28 December 2011

My Doctor My God

Earlier an expression of trust is now a statement of horror. Here’s why. When I read that post, I was choking. My throat was dry & my eyes had welled up.


I have a 5 year old daughter. It was a natural birth. I know the pain, happiness, trauma, expectation, anguish & the endless wait we go through to see the first glimpse of our baby & these bloody people discussing horoscopes & giggling & the mother isn’t even aware of what just happened!!! This is terrible. I was stunned to read about their insensitivity. For them it is just another "case" but for the mother & family it is LIFE! For god's sake! How horribly irresponsible to not check on the baby's breathing on time! A slip up in ‘a small procedural thing’ can cause such irrevocable physical/mental damage to the development of the child in the future & these people aren't even bothered!


I can’t bear thinking a life could be so handled. I kept thinking, “My God! Is this how it happens ‘sometimes’???” I had goose bumps on me realizing that this HAS happened & for all I know, might be happening in other places too. How can they be so callous? Those three people who handled the birth? What if it had happened in my case, what if it is happening right now, this very instant, in some part of the city? My heart aches for every child who may be deformed or suffers lifelong because of the coldness of some doctors; for mothers who bear their child in their womb for 9 months waiting every moment to see & hold a healthy baby in her hands & instead might have only a dead one thanks to the ‘small mistake’ by a medical staff. I wonder what else might be happening inside the labor wards. The mistakes committed by the docs which the families never come to know of & suffer lifelong & instead think that god was cruel or unkind to them or blame their "fate." My heart goes out to every family that has been wronged thus. What do we call this – carelessness, apathy, or disrespect for human life? No accountability at all? Negligence by the medical staff is unpardonable.


An article in The Week (13th Nov’11 issue) talked of how “infant deaths have become so common that they no longer shock the health authorities. Half the mothers give birth in the absence of skilled health personnel. In hospitals across the country posts for doctors are vacant. Lack of political will is responsible for poor state of health care in the country. “We buy equipment for one hospital & manpower for another – and both remain underutilized” – was what a former health minister said in an interview. UNICEF report states that of every four infants dying worldwide one is in India”.


If there are doctors reading this, I BEG you, help your staff understand the criticality of such negligence. Your small mistake may haunt us all our lives. Our lives are not so cheap nor our emotions so easily replicated. You may say this is just 1% of the cases, but Pls remember in that 1%, I am there too. Recall my face & my trust in your expertise, recall how I blindly believed your words & followed your instructions, remember you are no less than God for me at the instant when I'm trying to bring my baby into this world. I'm helpless. But pls don’t take advantage of my helplessness or my ignorance. I'm completely at your mercy. Yours is a profession unlike any other. Don’t treat it as joke. Don’t play with lives that are entrusted into your hands. Don’t kill a baby by giving it a life marred by disability. Don’t be so inhuman.



I don’t believe in New Year wishes. But today I just want to pray that let the coming year be a year where there is no birth riddled with such complications & carelessness. May the mother with money & the mother without money be treated the same way. May their deliveries be handled with care and compassion. May we not be another ‘case number” in your files.

23 December 2011

A Wedding & A Bachelor

He has many avatars - 'chota chatri' on Twitter, 'the game returns' on Email, & 'maniac hunter' on Blog. The man in question, Madhav Mishra, is someone I’ve been reading since the past 4 months. His blog is aptly named Simple Stories’ - the stories & the narrative style both are so simple, & yet endearing, that you can’t help but come away with a smile, when you close the browser window to his blog.


It’s been exactly a month, yes complete THIRTY days, since he sent this post that he wrote for me. He was the FIRST one to respond to my request for a GP. I’m guilty of sitting on his post for so long that, now, without any further delay, putting you on to him in

A Wedding & A Bachelor:


I recently attended a marriage in my community after 6-7 years & that too in Delhi. Since I’ve moved to Delhi from Bangalore, a lot of things have changed. For example, every 3rd day, a new relative pops up, in some area somewhere in Delhi. So this mama of my dad came from thin air & turns out he has a son who is getting married which I had to attend. There was only 1 catch: contrary to their claim, I had not seen ANYONE from that part of my family. So I ‘SUITed UP’ & it took a good 1 & half hours along with a LOT of weird stares in metro to reach my destination.


