Endless summer afternoons

It’s 48 degrees in the shade and Delhi is not baking but burning to a crisp, like bacon. The proof is the oil dripping off my face. I do my best to not fight it, to embrace the heat. I try and remind myself that there are people across the world who yearn for a bit of the bone warming sun. And I do my best to make the home comfortable, with thick drapes, chilled aam panna, cool creamy lassi and the good old desert cooler that fills our home with the lovely fresh scent of khus. But it’s an undeniable fact that the North Indian summer is deadly and kids on a school break feel trapped inside the home.

For years I’ve flip flopped between summer camp or not. Last year a friend ran a special summer camp at a very special school and suggested I send the kids with her. It suited me because the kids travelled both ways with her and I didn’t have to organise the logistics. Her kids and mine are friends and it worked out well for everyone. I’d even sent them in the earlier years in Delhi because we were locked into our third floor house and the kids couldn’t get out of the house until 6 pm. It just seemed cruel.

This year, now that we’ve moved into our lovely little house with a garden, I decided I’d keep them home. The entire point of a summer break is to give them a break from routine. To let them lounge like lizards and come up with something of their own to do. To let them whine, ‘I’m bored, mama’. And then tell them what my grandmother often told me – ‘Only boring people get bored; interesting people have a whole world of fun going on inside their heads.’ My brother and I hated it when she said that. And yet it taught us so much. We learnt to entertain ourselves. And we learnt to be still.

They say an idle mind is a devil’s workshop, but I disagree.  Left to themselves kids can be amazingly creative and I’ve been pleasantly surprised with some of the things they’ve come up with. It’s not easy, particularly since I work from home and that means the kids bang on my door ever so often with a ‘What shall we do?’ or a quarrel to settle. But I soldier on without succumbing entirely to the tempting air conditioning of malls. Remember this post on keeping kids out of malls?

What is lovely about the new locality is that there are so many parents who parent just like I do. We may have nothing to say to each other (but funnily we do!) but we agree almost blindly on matters of parenting. So each morning the kids go off to have lunch with someone and every 3rd or 4th day I have about 4 kids at mine. They play hide and seek around the house, they paint, they create entire farms of playdough, they lose their tempers and throw the ludo board at each other with accusations of CHEATING!, they drag bedsheets over chairs and create castles and pirate ships and put on feather boas and masks and create stories. On a Saturday the OA plays math games with all the kids while another mother runs them through their Hindi workbook for a quick revision. I do a storytelling activity followed by a quick art and craft session. In case you don’t know how to come up with stories, you can take a little help from this game the kids were gifted (thanks Aneela!) that I thought I’d share with you. It is called Shape Your Story and is very handy to keep the kids entertained. There is a set of cards, a dice and a marker. All you need to do is add to the shape and create something. And that is the starting point for your story. Much fun and much inspiration for the wildest of stories.

What is nice about this system is that each house has it’s own set of games and at another home located at a dead end, they play cricket and football. A third home is  bang opposite the park so they run out and play in the shade. The kids learn to eat pure vegetarian at one home while the vegetarian kids learn that meat will be put on my table even though I will ensure that they don’t touch it. But every single one of these homes offers only healthy homecooked food and fresh fruit. And very limited TV viewing. I couldn’t ask for more or better.

In another two weeks the kids are off to spend 3 weeks with my parents while the OA and I take a much deserved trip to Istanbul and the US. Before we know it, these long lazy summer vacations will be over. Real life will begin and they will never know more than a 20 day break in the year. Until that happens, I want them to know what it feels like for a day to seem endless, a night to be cool and restful, a break to be never ending and a week to be full of possibilities.

I leave you with some pictures of what they’ve been up to.

Breaking a lump of clay to discover Dino fossils. Some of the toys you get these days are amazing. Just right for my geeky son.

The Brat creates an octopus from a couple of sticky straw thingies.

The Bean draws the Taj Mahal from memory on the chalkboard I’ve painted in a corner of their nursery.

The Brat’s latest obsession – big cats. I think he was trying to copy a Serval or something here.

A friend joins them on the mess mat for an afternoon of finger painting.

