Bibliophobia

Bala was curious to know what we were doing on our land and how we were going about it. He came over unannounced and started chit chatting in the typical local fashion. He had a degree in Science. I thought Bill Mollison’s “Permaculture Design Manual” would help in the conversation and might appeal to him. I brought out the book and handed it to him.

I love this book, not just for its content, but also for the presentation -- hand-drawn pictures and designs. I thought Bala might like it too. But he fell silent after he got the book in his hands. He looked at how thick and fat this book was and how many pages there were. After the initial apprehensions he started reading the first page in a serious, non-flippant manner. I could see that the book was weighing him down. He couldn’t get past the first page. After a few minutes he gently closed the book. He said that he had to try reading it another time when he had the whole day reserved for reading! "Is there such a day?" I wondered.

Basically it was a big flop show. I have seen this repeat many times -- different people and different books, of course. People got bogged down by the mere thought of having to read a book. As I was pondering over this recent incident, it stirred up some really old memories where I have had the same exact feeling.

Till high school I was a top ranking student. In the Indian context, this meant that I could faithfully reproduce what was in our course books on to the exam papers. Our education involved very little creativity or fun or real learning. I had a photographic memory, which was just the thing needed in this context.

For the first time in my life, when I went to college I got introduced to a fiction. As a part of the English course, we had to read a book by Jeffrey Archer. I dreaded this book for the sheer number of pages it had! I was 17 then and I had never read anything for the pleasure of reading. All I had read was school textbooks. I remember the drudgery involved in the reading of this fiction. It took me six long months to get to the last page and understand the story just enough to take the English exam.

This aversion to books was in spite of the fact that I was a good student. Or, should I say that it was because I was a good student?? Students who didn’t fare well obviously hated books. Some burned their textbooks after the final exams. Some ripped their old books. It was as if they wanted to get rid of these seemingly innocuous things that were controlling their lives. Even while engaging in such “nefarious” acts they were worried -- “what if we failed in these exams? what if we have to repeat these exams? what if the Gods punish us for being disrespectful towards books?” After all, books are considered sacred in India.

Strangely enough those books that ought to be the source of knowledge became the very source of bad associations with learning.

 -- Hema

To Market, To Market

We live on our farm, at the foothills of a range of hillocks. We are off the main road by about a kilometer. We go to the market area in Athimanjeripet once every couple of days or so for all our house-hold and farm needs. This is a three kilometer ride one-way. Athimanjeripet is a village with a population of about 5000. Here is an account of my ride to the town and back, from a couple of days ago:

Subbamma went “Madam! Long time no see! How are you?”. I found her limping more than usual after the recent surgery. I was wondering how her husband was doing. I hadn't seen him in a while.

*

On the road, Nalini, a retired school teacher, was waiting for a bus. She said that arthritis was quite bad. She is a cheerful person, I enjoy meeting her, however briefly.

*

I stopped at Lata’s place to pay for the manure we had picked up from their place, earlier that week. Lata’s neighbour got curious to know what was going on. After a couple of minutes of chit-chat, she went about doing her usual business having had her curiosity satisfied. I paid Lata for the manure, bought some coconuts from her and left soon after.

*

We used to live in a rental house when we initially came to Athimanjeripet. There I got to know Babu, our landlord’s brother. As I was riding towards the town, he was zipping through on his motorbike; he acknowledged me as he went past. This quick acknowledging gesture of the head making a quarter turn and back took me some time to get used to, not to mention the practice needed to get it right. I was wondering how his new business was going. During corona, he started selling fruit on a truck stationed by the roadside in our market.

*

A bit later I spotted our potter on his bicycle. He did the same quick quarter rotation which I was happy to reciprocate. I was remembering that his wife had recently passed away. 

*

I arrived at the bazaar street, the one and only one we have. The cloth merchant’s shop, a tiny 8’ X 20’ space, was stocked with sarees, T-shirts, fabric for men's shirts, pants and women’s blouses. He had a couple of stools at the entrance of his shop to seat his customers. He typically brought the fabric out to the customers at the entrance. He let me step into the shop and look at his collection. Once I finished my shopping, he said that he was offering me a discount of ₹10!!

