Ready to explode

We live in a violent world today. And while we might argue that violence is the way of nature, to enforce ‘survival of the fittest’, and that the history of human ‘civilization’ is strung on a thread of violence, we cannot get away from the fact that the incidence of unreasoning, senseless, psychotic violence is increasing at alarming speeds the world over. Road rage resulting in murder, disgruntled students stabbing or shooting teachers or classmates, psychopaths blazing a trail of corpses at random—why? Therapists say that the behaviour of most aggressors in such cases of random violence has its roots in unadressed anger issues in their childhood. To ensure that our children do not grow up into angry, aggressive, destructive adults, as well as to help them live out a happy, healthy childhood, parents need to be vigilant about signs of anger issues developing in their children and address them expeditiously to minimize the damage.

 

Eleven year-old Harsh Kapoor is always angry. Fights with classmates in school, fights with kids in the school bus, fights with the colony kids in the playground—it seems to his parents that their son is going through life armed with a large club of aggression, ready to bash in the head of anyone who crosses his path. “There is just one person who can ‘manage’ him,” says his mother, Malti. “He goes for Maths coaching to a neighbour’s place, and his teacher can really make him calm down. With everyone else, he feels that they are out to harm him, and he should strike first, before they can get him. But with Mrs. Dutt, he is a normal, happy child. I don’t know how she does it.”

 

Says his Maths coach, Kavita Dutt, “Harsh is an angry, misunderstood child, and he has major aggression issues. All I do is try  to give him unconditional acceptance, love and praise for whatever he manages to do right. And so, he has no reason to feel angry or victimised.”

 

 

Identifying children with Anger Issues

How do you know when your child needs help handling anger? Look for these signs.

1. They can’t control their aggressive impulses and hit people; this behavior continues past the age of five.
2. Frequent explosive outbursts, indicating that they are carrying a ‘full tank’ of anger that is always ready to spill.
3. They are reflexively oppositional (and they are older than age 2).
4. They are unable to engage in constructive problem solving and do not acknowledge their role in creating the situation, instead feeling constantly victimized and ‘picked on’.
5. They frequently lose friends, alienate adults or are otherwise embroiled in interpersonal conflict.
6. They seem preoccupied with revenge.
7. They threaten to hurt themselves physically (or actually do so).
8. They damage property.
9. They repeatedly express hatred toward themselves or someone else.
10. They hurt smaller children or animals.

 

When anger takes over, it can come in different forms, from a verbal outburst to being physically aggressive and causing damage to furniture. Anger can sometimes make children act in a way that’s harmful to themselves or others. For example, punching walls or hitting out. Try to make the surrounding environment as safe as possible if this happens. If you’re concerned that anger is taking over your child and your family, don’t hesitate to talk to a psychologist.

 

Helping the child to overcome anger issues

When a child has ‘anger management issues’ it means that they are terrified of those pent-up feelings under the anger (fear, hurt, grief). Here are some useful tips from therapists all over the world for parents to help kids learn to manage their anger:

1. Remember that all feelings are allowed.Only actions need to be limited, such as hitting.
2. Set limits.Allowing feelings does not mean we allow destructive actions. Kids should never be allowed to hit others, including their parents. When they do, they are always asking for us to set limits and help them contain their anger. Say “You can be as mad as you want, but you cannot hit. I see how mad you are, and I will keep us all safe.”

Some children really need to struggle against something when they’re angry. It’s fine to let them struggle against your holding arms, if that’s what they want, but take off your glasses, and don’t let yourself get hurt.

Similarly, don’t let kids break things in their fury. That just adds to their guilt and sense that they’re a bad person. Your job is to serve as a safe ‘container’ and ‘witness’, to listen to what your child is telling you.

3. Never send a child away to ‘calm down’ alone.Remember that kids need your love most when they ‘deserve it least’. Instead of a ‘time out’, which gives kids the message that they’re all alone with these big, scary feelings, try a ‘time in’, during which you stay with your child and help them move through their feelings. You’ll be amazed at how your child begins to show more self-control when you adopt this practice, because they feel less helpless and alone.
4. Stay near and connected when your child is upset.If you know what’s going on, acknowledge it, “You are so angry that your tower fell.” If you don’t know, say what you see, “You are crying now.”

Give explicit permission, “It’s ok, everyone needs to cry (or gets mad, or feels very sad) sometimes. I will stay right here while you get all your sadness and anger out.” If you can touch them, do so to maintain the connection, “Here’s my hand on your back. You’re safe. I’m here.”

If they yell at you to go away, say, “You want me to go away. I will step back like this. But I am right here. I won’t leave you alone with these big and scary feelings.”

5. Stay calm.Yelling at an angry child reinforces what they are already feeling, which is that they are in danger. You may not see why they would think they are in danger when they just socked their little brother, but a child who is lashing out is a child in the grip of deep fear. Your anger will only make the storm worse. Your job is to restore calmness, because kids can only learn and understand how to “do better” when they’re calm.

If you are in the habit of yelling at your kids, know that you are modeling behavior that your child will adopt by the time they are a teen, if not well before.

Kids need to learn from you that anger and other upsetting feelings are not as scary as they seem – after all, mom isn’t scared of them. Your presence helps them feel safe, which helps them develop the neural pathways in the brain that shut off the “fight or flight” response and allow the frontal cortex, the “reasoning brain,” to take over. That’s how kids learn to soothe themselves.

6. Give your child ways to manage their angry impulses in the moment.Most kids resist punching the pillows on the couch, which feels artificial to them, but many love having a punching bag to beat up. You can teach your child to stomp their feet when they’re mad. With an older child, you can suggest that they draw or write on paper what they are angry about, and then fiercely rip it into tiny pieces. Teach them to use their ‘PAUSE’ button by breathing in for four counts through their nose, and then out for eight through their mouth. Grab two squishy balls; hand them one, and demonstrate working out annoyance on the squishy ball.

When your child is calm, make a list with them of constructive ways to handle emotion, and post it on the refrigerator. Let them do the writing, or add pictures, so they feel some ownership of the list. Model using the list yourself when you’re mad, “I’m getting annoyed, so I’m checking the list. I think I’ll put on some music and dance out my frustration!”

