Identity: The Quest for Comfort Within Our Skins

Every year during summer break, our family visited my aunt and cousins who lived in Thiruvunnamalai in Tamil Nadu, home to the Ramana Maharishi Asharamam. Each visit to that town included numerous visits to the Ashram at which, for us kids, the free-roaming peacocks on the premises were the main attraction.

At the entrance to the main hall of the Ashram, a huge white metal board with light blue lettering laid out the Maharishi's manifesto that I diligently tried to read and grasp at every visit, but gave up somewhere between the second and the fourth sentences.

"Who am I?" the manifesto began and proceeded to try to answer that simple question.

To my young mind, that was a rather silly question to ask, to say the least. In the intervening years, although I've realized the import of that question, I have never felt the need to examine my life quite in that way.

But, surrogate queries do crop up often as my various identities try not to imitate a multi-car pile up on an icy interstate: daughter, sister, wife, mother, niece, cousin, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law, aunt, student, employee, a Person of Indian Origin, Non-Resident Indian (as various institutions in India label me), a Resident Alien, Amerian citizen, a stay-at-home mom (improbably, American media has coined an acronym for this - SAHM), working mom, writer, radio jockey, lawyer, first-generation immigrant raising a native born American far away from the social structure of my upbringing, expat in my own hometown, Hindu who attended Catholic schools, woman, friend, colleague, someone who gets riled up at certain things that happen in society but hates labels (I really don't know if I'm a feminist or a liberal or a conservative, and I really don't care), non-vegetarian.

Needless to say, the list goes on.

In our normal lives, we see ourselves as members of a variety of groups - we belong to all of them....Each of these collectivities, to all of which this person simultaneously belongs, gives her a particular identity. None of them can be taken to be the person's only identity or singular membership category.

So says Amartya Sen in his collection of essays, Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny.

"The essential plurality of human beings, and how the undermining of this plurality lies behind most of the world's conflicts, are the central themes," of Sen's book, writes Jai Arjun Singh in his excellent review.

I can already see these multiple identities taking shape in my young son. He's been in school in India for about a year and a half now, and his accent does the switcheroo as he moves between different social groups. Among his friends at school he puts on an Indian accent; among his expat friends, he's the true blue American.

At any one point in time, only one of these identities may come to the fore, while the others hang back, waiting to be pulled off the shelf, dusted off and worn.

But do we really ever succeed in shaking off any of these identities? Should we even want to shake off any one of them? If so, why?

These are questions that all of a sudden seem to be plaguing the literary world, the blogosphere, perhaps society in general. Or may be I'm just noticing these things because I'm thinking about these issues now, you can never tell (it's like when you learn a new word and that word seems to crop up everywhere all of a sudden).

In DESI Confusion, Parts 1 and 2, Vikas Chowdhry explores the "confusion" he says ails Indian immigrants which they then transfer to their children, the second-generation Americans. In Part I he gives us a hint of the problem,

Of course, we like to think that we have the ability to straddle both cultures and environments successfully - the culture of our birth and the culture of our adopted homeland but at every opportunity, life throws surprises and litmus tests that constantly prove that assumption false. We try to preserve our culture and our way of thinking and force them on our kids, in turn making them confused and clipping their wings.

Hilal Isler writes about two immigrant waiters at an Indian restaurant in Immigrant Dreams - Desis Everywhere Searching For Identity,

At one point last night, when Naseem (one of the waiters) was talking animatedly with V. about the upcoming World Cup, (soccer?) I caught myself staring at him. Here he was, this confident, 20-something guy, full of life, surely full of ambitions--or at least, dreams--stuck in this dimly-lit Indian restaurant with nothing much to look forward to. It just seemed so tragic. I felt my heart sink.

Hilal expresses frustration at attempts to "decide which group is more *confused*--those American-born, or their immigrant-equivalents,"

I wish folks would stop being so interested in passing judgment about one another and just recognize that, ultimately, minorities of color in this country--foreign-born or not--are peas in pretty much the same pod. I wish we would acknowledge, then embrace the similarities that link us all, and use those common experiences/sensibilities to form communities of strength.

A related question is how much does the land of our origin influence our identities? Is it the be all and end all, or are there other factors at play? Home is where the heart is, as the cliché goes. This also means that we identify ourselves most with places where we feel most comfortable. Shashi Tharoor in last Sunday's column in The Hindu says "... it little matters where you were born; what is important is where you belong, where your soul has its allegiance."