*

My next stop was the tailor’s shop. Rama, in late 20’s, used to work at a textile export factory in Chennai. When he couldn’t suffer the long hours any more, he quit the exploitative job to start his own shop here in the village. He gets inundated with orders, especially during festival seasons, school reopening times and months in which weddings happen frequently. He is never short of work. This also means he can’t deliver on time. Thus it was my n^th time to his shop asking about the status of my clothes. I remembered that one of his relatives was recently hospitalized after a snake bite. I asked about that relative’s health. He updated me about those hospital visits, the expenses involved, the stress in the extended family etc. It was needless for me to ask if he got around to working on my order. Happy that his relative survived the snake bite, I left his shop. Rama asked me to call him after a week.

*

A little disappointed about not getting my clothes, I started my ride back home. The banana vendor waved at me and said “no”. I knew what he meant -- “I don’t have old bananas to spare today”. I usually stop at his teeny-tiny (5’ X 3’) make-shift, road side shop to pickup the bananas he can’t sell -- overripe, mushed up, with black spots. I bring them home for our chickens. He sets these aside for me to pickup once in every two days or so. He is happy to give these away and I am happy to get these for our chickens. In return, when I want to buy bananas, I make it a point to buy from him.

*

The next two kilometer ride was not eventful. As I approached our village, I saw Mohan on the road. I remembered that his son-in-law had come over last week and there was a big dispute. I asked him about that and he said that they had decided not to send their daughter back with her husband. The guy being a drunkard had beaten his daughter many times in the last few years and the decision is now made to have her live here with the parents. The story gets complicated as this daughter has three kids and there is no source of income.

*

With a heavy heart, I kick-started my motorbike. A couple of minutes later, Das waved to say that he will come over to get his cow. He had brought his cow earlier in the day to graze at our farm. We get milk from Das’ cow. I said okay without stopping to talk further.

.

*

I came back home and started my chores. It is quite normal to meet people on the road, chat, get to know the happenings and share a bit from our side too. This gossip is essential, as Harari says in the “Sapiens”. There are downsides of gossip too, no denying that. But the lack of human connection makes our lives dry and disconnected.

*

To compare and contrast, I would like to talk about our lives in a suburb in northern California. We had lived in the same house for 11 - 12 years! And yet, we didn’t know a single family there for 10 long years! Only during the last year (ironically when we decided to move) we had neighbours who wanted to talk to us. Our neighbourhood was beautifully maintained, landscaped, had all the amenities but yet lacked life. I had two babies in that house. Not one soul came to see me or the babies! We and all our neighbours got out of our houses in our cars and came back in our cars -- it was as if our remote-operated car garages were spouts from where our cars emerged out and the garages sucked us and ours cars back in when we came home. Nobody ever needed to walk out of the house! We could hardly see people out on the roads. In all those twelve years, there was a two week period when they were laying roads for which we needed to park our cars outside the neighbourhood and walk the last bit. This changed our lives! We got to see people walking to work, coming back from the stores, gathering on the street. I started looking forward to that little walk in the mornings and evenings, just to see new human faces.

*

Now, twenty years later, when I go to Chennai (or any other big city) especially to the new areas where high-rise apartment-living is the norm, I remember my northern California suburb days and wonder how people in such apartments, leading nuclear lives, feel about their disconnect from the rest of society around them; or do they even have the time to know that there is a disconnect?

-- Hema

 

 

 

Savour

 If you have access to some 10 or 20 or 30 years old group photos (school, college, wedding, party), please take a look at them; compare and contrast them to some recent ones. If you don't have access to such photos, try to think of a group of people that you know -- friends, co-workers and extended family members. Age group doesn’t matter. I request you to pause here to find some pictures before reading further. It is a crucial step in this exercise.

