God Is Green

 

Winter is said to bring in a large number of migratory birds to Savar in Bangladesh, the place where this writing on the wall said, the God is Green.

 Indeed two of three large lakes were filled with them. The three lakes happen to be in Jahangir Nagar University campus.

 

I did not expect the place to be particularly different from Dhaka. Still, I was disappointed to see construction all over.

 

Young and park variety trees indicate that the indigenous trees have diminished and the new ones are part of plantation drives.

 

A friend informed that the birds start coming here from November and remain until March. She recollected the birds used to fully cover by the lakes’ surfaces.

 

Compared to this description, the number of the birds seemed small. It seems that the number of birds took a nose dive due to poor environmental conservation and a lack of protection.

 

In the last two or three years, the number has improved but unless pollution is controlled, construction minimized and made environment friendly, fishing in the lakes checked, spraying of insecticides stopped, and noise pollution caused by those in the campus and visitors' vehicle and blaring music systems regulated, this habitat of the migratory birds will remain under threat.

I hope. I wish.

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The Capital, the Business and the Labour

Is this too strong?

"The globalization of the capital and businesses without much attention to ethical employment generation at one end and a large working population and poor application of the labour standards at the other end has resulted in the ‘commoditization-of-labour’. It is a transaction process in between these too ends where, at some point, labour has no human features that differentiate it from the raw materials, tools and equipments needed for producing consumable products, and the businesses buy."

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ढाका शहर

Photo: asiaexplorers

अगर दमड़ी है दीवारें मिल जाएँगी

जिनकी ज़मीन हमारे पाँव न छू पायेंगे

जिनका छत हमारी पहुँच से बाहर होगी

जहाँ पर मिट्टी ज़मीन का नाता न होगा

मिट्टी सिर्फ़ उड़ती धूल होगी

जहाँ आसमान पर भी ताले होंगे

आसमान सिर्फ़ हवाई जहाज़ की गूँज में होगा

गाड़ियों की शोर होगी

आदमियों, औरतों और बच्चों की चीखा-चिल्ली मिलेगी

पानी जहाँ सूख चुकी होगी

पेड़ जहाँ गमलों में जीते हैं

हम रहेंगे उन दीवारों के साथ

ज़मीन और आसमान के बीच कहीं त्रिशंकु की तरह

लटके हुए हम किसी मालदार की जेब भरेंगे

दीवारें सारी-की-सारी उन्ही की तो हैं

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Define freedom!

You, the owner of a free will, have chosen to struggle.
You are the possessor of moral might.
You snatched away the mask of benignity that the power-holders wore.
You are reciting.
You are chanting.
You are singing.
Freedom!

Bahrain, you are marching to the light today

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F I R E

Seething -

Suppressed

Fermented

Turmoil took over the streets

"The Arab Spring"                                                                     

Flickering -

Distressed

Anxious

Fear crossed his face as the crowd  impersonated him

“Gaddafi”                                                                                    

Dancing -

Rhythmically

Passionately

They moved and were laid to rest
“Children of Syria”                                                                                        

Spreading -

Wings

Horizon

Flame to flame words multiplied mocking boundaries
“Crack Down on Internet Freedoms”                                                           

 

Slowly -

Determinately

Sensitively

Joining hands they walked
“The Arab Women”                                                                          



Energetically -

Emotionally

Forcefully

They led from the front

“Young Men and Women in the Arab Region”                  

 

  

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Idiosyncratics

I have not reached here alone
Walking the path of reason
I carried a baggage
A load that prevails over the idioms of sanity

I journeyed along passion
Delighting in pain and anger
I have been rooted in emotions
Attached to the warmth of frustration

I could not fill normative spaces
While walking with a desire to belong
I must set out my agenda
A ripple in the calm water

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Flights

In a yet another ‘new’ place
Sense of being tied down to nothingness remains
Roving freely into unknown lanes
Searching for a place to sleep sound, I stare
A desire to be obscure stays
Deepened by the familiarity unattained
Known-unknown probe go unrestrained

I know the migrant birds
I notice them always
Pigeons, the rooted survivors, are known too
I look for expanse, for existence unshackled
The lack of conviction disturbs
The movement of the migrant birds
Instigates a desire to move on

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The Usual Story

In the continuum of life and death, power in the fraternal order is mandatory

Blood ties draw blood from blood ties, forcing submission ordering conformity

The design of an active will, depends on succour of servility

Fear folded into corporeal bodies, weigh differently depending on who’s the owner

Life at stake some can exist only in shadows, most sign a pact with fear

Being born as we are we instinctively submit, the status as derivative gets naturalized

Fluid as water fear trespasses, intensity accentuates to numb the surroundings

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Why Marriage?

Some years back, we faced this question in a development course. Two of the discussants divided the question into two: Why Women marry? Why men marry? One of them kept the discussion to the basic issues and the other went in-depth into negotiation, survival needs and social and cultural options. Both peeked at the household economic models and theories like the ‘Black Box’, Neoclassical, and Bargaining/ Co-operative, etc. Both came to the same conclusion that women and men marry based on a personal perception of well-being. This perception, according to one of them, is a result of a negotiation between a woman/man’s survival needs and socio-cultural constructions of what ‘personal well-being’ means.

