In Quest of the God of Small Things

I have mentioned in one of my posts that as a thinker, I am greatly influenced by postmodernist theories.  Postmodernist theories stem out from the premise that the objective truth is impossible. We are born to a system and beyond which we can’t exist. Which other system is universal to all societies other than gender? Class. In third world countries and especially in the Asian societies, this class structure is very rigid. When I speak of class I do not mere talk of the purchasing capacity of a group or indulge in that Marxian debate of proletariat and bourgeoisie. Class, this is especially true for the Indian society, comes with a set of values. It is this distinction that forms the oeuvre of the social commentaries and novels of that kind. Class divides, and these divisions become stronger when they are overlapped by any other such system of differences. For instance, in India caste is easily the determinant of your class. Studies prove that the lowest of the castes are the poorest of the country. Want to get a better example for overlapping differences? Consider the term: ‘Black Poverty’ in the context of America. These overlapping differences segregate a group from the rest of the society and in some extreme cases, it leads to a point where the parts no longer see themselves with the whole. The class structure of our society aided by the notorious caste system has caused deeply rooted divisions in our society. Class, dear reader, is a poignant force. The greatest of revolutions of the History of the Modern World are result of aspirations or anger of a particular class. And in our country elections have always been an implicit form of class struggle. The middle-class has been an effective force in this LS election across the borders of religions and creed by being victims of propaganda, the elite class by funding parties and the lowest class by voting in it. The top level plays, middle class loves to get played and the lower class is usually played upon.

One of the major events of my life was the discovery of the Russian Literature. It is literature of a century and a half before, when Russia unlike the Western Europe was an absolutist regime, which is my favourite.  Russia might today be a super power or as a totalitarian regime of the Soviet Union a big player in the world politics, but then it was poor and underdeveloped though large enough to be of significance. For those who want to read difficult things, try CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, and I swear by my pen, that if yours is a brain that thinks, you’d never be able to get over with Dostoevsky. It had this character Sonya, who owing to the difficult circumstances of her family had to resort to prostitution.  Russia was a society of tradition and had the same set of rigid values about sexuality that the rest of Europe had (though not equal to the Victorians) yet the characters were more than accepting about her. I am not talking about the University enthusiasts and radicals, but the ladies who were little better than an illiterate. While talking to a wise man about the book and this beautiful oddity, he said to me that those who are at the lowest strata in the society are the most open-minded. My experience since then has assured me that there was wisdom in his words.

The society that gives its members a second chance and treat them with understanding especially those who are abused in as traumatic a manner as Sonya was, deserves applause. We Indians have so many taboos about sex that the only reason that I think it is tolerated is procreation. While reading an article about the great crusader of rights for sex-workers, Sunita, I read as to how difficult the integration of the victims of sex-slavery is to the very society that at first abused them. The only examples of successful integration and that includes having a partner, were from the lowest strata of the society.  They were the people who worked with or and in some cases, married them.

I came to a conclusion. Taboos or any such abusive outlook only exist where they can be afforded to. If you do not have the luxury to entertain them, you’d not. Look at the figures of the victims of domestic violence, the majority of them who spoke against it were women who struggled to make ends meet.  I’ll give you another example, and this one is bang on. The first of the thirteen British colonies was planted in North America in the early decades of the sixteenth century. If you read the early history of the continent and how Europeans tried to survive in the wilderness of Prairies, you’d find heart rending tales of survival. What kind of society can be formed where you have to start from the scratch? I’d tell you one thing and you’d understand as to how hard America was: America was a land to be deported to for crimes. Now let’s get back to my question. The answer is very simple when you start from the scratch you have no time to entertain warts.  And so, marriages in America were arrangements, and also theirs were the first of the ladies to walk out of bad marriages. What would be the base of the society whose members have no possessions? They’d have nothing to guard and everything to earn, and to them ability is the only answer. So they were the first to have the feminist movements, divorce and concept of American dream (i.e equal start for everyone).  If you’ve read David Copperfield you’d recall that even a woman like Emily who had been totally lost by Victorian standards, could live with dignity and appreciation in the far-off land of Australia.