The Bean’s ladybird on canvas

Planting veggies for the summer

Oh, this and that and FB

Someone asked me why I don’t blog so much anymore. I think it’s because I’m on FB more now than ever. Easier to debate issues with people who know where you’re coming from. People whose lives you can equally look in to, hence know when they are bullshitting you. And who are accountable for what they say, and not taking advantage of anonymity. Anyhow, I thought I’d share some of my FB statuses here so that you know what I’m up to.

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Desert coolers, darkened rooms, the smell of khus, juicy mangoes and roohafza. I hope my kids’ memories of summer will be fun.

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Time to shut shop now, TOI, and oh yes, go die. Great things about being a virgin woman – The Times of India

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Am I the only one who finds this ad unbelievably sweet?

This was followed by a discussion of how some mothers find this advertisement embarrassing. Eh? Why? Your kids have never seen a pregnant woman? Considering I was the first to have my kids, my kids have seen all our friends pregnant and can’t imagine anything more natural than XYZ Aunty having a baby and worrying about her going to the hospital soon and getting the baby out. So?

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Reason # 1 not to assume your husband is not on speaker phone –  You start singing Pritam mat pardes padharo the moment you answer his call, and entertain a car full of his colleagues.

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A response to the article that got most mothers’ knickers in a twist – Well written piece.

Also, a thought about the outrage over her nursing a three year old (if she actually is, and is not just posing for the cover). If mothers don’t want to be judged for putting their infants on formula and bottles, then it’s about time they stopped judging mothers who feed their babies till age 8. Really, that mother’s breasts, her kid, her choice. And even if she is, as some women insinuate, getting a sexual thrill out of it, still her breasts and her kid and her choice. Honestly, just bugger off and mind your own beeswax.

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And most randomly, I’ve been tripping on two lines from Bollywood numbers – 1) Aashikon mein jiska title Titanic.

and 2) Kaliyan kawari, tajurbe se bani Aunty.

I think they’re hilarious.

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I also linked up to this post. Do read, even if you have sons! 18 Life Lessons I Want My Daughters to Hear

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And I don’t know how many of you saw Vicky Donor, I did, and I enjoyed it. Probably inspired by it, is this piece. Brahmin sperm in high demand among childless couples.  I’m horrified. I’ve always had an issue with messing with nature and the slippery slope that follows, when you’re allowed to pick and choose and design babies. This is what happens when a conservative, backward country like ours meets medical technology – no good.

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Celeb bashing has reached heights of joblessness. I’ve not watched Satyamev Jayatey yet, but if Aamir can make some difference with his show, more power to him. And I don’t know if SRK was drunk or not, but if anyone, anyone, touched my kids or their friends, I’d turn around and punch them in the face too, inspite of being a lame duck.

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In bad news, my little nephew, the Button, fell down the last two stairs and fractured his wrist in two places. I’m quite gutted. So are the kids. They’re dying to go there and entertain him until he gets his arm out of the cast.

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And finally, I’m terrified of the big bad timeline wolf.

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Also, I believe WP is not allowing non-WP readers to comment. Has anyone figured a way around this? I’m getting loads of email comments and I can’t respond to them the way I’d respond to a comment on the blog. Going nuts. Please help!

CSA Awareness – Smitten

Young Zubaan’s most recent release Smitten is a bit of a misnomer, the story being about Child Sexual Abuse or CSA. CSA is a cause close to my heart as you all know and author Ranjit Lal needs no introductions. Our favourite, chez mad momma, is Birds From My Window and the Antics They Get up To. I have to admit it got us far more interested in our little feathered friends than we otherwise might have been.

Which is why I was keen to get started the moment I laid hands on Smitten. Samir, the unlikely little hero is a fourteen year old boy (15 according to the back cover – some editing errors there), interested in the usual boy things – model cars and ‘dirty’ documents. It is, while trying to retrieve those documents that he’d hidden in the empty flat across that he ends up befriending the new neighbours, the Handas, or rather, their fifteen year old daughter Akhila. The family seems nice and just dysfunctional enough to be real. A boisterous, affectionate father, a wraith like mother who is always sickly, a younger brother, Sumit who has special needs, and of course the lovely Akhila. An only child with very busy parents – a pilot mother and a banker father, Samir hangs out with the Handas all the time. Soon he and the two children are a regular item.