Taking Amartya Sen’s example of a rural Indian woman, who is not likely to extract her own welfare from that of her household and conceive of her own well-being as separate from that of her family’s, the discussant argued that the household, therefore, is the locus of inequality where discrimination and exploitation of women’s labour get naturalized. In other words, a woman from my part of the world is likely to marry based on what she considers to be her well-being but which may not necessarily be her well-being. Does this mean a North American or European woman is more likely to marry based on her sense of ‘personal well-being’, which is more individual centered and that she is more likely to be able to deconstruct the larger structures of inequality and thereby better placed to negotiate her position in the family? This is another debate and we shall come to it some other day. For today, so far, we have one reason which may make women and men inclined to get married. Let's look at some other reasons also.

The brokers of the सात फेरा, मंगलसुत्र, गठबंधन, सिंदूर, the wedding ring, et al or those who market the practice of marriage as ‘the holy state’ of matrimony tend to ascribe some sacredness and centrality of this practice for the institution called family. These brokers, in general, have a big say in the decision to marry, whether to be taken by the individual or the relatives, and/or the family. In some contexts, even when people have little more than a token affiliation with a religion, they tend to stick to the religious boundaries when it comes to marriage. This is not always based on a fear of reprimand or being ostracized. Rather it is based on deep seated belief in the advantages of segregation based on religious affiliation. This belief has a profound influence in the decision about who is fit to mate or is sacred enough to be a partner in personal and family life.

The brokers insist that all the matches for ‘this world’ are made in the ‘other world’ and that it is the duty of the follower to accept the person who the god selected for them. Marriage itself is regarded as a religious obligation by them. Among people who have an inclination to accept that they have a duty to marry, procreation has special value attached to it. Children are the gifts from the god or marriage and children come as a package gift from the god. In other words, religious brokers emphasize shared beliefs in religion, marriage and procreation as a foundation for the continuation of particular faiths, beliefs and way of conducting life. No wonder divorce is a taboo subject in the books of the brokers because ‘What God hath put together, let no man [or woman] put asunder’. But divorce is another [related] issue, not to be brought into today’s discussion [though an interesting one to understand how even when religion says yes to divorce, how religio-legalities disallow it].

The sociologists believe that marriage is a practice to establish a social order. Through marriage women and men are put together in a relationship of social and legal obligations to fulfill social and economic objectives. It is believed that marriage is a good way to put people’s mental and physical health, sex life, solid and liquid assets in an organized state. It is an institution that allows people to meet their sexual desires in a manner that doesn’t harm anybody [or so we like to believe]. It also helps bring together people with greater commitment and therefore provide a safer ground for procreation and responsible environment for bringing up children.

There is no doubt about the economic value of marriage [albeit disputed by some men]. Women have been free labour, partly thanks to the practice of marriage [remember, the complimentarity argument]. The many justifications for marriage advanced through centuries have one angle which has to do with ‘value’-based labour which leads to communal and family wellbeing and another angle of ‘income-based’ labour which brings income to the community and the family. The history of these arguments have subordinated the ‘value’-based labour and elevated the ‘income-based’ labour. The economic argument in an age when the ‘income-based labour has been making more sense to more and more number of women and there is considerable increase in educational and political equality, seems to be fading away. We will come back to this point a little later.

Then there is the whole economy of marriage where the marriage is seen as a contract. This particular reason for marriage does not quite stand on its own. Rather it stands as a dimension in all the above arguments and will remain, in my opinion, a factor in any other current or future reasons for marriage. A marriage contract can be visible or invisible; stated or assumed; or legal or social. For centuries, marriage has involved contracts like the dowry that a bride’s family gives to the groom’s family, the bride price that a groom’s family gives to the bride’s family [they are not to be confused as the same because the theories behind are completely different], exchange of women through marriage for settling disputes between families, giving a daughter or a sister in marriage for settling a debt or to earn goodwill and so on. These practices may sound like buying, selling, discounting and writing off or collateral and the kind that takes place in a market place. Indeed, these practices are exactly that. These contracts also create a lot of employment for people willing to serve as brokers [who are often clan members, church leaders, mullahs, priests, village or community elders, and the like].

In a secular legal context, the terms and conditions of a marriage contract may not have so much of economic angle but does have implications for how responsibilities will be attended and by whom. It is also a way to safeguard the rights of the contracting parties by registration and legitimizing by the state.

In many societies since history began and in the larger visible societies in the last century or so, there have been some departures from the above-mentioned reasons. Marriage here is seen as a relationship between individuals for mutual comfort and assistance and so the personal compatibility issues are as important as procreative and contract aspects of the practice. Now with the lessening of the some other dimensions of the marriage, the centrality of this practice to a family and communal life of an individual has also weakened. Alternatives to marriage are growing as a practice and marriage is increasingly being viewed as essentially an additionality that strengthens the emotional bonding and trust because of some level of social and contractual security that it brings with it.