Aaman Lamba echoes that sentiment in Eastern Standard Tribe - Identity In A Place So Foreign and asks,

In the impermanent global flux, does it matter any more where I'm from, where I'm going?

[...]

Nowadays, who I am is related to where I am. My identity is formed by the history of my place of birth, and where I grew up, but my current location creates an affinity that I must adhere to, often at the cost of my place of naissance.

Sometimes, one aspect of our identity overtakes the rest despite attempts by family or friends, functioning under social pressure perhaps, to supress it. Perhaps that aspect asserts itself and becomes stronger than it would have been if only to survive in the face of all that opposition.

In Lakshya: The Farmer Prince Comes Out, Nitin Karani tells the story of Manavendra Singh Gohil.

The coming out of Manavendra Singh Gohil as a gay man has caused quite a stir in Gujarat within the circles of the erstwhile princely families: specifically in his native Rajpipla.

[...]

Manav is a royal by birth and an earthworm-farmer by profession...but his heart is with his organization, Lakshya [a registered public charitable trust, Gujarat's first and only community-based organization (CBO) working for HIV/AIDS prevention among men who have sex with men].

Sometimes though, our own attempts to supress parts of our history that make up our identity suffer the same fate - of actually showing up in all sorts of places. Anil Menon illustrates that point in his essay on William Makepeace Thackeray,

It's probable that Thackeray too was the product of a distant miscegenation; not so distant that people didn't remember but distant enough that it didn't matter. His maternal grandmother, Harriet Cowper — Anne Becher's mother — is thought to have been of Indian origin, perhaps twice or thrice removed.... Such doubts about pedigree, in that time and place, could be a heavy burden.

[...]

Thackeray's anxieties popped up in his conversations, letters, novels and essays.

[...]

Indeed, for someone with Thackeray's sensitivity — several peers referred to it as being almost "womanly" — his secret would've been like a convex mirror, distorting the familiar and revealing...

Richard Marcus, who, until recently, went by the name of Gypsyman, extolls the virtues of not revealing too much of one self in Exposing Gypsyman,

There's an incredible amount of freedom that you get from wearing a mask. When nobody can see your face, they aren't going to judge you by your appearance only by what thoughts you're willing to reveal. We all wear masks most days of the week anyway whether we know it or not.

But, as time wore on, he says, "I started to discover parts of myself that I actually like. Once that happened, I realized it was only a matter of time until it I would put the [masked identity] out to pasture".

Sure enough, Gypsyman threw off his mask and revealed his true identity.

In sharp contrast to this shaking off of identities or supressing them is the idea of embracing each one (potentially at odds with one another) as I alluded to above. And in this age of globalization and attendant immigration of people from their home countries to far corners of the world, not only is this desirable, but also necessary.

And in that sense, I'm very happy that my son has decided to jump in and bandy about expressions such as "ayyo!" and "abba!" with abandon (although I confess I cringe every time I hear them). This sort of adjustment seems very common among second-generation immigrants (or among children who've moved away from their countries of birth at a very early age), especially children who maintain contact with both their parents' country and their own country of birth.

Pico Iyer, the poster child for hyphenated, multicultural, identity if ever there was one, quotes Kazuo Ishiguro in his book The Global Soul,

The only "un-English" boy at all the schools where he found himself, he realized that his survival depended on impersonating an English boy, while also putting his exoticism to occasional good use. "Whenever it was convenient for me to become very Japanese, I could become very Japanese," [Ishiguro] says disarmingly. "And then, when I wanted to drop it, I would just become this ordinary Englishman."

That, I must say, as a parent, is a healthy attitude to adopt in the face of what is potentially a crippling situation for a child.

Iyer himself takes delight in recounting the myriad ways in which our multiple identities have converged in today's society,

Everywhere is made up of everywhere else--a polycentric anagram--that I hardly notice I'm [the British born son of Indian parents who grew up in California, but studied in England and now spends most of the year in rural Japan] sitting in a Parisian cafe just outside Chinatown (in San Francisco), talking to a Mexican-American friend about biculturalism while a Haitian woman stops off to congratulate him on a piece he's just delivered on TV on St. Patrick's Day...as we sip our Earl Grey tea near signs that say CITY OF HONG KONG, EMPRESS OF CHINA.

Not that all this coming together hasn't received its share of criticism from some quarters.