Now, it is very likely that you would agree that over-weight/obesity is on the rise. We don’t need to know the exact numbers to acknowledge that. But, if you are a person interested in numbers, all you need to do is to go to any public space or a social event and check it out for yourself. I did exactly that. I stood at some busy cross-roads in Chennai, clocked myself and observed the people on bicycles and motorbikes. I counted the number of people who were NOT visibly overweight (Group-A). My friend counted the number of people who were visibly overweight(Group-B). 

If the number of people in Group-A was 'n',

the number of people in Group-B was at least four times 'n'(4n).

Some caveats here:

- Obviously, we are likely to have missed some people due to the nature of the traffic at that time. Thus, #(Group-A) + #(Group-B) was not equal to the total number of people on bicycles and motorbikes. So, we can’t do a percentage calculation here. 

- We couldn’t count people in cars and three-wheel autos.

- Data collected from pockets of Chennai doesn’t *accurately* represent all of Chennai, or other other cities or rural areas.

Having said that, this data still shows us the *trends*. I am deeply pained by this trend. Being over-weight or obese significantly puts one at risk for various diseases. I have been observing various contributing factors at play here, for more than 20 years. This post is an earnest attempt to present my observations and understanding that ensued from those.

                    *

I have chosen to omit exceptions for brevity and have focused on the patterns that are quite common.

A baby is born. The new parents are excited and figuring out ways to feed the baby (breastfeed, bottle-feed). As they are going through this challenging phase they get advice from doctors, books, family and friends. Most of them develop this understanding that the baby would cry when he is hungry. They also get to know that once the baby is nursed, he stopped crying. They begin to understand other hunger cues. Now, as the baby grows into a toddler the parental anxiety around food grows too. The caregiver distracts this mobile little person in a million ways just so food can be shoved into his mouth. 

Sure enough, the distractions work, at least in the short-term. Once a set of options expire, the caregivers quickly come up with new ones. The technology used can be different (from pointing at the moon or a nearby animal to using a mobile phone), but the theme is the same -- distraction.

What do distractions do? My thoughts are:

1. They *disconnect* the baby from her *self*.

The beautiful process of feeling hungry and smelling, touching the food and taking that one’s own mouth:

- activates the digestive system

- helps the baby understand the connection between her hunger, hands, mouth and the good feeling that results when the food reaches her tummy. 

- develops a good tactile sense.

- empowers the baby (although the baby wouldn’t know that)

- integrates the baby into the meal routines and rituals.

2. Distractions are basically manipulations to get what we want to happen. Once the baby starts seeing through this (which is likely to happen eventually), they start losing trust on the care giver. 

3. Food is for survival. All living beings are interested in surviving. Children simply can’t starve themselves to death. That goes against Evolution. Left alone to their devices little children, who have a healthy relationship with food, will seek food only when they are hungry. In my limited experience I have seen that, if this healthy relationship is allowed to exist, the chances of developing eating disorders (anxiety around food, over-eating, binge eating, anorexia) -- is quite small. Distractions don't let a healthy relationship develop between the baby and her food.

The baby is now a toddler and he is sent to a day-care, pre-school or kindergarten. There is a routine enforced by the place that he is going to. He is asked to eat when it is time to eat, whether or not he is hungry. The disconnect between his self and what he does starts here (if not earlier). He is also asked by adults and care-givers to “finish” what is on his plate, even if his body is not for it.

Occasionally the toddler falls sick and rejects food. This is body's natural response to sickness. In simple terms, the body tries to heal itself when we get sick; digestion is too cumbersome during sickness. But the adults around her are worried and anxious for her. They insist that she should eat or drink. The toddler eventually yields to parental pressure, thus widening the disconnect.

To understand this disconnect deeply and assist with healing, we need to start looking at our own relationship with food. 

-- Hema

The konnai story

In 2013, when we were new to Athimanjeri, there was no garbage dump here. I didn't really see a need for one as there was not much garbage. But in the following few years, this changed rapidly. We now have two 100 ton garbage pits that fill up in no time. This put me in touch with the stark reality -- just a handful of us making eco-friendly choices is not going to make a dent in the garbage produced.

