Vaidehi’s ‘Akku’: The ‘Mad Woman’ As Reaction To Trauma In A Patriarchy
Dr Vaidehi’s classic story Akku examines the ‘mad woman’ as a product of trauma inflicted by an unequal, patriarchal society, adapted to screen as Ammachi Yemba Nenapu.
October 10th is observed as World Mental Health Day by World Health Organization and several other international agencies. October is also Mental Health Awareness Month.
Kendriya Sahitya Akademi awardee Dr Vaidehi’s classic Kannada short story, ‘Akku’ is worth remembering around October 10th, for its exploration of mental health issues as products of social inequalities and injustices.
Adapted into film, plays, and also in textbooks
‘Akku’ has certainly not been forgotten, and has been incorporated into textbooks, films (Ammachi Yemba Nenapu streaming on Amazon Prime currently) and plays recently.
Mental health issues a combination of social factors and brain chemistry
Nevertheless, its importance lies in reminding us of one timeless truth: mental health issues do not occur outside of society; they cannot be separated from situations and social situations.
Scientific studies that view depression as the result of chemical process in the brain alone, steer attention away from societal inequalities that trigger depression. Whereas, women’s mental health issues suggest that this might be putting the cart before the horse. After all, our brains are responding to the worlds they encounter.
A synthesis of both positions is now widely recognized: mental ill-health is a result of both societal and biological factors.
Akku’s understanding of patriarchy
In Akku, we meet with an unstable woman, whose instability originates in her misfortunes created and sustained by society. Early on, we are told that Akku’s dumbness was not there from the very beginning.
Even as we see Akku’s own sharp tongue, meaningless pursuits, and others’ mockery of her, Akku’s intelligence shines forth.
Akku’s seemingly mindless questioning of the narrator’s dressing up for her wedding reveals her deep understanding of patriarchy and its normalization in the institution of marriage. We see that Akku may not have coped well with the injustices her marriage dealt her, but her comprehension of the issues at hand are in no way flawed. If anything, they are more accurate than the romanticized understanding of marriage other young women in the family have.
The so-called unstable Akku clearly reasons, even as she pulls out flowers from the hair of the bride-to-be: “Enough of this beautification! If he marries you because of your beauty, for certain, he will not stay by you, write that on the wall!”
Muddling the line between sanity and insanity
Retaliating against those who snigger at her, Akku inadvertently reveals a hidden affair, another sharp truth that shows that neither her moral world nor her power of observation is flawed.
As the story progresses, we meet other women who have suffered due to wayward men and Akku herself has fought off a neighbor who has attempted to assault her. We are then told that Akku’s husband had followed a sanyasi/renunciant deserting her. Akku’s make-believe pregnancies reveal a series of unfulfilled desires that turn up as traumas.
The word psycho-somatic gains a world of meanings in the story. For all her insanity, Akku promptly rejects her husband when he returns, showing strength and courage that elude many women in bad marriages.‘Akku’ muddies the lines between sanity and insanity, showing how social inequalities can have tragic consequences for the powerless. It leaves us wondering why women are thought of as mad even when they speak the truth or, especially when speak the truth.
‘Akku’ is a story that men and women of upcoming generations must read and carry forward as a part of our collective literary and feminist inheritance.
This article uses C Vimala Rao’s translation of the Kannada story.
Sushumna Kannan is the author of Hinduism and Violence, forthcoming, 2021.
Dr Vaidehi’s classic story Akku examines the ‘mad woman’ as a product of trauma inflicted by an unequal, patriarchal society, adapted to screen as Ammachi Yemba Nenapu.
October 10th is observed as World Mental Health Day by World Health Organization and several other international agencies. October is also Mental Health Awareness Month.
Kendriya Sahitya Akademi awardee Dr Vaidehi’s classic Kannada short story, ‘Akku’ is worth remembering around October 10th, for its exploration of mental health issues as products of social inequalities and injustices.
Adapted into film, plays, and also in textbooks
‘Akku’ has certainly not been forgotten, and has been incorporated into textbooks, films (Ammachi Yemba Nenapu streaming on Amazon Prime currently) and plays recently.
Mental health issues a combination of social factors and brain chemistry
Nevertheless, its importance lies in reminding us of one timeless truth: mental health issues do not occur outside of society; they cannot be separated from situations and social situations.
Scientific studies that view depression as the result of chemical process in the brain alone, steer attention away from societal inequalities that trigger depression. Whereas, women’s mental health issues suggest that this might be putting the cart before the horse. After all, our brains are responding to the worlds they encounter.
A synthesis of both positions is now widely recognized: mental ill-health is a result of both societal and biological factors.
Akku’s understanding of patriarchy
In Akku, we meet with an unstable woman, whose instability originates in her misfortunes created and sustained by society. Early on, we are told that Akku’s dumbness was not there from the very beginning.
Even as we see Akku’s own sharp tongue, meaningless pursuits, and others’ mockery of her, Akku’s intelligence shines forth.
Akku’s seemingly mindless questioning of the narrator’s dressing up for her wedding reveals her deep understanding of patriarchy and its normalization in the institution of marriage. We see that Akku may not have coped well with the injustices her marriage dealt her, but her comprehension of the issues at hand are in no way flawed. If anything, they are more accurate than the romanticized understanding of marriage other young women in the family have.
The so-called unstable Akku clearly reasons, even as she pulls out flowers from the hair of the bride-to-be: “Enough of this beautification! If he marries you because of your beauty, for certain, he will not stay by you, write that on the wall!”
Muddling the line between sanity and insanity
Retaliating against those who snigger at her, Akku inadvertently reveals a hidden affair, another sharp truth that shows that neither her moral world nor her power of observation is flawed.
As the story progresses, we meet other women who have suffered due to wayward men and Akku herself has fought off a neighbor who has attempted to assault her. We are then told that Akku’s husband had followed a sanyasi/renunciant deserting her. Akku’s make-believe pregnancies reveal a series of unfulfilled desires that turn up as traumas.