The thing about attending marriage in my community is you will meet a lot of people who are related to you. So I did a lot of bending (read touching feet) before I found a place to sit between gents where I was grilled with questions like ‘what I do, where do I live, whether my cook is male or female & WHY AM I NOT MARRIED’ for some time. Before I knew it, the news spread like fire that I am NOT married. And I found out that my relatives work in ‘oh my god’ to ‘holy crap’ to ‘you ve got to be kidding me’ firms.


And when I was taken to the female den to meet them, they were already prepared with their set of questions. I couldn’t wait for the baraat to leave & reach the banquet hall. Finally, amidst a LOT of dhol sounds & really annoying music (it will be pure cruel to call it music, it is annoying to say the least). I didn’t know I hated so many songs. The band was voted useless because they asked for tea & could not play ‘chammak challo’.


Since a lot of my folks had come from native place (a place in Bihar which according to mythology, was ruled by King Janak), they were confused as to what a banquet actually is & why the bride’s side hasn’t set up a pandaal instead. The thing that makes my folks different from any person in the rest of India is, we like to eat & feed. Not your average eat but I-can’t-walk-after-eating eat. There is a saying in my region ‘if you don’t have a pot belly, your family doesn’t love you’


So the two major questions were ‘are we supposed to stand & eat?’ ‘Why are they giving packaged glasses?’ Since a lot of people could not find place to wash hands, the dustbins were overflowing in no time along with the ‘small’ plates. And the good thing about attending a wedding where not many people know you is, you can eat LIKE-A-PIG & still get away *BURRRP*


So, when the time for the dinner came, the bride’s father had to arrange for proper tables chairs for everybody to sit & eat because buffet system is for beggars & it’s insulting to ask for food. Ideally, the host should serve & force people to eat it (those of you frowning wait till you meet any of my folks at a party cribbing about the arrangements. Do yourself a favor & DON’T try to reason with them)


The wedding proceedings start after the dinner & go up till wee hours in the morning so the people eat, take a nap & still come for blessing the couple in the morning. God bless the guy who kept pestering the catering people to open up the coffee stall because it helped me watch the marriage ceremony till the morning. I still can’t understand how bride/groom sit with a straight face while speaking those stupid vows (I will share my body, WEALTH & soul with you.)

16 December 2011

My Child is Gay

This was the title of the CNN-IBN documentary aired on 19th Nov’11. It told the story of 2 mothers, who finally accepted their homosexual child, & are now living, at peace, with that reality.


The disclosure that my daughter/sister/cousin/close friend could be a lesbian is definitely shocking, at first; & unbelievable, next. It isn’t the ‘natural’ way of things as we know it. Society has long controlled our notions of what is right or wrong with respect to sexuality; & the conditioning is so strong that, to see a woman loving another woman, is disturbing. I do feel repulsed by the sight of a man with over-the-top feminine mannerisms. Remember the gay designer caricaturized in Fashion or Boman in Dostana?


It’s fashionable to rationalize it when shown on TV/movie but quite another story when the truth hits home. Hypothetically speaking, if I were to suddenly face this truth in my own yard, what then? How I’ve prided myself on being a well read, broad minded woman, who has seen the world & known & interacted with all kinds of people. But I realize now, that for all my claims of being liberated, I’m caught in shackles too. I’d be a hypocrite if I say, “Yes, I’ll accept the truth”. When I asked Sathya, he said he won’t accept. This is the first time we’ve agreed on something. But I wish I’d disagree & fight & object with him on this, as I do on everything else!! But try as I may, I can’t put my hand on my heart & honestly say, “Yes, I’ll be ok & will take it in my stride if it turns out that my child is gay”. The realization that he’d be gay would be heart breaking. It is one thing to voice our “enlightened” opinions in support of a social issue; but quite another to actually come face to face with it in one’s own home. I respect the mothers the world over who’ve shown that acceptance. They have shown that the child is more important than his sexual preference. He has every right to live the way he wants to. It truly is his choice.