There’s this person of whom I am reminded of as I talk of lesser of the beings. I met her few months before and she won brownie points from me when I heard that despite of being an orphan, poor and uneducated the lady had guts to leave her alcoholic husband. Marriage, dear reader because of the importance that mankind has given to this institution, is quite a determinant of your character. The reason why you enter into it, why you stay in it and how you function while being in it, tells a lot about what a man or woman thinks of himself / herself. I’ve found best marriages in that stratum of the society. I am reminded of someone else too. This one came to take his aunt from our place one day, and in the fashion of those wagging tongues of the gossips, I picked up that he had married a woman of different faith. I could not help liking him for my diary records at least two love affairs that ended because the lovers belonged to different faiths and castes.

One of the many reasons as to why this class of the social structure is so accepting and accommodating is this that they move. This movement is not only physical but mental. A commendable feature of the otherwise saddening phenomenon of rural to urban migration is that these migrants when they come to a new society lead their lives entirely on their rules. Community might inspire words like ‘belonging’ in you, but it is beyond a second thought, in practice an enclosure.

I began by talking about elections and shall resort again to it. The power to vote is the best assurance of security that a state can provide to its citizens. No matter what wonderful connotation that people may attach to the Constitution like that it is the instrument of their empowerment or the result of their values and ideals, it is best defined as a security against the exploitation. This is the definition that I believe in. In practice, our judicial system (since we are talking about exploitation alone) is class conscious. I don’t say that poor aren’t given justice but they’re not allowed to overcome victimization. The extremely time consuming nature of our judiciary contributes greatly to it. Do you want a proof of it? Just see the number of under trials. They are a large number but they are small things for the state to be bothered about.

I am no authority on politics, my fame rests only on my good sense. I have grown up hoping for a better India, and comparing ourselves with those who are better off. I have learnt that the only parameter for evaluating a country’s state is the state of its citizens. Ours is deplorable.  Majority of Indians struggle to make ends meet, and so all our economic policies must be chiefly aimed at them. They say India is a land of resources, but I say, India is the resource. The only resource that a country can’t do away with in order to survive is the human resource. Yes, those large figures but small things! Rest everything, natural gas, petroleum, coal, flora or fauna is secondary. India’s large population is not a problem. Just a convenient excuse for all maladministration and chaos that we choose to live with! We do not invest in our human resource. We do not tend to those small things.  I read a lot about communism for almost a year, before coming to a conclusion that it talked more of domesticated animals than a thinking man. This quite naturally led me to think of something that’s the opposite of it.  A friend of mine is an active supporter of capitalism and he advocated capitalism for India. Most of us have grown up seeing the prosperity of America and have developed a favoured outlook towards it which I suspect is the case with my friend. On paper, capitalism makes sense. But remember one thing when you talk of capitalism: It is never just about the business. Big capitalists have always been king makers, and so do not be surprised if you find major parties taking hefty funds from prominent business groups. I would always have problem if my leaders are influenced by anyone but me. The result is not surprisingly, that the world’s largest democracy is the most people-unfriendly too.

A little time before when the newly formed NDA government released its railway budget, our gardener came one morning looking disgusted. My mother questioned him. He told her that now he had to think thrice before taking his family to his parental village. With the great hike in fares, it was impossible for his family of six to make more than two visits in a year. It is never easy to survive in a city for an emigrant for the cost of living is usually high. A cousin with marked apathy towards the fellow remarked that he should’ve never brought his family with him. For haven’t wives and children lived with their in-laws and grandparents respectively before? Let’s keep the fact that an urban setting provides better educational and health care facilities aside for a while, and think again what we are truly asking from the man. How can you possible ask a man to live for months without his family, and to become nothing but an ATM for them?  Then they complain about the rise in crimes and especially the sexual ones. Sex is a great relief and recreation. If you keep their partners away and continue to suffocate them with that pressure of urban life without a release, these sexual crimes are bound to happen. I know that rise in fares is justified and as they said necessary too. But there’s larger truth to every policy or political move. It is always about people.

