Violence against Women Awareness Month

Violence against Women. It has a universal ring to it- be it physical or emotional violence. It does not matter if the women are white, black, brown or yellow, rich or poor, young or old. The story is the same all over.

A group of women have decided to speak up against it, and October has been earmarked for an awareness campaign about Violence against Women.

Link to VAWM blog

The team is cognizant with the fact that the subject of violence against women is very huge and includes multiple aspects. To ensure that this awareness campaign is effective, the scope is limited to the following aspects….

1. Domestic violence – Physical violence against the woman by husband/partner and other family members

2. Violence against girl child including deprivation

3. Sexual violence - including marital rape, date rape

4. Emotional/psychological abuse

5. Dowry related violence including Bride Burning

6. Female Infanticide

7. Acid attacks

We would be delighted to have your support for VAWM Oct 2011. The plan is similar to CSA April 2011. We have a blog (http://www.vawawareness.wordpress.com/) on Violence Against Women where we invite guest posts, expert posts and anon survivor stories.

We also would urge bloggers to post on this topic on the blog all through October, first announcing the awareness campaign and second, posting on any aspect of this topic they feel strongly about.

We also have a twitter handle (@VAWMonth) which will tweet information about VAWA and invite experts, NGOs, counsellors, etc to take questions.

Do let us know if you would be interested in participating, and how would you like to participate. Also, if you have any leads to NGOs or organisations you think we should partner with do let us know.

The email to write in to is vawawareness@gmail.com.

Do post about this initiative on your blog, and use the above image to link to the VAWM blog. Also, if possible, do put the link up on your side bar. Help to spread the word.

I will, of course, be sticking to reviewing a few books that are related to the topic, some written by experts and some by survivors. Some may even be fiction.

I am painfully aware, of course, that for every survivor who has come out with her story, there will be thousands who are facing violence mutely every day, some of them with scars that last a lifetime, and many thousands for whom the violence proves fatal- either the way of homicide or suicide.

There may be millions more who may not be actively facing violence in its injurious form, but being discriminated against for the simple fact of being born a woman-- little, piffling things that can eat away at one's self-esteem, not having real choices, and being criminalised for the choices that they do make from the ones left to them. All of which can have debilitating repurcussions, preventing them from ever being able to tap their full potential. Something that is commonplace in most homes. Subliminal violence, I would call it. Insidious, and all the more dangerous for that.

I would like to share this, too. Yesterday, I was sitting in my usual place near the children's play area in my complex, reading a book that I mean to review. A lady from the complex, with whom I was on just a nodding aquaintance, came by and showed interest in the book I was reading. When I told her about this initiative, she came up with a surprising (actually not so surprising) question. According to her, the women who have any access at all to a blogpost were women with at least some priviledges. How does this 'armchair variety of awareness' help the common woman? Does it seriously have a trickle-down effect? Even if there is, isn't the change too slow to be of any significance? And for all the apparent awareness about these problems, aren't the papers everyday full of just such cases?

Any answers?

Book Review - THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE: Voices from the Partition of India

Pic courtesy flipkart.com

THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE
Voices from the Partition of India
Written by Urvashi Butalia
Published by Penguin Books
1998.

Urvashi Butalia, the writer, has impressive credentials. Along with Ritu Menon, she set up Kali for Women, the first feminist press in India, in 1984, and later, Zubaan Books. Born to in Ambala, India, to parents who were refugees from West Punjab, now in Pakistan, she grew up hearing stories of  the Partition, which tore apart the Indian subcontinent at the time of its freedom from British rule.

She began her research as a process of making sense of her family's personal tragedy. One thing led to another, and over time she realised that what 'history' tells us of the Partition are the bare political facts: tales of warring political parties and the British involvement in the whole gory process, the loss of property and lives, the statistics of the largest mass migration in recent history and violence in the riots between the Hindus, the Muslims and the Sikhs caught in the unfortunate event.

There was not much data on the renting apart of the closely enmeshed fabric of society and the actual sufferings of the flesh-and-blood people caught in the crossfire. The feminist in her also became aware of the huge conspiracy of silence (this term has also been used in reference to the victims of that other regrettable horror of the same time, the Holocaust) that enfolded the suffering of those considered to be of 'not much account' and therefore on the margins of citizenry- the women, the children and the harijans.

"But the 'history' of Partition seemed to lie only in the political developments that led up to it. These other aspects - what had happened to the millions of people who had to live through this time, what we may call the 'human dimensions' of this history -- somehow seemed to have a 'lesser' status in it. Perhaps this was because they had to do with difficult things: loss and sharing, friendship and enmity, grief and joy, with a painful regret and nostalgia for loss of home, country and friends, and with an equally strong determination to create them afresh. These were difficult things to capture 'factually.' Yet, could it be that they had no place in the history of Partition? Why, then, did they live on so vividly in individual and collective memory?"

Ms Butalia takes us through these events as pieced together from first-person accounts of survivors. The stories seem fantastic, the violence, the bloodiness ant the loss inexplicable, as does the almost mythological account of a society where the different religions had lived together in harmony, love and trust. Surely something had gone seriously wrong somewhere for the anger to have erupted as it had, killing and maiming millions, and creating a legacy of communal disharmony, and an almost pathological enmity between the two countries which were once part of one whole. A whole that had effectively driven their colonial rulers away.

