The friend who I almost didn't make, thanks to my bookish ways!

I knew her in real life, but had no idea I did.

I discovered Sangitha Krishnamurthi's blog through another blogger friend, Choxbox. For many, many months, I would visit her blog, read, and be inspired. Here was a person who loved books, and wrote about so many interesting things - things I probably would not have mused on had it not been for my having read about them here. Special children. Adoption. Rights of the marginalized. And much more. I would read, but rarely comment. I didn't know enough of the things she spoke about. I didn't, also, know how my comments would be taken. I was fairly new to the blogworld, focusing more on my beloved books and the reviewing of them.

Now, she had a pup, Loopy, who had some health problems, and she wanted to find a good vet - her then vet not measuring up to expectations. I extended a very hesitant hand - I knew of a friend who had recently spoken of her dog's vet in glowing terms. What followed was a proper comedy of errors that is worth reading, one that has led to a lasting friendship.

But the best was yet to come. We decided to meet up at her place. 'We' were Choxbox, Starry (both of whom I knew well personally), Sangi, and myself. Plus all the kids. Choxbox had told me that Sangi's kids went to the same school as ours, but I could not for the life of me place her. Both she and I were super curious about each other's identity, and were really looking forward to meeting up. When I went there, I was stunned. This was a lady with whom I had stood outside the school all through the past few years, waiting for our kids. We had spoken a few times, but never really got into a conversation, mostly because I would be there with my nose in a book! She, too, had wondered about me. Since she had heard about me from Choxbox, she had narrowed down her conjectures to two of the school mothers - both of us, actually, already Choxbox's friends.

I am infinitely thankful for having her in my life. She is the most generous person I have ever known, giving generously of her time, energy, attention, presence, also of anything material. (Books!) She has kept me on my toes when I slip up, become lax about things, my writing included. I think of a karmayogi whenever I read the stuff she writes - do, without bothering about the returns. Be honest in your efforts. The rewards could come to in most unexpected ways.

She has always been with me since - celebrating all my ups with me, holding my hand through all my downs, standing by me whenever I needed, giving generously of her time and energy, caring about what happens in my life, but always showing me the mirror. Telling me as it is.

Which is what friendship is all about, I suppose.

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This is my entry for the Pay it Forward Blogathon on Women's Web.

Of courage in the face of death

Of late, I have been reading quite a few books on loss and grief. It all began with a brief from the editor of Women's Web for an article on 5 Books To Read When Dealing With Grief. There were a few books that I had read, but not many seemed to fit in with the aspect of healing after a loss. I looked around the blogs I usually read - approaching Indian Home Maker about the books that helped her to cope with the loss of her daughter, Tejaswee. I also asked a blogger friend, Vibha Sharma for her inputs. These were extremely helpful in deciding the books featured in the article.

Here is one of the books I came across in my search. Also cross-posted at Zealot Readers.

pic courtesy kobobooks.com.au

Mick...Send Me A Butterfly
Written by Lorraine Grennan
Revised edition published by Love of Books Self Publishing.

Death is always disturbing.  Even if the person has passed away peacefully after a long and productive life. Even when it is of someone one knows only slightly. Even if it is the death of a loved fictional character. Even if it is someone one has never heard of before. What makes us react this way to a death? Why are we touched by the finger of sorrow even if we have not directly suffered this loss? Isn't it the realisation of our own mortality?

The everyday news items about deaths in the newspaper disturb me - I make it a point never to read these pages early in my day, especially if it is the death of a child or a violent death that is featured.

So when it is a dear one whose death we are dealing with, it can be devastating. And when it is a parent who has to deal with a child's death, it becomes doubly so. Somehow we expect to die before our children. It is, we feel, the natural order of things. After all, life goes on in a forward direction. Children are born of our bodies, and are our hope for the future. A way for nature to ensure that we do not disappear into nothingness. A way to keep a part of us alive on this beautiful earth. In a strange way, we become immortal through our children, and our children's children, and so on. So, it is terrible indeed, when things go the other way. When a parent has to see the suffering of a child, and the relentless descent into the big void of death. Whether it comes suddenly or after a long and debilitating illness.

Lorraine Grennan's book, 'Mick...Send Me A Butterfly' is a memoir of her son Michael Stewart Grennan's fight with Chronic Myloid Leukaemia. He was diagnosed with the disease on 29th August 1981, and passed away on 23rd March 1983 at just 20 years of age - a period of one year and seven months of facing the monster. 23rd March 2013, was the 30th anniversary of his death, and this is a tribute to his fighting spirit. One that has surely touched many lives that came in contact with his courage and forbearance.