7. Help your child be aware of their ‘warning signs’. Once kids are in the full flush of adrenaline and the other ‘fight or flight’ neurotransmitters, they think it’s an emergency, and they’re fighting for their lives. At that point, managing the angry impulses is almost impossible, and all we can offer is a safe haven while the storm sweeps through them. If you can help your child notice when they’re getting annoyed and learn to calm them self, they’ll have many fewer tantrums. When they are younger, you will have to know their cues and take preventive action – offering some snuggle time or getting them out of the grocery store. As they grow older, you can point out, “Sweetie, you’re getting upset. We can make this better. Let’s all calm down and figure this out together.”
8. Help your child develop emotional intelligence. Kids who are comfortable with their feelings manage their anger constructively. Some kids, unfortunately, don’t feel safe expressing their uncomfortable feelings. Sometimes they have parents who discount or even ridicule their fears or disappointments. Sometimes they have been sent to their rooms to ‘calm down’ and never received the help they needed to handle their upsets. Sometimes the pain or grief just feels too overwhelming and they fend it off to survive.

 

They try hard to repress their fears, jealousies and anxieties, but repressed feelings have a way of popping out unmodulated, as when an otherwise loving preschooler suddenly hits the baby. These kids live in fear of their feelings. Fending off this reservoir of fear, grief or other pain causes these kids to get angry – and they stay angry.

 

When this happens, a child needs professional help.

Educating beyond schooling

(article in the February issue of Responsible Parenting)

Indian students were once renowned the world over, not only for their capacity to work hard, but also for their levels of learning. It is far otherwise at present. The latest ASER document has some very depressing facts to report.  Despite fancy new education systems, plenty of do-it-yourself assignments, supplementary projects and exposure to the farthest frontiers of human knowledge, courtesy the Internet, the learning outcomes for Indian students are falling rapidly. Nor are they faring any better in terms of soft skills and creativity. The critical question then arises, are we raising a generation of ignoramuses or automatons? What is the role of today’s parents in ensuring that their children grow up into well-educated, balanced individuals?

It was renowned nineteenth century author and humourist Mark Twain who once advised someone, “Don’t let your children’s schooling get in the way of their education!” Never has this advice been more applicable to Indian parents than it is today. With learning outcomes as well as soft skills nosediving to alarming extents in the younger generations, the onus of ensuring a well-rounded education for them, which was formerly shared by schools and parents, has shifted squarely on to the parents.

“I can’t understand what is happening in schools these days,” exclaims Sanjay Seth, proprietor of a jewellery firm and father of fourteen year old Sneha, a ninth standard student in one of the prominent public schools of Delhi. “Children are easily scoring eighty to ninety percent, or even more, but they don’t seem to know much. In our time, we knew much more even though we scored between sixty and seventy percent.”

“Heaven knows what this school system is doing to our children,” agrees Keerti Pahwa, whose children, eleven and seven years old, attend one of the oldest, most renowned schools of the capital. “They are always kept with their noses to the grindstone with homework, CCE projects, umpteen kinds of assessments and weird kinds of activities all the time. And yet, their levels of learning and knowledge are ridiculous!”

“All they seem to be teaching our kids is how to surf the Internet, copy-paste stuff, print pictures and prepare highly decorated project files with no regard for the content or learning,” laments Vinita Agarwal, mother of a tenth and an eleventh standard student of one  of the fastest growing schools of the city. “How are they going to fare in the actual world if we leave them to the school system?”

This concern is echoed by virtually all parents who take a personal interest in their children’s education. Parents are mystified on what basis their children are obtaining such marks when their knowledge levels remain abysmal. The question of what their children will do once they leave school and face the real world is the stuff of nightmares for them.

Schooling versus Education

The debate about schooling versus education has been raging as long as there have been schools. A comprehensive education is more than just textbook learning. It is a cultural imperative for all individuals who aspire to be self-determining—the process of exploring various ways of thinking, doing, believing, expressing one’s self. It is the process through which one forms one’s own judgement independently. Schooling is an organized process of transmitting knowledge and values in the form of group learning. The goal of schooling is ostensibly to provide an education to the younger generations.

However, all too often, schooling ends up as a system that squashes out all individuality and creative thought. It is often seen that as children our youngsters have insatiable questions, but as they grow older, they stop asking questions. This is because most schooling is about facts and figures rather than understanding and value transmission.  It does not encourage an inquisitive mind, critical thinking, and creativity; it merely trains students to memorize and regurgitate what the teacher taught.

THE NEW SCHOOLING SYSTEM

For the past four years we have had a new education system in India, whose stated aims are to address these shortcomings of the traditional schooling systems. It emphasizes ‘continuous comprehensive evaluation’ (CCE) of a child’s everyday performance through creatively designed assignments, project work and assessments. The accent is on learning and acquiring soft skills such as comprehension, originality, communication, presentation, team work and lateral thinking. It aims to encourage our youngsters to engage with the latest technologies and developments and truly become global citizens of tomorrow.

However, four years into this experiment, we face the question: How far is this system delivering what it promises and aims at? Can it truly be called an ‘education system’? What are the concrete outcomes that it is giving our children?

Declining learning outcomes: The latest Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) document exposes sharply declining learning outcomes in Indian schools across the board. And although the report focuses primarily on rural government schools, parents as well as education professionals allege that the plight of private schools in urban centres is not much better, and with much less excuse!

Not only is the experience of a wide cross-section of parents whose children are studying in the ‘best’ private schools quite negative with regard to learning outcomes, most educated parents are dissatisfied and disgruntled with the new curriculum under the CCE system. They feel that it simply stresses presentation and bypasses the knowledge and content requirement.

Teacher troubles: Despite these findings, however, most educators continue to staunchly support the design and intent of the CCE System and feel that the failure is that of implementation at the school level.

According to Meeta W Sengupta, Senior Advisor, Center for Civil Society, one of the world’s top fifty five think tanks based in Delhi, “There are multiple problems at the teaching level. Teachers are not supported through proper training and motivation programs. Most private schools don’t even bother with teacher training (although the few that do take the trouble to train their teachers manage to produce highly competent and committed teachers). So, mostly, teachers are overwhelmed with the requirements of the new system. Failing to come to grips with it, they resort to cutting corners and rigging the outcomes.”