When Corona was at its peak in 2020, I realized that this presented a unique chance for introducing cloth pads (an eco-friendly alternative to disposable sanitary napkins) in our village and town. I started making cloth pads with a small group adolescent boys and girls. My idea was to provide job opportunity locally and grow a few socially-responsible individuals who can carry this venture forward.

I wanted to keep the price low, to make it affordable for the people here. I priced them at ₹ 100, per pad. Armed with a bunch of our cloth pads, I started a campaign, in our town and nearby villages, about the financial and ecological implications of using disposable napkins. Whenever I had a captive audience I handed out free samples. Over the course of next eight months, I gained the following understanding about the lives of rural women and the various factors that are at play here:

• Cheap disposable pads are really cheap (₹ 5, per pad). Because of this highly subsidized rate, in many cases it makes very little economic sense to not use disposables.
  
• Women spend  ₹ 50 - ₹ 150 per month on disposable napkins
• Many of them don't change their pads since every pad costs money. They use their pads for 8 - 12 hours!
• Young girls, women in their 20's and 30's do not want to wash cloth pads. 
• Older women (40 and above) still use cloth
• Often a poor, semi-urban family shares their bathroom/toilet with other families. Soaking and washing cloth pads is not practical here. 
• Government schools in Tamilnadu offer free disposable pads for girls from 9th grade onwards. Their families are not spending on pads. The staff at these schools siphon a part of these pads to their homes. Thus their relatives also get free pads. 
• Government schools in Andhra Pradesh offer free pads for older girls. The girls toilets are equipped with incinerators. So these schools don't see how this can be an environmental pollutant.
• Women often develop allergies by using disposable pads, but they don't talk about that.
• Most women burn the used pads, only some bury them.
• Up to 10% of the women, between ages 25 and 35, have had their uterus removed for mysterious reasons.
  
• Interestingly, caste and class played a role in how menstruation could be talked about. The upper the caste or class was, the males in the family were not involved in the discussion.

A very small percentage of women were eager to try the cloth pads. Satisfied with our pads, they started spreading the word around slowly. This local market was clearly not enough if this venture had to provide a sustainable livelihood for the makers of these pads. There was a need to go beyond the tiny radius that we were operating in. Thus konnai was born in mid-2021, with the help and support of many of our friends. It is now a rural employment initiative providing a source of income to a small group of youth and women.

konnai's vision is to enable people make better choices for a better tomorrow. This includes providing high quality eco-friendly reusable products at reasonable prices; providing a healthy work culture for the makers where they and their families can thrive.

 

Other than cloth pads, we also make cloth bags, cloth diapers, changing pads, baby wipes and bibs. konnai is now online. We can receive online orders and receive payments through GooglePay. Please spread the word about konnai. Thank you!

 

 

-- Hema

A Decade Into Homeschooling

I wrote this piece recently for the Teachers Plus magazine.: 

"Our home is the best place on earth. I LOVE being at home. Why can't I be at home most of the times and go to school rarely?" This came from my child when he was 7 years old. Although I didn't want to ponder over his question then, it haunted me. A year later I decided to take a deep look at his question and address his unhappiness in going to school. That led to a cascade of events leading to where we are now. We are thankful for the support we received from fellow homeschoolers and the insights from authors like John Holt, Alfie Kohn and Gabor Mate.

Fast forwarding ten years. My husband Dev and I live on our farm near Tiruttani/Chittoor with our kids Abhi(17) and Aparna(14). Aparna never went to school. Abhi has been home since he was eight. The decision to homeschool liberated us. We realized that could live literally anywhere we wanted to. We were not limited by the necessity to continue a way of life, just for the sake of conformance. The decision to homeschool dramatically brought down the everyday stress level at home. As a direct consequence the quality of our life got better. This enabled us to pause and question our priorities in life. This in turn enabled Dev to quit his corporate job; soon after that we moved back  to India (from the US).  

For the past seven years we have been living in rural South India. Looking back, the challenges presented by this period have inevitably resulted in learning new skills. It is important to mention here that we didn't embark on this path with this agenda in mind. Here I would like to present a few snap-shots from our homeschooling experiences.