The feminist in the writer notes some very interesting aspects of the problem. Even the interviews were necessarily taken in a family setting, where men did most of the talking, and women were often silenced. While men spoke of the politics, the killings, the violence, the women's experience of Partition was largely defined by the death of children, abductions, sexual violence, honour killings, forcible co-habitation/marriages with their abductors, their making peace with it, especially after children were born of these relationships.

During their interviews, Ms Butalia tried to listen to the unsaid, the silences, the sudden breaking-off of the narrative, the nuances. "In my work, the more I looked at women's voices and found them inserting themselves into the text, the more I realised that the silences did not exist only around women, but also around others, those whose silences have been even less important to society. The search for a history of women was what then led me to a search for a history of others. The voices of women, of children, of untouchables, to me provide not only a different perspective on the history of Partition, but they also establish this history as a process, a continuing history, which lives on in our lives today in a variety of ways." 

Then there was the ultimate insult to injury- the Abducted Persons (Recovery and Restoration) Act, 1949. A lot of this has been pieced together from accounts of social workers who were actively involved in the operation. Ostentiably to recover abducted women and children and return them to their families, the Act would not take into account the women's choice in the matter, something that all citizens were given upto the late fifties. After being abducted, these women often got assimilated into those families, bore children out of those relationships, but were torn from these children when they were 'recovered' to return to their families of origin. The original families would often refuse to accept these 'children of sin' which were left with their abductor-fathers. Quite often these children ended up on the streets with the other children who had been displaced or orphaned in the Partition. Both the women and children were refused the 'choice' that citizens of both countries had at the time.

First-hand accounts by some of these children, adults at the time of interviewing, underscore the same conspiracy of silence. Many of them glossed over their accounts, unable as adults to relate their memories of the horrors. Some of them, like a Sikh survivor who was just 9 at the time of Partition, had memories overshadowed by one particular incident- the death of their own familiy's hands of almost a hundred girls and women to 'save' their honour - an incident immortalised in the book and later movie Tamas.

In fact, most of these personal stories have been found to a large extent in a multitude of short stories and novellas written by many noted authors who have lived through the Partition- Amrita Pritam (Pinjar), Saadat Hasan Manto (Toba Tek Singh, Kingdom's End and other stories), Gulzar (Raavi Par and other stories), Khushwant Singh (Train to Pakistan), Bapsi Sidhwa (Ice-Candy Man), Bhisham Sahni (Tamas), and more. Many of these stories have been made into film, reaching a larger audience. Many bollywood movies, too, speak of the Partition or 'Batwara' as it is called in Hindi.

History, as told in history books, however, sticks mostly to the bare facts and statistics of the Partition. 'The other side of silence' tries to address this deficit in a more factual way, that can be corroborated, than the fictionalised accounts. Showing us that the fiction is not a very long way off reality.

More than twelve million people left their roots and migrated, about ten million of these crossing the western border. Around two million died in the violence. An estimated  75,000-1,00,000 women are thought to have been abducted and raped by men of religions different from their own (and indeed sometimes by men of their own religion). An estimated 50,000 children were born to the abducted women, an an unaccounted number of children were abandoned or simply lost. "People travelled in buses, in cars, by train, but mostly on foot in great columns called kafilas, which could stretch for dozens of miles. The longest of them, said to comprise nearly 400,000 people, refugees travelling east to India from western Punjab, took as many as eight days to pass any given spot on its route."

Ms Butalia has very honestly admitted that her work does not represent the whole of the history of Partition, but is a very personal history, her reading of the interviews she took. She also candidly admits that it is probably a very one-sided view of the whole thing, as by 1984, when she began her research, it was no longer possible to obtain access to those on the other side of the border, and cautions communal groups from using her research to reach their ends.

Here are some more excerpts from the book.

Am entering this book in the 2011 South Asian Reading Challenge at S.Krishna's books.

Twinkle, twinkle, O bright star!

Today is a year since a bright star coming up on the blogging horizon was lost after a brief and entirely preventable illness. Tejaswee Rao, daughter of the incredibly sensitive, yet courageous and formidable lady we know as Indianhomemaker passed away with complications following dengue.

Like many others, I, too, had been following IHM's blog for some time before that. I remember reading about Tejaswee's illness, and also the fact that I could not believe what I was reading. I did not know much about her then, but over the next few days, I hopped over to her blog and read quite a bit of it. Here was this promising young woman, already showing signs of becoming a force to reckon with, and she was dying?

I am sure, IHM, prayers went up for her recovery from all over the globe. But sometimes God prefers to remain unmoved. We human beings are not able to fathom his mysterious ways. She did not make it.

But she, and IHM, will continue to be an inspiration. She will for ever be a guiding star. In her characteristic way, IHM has ensured this immortality by instituting the BLOGSARS -The Tejaswee Rao Blogging Awards, Tejaswee's legacy to all women.

Imagine, if this is the effect she has had on someone who did not know her very closely, how much she must have touched the lives of those that knew her!

Peace be with you, bright star.