Eyewash Tactics: Says Seema Kapoor (name changed), a class nine science teacher in a renowned public school, “Teachers have been landed with greatly increased responsibilities of record-keeping and incessant paperwork under the CCE system, for which they have neither been trained, nor motivated. So, most of them tend to keep students occupied with useless, senseless projects to pay lip service to the system, rather than imparting skills or knowledge. The assessment pattern is also becoming increasingly ‘MCQ-oriented’, which lessens the workload of the teacher, allows students to score on the basis of lucky guesswork and greatly raises the average marks, so everybody is happy. The fact that learning is suffering in the process is another matter”.

Arbitrariness and Apple Polishing: Another problem here is that a large proportion of the students’ marks under the CCE system is subject to the arbitrary whims of teachers. Says Anmol Batra, a ninth standard student of one of Delhi’s prestigious public schools: “Our Science teachers award grades on the basis of how well a project file is decorated. They do not even bother to read what you have written or what kind of effort you have put into researching the project. One of my friends, who always has the highest score in projects, directly copy-pastes material from the Internet. He doesn’t even read what he has put in the projects. In fact, some of the stuff he gets from Wikipedia even has annotation numbers and links embedded in it, which he does not even bother to delete. But his files are the best decorated because his mom is a professional artist. So, he gets the best marks in projects.” Anmol is not the only one with this complaint. Students across schools allege that most teachers evaluate projects and assignments on the basis of decorations and favouritism, rather than content.

Moreover, the arbitrary powers teachers have been vested with is taking the practice of ‘apple polishing’ or buttering up teachers for the sake of higher scores to new and disgusting levels. Teachers themselves agree that parents and students ‘networking’ with the teachers is playing an increasing role in the results of the students.

Unethical practices: Students come up with yet more shocking revelations about the realities of the new system. The various kinds of assessments — PSA, FA, NFLAT etc which are designed to test the soft skills of students, like comprehension, listening, speaking, etc, are rigged even by the best schools. “The assessment assignments, which are supposed to be extempore, are given to students a couple of days in advance, to take home and prepare. Even the questions are provided by the teachers, along with the answers,” says Madhav Chhabra, a class eleven student. Students from other prestigious schools corroborate this allegation.

False Entitlement: Sandhya Gupta, a high school Physics teacher, is concerned that the high percentages that students are getting used to, with minimal studying, simply because the question papers have become objective to ridiculous levels, bodes ill for their future, when they come up against the rigours of higher education. “The sense of complacence and entitlement without hard work that this is fostering will also stand them in very ill stead when they enter the real world as adults and take on work responsibilities,” she worries.

RAISING EDUCATED YOUNGSTERS

These and other findings bring us up against the hard fact that if left to the current schooling system, we will end up with an entire generation of degree-holding ignoramuses who have neither the knowledge nor the skills to make a success of their lives. And so, the onus of ensuring that their children get a well-rounded, value-added education has shifted entirely to the parents. Given this necessity, parents need to find creative solutions to this problem.

Coaching classes: While in earlier times ‘coaching’ or ‘tuitions’ used to be the crutches of weak students, today they have become necessities. The slews of coaching centres errupting all over the country have become a requirement, to do what the schools are neglecting to do. While renowned coaching institutes were earlier only offering coaching to Engineering and Medical aspirants in classes eleven and twelve, some of them have started ‘foundation courses’ as early as class six, to bridge the need gap of the present schooling system.

Study groups: A creative solution devised by many parent groups is that of forming study groups where educated mothers can coach the entire groups in different subjects, according to their ability, or else, identify able teachers to do so—a variant of home schooling. This method is seen to be really effective in a number of cases.

Parent participation in school forums: Perhaps the greatest need is for parents to be more vocal at parent-teacher forums and voice their issues, forcing school authorities to take notice and address the problems.

Parents need to be especially vigilant if they want their children to become ‘educated’ in the real sense, and not just crack the system and obtain degrees which have nothing to back them by way of learning and knowledge.

Laying the foundations

(cover story in the February issue of Responsible Parenting)

It is a well documented fact that a happy home is the foundation for a happy child. Parenting experts, the world over, say that a child’s experiences in her first years are the foundation of her intelligence, personality and emotions. Children who are raised in loving and secure homes typically thrive, whereas if they are raised in environments that are deprived of positive experiences, learning disabilities and other cognitive delays might ensue. Thus, providing an emotionally stable and stimulating environment for children that would help ensure optimal cognitive development needs to be the first priority for all thinking parents who wish to raise balanced, happy and successful children.

 

Most parents today worry about their youngsters, and even small children, who are increasingly turning aggressive, dissatisfied, ill-conditioned and insecure. Cognitive delays such as learning disabilities and lack of concentration are fast becoming the norm rather than the exception, even in affluent, well-educated households. Clearly, something is wrong somewhere.

Besides behavioural issues such as abnormal aggression, objectionable behaviour or xenophobia, the incidence of dyslexia, ADHD and other learning and cognitive disorders is sharply on the increase in our society, especially in upper middle class and affluent families. While overexposure to electronic media and unhealthy lifestyles are, to some extent, responsible for this, psychiatrists attribute this trend largely to the erosion of the secure home base and a loving environment for children to grow.

A child’s personality and behaviour is the direct outcome of her learnings from the environment in which she grows up. Thus, the importance of a happy, secure home and growing environment assumes the utmost significance to ensure happy and emotionally stable children.

In this age of overburdened lifestyles and clashing egos, the first requirement o f a happy home is a relaxed, comforting and harmonious environment replete with calmness, warmth, mutual understanding and support between its members, and a sense of security. Material comforts pale into insignificance beside the importance of love and emotional stability in fostering the child’s healthy growth and development.

Starting on the right note

A happy home, however, does not happen overnight, or by the wave of a magic wand. Yes, it does require the magic of love, understanding and support, but these are not traits that can be brought into a home just before the child arrives, along with the bassinet and the baby clothes. The atmosphere and the attitude that creates a happy home has to be fostered from a very early stage, much before the baby arrives—in fact, right from the time a couple enters married life and plans to bring a baby into the family at some future date.

Urban lifestyles today are highly demanding and depleting. Work pressures, cut-throat competition, economic uncertainty, social pressures, even the daily work commute and domestic problems—all take their toll on the stamina, vitality, and ultimately, the temperament and behaviour of those struggling with it. Is it any wonder, then, that children born and brought up in such a home atmosphere are aggressive or insecure?

