Beggars, Speculators…and Housewives

I never miss Swaninathan Anklesaria Aiyar’s columns in the Times Of India. He knows the art of keeping it simple and avoiding jargon. His columns are relevant and well-argued. In fact,  Aiyer, Jug Suraiya and Bachi Karkaria are the reason why I am unable to let go of the TOI despite its journalistic standards being in a free fall –they’ve been featuring on TOI  for as long as I remember and I cannot imagine not reading them on Sundays.

It is precisely because I have been such a long-time admirer of Aiyar’s writing that I was left scratching my head in bemusement by this column of his, in which he cautions speculators and housewives to go easy on gold at the moment. The reference to housewives comes not once but twice in the write-up.

I find his words of caution ludicrous on two counts. One, speculators are notorious for not listening to the advice, doubtless well-meaning, of erudite economists of his ilk. They have their own channels of information and an unusual appetite for risk too. Surely Aiyar knows that lecturing them on the virtues of restraint is a pretty futile exercise. Second, while the reference to speculators is at least in context, I struggle to understand why Aiyar mentioned housewives in the same vein. Does he really believe that housewives make enough gold purchases to affect the price of gold? Okay, maybe the socialite housewives–wives of industrialists, actors, sportsmen, politicians–do, but certainly they are too few in number to be taken to represent the whole group!

Perhaps, when he said housewives, Aiyar was alluding to women as a whole. It is true that in India a staggering amount of gold is bought in the form of jewellery–India being the biggest market for gold jewellery–and most of this jewellery is meant for(worn by) women. Women also do generally play a role in the choosing of any jewellery that is bought, regardless of whether or not they have a say in when or how much is bought. Most women are very fond of jewellery but my point is, are housewives apt to be any fonder of jewellery than working women?

I suspect Aiyar shied away from referring to  ‘women’ as a whole lest he be accused of misogyny, and picked on housewives instead because hey, everyone makes fun of them anyway. Coming down on housewives is the in-thing these days–it is taken to mean a support for working women and hence the sign of a progressive, egalitarian mind.

Digression: How I hate this term housewife– sounds like the woman is married to the house.  I don’t quite like the alternative term homemaker either, because that to me sounds kind of defensive.  SAHM too is not very apt , because not all housewives are mothers. I think Unemployed Married Women or UMW fits the bill better than most. What do you think?

Lets stick to the term housewife for this post, though, and analyse the negativity associated with it in sociological as well as economic terms. Not too long ago, housewives found themselves being clubbed with beggars in the census report, because they are not engaged in any economically productive activity. For the record, this group also included prostitutes on the grounds that the service they provide and get paid for is illegal and hence does not count as valid economic activity. By that logic, smugglers, thieves, robbers, bootleggers and all manner of criminals would make it to that group. Housewives sure have some interesting company!

The chief grouse against housewives appears to be that they do no work– in any case less work than working women who juggle housework and careers. Well, I have to say I feel for these housewives. No, don’t worry. I am not about to launch into a lecture about how the work they do is priceless, and how there is no job in the world greater than bringing up kids yada yada. I feel for them because most of them didn’t choose to be housewives–they were very gently nudged and steered into it by those around them.

Here are  a few things I have noticed by my interactions with a lot of middle-class housewives over the years.

One, and no surprises here, a vast majority of them are untrained professionally, which means they are unlikely to land up a decent job even if they were inclined to have one. The only job most of them can get easily is that of a primary school teacher in the neighbourhood school which pays you peanuts in return for slogging eight hours a day, six days a week. In terms of prestige it is only infinitesimally better than being a housewife.  I won’t judge them for not wanting to take up just about any  job they can, especially if there are no financial compulsions.

(Now, why are they untrained? Because they were married off early, without being given half the chance that their brothers got.  Yes, the brothers of almost all housewives I’ve known are doing reasonably well for themselves career-wise.)

Two, their spending habits are very much aligned to those of their husbands and their  families. It has been my experience that a dependent wife learns unerringly to be thrifty if married to a careful spender and vice-versa.