I read somewhere that “if all the faces of gays in church on Sunday suddenly turned purple, you'd be amazed at all the purple faces around you! On & off the pulpit! People you never suspect -- accountants, doctors, lawyers & even conservative politicians!” Many never reveal their true identity. They live in the closet for fear of rejection from colleagues, friends, & spouses. While the world thinks they are straight, they quietly carry on the lie. If there’s anything worse than knowing that someone is gay, is the knowledge that they had to put on a façade all their life. The lie hurts more.


Personally, I don’t know anyone who is gay. I don’t have a reference for it in my immediate or even extended family & friends’ circle. Maybe, I need to know a real person to really understand them. Maybe, what it takes to accept the situation is, truly unconditional love. Am I there yet? Unfortunately, no. I need to fight the demons in my head first. I need to question & challenge my ideas on what sexuality is & how it should be expressed & who defines it & why should it be defined at all. I must stop feeding my mind with scenes of same sex encounters. I need to rise above my pettiness & cut the chains of social stigma. I need to find reserves of love within me that will help me embrace it no matter what. Homosexuality needs acceptance from deep within. Only love can do that.


Centuries have passed, protests & fights staged for their acceptability, yet today I, a so-called educated woman, am unable to come to terms with it. I’m divided between empathy & disgust. Empathy because I do recognize that every human has the right to live the way he wants. Disgust because if it actually happens in my own house, I’ll be repulsed by the sight of a man with man. I realize I’m a hypocrite. My empathy towards them is not genuine; it is only an intellectual empathy. What they need is emotional understanding, not rational support from people close to them.


The truth is, none of them ever made a conscious choice to be gay. The truth is, homosexuality is more about love than sex. I’ve been raised to think we marry to raise a family, to have children. I must now realign & know that the first & foremost function of marriage is companionship. The day I can really accept a person in my own house, & not let it change the way we relate to each other, in any way, whatsoever, then, that would be the real acceptance, not just in words but in spirit.


But today is not that day.

11 December 2011

A War and A Family

Conversations is hosting its FIRST Guest Post. And can it be anything but special?

Since the time I understood the concept of guest posts, I wanted only 1 person to begin that trend here & that is my high-school friend Suzaan. Her blog - Colors of My Thoughts. She was my first reader & the first person to comment on my posts. For one whole year, this blog got comments only from her (& rare appearances by 1 or 2 other readers mostly my students!)

We read each other's minds through our blogs. She lives in Kuwait & I havent seen her or even heard her voice, after we passed out of 12th Std. Yet I feel close to her. Thanks to blogging.

Read on for her first hand account of the Gulf War.
**********************************************
A War & A Family

We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases & toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain & kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, & trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.
- Erma Bombeck

When the war broke out in August 1991, I was back in India on a vacation with my mom & siblings for 20 days. We were at my grandma's house when a neighbor walked in & told my mom," Kuwait has just been invaded." My mom didn’t understand. She was blinking as if "WTF" & ran & watched the news. I heard this panic filled scream & watched her run towards the nearest telephone booth. The phone lines didn’t work & then all hell broke loose. In a couple of days, she turned into this bitter, angry woman who didn’t eat & got crazy when any of us laughed & played. I was going to turn 12 & had no idea what was happening. How am I supposed to know what war is? I knew the British had invaded India but wasn’t that through some company?

Every time we fought amongst ourselves, my mom would beat me up. She was frustrated; she had 3 kids here & the love of her life, maybe dead out there or God alone knew what had happened! Days passed into weeks & she made me watch every piece of English news & translate it 10 times a day. I was sick & tired of watching bombs go off, refineries on fire, tanks running down the streets & armies moving in the country. I wanted to play, to have fun.

People around started wondering if our good times had come to an end. Our relatives shied away from us fearing they’d be approached for money or help. Some would laugh at us coz now we weren’t NRIs anymore & we kids were constantly told by others," you guys will have to learn to live life like us...no more expensive chocolates & nakhras okay." Some form of indifference was being formed & that’s when my mom decided she had to move to Mumbai with her sister. The news channels were informing that every country was sending their planes to Kuwait to pick up their citizens from the war zone. Camps were being organized for every nationality & people were moving out of Kuwait into camps at Iran, Jordan, & Saudi.

