Remembrance

Remembrance is a sequel to Anurag Kumar's Recalcitrance. We follow Chote Bhaiya as he moves on in pain of going away from Farheen. He accepts it as his fate, marries another woman and continues on his war for independence.

We're introduced to his muse Ulfat Jahan in Lucknow, who congratulates him for his bravery during the Great War and generates interest in Chote Bhaiya. He's gradually charmed by her and falls in love with her. But he's torn between being faithful to his wife and acknowledging his love for Ulfat Jahan. 

At the same time, he joins hands with Ahsanul Mulk and his team to assassinate Governor General. The plan goes kaput due to various reasons despite them being fully prepared and alert. Chote Bhaiya realizes how close he has come to death and this affects him psychologically. Also his grandmother's deteriorating health and his family situation influence him into assessing his future direction.

We also get to see how Farheen's life has changed after Chote Bhaiya leaves her and goes away. She's obliged to marry an old but well-to-do man, who eventually dies trying to retrieve his money from a debtor. She and her mother are again left to fend for themselves along with her 2 kids with her husband Ahmad Husain.

Remembrance is a smooth sequel to Recalcitrance, and gives us some more glimpses into how revolutionaries operated then and planned for attacks on Englishmen. It also comments on the social scenario then predominantly through incidents in Chote Bhaiya and Ulfat Jahan's lives and a few other situations like Narenderlal's father's illness and redistribution of land. Overall, an interesting plot with a simple narration. There are parts in the book where I was slightly confused as the context wasn't elaborate, but the flow of events compensates for it. Like I said for Recalcitrance, go for it if you love Indian history and would like to know how life and society was pre-independence.

Life goes on..

Life goes on.. no matter what pains you go through, no matter what achievements you have, life goes on. It has to. But not the same way. Plans get shattered, hopes get thrashed, people lose strength, yet life goes on...

There are a lot of changes - changes in everything we do, the way we think, the way we live and the way we talk. Some changes for the better, some for the worse. Days passed by without our stopping by noticing earlier, now each passing day makes its impact. 

Life will go on.. plans have changed, hopes have changed, but the will to live doesn't die. That was something I learnt from him, something he personified, and I'll never give up on that. No matter what, live in the moment, aspire for future and keep dreaming!

Where there is a way, there's often no will

Yesterday, my Dad was having an argument with the watchman and his wife. They wanted to go to their native place for some personal work and asked for a leave and when asked about when they'd return, both of them gave contradicting answers and didn't give a commitment clearly. This upset my Dad and he told them not to give vague answers since he's not stopping them from going but just asking when they'd come back so we can plan for the work with other people.

This is a recurrent problem with any watchman he hires and other staff from that economic level. Dad has dealt with people from almost all classes and I've seen him tackle everybody else quite easily despite some misunderstandings and arguments occasionally. But when it comes to the daily labour, it gets difficult. They quit very soon, sometimes without even informing. Often for a minor increment and sometimes because of sheer laziness. Yes, we've seen people who quit who needed the money but quit simply because they didn't want to do so much work. They don't want to hang around long enough to benefit from the professional relationship and seek a hike or growth.

One of the guys that Dad hired had an infant boy, and my parents made sure he was cared for well. His father was a drunkard and wasted money on drinking all the time. Mom used to feed the boy nutritious food because his Mom would rarely give him anything good. He grew up in my house for a year, taken care of by all of us. But again, his father couldn't stay long because it was too much work and moved to an apartment as a watchman. When we saw the kid after a couple of months, he was malnourished and didn't have the energy he had when he was at my place. He lacked the enthusiasm and didn't eat properly.

Whenever I think of populist schemes like NREGA, this is what comes to my mind. There are a lot of such people who need to be incentivised to work, to earn and respect themselves, to provide better for their next generation. Instead, they take the easy route of banking on populist schemes and claim victimhood most of the times. Agreed that a class of society was entirely neglected for centuries and the rich exploited them, but the current form of correction harms in the long-term rather than benefit them. These people need skills and respect from others, which comes only when they know their craft and earn their livelihood. As long as they can get stuff cheap without hard work and without any contribution, they have no incentive to move out of that state and aspire for more. You rarely see any aspiration in that strata, if at all, it comes from those who are street vendors.