Review: Saraswati's Way

Pic courtesy monikaschroeder.com

Saraswati's Way
Written by Monika Schroder
Published by Frances Foster Books
Ages 9+ years

"Nothing changes because of our doing. It's all in the hands of the gods." That is what Akash is told all his life. Gifted in Maths, all 12 yr old Akash would like to do is learn more, study and win a scholarship to a school in the city. Life has other things in store for him, though. His father dies, and Akash is sold off to the landlord to work off the family's debt.

Working at the landlord's quarry, breaking stones, Akash soon realises that there is no way out, except to run away. He escapes and lands up in the big city. At the New Delhi railway station, he is befriended by a gang of boys, who make a living by scavenging, stealing and drug-traffikking.

Akash does get tempted by the easy means of making money, to pay for a tutor in Maths, but his faith in Saraswati, the goddess of learning, brings him back on the right path. He is enouraged by Ramesh, the magazine stall owner on the platform who recognises that Akash is different from the other boys who work and live on the railway platform. He does not sit back waiting for the gods to act, but goes about finding his way proactively.

Is Akash's faith in himself vindicated? How does Saraswati show him the way? Does he realise his dream of going to a good school?

Monika Schroeder, the author, is of German origin, and has been a teacher in schools in many developing countries, and was a librarian at the American Embassy School in New Delhi at the time of writing this book. While reading the book, I was struck by the minute details about Indian customs and street life of the vagabond boys that the author seemed to be familiar with. Yet it was clearly an outsider's view. There was a clarity to the descriptions that is usually not found in the writing of someone who has grown up with the culture. It also had the unmistakeable stamp of making things understandable to a non-Indian. Like I found in this book. I was curious to know how she could manage that fine balance.

Searching online, I found a discussion between Uma Krishnaswami and the author. Ms Schroder speaks about her life in India, and the challenges in understanding and writing about a culture so different from the one in which she had grown up. She also speaks about her efforts to learn about the life of street children in India, so vividly potrayed in this book.

As she says in the author's note at the end of the book, "One of the sad aspects of living in India is seeing the effects of poverty on children. A boy like Akash has only a slim chance of fulfilling his dream in contemporary India. Yet I wanted to write a hopeful book about a child who, with determination, courage, and some luck, achieves his goal against all odds."

A Crystal Kite Award winner under Middle East/India/Asia for 2011.

A was fascinated by Akash's proficiency in maths, and we learnt a few tricks from vedic maths that Akash tries to teach the boys that befriend him. A system we will certainly want to explore more fully!

Click here to watch a trailer based on the book. Worth a watch.

Crossposted at Saffrontree.

Review: Oranges in no man's land

Pic courtesy books.google.com

Oranges in no man's land
Written by Elizabeth Laird
Illustrated by Gary Blythe
Published by  Macmillan Children's Books
Ages 8-12 years.

10 yr old Ayesha lives with her mother, grandmother and two brothers in Civil war torn Beirut. Her mother gets killed by a bomb that also destroys their home, and they become refugees living in a shelter. Here Ayesha makes a friend, the deaf-mute girl her age, Samar. Life goes on, her grandmother their only parent.

Until one day, her grandmother becomes seriously ill. She has been ill for a long time now, and had medicines that she took for it, given to her by Dr Leila, for whom she had worked for many years. But now her medicines are over, and Dr Leila lives beyond the Green line, on the other side of the divide, beyond the 'no man's land' that lies between their portion of the city and hers.

So what is a mere 10 yr old to do? Does she manage to go to the good doctor and get medicines for her grandmother? How does she get past the armed solders gaurding the entrances to both sides and come back unscathed?

This is a touching story written by Elizabeth Baird, who lived in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War which stretched from 1975-1990. It is based on some real life events and experiences, as she writes in her preface to the book.

The story brings home to us the fact that there are both good and bad people on both sides of any divide, and the common man usually wishes for peace, not war, so that normal life can go on. And that a war usually serves the few in power, with vested interests.

The sketch of Ayesha, running swiftly for all it's worth, looking furtively at something in the distance that she probably needs to be wary of, is a repeated motif throughout the book, at the title of each chapter. Done by Gary Blythe, (illustrator of other well known books like The Whale's Song, Rumer Godden's Miss Happiness and Miss Flower and Michael Morpurgo's I believe in Unicorns) they lend a sense of urgency to the books.

Crossposted at Saffrontree.

I am entering this book at the Reading The World Challenge 2011 over at Papertigers, for A. Under Fiction, Lebanon.

Review- On My Honor

Pic courtesy goodreads.com

On My Honor
Written by Marion Dane Bauer
Published by Yearling books, an imprint of Random House Children's books.
Ages: 8-12, 12+

Peer pressure. Everyone faces it, children more so. It looms large in their small world, often leading to literally life-and-death situations.

Twelve year old Joel and Tony are 'best friends', very different in temperament, often squabbling and bickering, but inseparable.

Tony- exuberant, fun-loving, risk-taking, with a devil-may-care attitude. Joel, the more cautious of the two, introspecting, sensitive to undercurrents in a situation, a foil for Tony.

On the way to a cliff-climbing trip, (which Joel had earlier tried to wriggle out of, hoping his father would not give him permission to go), the irrepressible Tony had decided he wanted to go swimming in the river instead. The turbulant, treacherous Vermillion river, known for its rapids. Inspite of having promised his father 'on his honor', that he would not do anything dangerous, Joel falls for the bait when Tony accuses him of being over-cautious.