At 18, Mick was your regular teenager, having a girlfriend and a job at a gas station, plenty of friends and a loving family. He had his whole life in front of him, when the disease crept up on him unbeknownst. It was diagnosed after a series of tests for symptoms that seemed like arthritis. It was a punch in the solar plexus, to put it mildly. Ms Grennan writes about how they all coped with the reality of impending death in their own ways. It was devastating, and something that they never could come to terms with. At such a time, Mick showed a maturity beyond his years and became the source of his family's strength, preparing them for his death and the time after it, in unusually thoughtful ways that Ms Grennan has put down with complete honesty of emotion. It does not fail to move, and I had to put the book away at times to bring my own emotions to order. She recounts the shock, the denial, the coping with the treatment (with its own consequences) and the bewilderment of a layperson thrust into the unending medical visits. She speaks of her faith and that of her family and friends, that gave them the strength to cope with the inevitable - both before and after Mick's passing away.

Ms Grennan also writes very honestly about the feelings of loss, guilt, and helplessness that overcame her and the other members of her family after Mick passed away. How every person grieves in a different way, a way very personal to that person, the way they perceive their loss, the way they deal with it. The way that coping with grief does not have a timeline, and that even after we learn to let go, the grief is still very real for the bereaved person. And that healing does come, in its own way to each person.

After his passing away, Ms Grennan was introduced to The Compassionate Friends, a group started by similarly bereaved parents, and it helped her deal with her feelings of grief. Intense feelings that she often wondered about- if they were normal. Ms Grennan has since worked extensively as a volunteer in its chapter in her hometown in New South Wales, Australia. Her work since has helped thousands of bereaved people come to terms with their loss.

This memoir, which is written in almost a diary-like fashion, draws the reader into their lives. A peek into the extraordinary courage of ordinary people. It has been a privilege.

Of gendered tales

An article of mine, titled The Barbification of India has recently been published on Womensweb. What is it about?

For the past couple of years, my daughter has been struggling a lot with this business of what’s cool and what’s not, as far as my daughter’s peers are concerned: it had been proclaimed cool to be in the know about the latest movies, television programmes, Bollywood actors, pop singers, pop teen idols and Gangnam style - not necessarily in that order - along with sporting those Hannah Montana tees and neon tights. One child actually had a beach scene complete with figures lolling around in bikinis in as cake decoration in a beach themed party for her birthday. One can imagine the messages being given to these children. Yes, they are children at 11-12 years, never mind the self-possession and worldly airs. By these standards, my book-loving child, who has more sober tastes in music, clothes and everything else, who does not consider dancing to 'Sheila ki Jawani' as particularly desirable and who does reasonably well at academics is labelled uncool, a nerd!

These are the same peers whose idols were Barbie and the Disney Princesses not so long ago. Barbie might have been originally a teen icon for feminists at a time (the late 50s) when most women were not expected to step out of the home for a career, but over time it has evolved into a feminist’s worst nightmares. For one, the demographics have changed from teens to pre-teens; sometimes even younger. With her impossibly top-heavy figure (if extrapolated to adult female size, the measurements of 36-18-38 are near impossible in real life), long slim legs and vacuous sexuality, Barbie sends a skewed body image message to girls who buy into the unhealthy eating patterns that this propagates. A friend’s 7 year old refuses to eat fruits because her peers say they will make her fat.

To top it all, most Barbies come with accessories, clothes and domestic items in pepto-bismol shades of pink and purple that has spawned an entire parallel range of girls’ merchandise in similar colours complete with glitter and bling. Since the past few years, Barbie is available in India in an Indian avatar, complete with traditional Indian costumes, families, and the 'great Indian Culture'.

Most of these problems are shared by the Disney Princesses. A brain-child of Disney’s marketing executive Andy Mooney at the beginning of this century, it was a masterstroke of franchise that spawned a multimillion-dollar industry in dolls, clothes, accessories and other merchandise, a model that manufacturers for children have repeated over and over again with many other popular fictional characters. Considering the cool quotient of the movies, television shows and such, this was a shrewd business move.