In fact, it is well known that cognitive development starts before actual birth and the newborn child recognizes the parents’ voices. Child experts say that children whose parents are anxious, stressed or negative during the gestation  phase come into the world feeling unwanted and unloved, and are cranky, insecure, sickly babies who are likely to grow into problem children. On the other hand, if parents interact in a happy, positive way with the child, right from the gestation phase itself, the child comes into the world with the assurance that it is wanted and loved.

Given the state of our society today, it is all the more important for young couples to understand the importance of creating a happy and secure home environment if they wish to become parents. They need to learn how to relax in the face of work pressures, resolve their mutual differences without conflict or hostility, and make time in the middle of their busy schedules which they can devote to their children when they arrive in their lives. It is unrealistic to think—as most young parents do today—that they will work as hard as they can for the time being and make time for the child when it arrives. This simply does not happen. Unless they begin as they mean to continue, most young parents find themselves trapped in punishing schedules that they are unable to modify even after the baby arrives. As a result, the baby is struck with absentee parents, replaced by care centers or caretakers, and a home environment totally lacking in warmth, comfort or security.

A child’s bond with the parent or caretaker is one of the most important factors affecting her development. These early bonds establish a child’s attachment patterns, which affect her interactions both during childhood as well as throughout her entire life. A child who grows up with little physical contact or sense that her parents are going to meet her physical and emotional needs may grow up to be anxious, apprehensive to interact with others, or may display physical aggression. Given the importance of personal relationships on child development, parents can play an important role in their child’s growth by fostering healthy, positive interactions in all domains of the child’s life.

Parental involvement is one of the strongest influences in a child’s life that enables her to develop to her full potential. Parents need to be sensitive to their child’s needs and respond quickly. A child needs plenty of hugging, kissing and snuggling to give her the feeling of being protected and cherished. Parents need to use kind words and a warm tone with the child and provide an enriching and stimulating environment in which they engage in activities such as reading, laughing, dancing, singing and playing with their child through her vital years. According to the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), positive stimulation from the time of birth is a crucial factor in children’s development for a lifetime.

 

Building firm foundations

Several factors contribute to the child’s development in the early years. Parents have a vital role to play by becoming an informed and active participant in their child’s life. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports that neglect in early childhood negatively affects brain and cognitive development in the early years and has repercussions that last into adolescence and adulthood. Experiences in a child’s first years are the foundation of his intelligence, personality and emotions. When a child suffers from neglect and abuse, these experiences often lead to learning disabilities, and behavioral and mental health issues that can haunt a child for the rest of his life.

A secure and organized environment

Providing a safe, clean, calm and comforting environment is essential for the child’s development.  An environment where the child is exposed to physical or verbal abuse will negatively affect her development since stressful situations cause the body to release elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Extended periods of this hormone can make the brain vulnerable to processes that can destroy brain cells or lower the number of connections in the brain. Thus, unorganized homes and stressful lives that contribute to cognitive delays in their children.

So, parents need to be sensitive to the child’s needs and respond quickly. They should not hesitate to show the child affection by hugging, kissing and snuggling with her. This makes the child feels nurtured and loved and helps in her healthy development into an emotionally balanced, happy individual.

Positive and healthy stimulation

According to the World Health Organization, the amount of stimulation provided in a child’s environment can dramatically affect her brain and cognitive development. WHO states that this is especially important during the first three years of life because early childhood is the most intensive period of brain development during a person’s life. Parents need to take time out on a regular basis to do fun things with their children, such as playing board games, going for walks, picnics and other enjoyable outings, as well as watching good movies and reading together.

Proper nutrition

A child needs adequate, age-appropriate nutrition to allow her body and mind to develop properly. Fruits, veggies, whole grains, lean meats and water are all part of a well-balanced diet as the child gets older. Malnutrition due to excess of convenient junk foods, which are becoming a norm in today’s life, can lead to development issues and a failure to thrive. For this, the parents need to take a personal interest in the food habits of the family and ensure that the child is getting the right kind of nutrition. This will also make the child feel cared for and give her good habits for a lifetime.

Parental Bonding and behaviour modeling

A child’s bonds with her parents are her earliest link to life. Since the child’s very life springs from her parents, her relationship and interaction with her parents shapes her entire life patterns by establishing behavioural modes and reactions. It is thus crucial for the child to be brought up in a physically safe, mentally secure and emotionally cherishing environment to enable her to grow into a happy and stable human being.

The child also tends to take her parents as role models  and replicate their thought and behaviour patterns in her own life. For instance, a parent’s personal relationships with her spouse or friends can also affect a child’s development. If a child grows up witnessing his parents handle interpersonal conflicts through yelling, passive-aggressive comments or aggressive behaviors, she may model these interactions in her own life. Further, in situations where a child witnesses domestic violence, she may experience persistent negative effects, even if the child witnesses the violence when she is young.

On the other hand, a child who grows up in an environment of mutual support, mature and non-conflicted resolution of differences, healthy interactions between the parents as well as with the extended family and the community, he is more likely to model these positive behaviour patterns and become a happy, healthy and balanced child.

Traffic

Traffic snarls:

And so do we,

Caught in its toils:

Like little rats trapped

In a serpent’s coils.

****

Imprisoned in monsters of red, green, orange

Just ready to explode from hurry and worry;

While goods ‘n’ materials rush hither ‘n’ thither,

All making haste, all trying to scurry.

****

Rows of cars lined up end to end,

Stretching as far as the eye can see;

With rickshaws, carts, ‘tempos’, trucks ‘n’ buses

Thrown in, just to break the monotony.

****

In the midst of this bickering, barricaded blockage,

Running the gauntlet of the giants holding sway,

Miniscule rivulets of intrepid two-wheelers

Quietly wend their unobtrusive way.

****

While construction cranes, cement mixers, dumpers:

All feeding the cluttered, congested skyline,

Add their mite to the mindless, mind-numbing din:

The lament of an ancient city that was once divine!

****

In the Park

For the past year, under the neem tree in the park

He sits from early morning to after dark.

This monsoon he turned all of twelve years old;

At first, a little scared, but now growing bold;

Minding his two year old baby brother

All day as his young, widowed mother

Cleans and scrubs in others’ homes for their food;

Eking out a precarious livelihood.

For, if they want the family roof over their head,

They need to go out and earn their bread

While his three little sisters slave and sweat

At home to be part of the family set.

All of them taken out of school:

Their sharp brains slowly turning to wool.

***********

His mother says, Ramu is his name:

Called after Lord Rama of stupendous fame.