Three, nearly all of them are not exactly happy with their ‘dependent’ status but have learnt to live with it. Most of them have resented the subtle barbs and taunts that they are forever at the receiving end of. Many of them have self-esteem issues.

The most they can be accused of is not having been assertive enough when it mattered,  not having had the courage to rebel, taking things lying down, submitting to their fates meekly. Yes, perhaps they are guilty of all of that, but I would say having to play second fiddle all their lives is punishment enough. Indeed, the only person who suffers due to the choices they made, or rather the choices they did not get to make, is they themselves. Why must they be derided, caricatured and scoffed at? Why must insult be added to injury?

Blogadda Book Review–My Life, My Rules by Sonia Golani

My Life, My Rules by Sonia Golani is a collection of the stories of eighteen remarkable men and women who made a name for themselves in rather unusual and unconventional careers. It is a book in the same genre as those immensely popular books written by Rashmi Bansal, whose Stay Hungry Stay Foolish was  widely acclaimed. Golani does justice to the genre. Every story is heartwarming and inspiring–which happened to be just what the doctor had ordered for me!

The stories begin with Golani meeting the subject for a long-drawn, fairly detailed interview. Narration is mostly in the third person, alternating occasionally with a casual question and answer format. This kind of format can all too easily go awry–it is to Golani’s credit that she is able to pull it off with some deftness. The tone is warm and engaging, and she is successful in getting her subjects to open up.  Cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle, food critic Rashmi Uday singh, actor R Madhavan, fashion designer Tarun Tahiliani are among the more well-known subjects but it is the stories of the less well-known ones that leave you in complete awe of all that managed to achieve, of their sheer grit and the guts with which they swam against the tide.

My favourite stories are those of Ashish Rajpal, Founder and CEO, iDiscovery Education, Rajeev Suresh Sawant, Founder&CEO, Sula Vineyards, and Ingrid Srinath, Ex Secy General, CIVICUS–World Alliance for Citizen Participation. Let me dwell on the case of Ashish Rajpal in some detail

Rajpal graduated from the XLRI, Jamshedpur and was very busy going up and up on the corporate ladder. Ten years after XLRI, he was heading the marketing division of a French company. Based in Paris, he was drawing top bracket compensation, living a stone’s throw away from the glamorous Champs Elysees , his children were going to a great school in Paris and travelling the world. It was at this peak of professional success that he decided that he wanted more than just material success–he had always nursed a socialist spot in his brain and now he yearned to give back to the community in India, particularly in the field of education.

Comfortable in the knowledge that he had more than enough savings to support his family grandly, he sent his family back to India and proceeded to Harvard to earn a Masters in education. He set up iDiscovery, an institution aimed at transforming school education in India, in 2002. Five gruelling years later, iDiscovery came up with XSEED, an experiential learning system.

If the degree in education from Harvard helped him piece XSEED together, his management degree and flair for networking came in very handy in selling the finished product to school authorities. No mean feat, that. Today it is followed by no less than 700 schools including some of the best schools in India. Incidentally the school my daughters go to uses XSEED too, and I have to say I am impressed. I totally applaud Rajpal’s vision, dedication and spirit of service.

The book provides several interesting nuggets of information about the more well-known people featured in the book. Did you know, for instance, that R Madhavan had a roaring business of coaching college students in personality development before he took up acting? Or that food critic Rashmi Uday Singh was an income tax commissioner, no less, before she decided to chuck it all and follow her heart? Speaking of Rashmi Uday Singh, the reason she even appeared for UPSC was that her parents had begun to talk about her marriage and she reckoned that the best way to buy time was to start preparing for UPSC! Sure enough, her parents stopped all talk of marriage as soon as they got wind of their daughter’s UPSC plans! One wise woman, I say

It is also interesting what some of these people have to say about their former vocations. Ingrid Srinath is an IIM Calcutta alumnus who had made quite a name for herself in the field of advertising. She got the chance to work with the very best people in her field, with a wide range of clients worldwide. But after ten years of being in the field, the ‘futility of it all’ began to strike her. She says working in advertising is like writing on the sand on a beach–it is there only as long as the next wave doesn’t come and wash it away. She decided it was time to devote time to pursuits that would make a difference and associated herself with the social-welfare sector, taking a ninety percent cut in compensation.