"Sometimes, Bates, you sound just like your old man."
Joel could feel the heat flooding his face. "What's wrong with that?"
" 'Be careful in that tree, son,' " Tony mimicked, " 'you might get hurt. Watch Bobby when he crosses the street. Those drivers never pay any--' "
Joel had been moving closer to Tony as he spoke, and now he gave him a hard shove.

Tony keeps needling Joel, driven by bravado and dare-devilry, goading him to challenge Tony to a swimming race to a sandbar a hundred yards away. With terrible consequences.

Peer pressure. Wanting to fit in. Misplaced confidence. A sense of being indestructible. A devil-may-care attitude. Inability to lose face. Unwillingness to be perceived as a 'coward' when being just sensible and careful. A recipe for disaster?

Marion Dane Bauer has written a fast-paced, racy, but sensitively told story based on a real incident that happenned in the town where she grew up, at the very same place as described in the book. A very short, 90 page book that is very hard-hitting.

Bauer's potrayal of Joel's effort to get out of what is very clearly a fool-hardy venture, without losing face- first hoping that his father would not give his permission, then trying to make Tony see sense is very realistic. It happens ever so often in our own kids' peer-group. The disaster comes on unexpectedly, chillingly, with everything else seemingly the same, unchanged.

The potrayal of Joel's survivor guilt is heart-wrenching. The disbelief, denial, anger, dissociation, grief, a desire to hide, not face the parents, an obsessive 'washing-off of the stench of the river', are powerfully written. It helps, that his father is understanding, trying to help him let go of the paralysing, mind-numbing grief.

The wracking sobs flowed out of him like water.
His father held him for a long time, saying nothing, until Joel's tears came without sound and his breaths were quivering gasps. Even then, his father held him.
"Do you believe in heaven?" he asked at last. "Do you believe Tony's gone there?"
"I don't suppose anybody knows," his father answered gently, "what happens after...I believe there's something about life that goes on. It seems too good to end in a river."

It is a Newbery Honor winner, 1987, and the William Allen White Childrens' book award winner, 1989. A wonderfully written book, that chills me on each reading. Given a thumbs-up by A.

Crossposted at Bookreviews and Saffrontree.

.....or not to...is the question!

What made me write this post? Well, for one, this post and this one, both by Sangi, this post by Monika, and a talk we attended at A's school.

The school has come across some children of middle school using social networking sites, for which they are clearly underage. There has also been some instances of inappropriate behaviour that has been noticed among students, which has been traced to unsupervised viewership of television programmes with age-inappropriate content, bad language, etc., as also unsupervised access to the internet, especially if both parents are working. According to the school, it is the responsibility of the parents to be aware of what their child is being exposed to, and take steps to correct any oversights. As for children of working parents, it was suggested that they install a password operated net connection, and speak to the children about what can or cannot be watched, reinforcing the message by repetition. For this was the time when the children are just beginning to take the first steps out of childhood, and are still influentiable. For the better or worse.

There was an interesting point raised. There are children, and then there are children. Of different kinds. For every child that is influenced by all this, and loses focus of what is right, there may be some who are not, who manage to take it in their stride, and come through unscathed. It was upto every parent to be aware of how their child is, educate the child accordingly and be available for the child at all times if need be. The school on its part would discourage anything age-inappropriate, and have a no-tolerance policy for anything inappropriate for school. This was something that was to be handled on a two-way-street.

So what does this have to do with the three posts I mentioned at the beginning? Quite a bit.

I come from Bram roots. My grandparents would not even partake of anything that contained onions or garlic, these been considered as tamasic foods. My parents, though, encouraged us to eat eggs, although my mother could never touch the stuff herself. We had a separate vessel and pan which was washed after use and put away separately. No eggs were allowed when my paternal grandparents were staying with us. My maternal grandmother lived with us for many years, and although she never tasted them, would cook the eggs for us.

We had quite a few friends who ate non-veg food, but never once do I remember wanting to try it. We were happy enough with our ghaas-phoos, as one friend once put it, except for the very occasional eggs.

When I got married, I did not expect to be eating any either, as the husband is from the same community, an arranged marriage. He had, however, tried it during his student days, and found that he liked it, though not extraordinarily so. I tried chicken tentatively in those early days, liked it enough to have some while eating out once in a while. We never tried cooking it at home though. Even on our travels overseas, I did not really become a regular eater.

Then A came along, and somewhere at 3-4 years of age, she realised she liked the non-veg that we occasionally tried while eating out. It was purely so that the finicky mother in me would be sure of the hygiene and of what has gone in it that I agreed to cook the stuff at home. Even then, cooking non-veg is more the husband's territory than mine, I help with getting the masalas ready and then sit twiddling my thumbs (or reading some book with A). I also do not like red meat or fish dishes overmuch. And I will be more than willing to give it all up if need be. At times when we haven't had any non-veg for a longish period of time, I've never felt the urge to eat some. I'll be fine without it in my life. Maybe a point will come when I no longer want to eat it. Already on days when I prepare eggs for breakfast I have only plain toast with cheese or jam, and avoid the eggs.

