pay well takes some social capital, it’s rarely “individual merit” alone, but that’s the myth we are all fed. This is not to discourage anyone from pursuing their dreams, just that you need to have a realistic idea of your chances of success that are not gleaned from the shining examples around you. And sometimes the financial risk might not be worth it, and that’s okay. At least for most of us in the upper-middle-class, it is not occasion to whine about how unfair life is. Life is unfair, but it is actually less unfair to us so suck it up.

The other thing my peers seem to want is for all this to happen fast. There was a survey of Hong Kong graduates that elicited much derision because most of the graduates said they wanted to be CEOs in 10 years or some such. Dream big and all, but unless you have a godfather or your exceptional talent is coupled with fantastic luck, you are probably going to be spinning in the wheel for quite a while. And maybe that’s okay?

We also seem to think that because we’re special in one area, we’ll generally be successful. So I’m good at academics and aced almost every test that came my way. But I’m not naturally good at math (though I can do well on tests I study for), can’t speak the local languages, don’t like high stress, and not that interested in corporate schmoozing. So I’m probably not going to get to the top. And I’ve accepted that and moved on. Your one big talent might not translate into untold riches and fame. Accept your limitations or put in some serious work to overcome them.

A lot of people my age are angsty, and that may be due to being in the workforce for close to a decade and it losing its sheen. That’s natural. But the angst gets compounded when we think that somehow we deserve better or that there is some magical and not-too-efforty solution that will resolve this. Most of us actually are fortunate enough to have some options and wiggle room so maybe we should focus on that instead of letting hearing about the next person in their peer group who just published a book to fabulous reviews or opened their own kitsch little bookstore get us into a funk.

*One area in which I acquired some arrogance was academics. I was effortlessly academically successful and that give me the impression that I could always easily enter institutes of higher learning, but there too I was disillusioned early on and was fortunate enough to be around people of increasing intellectual calibre as I grew older. In fact, I was and still am, loathe to take up positions I feel I am not experienced enough to handle well.

Independence Day

[Inspired by this post by Dewdrop Dreams]

Recently, I mentioned to V that I didn’t feel a strong tie to India, even Bombay, anymore. I will always feel warmth and nostalgia for India, and by that I mean Bombay, in particular, and to a lesser degree the other places I have ties to in India like Goa, Hyderabad and Bangalore. Those places will always hold a special place in my heart because that’s where I grew up, where I still have close family and dear friends. I also love certain aspects of it, like the food and the much clichéd “warmth of the people” (but frankly I feel that way about Thailand as well). Do I feel I would want to live there, that I would die for the idea of India? Um.

In university, one of my friends stated that she found the whole concept of nationality silly, and that she felt no allegiance to any country in particular. I knew that what she said made sense, but I was uncomfortable with it. Then, I still felt the stirrings of patriotism.

Another friend living in the US said he identified more with a particular place, Bombay, than the whole of India which he felt he had nothing in common with. I argued with him then, that there was something people from the region of India had in common, and I still believe that. But that commonality extends to the whole sub-continent, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, etc. What is India then? Anyway, outside India we are banded together as desis or South Asians, as we are called in Hong Kong.

I understand the practical reality of the need for borders. At some point, fences must be drawn and armies are needed to defend those fences, which one assumes demarcate an agreed upon way of life. Or something like that. Kind of like, you can only be here if you agree with us, or we don’t want to come here and share the riches we worked so hard to achieve, or unless your parents lived here or unless you’re a certain race. This sounds more petty than grand.

Living abroad has given me some perspective on the idea of nation and belonging. For one, Hong Kong is having its own crisis. It is part of China but a number of studies show that Hong Kong people, more than a decade after the handover, don’t really identify with China. In fact, in regular interactions, they take pains to distance themselves from the Mainland. Probably worried about this, an attempt was made by the powers that be to introduce the concept of national education in the school curriculum, which was viewed with great suspicion by Hong Kong parents, and when a textbook was found to contain lines that praised the Communist party and denounced other systems, all hell broke loose. It made me think about how we swallowed the nationalism fed to us in school, how trite it was, and yet, how effective. So effective that most Indians wouldn’t say that they were ‘brainwashed’ as children, the word Hong Kongers use for what is being attempted through the subject of national education.