Once we came to Mumbai, things got a little better. My aunt calmed my mom. My mom would catch me by my shoulders & ask," can you even imagine what must have happened to your dad out there? I’m worried here & all you can think of is food & play. What kind of a daughter are you?" My immediate response to that was," Mom, you worry too much. Dad is fine & so are our aunties. They are doing well & will be coming home on my birthday. Who else would bring me my cake huh?" And my mom would scream, "Ohhh" & ask me to get lost.

End of August we received a phone call from Tehran. It was my dad. While my mom couldn’t utter a single syllable, my dad explained to her that he was doing well & the sisters were great. They were taken care of & will be coming to India in the next available flight. When my mom hung up, she had this serenity written all over & the first thing she did was hug & kiss me nonstop. She asked me how was I so sure & I told her, from the very first day an angel told me that everything was okay & my dad was going to be home for my 13th birthday.

She relaxed after that. She cooked meals with my aunt & never shouted at us. On 4th September morning, I woke up & saw my aunt preparing breakfast. She asked me, “I thought you said your daddy would be here” to which I replied," He will be”. I walked into the sitting room & I felt this tingling feeling. I ran outside & there my dad & his sisters were coming out of a taxi. I ran out, straight into his arms screaming daddy. It was a reunion to remember. I kept screaming," I knew you’d never miss my birthday, I love you daddy." I ran in & told my mom dad was here. She dropped the pan on the floor & ran into the living room. She stood by the door, shocked. She didn’t say anything while my brother & sister were hugging him. She stood by the door, tears flowing & said nothing. I thought about all that screaming & beating & for what! To stand glued to the door without a word to utter!

I now know the hell she went through & how difficult it had all been. We were shunned by some relatives & experienced poverty even. I remember pining for a piece of chocolate toffee but couldn’t afford it. I remember wearing hand me downs of neighbors’ & living off people's generosity for a few years. I remember not being able to celebrate Christmas coz even buying a kg of meat was a big deal. I remember not putting up Christmas trees & decorations coz we didn’t have any. I remember my parents crying over how thin we kids had become. My dad felt awful each time my brother asked him, “Can’t we even buy a small cake for a birthday.” Mom would make us sweet rice balls instead to have as sweets. Life was difficult. For someone who hadn’t used the stone to wash clothes for over 15 years had to wash on those granite slabs. To use detergent soaps as less as possible coz we couldn’t buy soap cakes every now & then. How we had to switch to lifebuoy soap for body & hair.

When my parents came back to Gulf, they promised themselves & us, they’d make a good saving & make life better for us & that none of us would experience poverty again. It made us the people we are today. It made us realize the value of everything - not taking things for granted, being respectful, honest, hard working & helpful. Money isn’t everything & relationships between family & friends are just as important. No matter what happens, family unites in times of grief, poverty & happiness. Gulf war has been one of the most humbling experiences for me. It taught us many things & now since we all are married; we know more than ever, what an epic struggle it had been for our parents to rebuild a future for both of them & for us.

In truth a family is what you make it. It is made strong, not by number of heads counted at the dinner table, but by the rituals you help family members create, by the memories you share, by the commitment of time, caring, & love you show to one another, & by the hopes for the future you have as individuals & as a unit.
- Marge Kennedy

06 December 2011

Beauty is Skin Deep

And hence, it is superficial; it doesn’t last, it can’t be trusted & so shouldn’t be idolized or desired. This is the puritanical view of beauty. Is it really so?


Check out my guest post for Ashwini at Just The Way I Like

http://ash-aqua-girl.blogspot.com/2011/12/guest-post-beauty-is-skin-deep-by.html


I have been reading Ashwini since 19th Augusut 2011. That makes it for over four months now. How do I remember the date so well? That is because the first post that I read that day on her blog got published in the The Hindu a month later.

I remember feeling so happy & proud that day even though I had just started reading her, was still one of her new readers. The connection as "blog friends" happened eventually & when she asked for a guest post, could I have said No? NO!

Here's the link to her published article as well:

Need I say more?