The word psycho-somatic gains a world of meanings in the story. For all her insanity, Akku promptly rejects her husband when he returns, showing strength and courage that elude many women in bad marriages.‘Akku’ muddies the lines between sanity and insanity, showing how social inequalities can have tragic consequences for the powerless. It leaves us wondering why women are thought of as mad even when they speak the truth or, especially when speak the truth.
‘Akku’ is a story that men and women of upcoming generations must read and carry forward as a part of our collective literary and feminist inheritance.
This article uses C Vimala Rao’s translation of the Kannada story.
Sushumna Kannan is the author of Hinduism and Violence, forthcoming, 2021.
Divorce On H4 Visa Can Go Horribly Wrong For Women: Here’s What You Might Encounter
Divorce on H4 visa can go completely downhill for dependent women who are unfamiliar with their new country.
In 2017, my article Wives On H4 Visa – How Do You Deal With The Depression That Dependency Causes? was published here. A Seattle based lawyer read it and contacted me to become an expert witness to testify in the divorce case of her Indian origin client.
I bring you this case study to illustrate the problems and perils of life not only on the H4 visa but also the EAD. As it turns out, the EAD solves some problems, but not for all. Not equally.
Nina’s story about divorce on H4 visaFrom Nina’s family’s point of view her life was ‘settled.’ She had been married and sent off to Seattle, America, and the couple had a baby. But then, all that glitters is not gold. Nina had been diagnosed with depression and was on medication. The details of her case made it evident that there was so much unexplored in relation to what was happening to those on the H4 visa, some of whom were now receiving the EAD (Employment Authorization Document).
Nina’s negotiating power within the marriage had not increased with an EAD, and it would not until she got a job, brought in money, and healed from her depression. With a degree from India, her chances for employment were low and therefore she was headed for a divorce.
In Nina’s case, the power balance tipped in favour of the husband as the person earning, but they had had a child recently and were now on the path of a custody battle as well.
Nina’s attorney contacted me after reading my article on wives on the H4 Visa. This had primarily focused on how the power balance in a couple with a wife on the H4 visa made her completely dependent on her husband, crippling her self-esteem and sending her into a deep depression.
Nina’s attorney wanted to ask me more about the depression connected with being on an H4 visa. When I decided to testify, we did not know, of course, that Nina would lose custody of her four-year old child. An unthinkable turn of events for numerous Indian women.
A controlling, insensitive husbandThere were several problems with Nina’s marriage, but few can be articulated if one did not access the language of feminism and equality within marriage. The language Nina used (in her quiet confident voice that sounded on my phone), instead, was simply that it was a breach of trust. Of the several things her husband had done, these pained her the most:
(1) curtailing her financial freedom to the point that every expense had to be justified
(2) fixing cameras all over the house on the pretext of watching their child but monitoring all her activities
(3) Tracking and recording her Facebook activity to accuse her later of this and that
(4) Accusing her of watching too much TV and being a slacker.
Simply put, he had been too controlling.
To my mind, watching too much TV and disinterest in learning car-driving are classic symptoms of the H4 visa situation. With no outside life, no job, few friends, and neighbors who do not necessarily socialize, TV and internet are the only things a spouse on the H4 can do! This cannot be an accusation when one is caring for the child all by oneself.
Attached to a child that needs constant attention, sleepless, and with zero adult time, TV is often the only me-time for young mothers.
Sunetra, another new mom there also on an H4 visa, says that in the first year of caring for her velcro-baby, she survived only because she got a TV installed in the bedroom and watched movies with muted settings, subtitles on. No wonder, then, that in the famous Australian dramedy on early motherhood, The Let Down, the protagonist makes a strong argument for escaping into quality Danish drama and efficient broadband! When there is no job, there is no motivation to learn car-driving.
The problems in Nina’s marriageNina’s husband had raised two other objections. She could not feed their child pasta, only Indian food. And, she had to put the baby to sleep in another room. Both these seem trivial.
The first one is unacceptable because kids imitate other kids. If you live in the US, your kid is bound to like a few things you never had in your childhood. Plus, sometimes any food is better than no food. Secondly, hundreds of Indian immigrant parents in the USA retain ways of child-rearing that they subconsciously learnt from their parents. In fact, it is suspected many American parents too co-sleep with their children but do not admit to doing it. But differences in parenting styles makes a justified case for divorce in the west—it is likely that Nina’s husband used it as a tactic to procure divorce.
Nina did not want a divorce; she did not want to break the marriage. But she was hurt by her husband’s breach of trust and was angry at his inability to understand her position.
The difficulties faced by Nina in a job searchSometimes, young mothers need time off from jobs and job search. But husbands can think that their wives are unable to procure a job on the EAD because they are incapable of doing so. The truth is that only half the number of those with EAD have been able to secure jobs, a fact that has emerged on many H4 visa discussion forums.
Those in non-STEM professions have had little success, according to one case in a study released by SAAPRI. Nina had a masters in HR, neither entirely IT-based nor outside of it.
Since Indians are not absorbed into non-IT industries regularly, employers have a distrust of Indian educational degrees. Also, USA has a different way of doing things, which requires obtaining a degree in the country to procure a job. And job placements are so tied to college degrees that it is often impossible to procure jobs outside of the college placement cell.
But husbands who force their wives to work can rarely comprehend the gravity of this because they never face these obstacles themselves. Nina’s husband, at one point of time, wanted her to work as a solution for her depression. Just any work, he insisted. She ended up as a janitor in a restaurant that initially promised her a server’s position. She did not want to work in these positions having obtained a master’s degree—they felt demeaning.
Legal issues faced in divorce on H4 visa: US lawyers have no idea of Indian cultural practices
Lawyers and the court system in the USA do not know much about situations faced by immigrant families. They cannot understand or be responsive to Indian cultural practices and its nuances, although in theory, they must consult the law books of India and USA when judging cases involving Indian Americans.
