Snapshots of a Holiday

January 16, 2014

Sowmya Rajendran Feminism, Food, Men, Parents, Travel, Women 26 Comments

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I’m just back from a holiday with a friend of mine from college. The first time I’ve taken off somewhere without my daughter. For six whole days. We went to Tranquebar, a ‘heritage Danish town’ in Tamil Nadu. We were initially planning on going to Varkala but another friend who was supposed to be part of this trip backed out. Since we thought Kerala was unsafe for two women to travel by themselves, we dropped the idea and decided on Tranquebar instead. 

My father, a lawyer, has a client in almost every nook and corner of Tamil Nadu, so we had a car to ourselves with a driver. Accommodation was taken care of. The client kept checking on the driver periodically to make sure that we were safe. My friend and I found this rather quaint – some years ago, this would have annoyed me tremendously but my claws have grown blunt with age, I fear.

Tranquebar has the sea and nothing else. There is an old fort by the sea which offers a breathtaking view of the angry, frothing waters. We sat there and chatted with the wind roaring in our ears, the sound of the waves crashing against the ominous rocks below. We spoke of many things. Our friends from college. The professors we knew. Feminism. Marriage and motherhood. Communism. Silly jokes from our college days. We spoke for hours on end. The food at the Bungalow on the Beach – the only restaurant in Tranquebar – was amazing. Much of our holiday centered around when we could plan our arrival for the meal without seeming to be overly gluttonous. By the time we left, we’d sampled three-fourths of the menu between the two of us. 

On Day 1, we were walking by the beach when we spotted a big family with several men and a few women and children. The men in the group were looking at us as if we’d arrived from some other planet. Then, one of them came towards us and said ‘Exkyoooozzz me’ in a Prabhu Deva style, assuming that neither of us knew Tamil and that we were ‘Northie’ tourists who could be made fun of. When I asked him in chaste Tamil what the hell he wanted, the other men laughed. Then, an older man from the family came towards us and said that they were celebrating his son’s birthday, so would we like to stand in the photograph? We declined this invitation to become decorative pieces and went our way. 

Since we had the car with us, we visited a few towns nearby. We went to the Thanjavur temple which was built a thousand years ago. It was massive, beautiful, and as we sat down, cooling our bare feet in the shade, I tried to make myself look for a story in the sculptures or pretend to be more interested in the architecture than I really was. But then, my friend didn’t care about it much either, so we gave up the pretense and gossiped further, lying down on a cold rock and watching the pigeons fly over the temple. 

The next day, we went to the Velankanni Church. I was not very impressed by it. It’s certainly not the most beautiful church I’ve been to. I saw people of all faiths praying with extreme piety on their faces. The road from the church which leads to the beach is bizarre. There are many places there where you can go and shave your head and make an offering. So you will see people with bald heads smiling at you from all hoardings. There’s one of a bald Aishwarya Rai beaming at her jeweled hands very contently. 

On the Velankanni beach, we saw a crowd gathered around a child who had lost his parents in the crowd. As the crowd was debating on what to do with him, his father arrived and took him. Then, he turned around and slapped his wife thrice. Because obviously, it wasn’t his duty to watch the kid. His wife barely reacted which makes me think that this was nothing new in their lives.

We went to the Karaikal beach from there. As opposed to the Velankanni beach which has way too many people, Karaikal had few tourists and the stretch of sand is also much wider. We watched fishing boats go past us, dreaming of the fish we’d eat for dinner once we got back to the hotel.

On Day 4, we went to Poompuhar. The home of Kannagi and Kovalan. Anyone who has any cultural link with Tamil Nadu should know this story. Kannagi is seen as the last word in virtue and chastity. She who burnt down Madurai because her husband was falsely accused and killed by the king! Never mind that her husband was sleeping with a courtesan and had neglected her for long enough! There is a museum in Poompuhar which tells the story of Kannagi and Kovalan through etchings on plaques and it is any feminist’s delight to rip it apart. The all-bearing Kannagi and the errant yet ‘brave and kind-hearted’ Kovalan. Slow claps.

We were walking from the museum and to the beach (yes, this trip was all about beaches), when a man walked towards me, swaying slightly. He came close enough and said something dirty in Tamil. Again, he thought I didn’t know the language. I shouted immediately and abused him right back. He was wearing a saffron dhoti and black shirt which makes me think he was on one of those religious vows. He was startled and walked fast past us but I turned around and abused him even more just so everyone in the area would know what had happened. I’m no Kannagi when it comes to virtue but I’d have burnt him gladly if I could have.

On the last day, we were eating breakfast when a group of officious men landed there. They were the cronies of an IAS officer (or so we assumed). Before Mr IAS could come and eat his breakfast, these men had come to see if ‘all the arrangements were satisfactory’. Anyone would have thought Mr IAS had come to supervise Tsunami relief work instead of eating idlis. Throughout the time that he was there, the cronies acted like Mr IAS was God and any displeasure from his end would bring upon the end of the world. This happened on Pongal day, so the hotel staff had set up some Pongal celebrations. Some pots and a cow that was resolutely decorating the place with its dung. One of the cronies announced to Mr IAS that this was ‘avar tradishinaal Thamizh pestival Saar’. Mr IAS nodded seriously, concentrating on his papaya. A while later, when we were on a walk, we saw Mr IAS departing in a car with the red bulb glowing furiously. There was a car in front of him and a car behind him. Did I tell you that in Tranquebar, the traffic on the roads consists of a few goats and dogs only? 