The alternatives to marriage tend to require a lot of other things but often less commitments of social and contractual/legal nature. This is one of the reasons why some men are a game for the alternatives because they get comforts of a relationship without being responsible for it. Some of them, on the other hand, resent the women’s preference for the alternatives because they stand to lose out on the ‘value’-based labour or the fact that a woman is not willing to commit makes them feel insecure. But alternatives to marriage do not necessarily make the relationships any more egalitarian. Individuals, due to these two factors among several other possible reasons, find themselves participating in inequitable relationships, which leads to both emotional stress and stress in the relationship. The more inequitable the relationship, the more stress they face. So in a nutshell, if not the reasons related to community and family, marital-economics or contracts, the individual needs of emotional security and commitment bring the focus back on marriage in the alternatives to marriage because it is seen as a demonstration of those two qualities. But even without marriage, any real or perceived emotional or material inequity in the relationship has an effect on intimacy and continuation of the relationship. But breakup is not something that we will discuss today!

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Are you listening, respectable Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ji?

Don't be a Spooked Buck, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ji.

Let me start afresh as if born again; erase memory as if nothing ever existed; and grow up right as if there are no strictures. These have been occasional thoughts in the last one year. A friend called it a mid-life crisis. As for being born again, it’s scary; it took years of whip-whap before arriving somewhere close to autonomy. Would it be wise to undo what has taken almost half the life? Life experiences say no. As for memory, there are moments when the life has been full of light, positive energy and joy. Would it be worth erasing all that for a memory of the future that may not even have even a speck of light? The brain says no. And as for growing up all over again, there’s no indication of a human being ever being fully autonomous because we learn depending on where we come from, where we are, what we see and how we have been oriented to see, ie, growing up without strictures is a notion. The biological clock, too, says no because there is only decay in the future, protect all the learning and keep exercising the gray cells. An acquaintance called it a mid-life wisdom.

This is, and will continue to be, my personal dilemma. The issue of starting afresh, however is not limited to private lives. Striking a balance between the past, present and future, and issues in acknowledging the rights and wrongs are a common dilemma in the public life too.

So respectable Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ji, if you do not rise today we will fall, not just you. We will allow achievements of the last six decades to go waste because you want to negotiate afresh as if the corrupt past never existed and today is not tainted. We cannot start afresh or hope for a corruption free future when we know that we stand on a corrupt ground. Use your imagination to gain from the experiences of the past and apply them for the betterment of the future just as you use your financial acumen when you deal with the statistics of the industrial growth rate or monetary and fiscal policies. Own everything; take possession of all things, right or wrong, in the full faith that they are actually yours because the governance institutions under you created them or practice them. If you would do that we would able be to draw inspiration from the positives of the past, learn from the mistakes of the past and stand with the strength of the past to visualize a future in which we would be able to deal with corruption.

The notion of starting afresh evokes beginning, the right formation … there’s a freshness about this notion. It indicates a learning based on a particular experience, a new way that would set the future right. It smells so spring-like that the exact troubling events get obscured by the idea of ‘the new’ and the problems, abuses and misuses, humiliations, embarrassments, conflicts, and all that is wrong get buried under the layers of ‘the new’. We forget that the past is like fossil fuel, which with one match-stick, goes on fire and with that goes that artificially created ‘the new’. These are the fears of starting afresh. Right or wrong but it cannot be denied that starting afresh without recognizing and addressing the problematic issues we cannot go far. The stench of yesterday always catches up with the fragrance of tomorrow.

So respectable Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ji, no doubt you are one of the few political leaders to have achieved almost universal respect for your integrity but it’s not just about you, it is about the conduct of the institutions you deal with, and you know that what rots needs to be parted with.

I felt for you the day you had to sit with the media and say that you are not corrupt. You don’t have to do this. We know you are not. But you need to open your eyes. Please have the courage to take the responsibility of the wrongs and deal with them. Move from token actions, make amends. Reparation is a forward looking basis when the loss is reparable. When it is as it is now, indemnify, make amends, be good, restitute trust, .... and look forward, take up the past, own the present and the future, start again, start afresh!

There are many other issues on which I would like you to lend an ear, like, the naxal movement and the state violence, development induced displacement, the quota for women in the legislative bodies and public services, education and child labour, violence against women and girl children, and so on. But today, I will be content if you would show some humility to accept your mistakes and limitations related to the issue of corruption.

Are you listening, respectable Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ji?

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energy

the sound from the laptop dims
and another grows louder – a faint whirlish whoosh
it’s a spinning wheel set on a torso
weaving.

the stories exaggerate the imprints
she stamps her foot and snorts her nose
but freshness deludes
breathless.

the smell of inside suffocates
and the juice rushes outside – fits of convulsions
the arid suck thirstily
parched.

weary tongue screams in protest
joined by droning noise of the radio
but the sound loses the sight of the direction
disoriented.

her eyes search for a small recess
but many others glare – all contemptible
sitting cross-legged nowhere she stares back
emptiness.

years of hollow existence
she remembers yesterday with clarity
but finds each new day blurry
fatigued

hands play laboriously on the keyboard
the mind tries to switch off – alternating sleep
holding scratch of this and that
restless.

closer scrutiny reveals countless traces
and dialogue flings open inlaid patterns
still it’s a smudged appearance
madness.

switching off the laptop and the radio
she laughs quietly – a satirized version
maintaining a precarious hold on sanity
recharged?

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Ego

The surface of emotions
Aligned with ego and formed
An intricate organ
Without the outline of a body.

Yet, powerful with agency to manoeuvre
The inner workings clear yet invisible
Inward imposed on outward
Without in-flesh to project the reality.