Recently, the blogosphere was buzzing with posts about whether Non-Resident Indians should be relabeled "Non-Returnable Indians". "Many desis, who are NRIs, suddenly find themselves having to defend their Indianness," says Kamla Bhatt.

Becoming an NRI, or being labelled as an NRI is somehow thought to be an overnight transformation and you are expected to have a different take, perception on everything, and your comments on India are no longer correct or valid. It is like some kind of switch is flipped and a whole version of software is downloaded into your OS when you move to another country. You are now expected to behave and interact differently, but that is not how it happens.

Neha Vishwanathan recently found herself having to defend her "Indianness" which came under attack because she lives in London.

It's interesting how often people try to shut me up by calling me an NRI (Non Resident Indian). What does she know? She's an NRI. How can she talk about issues in India? She's an NRI. What right does an NRI have to talk about development in India when she sits in London choking over her Starbucks Mocha? What does she know about the Gaza strip when she's never been to the Middle East. (Except for that damn hopping flight that touches base in Dubai). So what if she's spent 97.57% of her life in India, the minute she finds herself in an non-Indian postcode - she's an NRI.

While most of us may never find ourselves sipping Earl Grey tea in the kind of scenario Iyer describes, it is imperative to recognize that, unless you live in back of beyond somewhere, there is no way to escape the kind of multicultural existence that is the hallmark of globalization. Even if you've never left the country of your birth, you may still work for, may have eaten at, bought the products made by or services of a multinational corporation.

Restricting people to a single political identity may sound good to parochial ears, but it is of no use in a practical sense - unless that identity is that of global citizen, one I like to describe myself as.

Different Shades of Loving

N has heard many times from me, "The only reason I get upset with you is because I love you. If I didn't care about you, then I wouldn't get upset with you at all."

So yesterday, N comes up to me and says, "Mama, remember how you always say you get upset with me because you love me?"

I reply, guardedly, "Yeah?"

"Well, could we try loving each other in a different way where you don't get upset with me?"

Rose Petals are Romantic...

but if you think you want to save them for ever in the leaves of a book, please don't.

I had stashed away some rose petals (along with the stem) from a bunch of roses that V had given me a few years ago in the really heavy Oxford Atlas of the World. The petals and the book were perfectly fine until we opened the book yesterday to look up something.

The petals had eaten into at least five pages on either side. So we've now lost portions of Europe, England, Russia and Africa.

Commonwealth Games: Indian Masseur Charged with Sexual Harassment

On the heels of Blog-a-thon 2006 highlighting street/sexual harassment of women in India and Nachiketa's post bemoaning the harassment (euphemistically called "eve-teasing" in India) of women on New Delhi's streets, comes this news that a masseur in the Indian contingent that has traveled to Melbourne for the Commonwealth Games, has been charged with sexually harassing a 16-year old cleaner in the sports village.

Now, the charges are still under investigation by the Australian authorities, but what was he thinking?

That he could behave as he wanted with that girl? That she would not take offence? That she would be cowed down by this "status" as an official of the Indian contingent and would not complain? That even if she complained, the police would laugh her off? That the authorities would not countenance her allegations?

Well, whatever he might have aniticipated would happen in the wake of his alleged actions, he could not have anticipated at the speed with which the authorities have reacted in Australia. According to CNN/IBN, his alleged victim complained to the Commonwealth Village police, and the Australian authorities have confiscated his passport pending further investigation. The accused Indian official will be produced in front of a magistrate on March 16th.

Needless to say, this is a highly embarassing moment not only for Indian sport, but for Indian diplomacy as well. What should have been a joyful two weeks of representing India and hopefully putting on a good show in the sports arenas has now turned into two weeks of hiding from the glare of reports a sleazy incident in a room in the sports village.

Indian officials are left in the awkward position of having to deal with an issue that happens all too often within their own borders but is equally often ignored, explained away as "men will be men", or worst of all, blamed on the victim as "deserving what she got" because she might have been too "forward".

But Australia is not India, now, is it?

I don't think we're in Kansas any more, Toto.

Update:

The accused went to court today (March 16). The hearing has been rescheduled for Friday. According to his lawyer, he pled "not guilty". He has been expelled from the Indian contingent and alternative living arrangements have been made for him outside the Village. He faces two counts - one count of unlawful assault and one count of indecent assault. Each of these carries a maximum penalty of 2 years.