Many Hong Kong people say they love Hong Kong because they grew up here, they like living here, they subscribe to the values of the society and the way of life (which doesn’t mean they don’t grumble and criticise their own values). Many people who didn’t grow up here also come to love Hong Kong after they move here (like me, and the electronics repair guy from Nepal I met who said he willingly pays taxes here, something he was loathe to do in India and Nepal where he lived previously).

I love Hong Kong because it treats me well, because it is beautiful and because it has a buzz. I love certain places in India for similar reasons. But now that I’ve lived and formed an allegiance to a place outside India, I feel I could do it again. There are other places I could live in and love. It’s situational and specific and related to experience, rather than related to an idea that is commemorated in songs and borders and a flag.

That said, yesterday, we played the national anthem. Benji listened and clapped at the end. I like the song and how it makes me feel, even if I don’t believe in the idea of nationhood anymore.

Period

One of the good things about being pregnant was not having my period for a while nine months. One of the good things about having my period is not being pregnant.

There are days when I’m standing in the train my shoulders hurting or huffing up a flight of stairs and I suddenly think: “Thank God I’m not pregnant.” There are days when I feel queasy and I think: At least I’m not pregnant.” Or I pass a bakery and think: “I don’t ever have to force myself to eat bread again.”Overall, I am not a fan of pregnancy, at least in the mode in which I experienced it. The first time around I was charmed by the process once I stopped throwing up. The second time my attitude was more of a “not again.”

This is not to say I don’t appreciate babies. I do. Though not the early infancy of them, the dreaded fourth trimester. I like toddlers best. I also like having two of them. No more.

Before each period arrives, I experience mild to medium-level panic that it might not. I know I will not go through with another pregnancy. But I dread being in that position.

This time my period was late. I had terrible PMS symptoms which can unfortunately also be pregnancy symptoms. The joy I felt when I saw blood on my underwear was unbounded.

For the first time in ages, I got my period on a holiday. I didn’t have to drag myself to work. I asked V to take over the kids and vegged all day. I sent him down for chips and chocolate and I stuck into them. I dosed myself with painkillers at regular intervals. I watched half a chick flick. This is how it’s supposed to be, I thought, as I lay on the couch finishing my book in peace because everyone else had gone down to play.

It’s been a long time since I have allowed myself to just rest when I have my period. It’s no wonder that I have fallen sick almost every time. I need to just call in sick next time.

Before I had kids, I thought my period itself was the worst thing ever. I agree it’s not pleasant still. But if I could just rest, I could handle it.

Name name go away

Some time ago, the interwebs were full of debate after Jill Filopovic’s piece on HuffPost about women taking their husband’s name after marriage. A Facebook post by a friend brought Filopovic’s piece to my attention and of course, there were ensuing discussions. I agree with the basic reasoning, but I also agree with these commentaries on Shakesville. There was also an interesting series  run by Flyover Feminism on naming.

I have always been keen on names and naming. It used to be my favourite part about babies. Now my favourite part about babies is their feet. How they’re scrawny, then they become chubby with little toesies and then they learn to walk and then. Okay quiet. Nevertheless, whenever a baby is born my first question is “what are you going to name him/her?” which I have learnt to be quiet about because people don’t always know or want to tell, but if it’s  someone I’m close to that’s what I’m going to be asking.

I was never particularly fond of both my first and last name. I thought both were odd. My first name was a bother because nobody could pronounce it. My last name was also not one of the common ones in Goan Christian circles. I wanted to fit in.