To think that someone is lesser than you merely because he or she does not have as fancy a life as you have, tells that you’re incapable of reason. I am neither less than any man who sits in an SUV nor more than any one who walks for miles because he can’t afford a ride. The only thing for which you are allowed to be proud of is your character. Nothing else… 

I have worked in an NGO and, have seen families leave their children in shelter-homes because they are not able to provide for them. It is heart rending to see that desperation and helplessness. I am neither a charitable person nor kind. But I am just. Of all the forms of justice known to societies the most underrated ones are economic and social justices. India of my dreams is a just society. By denying that god of small things, we’ve given birth to devils. Let’s hope we are not devoured by them.

The Rhymes of a Lover

The air is sharp as windy spirits howl at my door.

And the sky is soon overcast with every cloud being lured,

To thaw loud enough to deafen, and blind as it turns black from azure.

I recognize the familiar conspiracy: “Many a battle was fought on sunny days,

But lovers always have only the tempests to grace.”

It’s the hour, the pendulum tells me. You’d say it’s not wise,

But I’d go as promised, for a man is sized

To his little finger if love can’t make him rise.

I’ve gathered some blossoms for her as you see it lying there!

A lovely corsage to rest on her vibrant ginger hair!

Forgive me for being dandy, but a little powder is a want

A man must always look at himself—make additions to his charms!

Before he suitably takes his place in his lady’s arms!

I see, you’ve been looking at my stump. Yes! I am maimed.

Because Sir, they always punish the body, if souls are untamed!

Since you’ve stayed so long, I guess you’ve been hearing of my melody,

I sing not of wars, strife or heroes---that’s a capital perjury!

I play the cries of new-borns. Not of wounds but recovery!

I quench that innate thirst- to be, to have and to make enough,

In celebration of your being! Sir, I sing of love.

You can’t hear it today for I am in haste. You see, she’s on road.

It’s of no use to reason, to dissuade and goad

Me to not to go!  For me of all the men, you can’t hold.

Many a man has died of sickness, wounds and scourge.

I’ll end best! Sir, there’s no greater glory than to die of love.

I do not sing of dividing of rivers and, more,

For they can’t divide waters but divide oars.

Nor we would ascend to heavens, or examine sores

Of the sinned spirits. It is too great to talk of death.

And so am I for my fame would in the living rest.

Oh! So you wish to accompany me? Then,

Let’s go! She says that I don’t have enough friends.

The introduction with you, would make some amends.

She’ll know that I have not abandoned the world.

Though Sir, I believe, she’s for me, one soul enough.

Be careful and wade through the water! It’s slyly seeping through our feet

You see that fence across! There, we had our first meet.

Our eyes met, cheeks blushed, and then the smiles would greet,

There after each other.  It was there that I came to recognize

That she didn't worship my god, and forever kept that recognition tossed aside.

The music that you hear is from that corner-----by that lone tree!

The merriest place, I knew! It was the shed for many of our clandestine sprees.

 For lovers are nowhere happier than in bed---- it now sings an elegy.

I see you raise brows. You must be an Indian—denying but rough!

My friend! Love without desire is as degenerate as desire without love.

Look, we have come to the square.  The tempests still rage,

And if you look at the sky Sir, it’s not likely, in anytime, to assuage.

Do not mistake the anxiety on my visage.

I fear not for me, but with deepening of darkness, she’d be terrified,

She is alone and lonely, and I must run to be there to pacify.

Ah Sir! Come see, this was where I gathered her after she broke into pieces,

Into my arms.  And declared, of all for me, she is it

The heavenly apple, courteous banana and deceptive peaches!

Love Sir, though it unites, is a plural.

It is tactile, loud and above all, preconditioned to be mutual.

We have reached. Just a walk more! But I see you are unclear,

Oh it is just the lightening that wears

One’s courage. C’mon! Jump over the fence and come here.

But seeing his companion shocked and paralyzed

He abandoned him, and moved alone towards the graveyard, on his right.

He mutely watched as a pathetic soul walked upon those yellow pestilence-stricken paths,

He saw him sit down as he placed the wreath, and end his pilgrimage,

As the blades of fallen leaves were carried away, the timid moon read her epitaph:

“Love is neither death nor life,

Neither unbroken peace nor continuous strife,

It mounts from little to reach much,

For love is to live with and for something, which death can touch.”