The point to point destruction
Achieved without giving away
The deception of calm
The façade of justice prevailed

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Fears That Consume Our Lives

We are humans after all and it is all right to be afraid but afraid of things that we need to be afraid of. Why is it that most of us try to lead or chart our lives in a manner that seems value-laden but inside so many of us are hollow; we cheat at any given opportunity, would lie to cover-up a wrong-do, or malign somebody else, abuse or exploit, misuse other’s resources, and power and access, when we have them. The fear that consumes our lives is not that we may not be leading a useful and value-based life. The fear that dominates is that what we really are will come out in the open. This leads to the other corrupt attempts at buying goodwill, silence and respect.

Fear in itself it not a bad thing. It can be an important factor in determining how we can be useful and how much we can accomplish within one lifetime. In this process, mistakes can be made but if the mistakes were not linked to negative characteristics or behaviour, the true acceptance of the mistakes will not be such a big issue. However, if the mistakes were linked to hollowness of our character, it would lead to a fear of making mistakes and getting exposed. Otherwise, the mistakes will be the points in life from which we could learn and move on.

It is also futile to indulge too much in gratifying the self because of the fear that tomorrow could be the end of the lifetime. This leads to a mad rush to please the senses by indulging in meaningless adventures, thoughtless attempts to conquer the nature, and do all the ‘Dos’ without knowing that really makes a life worthwhile or pleasurable. If the fears were to be that the life is unpredictable we lack the knowledge and resources to make it worthwhile for ourselves and the others, whether it is short or long, it may lead us to a lifestyle that makes us capable of intellectual and emotional growth in the present and encourages us to lead a sustainable lifestyle that would keep that growth on track in the future.

We often tend to brand ourselves as this or that type of person and the fears of losing that brand identity are so high that we end up putting all sorts of blindfolds and pressures on ourselves to appear true to that brand type. In the process we restrict ourselves from different information, experiences, knowledge that enrich life and bring growth in it. If the fear were that we may no longer be dynamic, it would push us to receive and share experiences and knowledge and help us explore lives that are harmonious and integrated with the others.

Often we undermine or ridicule others’ thinking, their way of living even when it is most harmless, and emotions because we lack a sense of security in ourselves. We may appear confident and to the others we may appear arrogant but that arrogance is often nothing more than intellectual insecurity deep down. The fear of our intellectual inadequacy getting exposed keeps us in the company of those who would indulge us and even when we are being the most obnoxious will make us feel like a messiah. Such people, perhaps, see through our insecurity, and therefore, are able to exploit it. By not accepting that we may not be the most intellectual or better than the others, we allow ego-centric growth which eventually takes away our capacity to learn and to develop relationships of selfless bonding and care because we start seeking ego gratification from every person who is in our lives or who we encounter in our lives. A fear of getting trapped in an intellectual or physical coterie, on the other hand, could help us develop genuine friendships and egalitarian relationship.

We also fear change though we are under a constant change. We feel that that we can cope with the changed circumstances or meet self-needs or of the others without making a change in the way we think or live. We cling to what we are used to, no matter how harmful to the self or the others, superficial or useless that may be, and fail to evolve. Change then becomes a burden. Instead, if we were fearful of not being honest about our changed circumstances, we would try to do something about that by making a valid and effective change in the life.

A useful life is not far from a fulfilling life. A life cannot be useful unless it is useful to the others and the others do not imply the ones who indulge our egos. A life cannot be useful unless it is open to experiences, and capable of evolving through constant learning. And a life cannot be fulfilling without being sought out by genuine emotions of the others which will come to us only if the first two factors are present. Hardly anybody reaches out with emotions to somebody who acts in a certain useful way to maintain a particular self-image.

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Ah la la ho Over Abortion

The ongoing debate on abortion in Kenya ... I wonder when will the 'Holy See' and their side-kicks and cronies will accept that only a few in the world give two hoots to children thrown in the garbage dumps, streets, abused and starved in homes and schools. Instead of caring for the alive but miserable in this world, they are driving the whole world to go ah la la ho over the unborn. This reminds me of a Buddhist श्लोक (verse):

In the great self existing mandal (a concentric structure) of dharmadhatu (spiritual metal)

where all phenomena reside free from cause and conditions.

Everywhere I look for the self called me (in the light of the abortion debate, I read ‘me’ as women),

it is nowhere to be found.

This life force (I take it as the foetus) is but a brief flicker

like a June bug in the night.

Happy is the yogin (the female knowledge-self who practices contemplation) who clasps the jewel of radiant

Bodhicitta (the aware/enlightened self) unbounded and self-perfected

Now, this interpretation of the श्लोक (verse) is far and away from the implied meaning, but this is what most often the interpretations do - they allow to interpret from the vantage point of the person interpreting (and that's how either distortions/retrogressive or progressive understandings emerge over a period)! In the second last sentence of this note, I have given a link to an interesting paper, which is not about morality or legality of abortion, but on a much narrow issue that when pregnant woman needs a treatment that would harm the foetus in her womb, should she be denied the treatment, or the foetus be put under threat that may affect it if born or find ways to abort the foetus safely. The paper goes on to say that the foetuses have legitimate interests, rather than rights, and a sick pregnant woman has the rights over her body and a right to health. So when there are competing interests, the rights of the woman to decide on her medical treatment, to give consent and her health should prevail. When you have opened the link, click on One-Click Download button on the top to download the paper: "Ethical and legal issues in reproductive health: Ethical and legal approaches to ‘the fetal patient’". It is worth a read!

