Heaps of cotton clothes
Fixed price, white-hot in noon sun,
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
True confessions of a ghost writer
The awful thing about being in a profession where visibility is a key criterion of success is that regardless of the quality of your work, your friends will always think you’re a loser since you’ve never won the Booker Prize.
No one could possibly be worse affected by this unreasonable benchmark than me since I went to school with Arundhati Roy where – and the admission causes me massive shudders of mortification – she was a famous athlete and I was the one preening insufferably with the radiant glory of my wondrous and unmatched skill with words.
Worse yet is the fact that every book I’ve written to date, and also some I’m labouring over even as we speak, have been ostensibly authored by others.
Trying to feign sophistication is pointless – it’s only dismissed as sour grapes. Even my (actually rather priceless) one-liner, “If they give me cash then why do I need credit!” is no match for the sniggers of uncouth schoolmates who cruelly whisper to each other, “Ya, she’s on page 334! And you’ll need a high-rez magnifying glass if you really want to see her name!”
It’s no use my explaining that the biggest compliment to the ghost writer is when someone reaches the end of the book and only then realizes, with a start, that the voice that was speaking all this while is not that of the face on the cover but has actually been cleverly simulated by another.
It’s no use my explaining that even a book of the stature of The Autobiography of Malcolm X – listed by none other than Time Magazine as one of the ten most important non-fiction books of the Twentieth Century – was written by the high profile Alex Haley.
Yes, we ghost writers are a sadly marginalized tribe – but the truth is, our numbers are growing.
Publishing is easier today than it’s ever been before – and getting even easier. Outsourcing is now established as a mainstream alternative to getting things done, so no one need pretend any more that they actually authored their book themselves. Writing is considered a suitable – though perhaps not particularly favoured – occupation for one’s offspring. And, as the world grows more and more complex, people with fascinating stories to tell but without the skill to tell them are undoubtedly going to give more and more opportunities for highly-paid work to people like me. The prospect delights.
One day, surely, someone will coin the expression ‘self-written autobiography’.
Yet, and even after endless years spent honing the skill of presenting the most negative attribute, the most downmarket episode, the most trivial achievement in hues that colour it as enthralling – or candid, or upright, or touching, or endearing – I’m sad pressed to portray this facet of my own professional profile in a manner that might possibly invite esteem.
Whooshing out of cupboards and down chimneys in my ghostly manner, I must muse moodily – but wispily, insubstantially alone – on the significant attributes of the sensitive scribe who can listen so carefully to another as to truly comprehend all the intricacies of thought and feeling of the subject, expressed in subtle ways even if unspoken, and convey them in a suitable manner.
Most of us go through life leaving the really important things unsaid. So ingrained is this habit that few of us really know what is important in our lives, and even less know how best to say it to the ones most important to us. And yet, when towards the end of a long and fulfilling life – or phase of achievement – we take up the task of writing our story, we must find the words with which to say these things: words that will cement our bonds with loved ones without gushing, repair our strained relations with others without grovelling, and create in strangers a feeling of warmth and appreciation for our life and times. This, of course, is no ordinary skill – but it is what the ghost writer must strive to excel at.
One of the simplest directives for good-quality journalism holds up hallmark parameters to the ghost biographer equally well: “Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.” These words come from Joseph Pulitzer, the Hungarian-American publisher who is best known for posthumously establishing the Pulitzer Prizes and for being one of the originators of investigative journalism.
What Pulitzer was never recorded as having said, but we all know, is that journalists learn early to casually project an air of comfortably superior knowledge by using the right key phrases that indicate one is an insider and well versed in areas one may never have encountered till just the previous day. The ghost writer must extend this skill further and delve the depth of her subject’s life experience, making it her own. And the ghost writer must have the discipline to resist the temptation – as every good reporter must – of icing the story with her own interpretations and experience, assuming and conjuring detail or sensation where none existed in fact.
When I write on behalf of someone else, though I am primarily working as a journalist, I also project myself into a range of different roles.