Day after day in the neem’s cool shade,

Making friends with all the household servants and maids,

He’s learning to lash out, defend and abuse;

To pilfer and bully, to give a glib excuse.

For the past year Life’s been teaching him

A set of lessons both sharp and grim:

That there’s no one near or dear enough

Who’ll pull with you when the going gets tough;

That it’s each for himself: let the most aggressive win,

And softness or weakness is the deadliest sin;

That rules are for fools when Life is so fraught,

And a deed becomes a crime only if one is caught.

******************

He’s now a public menace, to his mother’s grief and shock;

Fresh offences each day, while the baby runs amok.

Today he’s under the neem again, with dislocated jaw,

Covered with welts and bruises, as they all beat him raw.

For the once-shy Ramu has learnt lessons untold;

And today he tried to molest a seven year-old.

She screamed loud and long: they all rallied around

And in their outrage, began to kick and pound.

He sits there glowering, glaring resentfully through his pain

As his mother is warned: this shouldn’t happen again.

She tries to bring home the enormity of his crime:

He says he’ll jolly well make sure he isn’t caught next time.

The Ramus in their millions, might be underage in name,

But grow fangs before time and are serpents all the same …

******************

Jungle

December last

My yet-to-be-thirteen-year old asked,

“Do we HAVE to live here?

In this country? Forever?”

“OUR country,”

I corrected her mechanically,

Although my heart

Was not in it.

******

“Why?”

Her question took me back

To my childhood, my youth,

When friends dreamt of ‘foreign jobs’

And ‘domestic-minded’ ones

Of NRI husbands.

And I was the exception;

Full of ideas from books:

Of social conscience;

Of sticking by my motherland

When everyone disdained her;

Of living with my ‘natural identity’

In the ordinary land of my birth,

Rather than as an outsider

In another’s Fairyland.

I had fairly simple needs:

I could live happily in my own country.

I didn’t wish for a glittering life

At the cost of my identity.

*********

I never wavered from this viewpoint

Even as they catcalled

When we walked down streets

To the neighbourhood market;

When I wantonly blew my salary on auto rickshaws

To avoid the crowded buses

Full of groping, pinching, lecherous hands;

When I hurried home as darkness fell,

Not daring to look behind me

To see if those stealthy sounds were a stray animal

Or something more sinister;

When I  cycled with all my might

Into an open gate

And hid, with  pounding heart,

Behind a tarpulin in the garage

Till the stalking beast grew tired and went away;

When I kicked and bit

And clawed and stamped, and fell out,

Escaping with just scratches and bruises

From a wrongly labeled bus

Headed for the ‘undesirable’ part of the city.

*******

But today

When my young daughter asks me “Why”,

I have no reasons to give her.

For, the situation today

Is unspeakable; unimaginable.

And my motherland is now a jungle

Overrun with ravening beasts

Who profess devotion to the Divine feminine

But feel entitled to devour and defile

Her living embodiments.

*******

The matter of birthplace and identity

Is now dwarfed

By that of sheer survival;

Of security in broad daylight.

And if my young daughter

And others like her

Feel that their countrymen

Don’t deserve their women;

Can’t wait for an opportunity

To escape their motherland:

I have no words for them.

******

Today

A step has been taken

That might be the first on a path

That may lead to the taming

Of the ravening beasts

Who desecrate my motherland.

******

But as my now-teenager reminds me

(Of what I tell her all the time):

‘Responsibility’ is not just lip service;

It needs to be followed through

All the way

To its conclusion.

*******

And so ….

The divine feminine

In my motherland

Has her fingers crossed …

*******

In the context of the brutal  acts on December 16 2012 in Delhi and the death sentence pronounced for four of the perpetrators on September 13 2013.

A Barbaric Society

Forty five year old constable Subhash Chand Tomar succumbs to injuries received in the line of duty trying to control unruly mobs at Vijay Chowk and is cremated with full State honour and much fanfare. The whole episode makes prominent headlines and the wailing and railing of the martyr’s family about the culpability of the mob is aired on all the news channels.

However, even as the common man’s heart reaches out to the family of the deceased, empathising as much with their grief as that of the brutalized girl whose plight drove the mobs in the first place, the rumour mills claim that he was ‘put away’ by the powers that be – a conveniently dispensable pawn on the chessboard of national politics – thus trying to kill two birds with one stone: defuse the situation by diverting the public’s attention, and as a bonus, settle a score with that thorn in the flesh, the AAP.

After all, this is what happens in C-grade Bollywood and Tollywood movies – the powerful baddies have a ‘sidey character’ finished off quietly by a stooge smuggled into the good guys’ territory (in jail, if the baddies are gangsters, or in a mob if they are evil politicians) to discredit the cause of the righteous and leverage the situation to their own benefit. And reality in this country of ours has lately become so much like the particularly bad C-grade movies that it makes a horrible kind of grotesque sense to the populace!

A contrast is also being implicitly drawn between the twenty three year old gang rape victim who is still alive (despite having been mercilessly brutalized to the extent of having had her intestines pulled out) and for whom the nation is out on the streets, and the forty five year old constable, the sole earning member of his family, who could not be saved. However, rumour also has it that the twenty three year old is not really expected to survive – that she is simply ‘not being allowed to die’ till the time the current explosive situation can be defused.

Even as one concedes that there are arguments for both sides; that the entire situation could very well be genuine, and not a smoke screen at all – the survival of the gang rape victim and the demise of the constable (as well as the involvement of a worker from AAP) might not really be fiendish moves on the political chessboard, despite the manipulative juxtaposition of these incidents as they are offered up for public consumption, there appear  ‘eyewitness reports’ (dismissed by the Police) of Constable Subhash Chand Tomar having collapsed while walking, of his having no external injuries when he was rushed to RML Hostpital, and of the police having interfered in recording the testimony of the gang rape victim. And whatever be the rights and wrongs of the case, it is symptomatic of the demoralization of the Indian people and their disenchantment with the machinery of governance that they choose to believe the worst.

Conditioned mindsets

Women, as the traditionally subjugated section of our patriarchal societies, have long been encountering resistance to their empowerment by male muscle-flexing. And yes, the movies, not to mention the scriptures in every religion across the world, assign to women the role of homemaker, helpmeet and general object of ornamentation as well as convenience – to be guarded and protected by their menfolk in return, but never an equal. Any endeavour to overset this arrangement constitutes a threat to ‘manhood’ and needs to be summarily dealt with.