US or Indian govts not sensitive to needs of wives facing divorce on H4 visa
The classic case of Neerja Saraph Vs. Jayant Saraph 1994 shows just this: divorce on H4 visa was granted through ex-parte because the wife could not appear at court.
In many cases, wives on H4 with no income had no funds to book tickets to travel back and forth to the USA to attend court proceedings—the Indian government does not recognize such divorces anymore to help such women.
US legal system clueless about Indian women’s reality on H4 visa
When I was testifying on Zoom (thanks to COVID-19), I mentioned how getting degrees from the US was a point of contention in immigrant marriages because US education is expensive. Who pays for it, the wives’ parents or the husband was often an uneasy question.
Nina’s husband’s lawyer was taken aback and began questioning me if I knew this family personally—an expert witness must not know the family personally or the full details of the case. Little did he know that this question bugged almost all immigrant families with a spouse on H4 visa.
Women facing divorce on H4 visa unaware of legalities
Women who know the complexities of filing for divorce on H4 visa do what an acquaintance did. Jayashree took her child and flew to India on the pretext of a vacation and filed for a divorce from India. Indian courts are biased towards granting child custody to the mother, which worked in her favour. Unfortunately, Nina was caught unaware.
Nina needed a lawyer who could argue that co-sleeping with children was common in India—but she had an American lawyer. Her American lawyer, however, made several efforts to get experts who could make the culture argument, but there was no guarantee that it would be understood by the American court system.
My advice to Nina was that she consult South Asian Women’s organizations in her city to accentuate the culture argument, but Nina was distrusting of everybody, including her lawyer! She only trusted her parents, but knowing nothing of American culture, they were of no help in fighting the case. Distrust of everybody is another classic symptom of the H4 situation—the person has no acculturation and is unable to determine if she is being helped or hurt.
How things went downhill: The husband tried to take advantage of Nina’s legal situation
When things went bad in the marriage, Nina and her husband started seeing a marriage counsellor. Unfortunately, the counsellor sided with the husband, did not reveal his plans of divorcing Nina, as she is required to, and acted with bias when she repeatedly advised Nina to visit India.
Nina refused to do so since her child was still young. Nina’s husband had not procured an Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card or passport for the child to enable an India visit. His plan was that when Nina goes to India, he files for a divorce in the USA and that would make it very hard for Nina to come back, to fight the divorce case and the custody battle.
Nina’s refusal to go to India compelled her husband to file for divorce when she was in the USA. He had to move out and pay her maintenance.
US laws about child care worked against Nina
But during the divorce proceedings, a court-appointed official evaluated Nina and declared her an unfit mother.
Nina’s defense was that this evaluation was erroneous; she was a fit mother because the child had never suffered from even minor illnesses under her care; she could not have been doing more.
The questionnaire that this official brought in had yes-no questions. What America is aiming to eliminate through such questionnaires is the human error aspect in its child protective services system that fail children from parental abuse, as in the case of Gypsee Blanchard.
A lack of awareness of Indian culture
We could even argue that the questionnaire was culturally biased. Indian parents co-sleep with their children at the cost of the mother’s sleep. The level of sacrifice that Indian parents make throughout their child’s lives is unknown in American culture.
In sharp contrast, American children move out or live separately when they grow up—adulthood has initiation rites and is complete when one’s offspring is well-adjusted—procures job, marries etc. In India, on the other hand, children may never move out and are cared for by parents at different stages of life in different ways.
So, where India leans one way in parenting style, America leans to the other according to its own cultural norms. Each has advantages and disadvantages; neither is perfect.
The question of custody
Unfortunately, however, in Nina’s case, the questionnaire worked against her, especially when, as she told me “the judge was not listening carefully during trial.” Not surprising, as the judges fall back on the filed documents to speak to them.
Nina’s lawyers might have disproved she was depressed but there remained the matter of child custody. That is, Nina’s depression, whether from unemployment or from post-partum, were both extraneous and would rectify when her situation changed. So, how do US courts decide child custody?
The difficult alternative Nina was givenMy advice to Nina to secure more time with her child was that she must take up the two-year offer her husband had made.
Her husband’s offer was that he would seek a separation and not divorce her for two years, so that she could continue to stay on her spouse visa in the US. His condition, however, was that she had to obtain a degree and a job in that time and secure her future in the USA. After this, he would divorce her, she would be on an H1B visa and they would share the custody of their child.
But Nina was skeptical this would work given the uncertainties that H1B workers suffer from and her own experience with unemployment in the USA.
I felt that Nina was too protected by her parents to be living alone in the US with no familial support. Not all women are made the same, and if the men in our lives cannot understand this, what other meaning is there to a marriage?
Divorce on H4 visa hard on dependent Indian womenIn a time when American women are finding divorcing during COVID-19 very hard, a woman on H4 visa is twice as likely to feel nervous.
Nina’s question was, “Why can’t he come to India where both parents can work and have equal custody? Why do I need to re-educate myself?” But because the child is an American citizen, the court system was likely biased towards protecting an American citizen.
“Why is everyone asking me to adjust although he is such a bad person?” Nina’s exasperation resonates with so many women. Obviously, Nina’s husband did not want to head back to India. Why would he? Not when everything was working well for him! Since Nina and her husband could not come to a consensus, the divorce case became contested and went into trial.
What worked against Nina was also likely the Hague convention that India has not signed. What this means is that if one parent abducts their child across international borders, the child can be returned, and the parent prosecuted. If only the husband had allowed for an OCI card!
Nina could have taken the advice of the Ministry of External Affairs Booklet’s advice to go for an uncontested divorce. But she was too angry and upset for that. When I asked her if she would be alright if the judgment rules her child to stay in the US, she just said that she knew something good was going to happen. She just felt it strongly and that she would take a chance with the judge. This despite her own lawyer’s frustrated declaration that if she won, “it would be a miracle!”