Pink for girls and blue for boys! This polarisation by gender ensures double the sales for companies with vested interests. Younger children playing with toys originally targeted towards an older group has also created a demand for clothes unsuitable for that age. As utbtkids, a fellow blogger puts it, “if you are looking for non-pink, non-Disney characters, slightly loose, appropriate clothing, something that will withstand the running and climbing, and something that is not a mini version of adult clothing you might as well grow your own cotton and weave your own clothes.” Boys, too, suffer due to these brand and franchise excesses. A neighbour refuses to let her one year old son associate with anything even remotely considered feminine, in his clothes or choice of toys. Everything has to be only in shades of ‘manly’ colours, and aggressively in the realm of the ‘boyish’!

Most people see nothing wrong with girls playing ‘house’ with dolls, dressing up, having idols that promote domestication along with a sexualised self-image, and boys, at the other end of the spectrum, being encouraged to be sporty, playing ‘out there’, indulging in large motor activities geared towards being powerful. It is perceived as perfectly natural. They couldn’t be more wrong.

Children’s play always reinforces cultural messages, as they learn patterns of behaviour through it. Peggy Orenstein, social psychologist and author of Cinderella Ate My Daughter, puts it wonderfully well: “At issue, then, is not nature or nurture but how nurture becomes nature: the environment in which children play and grow can encourage a range of aptitudes or foreclose them. So blithely indulging — let alone exploiting — stereotypically gendered play patterns may have a more negative long-term impact on kids’ potential than parents imagine.” 

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Also check out my review of the first part of Amruta Patil's retelling of the Mahabharat: Adi Parva, a feminist view, also on Womensweb. A wonderful book.

Focus on the ability- not disability: something I need to tell myself, too, every day

On 3rd December 2012, I attended the India Inclusion Summit. Here's an account written by me on Women's Web. Re-posting it here.

“Removing barriers to create an inclusive and accessible society for all”: United Nations.

It has been a few months now since I began volunteering at the Spastics Society of Karnataka school. My children there bring me a lot of joy, and I feel privileged to be a part of their lives. So I jumped at the chance to attend the 1st India Inclusion Summit on the 3rd of December, 2012.

Held at Vivanta by Taj on World Disability Day, it was a day-long event launched by SAP Labs India. There were an impressive lot of speakers, all of who were closely allied with and committed to the vision of an inclusive society in which the differently-abled would have their rightful place as productive members of society. Unfortunately, Arun Shourie, whose book Does He Know A Mother's Heart speaks of coping with his son’s disability couldn't make it to the summit- his son was ill and in hospital.

The other speakers more than made up for Mr Shourie’s absence. These were people who have seen disability from up close - in their family; or work closely with the differently-abled. The most inspirational speaker was Siddharth Jayakumar, who has battled cerebral palsy and come out on top. He began schooling only at the age of 9 as he was considered mentally retarded. Once he began school, though, there was no stopping him.

There were some interesting points that were highlighted by the speakers.

Around 70 million people in India are disabled or differently abled- these include the whole range from mild to moderate to severe to profound disability. Demographics are changing due to better health care and better awareness. Less than 1 lakh of these are employed.

Families and society often overestimate or underestimate abilities. There is a need for a more realistic appraisal. It is also necessary for self-help groups and respite for care-givers, who are those most affected emotionally. Most of the caregivers, close to 95%, are the affected person’s mother. This makes inclusion of care for the care-givers even more important. In our society, the mother is mostly blamed for the child’s condition, and it is considered her duty to give care, and respite for her is not considered a necessity.

Focus on the ability, not the disability. The problem is in how we as a society think about disability. A lack of awareness about the normalcy of a differently-abled person leads to discrimination and marginalisation. At the same time, lack of information about their own disability leads to the differently-abled not being aware of what they can do.

Awareness on disability can be spread by people in a position of maximum influence. These could be the health care professionals, media and religious heads. Of these, the potential of the media is immense- more people have become aware of disabilities after they have been portrayed in movies like Taare Zameen Par, however glamourized the version may be. I personally know of at least a handful of families who have gone from awareness of the special needs to acceptance of their child’s behavioural problems after this movie has been made. It is the right way to remedial action. Other mediums like music, sports, books, spirituality, etc. are just as effective platforms that can be used to this end, as also as therapy tools.

Do check out this impassioned blog-post about the summit by Sangitha at  Life and Times in Bangalore.

Trips, books, friends, anniversaries and much else

I haven't posted for a long time now: my previous two posts had been scheduled. I had been busy with a lot of things that needed my attention. Just a quick re-cap.