After breakfast, we went to the Vaitheeshwarar temple near Sirkazhi. We had to take our train from Sirkazhi in another forty minutes, so we didn’t spend much time looking at this temple. It was old, large, and beautiful. As we were hurrying outside and laughing about something, three boys who looked to be about 15 years old, were staring at us. Then, one of them clicked a photograph. They continued to walk past us. I turned around and yelled. I made them stop. Then, my friend grabbed the phone from him. We deleted the photo. I gave him an earful about his behaviour. I had a good mind to fling the phone on the ground and break it but the thought of missing the train forced me to keep the admonition short.

The driver who was also supposedly our body-guard never knew about these instances, of course. He waited till our train came and bade us farewell as he’d been instructed to do. I wasn’t planning to tell my parents about these two incidents as they are paranoid enough as it is when I travel anywhere. But the next morning, when I was back in Chennai, my father announced the headlines from the TV that a Danish woman tourist had been raped in Delhi. He said Delhi was really a terrible place. I ended up telling him about what had happened then. This was probably not a wise thing to have done because next time I go anywhere in Tamil Nadu, I might just get a commando task force to follow me around. Even to the bathroom. 

I flew back to Pune the following day. Back home to my daughter with a plastic Thanjavur doll and a jute basket I bought for her. This was a trip that had everything I wanted from it – great conversation, the sea, delicious food, and undisturbed sleep. The unpleasant incidents I’ve written about did not spoil the holiday for me. They are inevitable if you are a woman traveling in India. Instead, I’m determined to travel even more this year. There’s only so much they can do to keep you down.

Of Battles and Tigers

June 28, 2013

Sowmya Rajendran Angst, Children, Parenting, Parents 19 Comments

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I finally read Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua. I didn’t read it for the longest time because everybody was talking about it and it sounded like one of those books that is written only so everybody will talk about it. From the excerpts I read, I was convinced Amy Chua was mental and her kids must be pretty damaged. I picked up the book from the library for a quick read, just so I can also say I’ve read it.

Enough has been said about the book, so I’m not going to discuss it in great detail. What surprised me was that I actually enjoyed reading it and it brought back several fond and not-so-fond memories from my own childhood. Because my parents are also somewhat Tiger types. They were not as extreme as Chua but I’m sure if my brother or I had given them some space to be so, they would have been. Especially my dad who was appalled that I got the thirteenth rank in my LKG class. And that’s not an exaggeration. He actually held up my report card and asked me to explain why I hadn’t come first. I very glibly replied that everyone had been given the thirteenth rank, so I wouldn’t know.

Coming first was super important in our household. Whether it was an exam or an elocution competition, anything less than first place was usually received with a ‘Hmmm, who came first?’ response. My mum was not so obsessed with first place as my dad and she would try to disguise her tiger-ness by making statements like ‘Oh, if you’d worked harder, you’d have done better!’ Throughout my student years, my mum maintained that the reason I wasn’t coming first was because I was too lazy (I was always in the top five in class, but coming fifth and all was no achievement in my house).

To my dad, this first place thing was an obsession. So much so that my brother and I followed this policy when we were kids – there are two entrances to our house: one through my dad’s office room where he receives his clients and one through the drawing room of the house. If we won the first prize, we’d make a grand entry through the office room so my dad could tell all his junior lawyers, clerk, typist, sundry clients what geniuses we were. If we didn’t win, we’d quietly slip in through the other entrance. We definitely weren’t the kids who got a pat on the back for participation certificates.

Getting a ‘centum’ in mathematics was the greatest achievement possible, according to my dad. His point was that since one can’t get a centum in other subjects usually, to get the toppest score possible, you had to score a centum in math. I probably got a centum in math when I was in first standard or something, never after that. My dad was super disappointed when I got only eighty plus in math in my twelfth boards. I had a ninety plus in all other subjects and I was least bothered by my math score because I’d decided on doing English and the last time I inquired, analyzing Pride and Prejudice didn’t require a knowledge of calculus. He went on and on about how I could have been the school topper blah blah if only I’d scored a centum in math. Fat chance of that happening since the school topper was some guy who got centums in all five subjects or something.

It was my dad’s greatest dream that my brother and I would top the country, top the state. At least top Perambur. But neither of us did that. My brother didn’t top because he was a loony who’d waste time in exams deriving formulas instead of mugging them up like a decent kid. I didn’t top because I couldn’t. At least, my brother cracked the IIT but all I cracked were jokes about losers who did engineering. I made up for this somewhat by topping my class in college all three years and winning a gold medal for it. This was a bigger achievement for my dad than all the poetry and fiction I’d written in those three years. Most of which he never read. And that crazy blog I’d started which eventually led me to becoming a published writer.

All this must make it seem like I had a very pressurizing and sad childhood. Not at all. The thing is, my dad was the son of a tailor who eventually went on to become a full-timer in the Communist party. Simply put, there was no money when he was growing up. My dad went to a government-aided Tamil medium school and learnt English mostly during his college days in MCC where he made it a point to mix with the English-speaking crowd. He became a lawyer and built up his practice with no help from anybody in any position of influence. And much of how he did this was by his sheer determination to come first in everything he touched. It was a method that had worked for him and he didn’t quite understand why we couldn’t see that or why we found it funny.