My own advice to Nina was to consider the cultural context. For instance, if the case had been filed in India, her Indian lawyers would have advised her to file a 498A to get justice. Similarly, Nina had to do something about child custody that was US culture sensitive. She had to offer a win-win solution, so the courts perceived her as prioritizing her child’s well-being. Child welfare is of paramount importance at US courts. But Nina was adamant, she left it to chance. That is a mistake in the USA, where everything is planned, reasoned out and anticipated well-in-advance. Nina had to think through the worst-case scenario and move forward. Instead, she was optimistic and hopeful.
Judgement ruled against NinaWhen the judgment ruled that the child stay with the father, Nina perceived it as harsh. Nina’s husband is ordered to buy her tickets for her 2-3 visits per year until the child turns six. At 12, the child can choose a parent. Being on an H4 visa, Nina must now return to India as soon as the divorce formalities are through.
The tragedy of this case is that what caused Nina’s depression in the first place, is also the cause for her loss of child custody and her divorce—the H4 visa. Clearly, nobody showed Nina’s husband this article published on Women’s Web. Husbands do not necessarily understand what unemployment in a cold, rainy city and caring for a child 24/7 can feel like—that of course, is patriarchy for you.
Dr. Sushumna Kannan owns Writing in Gold, a Writing-Editing service business based in San Diego, USA. She is the author of Hinduism and Violence, forthcoming, 2021. Check out her other writings at sushumnakannan.weebly.com
Divorce on H4 visa can go completely downhill for dependent women who are unfamiliar with their new country.
In 2017, my article Wives On H4 Visa – How Do You Deal With The Depression That Dependency Causes? was published here. A Seattle based lawyer read it and contacted me to become an expert witness to testify in the divorce case of her Indian origin client.
I bring you this case study to illustrate the problems and perils of life not only on the H4 visa but also the EAD. As it turns out, the EAD solves some problems, but not for all. Not equally.
Nina’s story about divorce on H4 visaFrom Nina’s family’s point of view her life was ‘settled.’ She had been married and sent off to Seattle, America, and the couple had a baby. But then, all that glitters is not gold. Nina had been diagnosed with depression and was on medication. The details of her case made it evident that there was so much unexplored in relation to what was happening to those on the H4 visa, some of whom were now receiving the EAD (Employment Authorization Document).
Nina’s negotiating power within the marriage had not increased with an EAD, and it would not until she got a job, brought in money, and healed from her depression. With a degree from India, her chances for employment were low and therefore she was headed for a divorce.
In Nina’s case, the power balance tipped in favour of the husband as the person earning, but they had had a child recently and were now on the path of a custody battle as well.
Nina’s attorney contacted me after reading my article on wives on the H4 Visa. This had primarily focused on how the power balance in a couple with a wife on the H4 visa made her completely dependent on her husband, crippling her self-esteem and sending her into a deep depression.
Nina’s attorney wanted to ask me more about the depression connected with being on an H4 visa. When I decided to testify, we did not know, of course, that Nina would lose custody of her four-year old child. An unthinkable turn of events for numerous Indian women.
A controlling, insensitive husbandThere were several problems with Nina’s marriage, but few can be articulated if one did not access the language of feminism and equality within marriage. The language Nina used (in her quiet confident voice that sounded on my phone), instead, was simply that it was a breach of trust. Of the several things her husband had done, these pained her the most:
(1) curtailing her financial freedom to the point that every expense had to be justified
(2) fixing cameras all over the house on the pretext of watching their child but monitoring all her activities
(3) Tracking and recording her Facebook activity to accuse her later of this and that
(4) Accusing her of watching too much TV and being a slacker.
Simply put, he had been too controlling.
To my mind, watching too much TV and disinterest in learning car-driving are classic symptoms of the H4 visa situation. With no outside life, no job, few friends, and neighbors who do not necessarily socialize, TV and internet are the only things a spouse on the H4 can do! This cannot be an accusation when one is caring for the child all by oneself.
Attached to a child that needs constant attention, sleepless, and with zero adult time, TV is often the only me-time for young mothers.
Sunetra, another new mom there also on an H4 visa, says that in the first year of caring for her velcro-baby, she survived only because she got a TV installed in the bedroom and watched movies with muted settings, subtitles on. No wonder, then, that in the famous Australian dramedy on early motherhood, The Let Down, the protagonist makes a strong argument for escaping into quality Danish drama and efficient broadband! When there is no job, there is no motivation to learn car-driving.
The problems in Nina’s marriageNina’s husband had raised two other objections. She could not feed their child pasta, only Indian food. And, she had to put the baby to sleep in another room. Both these seem trivial.
The first one is unacceptable because kids imitate other kids. If you live in the US, your kid is bound to like a few things you never had in your childhood. Plus, sometimes any food is better than no food. Secondly, hundreds of Indian immigrant parents in the USA retain ways of child-rearing that they subconsciously learnt from their parents. In fact, it is suspected many American parents too co-sleep with their children but do not admit to doing it. But differences in parenting styles makes a justified case for divorce in the west—it is likely that Nina’s husband used it as a tactic to procure divorce.
Nina did not want a divorce; she did not want to break the marriage. But she was hurt by her husband’s breach of trust and was angry at his inability to understand her position.
The difficulties faced by Nina in a job searchSometimes, young mothers need time off from jobs and job search. But husbands can think that their wives are unable to procure a job on the EAD because they are incapable of doing so. The truth is that only half the number of those with EAD have been able to secure jobs, a fact that has emerged on many H4 visa discussion forums.
Those in non-STEM professions have had little success, according to one case in a study released by SAAPRI. Nina had a masters in HR, neither entirely IT-based nor outside of it.
Since Indians are not absorbed into non-IT industries regularly, employers have a distrust of Indian educational degrees. Also, USA has a different way of doing things, which requires obtaining a degree in the country to procure a job. And job placements are so tied to college degrees that it is often impossible to procure jobs outside of the college placement cell.