A loves the stuff, of couse, especially the way Dad makes it, and is a confirmed non-vegetarian. The only reason for which I see her leaving it is if at some point in her life the softie animal lover in her decides to surface. I'm fine with whatever she decides. The choice has to be hers.

As for alcohol, I grew up in a teetotaler household. No smoking either. I am sure my parents never thought that they needed to say anything to us about it. We never thought it was a done thing, and that was that. I really do not know about my brothers, who were students when I got married, but I was never tempted by the lure of either alcohol or nicotine or any other substance in my growing up years, and I thank God for that. Of course that does not mean that I was an exemplary teenager, with no rebellion in me. There were other things that my parents came down heavily upon, without, I regret, any real communication or education about them, and I contrarily chose to focus my rebellious energies on those. So I have made my mistakes in life like anyone else.

I have worked extensively with the AA in my post-grad days, and I have seen the devastation that the addiction can cause. The rehabilitation has to be done one day at a time- something that the ex-addict has to follow all his life. Along with the counselling for psychological factors, the person has to make a commitment to avoid alcohol on an everyday basis. There is no place here for the "I can handle it" (mis)confidence. I have seen long-term rehabilitated addicts relapsing after something as innocuous as a course of cough medicine with an alcohol content, and it is tough.

At the same time, not everyone who tastes alcohol in their life gets addicted to it. I have tried alcohol with my husband, on rare occasions, as I never really aquired a taste for it. I have got really drunk once or twice, but that was just to try it out, with different brands of alcohol, and as Sangi puts it  "being drunk SUCKS!" Even then I probably had a drink once in 2-3 months, that too with guests or on a holiday. And ever since daughter has started showing curiosity in the contents of mom's /dad's glass, I've stopped drinking, not even an occasional one. I don't think I miss it at all, and feel no urge to indulge myself for any reason whatsoever.

The husband has a drink or two on weekends, and is extremely responsible about his drinking, AND of the drinking of those who drink under our roof, and have to drive back to their homes. Of late, even this has decreased. Reason- A read about a character in Black Beauty (by Anne Sewell) who drank and rode a horse to its ruin and his death. (I always fall back on books if I want to say something. Maybe books are my addiction!) She had many questions about alcohol and its effects at the time, and since then, she gets upset if her father has a drink. He has had a talk with her about it, and I'm sure it will be all for the best.

The point I'm trying to make here, is that some things, though present elsewhere in the world, were absent in my environment, either in reality, or hypothetically as subjects of discussion. We just ignored those, and never considered trying them as an option. And when I did try them, I did not get over-much attached to them. Whereas I was wrongly influenced by those things that were strongly spoken against, especially under peer-pressure, without any education from my parents as to the consequences of a mis-step, and have suffered for it.

Moral of the story- Although my first reaction to anthing that A wants to do that is wrong in my eyes is an authoritarian one, I try to simmer down and talk to her about it, rather than talk at her. I agree with the school that we need to be available to the children when they are in a communicative mood, else they will take their communication to someone else, someone completely unsuitable. Also that each child may react differently to the same set of conditions, and take away something quite different from it.  

On my part, I hope to keep communication channels open with A, as it is very likely that she might find things she finds yuck not so yuck (again quoting Sangi!) in her terrible teens, and I would like to be with her on every step of the way, with reasonable (I hope! Sometimes the streaks of an authoritarian parent tends to get the better of me, and I have to tell myself to simmer down and GET REASONABLE!)  restrictions, handholding, educating and counselling. And I hope that she always trusts us, and finds it worth the while coming to me with anything that bothers her.

So help me God!

About Human Rights and Freedom

This post is partly a rant, so bear with me.

A took part in a drawing-painting competition on the occasion of Independence Day. The topic was Freedom. A coloured the whole page in the colours of the tricolour, drew a map of India, inside which she drew birds flying out of a cage, and children playing. Below the painting, she wrote the caption: FREE TO DREAM. I am not sure about the merits of her painting in terms of a painting competition, but I give her full marks for the spirit that she wanted to convey.

• But then, are we truly free to dream?
• Aren't we limited by our beliefs, societal norms and beliefs, conditioning within families, etc?
• How many of us really realize our true potential?
• How many of us have access to realising it?
• And how many actually dare to dream about it?
• We live in a democracy, which by its very definition should grant us this freedom, but does it really happen?
• And how many of us are even aware of something being amiss?
• Do we even get our fundamental rights as citizens of a free democracy?
• Our Human Rights by virtue of being human beings? 
• What do even know about human rights?
• Do we know what they are?
• What do you say to children who are pulled out of school and made to work for a living?
• What do you say to victims of domestic violence who have no refuge with either the society they have to live in, nor the government who just makes noises about bringing in laws, but does zilch about implementing them in a way that ensures the dignity of the victim?
• What do you say to the victims of khap panchayats and fatwas issued by religious leaders?
• What do you say to your everyday human being who is denied his/her feelings and aspirations to just be a human being without being deitified or demonised?

So many questions. They could go on. While everyday the newspapers are full of stories of incidents of blatant breach of these human rights.

An awareness of  rights of human beings has been an integral part of human history. All great religions and great civilisations have pondered upon the question, and come up with their own guidelines. It is a different matter, though, what their definition of a human being was. So some people were more equal than the others, and enjoyed more rights. A situation that continues to this day, at least in the minds of people with vested interest in this mindset, universal laws and local laws notwithstanding.

