CSAA - april 2011

April 2011 will be A Child Sexual Abuse Awareness Month

If you would like to add to the discussion or know somebody else who would, please note that we welcome entries a. mailed to csa.awareness.april@gmail.com OR

b. posted as FB notes and linked to Child Sexual Abuse Awareness Month Page OR

c. posted on your own blog with the badge and linked to the main blog OR

d. linked or posted on Twitter tagged twitter.com/CSAAwareness OR e. sent via some/all of the above methods The list of topics is available here. Anonymous contributions are accepted and requests for anonymity will of course be honoured. Please remember to send in a mail with all necessary links or just your input to csa.awareness.april@gmail.com so that we can track your contribution and make sure that it is not inadvertently lost or something. You can also support it simply by adding our the logo of the initiative in your blog's sidebar.

My views on marriage

My comment on R’s Mom’s post on whether marriage is an over rated institution has evoked strong responses from several young readers as I had expected. Several young women seem to think that marriage is an over rated concept and that a woman/man need not marry unless the need for matrimony is strongly felt. They are not wrong in saying so. We have several young men and women postponing marriage for the simple reason that they don’t want to marry unless they find the right partner. Some do not wish to compromise on their careers and even those who do not have a good job and earn a small amount by taking tuitions or marketing home made snacks are seen to postpone marriage saying that if they marry a man with a modest income and a large family of parents, unwed sisters and unemployed brothers to support, they would have to continue earning their pocket money as before and cater to the whims of in laws who would treat them more as a domestic help than a daughter in law. To add to their misery they would be expected to produce a child (read son) within a year after marriage with no means to give him/her good attention let alone education. I cannot say much against this line of thought and I do agree that this happens in several families even today and girls are better off leading their lives as singles rather than marry a man who cannot take care of their needs.

I agree that my comment was based purely on personal experience. 40 years back I did have teething troubles and finally I did win hearts. Today I enjoy a good rapport with my acquired family and I don’t differentiate between them and my own. This was possible only because there was a willingness from all concerned including myself to accommodate the others in the set up. I won’t go into the reasons since they have no meaning now but it was possible only because of certain compulsions that were acutely felt both by me and my husband’s family.

These compulsions seem to have disappeared from people’s lives and society has changed a lot since the time I came to Jamshedpur as a new bride. I hope I am not wrong in saying that a marriage works only if there is mutual respect in the relationship. However, I do admit to feeling a little scared at the attitude that society seems to be acquiring towards marriage. The present scenario of a monogamous relationship with one’s spouse took years to evolve. I would suggest that one fights for mutual respect and dignity within marriage rather than claim that it is not indispensible. I had written about my friend Prema in an earlier post. There were times when I too had felt that she was better off without marriage. Today she is handicapped and with no children to support her and it is the husband who takes care of her. She had a promising career but she had to opt for medical separation after her stroke and while her colleagues earn 5 digit salaries she is stuck with 75% of her last drawn salary which is just around Rs.4000/- per month. Her husband’s siblings allow her to stay in the house built by their father only because she takes care of a mentally retarded sister in law and no one else wants to share the burden. Twenty years back Prema had dreams of raising children and having a successful career. Today she has only her marriage to fall back on and she is quite happy about it. She has no resentment towards anyone including her brothers and sisters in law.

People talk of shifting to old age homes post retirement. Prema cannot even afford the cheapest of such homes. Her own brother and sisters are all older than her and welcome her only on occasional visits. They have their health problems and are themselves dependent on their children. Prema has no one to turn to except her husband and their marriage works on mutual respect alone. Today I feel at least for people like her, marriage is an important part of their existence and what befell Prema can happen to anybody.

A final word. Desigirl of GGTS had responded to my comment by saying that we humans are social animals and rules that apply to wild animals need not be applicable to us. Several wild animals and plants have been domesticated and the wheat that we consume is one such example as are the cattle we rear. Their wild ancestors have been traced and several back crosses are done in order to bring desired qualities in them – disease resistance being one of them. Marriage is a tried and tested institution and one should strive towards improving it rather than giving up at the first challenge one faces.

My mother, my mentor.

I really did not want to write anything on women’s day. It was quite depressing to learn of a college student being gunned down point blank and of a newly wed daughter in law running away with the valuables in her husband’s home both events taking place on 8^th March- the international women’s day. Why we get to hear of such extremes, I wonder. I mean according to Hating Women - a book by Rabbi Boteach “Together, men and women working can usher in a golden age of feminine awe and magic. Together, we can create a softer, gentler and brighter world illuminated with the light and warmth of the nurturer.” And I quite agree with this view. I don’t really subscribe to the view that since men have had the upper hand for centuries, we women need to get back by doing the very things that men did to prove their superiority. Women need to carry themselves with dignity and command respect.