In counterpoint, any woman who manages to break these shibboleths and dares to step outside the home without male escort, or demonstrates her independence of the male influence in any way, is a ‘loose woman’, and thus, fair game for ogling eyes, catcalls and sexual overtures.

However, this, though entirely despicable and unacceptable in a civilized society, is where the conditioning fostered by the scriptures and the movies stops. Nowhere do any scriptures or movies vindicate, or even condone actual assault and brutalization. All of them, without exception, culminate in justice to the aggressor. But we humans tend to pick and choose whatever suits our mindsets and ignore the rest.

Barbaric racial memories

Abusing women (the physically vulnerable section of the populace) sexually by way of revenge, or as an expression of victory, or simply as a vent for class-based or sexual frustration is probably a more deeply ingrained feature of our pre-civilization past, which resurfaces in societies that demonstrate tolerance for such barbarism.

One form of such tolerance, which we have been indignant witnesses to over the past few years, is tacit support from obsolete-minded, senile public figures laying down norms for an increasingly younger demographic, who situate the responsibility of such crimes on to the victims. Insensate, ridiculous statements such as ‘ninety per cent rapes are consensual’; ‘if women step out unescorted by males they should be prepared for this’; ‘why did she have to step out of the house after dark?’ ‘with her clothes and her body language she was probably asking for it’ and the like, have been thick on the ground, from those whose job it is to look to the safety and security of the people.

Failure of governance

The other is the criminals’ blithe confidence in the dysfunctionality of law and order enforcement and the entrenched apathy of governance in the country. The sheer impunity and barbarism of this and other such acts is a clear indication of what the people of the country think of its authorities. Their confidence is vindicated by the fact that one of the animals responsible for the crime, handed over to the police by the crowds, was let off on account of being a ‘minor’ – no doubt, the better to raise armies of ‘minor’ rapists in the future! The mob frenzy is an outpouring of anguish; an expression of the breaking of the camel’s back; of a people who feel they have nothing left to lose.

In no other society with even the most basic claim to civilization is such blatant brutality tolerated. Even as the current situation causes all such transgresses, past and present, to be aired, the authorities wake up enough to FINALLY express regret and sorrow, and throw half-baked sops to the public, in the form of Committees to be instituted – to look into the case for change in laws, to look into complaints against the functioning of the police. Past experience does not encourage the people to be very hopeful of positive outcomes from these Committees, but time will tell. The whole situation is rendered all the more ironic by the fact that the CM of Delhi as well as the head of the ruling party in government are women, and the Prime Minister, as well as apathetic, sanctimonious ministers and politicians across political parties have daughters of their own!

Meanwhile, what HAS happened is that where earlier a large proportion of NRIs with daughters used to make tracks for India as their kids grew up (to raise their daughters in a sanskaari society), today NRIs with daughters choose never to return, even if they want to, preferring to keep their daughters safe from the barbaric society of their motherland – from the sons of Bharat Mata, who do not deserve their women!

The Super Salesman

Whenever I have to open the door to a salesperson or answer a telecall in the middle of a busy schedule, I try to remember grandma’s words: “They are doing a job most people avoid. Try not to be rude as a gesture of thanks for being able to earn money doing something you enjoy.” And so, I do my best to suppress irritation and decline the proffered treats, if not cordially, at least without being brusque.

And then, one sweltering June afternoon, the Super-Salesman happened!

He stood there on the doormat as I opened the door: a young boy in his late teens or early twenties with a thousand megawatt smile plastered to his sweat-soaked face, obviously fresh out of one of the sales institutes that have mushroomed all over the country over the last  decade and a half.

“Good afternoon Ma’am. I’ve come from XYZ Bank — about the women’s card.”

“What ‘women’s card’?” I ask, all at sea.

“The one our telecaller told you about. She told you I’d be coming over today to get your application form filled!” he says reproachfully.

I motion him into a garden chair and switch on the fan. I remember the phonecall he’s alluding to, and remember, equally clearly, informing the telecaller that I was not interested in the offer.

“I told your telecaller not to send anyone over because I do not want a women’s card.”

“How can that be, Madam?” he demands aggressively. “She told me you had asked her to send me over. And I’ve travelled right across Delhi in this scorching heat! It’s taken me an hour and a half to get here!”

“I sympathise with you for your wasted trip,” I tell him kindly, “but your telecaller made a mistake. I told her clearly that I do not want your product and that she should NOT send anyone over.”

“That is not possible!” he blusters at me. “You are lying!”

“Excuse me?” I suppress my irritation and ask glacially.

“Don’t take that hi-fi tone with me … Ma’am!” he says with awful emphasis. “You people sit in your air-conditioned houses and think it’s a joke to make us go around all over the city in this heat at your whims. I’m telling you, this will not work with me. You HAVE to take this women’s card!”

I stare at him in disbelief for a moment, and then summon to my aid all the authority of my experience with college kids in my workshops.

“Listen bachche (kid),” I put him in his place. “Trying to browbeat me isn’t going to get you anywhere. And since you are so stuck on Truth and lies, ask your telecaller to play for you the recording of her conversation with me from yesterday … I believe ‘all your calls are recorded for internal audit and training purposes’, as they keep telling us?”

He looks deflated. I take pity on him and tell him to sit while I get him some cold water to drink. I come back with the water, to find him talking busily on his phone—presumably to the telecaller who sent him here on this wild goose chase. I recall a friend who is usually brusque with salespersons and telecallers. I can just hear her saying: “See, that’s what comes of being polite where politeness is uncalled for. When everyone else is downright rude to them, they think anyone who is polite is a soft touch and can be bullied into falling in with them. That telecaller would never have tried to pull this on you if you hadn’t been so polite”.

The young man turns around and accepts the water with a grateful smile. His whole personality seems to have changed completely. He thanks me politely and apologizes for the misunderstanding.

“Er… Ma’am,” he says hesitantly. “I have a small request …”

“I do NOT want you women’s card …”

“No, no! I understand that. It’s just that since I’ve come all this way in such weather, could you at least respond to one of our surveys, so that I have something to show for this trip?”

“Of course,” I assure him. “Give me the form and I’ll fill it.”

“Oh no, Ma’am. Don’t trouble yourself. I’ll ask the questions and write your answers,” he says.