One of the shocking incidents from Chua’s book that’s been the subject of much discussion is how she refused to accept a badly made birthday card from her daughter. Because she could have put in more effort and done a better job of it. When I read this, in the context in which Chua writes, I burst out laughing. Because that’s so much like my mum. In fact, I remember one Mother’s Day when I’d written a poem and made a card for her. She looked at it and said, ‘I don’t want all these meaningless gestures. Why don’t you clean your toilet?’ She also didn’t think the poem was all that great, saying I didn’t mean whatever I’d written. My mum has always been very blunt about what she thought of my writing. I remember her reading this poem I’d written on saving the environment and she said, ‘First clean your house.’ I was very fond of writing depressing poetry back then and she’d always tell me my writing was fake. I’ve taken many melodramatic oaths after listening to her scathing comments that I was never going to write a word ever again in my life.

But of course, I did write again. And every time I wrote, I’d imagine my mother reading it and I did get better. I learnt to be honest in my writing. And I think it has helped me work with editors and take their criticism professionally.

My father wanted me to write the IAS or at least become a doctor (yup, at least is what I said). But it was he who paid for my ridiculously expensive and not very employable MA degree in Gender Studies without asking me to think about what would come after. And for the record, he believes feminism is inconvenient.

Chua, in her book, says Chinese parents push their children so much because they believe their children can excel and all they are doing is to help them realize their potential. Western parents, on the other hand, are content with letting the child choose how much potential it wanted to realize. My parents are definitely Chinese. And they took great pains to be Chinese. I used to go to a convent till second standard. After that, my parents shifted me to a CBSE school. I used to speak English quite fluently when I was in the convent but in my new school, where most of the children spoke to each other in Tamil, I forgot much of the language and just wouldn’t speak it. My dad was devastated by this. In his view, speaking English was a passport to opportunities that he’d missed in his childhood. He remembered the hesitation he felt in speaking up before the English-savvy crowds and the completely different world they lived in. He didn’t want that for his children. My dad used to stalk the kids going to my school and eavesdrop their conversations to find out which language they were speaking in and how good or bad it was. His investigation report led him to the conclusion that my school had to be changed. And that’s how my brother and I landed up in PSBB, KK Nagar, a school that required us to travel 40 kms a day.

My dad hired an autorickshaw to take us that distance. It cost him 200 bucks a day. He was doing reasonably well in his practice but this was no small cost to him in those days. It was definitely a considerable sum but he did not hesitate to spend it. When the autorickshaw didn’t work out, he hired a part-time driver and we used to go to school in our embarrassingly ancient Ambassador. When the driver didn’t work out, he adjusted his office timings to suit our school schedule. Whichever classes we joined, whatever activity we took up, my dad would make sure we were able to do it by shuffling his practice around us.

Sibling rivalry is another issue Chua talks about in the book. For Western parents, comparing their children is unthinkable. But Chinese parents do it to encourage the underachiever to be more like the successful kid. Ah. Throughout my childhood, my brother was the paragon I was supposed to emulate. He was one of those annoying kids who don’t seem to study at all but are just brilliant naturally. I used to wonder if my mum ate a specially blessed mango when she was pregnant with him. I, on the other hand, was laid-back (according to my parents anyway). In our school, we had this program for ‘gifted’ children. Basically, the school gave you an aptitude test in Math, Science, and English and whoever passed could attend ‘enrichment’ classes where they’d help you hone your interests. Needless to say, my brother was in all three classes. I passed English and flunked the other two. In any other household, just passing one would have been enough to make you ‘gifted’. In mine, passing one was being ‘lazy’. I remember thinking how unfair it was and feeling like I’d never amount to much in my parents’ eyes.

In particular, I remember this one instance when we ran into a friend of my father’s on a shopping trip. My parents introduced us to him and then went on and on about how my brother had won some big prize (okay, he’d just been certified as the World’s Youngest Microsoft Certified Professional or something). They didn’t say one word about me. I felt like I didn’t exist. I remember the intense shame I felt then. But whenever I brought it up with my mum, she’d say I should be proud of my brother instead of acting jealous and try and be more like him. Obviously, this didn’t help.

It took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that I wasn’t my brother and needn’t be him. And that I could be successful in my own way, with or without parental acknowledgment. I do wish they had been less Chinese in this respect but I also think it helped me build my character and stand up for myself. I was determined to succeed just to prove them wrong. Today, I’m fairly successful in my field, which is very different from theoretical physics (my brother’s field) and I realize that what I’ve done is to prove them right.

Despite all of this, we had quite a happy childhood. There was nothing that we were denied. If money, time, and effort could buy it, we had it. I was quite the rebel in my teenage years and there were times when I wouldn’t speak to my parents for days. Yet, when I came very close to a breakdown soon after my MA, at the age of twenty-one, I remember one night when I lay in bed between the two of them, clutching them hard and sobbing that I couldn’t imagine what life would be like five years down the line. My mum’s response was that she never thought I was so weak. It might sound harsh to anyone reading but it gave me the strength to get up and take control again. They held me together as if I were a baby and put me back on my feet. And for that boost up, I will always be grateful, despite all the scratches their tiger parenting might have left on me.

Will I be a tiger parent with my daughter? I will be a tiger in some respects. I will be honest about what I tell her because I’ve come to realize that people who tell you what they think, even if they know you won’t like it, are very rare to come by. And we all need at least one such person in our lives. I will not insist that she gets centums in math because I know there are several roads to becoming successful, having walked one myself. But yes, I will definitely hope for her to be successful – because success is important. It isn’t the only important thing but damn, it feels good. I will not indulge in comparisons because I detested it so much during my childhood that I wouldn’t be able to do it even if I somehow convinced myself that it was good for her. I will be the sort of tiger who stands in line at 6 AM for school admissions because I owe much of my life to people who did this for me. I hope my daughter and I can be friends as she grows up. But if it doesn’t happen that way, I will still be the tiger who is around if she wants me to hold her at forty.