Good Catholics tend to have a middle name, that’s usually the name of a saint. But my mom had such a hard time figuring out a first name for me, that when she got to discussing middle names with my dad (he was on a ship at the time), he said “just put an A and we’ll decide later” and that’s  what they did. Thankfully, I later discovered that the A is missing from my birth certificate and only present on my baptism one. But for a good part of my childhood, I played around with the A imagining what I’d like it to be since my parents said I could decide. I never decided. Later, I dropped the A.

So I never had a middle name. When we were in Std X and filling up some forms before our boards, our class teacher told us to put a dash in the middle name section if we didn’t want our father’s name to appear there. Unfortunately, my mother didn’t do this when filling out my passport form and my passport now carries my father’s first name as my middle name thanks to some overzealous passport officer. I hated it, until I realised that many people in Hong Kong were using it in lieu of both my first and last name because it’s easier to pronounce.

When I was preparing for my wedding, I had a brief period when I decided to take my husband’s last name. Frankly, I cannot even remember what my logic was. Then, fortunately, he pissed me off in a big way and I came to my senses. V half-heartedly said, “Why don’t you take my name?” and then dropped it, not in small measure due to the fact that he realised he would have to do all the running around involved in a name change because I am historically incompetent about these things and would be unlikely to cooperate in the matter.

So I kept my last name and my husband kept his. Kinda. Actually his name is messed up, also by a passport officer, so it would have been even more ridiculous for me to adopt his naming confusion. But I didn’t know that then. For me, it was a feminist choice.

Then came my babies. While women have made progress in retaining their own names, children continue to be automatically given the father’s name. I have come to accept that this evolved out of insecurities surrounding paternity and that these primitive fears might be around and kicking even today. Even DNA tests cannot establish paternity with certainty. So okay. Maybe.

But I think a more ideal and fun and creative solution would be for new families to adopt new last names, if there is a need for last names at all, that sync with their collective values. Not going to happen in my generation I guess.

Another intersection with naming happened with I had to take a pseudonym for freelance writing assignments. It was fun to think up a name but I got tired when it came to a last name and adopted my husband’s pseudo-last name. Basically because I kind of like it as a last name, though really it is my father-in-law’s first name and I don’t quite like that. So in retrospect I should’ve thought harder.

In my adulthood, I’m coming to like my first name. (Peeps, who know my first name, what do you think? Does it suit me as a person? It is a little la-di-da, which I am not, but it is unusual, which I am). I’m not that hot on my last name. I actually prefer my mother’s maiden name. It’s easy to pronounce also. That might be something to consider. Or an entirely new last name, based on something I admire.

I’m thinking that when and if I have some free time I might consider changing my name. For half my life, I’ve lived with my father’s last name. For the other half, I might do something different. By then, I should know who I am and where I’m going and what will suit me.

I understand that the bureaucracy is a bitch. One of the tyrannies of naming is that states make it so damn hard to do. It’s a control thing. So I would need to wait for a time when I have the time and energy to do this. But it’s an idea.

Do you love the name your parents gave you? Ever considered changing it?

To have or not to have?

One of the points in this post struck a nerve and much of the discussion in the post segued into why do people assume everyone is going to have kids, how does anyone know whether I want kids, how do I know whether I want kids, etc.

So I decided to do a post about that.

First let me say that I believe that not everyone wants or should have children. I fully accept that there are people who would be happier without.

I have also come to believe that the number of people that fit the above category are few. Let’s just say that if I were to advise my friends on whether to have kids or not, I’d say have at least one.

It is possible I am saying this because I chose this and now I feel the need to usher everyone else into my corner. But I don’t feel that way about other things, like, ironically, marriage which I think has its good points but could be given a miss , or, say, getting a tattoo, or even full-time work. So I hope I’m not entirely biased by the fact that I have children, though it is the reality of having children that has changed my perspective on this issue.

This post is mainly for the ditherers. And the ones who are ruling kids out on grounds that are not quite clear to even them. And those that declare they don’t want kids ever, but deep down there’s a maybe lurking.