Rashmi Uday Singh talks about how her former job entailed endlessly poring over tax-returns filed by bigwigs to spot discrepancies. One fine morning it struck her how everone only lived once, and how she did not want to keep doing this all her life. She says she never once regretted her decision to resign and then do her own thing.

I couldn’t help noticing that all but one of these people came from fairly affluent families, which is not really surprising– following your heart is a luxury not everyone can afford. It helped that these people were very secure financially when they set out for uncharted territory. I also noted that more than half of these remarkable people were management grads from the IIMs/XLRI/ NMIM and what is more, most of them say in unequivocal terms just how much they owe to their management courses. Psst, I so wish I had studied management myself.

All in all, a book I thoroughly enjoyed reading, and one I would heartily recommend if you happen to be in need of some inspiration!

This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!

“Who Amongst Us Has Not Followed A Girl!”

I wasn’t surprised so much by this challenge that Sharad Yadav, MP, threw to his colleagues in the parliament–after all, he has never really seen the need to be even seen as politically correct on issues related to women.

He knows well that his core constituency doesn’t care for such niceties. He knows he can get away with making his real feelings known.

I remember how, during the debates on Women’s reservation Bill years ago, he had heaped scorn on ‘baal-kaati’ women (referring apparently to women with short hair), who he said would be the only beneficiaries of the said bill if ever it came into being. The howls of protest that emanated from women and men of varying hair-lengths had not made him turn a hair.

What did surprise me, though, was the reaction of our esteemed parliamentarians when faced with such a poser–instead of even a whimper of protest, it apparently evoked peals of laughter. None of our MPs seemed to mind being branded as stalkers. Which, if anything, seemed to validate Yadav’s assertion.

Actually even that should not have been so surprising. MPs from across the political spectrum have , after all,  been fighting tooth and nail to prevent marital rape from being criminalised by law. Our elected representatives believe that outlawing marital rape would destroy the institution of marriage, never mind that more than 104 countries have it on the statutes without any obvious harm coming to marriages in those countries. And if the powers-that-be think that rape is all right, even par for the course, as long as the rapist is the victim’s husband, it is but natural that they should consider stalking as a cute, harmless, fun, boy thing.  Who cares what the women think! Lets not dwell on that too much!

The point is, our leaders are products of this very society and are hence, unfortunately,  bound to have the same prejudices and biases which afflict the common masses. What women feel has never amounted to much. Traditionally,women have never had even a semblance of choice in their personal lives. Until very recently (and even today), most Indian women were made to marry whoever caught their parents’ fancy and fitted the bill. Whoever married them assumed the right to have sex-on-demand and to use them as baby-popping machines. Women’s consent was of no consequence  at all. Of course the women couldn’t have liked it, even the men must have known that, but when did it even matter!

The concept of a woman’s ‘consent’ is thoroughly alien to our culture. In fact, the very idea that a woman might have a mind or a will or an opinion or likes and dislikes of her own is somewhat ludicrous in the Indian context– if she claims to have all of these, she is probably prone to having delusions, and either way it is totally inconsequential in the larger scheme of things.

And so when Hindi movie-makers made all those movies depicting  ‘virtuous’ heroines playing hard to get– who kept saying no even as they meant yes (Na na karte pyaar tumhi se kar baithe!!), but were too dumb to even know their own minds– they were not teaching our guys anything they did not already believe. Art was  just imitating life. The most they could be accused of is reinforcing prevalent cultural trends and maybe also trying to soothe the collective conscience of men, who formed the most of the audience. Like, hey, its okay, women are always saying no, they don’t always mean it, don’t let that bother you, it is not your fault, its just their nature, you’ll sure as hell get them if you persevere!!