I know there will be arguments about where such populist schemes have benefitted the poor. I don't deny that, maybe there are cases where the poor benefit from these schemes and are lifted out of poverty in a generation or two. But to a large extent, all we see is youth without a direction, which is being wasted in drinking and other addictions. If this continues, honestly I think we'll only end up with more 'useless' population which will continue to claim victimhood no matter what opportunities we provide them. A whole generation (or even more) might end up being a burden on the country.

Numb

Another young man died in close family circle. As sudden and shocking as my brother. Left me quite shaken and unsettled. The thought that some people's lives change altogether for their entire life with something that happens in a second is somewhat unnerving to me.

An entire family loses direction and feels a loss of purpose for a long time when a young life departs. A couple lost their eldest son, siblings lost their eldest brother and a woman lost her very recently married husband. Life seems cruel at such instances, leaves me with a lot of questions. 

I've seen and been through a lot in the past 2 years and the best lesson I've learnt is to keep your grief to yourself. It hurts when someone belittles your feelings in an attempt to console you. Not everybody understands what is it that you've lost and why can't it be filled with anything/anyone else. After a lot of depression, rage and helplessness, I felt one thing - not everybody can share your grief. And then you go numb. Just numb.

A distant dream

Lot of debates lately about women, their rights, attires, behaviour and what not! There's more analysis being made of the victims rather than of rapists. There are a million theories about what's right and what's wrong for women, but very few which endorse the view of 'Leave it to her to decide'.

Anyway, my post is not another such theory or a rebuttal for any. Just some thoughts on how much male/female behaviour is shaped based on the littlest of things. The Hindu's article on masculinity taking the example of Swami Vivekananda's posture and the following angry comments on it got me thinking on how such mindsets are imposed at an early age and live on through a person's life.

There are a lot of things that I disagree with my folks on and feel quite enraged about when it comes to attire or demeanour. As a child, I remember my grandmother and Mom telling me not to stretch my legs while sitting on the floor because that's not 'girly' enough. And then there are a lot of comments I'd hear from neighbours, aunts and other women - 

Don't laugh too much, people will mistake and/or you'll have to face sorrow later in life

Wear bangles, otherwise what's the difference between a boy's hand and a girl's hand?

Don't walk like a man

You're a girl, you're supposed to know kitchen work. How will you please your future in-laws? (in Telugu, 'aadapilla ingitham inthaina ledu')

He's a boy, don't let him sit home. He should go out, make mischief and be boisterous

And of course, the standard - 'You're a boy, don't cry like a girl'

Oh come on, he's a boy, he won't do household work. It's your responsibility as a girl to keep the house clean and be responsible for household work

... and a lot more.

These look small and ignorable when you listen to them in isolation. But when you look at them in the context of the recent outrage against rapes, it hurts! It's a fact that women are subjugated from a very early stage - do this, don't do that, you're a girl, you need to behave etc. Most of these might not be conscious, yet lead to submissiveness in women in long-term. The worse and scarier part is the fact that none of these restrictions or monitions apply to men. Boys are free to go where they want owing to their mere existence. They can play on the streets, pick a fight with neighbours and their kids, make mistakes - in general, do whatever they wish to! 

I feel that's where the problem is - drawing clear lines and bringing up boys and girls in extremely different ways with different outlooks. The sense of entitlement most boys enjoy right from their childhood sows some real bad behavioural traits. These might not be notice-worthy for most people, but they are bothersome and merit attention. There are some behavioural norms we can't avoid due to culture, societal setup and whatever other reasons. But beyond that, there is no need to enforce rules on one gender alone. Yet there exist such rules, and are passed on from generation to generation. 

It's important that everyone respects themselves as individuals, and give the same respect to others too irrespective of gender. This needs to happen right from childhood - to make them see each other as equals, respect each other's space and value the other person's qualities. A distant dream, considering the societal setup we have... would love to see it come true in my lifetime.

