Treat them Fairly...

It was all going smooth, my cousin loved this guy in her office and she introduced him to her parents. They were ready in spite of the whispers from the relatives of the marriage being an inter caste .Her parents decides to meet the guy’s parents and then inevitable happened. His mother decided to walk out of the relationship when her husband’s abuses became extreme. Though not divorced, they are living a separate life. Hearing this, my cousin’s parents decided to call it off. The reason was the stigma of woman left by her husband (even though it is the opposite). Unknowingly, they became a part of “Educated yet orthodox” community who, still consider it to be a women’s duty to carry the weight of a dead relationship full of abuses. And yes, most of the women still do so, just to protect their children from being stigmatized. And if they do something as brave as the guy’s mother has done, they would be stigmatized for life by the society.



One of my friend’s father left her mom and the kids (She and her brother who is physically challenged) to marry another lady. He had an extra marital with the lady and when the wife found this out, she was given a choice to either compromise or he will leave her. She walked out to make a life for herself and her children without any support. The father neither gave the alimony nor visited the children even being in the same city. Yes, seldom he calls them, just to shower them with abuses. She started working and gave her children the best of education and everything. Today, her children are faring well and are proud of their mother and so are we, her friends. We visit her mother whenever she is in town and just get mesmerized by the strength of the lady. Today in our generation, majority of women are educated and independent. We know our rights and society is coming in terms with non-stigmatizing separations. Think of the women who faced this in the earlier generation, when every decision was taken after considering about what the society will say? They didn’t even have support from their family who will always ask them to compromise. Majority of them were not educated and seldom were they independent. The only options available before them were wither to take abuses all through their life or to end up their life. But still there were few brave ladies who decided to take a brave stand and yet when we should acknowledge this fact we are mistreating them. How fair is it? Aren’t we encouraging violence towards women by acts like these? If we won’t stop this attitude towards women then probably, woman will keep on enduring pains and abuses just for not ruining their children’s life which, obviously will be ruined the same day when she will take the decision of being in an abusive relationship.

To my Father

Mom called me yesterday and told me about my dad retirement which is in November. It came as a surprise to me ,as everyone of us in the family was positive about his service extension to two more years i.e. to the age of 62 . Whenever i would talk to my father about his retirement he would always be in denial and non acceptance mode. So yesterday, when mom and he went to a photo studio for taking his picture for the retirement, he was very silent and my mom has tears in her eyes. My mother was upset because my father was about to get promoted to a position which he has always deserved in the next few months and which he cannot get now because of the retirement. My dad was upset because the sixth pay commission took a way too long time to revise his salary to a respected one only last year and only if the extension would have happened, he would have been able to perform some of his key responsibilities. I know it sound like a typical middle class attitude but it’s so true for a person like him.

My father was born a few years after independence to a family of a govt teacher. My grandfather died young and being the eldest of the six siblings, he fulfilled all his responsibilities. He funded for all his siblings educations and kept all of them with him for their higher studies as he was the only one from the family living in a big city. He took care of them till they are settled. Once that responsibility was settled then came us, the family. He worked his entire life providing all of us a good life and feels that only if this retirement would have extended he could have done better. I don’t have a heart to talk to my father about this, as for me he has done the best of whatever he could do with the limited resource and unlimited responsibilities. He should see the affection in my grandmother’s eye for him being the best son , the gratitude in my uncle/aunt’s eyes for being the best of a brother and a father figure, the respect in his subordinate’s eye for being the most honest employee in the organisation. And if he still think that there are few things still left undone then we , his children promise him to accomplish those :’)

Kathakali

On my vacation to Kerala in February this year I got an opportunity to watch “ kathakali” , the traditional dance form of Kerala. It was indeed a very heartening experience for me as I always wanted to see this dance form which I have only seen either in TV or during republic day parade in New Delhi . The best part with the performance was that they allowed us to see the live makeup for the artists and also narrated the history of its origination along with the nitty gritty of dance form. Kathakali derives its meaning from “ Katha” meaning story and “ kali” meaning dance, that is telling a story through a dance. The dance form has five elements:natya meaning dramatics; nritta meaning pure dance; nrithya meaning dance with expressions: geetha meaning vocals and vadyameaning instrument .The dance are based on mythological stories expressed through dance in various mudras and bhaav.