A renewed interest, and the motivation to list human rights, and to put in place a mechanism to regulate their enforcement came into being only after WW2. The Holocaust, that blot on the 20th century, was in direct contravention to a belief in human rights. Post-war, in the Nuremberg trials, the world was made aware of the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis, and the United Nations (UN) was established in 1945, with a goal to promoting and ensuring "respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion."  India became a member on 30th October, 1945

The UN then formulated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was formally brought into force on 10th December, 1948. The preamble of this gives us the reasons why such a declaration is necessary, and then goes on to list 30 articles stating the rights.

AI logo
courtesy wikipedia

Amnesty International was established in 1961 to regulate the implementation of human rights. As wikipedia puts it, "AI draws attention to human rights abuses and campaigns for compliance with international laws and standards. It works to mobilise public opinion to exert pressure on governments that perpetrate abuses."

I happened to read two different books published in association with Amnesty International. One is a picture book for children. The other is a story covering many generations, many continents, many people, many beliefs, many situations, many individual stories, and yet with a link between them.

The first is a book published by Tara books in India in association with Amnesty International, and under licence from  Frances Lincoln Children's Books. Cover page image taken here is of the original  international edition. No image is available for the Tara Books edition, which is, however, available at bookstores and at Flipkart.

Image courtesy AI

WE ARE ALL BORN FREE

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Pictures

Published by Tara books.

Ages: Can be read by ages 8+, but as it says, "it is for children from the sge of 12 onwards that this book offers the maximum rewards."

It is in essense the same as the international edition, except for a foreword and an afterword with a note for Parents and Educators by V. Geetha and Gita Wolf of Tara books. These give us an idea of how the book may be used, the concept of Human Rights, the history of the UN and this declaration, and its relevance locally, in the Indian context. There is also a discussion on how the illustrations can be interpreted in the context of the Article that they highlight. And how this can be applied to what we see around us.

The Articles themselves are worded in a simpler, more child friendly and more identifiable terms.

For eg., Article 1 & 2 state:

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."

"Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty."

This is stated in the book as: 

We are all born free and equal.

We all have our own thoughts and ideas.
We should all be treated in the same way.

These rights belong to everybody,
Whatever our differences.

The book is a collage of sorts, with 30 internationally acclaimed artists known for their illustrations in children's books and picture books contributing. I was delighted to find old favourites like John Birmingham, Polly Dunbar, Nicholas Allan, Axel Scheffler, Bob Graham, Chris Riddell and Marcia Williams.

They are from all corners of the globe- UK, Sweden, Argentina, South Africa, France, Austria, Japan, Canada, Zimbabwe, USA, Brazil, South Korea, Australia, Ireland. This makes the book a wonderful opportunity to study their various styles too. The illustrations are full page, sometimes double spread.

I think that this is one of those books that should be introduced to everyone. The one negative point is its price, which at Rs 240, is not very affordable. But surely, each school can have a copy? Maybe it can be brought out in a more affordable edition without the high quality paper that this one uses, but retaining all the other features?

Take a look at this video for a good look inside the book.

The second book is also a collage of sorts, with ten established writers writing one chapter each. We are introduced to the main characters in the first chapter, and the rest take off from there.

CLICK
Written by: Refer to cover page picture for the whole list.
Published by Scholastic Children's books.
Ages: 13+

Image Courtesy Amazon

Have you ever seen a picture, a photograph and wondered about it? If there were some story behind the person in it, the place it had been taken at, the situation it had been taken in, the reasons for taking it?

George "GEE" Keane is a photographer of international acclaim, who specialises in photographs of human interest. In his quest, he goes where an everyday person might not go: where there is war, famine, imprisonment, torture, as also where there is beauty and peace. He goes to all parts of the world in the process, and meets many people- extraordinary and ordinary.

In the first chapter Gee is dead, and has left behind for his 14 yr old grand-daughter Maggie a handcrafted wooden box with seven compartments, each with a distinctive shell from a different continent, with the instructions: Throw them all back. And for his 17 yr old grand-son his camera and a packet of original photographs signed by their subjects.

The story goes to all corners of the world from there. It goes to the past, the future and also lingers in the present. We meet

• prisoners in a Soviet prison at the height of the Cold War, 
• people mutilated by and children affected by war in their backyard, and reclaiming their human dignity, 
• a young girl struggling against her feelings of guilt as a victim-was there some way she could have prevented what happened- and finding closure, 
• a single mother caring for an epileptic child and struggling to make ends meet,
• a young boy meeting his idol Muhammad Ali by chance,
• a young girl finding discovering a life-long quest and finding solace in it after losing a loved family member,
• and much more. 

The beauty of the book is also to be found in the uncanny way that the different stories link across continents, across differing situations and across many decades. Maggie, whom we meet in the first chapter as a 14 yr old, is an old lady, Margaret, on a quest in the last, handing over the baton to her grown-up grand-niece, Iona.