Maybe I’ll settle for being a circus tiger. One who can be scary at times but is mostly the one the kid is eagerly waiting for.

Epiphany

March 22, 2013

Sowmya Rajendran Children, GBM, Parents, Philosophy, Random Rangan 13 Comments


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I was playing this Unna nenachen paatu padichen song from Aboorva Sagodhargal for GBM on Youtube. She’s very fond of listening to it and was watching the video for the first time. She looked at Kamal weeping for a while and then said ‘Dummmm’ – which is what she says if she falls down or someone else does. I was wondering why she was saying that and then it struck me that she, in her tiny head, had analyzed the situation and had come to the conclusion that the only valid reason for someone crying is that they’ve fallen down and hurt themselves.

Heee. While this can be filed under cute-baby-anecdote-that-intellectual-people-don’t-want-to-hear-about, it’s given me a new perspective on the things that make me sad. So if I’m bugged at work or hurt by something someone said, I ask myself if it’s indeed a ‘Dummmm’ moment or something not quite as tragic as that. I mean, what can be worse than falling down and breaking your head like Humpty Dumpty (for whom my daughter has the greatest empathy), right?

I think my world has become a lot simpler than it used to be after I had my daughter. I value the basics more – food, clothing, shelter. Like one night, I had a terrifying nightmare that I was taking my daughter on a trek to the Himalayas and had forgotten to pack socks and long pants for her. I actually woke up sweating.

I have a better relationship with my parents – they can’t get enough of everything their granddaughter is doing and it’s good for me, too, to share the little things that make up the fabric of my everydays. Also, they’ve stopped bugging me about what I should be doing and what I shouldn’t be doing because the focus of their attention is now my daughter. So I’ve achieved the happy anonymity of a traveler on a British train.

Overall, I’ve slowed down and I’m no longer running around like a headless chicken, panicked about unimportant details. The only thing that can make me move like a Cheetah is when my daughter has a genuine Dummmm moment. What’s not to like.

How to be a Relax Singh

March 1, 2013

Sowmya Rajendran Children, GBM, Parenting, Parents, Philosophy, Work 24 Comments

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Somebody had posted a link to this article on Facebook and while I hope very much that I’ll be able to do all of those things to help me relax in future, I didn’t think most of it applied to my current situation. That of a work-from-home, stay-at-home mom of a very active one-year-old. I mean, lighting scented candles and taking a bath and all doesn’t seem doable at all when I can’t even pee in peace without GBM banging on the door and demanding that I let her inside.

But this is not to say that I don’t have my own ways of relaxing. I do. And here’s a list of the things I’ve done to help me de-stress and stay human. And happy.

1. Clean is good enough: There’s a difference between keeping things clean and keeping things neat. With a toddler around, it’s vital that you keep the house clean but it’s optional to keep it neat. For example, you have to keep the clothes clean but it’s not necessary to fold them and keep them in the cupboard in severe piles the very same day. It’s fine to dump them on a chair and forget about them till you want to remember again.

2. Cook to make left-overs: I love left-overs. When you cook, cook in large quantities so you don’t have to keep cooking every day for every meal. It’s fine to refrigerate things and heat them and eat them. And if you have fussy family members who tell you they can only eat ‘fresh’ food, ask them to cook whatever they want by themselves.

3. Devise relax-games: When I really want to lie down and GBM is whizzing around like a bunny on a sugar high, I take her to bed, lie down and cover the two of us with a huge blanket. She loves this ‘game’ and it allows me to lie down and rest a bit. All I have to do is shake the blanket once in a while and make funny noises. Your child may not like this particular game but come up with some low-energy game that s/he enjoys which will allow you to take a break.

4. Do household work when the child is awake: I never do household work when GBM is napping. I use that time to either do my office work or my writing work. I do household work only when she’s up and I involve her in whatever it is that I’m doing. For instance, if I do a load, I let the clothes stay in the washing machine till GBM wakes up. Then we dry clothes together. This way, I manage to entertain her as well as finish the job.

5. Sign up for a home delivery library service: With a young child around, you might find it difficult to go to a library and pick up something. Home delivery library services are there in most major cities. Sign up for one. Most of them have no late fees. Read whatever you like for however long you wish to.

6. Read in the loo: Or listen to music if that helps you relax better. Really, why waste that time staring at the walls when you can do something better?

7. Pretend to be single: Get out of the house and go out by yourself at least once a week. In that time, trust your spouse to take care of the child and don’t keep calling and checking and being a worry wart. Pretend you are single and unattached. Go watch a movie by yourself. The comfort of darkness and the company of strangers is a welcome change.

8. Exercise: At least take a walk every day. It’s important to have something in your every day routine that involves you speaking to your body on an one-one basis.

9. Call/Text/Email: Keep in touch with people who like talking to you. Really, swallow that pride and call Mummy every day if it means it makes you feel happy to talk to an adult.

10. Follow a sitcom: Don’t underestimate the power of the TV to make you happy. I follow sitcoms on Mute when I’m rocking GBM to sleep for her afternoon nap. Thank god for subtitles.

11. Drink tea in the balcony: GBM and I make tea together and I drink it in the balcony while she watches the flowers and the birds and the sky. It relaxes me as well to watch the sky.

12. Have fun with your child: Find something that both of you enjoy doing. We like reading together and signing nonsense rhymes.