A went on an 8-day school trip in early October. This is the first time that we had stayed away from each other for so long. In a way it was harder on me than it was on her. Children look forward- their life is just beginning, and everything that happens is just a new and interesting thing that is welcomed with open arms. As the Lebonese poet-philosopher Khalil Gibran has said, "...their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams." It is so much tougher on us mothers- so difficult to let go. I coped by making a trip to Mumbai, to my parents' place.

There, I met the wonderful R's Mom. This was a long awaited meeting. I've been reading her work for many months now, bumping into her at many friends' blogs, but had connected with her as one book-loving-mommy-blogger to another quite recently. She was all that I had imagined and much more. We met at a mall near my parents' place, she being so sweet as to make the longer journey from her home. What began as a couple of hours' meeting in the morning stretched far beyond the afternoon as we yakked away, until our rumbling stomachs got us to go get some lunch. There was of course a bit of book-shopping thrown in.

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CROCUS 2012 has just ended, and has thrown up a wonderful mix of Math and Eco-Science books that are now added to my wish-list. It has been six wonderful years of Saffron Tree, of which I have been a contributor for the last two-and-a-half years. During CROCUS, we had sent out a call for book donations for a cause- for an NGO KRANTI that works for a marginalised section of society, children of sex-workers.

Speaking of anniversaries, PaperTigers has a wonderful10th anniversary giveaway: a drool-worthy set of books. Do visit them and check out how you can win these books for yourself / your library. The giveaway is open for entry until midnight PST of Saturday, 10th November.

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A few of my articles were published on Women's Web. An article on Handling Parenting Peer Pressure that speaks of the pressure parents feel when faced with anther's parenting style that somehow feels better or cooler. An article about 5 family rituals for diwali that could be fun times with the kids. And this review of a book that deals with a women's issue that is not unknown to urban women. Quoting:

"We are often led to believe in the myth of innocence and simplicity in rural life. Our movies and popular literature often perpetuate this myth; but P. Sivakami debunks it in The Taming Of Women.

A gritty, hard-hitting and relentlessly abrasive novel, the book is a very realistic portrayal of life in a village on the way to developing into a town. The violence is just below the surface, boiling over at times, and overwhelming the reader.

The book offers a striking insight into the minds of the women – who are often pitted against each other in their battle for supremacy, yet co-operate at the unlikeliest of places to stand up against the man who leaves no stone unturned to subdue them."

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One last thing before I conclude- November is celebrated internationally as Picture Book Month. You may want to check out the wonderful posts over at Zoe's blog Playing by the Book all through this month.

Do check out these lovely picture book giveaways there, too.

Even though our reading here has moved beyond picture books, there are a few classics that we keep revisiting. As also some newer ones that are still relevant. Do check out the stuff in your own book-shelves that is worth re-reading!

Being the 'good bahu'

It has been a crazy week plus, and I haven't been able to find time for this space!

Among other things, I wrote this article that got published on Womensweb today. I had to fit the writing of it around a score of other things that I had to do.

A nephew has landed his first job in the city, and he and his mother, my sister-in-law were here for a week. She and I (with nephew and kid in tow if it was a holiday) would start out after breakfast everyday to scout for a place to stay for him. In the process, I learnt one thing- houses built here by the house-owner's design are terrible in terms of layout, ventilation, natural light, spaciousness, basic plumbing facilities, width of staircases that lead up to the topmost floor on which the 'house to rent' is usually placed, as an addendum to the independent house in which the landlord stays...the list could go on.

My pet peeve is the positioning of toilet/bathrooms. One gets inside the main door, and a door to one side immediately opens to a toilet. Followed by the kitchen, and then another room next to it. This is what Sangi had to say about this strange (to my Mumbai mind- we don't mind small rooms, but need the main door to open into a living room!):  It has do something with the fact that most South Indians need to wash their feet immediately on stepping into the house- a reason for the bad design!

I have also gone sari-shopping (GASP) with the sis-in-law who has bought some breathtakingly beautiful saris for what seems to my mind an obscene amount of money. Sigh! The books that I could have bought for that, or the people who could have been fed!

Both A and I have thoroughly enjoyed this visit by extended family. A has been having a wonderful time bonding with them, something she misses so much being an only child, and most of our relations in Mumbai or elsewhere.

One more prize...

...won for an article on Womensweb. This was for their Friendship Story writing theme.

*gleefully browsing flipkart for a book to spend the Rs 200 gift voucher on*

Here's the article in full.


She did not have any friends who stayed near her house. Not a single school friend, nor anyone near her age, or sharing her interests. There were just her younger brothers, who according to her, were brats not to be seen around with.