Speaking to her, Margaret says, "He wanted us to see. That was his legacy. He gave his grandson- your grandfather-a camera, and he gave me a set of shells. Jason took the camera, and took off- his life took off. He saw through the lens. He learnt to adjust the aperture, to see as keenly as the instrument allows. I took the shells and I took off too, and wandered the world, and saw what came my way. That's all we ever want to give away, you know. Not really ourselves, not even our genes. Just our hopes that the young will remember to look, and to see. Through whatever means possible." 

This book is also published in association with Amnesty International. In an afterword by AI, it is written: "Human Rights are why the authors of CLICK could write this book. Human Rights mean you can read it. In some countries people are imprisoned and even tortured for expressing their ideas in writing or for daring to support Amnesty International. You could even be imprisoned for reading a book like this."

Here are two of my favourite songs in the same spirit. One is a quiet solo number. The other is again a collage of sorts. A musical one.  This is one A enjoys listening to, too. You too enjoy.

Crossposted here.

Facing my fears

This post of mine made think a lot about fear and courage. So I decided to do a tag on fear. All you have to do is list 5 things that inspire fear in you and write about them. Then link it up with a book, (what else do you expect in a tag by me?!) any book which deals with fear or courage. And then you have to tag at least 5 people. And do not forget to link your post back to this post. Simple.

The big bad wolf. Fear, unfortunately, makes the wolf seem bigger. Fear. Wikipedia defines it as an emotional response to a perceived threat. Fear. A primal response necessary for the very survival of a species. The fight or flight response.

Most animals, as we know, attack or kill for two reasons only: hunger, in case of carnivores, and fear. To protect themselves, when they feel threatened. The higher the animal on the evolutionary scale, the more complex the reasons for fear. Human beings have developed fear into a fine art. We have reasonable as well as unreasonable fears. But even the unreasonable fears are very real for the person who feels them, and it is never a good thing to belittle them. They make us very vulnerable, however, and I think the whole thing about the 'macho man' is a result of getting into a denial mode.

The adrenaline rush experienced due to fear is, contrarily, enjoyed by many. The frisson of fear you feel while reading a good horror story or watching a thriller or on a roller-coaster ride is a version of fear. Whole industries have grown over this courting of the feeling of fear. Imagine watching one such horror movie in 3D!

Fear, on the other hand can be spine-chilling and mind-numbing, too. It can make one want to curl up and hide away from the world. It can make you want to give up.

Courage is the ability to face one's fears and look them in the eye. Not an absence of fear. Sometimes we do not know that we have what it takes to be courageous. We surprise ourselves sometimes when we stumble upon it.

So what are five of my biggest fears?

1.  Death is everybody's greatest fear. Do I fear death? To be honest, not the fact of death. But I do fear the manner of death. I hope when I get called, it will be peaceably, in my sleep. Out like a light.

2.  I am mortally afraid of becoming ignominiously physically and mentally dependent on anyone in my old age. I hope I never face that. I hate feeling helpless, and one of my greatest fears is being in a situation where I or my loved ones are at the mercy of others. Who knows what the future holds? But I certainly hope that I never have to face this fear.

3.  Vertigo. I am afraid of heights. My awesome experience of the Grand Canyon was marred by my unfortunate inability to stand near the edge and feel a thrill.

4.  Speed. I'm a scaredy cat here. Combine this one with the earlier one, and you have a person who absolutely refuses to go on any thrill ride. Las Vegas was a nightmare for me, and I happily stood holding our belongings while the husband went on every ride there was.

5. Snakes and creepy-crawlies. I remember as a child I would refuse to even look at pictures of these. We stayed in a bungalow then, and once during the rains, a whole bunch of baby cobras entered our verandah. I don't remember how we got rid of them, but I do remember being very very frightened.  I'm not so squeamish about pictures now, but the thought of one of those near me...EEK! We had gone to Gerry Martin's farm once where he demonstrated handling of snakes. Even his daughter, who is younger than A, can handle them! I stood at a safe distance and my repect for naturalists increased many-fold. I do wield a mean insecticide sprayer, though.

What about courage, you say? Well, I'll accept that my fears paralyse me. Most of the time.

A book? Here it is.

SOME THINGS ARE SCARY
(No Matter How Old You Are)
Written by Florence Parry Heide.
Illustrated by Jules Feiffer.
Published by Candlewick press.
Ages: 3+ to adult.
ISBN 0-7636-2147-1

Image: Courtesy Amazon.

A baby associates its mother with security. Even a very small baby clutches at the person holding it. Survival reflex. No baby needs to learn it. The same baby does not have any idea about an injection being a source of pain. It will gurgle away until the needle is stuck in. Then it will give a loud wail of protest, cry some, and then quieten. Try getting an older child who knows what an injection is to agree to an injection, and you'll have a perfect demonstration of fear. A shy child fearful of social situations will hide behind its mother. A person with stage-fright will go to any lengths to ensure that he/she never has to speak in front of a group. The same person will be OK in a one-to-one situation. Fear of the unknown is universal. Whether you admit it or not.

The author has given us a wonderful book, with all kind of fears a child (or a grown-up) can have. There is something here everyone can relate to.

Just some of these-

Stepping on something squishy when you're in your bare feet...is scary.


Thinking you're not going to be picked for either side...is scary.


Holding on to someone's hand that isn't your mother's when you thought it was...is scary.


Having people looking at you and laughing and you don't know why...is scary.