Maelstrom

The first time he hit me, I refused to believe it. My body felt it: my cheek stung, the sound reverberated around the room, for one slight second I could swear I saw double. My eyes took in his contorted face leaning into mine as he breathed heavily. But my brain said it was all a lie; it had to be a lie. The seconds filed calmly past as we simply stared at each other. And ever so slowly, into that shocked silence, my rage was born.

This is how Amrita Rajan's tale - a powerful portrayal of the decay and degeneration of what starts out as a loving relationship - begins.

The entire story is definitely worth reading. Please do so here.

Gangubai Hangal Creates History

Gagubai Hangal created history on Sunday in Belgaum by holding a public concert at the age of 94. Here's the report from The Hindu.

History is said to have been created in the field of music with the doyenne of Kirana gharana, Gangubai Hangal, giving a public concert at 94 here on Sunday.

The event, which could enter the Guinness Book of World Records, also turned out to be a public performance coinciding with the 75th anniversary of a glorious musical career of Ms. Hangal.

Renowned harmonium exponents R.K. Bijapure and Tulshidas Borkar and novelist Chandrakant Kusnoor were present.

This rare event was organised by the Belgaum-based Academy of Performing Arts to celebrate her 94th birthday and 75th anniversary of her professional career. Sanchalak of the academy Hayavadan Joshi felicitated Ms. Hangal by presenting her with a citation in recognition of her contribution to Hindustani classical music.

You go, girl!

Right Thing, Wrong Time

N was looking through a long-lost volume of Tintin. He appeared to be slowly flipping through the pages without reading any of the dialogue.

So I asked him to read as well as look at the pictures.

He read, "Beasts! Swine! Cowards!"

Uh. Oh.

I leaned over and saw a picture of Captain Haddock shaking his fist at a plane that flying low and trying to sabotage the boat he and Tintin were in.

Right thing to say to N, but totally the wrong time.

Why Do Some Men Think It's All Right to Harass Women and Girls?

Most, if not all, women have a stories to tell about street harassment. Women are subject to all sorts of assaults the minute they step out into the streets - whistles, cat calls, lewd comments, propositions, stares, gawks, casual brushes of the hand on their bodies as they are walking along, being pressed against in crowded places (and no, this is not the variety that is merely brought on by lack of space - the intention of the perpetrator is quite clear to both him and his victim), and in extreme cases, groping of private parts in full public view. The stories are all too common and they are based on incidents that occur every minute of every day on the streets.

That is the thing about street harassment - the fact that it is so pervasive.

When I'm walking on the streets here in India, I literally have to do a 360 degree survey every few minutes - a sort of a reconaissance mission - to see who is around me. If I see a man anywhere within five feet of me, I then look out for flailing hands.

Oh, they look so innocent, those hands, but within a matter of seconds, I've seen them brush against someone or squeeze some female body part as if it were the most natural thing in the whole world. By the time the woman or the girl turns around in indignation, the perpetrator is making his way merrily up the street not once turning to look back.

An equally galling thing is that this behavior is not limited to any one male demographic - they could be young or old, in rags or in smart clothes, in middle-class areas or in upper-class areas, they could have respectable jobs (I know because many of these oglers stand outside company office buildings during breaks). And sure as hell, most of these creeps are married with kids of their own.

And this is for all those who say, well, the women invite it by the way they dress. Where do I begin to counter an inane assertion like that? First of all, no matter what the woman is wearing, she gets groped anyway. Second of all, what does a woman's dress have to do with how a man reacts to her? What gives a man the right to think he can feel up a woman no matter how she is dressed? Do women, then, have the right to do whatever it pleases them to a man because they did not, for instance, like the color of his shirt or the cut of his pants?

Moreover, the woman's age does not seem to matter either - she could be young, old, married, unmarried, in groups or all alone, with children, without children.

This whole issue and the conversations surrounding it get lost in sociology jargon - invasion of private spaces, for example. The argument goes, "In India, no one has private space. Everyone gets crushed in public transportation. So women should expect it too." The argument has thus veered off on a tangent.

There is no need to resort to jargons to describe what happens on the street to a woman. The idea in a man's head (I am sure there are men in our society who do not indulge in any of the behavior that is the subject of this post, but I sure as hell can't tell one from the other when I am out and about) is, "Oh, look! There's a woman! Now what do I do? Should I whistle, should I slide up close to her? May be if I put my hand out, I can grab something and squeeze it. Choices, choices."

My question is, why do men think this way, especially here in India?