And so, dear girls, tu haan kar ya na kar, you will have roadside Romeos following you around like bodyguards, regaling you with classy numbers in their lovely voices, occasionally scaring the daylights out of you surprising you by coming close enough to whisper sweet nothings into your ear…what!! you don’t like it, you say? You’re joking, right? Anyway, every man worth his salt has done something like this sometime or the other–Sharad Yadav, the newly appointed patron saint of the young men of India, most certainly has– and he will see to it that they continue to do so with impunity!

Why I Love Chandigarh

Hi everyone, I am back after another long break and feel obliged to offer an excuse–well, our shifting to Mumbai had to be preponed by more than a month and mid-February found us in Mumbai. The internet connection, however,  materialised only nine days back, thanks to those MTNL guys who  like to work at their own sweet pace. Oh well. And then I was too busy reading the hundred-odd blogposts sitting in my reader to write something myself these past nine days.

Though Mumbai has been growing on me steadily, I am still missing Chandigarh a lot, so here’s a mushy, rambling tribute to Chandi and all that I love about it.

–A multitude of wonderfully maintained parks and gardens  dot the city. At least four large parks exist in even the not-so-happening sectors. To anyone used to the cramped, ugly, unplanned urban areas starved of open spaces in north/eastIndia, this comes as a very pleasant surprise.

An even greater surprise is the sight of vast tracts of wild, uncultivated greens which show up in the most unlikely of places–bang in the heart of the city, for instance. Walking on roads alongside these forests after a spell of showers overwhelms you with the very pleasant smell of lush vegetation along with wet earth–a smell you’d associate only with the countryside. One is also greeted with the forgotten sounds of crickets in concert. Bliss!!

Thanks to these open areas, Chandigarh also has a sizeable population of peacocks whose distinct calls could be heard all around our campus in the evenings. I once spotted twelve peacocks and peahens in the area behind our campus though I never could catch them dancing.

– The roads of Chandigarh must surely be the best among Indian cities. Potholes are a rarity . There are spacious pavements and they even have  separate cycle/ rickshaw tracks on some stretches. Everywhere in the city the roads are lined with all kinds of trees and it is fascinating how they suddenly burst into blooms at different times in the year. The road leading up to Sector 19, for instance,  is lined with  mahua trees whose leaves turn golden orange before they are shed at the end of spring and are replaced by beautiful crimson leaves which turn green over time.

—The majority of women in Chandigarh are fastidious dressers and are very well turned out at all times–you cannot catch them in a ‘nightie’ even in the privacy of their homes. Winters generally bring out the best in them as they don their coats, capes, cravats, caps and sweaters, all in keeping with the latest trends in fashion. Some of their enthusiasm for stylish winter-wear rubbed off on me too and I splurged on quite a few coats and woollies myself while in Chandigarh. Too bad they won’t be seeing the light of day as long as we’re here in Mumbai!!

–The Kisan Mandis here are an experience unto themselves. Farmers from around Chandigarh bring their produce by the truckloads and sell it at these very well-maintained mandis at rather cheap rates. You can get just about everything that grows on trees here. I once spotted green almonds–the outer shell not yet brown and wooden but tender and green–being sold and bought some purely out of curiosity!

–Annual events like the Rose festival at Zakir Rose garden, the Mango festival at Pinjore, the Chrysanthemum show…Sigh!! I’ll spare you the details for now

–Every time one travels out of Chandigarh by road, one encounters the prosperous Punjab/Haryana countryside. Field upon endless wheat field greet you and you see for yourself why this region is called the bread basket of India. One also sees the Food Corporation of India godowns all around the region which stock millions of tonnes of grains. Towering stacks of grain sacks covered with canvas can be spotted from afar. In Haryana there are numerous Basmati rice mills and the fragrance of Basmati pervades the air for miles around the mills.

And then there are the famed Punjabi dhabas on the highways, some of which are very swanky and dhabas only in name. They serve the most fabulous stuffed parathas you’ll find anywhere–yumm!!

–The best thing about my stay in Chandigarh were my neighbours, a fifty-something Punjabi couple who loved me like a daughter. Whenever Aunty cooked something special, which was every other day, she would make sure to send me some first. Come winters and she would often bring me a large bowl of sarson ka saag , with dollops of butter, which I loved. Nobody else in the family was able to develop a liking for the stuff which  meant I got to have it all by myself! Whenever I complained that all that butter was making me fat, she  would look indignant and insist that I was not fat at all!!