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Volatile

Fire within

Engages in a mute debate

I am glowing

With ash on my body

I am speaking

With deaf chaos around me



Glitter of sugar crystals

Nails my tongue

A glimmer of hope

Pierces my eyes

Fresh air

Leaves me breathless

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Ill/Active

At Dubai airport, at Gate 209 waiting for the Flight EK 719. I try to think, my mind is clogged with the feeling that I don’t like this airport. Any thought would be better than this. In front of me, a Kenyan man of Somali origin finishes a conversation in Af Soomaali at the public phone and walks away. I try to think of his Kenyan passport which he was holding in the same hand that held the phone and circumstances that may have brought him to Kenya. Suddenly, a man with Bihari accent is screaming … well, almost,‘who leave money and card here?’. I look around but can’t see the Kenyan passport holder. He disappeared fast. I thought of volunteering the information about the direction that the Kenyan passport holder went in but my attention is caught by the Japanese man sitting next to me who is talking rapidly with his spouse sitting next to him. She nods and nudges him. He says something in Japanese but in a low voice, perhaps informing the man with Bihari  accent about the Kenyan passport holder. The man with Bihari accent can’t understand and asks, ‘your card, your card?’. The Japanese man and his spouse shake heads vigorously and gesture towards the direction that the Kenyan passport holder took. The man with Bihari accent tries to follow their gestures but fails, waits for a while looking around and then picks up the money counts it, more than 40 US dollars; lifts and looks closely at the card, it is a debit card. He is holding the money and the card gingerly at the end of a stretched arm as if bringing the money closer to his body will pollute him … may be he is afraid that he would be beaten up. He walks away holding the money and the debit card like that. A whiff of talcum perfume mixed with body odour hits me. My stomach reels back & I feel nauseated. A couple dressed in heavy clothing of all kinds, the carriers of this smell, occupy the seats next to me. I look back and find the man with Bihari accent entering a room with police sign next to the door. He is still walking with stretched arms with the money and the debit card dangling from his fingers. I can’t bear nausea any more, I run to toilet next to the Gate. All sinks are occupied. I look into two empty toilets, both add to nausea. I look desperately at the Philippina cleaner. She smiles, ask, ‘you want …’ she gestures the Indian type toilet seat with both her hands. ‘Uhhh … no’, I say looking at the sinks which are still occupied and then I take a refill pack of toilet sanitizer, a toilet roll and broom from her large trolley of cleaning supplies and enter one of the toilets. She runs after me but I have locked the door from inside. Nausea has filled me, I can’t speak. I tie my sweater around my face and clear up the mess fast. But I am unable to throw up; my mind doesn’t like that my hands are dirty from holding the broom and cleaning the toilet seat with toilet paper wet with sanitizer. I come out to find the Philippina cleaner standing in the way with anger in her face. She looks inside the toilet and the expression changes to confusion. I walk to one of the sinks, which is empty now and throw up. The Philippina cleaner is staring and others are looking at me with not at all pleasant expressions. I clean up and walk out to look for a place far from the perfumed couple. I find none and decide to walk around. The Philippina cleaner is walking next to me, ‘you ok’, she asks first and then adds, ‘baby?’ My mind is now occupied with dread of another kind - what if the perfumed couple sits next to me in the aircraft. I think she is asking if I have a child. I say, ‘one child … big’ and gesture a height taller than me. She looks confused. I say thank you to her for her concern and walk in another direction and realise that she was wondering if I am pregnant! I frown but it fades away fast. I see a vacant seat near the Gate 210. I take it and start thinking about illness and people’s perception, my own perception.

Two and a half weeks back I was hospitalised – my first real stay in a hospital. I had taken myself to the hospital after looking at myself in the mirror several times. I looked fine, no sign of illness. But the sense that ‘I am dipping down’ persisted and convinced me to call the hospital. I asked for an early appointment. The doctor’s assistant gave me an appointment for the next day. I asked to make it earliest possible. She asked me why and if it is so urgent why don’t I go to the emergency. I was in the emergency with a colleague two weeks back to take care of another colleague who was medically evacuated from a neighbouring country. The amount of paper work and the time it took there was scary. So I said I do not wish to go to the emergency. She gave me an appointment four hours later and asked me a few questions about symptoms. I told her. Ten to fifteen minutes later, there was a call from her asking if I can come earlier. I was glad and walked towards the office exit gate. The 5-10 minutes walk which I always enjoyed was painful and the wait for the taxi at the gate frustrating. My body was telling me to let it succumb; somebody will pick it and take it to the hospital. My mind told me not to be a public nuisance and not to trust a crowd to take care of my body. I listened, waited, got a taxi and took myself to the hospital. I was examined and told about a number of tests that need to be done. I was already feeling better. I asked the doctor if all that would be over today. He smiled and said no. ‘I intend to keep you here for a few days’, he said. ‘How many days’, I asked. ‘I can tell you only after I have seen all the test results’, he replied. ‘But I am feeling better’, I protested. ‘When were you admitted last in a hospital’ he asked. ‘When I was born’, I replied and further said, ‘I can come to the hospital on a daily basis’. He told me that my mind is controlling my body so I am feeling better. He asked if I drank water, I didn’t remember but I told him about tea and coffee I had that day. Dehydration is not a good things, I know.