Beyond What Is A Man And What Must Be A Woman

NOTICE: Yes, it is long for it wasn't meant to be a nursery rhyme. Do not read it if you are foolish or coward or obedient for it might cause your blood pressure to shoot to dangerous levels.  

We all grow up under a collective unit as children and get divided into a man or woman only in our adolescence. While the puberty widens our definition of our body,  the identification by gender narrows the scope of it. I grew up in an extremely patriarchal family but studied in a co-ed school, which I believe, was the saving grace of my life. Therefore in an ironical way my greatest friends are boys.

During the last year of my school life, when discussions over my future became a regular affair I realized how strong gender is and how strongly is it embedded in our minds. This hit me as a strong blow for before this I had never believed that the world can be unjust to me (we all live with myths about ourselves!) . Whatever I read or saw or heard, I could not help but notice sexism. To me the world had suddenly become an awful place to live in. I felt that there are not only two major divisions in humanity but two entirely different worlds coexisting on the same planet---one so idealized… so dominant that the other has been pushed to the periphery! My newly gender conscious mind, noticed for the first time that all ad films show women standing by the dining table while their family members ate. This standing by the side phenomenon no matter what brilliant digestive reason one attributes it to was a revolting sight for me. As the days passed, the fact that in spite of being able bodied, I was immobile like an invalid started to haunt me. I have already told you that I think hard, and therefore wrung my grey matter for next two years to make sense of gender. Like many beginners, for a long time, I revolved around that preliminary protection clause that has justified belittling of women since centuries. If you are a good reader you’d have come across sentences like he took her into his protection.  

One fine morning while putting clothes over the line, it occurred to me that to protect means to say that the protected is vulnerable and therefore, can be exploited. Protection implicitly declares a potent possibility of exploitation. And this is not just a semantic inaccuracy but I believe a philosophical shortcoming. Textbooks define gender in different but insufficient terms and since I do not beat about the bush, I’d be very exact in its definition: Gender is a philosophy. And like all major philosophies of life affirmation, it draws sanction from fear. Fear that you’d be destroyed if you choose to be otherwise than what is espoused. Alternative will be frowned upon, threatened and excommunicated. That explains 377.

My heart soon overflowed with disgust against the whole world. Since there is no alternative world where I can live in, my hatred against the existing one made me to increasingly withdraw from all social conventions. I remember how at nights I had found it hard to sleep and stared at walls up till dawn. Happiness includes positive thoughts. I was entertaining none of those. I  was sad and convinced that life is beyond repair. Marquez says that everyone whether satisfied or dissatisfied has a secret life. If I have to tell you what was mine at that time, I’d use three words: distrustful, cynical and hateful. Ya! I was melancholic. In the mornings the newspapers would be full of instances of violence against women and that only made the world more hateful for me. Violence against women has always existed in large measures in the society but it had never been so much discussed nor so greatly reported. In a way, this has been the best of times for women. Anyway, protection question was bound to stay with me for a long time. I even read an article that described the paranoia over sexual violence by saying that we live with rape schedule (that our lives are guided by the fear of being raped). One morning I began to think what if men were similarly under the threat of castration? Will they be confined to their houses and think of themselves as an invalid as I did?  That something can be destroyed is a reason enough to not to let it grow?

Time eventually provided answer to my ‘protection’ question but in a very tragic way. It relieved my mind greatly but I shall always be sorry for the medium in which some peace was restored to my troubled heart. It so happened that a friend's brother had been missing since days. He had gone to a relative's and in spite of being warned took a bus at night. After informing his parents on phone that he was coming back, nothing was heard of him. His body was finally found on a route that the bus wasn't taking which implied that he had fallen prey to those gangs of highway thieves. He was a man and yet was exploited. 

I realized that 'Protection' is a fancy word. It might fan the vanity of one in power and saves the vulnerable the trouble of looking over her shoulders, but it is fundamentally flawed. Self-defence is what we are born with and anything that promises more than that is making a fool of you. Have you ever tried to raise a toddler into air? If yes, you’d have noticed how tightly he grasps your hand so that he doesn't fall. Self-defence is our innate tendency. When you do not defend yourself or are denied of that birth right, the result is, quite naturally--lawlessness in the society, as is the case with India. This self-defence argument is in fact the basis of gun laws in many nations. The state can’t protect every citizen. The family can’t protect an individual. And therefore I concluded that ‘protection’ is a misnomer. But this was just the beginning for me for when you try to reason with something as invasive as gender making inquiries is rather a lifelong phenomenon. The more I thought, the more miserable I became. I suffered. It was the days when I stopped maintaining a journal. My entries became irregular for my heart was full with despondency so great that I could not talk of myself truthfully and for the record, I’d die before being dishonest with my pen. 