But husbands who force their wives to work can rarely comprehend the gravity of this because they never face these obstacles themselves. Nina’s husband, at one point of time, wanted her to work as a solution for her depression. Just any work, he insisted. She ended up as a janitor in a restaurant that initially promised her a server’s position. She did not want to work in these positions having obtained a master’s degree—they felt demeaning.
Legal issues faced in divorce on H4 visa: US lawyers have no idea of Indian cultural practices
Lawyers and the court system in the USA do not know much about situations faced by immigrant families. They cannot understand or be responsive to Indian cultural practices and its nuances, although in theory, they must consult the law books of India and USA when judging cases involving Indian Americans.
US or Indian govts not sensitive to needs of wives facing divorce on H4 visa
The classic case of Neerja Saraph Vs. Jayant Saraph 1994 shows just this: divorce on H4 visa was granted through ex-parte because the wife could not appear at court.
In many cases, wives on H4 with no income had no funds to book tickets to travel back and forth to the USA to attend court proceedings—the Indian government does not recognize such divorces anymore to help such women.
US legal system clueless about Indian women’s reality on H4 visa
When I was testifying on Zoom (thanks to COVID-19), I mentioned how getting degrees from the US was a point of contention in immigrant marriages because US education is expensive. Who pays for it, the wives’ parents or the husband was often an uneasy question.
Nina’s husband’s lawyer was taken aback and began questioning me if I knew this family personally—an expert witness must not know the family personally or the full details of the case. Little did he know that this question bugged almost all immigrant families with a spouse on H4 visa.
Women facing divorce on H4 visa unaware of legalities
Women who know the complexities of filing for divorce on H4 visa do what an acquaintance did. Jayashree took her child and flew to India on the pretext of a vacation and filed for a divorce from India. Indian courts are biased towards granting child custody to the mother, which worked in her favour. Unfortunately, Nina was caught unaware.
Nina needed a lawyer who could argue that co-sleeping with children was common in India—but she had an American lawyer. Her American lawyer, however, made several efforts to get experts who could make the culture argument, but there was no guarantee that it would be understood by the American court system.
My advice to Nina was that she consult South Asian Women’s organizations in her city to accentuate the culture argument, but Nina was distrusting of everybody, including her lawyer! She only trusted her parents, but knowing nothing of American culture, they were of no help in fighting the case. Distrust of everybody is another classic symptom of the H4 situation—the person has no acculturation and is unable to determine if she is being helped or hurt.
How things went downhill: The husband tried to take advantage of Nina’s legal situation
When things went bad in the marriage, Nina and her husband started seeing a marriage counsellor. Unfortunately, the counsellor sided with the husband, did not reveal his plans of divorcing Nina, as she is required to, and acted with bias when she repeatedly advised Nina to visit India.
Nina refused to do so since her child was still young. Nina’s husband had not procured an Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card or passport for the child to enable an India visit. His plan was that when Nina goes to India, he files for a divorce in the USA and that would make it very hard for Nina to come back, to fight the divorce case and the custody battle.
Nina’s refusal to go to India compelled her husband to file for divorce when she was in the USA. He had to move out and pay her maintenance.
US laws about child care worked against Nina
But during the divorce proceedings, a court-appointed official evaluated Nina and declared her an unfit mother.
Nina’s defense was that this evaluation was erroneous; she was a fit mother because the child had never suffered from even minor illnesses under her care; she could not have been doing more.
The questionnaire that this official brought in had yes-no questions. What America is aiming to eliminate through such questionnaires is the human error aspect in its child protective services system that fail children from parental abuse, as in the case of Gypsee Blanchard.
A lack of awareness of Indian culture
We could even argue that the questionnaire was culturally biased. Indian parents co-sleep with their children at the cost of the mother’s sleep. The level of sacrifice that Indian parents make throughout their child’s lives is unknown in American culture.
In sharp contrast, American children move out or live separately when they grow up—adulthood has initiation rites and is complete when one’s offspring is well-adjusted—procures job, marries etc. In India, on the other hand, children may never move out and are cared for by parents at different stages of life in different ways.
So, where India leans one way in parenting style, America leans to the other according to its own cultural norms. Each has advantages and disadvantages; neither is perfect.
The question of custody
Unfortunately, however, in Nina’s case, the questionnaire worked against her, especially when, as she told me “the judge was not listening carefully during trial.” Not surprising, as the judges fall back on the filed documents to speak to them.
Nina’s lawyers might have disproved she was depressed but there remained the matter of child custody. That is, Nina’s depression, whether from unemployment or from post-partum, were both extraneous and would rectify when her situation changed. So, how do US courts decide child custody?
The difficult alternative Nina was givenMy advice to Nina to secure more time with her child was that she must take up the two-year offer her husband had made.
Her husband’s offer was that he would seek a separation and not divorce her for two years, so that she could continue to stay on her spouse visa in the US. His condition, however, was that she had to obtain a degree and a job in that time and secure her future in the USA. After this, he would divorce her, she would be on an H1B visa and they would share the custody of their child.
But Nina was skeptical this would work given the uncertainties that H1B workers suffer from and her own experience with unemployment in the USA.
I felt that Nina was too protected by her parents to be living alone in the US with no familial support. Not all women are made the same, and if the men in our lives cannot understand this, what other meaning is there to a marriage?
Divorce on H4 visa hard on dependent Indian womenIn a time when American women are finding divorcing during COVID-19 very hard, a woman on H4 visa is twice as likely to feel nervous.
Nina’s question was, “Why can’t he come to India where both parents can work and have equal custody? Why do I need to re-educate myself?” But because the child is an American citizen, the court system was likely biased towards protecting an American citizen.
“Why is everyone asking me to adjust although he is such a bad person?” Nina’s exasperation resonates with so many women. Obviously, Nina’s husband did not want to head back to India. Why would he? Not when everything was working well for him! Since Nina and her husband could not come to a consensus, the divorce case became contested and went into trial.