I am the village letter writer who will communicate this person’s message to another.
I am the client-service executive who will investigate my client’s requirements with single-minded commitment, and work to my utmost to fulfil them as best as I can.
I am the PR machinery that will give a context to both the achievements and the failures in this person’s life and, by showcasing them in a favourable perspective, matchlessly enhance his or her reputation.
I am the confidante who will receive a stream of information and it will be my responsibility to judge which shall be published, which relegated to the wayside, and which – for some of these will be secrets never told before to a single soul – shall go with me to my grave.
To the opinionated grandson who scoffs, “Why a book about HIS life, what is so great about HIM that he should write an autobiography!” I am the Victorian school teacher who raps knuckles with the stern admonition that each human being – and in particular grandfathers of overindulged young people – has a fascinating story, and each human being has the right to tell it.
I am the productivity-oriented project manager who must structure the project into clear phases, defining milestones, moving effortlessly from one role to the other as appropriate to each changing phase, anticipating, apprehending and resolving key pressure points – while at the same time monitoring and managing every discernible parameter. And I am the commercially-savvy professional with the relaxed confidence to lay down a payment structure which protects the interests of both parties, while simultaneously nudging the project along a carefully-configured but relentless time-line.
I am the stage artiste whose own character and nature and gender and family and past – and ego – vanish completely as she seamlessly dons the persona of another.
And I am also the unglamorous writer who will never win a Booker for her work, and even if the press in her own little city beams with kind satisfaction at her every achievement, must ultimately content herself with these words that a wise woman once coined: “If they give me cash, then why do I need credit?”
first appeared as I’m not there in Open magazine on 13 Feb 2010
No one could possibly be worse affected by this unreasonable benchmark than me since I went to school with Arundhati Roy where – and the admission causes me massive shudders of mortification – she was a famous athlete and I was the one preening insufferably with the radiant glory of my wondrous and unmatched skill with words.
Worse yet is the fact that every book I’ve written to date, and also some I’m labouring over even as we speak, have been ostensibly authored by others.
Trying to feign sophistication is pointless – it’s only dismissed as sour grapes. Even my (actually rather priceless) one-liner, “If they give me cash then why do I need credit!” is no match for the sniggers of uncouth schoolmates who cruelly whisper to each other, “Ya, she’s on page 334! And you’ll need a high-rez magnifying glass if you really want to see her name!”
It’s no use my explaining that the biggest compliment to the ghost writer is when someone reaches the end of the book and only then realizes, with a start, that the voice that was speaking all this while is not that of the face on the cover but has actually been cleverly simulated by another.
It’s no use my explaining that even a book of the stature of The Autobiography of Malcolm X – listed by none other than Time Magazine as one of the ten most important non-fiction books of the Twentieth Century – was written by the high profile Alex Haley.
Yes, we ghost writers are a sadly marginalized tribe – but the truth is, our numbers are growing.
Publishing is easier today than it’s ever been before – and getting even easier. Outsourcing is now established as a mainstream alternative to getting things done, so no one need pretend any more that they actually authored their book themselves. Writing is considered a suitable – though perhaps not particularly favoured – occupation for one’s offspring. And, as the world grows more and more complex, people with fascinating stories to tell but without the skill to tell them are undoubtedly going to give more and more opportunities for highly-paid work to people like me. The prospect delights.
One day, surely, someone will coin the expression ‘self-written autobiography’.
Yet, and even after endless years spent honing the skill of presenting the most negative attribute, the most downmarket episode, the most trivial achievement in hues that colour it as enthralling – or candid, or upright, or touching, or endearing – I’m sad pressed to portray this facet of my own professional profile in a manner that might possibly invite esteem.
Whooshing out of cupboards and down chimneys in my ghostly manner, I must muse moodily – but wispily, insubstantially alone – on the significant attributes of the sensitive scribe who can listen so carefully to another as to truly comprehend all the intricacies of thought and feeling of the subject, expressed in subtle ways even if unspoken, and convey them in a suitable manner.