Since we have snakes in our area, it was highly imperative to be able to identify them correctly and swiftly. This need fueled by their interest, the kids got adept at identifying, catching and rescuing (non-venomous) snakes. During this feverish phase they made toys, tools and games that would help them with snake identification and snake catching. Life was all about and only about snakes. We even cared for a Checkered Keelback at home for three weeks to observe it in close quarters. In our neighbourhood they are now known as the local snake catchers. 

Similarly, the lack of restaurants and a strong desire to enjoy baked goods got Aparna interested in baking. She now bakes wholesome bread, cake and pizza. She experiments with local/seasonal fruit and vegetable in her recipes. 

Two years ago Abhi wanted to eat the fruit of our palm trees. But people that climb palm trees are not easy to find anymore, even in villages. Thus his desire drove him to learn to climb palm and coconut trees. This process lasted for about two years - to acquire enough physical strength and skills, to get over his fear of heights, to collect and use the tools needed for the harvest. This summer both Abhi and Aparna were able to climb and harvest palm fruit and tender coconuts. Abhi wanted to document this process and that became a valuable film-making experience that involved script writing, editing and post-production software work. His work is available on his youtube channel "dancing dodonaea studios".

For several months, after moving in to our new house at the farm, we were looking for a carpenter to build a chest of drawers for our farm tools. We could find absolutely no one to work on such an unconventional project. As Dev started designing the storage space, Aparna got interested in building it. She already had basic wood working skills since she had built some furniture. These skills were developed and honed for many years -- starting from working on cardboard projects (miniature models), moving on to simple utility (wood) projects with no joinery and then taking up joinery work. She is currently into relief carving (carving done on a flat panel of wood). All these were born out of interest and/or necessity. 

We have always been a multi-lingual family - my native tongue is Tamil, Dev's is Hindi. We live in a place where Telugu is spoken by half the population. Although they speak all these languages, the kids never focused on the writing aspect of Indian languages. Out of the blue Abhi recently realized the need to be fluent in the Tamil script. As he was watching a Permaculture documentary in English, he had an urge to make it available for the non-English speaking, local Tamil farmers. So he started writing the subtitles for that documentary in Tamil, of course with Google translator on his side. In just a few weeks he became a Tamil literate! 

Dev and I consider the education of our children as a piece in the jig-saw puzzle of our life - no more or less important than the other pieces. After moving to India, we bought a piece of land and got into farming without any prior experience. It has taken us all these 7+ to learn about the local ecology, soil and organic methods to a reasonable extent to be able to grow some food. Similarly every aspect (off-grid, composting toilet, adobe bricks, traditional tiled roof, natural finishes) of our house construction took us long to research, learn and execute. As a consequence of this, we as a family now have many construction related skills - masonry (brick and stone), carpentry, plumbing, laying tiled floor and grouting, mud plastering and finishing. It is important to emphasize here that all these started from humble beginnings. 

One common thread that I have observed in all these learning journeys is the sustained interest that is needed to learn any skill deeply. Sustained interest can come ONLY from within. It can't be force-fed. Sustained interest, I have seen, comes out of a burning desire or an absolute need of the hour or the pleasure we derive by doing something (like music). Sustaining an interest is possible only if we enjoy the process, not if we wait impatiently for the end-product. Working with hands and working on our own helps us understand this. 

During all these years of being with children, I have observed that they go through periods of no activity -- when they are not visibly engaged in anything. These periods of non-activity, I think, are as crucial as their growth spurts. During these periods they question life around them, assimilate something they came across recently, heal themselves, dive deep into themselves etc. I have learned to cherish these periods and not disturb them while they are there.