Having said that I wish to give an example of a woman who inspired me. I don’t think she ever heard about women’s day and other such special days that one hears of these days. Yet to my mind she is one who is an inspiration not only to me but to all who have ever been associated with her.

She was visually challenged and had to drop out of school at the age of eight for fear of damaging whatever little vision she had. Initially it was not too bad. She continued to learn at home by listening to her younger sisters prepare for their examination. She would do some embroidery and tatting during her free time. Her father had tutors teach her English and Hindi and finally she married a doctor and left home. Her married life was not the best in the world – it had its ups and downs – and finally it came to an abrupt end with her husband’s untimely demise.

Then began the daunting task of raising two pre - school children and getting her daughters married. As far as she was concerned, her past was a closed chapter. It did not matter that her husband’s brothers chose to stay away from her life and were never available for guidance or advice. It did not matter that it was hard to plan for good education to her sons on the pension amount she received. But she did dream of a good career for them and hoped to marry off her daughters to men who would be responsible and hard working. In her own quiet way she did achieve what she wanted to. One never heard her complain about not having enough. One never heard her blame her stars for her fate or accuse her brothers in law of not being supportive. One could never understand if she ever longed to have a few more sarees in her wardrobe or if she ever wanted to replace her worn out gold chain with a new one if and when possible. She simply did not have time to waste on trivialities. Her sons grew up without knowing as to how her life as a doctor’s wife might have been. They had always known her to be a quiet and unassuming person who did not even have to raise her voice to discipline them. Her silence said it all. They would try their best to rise up to her expectation. It was this unassuming attitude that enabled her share the roof with her brother’s family till the daughters got married and the youngest of her sons took up a job after which she relocated to the place where her sons worked.

She was more than adequately rewarded for her efforts. Her last days were spent amid her sons, daughters in law and grand children and with the satisfaction of seeing her children well settled.

I’ve always considered her to be an achiever. People attribute her success story to many things. Her brother’s support for one and her children’s intelligence that won them scholarships for another. True, these have been promoting factors but no brother would support a sister who made life miserable for his wife and family. I cannot think of spending a life time with my children, let alone my brothers. I am sure to feel miserable in any set up other than my own. And a child’s intelligence has to be channelized in the right direction or else an intelligent child can be more of a pain than the average one. Finally people consider her to be plain lucky with a merciful God showering his blessings on her. They forget that she was unlucky to be born with weak eyesight and to lose her husband’s support early in life.

I cannot hope to ever be the person my mother was. But that does not stop me from admiring her for the person she happened to be.

Women Empowerment??

I somehow feel disillusioned by the image of an empowered woman. It seems to be a myth. We have several women who are bread winners of their family but are they empowered in the real sense of the word? Education seems to sometimes act as an impediment rather than a tool that ensures the empowerment of women. Let me explain-

Sandhya was brought up to believe that it was wrong to be vocal. Her parents never encouraged discussions let alone arguments. She never ever learnt that one did not have to be aggressive to be heard. Raising one’s voice beyond a permissible level amounted to quarrel. Decent people did not argue. It was no wonder that when she got married she was at a loss not knowing how and when to be assertive. She had a job alright but it was her husband who’d decide if she needed to buy an umbrella or a raincoat during monsoon. He would ‘permit’ her to draw money from her salary account and assert to anyone who cared to listen that he was the provider in the family and that he never touched his wife’s money. If one were to believe him Sandhya’s bank balance had to be in lacs if not millions. But it was not so. What then happen to all the money she earned? She did not own jewelry or property, did not invest in stocks and shares. She could not bring herself to admit even to herself that while her husband was repaying their house loan and educating their children it was her salary that helped in running the house. It somehow seemed sin to say these things. The house as well as the husband and children were her own. She was not supporting someone else’s family, was she? But there were times when she felt that her contribution be recognized. Okay, if recognizing a woman’s contribution punctured her husband’s male ego, could he not refrain from claiming that he did not use her money? Was it too much to ask? But girls from decent families did not say such things. They simply swallowed the insult being directly or indirectly heaped upon them.