Why are not women seen as another being, having the right to walk carefree on a street or ride on a bus and to reach their destination without being abused, assaulted and battered, without feeling frustrated, guilty, angry, simmering with rage, reconciled to being violated, tearful, afraid for their safety, feeling like shit, feeling dirty, or without feeling like an object of someone's uncontrolled lust?

This sort of behavior sure cannot be what is taught them at home by their mothers and fathers, nor what can be endorsed by sisters, sisters-in-law or female cousins.

Is it the movies? For sure, there is enough violence against women in movies - rapes, harassment, stalking. But do men really model their behavior on the villains and goons in the movies? Well, it's not just villains and goons, is it? The hero initially indulges in this behavior as well, before the heroine falls for his persistence. May be that's the message men take away from the movies - if I'm persistent in harassing a girl, she will be my heroine. Is this really true?

(I am reminded of the new Pepsi ad in this context, the one in which John Abraham, the Pepsi refill guy, overcomes an initially reluctant female employee who tries to thwart his advances. They both end up doing the tango. The message here clearly says, "Don't take 'no' for an answer when the woman does not like your advances initially. If you are more aggressive, she will give in." Totally the wrong message to send to anyone, but especially to young male minds that could potentially be influenced by John Abraham.)

Or is this just an ugly manifestation of a patriarchal society that thinks that a woman's place is at home and if she has the gall to go out and about, then she is going to suffer for it? Or is it that the men think they are more powerful and are able to harass and so do it whenever they feel like doing it (like peeing on the sides of the street whenever it strikes their fancy)?

Someone, pray, tell me. Which one of these is it?

If we know, may be then we can at least begin to hope that our children will inherit a kinder, gentler society in which to live.

Blog-a-thon 2006

Interview with Vijay Amritraj on FM 101.3

If you live in Bangalore, you might be interested in listening to an interview with Indian tennis ace Vijay Amritraj that will be broadcast between 10 and 10:30 am tomorrow, Saturday, March 4th on All India Radio's FM Rainbow 101.3.

I met him for a brief chat when he was in Bangalore to commentate on the WTA Bangalore Open tournament a few days ago.

Sick of Getting Harassed on the Streets? Blog About It!

Street harassment, eve teasing, sexual harassement - whatever name this social phenomenon goes by, it is a monster in our midst. No matter how much we are used to it, having to face it day in and day out, it never fails to give rise to a sick feeling everytime you encounter it. Women face it personally, but the men in their lives are affected as well just by watching their loved ones go through it. At best we are frustrated by this scrouge and at worst, we are afraid to walk freely on the streets. It certainly is a debilitating and nervewracking feeling not to be able to go about your everyday lives without having to be constantly aware of every flailing hand 360 degrees around you.

The Blank Noise Project is an initiative that seeks to assign eve-teasing its rightful place as a crime in our society. The Project now is almost a year old. To commemorate the first anniversary of its existence in the blogosphere, the Project is organizing Blog-a-thon 2006. What is Blog-a-thon 2006 all about? Here is some info from their site:

Marking our one year foray into the blog world, we’ve decided to host a Blog-a-thon on the issue of street harassment. No, you don’t have to run anywhere (thankfully) to participate, you’ve just got to get to your computer this TUESDAY (7th MARCH) and post your thoughts on street harassment/ eve teasing on your blog. You can write about anything related to the topic: testimonies, opinions on harassment, comments about the Blank Noise project, would all be great. It doesn't matter where you're from, where you live, or whether you're a man or a woman - we'd love to have you on board. If you’d like to participate, send an email to blurtblanknoise[AT]gmail.com before the coming Monday (6th March). We’ll add your name and blogsite to the ‘running’ list of participants on the Blank Noise blogsite so that everyone can see what everyone else is writing about the topic. Also, just to get the maximum number of people 'out' for this event - we'd request that you put up a posting on your blog prior to Monday to encourage other people to participate, and to let them know to check your blog on Monday. So join one, join all!

My Fifteen Minutes of Fame

Ok, make that 24 hours of fame!



Check out Desicritics.

Desicritics Is One Month Old Today

Desicritics, the South Asian offshoot of Blogcritics, is one month old today.

In just a month, Desicritics has made huge strides. There are more than 160 authors on its rolls and the quality and range of articles has been mighty impressive.