To us homeschooling has been about:

-- mindful parenting, to the extent possible

-- growing organic food and working together as a family

-- being close to nature, getting in tune with its cycles and taking care of other life forms (plants, trees, animals)

-- allowing everyone to take up things that interests them deeply and nurturing the development of those skills

-- maintaining an environment where mistakes are considered a part of the process

-- building resilience that the kids need to survive during difficult times in this era of climate change

-- having enough time to ponder over questions that come up and to develop an understanding about one's own self

-- trusting our ability to solve problems (technical, medical, emotional) and not resort to professional help right away

-- personal care -- cooking, washing clothes, cleaning, making clothes, hair cutting 

-- management and self-regulation of one's time

In our lives, saying "no" to mainstream has ended up as saying "yes" to various other possibilities, which have made life more fun. There certainly have been difficult and challenging times since we changed the course of our lives. But then, there were similar phases earlier too! In a certain sense, we have chosen the current set of challenges and that wasn't the case before.

-- Hema

Green The Red: Sustainable Menstruation

 I was born in 1974. Fortunate I was, for that was a time when disposable sanitary napkins were not there. There was no such trash then. On the contrary babies born this year in India, are born into a country trashed with 432,000,000 disposable sanitary napkins every month. Not the babies' fault though! Not one bit. (Data Courtesy: Environmental Portal, Down to Earth, 2011) 

This data being a decade old, it would be safe to say that the current number is likely to be ten times more than that -- 4320 million disposable sanitary napkins in garbage in India, every single month!! If this astronomical number is not enough to stop us on our tracks I don't know what else could.

If all our ancestors were trashing the planet the same way we do now, we wouldn't have had the space to grow food and live well. We would be surrounded by mountains of the napkin trash that would take 500 - 800 years to decompose; or we would be breathing toxic air that had the emissions from incinerating those. We thankfully still have a reasonably good planet. There is an inherent contradiction when we worry about the future of our children and trash the planet where they will live. This planet is a loan that we have borrowed from the next generation. We need to hand it over to them at least in the way we found it.

After all women have been menstruating ever since the inception of our species. We are not the first ones to menstruate! Thus it does not give us the right to trash the planet. We are mothers, wives, daughters, care-takers, home-makers,  professionals. We are socially responsible citizens. We can't be trashing the planet.  Our convenience in using disposable napkins externalizes the environmental costs involved. If all those costs were to be added up, the cost of a disposal napkin would go up multi-fold and thus would become un-affordable. Cheap products, more often than not, have subsidies, hidden environmental costs and externalized costs, that are worth investigating.

The switch to a reusable cloth-pad or a cup is a good place to initiate meaningful conversations in the family. I have heard excuses of all kinds: "it is dirty", "I can't see blood", "I can't insert the cup", "I can't wash the pad" etc. We ought to remember that every time we come up with excuses and make things convenient for ourselves, we are ruining the planet for our children and their children. This is the bitter truth we have to face if we continue with the convenience of disposable napkins.

How did this transition come about? An elderly person in our village gave me a plausible explanation:
"We used to consider air, water, land, fire, space (the five elements of nature called pancha bhoota) as sacred and elders instructed us not to pollute these. These were worshiped as Gods. Later when Gods were moved to their abodes in the heaven, the sanctity of these five elements was lost. People didn't see the need to worship them."

Going back to nature worship or heightening one's social responsibility? 

Green The Red: Sustainable Menstruation 

-- Hema

Dyeing & Dying

Even in a village like ours, these days it is hard to find middle-aged or elderly people with grey hair. Pretty much everyone dye their hair jet black. For a few decades now, this has been the norm in cities.  Acceptance of the natural process of aging is fast getting obliterated. When we fail to accept our own aging, we are likely to fail to accept the aging of our loved ones. We are likely to hold on to people who should have long been gone. To elaborate on this, I would like to bring up a personal example.

For several years, Dev’s dad (papa) was severely diabetic. When he was over 70, he was diagnosed of (advanced stage) Parkinson’s.  Later he broke his pelvis which restricted his movement further. Being far away in California, we felt that the only help we could extend was to employ a caregiver. This lessened the burden on Dev’s mom during the day. She still had to care for papa in the night. This was slowly taking a toll on her health, since she couldn’t ever get a good night’s sleep.    