13. Don’t stress out on meals: Invest in a high chair and don’t run around trying to scoop things into your child’s mouth. Don’t feel like you’ve failed if your child doesn’t finish its meals. The more agitated you get, the more the kid will fuss – it is getting attention from you and you will also pass on your tension to the child. Your child isn’t going to pass out because it ate half a bowl less. Let it go. Offer something else more interesting and that you don’t have to cook – like a banana. If the child still won’t eat, accept it and don’t go nuts.

14. Keep the people who work for you in a good mood: Pay them on time, don’t yell, give small and thoughtful gifts once in a while. Empathize. You will see that they reciprocate too. I probably feel happier to see my domestic help at the door than my best friend.

15. Hire a babysitter: Even if it’s only for a couple of hours a day. Trust that she’ll handle your child well (if you’ve already tested her out and okayed her) and don’t give in to the temptation to run and check what’s happening if you hear a wail of protest. Learn to disconnect.

16. Imagine yourself as an old lady: This is something I frequently do. I imagine myself old with lots of money, looking very classy with iron-grey hair and twirling an umbrella. It makes me happy. Find your happy image and think about it often.

17. Do low-maintenance family trips: Go somewhere nearby where your child can also have fun. Restaurants are boring to children and they will not let you eat in peace anyway. Instead, pick up food on the way and go eat in a park.

A truth I’ve learned in bringing up GBM is that it’s not parents who give the child unconditional love, like we’ve often heard.

It is, without a doubt, the child who gives its parents unconditional love. Parents are often angry, resentful, frustrated, and stressed-out human beings who end up looking at their child with the heavy eyes of duty. For a child so young, you are its entire world. No matter how much you yell, you will find that little hand searching for you, wanting you back.

This is precious, humbling. Treasure it. Let it relax you like nothing else can.

Going Solo

November 29, 2010

Sowmya Rajendran Marriage, Parents, Random Rangan 10 Comments

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M is away in Ooty. As a government babu, he gets to roam around the country, stay in the best of places, eat breakfasts that include fresh orange juice, and bathe with basil-parsley soaps (I kid you not). So since I was alone at home with my Margo and Tropicana, I decided to have a happy Sunday myself. First, I had to clean the whole house because CID Shakuntala (Chief Inspector of Dust a.k.a my mother) was arriving the next day. The maid helpfully did not turn up.

Since I was feeling ambitious, I decided to clean the fan in the drawing room which resembles the white canvas shoe of a very dirty child. M’s solution to making the fan look clean is to keep it switched on. That way, nobody notices. However, CID Shakuntala is an expert in such cover-ups. Standing at the towering height of five feet, I obviously needed support to reach the fan. So, I piled a fat cushion on a chair, covered it with cloth (my household skills impress me) and climbed on top with a broom. The fan creaked dangerously as I tried to dust it. And then, I felt the cushion slowly slipping away. I thought to myself- did I want to fall down, break my spine and then write a Readers’ Digest story about how I crawled inch by inch to the door and defeated death? The answer was no. And so, I sensibly got down and gave up on the project. M’s idea will have to do for now.

I cleaned the rest of the house, booked myself a ticket for Unstoppable, had a nice shampoo-bath, and wore my bubblegum pink kurta which I hadn’t worn in ages. Then I ate leftovers from the fridge (vegetable biryani and raita!) and packed my bright yellow Co-optex bag with an umbrella and my Neil Gaiman book. I walked to the theatre which is a good 4.5 kms from home, bought myself sweet lime juice and read my book till it was time for the movie.

Unstoppable was very entertaining and fast-paced. Besides, it has Denzel Washington. The guy next to me though didn’t understand half of what was going on. He kept laughing three seconds after I laughed- I tested this out by pretending to laugh for a totally unfunny dialogue. Ha. Ha.

Then, I walked to Pune University and had an extremely sweet tea at the canteen. I read some more Gaiman and pretended to be a college student. I wish somebody had asked me which department I was in. Then I could have had my Santoor moment- collegeaah? Naanah? Ohohohoho.

After this, I walked back home and made myself chappatis and paneer-capsicum curry. Jagan Mohini was running on TV and I had a blast watching it (what? I like Namitha). Then, I watched Neeya Naana which was about people communicating with ghosts and such like. It was a bit creepy and since I was alone at home and all that, I decided to read PG Wodehouse and be merry. M called and we talked about what we did the whole day. Which took less than 10 minutes. In the olden, golden days of bachelorhood, this topic would have run easily for three hours. But hey, we’re oldly-weds now and we need to be responsible about roaming charges.

Then, I read more PG Wodehouse and slept off.
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On Parenting

September 2, 2010

Sowmya Rajendran Children, Parents 26 Comments

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Okay, just because I’ve been absent for a bit, don’t let your suspicions be aroused by the title of the post. I still stand by no good news is good news for now. However, I have been meeting and talking to a lot of young parents and I often find myself thinking about how different their views are from the way in which I was brought up. To start with, none of them believes in hitting their kid. I don’t mean caning or belting or hanging the kid upside down by its soles or something, so don’t let your hackles rise. I just mean a good old pinch or a light slap on the bum.

