Young minds

Friends.

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(Mornings at home, in Sakleshpur)

For the last couple of days, I was in Bangalore, the tech-capital of India. From the railway station, I took the metro to my friend’s house. The stations were spotless and the staff helpful. I was surprised to find a seat in the ladies-compartment, at that evening rush hour. I was a village woman in a big city, curious to see how this place works.

At every stop, a few women came in and sat down quietly, making no eye contact with anyone, not saying anything or smiling. Most eyes and ears, firmly plugged into a device. It seemed like I was the only one enjoying the tree-tops in full bloom as we glided through this urban sprawl. I wonder, if there were no windows in the carriage, would anyone have noticed? Inside that dense silence, everyone was busy. It reminded me of my daily commute in London.

I don’t remember trains in India ever being so quiet. Is this the ‘progress’ we are so proud of?

In the middle of the carriage, two friends, who I guess were young mothers, stood, speaking to each other in Kannada. If I strained my ears, the fragile new neural tracks in my brain caught a few words and phrases here and there. But mostly, I enjoyed their soft, yet animated exchanges, colorful saris, traditional earrings and jasmine strings pinned into their long black hair. Their silver toe-rings beautified their very practical footwear. I was happy to witness the faint echoes of an ancient civilization.

I reached my destination and started walking toward the exit with my small trolley bag. At the top of the staircase, the young man walking ahead of me came to a sudden halt. His head was encased in a set of huge black headphones. I set my bag down, waiting for him to move forward. Like an automaton, his big head rotated through 180 degrees very slowly, waking up to the fact that he was surrounded by hundreds of people carrying hundreds of colorful pieces of luggage. After what seemed like an age, he picked up his suitcase and started walking again, as if in a daze.

I write this, as I sit by a window on the train back home, reminiscing my little urban escapade, riding through the green and serene countryside, happy to be reunited with my friends, the trees.

Wonder if they ever count how many trees are killed in a war.

“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others, only a green thing which stands in the way… As a man is, so he sees.”

– William Blake

Rreeeeee

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You must not call your husband by his name. Never. It is disrespectful.

(He is your master after all.)

Sunte ho? (Are you listening, In Hindi.)

Sonu ke Papa? (Sonu’s father)

E’ ji. (Here, Sir)

Rreeeeee (Something to the same effect, in Kannada)

These are examples of substitute names by which a wife may address her husband bypassing speaking his name.

Minoo was nineteen when she married someone, she had met only once. The handsome man in the photograph that she was allowed to gaze at, was now her husband. Meeting before marriage was not allowed. It was not considered necessary. In 1964, some thought it positively immoral.

Once married, she went to live in the house of her in-laws. The same rule applied. Except here, it was the law. She was prohibited from uttering his name. That was a problem.

She could have shortened Purushottam to Uttam, but his friends had already done that. So, that abridged name was taken by his equals. She had to find another way.

She had always liked the sound of the word, Sameer, which meant, sea-breeze.

“Can I call you Sameer? It’s not your name but will surely make life easy.” She asked him.

“Sure. I don’t mind.” said he.

That was that. Her mother-in-law could not object as Minoo called out to her husband by a strange new name that she had not heard before. Problem solved.

Over the years, Minoo became proficient at finding inventive solutions to many unforeseen problems, be it lengthening my frock or fixing a half-baked cake when the electricity went off partway through. She is my mother and although my father died three and a half years ago, she still thinks of him and loves him as her Sameer.

Let there be colour.

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In this land of limited resources, every day we see ingenious use of everyday things – old saris stitched together to cover a car, old tyres reused as planting pots and old t-shirts repurposed for dusting or cleaning.

When I moved to the UK, I was horrified at the amount of paper that was binned for the smallest of reasons – a slight crinkle, a minor misprint, a tiny smudge. People failed to notice that there were two usable sides to every A4 sheet. If one side was unusable, the other was there to jot down a list, play knots and crosses, or simply, create a doodle. It is refreshing to return to a place where hardly anything is discarded as useless, unless it really is. The inventiveness of the people is inspiring, even though it is motivated by saving money. They probably don’t know it, but they are also helping save the environment.

Limitations can serve creativity. That is why deadlines work. They push you to finish. It is easier to write in response to a writing prompt as it focuses the mind. Newton came up with the Theory of Calculus in quarantine. Faith Ringgold was born in Harlem. She was an arts teacher who wanted to paint large canvasses but didn’t have the space needed. So, she started stitching themed pictures into quilts, which she could carry and display with ease.