Most of us go through life leaving the really important things unsaid. So ingrained is this habit that few of us really know what is important in our lives, and even less know how best to say it to the ones most important to us. And yet, when towards the end of a long and fulfilling life – or phase of achievement – we take up the task of writing our story, we must find the words with which to say these things: words that will cement our bonds with loved ones without gushing, repair our strained relations with others without grovelling, and create in strangers a feeling of warmth and appreciation for our life and times. This, of course, is no ordinary skill – but it is what the ghost writer must strive to excel at.
One of the simplest directives for good-quality journalism holds up hallmark parameters to the ghost biographer equally well: “Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.” These words come from Joseph Pulitzer, the Hungarian-American publisher who is best known for posthumously establishing the Pulitzer Prizes and for being one of the originators of investigative journalism.
What Pulitzer was never recorded as having said, but we all know, is that journalists learn early to casually project an air of comfortably superior knowledge by using the right key phrases that indicate one is an insider and well versed in areas one may never have encountered till just the previous day. The ghost writer must extend this skill further and delve the depth of her subject’s life experience, making it her own. And the ghost writer must have the discipline to resist the temptation – as every good reporter must – of icing the story with her own interpretations and experience, assuming and conjuring detail or sensation where none existed in fact.
When I write on behalf of someone else, though I am primarily working as a journalist, I also project myself into a range of different roles.
I am the village letter writer who will communicate this person’s message to another.
I am the client-service executive who will investigate my client’s requirements with single-minded commitment, and work to my utmost to fulfil them as best as I can.
I am the PR machinery that will give a context to both the achievements and the failures in this person’s life and, by showcasing them in a favourable perspective, matchlessly enhance his or her reputation.
I am the confidante who will receive a stream of information and it will be my responsibility to judge which shall be published, which relegated to the wayside, and which – for some of these will be secrets never told before to a single soul – shall go with me to my grave.
To the opinionated grandson who scoffs, “Why a book about HIS life, what is so great about HIM that he should write an autobiography!” I am the Victorian school teacher who raps knuckles with the stern admonition that each human being – and in particular grandfathers of overindulged young people – has a fascinating story, and each human being has the right to tell it.
I am the productivity-oriented project manager who must structure the project into clear phases, defining milestones, moving effortlessly from one role to the other as appropriate to each changing phase, anticipating, apprehending and resolving key pressure points – while at the same time monitoring and managing every discernible parameter. And I am the commercially-savvy professional with the relaxed confidence to lay down a payment structure which protects the interests of both parties, while simultaneously nudging the project along a carefully-configured but relentless time-line.
I am the stage artiste whose own character and nature and gender and family and past – and ego – vanish completely as she seamlessly dons the persona of another.
And I am also the unglamorous writer who will never win a Booker for her work, and even if the press in her own little city beams with kind satisfaction at her every achievement, must ultimately content herself with these words that a wise woman once coined: “If they give me cash, then why do I need credit?”
first appeared as I’m not there in Open magazine on 13 Feb 2010
Friday, May 8, 2009
The beatings will continue
For many years I worked for an IT company, and observing at first hand the rate of evolving technology never failed to make me dizzy. So high was the acceleration that it was clear we must brace ourselves for the day, soon, when there would be new and unexpected gadgets, climate changes, lifestyle options, product markets, means of communication, behaviour patterns (and so on) not just after every few decades – but every year, every month, and even every day.Now, at an age when women traditionally deal with painful personal change at every level of their existence, I peer into my memory looking for a significant moment that changed me more than any other and I spot that afternoon twenty-two years ago when a tiny, perfect, human being appeared in this world and suddenly – unexpectedly – made a wise and important person of me.
In the years that followed, I was gifted an assortment of life experiences that logically should have belonged to many different people. Of them all, this has been the role I most cherished.