My mum swears by what she calls Adi-o-therapy. My brother and I got our fair share of beatings when we were growing up. For the most part, I think we got what we deserved. We were both very strong-willed children and inclined to fuss till my mum lost her cool. My brother and I used to fight all the time. One of my favourite hobby horses while growing up was to irritate the hell out of him. I’d do this by singing tunelessly into his ear, repeating advertisement slogans every time I saw him (Nambikkai. Naanayam. Balu Jewelers. For some reason, I thought this was hugely funny), and eating my share of sweets very slowly after he’d finished eating his share. I’d also occupy his room and refuse to leave till he bodily threw me out. For his part, he monopolized the computer, made me believe I was a moron (he’d plenty of evidence for this though!) and gave me a massive inferiority complex because of his over-achieving. I didn’t flunk in school or anything, but I hated it when teachers (especially the Math ones) referred to me as ‘Oooooh S’s sister!’ and waited for genius to flow out of me. My brother went to IIT, Caltech, Stanford, MIT, and is now in Johns Hopkins. He’s a theoretical physicist.You see what I mean?

So anyway, my mum used to end our fights by basically whacking both of us because we were getting on her nerves. Didn’t matter who was at fault. It’s some ancient Akbar-type justice system, but I don’t see how else she could have managed both of us. My dad, for the most part, was the good cop in the parenting process. He never raised his voice, let alone hand, at us. So the onus of ‘disciplining’ the children fell on her and she was the bad cop during our childhood. Apart from getting it for being a pain, I also used to get it for studying (till 2nd standard or so…after that, I started studying on my own). My mum used to give me Tamil dictation words and I’d never put the mei ezhuthu in the correct place. So if you asked me to write ‘paakku’, I’d write ‘paagu’. Every time I did this, I’d get a pinch. Sounds appalling, right? I mean, there I was, a rojapoo five year old…and I was getting pinched for not writing correctly! The parents I meet now don’t want their kids to even hold a pencil till they are eighty or something.

When I listen to these parents talk about how the child should be allowed to free its mind and not read or write till it feels ‘ready’, I find myself agreeing on principle. I did not enjoy my Tamil dictation session. I hated it, if you want to know. But I don’t know if I regret it. I am interested in the field of education and I absolutely loathe schools like DAV that make you feel like you gotta be a Karl Marks if you want to be anything in life. But I sometimes think we overdo this ‘sensitive’ child bit.

I was playing with a kid here and we were playing an ‘ocean’ game. So basically, I’d make big waves or small waves and he’d have to swim accordingly. The waves ranged from a Tsunami to a tiny wave that tickled his toes. When I said ‘Tsunami’ however, the adult population in the room froze. They thought this would scare the kid, it being a natural disaster and all, but the kid only asked for an even bigger wave to engulf him. As adults, we transpose the associations that we make with incidents and situations on to the child. We then worry if this is going to damage the kid’s sensibilities. I think we should worry about this- it is important and bringing up a child that’s aware and sensitive is no joke- but I think we should also allow the child to discover the world by being a child. Without our anxiety hovering around it.

I don’t think I’d have ever learnt Tamil properly if not for those sessions simply because I wasn’t interested. If given a choice, I’d have never learnt Math. But I did learn all these things because I had no choice. Was it all useful? No. I never knew what the hell differentiation was and I still don’t. It hasn’t affected my life. But I still solved problems in my 12th board without knowing this. Sure, this isn’t the ideal education that one wants. Ideally, we should understand what we study. What we study should excite us. But sadly, we don’t live in an ideal world. The world sucks for the most part because it’s governed by the average, the majority. So much as I’d have enjoyed a non-competitive paradise where my artistic skills were identified in LKG and my Math textbook was thrown in the fire, it might have not prepared me for the moment when I stepped out of school. I’m not saying the system I went through was lovely. It wasn’t. But I don’t regret it. I think it built my character even as I rebelled against it.

Today, I see parents changing schools at the drop of a hat- too much homework, one bad teacher, competitive atmosphere and so on. But one has to recognize that the system is designed to accommodate a very large category called ‘Everybody’. Many of these parents don’t have a cable connection at home because TV is full of trash. I agree that TV is full of trash but I think it’s okay for the kid to watch some amount of trash. At least, it ought to know what trash is. Shin Chan isn’t my idea of creative genius, but if I had a kid, I’d be okay with it watching the show. I wouldn’t make it watch only The Sound of Music or something. The thing is, you can’t protect a child all through its life. At some point, the world will get to it. And when that happens, the kid ought to know that aaal is not well with the world.

I think what a child needs is sound ammunition for getting around the system and finding its way through it. Ammunition that it finds for itself through experience, not a hand-me-down.


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Good News

July 22, 2010

Sowmya Rajendran Children, Marriage, Parents, Women 19 Comments

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I sometimes feel biblical. So many people are interested in knowing if I’m pregnant or when I’ll become pregnant that it makes me think that the world is waiting for a Son of God that only I’m capable of producing. Then my many relatives (including the estranged ones- we’re a very decent family- we have the requisite number of estranged relatives on either side just as all other decent families do) and long-nosed neighbours can troop in like the Magi and give the baby all the gifts that my parents had given the babies in their families when they were born. It’s like that Univercell ad- yexchange, yexchange!

I went to Chennai for two weeks to meet my new team in my new workplace. M did not come with me because he had to go to Mussoorie on work. The fact that I’d arrived in Chennai all alone and was in my parents’ house was very puzzling to several neighbours who independently arrived at two conclusions a. I’m on the brink of divorce b. I’m pregnant. I went to my old office to collect my documents and my ex-colleagues wanted to know if I had any ‘good news’. When I said no, some ventured that I must be the type who plans for a baby. All this discussion occurred right in the middle of the office floor by the way, in case you were imagining a cosy one-on-one chat in a cubicle tucked away in Tanzania. Some others asked me if M would come to Chennai to travel with me back to Pune. Never mind that I headed the team for 2 years, I still need an adult to accompany me in an airline.