Recently, I’ve been wondering if my creative efforts at teaching Spoken English to the local kids will be of any use to them in the long run. The school’s modus operandi is cramming. They have a verb for it – by-hearting. I believe corporal punishment is forbidden on paper, but you wouldn’t know that in practice. The rule remains stuck to the paper.

If nothing else, we create a few light moments in the day. Some colour, some play, some laughter, some movement. Maybe that’s enough for now.

Resources: How to be more creative: https://youtu.be/oTAdkDyVa9s?si=xFA3h5PEaZ-fIiuN

Hope?

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The old ones have not finished and today we have a new one. Yes. The world really needed another war. We, ordinary people needed to be shown the mirror again, as if we didn’t already bemoan our powerlessness. Impotent bystanders. Burning, yet totally ineffective. Quietly sitting, gazing at our phones, pretending to be immune to the bombs, the aggression, the assault on the Earth and its children.

This is not the first time, but it may be the last. History is revisiting, ringing the death knell, foreshadowing another erasure, another devastation. The imbalance of power in our world is showing us its ugly face again.

Vietnam. Cuba. Nicaragua. Libya. Syria. Panama. Iraq. Afghanistan. Venezuela. Now Iran.

I wonder which country starved, besieged and damaged generations across the world. The one that is quick to label others as a ‘Rogue state’.

Three years ago, Al Jazeera reported that 9 out of 10 Syrians were living under the poverty line. In a country that was once stable, diverse and culturally rich, many breadwinners were and still are unable to provide for their families. Young suicides are on the rise.

Abdul Hayy, a psychotherapist in Idlib says, “People in Northern Syria face conditions such as displacement, losing their homes, living in camps where they lose their privacy, as well as unemployment, poverty and an inability to adapt to the difficult conditions. This then leads to people losing hope and fearing the future, which appears as if it were getting worse.”

Humans are responsible for the extinction of many species. We might be next.

“Two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity. I’m not sure about the universe.”

– Albert Einstein.

New things.

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They opened her sister’s tummy and took out a thing that looked like a red chili. Their mother was very worried, but the doctor said ‘all went well’. She was so relieved, she brought her a blue silk purse embroidered with beads and sequins. She had managed to buy a nearly new one for pennies at the village market from a heap of random goods piled up on the roadside.

New things never happened to Amita. She was the fifth of six kids. One girl. 3 boys. Her. One more boy. Most of her childhood was spent in boy’s clothes. When she was seven, she could finally wear her sister’s tattered old frocks. All she wanted was something new.

Amita started complaining of tummy aches that were so strong she had to miss school. She hardly ate anything and became scrawnier every week. She looked sallow. Her parents took her from one doctor to the next. They were exasperated. Finally, the fifth doctor said they would have to open her tummy and look inside. Amita’s dream was coming true. She smiled inwardly. Her operation was scheduled for Monday.

On Sunday night, in her hospital bed she remembered when her aunt had come to visit from Bangalore, she had brought one plastic doll for the girls to share. Its golden hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. Her head was round with two very round brown eyes. When you lay her on her back, her eyelids closed over. Thick long black lashes touched her pink cheeks. On standing her up, the lids mechanically snapped open. Her elder sister claimed the doll all for herself. When no one was looking, Amita would hold the doll like a baby, rock it from side to side and stroke its cheeks.

On Monday morning, she was super-excited. As she was going off to sleep, the blue silk purse embroidered with beads and sequins danced in front of her eyes.

When she woke up, Amita had a huge red gash right down the middle of her tummy. It was so painful that she could hardly breathe but Amita didn’t care. She waited for her mum. When the visiting hour arrived, her mum brought her a gift – a red silk purse embroidered with beads and sequins. It was even more beautiful than the blue one. Amita felt victorious. She had a new thing, all for herself.  She could hardly wait to show it to the smiley nurse who routinely looked after her.

That night, Amita slept peacefully in her hospital bed, clutching on to her silk purse.

The next morning, the smiley nurse came in with a thermometer and placed the tip of it under Amita’s tongue with a smile. She then started writing her notes. Just then, Amita pulled out the purse from under her pillow and held it up for her to see, her eyes popping out but unable to speak.

“Oh! For me? How kind! Thank you.” said the nurse and received the purse with both her lovely hands.

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Resource: This story is inspired by an anecdote from the book “Nonviolent Communication. A language of Life.‘ by Marshall B. Rosenberg. PhD. In Chapter 4, he addresses the heavy cost of unexpressed feelings about unmet needs.