Many complain of postpartum depression but I experienced the opposite – an exhilarating energy that turned me into the most blissfully devoted attendant there could be. I remember that I never left my baby’s side, not even once, for more than a year!Then came a time when it was necessary for me to garner every latent marketable skill I could invent to draw forth some kind of sustenance for the two of us.
As existence spun some fantastic patterns to make this possible, it also now blessed me with the ability to be nothing but relaxed and patient and friendly even as a storm of unhappiness and despair battled within.
I developed a secret empathy for the young women who stand, palms outstretched at traffic signals, with babies slung against their sides. This fanciful affiliation led me not to tearful flights of self-indulgence but instead lent a parallel poetic vision which came in handy to power my byline.
A few short years later, the adored one was narrowly snatched from the inelegant fate of the overfed by a rapid turn of events which abruptly bestowed on her a brother and a sister.
The three were so close in age that, like a batch of cookies baking together, they marched in faultless step across developmental milestones at easy-to-manage intervals. It was hard work fixing dabbas, helping with homework, administering first aid, and mediating in the occasional gory interpersonal squabble. At work I was encountering Japanese productivity techniques like Kaizen, JIT, and 5S, and coolly adapting them for use at home, to deal with fundamental icons of housework such as leftovers and laundry routines. The children knew nothing of this secret life of mine, though. For it was at this time that I achieved the highest pinnacle of success of my career: I was always there when the school bus brought them home.
We had fun too: Disney videos on Saturdays, summer holidays with mornings in the sandpit and ice lollies after lunch, a healthy (high-fibre, low-fat, low-cholesterol, extra-delicious) chocolate cake that bestowed instant popularity, and kiddie birthdays with bright, fancy-shaped cakes and invitations produced in-house. We travelled round the country by car and survived some nasty battles since only two could have window seats. But sulks could easily turn to giggles when the others pulled faces or pretended to vomit or a lorry passed by with something particularly inventive inscribed at the back.
At this time, I became so presumptuous as to write a column loftily airing my views on motherhood. I had experimented with different parenting formats, and read a few books, and the kids did seem happy, so I quite fancied myself the expert.
What I wrote was based on a belief – innocent, but deep-rooted at the time – that when children are given love, patience, and understanding, and when the responsible adults around them try to look at the world through their eyes, and guide them towards a life that is healthy and balanced, using a well-thought-out mixture of discipline and fun – well, surely they would grow up to be good, sensible, loving people and what more could anyone possibly want?
Years passed in this type of self-complacent haze until one day I noticed that my name had been changed and my smug satisfaction turned to dismay. From the once popular, beloved, and idolized “Mumma” I had now become known in an off-hand and rather patronizing tone, as “Mom”. Certain cute and cuddly people had vanished, to be replaced by lanky individuals who stalked about the house, being witty and laconic and saying “Ya, rright!” to each other with lofty disdain. Fundamental rules, in place for close to two decades, were being carelessly flouted!
At that time I remember we had a poster stuck on the fridge, a circular drawn up in a (rare) attempt at humour. We had been implementing ISO 9001:2000 at the office, and I had mockingly documented my Household Laundry System, listing recommended procedures and schedules for linen maintenance, white-shoe polishing and the like. At the bottom ran the line, “The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves!”
Funny – but was it really?
We never had overt rebellion, as many families do. On the surface we were close-knit and communicative – yet, strange and often frightening events occurred.
It was a confusing time for me, and one of intense reflection. All these years, I had believed that my parenting was sophisticated and effective. Most of the actions I made were painstakingly thought out and carefully implemented. I had exercised the right to express my anger the way I would in any close relationship – having often favoured a healthy, natural, aggressive and potentially destructive reaction over a polite and well-meaning but contrived one. When I encountered areas of guilt and resentment, I had tried to confront, define and resolve them. I had never overworked myself to win their favour in any way that was insincere – cautiously anticipating and sidestepping every trap a stepmother might characteristically embrace.