Earlier, people were interested in advising me to get married. Now they are interested in advising me to give birth. Why this baby fever, children? Is it so you can next comment on the fact that the baby doesn’t look so fair? That it hasn’t started talking like your own grandchild did in 3 weeks? I know the biological clock is ticking away and people have spent lakhs and lakhs and lakhs and lakhs trying to get a baby in their old age of 25+ but my question is this: why are you so interested? Were you so interested when I won the gold medal for my BA class or published my first book? Didn’t all that seem like ‘Good News’ to you?

Babies are good. I’m not an anti-baby person. I’m not going to say that giving birth is like shitting out a pumpkin. I’m not saying that I’ll never do it. I’m just saying- why don’t you butt out? There’s plenty of reading to be done in the obituary column in today’s Hindu. You could underline all the grammatical errors and mail it to the editor. India has lost wickets against Sri Lanka. Why don’t you write a nice essay about that? The world is full of work that needs to get done. I’ve delivered all these years without your help. I think I can manage this time too.
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Why I Got Married- 3

May 28, 2010

Sowmya Rajendran Marriage, Parents 10 Comments

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Those who haven’t read Part 1 and 2, please read them and then come back here. Don’t be like one of those annoying characters in Harry Potter cinema audience who look at Hagrid and say, “Dai machan, adhu dhaan da Vaaldemartu!”

We stopped Part 2 at the point when M had become my die-hard blog fan and had awarded me the Booker prize in the hearts of his hearts, as distinguished writers of mythology are fond of saying. After this point, M and I exchanged a series of emails on various subjects like Art, Literature, Politics, Culture, Cinema, Beliefs, Principles etc. We really ought to publish them and put Nehru Chacha’s Discovery of India out of business. These days, a typical conversation between us goes like this:

GB- What to do for lunch.

M- Aiyo. Yesterday’s sambar. How much is there?

GB- Enough. If you don’t take sambar for today’s dosa breakfast.

M- Ok. We’ll eat it with molagapodi. Or shall we eat cornflakes?

GB- No boiled milk. Shall I boil the new packet?

M- Bore. Let’s eat bread.

GB- Bore. But can you make omelete?

M- Ok. Bread-omelete.

Stage direction: GB and M exchange victorious smiles on having resolved a problem of mammoth proportions after an informed and deep discussion.

So anyway, after these high-level subject matter discussions in which we both acted like this wasn’t a ponnu-payan paathufying session over the internet which was arranged…horrors of horrors….with the full knowledge of our parents, M finally decided to come down from Pune and meet me. We both decided to meet outside our respective homes and were ready to put our feet down and go against our parents’ wishes. But disappointingly, both sets of parents were okay with this. As a consolation though, my mum disapproved of me meeting M in a cinema theatre (Sangam Cinemas, if you must know) and I got my chance to protest such backward behaviour by the older generation.

We went for Pasanga pillim. And then to the beach. And then back home. (You paparazzi people, stop asking for details.) The parents in the respective houses asked guarded questions to their respective hot-headed offspring. A direct question like, “So did you like the boy?” would have prompted an eloquent speech on how marriages, as much as Menaka Cards would like to proclaim, are not made in heaven and of course, the rap song of our generation- PLEASE GIVE ME MY SPACE.

On the following day, M and I once again met at the beach and I did a dramatic book reading for him from Aana and Chena. Since I was increasingly becoming a traditional good Indian ladies, I decided to exhibit my talents. I can’t sing, I can’t dance, but I CAN make a variety of faces that have proved to be a hit with many of my friends. If you’re interested in trivia, N once wrote a picture story for the Junior version of the magazine inspired by my talent. The story was called- The Faces I Can Make. So I showed M two varieties of Hanuman faces- adult Hanuman and Bala Hanuman; various ways to move eyeballs and eyebrows; Garuda face (after all, I was working in a place where the mythological aura hangs over one and all) and many many more. After these two very poignant dates, M went back to Pune. The respective sets of parents were worried that their respective offspring had not said anything about marriage. Did they, they asked each other, like each other? Do we, they asked each other, ask them this question?

M and I certainly liked each other, but was it enough to go ahead and get married? Wasn’t marriage an institution that turns intellectual individuals into people who can only worry about lunches and breakfast? Didn’t we know enough people who were divorced or staying together only because of the kids? So after some skirmishes and discussions all round, we decided to tell our parents that it wasn’t going to happen. Hearts, old and young, would have broken across borders if I’d been in Pakistan and he’d been in India. But let’s just say hearts were broken across the two ends of the city of Chennai.

And then, we promptly started mailing and talking to each other again without the knowledge of our respective sets of parents. This was more like it. We were cool now. We were rebelling. And we were like making our own choices dae. We weren’t doing no arranged marriage crap machan. M came down a couple of times to Chennai after this and we had the mandatory secret dates to ensure that we were being clandestine and 21st century. A lot of ramayana and dramayana later, we finally told our parents and decided to get married, with their bewildered blessings.

Woot.