I was admitted and another doctor, a nurse and an attendant tried hard to prick my veins to administer some intravenous fluid and injection. ‘You have thin veins, very difficult to prick’, said the doctor. She was cheerful and kept asking questions. My mind said that she is just trying to keep me talking to distract me as she pricks my veins. I looked carefully at my veins; they collapsed each time one was pricked. A few attempts and they finally manage to get one syringe needle inside my vein. They looked jubilant and the nurse told me that they are going to water me well so the veins can be regenerated. The attendant asked if I didn’t feel the pain. ‘I did but I want to be out of this place fast so I better let you do what you have to do’, I replied. They all laughed. ‘Good attitude, you will get well fast’, the nurse said. They hung three different size bottles to a stand and explained something about IV fluid, the flow regulator extension set and how it regulate the flow of IV fluid from IV infusion set into the IV catheter and what they are going to do next. Nothing registered in my brain and I told myself to calm down and let them do their work unhindered. For a while that was okay but suddenly I found them examining me further and my body cringed. I told myself to relax and I did ease a bit but the male attendant had noticed my unease and moved a little backwards. My body screamed at him, ‘you can’t become invisible just by moving a bit backwards’. I didn’t realise that I have actually said it aloud but to my own relief I said it smilingly and gently. They all laughed again. I was comfortable by then and watched impassively as they attached a few more things to my body. The doctor who examined me first walked in and after greeting me talked to the doctor who was doing things on my body and then to me. It was casual conversation about family and work. But I was not distracted because I found him looking at my body carefully. I didn’t like it at all and I was about to say that I don’t want a male doctor groping me either with his eyes or hands when the mind interjected and quietened me. He checked every insert and attachment and told me that he is going to fix me and asked me to be enduring. He told me about my body’s ailment and that I must have ignored the symptoms for a long time. I protested saying that I never felt any symptom before. He didn’t quiet believe me. He asked if I would prefer a drug to help me sleep. I said no and he said that is all right. He continued his chatter for some more time and then left. The nurse stayed on to hear me muttering, ‘I shall endure, holy man’. She asked if I believe in the God. I asked her what she thinks to which she replied that I look like someone who doesn’t. We laughed and she said that she will pray for me tonight and hopes that I wouldn’t mind. I told her to be a bit more charitable and pray for the God to prevail on the doctor to let me out of this place fast. She winked and said that she will.

By now, it was already late in the evening and my food arrived. I was hungry, very hungry. The food looked good. But I could feel the coolness of fluid in my veins better than the taste of the food. My mind kept going back to poking and peering into my body. I tried not to think about it but the aftertaste of poking and peering was worse than the time I was being poked and peered at. I felt resentment about being alone, angry with my body for not giving me any symptoms that would have saved me from poking, peering and inserts. ‘I do not like to be examined by a man’, my body kept shouting. It’s my body’s view which is not just hidden-from-public-knowledge but also rejected by my mind, ‘what difference does it make who examines the body, it’s just a piece of meat and bones for the doctor’, it retorted. An intimate exchange between the body’s account of bad feeling about being touched by a strange man and the mind’s rationale about the idiocy of such thinking went on. In between, a colleague had visited, the hospital pantry staff had removed the food tray and a nurse changed the fluid connections. All this while, the exchange between the body and the mind continued uninterrupted. Except for a short while, in between, when I remembered that my younger brother told me that some of his wedding rituals would begin today. I called up my would-be sister-in-law and spoke with her. My would-be sister-in-law was getting ready to receive the baaraat when I called her so when my brother didn’t pick up his phone I thought he must be in the middle of baaraati band-baazaa so he can’t hear me. For a while my thoughts lingered on our growing up years till the body and the mind exchange took over again. Around the middle of the night, a nurse came and asked if I would like to have a sleeping pill. She informed that the doctor has prescribed it but asked her to give it to me only if I want it. She informed me apologetically that she would have to come in several times in the nights to change fluids and so on and it would be good if I take the pill and allow my body to rest. I told her that I am fine and feel rested. I was really not feeling tired.

Towards the morning, the exchange between the body and mind had taken an interesting new direction. My mind had convinced the body that I must have resisted and ignored symptoms and allowed the illness to build the blocks to take over the body so in a way my body has not fallen ill but is actually a creator of the illness. My mind screamed at the body, ‘you are responsible for being volatile and have put yourself in this unpredictable condition’. My body was not happy so it digressed and moved away from the mind. It was still resentful but it could not annoy the mind. After all, the mind is needed to watch over the body. Now both the body and the mind were weaving together incidents and events of the last few years in my life, examining them critically, raw analysis and depiction of life from a perspective that told me how I have wasted myself – how I have allowed the material matters to take over ideal spaces in life; how I chose to feel content when I haven’t been content and how the denial of discontent has constrained the space in which I configure my life and my ideals.