Sid mentioned in the comments on that post that sometimes when people make statements ruling out children, it’s a plea for people to share their own experience.

So I’m sharing mine.

I was quite well-known for never wanting to have kids. Or to get married. I kind of announced that to my family when I was about seven a propos of nothing. And I stuck it consistently thereafter.

I disliked children. I disliked the pressure to like children more than I disliked children, though I didn’t know that then. I liked the odd child but maintained that I disliked children so I didn’t get cornered into cooing over all the other children I didn’t like.

When I was 17 I had my first boyfriend. I still wasn’t hot on the idea of marriage but coupledom made me realise the advantages of partnership. So I wasn’t quite sure I was anti-marriage anymore though I was quite sure I didn’t want to marry my boyfriend (I even told him so) and quite sure he wanted to marry me. After about four years of him, I was almost resigned to the idea that we would probably, eventually, get married. Fortunately, we broke up.

But I stopped saying I was never going to get married. And I figured I should stop saying I was never going to have children also. Because when I was with that boyfriend, I had famously named our future children.  I didn’t particularly have any affinity for children then, but the vague idea of little hims and mes running around was cute. Plus it was the dream you’re supposed to dream. Plus I liked naming.

Nevertheless, I realised that if I could get so entrenched in a relationship with a man, then anything would happen. I should stop ruling out things, especially big things. Especially when I was 21.

I remember when I had first met V and he asked me what I thought about marriage and I said: “I don’t particularly want it, but I think it’s inevitable.” I was 23 then. I had realised that rail against it as I did, in the current social set-up, it was probably a good bet. And by then, I had tried coupledom and  experienced its benefits. And I also knew that if my position on marriage could shift so dramatically, so too could my position on children. That it very possibly would. All the ideological reasons for not getting married/not having children blur slightly when it’s your own personal decision and your own life stretching ahead of you.

I didn’t have or want children right after I got married. I tend to think that unless you’ve had a long period of living together with loads of interactions with both sides of the family before officially tying the knot, then you might as well sort those things out first before having children. But there are no rules. Some people really want children right away, and why not then? I had married early so I luckily had time on my side and I was in no rush seeing as I didn’t particularly like children.

About a year or two after I moved to Hong Kong, my attitude to children shifted very slightly. Chinese kids are super cute. Even the very little ones. I saw Chinese babies as a different species, actually, separate from other annoying children. I found myself smiling at a couple of them. And then slowly noticing that some other kids were cute too.

All along, I had always got on famously with my cousin’s children. Children actually tend to follow me around like the Pied Piper even as I claim to not want to have anything to do with them. Maybe because of that. Or because I’m the only adult not going coochie coo. And actually saying something halfway interesting to them. I’m a bit of a kid myself also. My three-year-old niece came to Hong Kong and she basically attached herself to me like a tail. My in-laws to whom I had always said I didn’t like kids raised their eyebrows.

V told his boss once that I was happy to keep moving around and she said, oh then she’s not ready to have kids because when you want to have kids, you nest. Righto, I said.

Five years into our marriage, on his 34^th birthday, we were coasting along when V raised the subject of children. We weren’t exactly in the best place in our relationship then. But we weren’t in the worst place either. We were both in a good place job-wise. But still, I was taken by surprise and came up with lots of reasons why we shouldn’t do it right then. V pointed out quite reasonably that there was never going to be the perfect time and we should just do it.

My sister at that time had been trying for a child. Her difficulties in getting pregnant may have also galvanised me somewhat. There’s nothing like the thought of not being able to get pregnant to make you want to get pregnant.

Though I didn’t quite want to get pregnant. I was more like, huh, okay fine then. My sister got pregnant and I was all into her baby-making journey. And occasionally I would smile at a baby on TV and V would smirk at me. Because me actually thinking a baby was cute was a huge step.