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Why I Got Married-2

March 12, 2010

Sowmya Rajendran Marriage, Parents 9 Comments

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And so, I agreed to meet this one boy my parents had zeroed in on. He had a PhD AND an MBA (stupid confused geek) AND had come back from the US (yenda ippo vandhu yen kazhutha arukara) AND had just settled down in Pune (can’t you obtain a Pune phigure for yourself instead of blading my life?) as a scientist (yaaaaaaaaaawn). I was utterly disgruntled by their choice. I had a job in singara Chennai that I loved. I do a weekly pilgrimage to Beasant Nagar beach sincerely. My friends are all in Chennai. I don’t know Hindi and echoos me, Marathi?! Also, the boy was from a communist family (Deivam = Marx; Devil = Amrika aadhikam ; Kulam = Chinese; Gotram = Che engira Che Guverraaaaa).

My dad gave me all the details in a big rush, owing to the fact that my face was a Kathakali mask of rage. Due to this, I didn’t quite catch M’s surname. Since I had to stick to my utter disinterest agenda, I did not ask my dad to clarify. I turned to the one trusted tool that researchers worlwide use: Google. I googled for M and what I imagined his surname was. A balding professor with Subash Chandra Bose type glasses turned up. Wah. What a tres charmant laduka. I remained frosty throughout the day, ensuring that icicles grew out of crevices even in the beloved Madras heat.

The next day, M mailed me. In the modern world, boys meet girls over the internet (haven’t you seen the Kunal-Sonali Bendre romance? Rambha so helpfully informs us that the fishing net for lurrve is the internet). His surname wasn’t what I had thought it was, so a little bit of the frost disappeared as soon as I saw the email in my inbox. Most of the frost evaporated, however, when M mentioned that he’d googled for me, found my blog, and read all the posts. Yes, dear readers, all the whinings and pinings and exquisite essays you’ve read in this space are what got M interested. Wah Taj moment. Pen is mightier than fair-slim-beautiful. You will get everywhere with me with flattery. So since M chose to tell me that he thought my blog was ‘irreverent, funny, and immensely readable’, I decided to condescend and behave a little bit.

Apparently (and this I got to know much later), M had spent the previous day reading my blog and had told his mum that there was a 10-percent chance of this working out. Because the girl seemed to be too attached to Beasant Nagar beach and he wasn’t sure at all that I would move to Pune. But my literati-glitterati charm was too much for him to not give it a shot. Applause applause.

Shall we play some melodramatic music here and stop?

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Why I got Married- 1

February 23, 2010

Sowmya Rajendran Marriage, Parents 13 Comments

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This is how I ended up marrying M. It’s not the full story, of course. I’m a celebrity and I need my privacy. I wear cooling glass when I go for walks.

The story began, very romantically, on Valentine’s Day in the year 2009. That’s an explosive statement to make in the State of Maharashtra, but such is my desire to pour forth my emoshuns. February 14th, 2009, fell on a Saturday. Since we’d had a power shutdown in office on a weekday that week, bossman decided we were going to work that Saturday. But shall a mere bossman come in the path of true lurrve? Nevaaaahhhhhhhhhhh.

A and I had decided to meet up for lunch, you see. Since we’re both Press people (A used to work for The Hindu and I work for a world-famous bunny), our schedules rarely matched. But I was in a mood to bunk that Saturday and so I did. We met up at Spencer’s because that’s where the kewl folks spend Valentine’s Day, machi. Neither of us was wearing skinny jeans with embroidery, but it was otherwise very romantic. The last time I’d stayed over at A’s place, I’d left my kurta there. So A very thoughtfully wrapped it in old newspaper and brought it along with her as a Valentine’s Day gift. To emphasize the point, A drew a large red heart on the paper and also scribbled some mighty poetry to go with the mood. It wasn’t an Archies‘ card, but so what ya? Getting back your stinky kurta washed and hand-ironed is a gift you will appreciate when you get married (I’m so glad I get to make worldly-wise Reader’s Digest statements now).

So after the lunch, I went back home, unwrapped the kurta, threw the newspaper on the floor (sorry, A, sorry if your heart is breaking into pieces ya. Reader’s Digest statement: you will appreciate your mum better when you have to pick up the newspaper later yourself) and was generally tra-la.

A week goes by. My dad comes to me and starts talking about some online law course he’s doing. Apparently, there was an error in one of the case studies he read that day. It was a case about Raj giving Rahul a Valentine’s Day gift and some dispute ensuing from that. My dad laughed and asked me this brain-numbing question: How can Raj give Rahul a Valentine’s Day gift? With the air of an MA Gender Studies who patiently explains to the rest of the world the alphabets, I said, “Duhh. They were gay. Obviously.” My dad smiled nervously and then giggled nervously. I said, “Grow up!” and walked away, shaking my head sadly at how juvenile parents are these days.

A week goes by. Suddenly, I am accosted by Worried Mother. Worried Mothers have been the same since black and white, pesum padam cinema. Worried Mother informs me that she might have just guessed why is it that I’m not meeting any of the wonderful PhD, Oosa boys in the matrimony market. I am puzzled. Worried Mother asks me if I’m seeing someone. I say no. Then Worried Mother brings out the ace in the pack: why did A give you a gift for Valentine’s Day?

Things fall into place. The jigsaw fits. The world shakes and rearranges itself into continents. A was honored that my parents chose her out of my entire set of friends to be my girlfriend. I was vastly entertained by the fine piece of drama. I never saw this coming and the plot took me so much by surprise that I just had to applaud. But after I finished laughing, I was proud of my folks for having considered the possibility that I was gay and their willingness to talk. TV really does revolutionize the household! After confessing that I was straight, I decided to do the unthinkable. For the sleepless nights they spent since my hotshot date with A, I decided to meet one boy and one boy only to please them.

If I didn’t like the boy, I’d be let alone for the next few years. If I did, then…

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