I now began to wonder whether, in the bargain, I had overdone it and exposed my ugly side once too often. Had I been too domineering? Could I have avoided it? Would we have been happier today if I had taken less trouble to relate, or to guide and monitor in those days? (And had I really been relating, guiding and monitoring – or just messing around with a sledge hammer?) I remembered one occasion when my youngest, an effervescent comedian of age six – now a suave and distant young man of twenty – had earnestly confided that his happiest moment had been the one on which he first met me. The saddest, he added without missing a beat, was when I first whacked him.
Funny – but was it really?
I’d love to pretend that in those days it had been my practice to glide about like a wise Zen master, cleverly concealing a stout staff behind my back and whipping it out occasionally with the express purpose of jolting the little darlings to a higher awareness.
Ya, rright!
As parenthood progresses, supremacy wanes, and now with the wisdom of the powerless I must counsel myself on the responsibility each previous generation has to allow the new one to live life in the new world, its very own special world, on its own terms. After all, I have brought my children up to make their own decisions. How must I react when they choose to do something I don’t want them to? Do I have the courage to watch them make their mistakes and learn what they will without my protective fussing, without charging in to provide perspective, without blatantly insisting they do things my way?
Part of the process of adapting to changes in my physical and mental composition must be the achingly painful realization that I can no longer be the most important person in the lives of those who once, not so long ago, swore me their undying loyalty and devotion in too many unspoken ways to enumerate. When this colossal change comes, will I succumb to the private pain of a spurned lover? To the panicky prospect of loss of occupation and omniscience faced by a corporate boss overthrown in a boardroom coup? Will I resist the urge to metamorphose into that melodramatic Bollywood mother whose anguish and its expression is always a source of mirth?
And will my actions ever reveal the depth of my anxiety at the prospect of regressing to that nameless, shapeless adolescent entity I once was, before I became that most wonderful, powerful, loved and revered of all beings, a mother?
first appeared as Mother Superior in Open magazine on 8 May 2009
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Discovering Toronto with Smita
The low red-bricked houses and neatly-marked streets looked familiar, and with dal and alu-bhindi for dinner, how could anyone blame me for thinking that this was just another suburb of London?
My first clue to the contrary was when I tried to get into the driver’s seat – ambitious, considering I can’t drive even back at home – and Smita gently showed me around to the other side. Still, it took a long while of staring at the maple tree outside my window before I could coax out that “Oh wow, I am actually here in Canada!” feeling.
Canada, eclipsed as it is by a bossy neighbour, tends to have an unglamorous branding. And with those supposedly never-ending winters, who in their right mind would go? I myself was only visiting a beloved friend, something we had wanted to do for so long that when it finally happened, it didn’t matter even remotely which country it was.
Years ago I’d read Margaret Atwood’s description in Cat’s Eye, of Toronto as “a world-class city” and I remember thinking, “how wannabe is that!” So when Toronto began to unfold before me, I felt like Columbus discovering a new land.
Toronto is a multi-cultural city and the diversity is such that on a visit to the Royal Ontario Museum we saw children of every imaginable skin colour. Of twenty-five, only about two were white. Canada has welcomed immigrants over centuries, the biggest wave of which arrived in the late 1840s from Ireland, fleeing the Irish Potato Famine and numbering twice the Toronto population of the time.
Over the years, settlers from different European, Asian, African and South American countries carved out sections of the city for themselves. You can browse in the ubiquitous China Town, but also eat spanakopita in cafés next to Greek street signs just as easily as crisp fresh dosais in restaurants with large nameboards in Tamil. With so many different ethnic groups mingling easily, racism is really just interpersonal friction. There are infinite varieties of the English accent, with an Indian who grew up in Kampala speaking a quite different idiom from one who grew up in Trinidad. The immigrants I met were proudly, passionately Canadian, grateful to the country that had given them lives of comfort, opportunity and pleasant stimulation.