What worked against Nina was also likely the Hague convention that India has not signed. What this means is that if one parent abducts their child across international borders, the child can be returned, and the parent prosecuted. If only the husband had allowed for an OCI card!
Nina could have taken the advice of the Ministry of External Affairs Booklet’s advice to go for an uncontested divorce. But she was too angry and upset for that. When I asked her if she would be alright if the judgment rules her child to stay in the US, she just said that she knew something good was going to happen. She just felt it strongly and that she would take a chance with the judge. This despite her own lawyer’s frustrated declaration that if she won, “it would be a miracle!”
My own advice to Nina was to consider the cultural context. For instance, if the case had been filed in India, her Indian lawyers would have advised her to file a 498A to get justice. Similarly, Nina had to do something about child custody that was US culture sensitive. She had to offer a win-win solution, so the courts perceived her as prioritizing her child’s well-being. Child welfare is of paramount importance at US courts. But Nina was adamant, she left it to chance. That is a mistake in the USA, where everything is planned, reasoned out and anticipated well-in-advance. Nina had to think through the worst-case scenario and move forward. Instead, she was optimistic and hopeful.
Judgement ruled against NinaWhen the judgment ruled that the child stay with the father, Nina perceived it as harsh. Nina’s husband is ordered to buy her tickets for her 2-3 visits per year until the child turns six. At 12, the child can choose a parent. Being on an H4 visa, Nina must now return to India as soon as the divorce formalities are through.
The tragedy of this case is that what caused Nina’s depression in the first place, is also the cause for her loss of child custody and her divorce—the H4 visa. Clearly, nobody showed Nina’s husband this article published on Women’s Web. Husbands do not necessarily understand what unemployment in a cold, rainy city and caring for a child 24/7 can feel like—that of course, is patriarchy for you.
Dr. Sushumna Kannan owns Writing in Gold, a Writing-Editing service business based in San Diego, USA. She is the author of Hinduism and Violence, forthcoming, 2021. Check out her other writings at sushumnakannan.weebly.com
Naked Truth: Visual Representations of Akka Mahadevi
Sushumna Kannan
Akka Mahadevi, the 12th century saint from Karnataka, is a unique figure in India’s history. She walked away from her husband – naked – proclaiming continuously that Shiva was her husband. She rejected clothes, jewellery and the world itself. According to some hagiographies, hair grew from her mother’s tears and effectively covered her, but she walked away unaware. In other hagiographies, she was always naked. A digambare, clad only in sky. Or, a keshambare, clad only in hair.
But how to visually represent a worship-worthy woman who walked naked rejecting the world? This is a question negotiated by various stakeholders in multiple ways. Religious organisations, historians and feminists adopt various stances on the issues underlying Mahadevi’s nudity.
In calendar art, Mahadevi is represented in typical ways – meditating, worshipping the linga, or gazing neutrally. In one representation, her birth, her devotion, King Kaushika lusting after her, her rejection of worldly life and, finally, achieving oneness with Shiva, is shown. She stands on the globe in the map of India – a possible attempt to paint her as relevant. And in front of a bull, Shiva’s vehicle.
The Lingayats (Mahadevi’s religious community) shy away from visual representations of her nudity. Its discussion is embarrassing or must be resisted because it would only feed voyeurism, voiding the purpose of Mahadevi’s life. In 1998, Halage Arya, a 15th century saint’s version of Mahadevi’s life in the Shoonya Sampadane was refused publication by the associated religious organisation because it was explicit.
Historians too are divided on Mahadevi’s nudity. The meaning of keshambara is a matter of debate and it could be an object made of hair, or a shawl made of the furry coat of goats, argues H Deveerappa (1997). Kesha is assumed to be Mahadevi’s hair in the standard textbook story, but it could simply be any garment that signified renunciation, says Shanta Imprapura (2005). This is indeed how Mahadevi is represented in the temple at her birthplace, Udutadi. She is not clad in just any material signifying renunciation but in an ochre saree replete with a blouse, although it finds no historical substantiation. Mahadevi is decked with rudraksha and bhasma.
For Sumitrabai (1997), a feminist, why Mahadevi had to be naked and what pressured her into it is the crucial question. Even as she notes that nudity has a presence in Hindu traditions, she wonders if Mahadevi had agency in choosing nudity, concluding that nudity is a metaphor, symbolic of the spiritual life. Thus, while Lingayats may be weary of voyeurism, feminists refuse to grant the nakedness of Mahadevi as her own choice because they think she was forced into it. The tradition of nudity and womanhood merging seems like an unlikely event to these stakeholders occupying opposite ends of the spectrum
In the Shoonya Sampadane, when Mahadevi arrives at the city of Kalyana, Allama Prabhu questions her on her nudity because her long braids strategically cover her private parts. Did this not indicate shame and a continuing attachment to the world, he asks. Mahadevi replies that she covers her body so onlookers may not be embarrassed. When another saint, Kinnari Bomayya tests her out of a spirit of devotion, Mahadevi proves to him that she has reduced kama to ashes in the fire of her knowledge. Through a vachana, she conveys that donning light as garment she has subdued the darkness of the senses. Feminists read these incidents as harassment, whereas the spirit of empirical inquiry and dialogue is another viable reading.
That religious organisations, historians and feminists, all express embarrassment, denial or view Mahadevi’s nudity as symbolic suggests that current moral anxieties inspired by Victorian sexuality loom large. Perhaps, that is why, even now, Mahadevi must be always clothed in all her visual representations.
Arts Illustrated
An ascetic who never gave up her fight
The first female Lingayat monk, Mathe Mahadevi, raked up her share of controversies while continually challenging the status quo within her religious sect
In her youth, she was a one-woman brigade who took on powerful religious heads, her own family members and centuries of established practice. She went on to become the first female Lingayat monk and, eventually, ascended to the status of a jagadguru or world leader — a title traditionally reserved for an extraordinary spiritual leader.