With the body and mind now acting as one, I condemned myself for choosing to lead an ambiguous life where I have learnt to ignore things that bother me. Their thinking disrupted the sense of stability that I thought I had. I was now looking at the onset of factors that may have been stronger than the symptoms of illness and so blocking them out. I was into a diagnosis and discursive exploration of my recent life and I was naming and taking-on responsibility for many things that I chose to ignore or tried to live with. ‘What a hypocrite, accepting things you wouldn’t accept earlier, living with things you wouldn’t tolerate in the past or in the public’, I yelled at myself. Thankfully, my youngest sister or the elder sister-in-law called up to give me an update of the wedding. It was a much needed break from the involuntary mental work. But not for long. I would have liked some more distraction.

I preferred the exchange between the body and the mind than this leapfrogging forwards and backwards in my life. At least, it kept the attention away from myself, albeit, in a strange way. The body and the mind are part of my self but when they were exchanging arguments, I could hear them detached, as if I were another being hearing conversation between two other people. This pact between the body and the mind continued to corner me as I went through various examinations and talking to the colleagues who visited me the following day. May be it showed on my face because when the nurse came in to change the fluid connections, the previous day’s insert came off and I started bleeding but I didn’t notice anything. The nurse nudged and asked me to give my thoughts a little break and keep the vein pressed while she fetches a new syringe to prick me. I put my finger on the vein and continued with my thoughts. Pricking was not working and the nurse remarked that even my veins have a mind of their own. She called a doctor who finally managed to get one right prick and I was back on the drip of one or another kind. The IV insert kept coming off each day and each day I would be pricked a few times with some remarks, all interesting. Each time, a vein was pricked I could see it receding. May be the nurse was right that the veins have a mind of their own. The pricking process became an amusing interruption to my self-engrossed thinking process.

On the second evening, the doctor decided that I must have the sleeping pill after asking me for some information about the allergies. I took the pill and felt terrible pain in my chest and upper back and had difficulty gulping down water. Half an hour later the pain was gone but I was wide awake. The nurse was not happy that I didn’t call her when I felt the pain saying the pain must be a reaction to the drug and remarked that I have willed myself out of sleep. I informed her that I had taken sleeping pills in the past and it never worked on me but when she persisted to find out which drug which I didn’t remember but she wouldn’t believe I asked her if patients think of death when they are hospitalised. She told me that most do even when they are admitted for small little things. She assured me that I am fine and I told her that I must make a will to ensure my daughter is taken care if I am gone and to ensure that whatever I have goes towards things I would like to contribute to. The illness was redefining and reshaping my thinking about my recent life materially and discursively.

The body and the mind’s joint analysis continued the following day and the days after. I thought of my life and creation of my identity as a one-word-name-woman and laughed at the bewilderment that I come across whenever somebody of an urban background hears that I have one word name. I thought of the tiny frame that makes my body and tried to trace factors that have made this frame jump with joy or wince with repulsion and revolt. On the third evening the doctor prescribed an injection to help me go to sleep. I refused when the nurse came with the injection. I told her that I do not wish to be injected and said it so forcefully that she agreed immediately that it is not a good idea to have the injection. We agreed that I would tell the doctor the next morning that he must stop this business of trying to ‘put me to sleep’ and then we laughed about the term ‘put to sleep’. But I noticed that she took extra care to draw the curtains neatly, switched of all the lights, put a cover on the glass in the door from where the light from the passage filtered inside and tip-toed more deliberately each time she walked in and out of the room. I wasn’t feeling tired even now.

By now results of various tests were out and the medical actions based on the results were being taken. By now I was also comfortable with my self-dialogue about how I have engaged and negotiated my emotional, physical and social environment and its boundaries. Finally, on the fourth evening, I informed my youngest sister that I am hospitalised and when she and others called up late in the night, I told them to relax and let me go to sleep. I slept as soundly as I could with a nurse walking in and out. The nurse was pleased and the doctor visibly relieved. The body and the mind offensive about the need to rethink my well-being and remake my life didn’t feel as harsh anymore and was gradually beginning to follow the day and night cycle.

It is rather strange that it took a hospital to instigate the process of naming, redefining, and reconfiguring and bring out the need of reconnecting and remaking my social relations. The ambiguities, the losses, frustrations and resistance stand better understood and attempts at sense-making more real even though I fail to understand how the body and the mind felt so separate from my self.

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Sexual Frivolousness and Innuendos: Freedom of Speech or Peddling Insensitivity in the Name of Humour of One Kind or Another?

I must admit that this blog is instigated by what I have been hearing recently, comments such as ‘It is too difficult to open my mouth front of you’, ‘I’m scared to speak in front of you’, and then the last night I read a frivolous insinuation/references to bestiality and drunken orgy. It angers me, fills me with disgust and tells me something about the person. For a while, it makes me doubt the people I associate with, work with or share my life with. All the more when it comes from people who are development workers or who speak of rights.


I have often heard people recounting second or third person account of trauma of rape or child sexual abuse that another person they know, has gone through. The retelling usually has the reteller in a saviour or compassionate role, somebody who lent support or is lending understanding and support. And the next thing I come across is completely casual or frivolous conversation replete with sexual desperation, titillation and filled with sexual innuendos. Such comments or way of communicating are meant to be about harmless fun, genuine humour, about making light of ??? and being able to talk in a relaxed manner.