Climbing a tree when you don't remember how to get down...is scary.

And the best- Knowing you're going to grow up to be a grown-up...is scary.

The illustrations by Jules Feiffer are whimsical and reminiscent of Quentin Blake. Making a book on fear a fun-filled one for children. As it says on the blurb- A lot of things are scary...but they can be pretty funny, too. Jules Feiffer has, among other books, done the illustrations of that must read classic for children, The Phantom Tollbooth.

So get your thinking hats on, ladies, and let us hear from you. If something is too personal to share, we understand that you can't share it. But you can certainly come up five things that you can. Go forth fearlessly. I tag Choxbox,  Starry,  Artnavy,  Utbtkids,  Monika  and Usha.  That's an eclectic mix, if I say so myself. And I know I have tagged six. But I'm taking that liberty as the originater of the tag. Anyone else fearless/fearful enough to take it up is welcome to do so. And just your comments are welcome too.
  
Whatever fears we may have, there is always security in numbers. As I have quoted from a book by Michael Morpurgo in this post by me,  we may not always acknowledge our fears, but just the realisation that we are not alone helps.

"So I asked him...why he didn't just run away. And he said: 'Because of my pals. We're in this together. We look after each other.' You've got pals, haven't you, dear?"
"Yes," I replied, "but they like coming back to school. They love it."
"I wonder if they really do," she said. "Maybe they just pretend better than you."

Of Mockingbirds and Harry

Two things lead to my writing this post.

One: I recently re-read for the nth time TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.
Written by Harper Lee.
This edition published by Arrow publications.
Ages: young adult.

Image: Courtesy Flipkart.

The book was published on 11th July 1960, the only book written by Harper Lee, and will complete 50 years. It is an iconic book, which should be required reading for everyone above 16yrs. I first read it as a teen, and at every reading, I learn something new, both about the book, and about myself.

The story is set in Alabama, USA, or the Deep South as it was called, in the 1930s. Racial problems were the norm. Atticus Finch is a white lawyer, who is the only person with the courage to defend in court Tom Robinson, a coloured man charged with raping a white woman. Tom claims that he is innocent, and Atticus believes he is, as he knows him very well. It is just his word against that of a white woman and her father. In the end, as racial matters stand, the jury rules against Tom. While being shifted to another jail, now as a convicted man, he makes an attempt to escape, and is killed by the sheriff's men.

The story is told from the point of view of Scout, Atticus' 8yr old daughter, her brother Jem, 4 years older than her, and a neighbouring child, Dill. The book is said to be autobiographical, with Scout being the young Harper Lee. Their mother is dead, and they are being brought up by Atticus with help from the coloured housekeeper, Calpurnia, who is more than just a housekeeper to the family. She is a valuable member, who does not shirk from disciplining the children. There is a very telling incident in which a child from school is visiting them for dinner, and Scout laughs at him for something that he would like to eat. Without making her feel small in front of the guest, Calpurnia calls her into the kitchen, and tells her, "...this that boy is your guest. He could eat the whole tablecloth if he wants to."  In many ways she reminds me of Mammy, the coloured housekeeper in "Gone with the Wind," who is a mother figure to Scarlett O'Hara.

There is a man in a neighbouring house, who has a history of being jailed in his youth for some misdemeaners, who is kept behind closed doors by his father. Myths about him abound among the children. Arthur "Boo" Radley becomes a monster in their eyes, a person to be frightened of. Courage, for the children, is in touching the door to Boo's house and running back. Scout is the only child who meets Boo in the book, and realises that there is nothing really to be afraid of. It is prejudice about Boo that made them fear him, just as prejudice against a coloured man, Tom, makes the white people believe in his 'crime.' As a German proverb says, "Fear makes the wolf seem bigger than it is."

Atticus is a gentle person, with a core of steel. He takes on the town single-handedly. Jem and Scout, who are witnesses to the courtroom proceedings, see their father with new eyes. They are old enough to understand a lot of what is going on, so of course, they come to their father with questions. In a talk he has with them, he says,  "I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do."

It is a summer of revelation, a time of growing up and the loss of innocence. As Scout later says, "It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived."  There are many kinds of courage it deals with. The 'courage' of Jem in touching Boo's house door and running back, the courage with which Calpurnia and Atticus deal with the rabid dog in an incident in the book, the courage of his convictions that Atticus displays in his handling of the children and his single-handedly taking on of the whole town's prejudices. The courage with which Tom faces the court and the lack of courage displayed by Mayella, the white woman who accuses Tom. It is a wonderful book, one which I have gifted to many friends and relations.

Two: I saw the trailer of the next Harry Potter movie. I am an avid fan of J.K.Rowling, In her book Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, she quotes Franklin D Roosevelt when a major character applauds Harry for his choice of the thing he fears-"There is nothing to fear but fear itself." Harry is all too human in his attributes. Flawed, incomplete in many ways. He knows for a long time now that he is on borrowed time. Inspite of that, he meets his destiny head-on, with courage. Just as Harper Lee has said in her book. Courage here is not the lack of fear, but inspite of it.

This movie, HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, will be released in two parts, in 3D. Part 1 is due for November 2010, and Part 2 for July 2011. Are you all fans reading this? Waiting for it.