Mathe Mahadevi, the Lingayat religious leader who passed away on March 14 aged 74, had stirred controversy in 2014 by calling on women to dress modestly and demanding the legalisation of sex work to reduce the incidence of rape. But she was active till the end in promoting the Lingayat way of life and demanding a separate religion status for Lingayats.
Born Ratna in Chitradurga district, Karnataka, to a Lingayat family of doctors belonging to the Ganiga or what was traditionally the oil worker’s caste, she wanted to pursue spirituality from a young age. At 19, she received initiation from her guru, Lingananda Swami, and entered monkhood a year later. The same year, claiming the spiritual legacy of the 12th-century mystic-poet Akka Mahadevi, after whom she was renamed, she brought out three collections of poetry — Mathru Vani (Mother’s Voice), Viraha Taranga (The Waves of Separation) and Ganga Taranga (The Waves of the Ganges). She later wrote several novels, including Heppitta Halu (Curdled Milk) and Tarangini (The River).
Her most path-breaking creation, however, remains the Jaganmata Akkmahadevi Anubhava Pitha, a spiritual post for women, which she set up in 1968.
***
Established by the 12th-century reformist-saint Basavanna, Lingayatism broke away from several entrenched beliefs in Hinduism. Many of the sutakas, or impurities, were abolished. For instance, Lingayat women can perform pooja during periods. Many sharanes (female followers of the medieval Veerashaivism sect pre-dating Lingayatism) were ascetic though married, and successfully straddled both worlds.
Yet, when Mahadevi decided to join her guru’s ashram in 1966, she faced stiff opposition. While Buddhism did create an order for women, Hinduism considered the rigours of ascetism not suitable for women. However, ascetic or even semi-ascetic women have always existed, whether as Brahmavadins of the Vedic period or the bhaktins of the medieval period. This was the larger context within which Mahadevi’s asceticism and life’s work took shape — there was a space for her and yet there wasn’t.
Holding a Master’s degree in philosophy from Karnatak University, Mahadevi was invited to complete a PhD at Cambridge University in 1976, after she delivered a nuanced lecture on Indian religions at a symposium in London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. She, however, chose a spartan life instead.
***
Mahadevi appeared to favour the West-endorsed, anachronistic and egalitarian interpretation of Basavanna’s vachanas or sayings, imputing to them a simplistic social activism rather than retaining the ambiguity of the philosophical-rhetorical questions raised by them.
In 1996, Mahadevi wrote the book Basava Vachana Deepti, wherein she declared a new birth date for Basavanna and changed the ankitanama, or signature, for his 1,342 vachanas to “lingadeva” in place of “kudalasangama deva.”
Predictably, this evoked large-scale protests from historians, littérateurs and religious leaders, leading to the government banning the book in 1998 for ostensibly hurting the sentiments of Veerashaivas.
The argument that the vachanas require commentaries by religious scholars to make them accessible to the contemporary reader is understandable, but the exegesis she offered created social and legal problems. Taking up her 2017 appeal against the ban, the Supreme Court initially said that it discouraged hypersensitivity in religious matters. Yet, in a U-turn of sorts, it dismissed her appeal later that year. Now, at Mahadevi’s passing, the time is ripe to re-evaluate her works from the perspectives of religion and secularism.
Mahadevi’s legacy of protest is numerous and varied. In 1996, she rallied against rituals through writings that urged people to stop prostrating at the feet of the jangamas (Lingayat teachers). In 2005, she published a book on what Lingayats ought to learn from the Sikhs. In 2007, she protested against the introduction of eggs in the midday meals at government schools in Karnataka, as also the proposal to declare the Bhagavad Gita as national text. For decades, she lamented that strict monotheism no longer prevailed in the Lingayat community, as followers began worshipping a large number of local gods. But monotheism is a Western construct and what Basavanna critiqued was the mechanical performance of rituals, forsaking genuine devotion.
In her early years, Mahadevi wrote that different traditions such as Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism were a part of Hinduism’s ‘solar system’. But in later life, she ended up demanding a separate religion status with minority benefits for the Lingayats, who make up almost 17 per cent of the population of Karnataka.
As early as the 1970s, she had conducted extensive fieldwork and research to elucidate the differences between the Veerashaivas and the Lingayats, and this was one of the factors that spurred the then chief minister Siddaramaiah to demand a separate religion status in 2018.
She cemented her status as a powerful female guru, first by setting up in Kudalasangama the Basava Dharma Peetha, an organisation dedicated to spreading the teachings of Lingayatism’s founder Basavanna, and later by organising the Saranamela, a worldwide conclave of Lingayats. She also lent her vision to the Rashtreeya Basava Dal, a Lingayat association with nationalist ideals.
More than anything, she was a living reminder of the complexity and diversity of religious traditions — an aspect that is often overlooked, whether by the pre- or post-Independence historian, or the school textbook writer, all of whom tend to homogenise them.
Sushumna Kannan is adjunct faculty at the San Diego State University
Published on May 03, 2019
The first female Lingayat monk, Mathe Mahadevi, raked up her share of controversies while continually challenging the status quo within her religious sect
In her youth, she was a one-woman brigade who took on powerful religious heads, her own family members and centuries of established practice. She went on to become the first female Lingayat monk and, eventually, ascended to the status of a jagadguru or world leader — a title traditionally reserved for an extraordinary spiritual leader.
Mathe Mahadevi, the Lingayat religious leader who passed away on March 14 aged 74, had stirred controversy in 2014 by calling on women to dress modestly and demanding the legalisation of sex work to reduce the incidence of rape. But she was active till the end in promoting the Lingayat way of life and demanding a separate religion status for Lingayats.