The residential complex also has two big bullies, and their father, a top cop. The odds are stacked against them the day the two bullies catch hold of little Sumit and begin to bully him. Akhila and Samir throw themselves into the fray to save him. Samir is stripped and beaten till his arm breaks and that is when the top cop father charges in and catches his sons red-handed. At this point, contrary to the corrupt capital city background, he does the right thing and throws his sons in jail, saving the three younger children. Samir is a hero and even more a part of the Handa family than he was to begin with.

As luck would have it, a few days later Samir’s parents both need to travel on work and he can’t be left to fend for himself with only one functioning arm so the Handas offer to take him along on their vacation. It is around this time that Akhila realises that something is wrong. Her father is now sharing her room and she wakes up with her clothes unbuttoned and in a state of disarray. She turns to her only friend, Samir, and they work out a plan for him to spy on her at night and figure out what is going on. The answer of course, is that her stepfather is abusing her. But now that they’ve confirmed it, how do they save her from her father?

Author Ranjit gets a lot of it bang on target. A non-stereotypical family, with a pilot mother. A budding romance between a couple of teenagers, where the girl is *gasp* a little older. Also, a dysfunctional family with a weak mother who does not interfere in her second husband’s relationship with his step daughter. A mentally challenged child whose needs must be considered and for whose sake the boat must not be rocked. An all powerful male figure whose word is law.

The story explores many aspects of CSA, from the power games, to the secrecy, to fooling a child into believing that what you are doing is for his or her own good and that they’ve got it all wrong. You see the confusion in Akhila’s mind, the horror when she realises what is going on and the revulsion too.

Being fiction, the story naturally comes to a conclusion, but I feel a lot of the real life nuance of CSA was lost for that very reason. The ends tie up too neatly and there is no hint of the despair and trauma and scarring that CSA leaves behind. Most children in a similar situation would not find such a convenient solution so it is a little misleading in the pat way it ends.

It’s not exactly recommended reading for the early teens, as some of the language is a little objectionable even though the topic is relevant. But it fills a gap in the market and is definitely an interesting read for the mid teens and above. My wish would be to see a book that helps keep the little ones safe because that is the age group most vulnerable to CSA.

Help please?

Dear Friends,

          I am writing as the initiator and one of the founder-members of The Arshinagar Project, a nascent, trans-disciplinary performance research collective envisioned to work at the intersections of performance, anthropology, education, ecology and other disciplines. Our research into performance is based on an active engagement with traditional, especially mystical forms of embodied performance such as Sufi Qawwali, Baul songs, etc. Our work is also very strongly inspired by the theatri-cal and post-theatrical work of Jerzy Grotowski. More than a theatre group or an NGO, we want to be a collective or community of individuals brought together by a common vision while retaining their individual autonomy. You can find out more about us on: facebook.com/thearshinagarproject, which has a more detailed description and statement of intent in the ‘about’ section.

We have been in existence since last July (though we are yet to acquire legal status) and in this time, we have organized a host of programmes including presenting and hosting performances, talks, open mics, workshops and even a zero-budget festival. Some of the highlights of our work in the past one year are:

performances:

Mrityu Shongkraamito (Death Infected) – Based at level on an essay on Macbeth by Jan Kott, but intended to be a response to the world we live in.

The Parrot’s Education – based on a satirical short story by Rabindranath on the education system

Nei Thikanar Dak Ghar (The Post Office of Lost Maps) – an ongoing, malleable work-in-progress based on the poetry of Agha Shahid Ali’s poetry and Tagore’s Dak Ghar (The Post Office), intended to be a part of a multi-year process of dialogue, performance research and exchange with people (especially youth) in Kashmir

Fools and Princes (A work demonstration showcasing our research work on breath, rhythm, physicality and traditional singing, using fragments from three Shakespeare plays)

Workshops:

Spontaneous Celebrations – using elements of psychodrama, TO, dramatherapy and other modalities, and focussing on     an exploration of self and identity, in their social and personal dimensions

freedomspeak – a workshop on Spoken Word poetry for college and university students, exploring notions of freedom.