"The world has always been divided into masculine and feminine", said I to myself. This is ancient but since I do not believe in eternal recurrence, there must’ve been an origin. Therefore I examined many prevailing philosophies with which we tend to make sense of our existence to understand how it began. I discovered not surprisingly considering the state of the society, every single one of them to be greatly sexist in their concepts. This necessitates a short discussion over religions. All Abrahamic religions glorify the status of the obedient wives while warning that when women are left to themselves they err like Eve who led to the Fall. The Bible even says that the Satan approached Eve because she was weaker of the two sexes. This was as bad as Manusmriti. As a teenager, I had asked my father as to why some Islamic states believe that the statement of one man equals that of two women.  To this he had replied that women are emotional. I would not get into those debates of supremacy of heart over mind, but in this case, what I deduced was that it sugar coated the fact that it held women as dishonest. Abrahamic religions mention scores of prophets. In Islam the figure is above lakhs and then there are four esteemed prophets-Moses, David, Jesus and Mohammad, but none of those lakhs of prophets was a woman. It seems like God has been partial to a particular sex for making all divine revelations. Once I sneaked into a philosophy class where they were discussing Descartes. The professor said that we have vision of an ideal supreme self. That ideal self is God. They say, God is projection of human ego into the Universe. That ego is invariably a male.

Every marginalized community has always looked back to history, dwelt in its facts and tried to ascertain the causes of the social injustice done to them. Similarly as my abhorrence for gender roles increased, I began to look into history to understand the exact origins of this philosophy. I began with this premise:  the Noble Savage wasn't a chauvinist. This is supported by the fact that the tribal societies always had greater gender equality. Many tribal societies living in India had been unknown to sexual violence until independent India introduced them to it. That means they never had those foolish ideas of 'protection'.  Let's not forget that the great river Amazon was named after seeing women warriors on its banks. I went for Marx too. The Marxist History which claims that history is progressive and would culminate at a point, says that the primitive society was the society of Mothers' Rights. It remained a mystery to Marx as to how that ideal primitive society was converted to that of Father's Rights. Marx believed that sexual monopoly had its origins with that of private property. When a piece of land was owned, its master demanded that it must be his children who should reap the harvest. Therefore the woman must belong only to him. So, sexual monopoly was an important event in the history, and perhaps the single greatest contributor to the eventual domination of the philosophy of gender. And then not to mention, these confined ladies bore children by scores. As nurturing increasingly became job of mothers and only mothers', little time could be devoted to anything else. Virginia Woolf rightly aims at this in her classic essay A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN when she asks women to have babies by twos not tens. (Read it and I give you my word you’d be give a feast to your mind.) I remember, I wrote somewhere that birth control has been single greatest contributor in women’s movements.

As a thinker, I have been greatly influenced by postmodernist studies but I do not deny that the grand tradition of which T.S Eliot talked of is a potent force if not in our literature then definitely in our psyche. The figures that attract us-of whom we talk of—aren’t they gender stereotypes? Think please. What does our history and our culture and, the dead part of it—the literature offers us? We as Indians have no heroines who left their husbands or took many lovers. Since I believe marriage as an institution represents the most concrete form of philosophy of gender, I have only searched for instances where women walked out of their marriage. And I must tell you we have no significant examples of it. One of my Hindu friends was of opinion that Draupadi was what I have been searching for. Draupadi is definitely one of the mightiest achievements of our culture but she, if you read the Mahabharata well, carries within her the seeds of that sexual monopoly I’ve talked of. She is in a way the best example of what I am trying to establish. Draupadi though took different husbands in turn, was an eternal virgin. That’s the material point. In cultures of virginity like ours, this is important to note that are heroines have always been sexually pure. We live still in that centuries old ideals of sexual purity and this can be gauged in phrases that we use like ‘outraging her modesty’. In one of those many readings it occurred to me that Paganism has been more liberal to women than any of our monotheistic faiths. We grow up with tales about sexual monopoly over women. You take a wife. I have to yet come across a sentence that said she took a husband. 