Here is a message from the publisher, Aaman Lamba, to mark the occassion:

It's been a pretty good month, far better than one expected when we conceived of Desicritics.org as an online magazine delivering quality news and opinion on all things South Asian with a global focus. Conceived by Eric Berlin as an extension of the successful paradigm established by Blogcritics publisher, Eric Olsen, and technically powered by Phillip Winn, I've been honored to do my part in creating a new reality, closer to the heart.

I do believe Desicritics, Blogcritics, and the ilk are the harbingers of Media 2.0, a citizens' response to big media, embodying the best of blogs as a personal communication medium, and the power of the collaborative, interactive paradigm. The paradigm reflects South Asia, the world's perceptions of the region, and vice versa through the blogosphere's ability to diffract news via opinion, delivering something more than news and opinion.

Eric Olsen commented once on the concept behind Blogcritics,

It's a place to the advantage of both the writers and the readers - they can interact - because we have open comments. You as the reader can participate in the ongoing discussion: you can agree, you can disagree, you can bring in new facts, you can reference materials that you think are important. I think that's something that sets us apart from the traditional media.

The exceedingly fine writers on Desicritics have consistently delivered a delightful variety of news and information on topics ranging from Rang De Basanti to the Cartoon protests. We've covered Arcelor, and joisted on the Indian Army in Kashmir. We've been noticed by the media and the blogosphere as well, and our regular readership continues to grow daily.

One month on, we've got over 160 writers, 100,000+ page views, we added on two more editors (temporal & Sujatha) and we're only just beginning.

Desicritics come from Pakistan and from Australia, from Bangladesh, Toronto, and Bangalore.

If you'd like to be a Desicritic, check this out, and send an e-mail to desicritics@gmail.com. We look forward to adding more quality writers to our rolls.

The War Against Illiteracy: The View From One Small Corner of the Battlefield

As I turn off of the Jama Masjid Road on to one of the side streets in Ilyasnagar in South Bangalore, I come to a big, colorful shamiana that takes up the entire width of the street. At the head of the shamiana is a dais draped with a thin carpet. On the dais are chairs, a rectangular table with two flower vases (that the photographer promptly removes when the program starts because they're blocking his line of sight) and a microphone on a long stand.

Off to the left of the dais, past the sound system, its snaking wires and the loudspeakers, is the gate that leads to Noor Ayesha's house. The gate opens to a long corridor at the far end of which is the front door that opens to a room about 8 feet by 12 feet that is filled to capacity with people and is buzzing with activity.

Noor Ayesha, petite, reed-thin and bubbling with energy is resplendent in a shimmering green and pink chudidhar. She has a constant stream of guests, some already seated in molded plastic chairs that dot the front room of the house, others still arriving, removing their slippers at the front door before coming in. She is at once in command of the goings on in her house and shies at all the attention she is receiving.

Noor's male relatives are busy lifting low, long school benches lined along one wall of the front room and taking them outside. The women of the house, other than Noor, are busy in the kitchen getting out paper plates, snacks and fruits.

Noor is busy attending to little children, guiding them to a bench in the far corner of the room, getting them to sit. The children are dressed in their best clothes and their faces made up as if for a performance. They sit quietly and patiently and watch the adults.

The room itself has a showcase built into the wall to the left of the front door. The showcase is full of children's notebooks, blocks and puzzles. Number charts, alphabet charts, fruit, vegetable and flower charts hang along the wall facing the front door. A little higher, towards the left of center of the wall, hangs an illustration of Mecca and a chart welcoming everyone. A roll-up black board in the center of the wall proclaims that Noor Ayesha's home is also the Little Lord Pre-Primary English School.

In short, Noor is a foot-soldier in the war against illiteracy in India.

Today, Noor Ayesha and her children are celebrating their school's Annual School Day.

She started out as an Akshara volunteer in their 'Community Outreach' program (of which the pre-school or 'Balwadi' program is one of four components) in November 2004. She went around from house to house with research provided by Akshara (number of children in the household, how many are in school, how many are not and why not) and urged parents to send their pre-school aged children to her house for a few hours everyday so she could school them.

For eight months, she ran her pre-school under Akshara's banner and received all the necessary teaching materials and a monthly stipend from Akshara. Within a few months, she had the experience and a sufficient number of children in her school for her to contemplate going independent. So she took the training offered by Akshara on how to run a self-sustaining Balwadi in April of 2005. From June onwards, she has been running her pre-primary school with the fees she has collected from the families and with some help from her locality's Corporator.