It was only in the early years of the Twentieth Century that citizens began to work actively towards the creation of a strong Canadian national identity. One of these was a community of landscape painters that came to be known as The Group of Seven, and Smita introduced me to their work at the National Gallery, later driving me into the country to visit the McMichael Collection, located in the woodland setting that inspired them, and even buying me a beautiful art book representing their work.
Toronto’s vibrant cultural life made me feel that under-hyped Toronto is surely one of the world’s best-kept secrets. Friends took me to the National Ballet of Toronto and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra where the high-quality infrastructure and appreciative audience added to my experience of the performances.
Smita and I had always shared our books, right from the days when we both lived in Bandra and she would drop in to visit on her way back from college nearly every day. I now enjoyed discovering her favourite Canadian authors. Clara Callan by Richard B. Wright is told through letters and narrative and depicts the dramatic lives of two sisters who grew up in small-town Canada. One, a schoolteacher, remains a spinster, while the other becomes a radio star in New York. The Divine Ryans by Wayne Johnston is told by a young boy whose father has recently died and has the mixture of humour and tragedy characteristic of the Irish writers. No New Land by M.G. Vassanji is a hard-core immigrant story filled with struggle, humiliation, misunderstanding, alienation from offspring, and crisply told.
I knew I was in Toronto when, at the shortlist readings of the Griffin Poetry Prize at the MacMillan Theatre, Margaret Atwood was right behind Smita in the queue for the toilet.
Our weekend visit to Ottawa, Canada’s capital, happened to be on Doors Open, a day on which public buildings welcome visitors. So we dropped by at the Supreme Court, Houses of Parliament, and even the Governor General’s home. Security arrangements were in place but there was no trace of paranoia or hatred. This complete lack of fear was for me the most refreshing aspect of this country, and doubtless a consequence of the thanks-to-big-brother-you-can’t-see-me syndrome. The streets of Ottawa are wide and clean. Coming from a land of teeming millions, there arose within me a very loud question, namely: “Where IS everybody?” which made Smita laugh. Toronto by contrast can get crowded – but I found it a relaxed place with the screaming inner-city adrenalin absent.
On our last day we drove out to Niagara Falls where we enjoyed looking across the gorge and gloating at those standing on the American side, peering over but unable quite to see all that we could. As we headed home, Smita’s formidable, internationally-acknowledged organizational ability had two rainbows arranging themselves over the falls, and we rode into a magnificent pink-and-purple Toronto sunset, Lake Ontario rolling alongside, and the deep-throated Canadian genius Leonard Cohen belting out his soulful ballads all the way home.
parts of this first appeared as Steeped in a maple world in Sunday Mid-day on 6 Sep 2009
My first clue to the contrary was when I tried to get into the driver’s seat – ambitious, considering I can’t drive even back at home – and Smita gently showed me around to the other side. Still, it took a long while of staring at the maple tree outside my window before I could coax out that “Oh wow, I am actually here in Canada!” feeling.
Canada, eclipsed as it is by a bossy neighbour, tends to have an unglamorous branding. And with those supposedly never-ending winters, who in their right mind would go? I myself was only visiting a beloved friend, something we had wanted to do for so long that when it finally happened, it didn’t matter even remotely which country it was.
Years ago I’d read Margaret Atwood’s description in Cat’s Eye, of Toronto as “a world-class city” and I remember thinking, “how wannabe is that!” So when Toronto began to unfold before me, I felt like Columbus discovering a new land.
Toronto is a multi-cultural city and the diversity is such that on a visit to the Royal Ontario Museum we saw children of every imaginable skin colour. Of twenty-five, only about two were white. Canada has welcomed immigrants over centuries, the biggest wave of which arrived in the late 1840s from Ireland, fleeing the Irish Potato Famine and numbering twice the Toronto population of the time.