The performance which I watched in Munnar was “ Naraktundhi ko mila dand” (Punishment to Naraktundi). There was a brief narration before the show about the story , which goes as: Naraktundhi was a demon and fall in love with incarnation of Lord Vishnu . She disguises as a beautiful lady and tries to attract Lord Vishnu. Lord Vishnu however rejects her offer and asks her to leave. This make Narakthundi very angry and she comes to her original form of demon. She start the fight with Lord Vishnu and gets killed in the end. After the narration of the story the character played by narakthundi showed us various bhaav and the meaning of each one of them. After this narration the performance started.

The Performance poster of Kathakali and Punjarani :

The makeup :

Vadya at the starting of the show:

The character explaining Bhaav : Surprise:

Happiness:

Sorrow:

Anger:

Pain:

Various Mudras:

The performance starts:

Entry of Narakthundi:

Entry of Lord Vishnu Incarnation:

Narakthundi in disguise as a beautiful women perusing Lord Vishnu for marriage:

Narakthundi gets angry and comes in her original form leading to a fight:

Lord Vishnu finally kills Narakthundi :

Close up of the artist :

The artists after the show:

Seasons

Few weeks back I watched Atul Kumar’s play The Blue Mug at Ranga Shankara. The cast includes all the biggies of theatrical circle: Vinay Pathak, Sheeba Chadha, Rajat Kapoor, Ranvir Shorey, Munish Bharadwaj and Konkona Sen.The play doesn’t includes a story , it’s just about the memories of the characters who are suffering from the disorder of short term memory loss. They keep on reliving their past with mostly sweet and few sour memories. One of the memories of Rajat kapoor, who play a person from old Delhi, is the celebrations which come with each season and this post is about that.

I rarely can differentiate between seasons while I was there in Pune and then here in Bangalore. Being from a place in Uttaranchal, which has almost extreme of all the seasons it was actually a nice change. Pune I believe has just two form of weather. It’s either summer or rainy season . There you will find girls either in attire which is totally out of bandit queen (with scarf all around hair and face and a sun coat) or with an umbrella plus raincoat. I religiously followed this dress code and was happy with the fact that at least there are no winters: P .Bangalore boast of the best weather in India. It’s neither too hot nor too cold. It’s just perfect. But Rajat kapoor’s memory of celebration of weather was just so true for people like me. I just hate winters for the sheer reason that it’s just too dull and on top of that adds more to my plumpness (by wearing everything right from thermals to sweaters to jackets and what not). But how can I forgot the memories which I had from this season. The fight for “ garam Rajai “ and who will go out of it to bring something from the kitchen. Being at my grandmother’s room to heat ourselves in the “ Angeethi “ , having fight with my brother to light the “ angeethi” with coal , Mummy’s hot tea and pakoras(only if she is in mood to come out of the “ rajai” herself) , my favorite “ moongfali(peanut) and various type of “gajaks” . The special “ Gajar ka halwa” as carrots will come only during winters. Gulping numerous cups of hot masala tea and “ khatai” made up of “malta(a variety of orange).If we are at my grandmother’s place then just running around in snow and catching cold the next day.

Spring arrives with Holi and so does the time for “bhuttas and challi (corn)”, time for mother to make “aam ka achar” and us sneaking into terrace to have a piece or two of it . Summers means mangoes! The huge “ Dushari aam “ soaked in water and fight for the biggest one. There would be a competition at my granny’s place among us children for plucking the maximum “ litchis” from the tree. Rushing to the “chuski” vendor outside the school gate and enjoying two rupee chuski . Rain means lot of gossip sessions with cousins ;) over tea and rainbow of umbrellas open in the classroom .

There are so many of the memories associated with each of the seasons that it’s very difficult to pen down everything over here. I miss those days spread across the seasons with each bringing its own delight .