Now Noor has 54 children in the age group of 2 and a half to 6 years old and she's hearing from parents who want to send their children to her even earlier. Initially, her language and math classes were conducted only in Urdu. Following numerous requests from parents, she has now hired an English teacher and offers classes in both Urdu and English.

Enabling Noor to accomplish all this within a span of a few months are her family, her neighborhood and the leadership in her locality. Her in-laws were both school teachers and are fully supportive of their daughter-in-law's efforts to get children in their community on the right track. Her family is investing in building an entire floor above their existing ground-floor house to help her expand her classes. Her local Corporator, known as Mr. Tipu to his constituents, encouraged Noor's efforts by donating books to the school, mementoes for functions, funds to Noor to help her get started when she went independent and fees to families who struggle to send their children to her pre-school.

Although Noor has been on her own for close to eight months now, the Akshara volunteer coordinator looks in on Noor often to check on her progress and help her address operational problems. On the day she celebrated her pre-school's annual day, Mr. Tipu arrived with his entourage to grace the function and exhort the audience to send every child to school and praised Noor's efforts. The Chief Operating Officer of Akshara Foundation, Col. Murthy Rajan attended the annual day celebrations as well, along with Lata Devi, the Balwadi Coordinator for Bangalore and Mamata, a Cluster Resource Person for that part of Bangalore with Akshara. Also in attendance were Balwadi operators from other areas in and around Ilyasnagar who'd gone independent, seeking inspiration from Noor's success and in turn providing support just by being there, sharing her moment of joy.

The success Noor has had not only in starting a Balwadi in her area, but going on to become independent is a sign of the level of demand for education at the pre-primary level. There are no government-run pre-primary schools in Bangalore, so most families who cannot afford private school education end up keeping their children at home until they are old enough to be sent to first grade in the government schools.

Unfortunately, by that time, they are already behind in terms of the things they could have learned in the crucial formative years of their lives. This leads to learning problems in the primary schools and government primary school teachers are overwhelmed by the amount of work necessary to bring the children up to speed. Schools resort to social promotions until the fifth grade with no attention to what the children have actually learned in the intervening years. All these factors collectively result in children dropping out of school altogether somewhere along the road.

This is where Akshara's Balwadi and the government's Anganwadi programs step in. While Anganwadis try to provide health, education, and other essential services that are not accessible to the poorer communities, Balwadis, which became operational in Bangalore in 2000, try to exclusively address this gap in pre-primary education in the slums and day-laborer communities of Bangalore.

Noor's is one of 94 self-sustaining Balwadis in Bangalore. 234 other Balwadis are operating under the Akshara banner. In all, Akshara's Balwadis cover about 4,214 children while the self-sustaining Balwadis serve about 1,915 children.

On this day, Noor, who has not summoned up enough courage to go up on stage, is standing on the ground next to the dais, the microphone pulled low to her height and is welcoming her guests and the parents of her school children. She nervously tugs at her duppatta willing it to stay around her head, her fingers gripping the microphone and adjusting her duppatta by turn. After every sentence, she turns to the English teacher in her school, who has Noor's speech ready in her hands. Together, they make it through the welcome speech.

The audience, mostly women in the front rows, but a sizeable group of men from the community as well in the fringes, many with young children on their laps, are appreciative of Noor. They listen intently when Mr. Tipu speaks, turning to look at Noor every time her name is mentioned.

Noor has moved off to the side now, and is organizing her children. She is already intent on the next stage of the program. This is what the Annual Day is all about. It's about how far her children have come in the span of a year, and it's about showing the parents and the rest of the community why it is important they go to school and stick with it. The children are as excited and nervous as she is. They are about to perform on stage showing off all they've learnt in their Noor teacher's school.

This article was published in Deccan Herald. The published version is available here.

Say that Again?

"Don't just do something, sit there! "

It took me a couple of readings to understand that simple sentence.

The first time I read it, my mind was only able to register, "Don't just sit there, do something!", the version we are all familiar with.

"With all this socially engaged work, first you must learn what the Buddha learned, to still the mind. Then you don't take action; action takes you."

This, according to the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh who was 'exiled from Vietnam in the 1960s for his nonviolent antiwar activities' and who now runs the Plum Village meditation center in southwestern France where 'he regularly hosts, among others, Palestinians and Israelis in workshops on conflict resolution and peace negotiation.'

Intrigued?

Read some more here. The entire article is available only by subscription, unfortunately.