We didn’t get pregnant right away. I had an ovarian cyst and was warned I would need surgery to have any chance of getting pregnant. I was upset about that, not so much because it hindered my chances of getting pregnant but because I wanted to go to India and surgery meant I wouldn’t be able to. As it happened, my sister-in-law’s mother-in-law who’s a gynac put me on a regiment of yoga and ayurvedic drugs and I tried not to be such a stresshead and one fine day, I was pregnant.

How did a person who doesn’t even like kids decide she’s ready to get pregnant? Well, because there were a few kids I did like. And I had been reassured by people exactly like me that I would like my own kid. There’s also the matter of your husband really wanting kids, even if you don’t. A woman is not obliged to have kids just because her husband wants them, but it’s something to consider. At least once.

I was in love with my child the moment I saw a blob beating on the sonogram, and it’s only gotten better ever since. And I didn’t have pleasant pregnancies, deliveries or post-partum experiences. But my children are worth it. No question.

It is also possible that my positive experience owes to the amount of help I have. I have a husband who does his fair share. I have employed people specifically for the task of helping. This was all deliberate and we made choices to enable this, but yes we were also lucky to have the option. Had I had no help though, I would still have had one child and managed. The really hard bit is the first six months. The slogwork eases off a lot as the child grows.

I have come to believe there is nothing like raising a child; it’s one of those things must-do-if-you-can things. I think giving birth to a biological child that is a mesh of you and your partner is a special experience, and this is not to discount the wonder of adoption.*

It seems like in the past, there was silence around the difficulties involved in raising children. Maybe because it was women’s work and women were silent about everything they did. And now there’s a lot of noise about how hard and how much work and how much it costs to raise a child. It’s productive that this is being acknowledged. But maybe it gives the impression that raising a child is all work and no play.

The reality is that it’s a lot of play. A lot, and in a great way. In a way that makes you stop and smile in joy with all the sounds in the background moaning erased. Okay, my kids are just toddlers and things will definitely change, but I think the playing will go on for a good 10 years. And that’s a reward in itself. It is hard to convey what the reality of raising a child is, but I tried once. That post has a similar discussion to this one and some interested comments so I’d recommend people interested in this topic read that as well.

This very well-written article crystalised something I’ve been sensing for a while in the people around me. The decision about whether to have kids or not has become something like the quest for The One. Stage 2, perhaps. Thus, you spend your early 20s caught up in this idea that the perfect someone is out there waiting and when he appears you’re going to just know it. Admittedly, this did happen in my case, but I’d wager it’s fairly rare. I agree that one should have a good feeling about the person one commits to spending the rest of one’s life with but that feeling might dawn gradually and everything might not settle itself quite so magically.

And then with kids, there has been a huge push from feminist and other circles urging people, but specifically women, not to automatically have children but if and when you really want to. Which is well and good. But it seems to me that amidst all the rhetoric, some of those whose minds the thought of having a child might have crossed seem to be overthinking.

Many people I know seem to be waiting for the right moment and that feeling that will tell one it’s the right moment. Some of the questions Urvashi asks in her piece reminded me of those people. How do I know this is what I really want?

In a discussion related to Urvashi’s piece, Haathi pointed out that there are plenty of people who are not agonising existentially and who decide to have children for quite prosaic reasons. Like their husband wanted them. Or their mother-in-law. Or they were scared by the biological clock. In the circles I move in, these are supposed to be the wrong reasons.

I question what I used to think were the right reasons though. If you’re dead broke, or in a situation that would give you no time to look after kids and you can’t get out of that situation, or your home is a violent and unstable place, then, yeah, probably delay having children. But if things are relatively stable, but all ducks are not in the row, then go for it because the ducks are never all going to be in a row.

* I am not on board with people who casually say, oh just adopt, though. After I had my first child, I realised that I would struggle with adoption. It would work for me as an option if I couldn’t biologically give birth but I would have struggled with it. I need the hormones that fuel you in those early days of childrearing.  So I can understand now why many people feel they cannot adopt.