When we moved to India in 2012, we stayed with Dev’s parents.  That was when we realized the futility behind what was happening there. Papa’s life was being extended by prolonging his dying.

His face was absolutely expressionless. He had very little flesh on his bones. He could hardly move, eat or talk. He needed assistance with everything. We could smell the decaying bed sores.

This left us wondering about life, “What’s all this medical care for? For keeping a dying man in bed a bit longer? How do poor people deal with such situations?” Also we strongly felt the need to reassess the situation by looking at it from papa’s perspective.

We initiated a conversation with Dev’s mom to understand what was keeping her going. We came to know that she was not given the full picture of papa’s illness. She didn’t really know how bleak the situation was. We slowly and carefully divulged the medical info that we had access to. We wanted to gradually decrease all the medicines except pain killers. After an initial period of resistance and reluctance, she followed through.

I wanted to focus on helping papa be happy – however short-lived that was for. I used to sit by his side, sing to him, and once in a while feed him some ice-cream (his absolute favourite). During one such feeding he hurriedly said “Quick! Quick!” and tears started rolling down his sunken cheeks. After a few weeks papa had a brain hemorrhage and was taken to the hospital. He was in coma. Again, we had to make the difficult decision of bringing him home and not prolong his stay in the hospital.  At home papa was hooked up to an oxygen cylinder. In a few days, with some of us next to him he passed away.

I see certain aspects of this narrative getting repeated in so many cases, among our friends and relatives. I see people wanting to hang on to the lives of dying ones too dearly. Our modern culture lacks mindfulness of death. Tibetan Buddhism, on the other hand, focuses a great deal on death. 

Here is an interesting article on "Death and dying in Tibetan Buddhism" from Frontline, PBS.

-- Hema

Weddings And Funerals

Sanchayya was only 52 when he passed away recently. He lived in the village nearby and used to work for us occasionally. We had known him for six years. An honest person in spite of being very poor. Dead Sanchayya looked just as if he was blissfully asleep, not worrying in his usual way. His sudden death rattled us.

*

We immigrated to the US in the late 90's and lived there for thirteen years. During all those years we never went to any funeral or wedding. For us, funerals and weddings were events that happened in India. We had friends who were mostly of our age, not multi-generational. Unmarried friends traveled to India to get married. Growing up in California, our kids got to welcome many newborn babies of our friends. Typically grandparents would travel from India to help the young (working) couple during post-partum and with the raising of the newborns. Young Abhi once remarked that India was the land of grandmas. All the grandparents that he knew were from India. Death never figured in our lives. We got the news always over the phone from India. The kids either didn't know or remember the person I was mourning for. Not participating in weddings and funerals were gnawing at me. I felt that our (immigrant) lives were not complete.

*

When we moved to India in 2012, Dev's dad was already bed-ridden for long. We decided to spend a few months with him. All of us got to see the process of dying, slow passing away. He died one morning when some of us were right next to him. Our experiences there brought forth many inevitable discussions about life and death with the kids. In the last few years here we have seen the deaths of many people -- relatives, acquaintances and friends. Things slow down for some time after these events -- remembering the dead, mourning and contemplating about the cyclical nature of our lives. 

Locally there is a very high level of participation whenever there is a death in the vicinity. First of all they call off work. The practice is to definitely pay homage to the dead, anytime and every time they hear such news -- however remotely they were connected. Thus local people would go to a funeral every one or two months. Even if they were to take these visits customary, they are constantly reminded of death and its lack of bias. I wonder if this helps them accept death when it happens in their own family; many times I have heard them say in a matter-of-fact manner "his/her time was up. no one can hold back such a person".

-- Hema

Musical Connections

The other day, I went to the town of Chittoor, in the neighbouring state of Andhra Pradesh. It is about an hour and a half on the bus. The route is scenic, with rolling hills, mango orchards, coconut groves and small villages. Life on this route seems slower and more laid-back than in rural Tamilnadu. 