Over the years, settlers from different European, Asian, African and South American countries carved out sections of the city for themselves. You can browse in the ubiquitous China Town, but also eat spanakopita in cafés next to Greek street signs just as easily as crisp fresh dosais in restaurants with large nameboards in Tamil. With so many different ethnic groups mingling easily, racism is really just interpersonal friction. There are infinite varieties of the English accent, with an Indian who grew up in Kampala speaking a quite different idiom from one who grew up in Trinidad. The immigrants I met were proudly, passionately Canadian, grateful to the country that had given them lives of comfort, opportunity and pleasant stimulation.
It was only in the early years of the Twentieth Century that citizens began to work actively towards the creation of a strong Canadian national identity. One of these was a community of landscape painters that came to be known as The Group of Seven, and Smita introduced me to their work at the National Gallery, later driving me into the country to visit the McMichael Collection, located in the woodland setting that inspired them, and even buying me a beautiful art book representing their work.
Toronto’s vibrant cultural life made me feel that under-hyped Toronto is surely one of the world’s best-kept secrets. Friends took me to the National Ballet of Toronto and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra where the high-quality infrastructure and appreciative audience added to my experience of the performances.
Smita and I had always shared our books, right from the days when we both lived in Bandra and she would drop in to visit on her way back from college nearly every day. I now enjoyed discovering her favourite Canadian authors. Clara Callan by Richard B. Wright is told through letters and narrative and depicts the dramatic lives of two sisters who grew up in small-town Canada. One, a schoolteacher, remains a spinster, while the other becomes a radio star in New York. The Divine Ryans by Wayne Johnston is told by a young boy whose father has recently died and has the mixture of humour and tragedy characteristic of the Irish writers. No New Land by M.G. Vassanji is a hard-core immigrant story filled with struggle, humiliation, misunderstanding, alienation from offspring, and crisply told.
I knew I was in Toronto when, at the shortlist readings of the Griffin Poetry Prize at the MacMillan Theatre, Margaret Atwood was right behind Smita in the queue for the toilet.
Our weekend visit to Ottawa, Canada’s capital, happened to be on Doors Open, a day on which public buildings welcome visitors. So we dropped by at the Supreme Court, Houses of Parliament, and even the Governor General’s home. Security arrangements were in place but there was no trace of paranoia or hatred. This complete lack of fear was for me the most refreshing aspect of this country, and doubtless a consequence of the thanks-to-big-brother-you-can’t-see-me syndrome. The streets of Ottawa are wide and clean. Coming from a land of teeming millions, there arose within me a very loud question, namely: “Where IS everybody?” which made Smita laugh. Toronto by contrast can get crowded – but I found it a relaxed place with the screaming inner-city adrenalin absent.On our last day we drove out to Niagara Falls where we enjoyed looking across the gorge and gloating at those standing on the American side, peering over but unable quite to see all that we could. As we headed home, Smita’s formidable, internationally-acknowledged organizational ability had two rainbows arranging themselves over the falls, and we rode into a magnificent pink-and-purple Toronto sunset, Lake Ontario rolling alongside, and the deep-throated Canadian genius Leonard Cohen belting out his soulful ballads all the way home.
parts of this first appeared as Steeped in a maple world in Sunday Mid-day on 6 Sep 2009
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Monday, July 16, 2007
Sar utha ke jiyo
Over the last few months, a much-played clip on TV has portrayed an elderly gent stepping off a train, shoving away his son’s helping hand. On the platform now himself, he tries to attend to his wife, who is stepping out after him, but she snubs him just as rudely, and struts off haughtily with her head in the air.
“Sar utha ke jiyo!” the advertiser exhorts.
I watch this ad with mixed feelings, trying each time to interpret the phrase, how it would mean different things to different people – and which precise shade of expression in the crowded infinitum from dignity to arrogance would precisely describe, to me in particular, the feeling of holding one’s head high.
When I hear people express shuddering horror at the prospect of having to depend on their children in old age, I feel a little embarrassed.