To The Flame – A workshop periodically organized in collaboration with the traditional Qawwals from the Hzt. Nizamuddin Dargah in Delhi, exploring through the means or embodied practice, notions of Self, Other and transcendence. This is part of a much larger proposed project entitled ‘The Flame Project’, intended to exist over a broad, continuous spectrum, from pure performance research to social action, the latter in the form of programmes for young adults, educators and youth, where through engagement with different mystical traditions, inner and outers spaces are questioned and negotiated.

Dramatic Space: Theatre as Transformation – A workshop offered periodically to actors and non-actors, using theatre as a take-off point to explore external and internal dimensions of Self.

‘Bindu – The Source’ – A workshop offered periodically to performers (actors/dancers/others) exploring breath, rhythm, physicality, organicity, impulse and trance in performance.

Seminar:

“Theatre, Political Awareness and the Young” – a Panel discussion on politically aware theatre for young audiences, with the participation of Probir Guha, Jean Frederic Chevallier, Debashish Sensharma and others.

Open Mic:

FreedomSpeak – an open mic organized in association with The American Centre, Kolkata

“Bazaar of the Heart” series of walks:

A series of introspective walks organized in collaboration with Qawwal Saqlain Nizami, in the Nizamuddin area of Delhi.

“Ghosts of Shakespeare” Festival: Exploring Shakespeare through contemporary Indian subjectivities and lived experience, and vice versa. Organized on a zero budget, with the association of The Oxford Book Store, Modern Academy of Continuing Education and Proscenium’s Art Centre.

We are based primarily in Calcutta, but also have a presence in Delhi. At this stage of our existence, we must reach out for supporters, for associates, and institutional and individual partners and collaborators. I invite you to consider ways in which you can involve yourself with our work.

We do not receive any kind of institutional funding at this point, either from government or non-governmental sources, and are thus entirely dependent on the revenue generated from our programmes, or on donations. We do our best to offer all our programmes to everyone, irrespective of their financial ability, and this in turn means that most participants in our programmes attend with no or little charge. On the other hand, if we are do carry on and expand the work we are doing, in the next two calendar years, we are in need of funds to the tune of INR two million. A large part of this is required to carry on our two principal proposed projects, viz. The Post Office of Lost Maps, and The Flame Project, details of both of which can be found above. While we many never be able to raise anywhere near this kind of money with our extremely limited resources, we would still like to try our best. We have already been blessed with the kindness of many people, and we are confident that more people will see the value in our work. We request you to donate any amount starting from INR 100/-. and above. Your contributions will help us offer our programmes to one and all, without consideration for financial ability, would fund the costs of travel we need to undertake for our research-work and for performances, conferences, seminars, etc., and also support the outreach programmes we intend to initiate and sustain.

Apart from financial contributions, we urgently need help in setting up our website, and we’d be extremely grateful if someone would support us with the costs of registering our domain and buying webspace, and also help us with the technical aspects of creating the site.

We are in critical and urgent need of a workbase in Kolkata. We ideally need a space where we can rehearse as well as present performances – our performances happen in non-proscenium spaces and for small, intimate audiences, never larger than fifty. The same space would also serve as a workshop venue, and a space for screenings, discussions, seminars, etc. So if you are with an NGO and would like to allow us to use your facilities, or have access to an old house, unused commercial space, or even a room or two, and would be kind enough to allow us to work there, we would be most grateful to you.

If you are a part of an school/college/cultural institution/NGO, you could invite us for performances/workshops, or as we prefer to say, for exchanges or barters. This means that we are interested in something more than just arriving, performing and departing. We’d like to stay for a few days, get to know your community (howsoever you define that term), and learn as well as share. We are especially interested in forming human relationships far from mainstream urban contexts, so we’d especially love to hear from you if you work in places and with communities rich in traditional and indigenous forms of singing, dancing, storytelling and ritual practices.

More than anything else, we’d love you to define your relationship with us – we want to be a ‘collective’ in the true spirit of the term: a non-binding, inherently ‘empty’ space, where differences and even contradictions of opinion may exist. If you are a performer, you can join us in Kolkata, or be a part of our work in Delhi, which centres around Sufi Qawwali, or be geographically elsewhere and join us from time to time. Or you could be from other disciplines, and you could create with us work that is of educational, anthropological or sociological interest. We are especially in work that helps us address youth on notions of identity and ecology. So talk to us, and tell us how you’d like to forge a relationship with us.