Just before we left, she handed me a large box of ‘pinnis’ she’d made–laddoos made out of roasted wholewheat flour, ghee, almonds, jaggery/sugar and spices– which she knew I loved. I was too touched to say anything at all. I don’t expect to have a neighbour like her again.

– It’s impossible not to pick a smattering of Punjabi if you happen to live in Chandi for a few years. So it was that I gradually began to catch the meanings of popular Punjabi songs. One in particular amused me somewhat as it seemed to sum up the whole attitude of the Punjabi youth–ambitious and driven but brash and reckless.

Gaddi jiththe chahaange uththe moraange, phir saare de saare signal todaange!!

Meaning, we’ll turn our vehicle any which way we like, and then ignore every signal on the way. A traffic cop’s worst nightmare, surely!

A Feast For The Eyes — Everyone’s Invited!!

The following are some pics from the  Chrysanthemum Show held every year in December in Chandigarh. For me this annual show is definitely one of the major attractions of life in this city. I for one never even knew that chrysanthemums came in such a variety of shapes and sizes before I attended this show for the first time in 2009!

Take a look at these gorgeous blooms on display in the show held last month.

One of the prize-winners this year.

Khilte hain gul yahan…

Pretty pinks

My daughter thought these looked good enough to be eaten!!

Talk about contrast!!

Blazing yellow

I inquired if this wasn’t a dahlia. No, it is very much a chrysanthemum.

What colours nature has to offer!

Green! Yes, green!

This one was the size of a cauliflower head.

I clicked, clicked and then clicked some more

Delicate and pristine. I swear I can smell them right now!

Apparently these are called spider chrysanthemums .

Noah’s ark!

White spiders.

Look at the tube-like petals!

So which one did you like the best?

Was My Face Red?

It was one of my new year resolutions last year to teach myself to drive a scooty–and as it turned out, it was the only one I was able to keep. Not wholly or in full measure but very substantially, to use Jawaharlal Nehru’s elegant words . I mean, I know enough to go around our campus and to the market place about half a km away, but I am still scared of venturing out on thoroughfares and of negotiating the traffic at roundabouts–this, when Chandigarh traffic is very, very well-regulated by Indian standards.

Okay, so yesterday evening I took out our Activa and went to the market to shop for fruits and provisions. The husband is away for a couple of months and I am still getting used to managing two boisterous kids and a household completely on my own. With two shopping bags in hand, I returned to the haphazard parking area, fixed the bags on the hook under the seat and put in the key–and found that the lock wouldn’t budge. Now that was nothing new as I often have trouble with the scooty lock but I panicked when the lock wouldn’t open even after several tries. What’s wrong? I ran back to the provisions store and asked the shopkeeper sheepishly to please help me unlock my scooty–I am a bit new and all that.

So he came and managed to unlock it after a little jiggling. I thanked him and he went away. But my travails were far from over–in fact they were only just beginning. When I now tried to start the engine, it hissed, hiccuped and died. Again. And again. What the hell! But you know how there always are good Samaritans around. A guy sitting in his car came out and offered to help, and managed to start the engine, albeit with some difficulty.

I was now finally on my way home but the scooty was continuing to act queer. The headlights wouldn’t turn on. I was alarmed–had someone been tinkering with my scooty in my absence?  A number of ominous thoughts struck my mind. . The engine died out again mid way and I was able to restart it with a lot of difficulty, after having tried for no less than five minutes. I heaved a sigh of relief when I at last reached home. I vowed not to touch the scooty again before having it thoroughly examined by the servicing centre.

It was then that I noticed the wrong number plate.Yes, I had driven off the wrong scooty. Can you believe it? I frantically tried to restart the poor thing–with no success, of course.