Caesarean Deliveries: Scientific Progress Gone Boink

Over the past months, a few of my friends and acquaintances have delivered babies. All of them have gone to private hospitals here in Bangalore, some large, some small. Nothing out of the ordinary here, right?

Well, what is out of the ordinary is that the fact that almost all of them have delivered their babies by Caesarean Section (C-Section).

The Indian medical academic community (see p. 6 of that article) estimates that the rate of C-Sections in private hospitals in India is as high as 45%. A conversation I had with the labor and delivery department of a reputed private hospital here, however, puts that percentage at a mind-boggling 70%.

This rising trend in the use of C-Sections for delivering babies is not unique to India.

A Time magazine article (Too Posh to Push, April 19, 2004) highlighted some of the countries with higher than recommended rates of C-Sections (the World Health Organization recommends that C-Sections make up less than 15% of all births). England has a 22% C-Section rate, while Italy's had climbed from 21% more than a decade ago to 33% at the time the article was published, and Brazil takes the cake with some private clinics in that country reporting C-Section rates as high as 90%.

There are, of course, cases of maternal and fetal distress when C-Sections are warranted. And advances in technology, anasthetology and obstetrics have meant that more C-Sections have been performed in recent years in such cases, and they have resulted in more mothers and fetuses surviving childbirth.

There are a few other reasons, however, for this rising trend in the deployment of C-Sections:

• women opt for C-Sections as a matter of convenience – they want to avoid going through long and painful labor;
• doctors, overwhelmed with the number of patients they see, have neither the patience nor the time to allow labor to take its normal course; and
  
• doctors push C-Sections (which cost twice as much as normal childbirth) on their patients because their hopitals or clinics recuperate the investments they've made in purchasing expensive machines for conducting C-Sections.

And in India, add at least a couple more reasons to that list.

According to this Hindu article, some families are opting for C-Sections because they want their baby delivered at an "auspicious" time. The normal childbirth process, of course, affords no such control over the time of birth. Secondly, some fathers-to-be are "forcing their wives to undergo caesarean section, believing that normal delivery hampers their sex life."

There are, thus, two main prongs in the list of reasons why C-Sections appear to be the preferred form of childbirth: one is the woman or her family's search for control (over pain, over time of birth, over post-delivery sex life) and the other is the doctor's search for control (over cashflow generated by deliveries and over his/her time).

While C-Sections have generally become safer over the years, doctors warn that certain risks remain. C-Sections are major surgeries and among other risks, although the mother may allay the pain for a few hours, recovery can be long and painful. This is definitely not to say that normal childbirth is a walk in the park. There are risks for both mother and child associated with prolonged labor.

Given this scenario, if you are a woman that prefers normal childbirth, what are your options?

There are quite a few steps you can take to be fully prepared before you enter the birthing room.

The first step is to educate yourself regarding the pregnancy and its various stages and the whole labor and delivery process. The internet is a veritable treasure trove of information on this topic. There are also books such as What to Expect When You're Expecting that take you through the pregnancy in an organized and methodical fashion. The third source is information is, of course, your doctor. Do not hesitate to ask questions during your visits.

In fact, talking to your doctor should be a priority. Talk to her about her thoughts on childbirth. What are the scenarios in which she would resort to a C-Section? Is her staff supportive of normal childbirth? Is the hospital equipped to take you through that process? What happens if you go into labor and she is away that day? What are the policies on letting someone (husband, mother) stay with you during labor? And educating yourself allows you to ask the right questions.

If you can find a natural childbirth class near you (most hospitals offer one these days), take it and take your husband or mother (whoever will be with you during labor) to the classes. So you have two minds thinking the day of the delivery rather than just one (labor is as much in the head as it is in the body). Practice the breathing and relaxation techniques they teach. They really do work.

Finally, establish a rapport with the doctor so you feel comfortable and can trust the doctor to do what is right in the end, because no matter how much you've prepared yourself and how much you want natural childbirth, circumstances may prevent that from happening and your doctor may decide that you will need a C-Section after all.

That brings me to the most important point of all - prepare as much as you can to have the kind of childbirth you want, but also prepare yourself to go with the flow. Because while there are many things you can control, it is also wise to acknowledge that there are many more things you cannot.

And that, from personal experience, is a recipe for smooth labor (if there is such a thing).

Note: This article is not meant to be a substitue for professional medical advice. Please consult your doctor for advice regarding your specific circumstances.

Crossposted on Desicritics.org.