“All right,” I agree, and he proceeds to ask me a number of questions. They seem to be a little strange and unlike any survey I have ever come across, but I let that pass. When I refuse to answer personal questions, he does not press me. This done, he holds out the form to me and indicates a box at the bottom where I need to sign.

I’m perplexed. What kind of a survey form is this, that requires the signature of the respondent? I twitch the form from his reluctant hand and discover, to my wrath, that it is an application form for his damn women’s card!

“Just give me a minute while I call the police,” I tell him coldly.

He looks blank.

“You have filled out this application form on my behalf under false pretences and were trying to get it signed fraudulently. I don’t know what the exact penalty for this kind of fraud is, but let’s find out!”

“Hey Ma’am!” he calls out, alarmed, as I turn towards the house. “We have to do all this to sell our products. Otherwise how will we make a living?”

“By cheating and fraud?”

“Oh! What’s the use? You rich people can’t understand. What is one card more or less to you? But for me, it’s another commission. Just forget it!”

And snatching the form from my hand, he walks away as fast as his legs can carry him!

‘Celebrating’ the Girl Child?

posted on http://www.kiinjal.blogspot.com on 11th October 2011:

Today is October 11, 2012: The International Day of the Girl Child. A plea, rather than a celebration, against the backdrop of ever-increasing atrocities against women and the girl child.

An expression of shame for being a society where sons are perceived as assets for being members of the physically stronger, financially and socially empowered sex and daughters as financial liabilities and a potential source of social embarrassment and shame for their parents.

For being a bestial society where women, being disadvantaged solely in terms of sheer brute force, are perceived as fair game for myriad forms of molestation, be it against their dignity in the form of catcalls and ‘eve-teasing’ as they walk down a street or in a marketplace; or against their bodies and souls in the form of physical/ sexual abuse, both marital and non-marital; or against their self-esteem in the form of mental and emotional violence: in homes, in educational institutions, in workplaces.

For being a nation where the states with the highest levels of prosperity are also the ones with the most ludicrously skewed sex ratios.

For being a country where the affluent practice sex selection in conception of babies and sex conversion of their girl children.

For being a people who worship the Mother Goddess and simultaneously murder their daughters before birth and brutalize, humiliate, degrade, subjugate or commoditize them if they manage to be born.

For being a country of bigots and zealots who quote Manu and Tulsidas, shorn of their contexts, to form Khaps that bolster their fragile sense of superiority and give them a platform to validate and legitimize their power plays through abuse of women.

SCENARIO I: A highly educated professional from a ‘good family’ is physically abused by her ‘better half’ because she went for a cup of coffee with colleagues from office and his mom had to have her evening tea made by the domestic help.

SCENARIO II: A wealthy business tycoon’s trophy wife is not ‘allowed’ the time or space to recover fully from a hysterectomy because he needs his picture perfect hostess within a week of her surgery (those designer labels and jewels are, after all, investment, and his business socializing cannot wait upon the vagaries of something as trivial as her health!).

SCENARIO III: A perfectly sane, healthy, capable and self-supporting woman lies about visiting her parents or personal friends to avoid irrational showdowns at ‘home’.

SCENARIO IV: A highly qualified professional, who runs her home, works full-time at a high-profile job, and handles the wherewithal of raising her children single-handedly, is put down and constantly criticized by a spouse still steeped in the age-old myths about male superiority, whose fragile ago is bruised by her lack of dependence on him (which he would have resented, in any case).

SCENARIO V: A hitherto hardworking, responsible dhobi (washerman) takes to drink when his wife delivers their fourth girl child: the astrologer had assured him it would be a son, otherwise he would have had the damn thing aborted! The old ladies in the families he works for bless him as he helps them up from chairs or runs small errands for them: “May the next one be a son”.

SCENARIO VI: A group of girls coming home from the school bus stop are accosted by a stranger who ‘flashes’ at them and calls out obscenities. They dare not mention this to their parents out of consideration for their trauma and fear of paranoid parental supervision. They carry large safety pins and their grandmothers’ knitting needles to ‘dissuade’ anyone who gets ideas about coming closer. Then, one day, four out of the five happen to be absent from school and the one who was present falls prey to the flasher and his cronies, who perceive the fact of her walking alone on the street as an invitation.

SCENARIO VII: A middle class professional is at the end of his tether because he has two professionally qualifies, good-looking, well-earning daughters of ‘marriageable age’ and the ‘going rate’ for halfway ‘decent’ grooms in his community is way beyond his reach. He wishes his daughters had been more ‘proactive’ and found partners for themselves. Odium from the community would have died out in time, after all!

SCENARIO VIII: The middle class parents of a girl married into a middle class family have lost their sleep and appetite because they know their daughter is miserable. She is constantly subjugated, derided and physically abused by her marital family. However, they are not in a position to do anything. They are financially unable to feed the avarice of her in-laws to induce them to let up on her. They have another daughter to be married off, so, bringing the first one back home from that hell hole is out of the question as well. They simply can’t afford it. Besides, what respectable family will consent to accept the younger one if the elder sister leaves her marital home? Further, even after the younger one is married off, how can they bring their abused daughter home? Their sons would not be willing to have a married sister foisted on them for life! The abused daughter holds on to life till her younger sister is married off. Three months later she hangs herself to escape her miserable existence.

SCENARIO IX: Two daughters-in-law in an extremely wealthy family are mentally and emotionally abused on the occasion of every festival as the ‘gifts’ from their parents are held up to ridicule and scorn. The girls’ parents get regular anxiety attacks weeks before every festival and celebration, trying to live up to expectations from their daughters’ families, which, of course, can never be met. It is a game of one-upmanship, after all. It is their due for having birthed sons, and those who have been cursed with daughters (no doubt, as a result of sins committed in previous births) deserve to be put down and penalized!

SCENARIO X: Just a few days ago, a highly educated, professional young woman in my neighbourhood watched fondly as her nine year old brat vandalized an elderly neighbour’s lovingly cultivated plants. As a friend and I request her to stop her son, she turns and rends us: “You won’t understand, because you don’t have a son. Daughters listen when you tell them something. Sons are different. You need to let them do exactly as they please. These are only plants, after all!”

It would seem that those who wish to avoid the ‘burden’ of the girl child have reason, after all! How many people would see a ravening beast heading their way and not try to side-step it? How many would actually choose to lock horns with it?