The truth is, I’m completely dependent on my children even now. I’ve been so ever since the moment they entered my life. I’m not ashamed to admit that when they’re happy, fulfilled, enjoying success or recreation – I feel content. When they’re disturbed, ill, unhappy or confused for any reason, existence feels nothing but wretched. There’s no other dependence that can be defined as simply and as completely.
When babies soil their pants, parents consider it their loving duty to clean, dispose, and disinfect. When toddlers graze their knees, it’s a joy to kiss away the pain. To comfort a school-goer who has lost her best friend is nothing but a gift, a lofty privilege of existence! Parents put aside their need for fun, privacy, even self-fulfilment, and ride their kids to tennis class, maths tuitions, and birthday parties. They’re prepared to pump them with caffeine at any hour of day or night when they’re preparing for entrance exams. They valiantly tolerate mood swings and breaches of discipline, and then lend every inch of their own energy into generating that escape velocity for the children to swing off into orbits of their own.
And yet, just a few years later, these clichés of parenthood run aground. The children extend a helping hand – only to be churlishly pushed away!
To me, this behaviour is surly and uncalled for, and nothing at all to do with ‘sar utha ke jeena’. When old age and illness or disability come to me, my dignity will come from trusting existence to provide me with carers who will treat me with patience and kindness. When my circumstances compel me to take help from others, my dignity will come from learning their ways and adapting to them. When someone holds out a hand to help me, my dignity will come not from pushing them aside, but from my deep gratitude for their presence, and for their generosity. My dignity – and pride – will be enhanced by the knowledge that my helplessness has provided them the opportunity to gain virtue from being charitable. I will proudly feel that I’ve earned my place at the table just by responding to the overtures of affection and kindness of those who are caring for me. I promise not to expect much, and to be grateful for every little that I get.
First appeared in Sunday Mid-day 15 Jul 2007
“Sar utha ke jiyo!” the advertiser exhorts.
I watch this ad with mixed feelings, trying each time to interpret the phrase, how it would mean different things to different people – and which precise shade of expression in the crowded infinitum from dignity to arrogance would precisely describe, to me in particular, the feeling of holding one’s head high.
When I hear people express shuddering horror at the prospect of having to depend on their children in old age, I feel a little embarrassed.
The truth is, I’m completely dependent on my children even now. I’ve been so ever since the moment they entered my life. I’m not ashamed to admit that when they’re happy, fulfilled, enjoying success or recreation – I feel content. When they’re disturbed, ill, unhappy or confused for any reason, existence feels nothing but wretched. There’s no other dependence that can be defined as simply and as completely.
When babies soil their pants, parents consider it their loving duty to clean, dispose, and disinfect. When toddlers graze their knees, it’s a joy to kiss away the pain. To comfort a school-goer who has lost her best friend is nothing but a gift, a lofty privilege of existence! Parents put aside their need for fun, privacy, even self-fulfilment, and ride their kids to tennis class, maths tuitions, and birthday parties. They’re prepared to pump them with caffeine at any hour of day or night when they’re preparing for entrance exams. They valiantly tolerate mood swings and breaches of discipline, and then lend every inch of their own energy into generating that escape velocity for the children to swing off into orbits of their own.
And yet, just a few years later, these clichés of parenthood run aground. The children extend a helping hand – only to be churlishly pushed away!
To me, this behaviour is surly and uncalled for, and nothing at all to do with ‘sar utha ke jeena’. When old age and illness or disability come to me, my dignity will come from trusting existence to provide me with carers who will treat me with patience and kindness. When my circumstances compel me to take help from others, my dignity will come from learning their ways and adapting to them. When someone holds out a hand to help me, my dignity will come not from pushing them aside, but from my deep gratitude for their presence, and for their generosity. My dignity – and pride – will be enhanced by the knowledge that my helplessness has provided them the opportunity to gain virtue from being charitable. I will proudly feel that I’ve earned my place at the table just by responding to the overtures of affection and kindness of those who are caring for me. I promise not to expect much, and to be grateful for every little that I get.
First appeared in Sunday Mid-day 15 Jul 2007
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