 On a journey on a train, I saw a man sitting at the door of the carriage. I was tempted and wanted to similarly sit at the edge. This sight has been produced in motion pictures umpteen number of times. But there has always been a man at the door, never a woman. As a child, I was so fascinated with adventure tales that I wanted to be a swords-woman and sincerely dreamt of putting down heavy weights in duels. When you reach puberty that difference between physical strength of a girl and a boy starts to show strongly. One learns to accept that the boys are strong. I only stopped dreaming of becoming a swords-woman in my late adolescence. This made me think: Were the earliest of women suppressed by that sheer superior physical strength? H.G Wells in his HISTORY OF THE WORLD tells about some other specie of genus homo who lived in tribes and as to how when one of these tribes would attack the other, females would be abducted so that victors have necessary mediums to increase their numbers. If Wells is factually correct then subjugation of women as an event in history was a very early occurrence. Is muscle strength a determinant of a sex’s supremacy? The answer came in a moment of inspiration. I smiled as I took my pen in hand and wrote this down: Elephants are any day stronger than humans but humans rule the planet.

Gender is abusive. To both the sexes. While it weakens women, it denies tenderness to men. Since the law of a nation represents the psyche of its people, it becomes necessary to see how law in practice has gender as its guiding force. Since men are believed to be aggressive and score low on warmth traits, the custody of a child is rarely given to the father. Last year while conducting a psychology experiment, I found that not even 30% of the sample attributed warmth traits to men. If you want to see how gender abuses men just take a look at divorce cases. I never believed in those grand tales about motherhood. Parents no matter what revered position they occupy in our Asian grand tradition see their children as an extension of their own selves. Psychologists have noted that notions of power have a lot to do with parenthood. I know I am digressing but the point I’m trying to make is that the motherhood is not divine. The philosophy of gender has glorified motherhood so greatly that father has been reduced to nothing but a material provider, and at hand security guard. 

No matter what divine status we attribute to womankind, the truth is that that none of those grand narratives that we grow up with treats them as equals. I have a high self-esteem and ardently in love with myself. If anything said, believed or practised belittles me, I'd discard it that very moment. When you question even one aspect of the system that you are born into, very soon you’d begin to question every other aspect too.  I never thought that taking the course of feminism would one day leave me as a borderline nihilist. The best part about thinking about a woman to be equal to a man in all terms is that you also begin to take a man equal to another, beyond the divisions of class, race, religion and caste. It certainly makes you a better person.

While crossing the I.T square, I saw a couple making queries to a tempo driver about a ride. While the man negotiated, the woman stayed behind. I felt a fire in the pit of my stomach and I realized how dangerously I had begun to hate gender. It was time to come to an understanding about the storms that had been raging in my mind for almost two years. What was that I sought to establish? The fact is that I hoped for a world beyond what is a man and what must be a woman, is because I want my identity to be exclusive of the many notions that comes with my biological capabilities. 

 A sensible creature once said to me: “Nida, gender is in the very fabric of the society. You may be the best of the specie but still you’d be defined in words as half-witted as a ‘woman’”. I hate to admit this but he was right. We all see the world the way it is and then think how it ought to be and finally are disgusted by the chasm between the two. This helplessness and disappointment over belonging to a part that is beyond repair is one of the greatest sufferings ever known to the mankind. I wanted to be argumentative not passionate in this entry, but let me tell you, as a friend, it has been a painful and lonely journey. I took it because I want to live a life stripped off illusions, and become a self-sufficient being. I want to be honest and just, and free. Gender doesn't let you to be any of the three. But for the record, I am fine now. 

Gender as a philosophy originated through some historical forces, and became dominant by grand narratives that led to foundation of monotheistic faiths. I conclude by hoping in good faith that a millennium or two later this philosophy with perhaps similar play of some historical forces would be supplanted by something that is inclusive of individuals not divisive into types.