To initiate a conversation on any of the areas mentioned above, please write to us at:thearshinagarproject@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Warmth and peace,

on behalf of The Arshinagar Project collective

Labels are for clothes

In the last few weeks I’ve been getting a lot of work. I am barely out of one project and I’m thrown into the next. I’ve begun to landscape gardens in my free (?) time and am working on a couple of house interiors. And I’ve finally begun to make invoices to go with the work. As I sat there trying to create the template I realised I had no idea what to put on it. Neither do I have a visiting card to hand out when people ask me what all I do.

I’m suddenly, no more just a journalist. I never was, to begin with. I was sister. Daughter. Mother. Wife. Lover. 2am friend. Hand holder. Tree hugger. Squishy cake baker. Compulsive tidier. Obsessive reader. And more. How do I define myself and put it on a card? What, by the way, is this desire to be able to define yourself in response to the question – What do you do? I do so much, that I don’t know how to answer that one.

Which is when I think of a friend of mine. I think she’s a wonderful mother. She works herself to the bone, cooking healthy and interesting food for the kids. She takes them from one class to another to see what interests them. She doesn’t have a TV so there is no question of plonking them in front of it. Unless she is ill, she is out in the park, encouraging them to run and jump and play – she even cycles around with them. And while they are in school she studies, taking various exams so that her own skills don’t rust. She learnt to drive so that she never has to worry if one of them falls ill when her husband is travelling. She learnt to swim so that she could join in their fun. They’re lovely kids. Bright, intelligent, polite, gentle, and aware. And yet when anyone asks her what she does, she shrugs and says, ‘Oh I’m just home with the kids.’

I wonder how one could put all that she does on a visiting card. And I wonder if that is what the pressure often is about. To be able to define yourself in a couple of words on a visiting card. Filmmaker. Designer. Writer. CA. Software architect. HR Consultant. I wonder what it would be like if we handed out little rectangles that said – Maverick. Spontaneous. Impetuous. Fun lover. Happy. Lover. Or just, mother.

And then I realise, that no one, is just a mother. Even those who call themselves that, are learning Spanish. Or reading up on Mughal history and can rattle off numbers, dates and wars. One is volunteering with the blind. Another is doing the grocery shopping for the infirm old couple next door. Yet another is learning to salsa. One is conquering her fear of the water and learning to swim. Another is the PTA representative who ensures that your kids have a smooth journey through the year in class. A fourth is volunteering for the horticulture department in your apartment complex and ensuring that water tankers come in during the worst of summer. These are the people that keep your life running smoothly. Who pick up the slack when you let go. Who will babysit your child while you attend an important meeting. The glue that holds everything together. People have layers. And if we don’t recognise those layers for what they are, it is entirely our own loss. And to those who continue to think of themselves, apologetically, as ‘just moms’, I say – don’t. I’m not asking you to go ‘I am mother, hear me roar’. I’m not going jingoistic and asking you to “celebrate” it. I’m asking you to accept and say it with the same pride and grace as someone who says ‘CEO’. Trust me – it will make a world of difference.

These days we’re so supportive of people who make different choices. We are very understanding when young couples choose not to have kids and keep dogs instead. We are proud of women who refuse to settle for just any man and prefer to stay single and independent. We’re happy for the man who gives up the MBA degree and goes off into the hills to help villagers with sustainable livelihoods. We would never, ever, dream of telling them that they’re not attaining their full potential or living life to the fullest by not being spouse and parent inspite of doing well professionally. So why don’t we extend that courtesy to the oldest (non)choice in the world? Why tell someone that being a parent and spouse and friend is not enough?

It’s Mother’s Day and my FB newsfeed is full of people thanking their mothers and singing paens to them. A sudden, annual realisation of what you owe that person for the human you are today. A gratitude for all that was done for you even though that gratitude was never demanded of you. All achieved without a visiting card printed ‘Mother’ or an invoice with an hourly billed rate. Clearly this is something that matters. Being a mother, just a mother, matters.

Happy Mother’s Day, ladies. Can’t remember life before I became one and can’t imagine it any other way. Such a fullness of life. God bless us.

PS: Tambi sent me this article on mommy bloggers and I laughed. Clearly I am missing the bus!