Rani on the other hand worked as a housemaid and earned around Rs.2000/- per month. Her husband was a vegetable vendor. It was her decision that her earnings would be spent or saved for her children’s future. Their education, school books, tuition fees etc were her responsibility. She puts aside a tidy sum for her daughter’s marriage. But food and provisions were to be taken care of by her husband. When he worked the family had enough to eat. However, there were days when he would get drunk and refuse to do business and there would be no food to eat. Rani would then take a stand. She would not cook food when the husband was around. She’d cook for her children, feed them, wash the vessels taking care not to leave any trace of having cooked a meal. She herself would make do with food given by her employers. This policy of ‘no work, no food’ would go on for sometime. The husband would finally have no option but to start selling vegetables once more. She would give him some money as capital, through someone else without letting on that the money came from her.

“I feel bad doing this didi,” she says. “But I want him to take some responsibility instead of squandering all his money.”

When I think of these two women I wonder which of them should be called empowered. Lack of education has not been detrimental to Rani’s feeling empowered. She has been able to take a stand that does not fit into the projected image of soft feminine energy but she, like Sandhya, has the family’s welfare in mind and asserts herself in a manner that seems appropriate to her.

Sandhya, on the other hand, though financially empowered, perhaps allows herself to be emotionally and psychologically exploited and is therefore not empowered in the real sense. I had suggested that education was perhaps instrumental in making women subscribe to a certain expected behavior. I feel that I am not absolutely right. Education or the lack of it cannot be detrimental to women empowerment. Being/feeling empowered is actually the result of a good deal of mental training and conditioning. If one is able to play an active role in decision making processes in her family and society and is able to express her opinion with confidence she has the right to call herself empowered.

Folklore as a teaching aid.

It is long since I wrote or read anything. No particular reason for that except that I was busy preparing for a talk that I gave on the 1^st of March on “Folklore and Environment – an Indian perspective”. I must say that the talk was well received and I can actually pat my back for delivering it in Hindi. This was the first time I was addressing the audience in Hindi and I surprised myself more than others by showing a fairly good command over the language. Years of interaction with Hindi speaking people on a daily basis has actually fetched results. The credit goes to my colleagues and friends and discredit if any is entirely my own. Thank you one and all.

I think I should stop blowing my own trumpet and share with you a cute little story narrated by the other speaker Dr. Mahalik. Of course his talk was interspersed with several stories from Oriya folklore that were relevant to the conservation of the environment but the following one stood out. The essence of the story as I understood it is as follows-

A certain mighty and powerful king wanted to beautify the garden next to his palace. In the middle of the garden was a banyan tree that seemed to be spoiling its beauty. He ordered that the tree be felled. After all he was an all powerful king and it was well within his rights to do as he pleased. He therefore ordered his men to chop of the banyan tree that was nothing but an eyesore in an otherwise beautiful garden. The kings men went to chop off the banyan tree when the tree spoke asking the men to wait for just one more day before felling it. They saw no harm in conceding to a seemingly harmless request by the tree and granted the tree its wish. That very night the banyan tree appeared to the king in his dream.

“Oh, King!” Said the tree. “Why do you wish to chop me off? I am just a tree and I am not harming anyone. Why don’t you let me be?”

The king was annoyed and angry at the audacity of the tree that had dared to question his will.

“You stand right in the middle of my garden spoiling its beauty and you have the audacity to ask me for an explanation. I am the king of this country and I will do just as I please. You will be cut down tomorrow.”

“Of course” said the tree. “You have every right to do as you please. However, there is a small request that I wish to make. Will you just grant me just one wish?”

The king saw no harm in granting just one request to the tree that would in any case be felled the following day. So he agreed to grant the tree its wish.

“You have every right to cut me.” Said the tree. “after all I am occupying the central location of your beautiful garden thereby spoiling its beauty. However, there are so many birds that have made their nests on my branches and others that perch on my branches when they are tired. And what about the squirrels that run up and down my trunk as well as other life forms that have made their niche in me? It is my request that you make some alternative arrangement for them before chopping me down. And ask your men to cut me into small pieces so that the life forms that flourish in the soil beneath me are not harmed when my huge branches fall down.”

The tree’s request had the king thinking about the truth behind its words. He felt ashamed that a banyan tree should be so concerned about the welfare of other life forms when he was concerned only about his own pleasure. He revoked his order and let the tree remain right in the middle of the garden.

The seminar has set me thinking. I wonder if I could get hold of such stories and translate them for children? Dr. Mahalik spoke of eco-lore being an offshoot of folklore. The generation of pre - school and primary school children need to be encouraged to think about the recycling of resources and conservation of the environment. My initiative could be just a small step in this direction. I welcome ideas from one and all of you to get me started.