And violence against women and the aversion for the girl child it is not really about men as aggressors and women as victim at all. Members of a society behave in ways that society rewards them for. In that sense, it is more about unacceptable societal mindsets springing from patriarchal systems that defined such roles for women as to place them in a position of subjugation as the contexts changed.

Is this perhaps why women in our society suffer from low self-esteem and spend a large part of their lives apologizing for being women? But we need to realize that times have changed. The contexts of societal systems have changed. It is high time our mindsets too changed in tandem.

Along with the need for men to be sensitized, there is also need for women to come to a realization of their own strength and potential; to empower themselves on the mental and emotional levels. Else, conformity to the anachronistic expectations of traditional patriarchal societal norms will, as always, set the tone for our daughters’ conditioning and psychological patterns that would haunt them all the lives.

Of ‘Personal’ and ‘Institutionalized’ Corruption

posted on http://www.kiinjal.blogspot.com on

Saturday, August 20, 2011

India is up in arms. The populace is out on the streets in large numbers to unite under a 74 year-old satyagrahi who wants a ‘Jan Lokpal’, or an Ombudsman with teeth, as against the government proposed milk and water one. Of the protesting crowds few really know anything about the ‘Lokpal’ or the ‘Jan Lokpal’, under which banner they gave been united. So, it is natural to ask whether all of this is one gigantic farce.

To any thinking person the validity, or indeed, the rationale of a fourth body of government, or a Lokpal (‘Jan’ or otherwise) who would necessarily come from our own corrupt society is a matter of the gravest doubt. And even if the ‘Jan Lokpal’ were to materialize, history stands witness to the corrupting proclivities of ‘power’, and it is not unrealistic to say that it would not be long before there is a demand for a fifth body of government!

However, that having been said, it cannot be denied that the angst and the frustration of the people out on the streets and those expressing their support to the movement in various ways, is very real. And if one cares to listen carefully, one realizes that only a select few are actually talking about the Lokpal. The populace of the country en masse is voicing their support ‘against corruption by politicians’.

Why only politicians?

A thinking person, at this juncture, is bound to ask, what about corruption at the grassroots? Why pitch on politicians alone? Why not clean your own fingers before pointing at others’ spots?

What about people pulling strings or paying money to avoid a traffic ticket; to square the police in a hit-and-run; to get their child admitted into schools, colleges and professional institutes; to avoid a municipality challan for littering or for mosquito-infested water around the house; to get a ration card, a PAN card, a passport or a driving licence? What about the tacit consent, and even encouragement to corruption implicit in the high level of matrimonial eligibility of those who have a good proportion of unaccounted income, be it a tax-evading entrepreneur or a bribe-taking government employee?

What about milkmen diluting milk; vegetable vendors tipping the scales or palming off bad produce; shopkeepers short-changing the public and maintaining false bills; government employees presenting false tickets and bills to claim LTC and other payments that are realizable on actuals, misappropriating perks like transportation and various cash allowances for personal use; media persons accepting ‘gifts’ from industrialists and other vested interests in lieu of favourable stories that gloss over unpleasant facts? Let he who has never sinned cast the first stone!

Corruption at the micro and macro levels

The answer is yes, there has always been corruption—in our very fibre. It is not right or justified by any means. As the older generation says, ‘It’s always been there like a pinch of salt in the dough … a sort of leaven.’ And yes, we need to address it, primarily through self discipline, and a determination not to give in to convenience and take the easy way out by greasing the wheels of government machinery. The laws that can bring this about are in place, but it needs the will of the people to make sure that they are enforced. It can be done, and is, indeed, being done by determined individuals who make it their priority. However, the fact remains, that even though it is regrettable and needs to be redressed, it is, nevertheless, corruption at a ‘personal’ or ‘micro’ level, each instance of which affects a handful of people. Micro level corruption very much exists, and is not right, but it is limited in its scope.

For the past few decades, however, the citizens of the country have been facing a steadily increasing level of ‘institutionalized’ or ‘macro level’ corruption that originates in high places. And this form of corruption is anything but limited in its scope.

The kickbacks in national and international deals, the misappropriation of public funds for various schemes, the blatant disregard for the law of the land exhibited by those holding positions of public trust and their families— it all happens on a mammoth scale and diverts public money from public spending to the secret accounts of a select few: Money that should have been used for the welfare of the citizens. Money that should have boosted subsidies to regulate the astronomical rise of fuel and food prices in the wake of the global economic downturn. Money that might have regulated the out-of-control spiral of inflation that is sucking the common man in like a cyclone.

The whiplash of inflation

With the misappropriation of money meant for public spending, the government is forced to resort to highly inflationary neo-liberal economic policies, which render the day-to-day lives of the populace hideous. The ‘people’s representatives’, with their cars running on fuel funded by the government (read taxpayers’ money), their canteens scandalously subsidized and their every wish for luxuries fulfilled by lobbying sycophants, remain insulated from the lash of inflation. Plus, of course, they have their loot in their secret foreign accounts to fall back upon: money that, as recent events have shown us, no one can make them disgorge, even if they are prosecuted and have to spend some time in discomfort. The ‘representatives of the people’ avail regular foreign junkets while the common man, intimidated by the expense, cuts down on the quantity of vegetables and fruits his family consumes and even the middle class debates how to avoid attending a dear cousin’s wedding.

With the common man writhing under the whiplash of inflation, which is, to a large extent, a direct outcome of this increasing ‘macro-level corruption’, the gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ has been widening rapidly. The crime rate has burgeoned as frustration, born out of highly divergent standards of living, brings out the worst in those existing on the fringes of society. And the people of India, so far acquiescent, have been forced against the ropes, as they feel totally stripped by their ‘elected representatives’ of all financial, physical and moral security.

And so, when an Anna Hazare, with his track record of successful social activism (water harvesting and anti-liquor drive in his own village, RTI activism at the national level, etc.) comes along and suggests a ‘Jan Lokpal’ as a panacea for corruption in high places, the people are bound to follow—not for the Lokpal, but against ‘macro-level’ corruption, because they have reached a pitch where they have very little to lose. His agitation has the right mix of populism, media savvy and a Gandhian reference to find a connect with the people.

One needs to read one’s history and remember that Queen Marie Antionette’s reported remark ‘let them eat cakes if they have no bread’ was the igniting spark for the French Revolution!