Let me say that, in my view, sexual insinuation or jokes and communication filled with sexual similes are not funny. They are outright offensive and insensitive, to say the least. Do these people realize that when they are retelling another’s trauma, they are robbing that person’s right to tell her own story and tell it to the people she would like to tell and not some random individual or group? I think not. Do they realize that they may be triggering trauma to survivors of sexual violence? I think not. And when they talk in a sexually insinuating manner, do they realize that they are reinforcing insensitive stereotypes, myths, sexual perversion and indulging in cheap titillation. I think not; as I hear, it comes under the ‘freedom of speech’ and being able to be themselves. Being themselves, yes definitely, they are being themselves.

Do I object because I feel that nobody has a right to make light of or a casual conversation out of somebody else’s trauma? Yes, it is one of the reasons. Nobody has a right to expose somebody else's life and identity and put himself/herself in a do-gooder position by recounting something in second or third person. I do feel that the freedom of speech is being abused when language becomes the vehicle of transporting stereotypes and of sustaining perversion. I feel that nobody has a right to joke about sexual abuse when they no idea of what it means to be abused sexually.

I have been told that women of my kind are hyper sensitive about sexual jokes and innuendos. Yes, I am and I know so many others who are, even when they do not say it. Such language or communication is uncomfortable even when they appear funny to the person talking. For anybody with access to information sources, it is impossible not to be aware that vast numbers of women and children across the world are sexually abused and kept in sexual slavery. So why is it so hard for them to understand that they might be triggering further trauma or trying to make light of a widely prevalent form of human rights violation? And if they can’t mind their thinking and language, and reform their way of thinking and behaving for the sake of protection of women’s and children’s right to be free from sexual violence, what sort of belief do they have in human rights?! Just simple thinking of how they feel when they come across ‘making light’ of a behaviour that they had to face. If they do so, even if sexual abuse may not be something experienced by them, they can, at least, imagine how it would feel, because they would know how a similar behaviour when directed at them, feels to them.

Many women do not react to such sexualised communication and children fall in the no-right-to-speak zone. They may take it as a given way of talking and communicating but does that take away the need to change this way of thinking and talking? No, it doesn’t. A form of abuse or perpetuation of an environment that sustains abuse should not continue because the world is quiet about it or there isn’t enough ‘mainstream noise’ about it. One abuse is too many and calls for reform.

Sexual jokes and innuendos, whether coming from women or men, are not about things that are only matters of pleasure, they are not only about things that happens out there, somewhere unaffected by our own beliefs and conduct, to people who don’t really mind this kind of communication or are a good-sport-to-take-it-in-a-good-spirit (as I have heard sometimes). Sexual jokes and innuendos reveal the speaker, they are about me and many women and children around me who have seen sexual abuse day in and out, in public and private, and they are about how much violated and angry we feel about it. As a woman who has grown up being pawed in public transport and streets, ignoring sexual gestures from fellow commuters and others, dealing with the abuse faced by self and working with those who faced such abuse, I do not believe that sexual frivolousness or innuendos are about individual liberties or the freedom of speech.

I can’t even remember how often I have ignored such communication, often in public life and sometimes in personal realm. And I hate myself when I keep quiet. I feel my tiredness is letting me down, that I am being a person of acute double standards. And sometimes, this builds up and I jump with such revolt and anger that later I feel that I should have given the benefit of doubt to the offensive person, that s/he didn’t really mean to be a pervert or promiscuous. I feel that I could have tried explaining to the person that the joke/innuendos/behaviour was not funny. But experience also tells me that not all are willing to think that their way of thinking and the absolutist sense of their right to act and talk the way they want, makes them feel that it is an infringement of their individual freedom. Sometimes their resentment is quite obvious.

I just don’t understand how sexual frivolousness and insinuations can even qualify as humour or fun. Something that can violate a relationship of trust, care and protection or violate the bodily and mental integrity of another person, even in my wildest imagination, cannot count as wit. Crash crudeness, may be.

I wish, sincerely, that people would see this as an issue, first, of being aware of the abusive dimensions and sensitivity that awareness calls for, and second, of questioning that why jokes and titillation are usually at the cost of those who are socio-politically weak or rendered silent by the social structures. Why something that is atrocity and violence against some, can be normalised as a spicy way of talking?

Awareness means going beyond reading about abuse and meeting people who were abused. It is about understanding the extent to which their way of communication may contribute to the prevalence of an environment of abuse and in normalizing such behaviour and communication. They need to slap themselves hard in their brains, each time it tells them to behave or talk in a certain way that is offensive. Otherwise they would never see that they are part of the patriarchal pack; it would not cross their mind that their way of behaving or talking may be the norm but not necessarily right. Oversights and lapses are not meant to be reoccurring and if they tend to be, they reveal that the person is either abusive even when not accepting it or that the person prefers to keep clouded vision because they actually derive pleasure despite knowing that they are causing harm.

When people can make an effort to gain knowledge about how, for example, trade systems can aggravate poverty; I do not understand why they do not try to understand that their sexually frivolous behaviour and innuendos reinforce the patriarchal claim over women and children’s bodies? How is it possible that the people who study, decipher and advocate theories of poverty, development and change, peace and conflict, fail to see that the established norms of ‘personal’ or social behaviour and communication legitimize the option of not thinking, not understanding and not seeing the effects of their sexually insinuating behaviour and communication; that it gives them a choice not to change. Women and men, who behave or talk in this manner, may not be against women’s or children’s rights but they need to see the connection between their intentions and consequent actions.

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