Barfi - Not so sweet

There's Ranbir Kapoor. There's Priyanka Chopra. There's Ileana. Yet I chose to watch Barfi. Mainly because of the rave reviews it got from all kinds of people.

The movie started with a funny song during the credits roll, making me sit up and look forward to what's coming next. Within 10 minutes into the film, a Chaplin-esque routine of Ranbir followed and I recollected his grandfather trying to do the same in so many of his movies. I didn't want to give up yet, and hoped to see the brilliant performances that people were talking about in the later scenes. But the Chaplin scenes continued in Ranbir's chase sequences. First half was full of them, and lengthy... a bit drifting away from the story line.

Also, considering the kind of scenes Ranbir had, he needn't have been a deaf-mute guy at all. I don't mean to say that a deaf-mute character shouldn't be like any other character and have fun, but just that it felt more like a silent movie than a deaf-mute character. The only 2 scenes that justified this were the one in which his father falls down and the one where the inspector rings the 'bell' - the light flickers and the fan moves. Ranbir-Ileana romance was fine, and her mother's objections to the marriage was also predictable. His disability doesn't come in the way for romance, but comes in the way for marriage.

I have similar qualms about Priyanka's character too. For one, the director took so much reel-time to establish that she's autistic - with repetitive scenes about her fetish for reflections and masks. I think the only scene which justified her being autistic is the one where Ranbir asks her to stand with him and cuts the pole (his standard test for friendship), and thus falls in love with her.

A film stays with me if the characters and situations blend well and the story just flows without effort. I felt that lacking severely in Barfi. It felt like a forced attempt to convince the audience that the lead characters had to have their disabilities for this kind of a story, while IMO, it's not. Ranbir did a good job and the ladies were decent enough, but that's not enough to make the movie memorable. Maybe I missed seeing the goodness that everyone else seems to be touched by! But then, I prefer to watch movies that are sweet AND well-made.

A wonder kid

Just like any woman, she felt happy when she had her second child. Another girl was welcomed into the family with much joy. But the joy didn't last long as they discovered that the child has a problem with her heart. Doctors didn't give much hope in terms of her longevity as her condition was not completely curable. But obviously, a mother doesn't give up on a child so easily. She consulted multiple doctors in various hospitals, ensured the kid moved on with her life despite not growing like other kids due to her condition. She was physically weak, her limbs were thin and frail, had a bloated abdomen most of the time. Yet, my aunt didn't give up. 

It's a mother-daughter duo I always admired. There are people who have always been critical of the child and wished she weren't born because her parents had to go through so much because of her ill health. But her Mom never thought so. I've seen her quietly take all such negativity in her stride and continue with life normally. It's one thing to accept a problem with a child and a totally different thing to accept negativity from family and society, yet not let the child be affected by it.

The kid has taken after her mother, and was always all smiles and warm greetings. She's super intelligent and topped her class most of the time. She's very social and talks to anyone who cares to say a nice thing or two to her. There was nothing except her tiny frame which would make people consider her any different from other kids of her age. If only they care to look beyond the frame and get to know her. 

During social gatherings, I've seen people casting suspicious glances at her, making enquiries about her in hush-hush tones, wondering about her mother's courage to bring along two kids (of which one is not 'normal'), and just not bothering to even as much as say 'hi' to the kid. But nothing affected my aunt. She considered both her kids equal, made her go to a school, help in household chores, took her wherever she wanted to go, and overall ensured she felt normal (which she is) and had a normal life. In a nosey society like ours, trust me, it's a tough task.

And now, aunt lost her kid. After growing up to early teens, her body gave up on her and she left us. I'm sure when she looked back at her life, she felt immensely proud of her Mom for standing up for her and providing for her in the best possible way. I've always respected this aunt a lot, and it goes up two notches whenever I think of that little kid and what they both had to go through all this while. 

All such mothers who've stood up for their children and faced the worst crises socially, please take a bow! Immense respect to all such women.