I broke into cold sweat. I had visions of police cars with wailing sirens arriving any moment in hot pursuit. I made a mad dash to my neighbour’s flat. Mr. neighbour answered the doorbell, and his serious, no-nonsense demeanor dissolved into frank mirth as I narrated my sorry tale. “OMG, you drove away someone else’ scooty? How on earth? Hehehe!!!” He giggled, making my ears burn all the more with sheer mortification.

He then tried to make me feel better by telling me how ‘someone from his office had once done something like this too’. To me it only sounded like’ never mind, you’re not the only idiot in the world.’!

I handed over my scooty keys to him. The engine came to life again after about ten minutes of trying, after which we went to the market parking area again where I found my own scooty– to my great relief. I had been worried sick that the owner of the scooty I had driven away will have driven away mine!

Since the scooty would not be locked with my keys, we couldn’t go back until the owner of the scooty came along. After a little while, Mr. Neighbour asked me to get going, assuring me that he would wait around for the owner of the scooty to come along. I thanked him profusely and went home where my daughters were waiting to pounce at me. Where had I been? What took me so long?

I mumbled something about there being some problem with the scooter. They mercifully didn’t press for details.

I came to know later in the evening that the the owner of the other scooty had arrived some five minutes after I left and was able to start it with ease using the right keys. He didn’t find anything amiss, so all’s well that ends well. And I have to say that I have the sweetest neighbours in the world.

How Some Dented and Painted Women Ushered in The New Year

In Delhi, hundreds of proudly dented and painted women , with quite a few male supporters, participated in the ‘Take Back The night’ night walk in the last hours of 2012 and early hours of 2013.  Shuddhabrata Sengupta of Kafila has given an evoctaive description of the momentous march here.

” Delhi took back the night as we moved into the new year. Took it back from fear, from patriarchy, from misogyny and a stupid state. They said it loud and clear. This is what I remember, roughly in this order.

Hum har jagah lengey Azaadi.
Dilli mein lengey Azaadi.
Hum Kya Chahtey – Azaadi
Raat mein bhi Azaadi. Din mein bhi Azaadi.
Moral Policing se Azaadi. Pehnave ki Azaadi. ‘Denting-Painting’ ki Azaadi.
Pyaar karne ki Azaadi. Dosti ki Azaadi.
Shadi karne ki Azaadi. Na karne ki Azaadi.
Baap se bhi Azaadi aur Khap se bhi Azaadi.
Bhai se bhi Azaadi. Husband se bhi Azaadi aur Boyfriend se bhi Azaadi.
Is culture se bhi Azaadi. Is rape culture se Azaadi.
In fabtiyon se Azaadi. In gaaliyon se Azaadi.
Manuvad se Azaadi. Dharmon se bhi Azaadi. Bhartiya Sanskriti se Azaadi.
Dafter mein bhi Azaadi. College mein bhi Azaadi.
Kaam karne ki Azaadi. Padhne-Likhney ki Azaadi. Masti karne ki Azaadi.
Nadiya ghumney ki Azaadi. Paharon mein bhi Azaadi.
Is Desh mein chahtey Azaadi. Is Duniya mein bhi Azaadi.
Dilli mein chahtey Azaadi. Chhattisgarh mein Azaadi. North-East mein Azaadi.
Kashmir mein mangey Azaadi. Shopian mein Azaadi.
Soni Sori ki Azaadi. Manorama ki Azaadi
Jeet ke lengey Azaadi. Pyar se lengey Azaadi.
Hum le-ke rahengey Azaadi.
Naye Saal mein Azaadi. Kal se lengey Azaadi. Abhi se lengey Azaadi.”

There is something so moving in these stark, unembellished raw lines. I got goosebumps reading them.

Sengupta goes on to tell us how, when the walk was over, participants stood around chatting and singing songs of hope, dreams and imagination in the memory of The Unknown Citizen.

Here, women singing Summertime in the bone-chilling cold followed by John Lennon’s Imagine.

You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will be as one..

And then this:

Do watch this one , it is a beautiful song ( sounds like I’ve heard it before but can’t remember where) and the easy camaraderie between the singers is a joy to behold.

On this note, wish all of you out there a very happy and safe new year 2013.