My chores done, I was ready to head back in the afternoon. When I boarded the returning bus, I saw two ladies who seemed a little familiar. After a closer look I realized that they had been there on the bus with me earlier that morning. Mutually surprised, we greeted each other and shared a three-seater. Their names were Vani and Asha. They knew three languages – Telugu, Tamil and Urdu. After a little chit-chat about our whereabouts and families, I retreated into my window space.  I was feeling a bit queasy about these two ladies checking me out with a lot of curiosity. My bare toes, neck and arms do tend to make people uncomfortable. I don’t wear the accessories that married women typically do. 

Looking for a distraction, I decided to sing to myself. Turning towards the window, I started to sing. The song that then came to my mind was “jeeye to jeeye kaise” from a Hindi film called “Sajan”. In a few seconds, I heard them mutter behind me, “She is singing in Hindi!” They crept closer to hear better. From the corner of my eye I could see Vani singing along. Happy to see her reaction, I continued singing. Once I was done, they expressed their delight and asked me for another. I sang “is mod se jaate hain” and “tere bina zindagi se” from “Aandhi”.  These are my absolute favorite movie songs in Hindi. 

In between singing these songs, we exchanged stories about our lives. I came to know that they were both twenty years younger than me.  They were illiterate. They were into making beedi (handmade thin cigarette, made by rolling dried tobacco leaves). As is typical in these parts, they had gotten married early, in their mid-teen years, and had children soon after. They heard the bits and pieces of my story with wonder and disbelief written on their faces. 

I enjoyed singing with Vani. She had a sweet voice and carried the tunes quite well.  She wanted to sing more. The age gap between us limited the number of songs we had in common., but thankfully we still had enough to keep us going for the next quarter hour. Although Vani was shy and kept covering her face with her shawl, she just couldn't suppress her desire to sing. Asha, on the other hand, couldn’t overcome her shyness; she mostly buried her face on her lap and would occasionally pop up to flash shy, overwhelmed smiles.

Our singing obviously attracted the attention of some co-passengers. Vani couldn’t be denied; she wanted to sing and she did exactly that. Soon it was time for them to get off the bus. We exchanged phone numbers and parted ways with a promise to visit each other’s villages.

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I am not a singer, but I love to sing. I like Indian classical music and melodious movie songs from olden times, both Tamil and Hindi. Dev and the kids have been learning Hindustani vocal music from Warren Senders (www.warrensenders.com). Over a period of time, I have slowly picked up the songs they learn from him. I sing when I am working at home or the farm, or while traveling. 

These days, even in rural places like ours, music is consumed and never produced. People listen to music on their hand-held devices. We are surrounded by temples that have installed loud speakers that blare music from early morning on many days. The loud music played on private buses is often awful. Folk music has disappeared. Making music or singing together is no longer a part of the culture. It seems like the younger generation hasn’t really seen or heard people sing. I have been frustrated for long about this situation.

One day I decided to sing on public transport. The concept of “private space” is non-existent in Indian public transport because of the very high volumes of traffic it serves. Also the ambient noise on buses and trains is quite high – rattling windows and shutters, chitter-chatter of the passengers, cries of unhappy babies, music played on the bus, music played by the passengers on their mobile phones etc. Thus I knew that I won’t be “intruding” in to that non-existent, quiet, personal space. I sing on buses, trains and shared taxis (called "share auto"), not just because I like to; but also because I want to instill the long lost spirit of singing in others. I want them to think that they can sing too. I want them to experience the joy of singing.  

I am aware of the fact that often I am not anywhere close to being good at what I am singing. I realized that if I were to wait for perfection it may take an eternity! It took me a while to shed shyness and anxiety to sing in an unsolicited manner in a public space.When I sing, I make sure that only a few people who are close enough can hear me. Also, I don’t sing incessantly; I sing for brief periods with sufficient gaps of silence, just so my neighbours get a break from me.

People have responded in many ways to my singing. Indifferent, surprised, dumb-founded in utter disbelief, approving with smiles, constantly checking out to see if I was still singing etc. Of all these responses, the experience of singing with Vani has been the most joyous one.

 

-- Hema