At least, there were the cousins, who stayed a few buildings away. Something was better than nothing, so she decided they’d do, to hang around with. The cousins had a neighbour, an only child. This girl, a few years younger, latched herself onto her, becoming the proverbial Mary’s lamb!

They had nothing in common, not even their interests, but something clicked. Over the years, as the two girls grew up, the reasons for hanging out with the cousins dwindled, and those for spending evenings with the younger girl increased. They became a twosome and shunted the cousins out.

As the two friends grew up into adulthood, the natural gap of 7-odd years between them began to close. They were women, with totally different destinies, totally different career trajectories, but with complete understanding of each other’s minds. Life happened, and they lived in widely separated places, different time zones, even.

They were as different as chalk and cheese in their family lives as well, which could not have intersected at any points except the one which they both overlapped at. Their husbands never met each other, not by design, but just by chance. They each knew their wife’s friend well though, and each was always welcome to the other’s home.

Over two decades, they met maybe once or twice a year, but every time they met, it was as if they had never been apart. Each intuitively knew if the other was in any kind of trouble or difficulty, and it would be an eerie coincidence that they would try to contact each other just when a friend was needed.

Despite never being able to attend the major events in each other’s lives, they have been able to remain clued in to each other’s triumphs and troubles. If needed, one just has to reach out to find the other right there.

I am the older girl of the two, and this is the story of my friend M and me. A friendship between two completely dissimilar personalities, which has simply endured on love, loyalty, trust and understanding – through thick and thin.

Anne Frank - on Womensweb

This review of one of my all time favourite books (reviewed for the 2nd time on my blog) was written by me as an entry to the June 'The Book that Hooked Me' contest at Womensweb. It was published on the site as one of the five reviews shortlisted.

This review is based on the Definitive Edition of the book. Published by Penguin books.

Pic courtesy flipkart

If she had survived the Holocaust, and lived to this day, Anne Frank would have been 83 years old, on the 12th of June, 2012. Would she have realized her dream of becoming a published writer? I think she would have. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl is one of the most riveting pieces of work that I have ever come across. What makes it so compelling is the fact that the writer was just an ordinary girl in her teens, writing about the ordinary things of everyday life as lived in extraordinary circumstances.

In July 1942, Anne's family, along with some of their friends, went into hiding from the Nazi persecution of the Jews. They remained hidden in the Secret Annexe (as Anne calls their hiding place in a hidden area of her father's office building). They were helped from the outside by loyal non-Jew friends, who kept them supplied with food, essentials and news.

Unfortunately, they were discovered in August 1944. Anne's diary has its last entry on 1st August 1944. In the 2-odd years that they remained hidden, she wrote all her thoughts and experiences- the good, bad, and the ugly-  in a diary that she received for her 13th birthday, from her father, Otto Frank. Miep Gies, the lady who was one of their helpers, found the diary along with other papers after their arrest, kept it safe, and handed it over to Otto, who returned after the war as the only survivor.

Anne literally grows through her diary entries - we see her blossoming as a person, as an insightful, thinking, caring human being. Entries in the beginning show her to be a relatively spoilt, fairly self-centered little person whose otherwise quick mind is engaged in many inconsequential things. We see little girls like this around us so often.

Anne says this of herself- "I look back at that Anne Frank as a pleasant, amusing, but superficial girl, who has nothing to do with me. I'd like to live that seemingly carefree and happy life for an evening, a few days, a week. At the end of that week, I'd be exhausted, and would be grateful to the first person to talk to me about something meaningful. I want friends, not admirers."

I must have been around 13 years old when I discovered this book. Just around Anne's age when she began her diary. I was mesmerized by the book, amazed at her thoughts and feelings, which so closely mirrored my own as an adolescent. I connected with Anne and her thoughts, across the divide of time, place. I was drawn into her world. I think my fascination with history: specifically, the Holocaust, and my interest in writing, somehow began with this book.

Her ruminations on the books she read were also my first brushes with feminism, of a sort. "I was greatly struck by the fact that in childbirth alone, women commonly suffer more pain, illness and misery than any war hero ever does. And what's her reward for enduring all that pain? She gets pushed aside when she's disfigured by birth, her children soon leave, her beauty is gone...I don't mean to imply that women should stop having children - what I condemn are our system of values and the men who don't acknowledge how great, difficult, but ultimately beautiful women's share in society is."

Anne’s journey is one of loss, but also one of hope. Hope for a better tomorrow. Again, in her words- “I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.”