Born Ratna in Chitradurga district, Karnataka, to a Lingayat family of doctors belonging to the Ganiga or what was traditionally the oil worker’s caste, she wanted to pursue spirituality from a young age. At 19, she received initiation from her guru, Lingananda Swami, and entered monkhood a year later. The same year, claiming the spiritual legacy of the 12th-century mystic-poet Akka Mahadevi, after whom she was renamed, she brought out three collections of poetry — Mathru Vani (Mother’s Voice), Viraha Taranga (The Waves of Separation) and Ganga Taranga (The Waves of the Ganges). She later wrote several novels, including Heppitta Halu (Curdled Milk) and Tarangini (The River).
Her most path-breaking creation, however, remains the Jaganmata Akkmahadevi Anubhava Pitha, a spiritual post for women, which she set up in 1968.
***
Established by the 12th-century reformist-saint Basavanna, Lingayatism broke away from several entrenched beliefs in Hinduism. Many of the sutakas, or impurities, were abolished. For instance, Lingayat women can perform pooja during periods. Many sharanes (female followers of the medieval Veerashaivism sect pre-dating Lingayatism) were ascetic though married, and successfully straddled both worlds.
Yet, when Mahadevi decided to join her guru’s ashram in 1966, she faced stiff opposition. While Buddhism did create an order for women, Hinduism considered the rigours of ascetism not suitable for women. However, ascetic or even semi-ascetic women have always existed, whether as Brahmavadins of the Vedic period or the bhaktins of the medieval period. This was the larger context within which Mahadevi’s asceticism and life’s work took shape — there was a space for her and yet there wasn’t.
Holding a Master’s degree in philosophy from Karnatak University, Mahadevi was invited to complete a PhD at Cambridge University in 1976, after she delivered a nuanced lecture on Indian religions at a symposium in London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. She, however, chose a spartan life instead.
***
Mahadevi appeared to favour the West-endorsed, anachronistic and egalitarian interpretation of Basavanna’s vachanas or sayings, imputing to them a simplistic social activism rather than retaining the ambiguity of the philosophical-rhetorical questions raised by them.
In 1996, Mahadevi wrote the book Basava Vachana Deepti, wherein she declared a new birth date for Basavanna and changed the ankitanama, or signature, for his 1,342 vachanas to “lingadeva” in place of “kudalasangama deva.”
Predictably, this evoked large-scale protests from historians, littérateurs and religious leaders, leading to the government banning the book in 1998 for ostensibly hurting the sentiments of Veerashaivas.
The argument that the vachanas require commentaries by religious scholars to make them accessible to the contemporary reader is understandable, but the exegesis she offered created social and legal problems. Taking up her 2017 appeal against the ban, the Supreme Court initially said that it discouraged hypersensitivity in religious matters. Yet, in a U-turn of sorts, it dismissed her appeal later that year. Now, at Mahadevi’s passing, the time is ripe to re-evaluate her works from the perspectives of religion and secularism.
Mahadevi’s legacy of protest is numerous and varied. In 1996, she rallied against rituals through writings that urged people to stop prostrating at the feet of the jangamas (Lingayat teachers). In 2005, she published a book on what Lingayats ought to learn from the Sikhs. In 2007, she protested against the introduction of eggs in the midday meals at government schools in Karnataka, as also the proposal to declare the Bhagavad Gita as national text. For decades, she lamented that strict monotheism no longer prevailed in the Lingayat community, as followers began worshipping a large number of local gods. But monotheism is a Western construct and what Basavanna critiqued was the mechanical performance of rituals, forsaking genuine devotion.
In her early years, Mahadevi wrote that different traditions such as Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism were a part of Hinduism’s ‘solar system’. But in later life, she ended up demanding a separate religion status with minority benefits for the Lingayats, who make up almost 17 per cent of the population of Karnataka.
As early as the 1970s, she had conducted extensive fieldwork and research to elucidate the differences between the Veerashaivas and the Lingayats, and this was one of the factors that spurred the then chief minister Siddaramaiah to demand a separate religion status in 2018.
She cemented her status as a powerful female guru, first by setting up in Kudalasangama the Basava Dharma Peetha, an organisation dedicated to spreading the teachings of Lingayatism’s founder Basavanna, and later by organising the Saranamela, a worldwide conclave of Lingayats. She also lent her vision to the Rashtreeya Basava Dal, a Lingayat association with nationalist ideals.
More than anything, she was a living reminder of the complexity and diversity of religious traditions — an aspect that is often overlooked, whether by the pre- or post-Independence historian, or the school textbook writer, all of whom tend to homogenise them.
Sushumna Kannan is adjunct faculty at the San Diego State University
Published on May 03, 2019
Challenging decades of prejudices about body types and looks, Bengaluru-based The Big Fat Company puts plus-size actors centre stage
SUSHUMNA KANNAN
“Where does Shakespeare say Hamlet was lean or that Lady Macbeth was slim?” asks Anuradha HR poignantly. She is the founder of Bengaluru-based The Big Fat Company, a one-of-a-kind theatre group with an explicit agenda to cast only plus-size actors in its productions. The first of these, Head 2 Head, a retelling of Girish Karnad’sHayavadana, was recently staged at the Nepal International Theatre Festival, Kathmandu (February 25- March 4, 2019).
Hayavadana is well-suited for the theatre group’s objective of interrogating embodied identity. Its heroine Padmini is attracted to two men — Devadutta for his intellect and Kapila for his athletic body. When, in a strange turn of events, the two men decapitate themselves at a Kali temple, Padmini manages to reattach the heads with the goddess’s blessings, except she mistakenly switches the heads. The men come back to life and, over time, their bodies return to their original state, implying the dominance of the head. Head 2 Headdoes not agree with this ending, and instead questions the working of the mind-body complex.
Anuradha launched the company in 2017 after more than a decade of thinking things over: “The frustrated actor-me with no challenging roles to play came up with the idea in rebellion against stereotypical casting practices in theatre,” she says. The lead role, whether in a marquee production or a school skit, invariably goes to a presentable person, no matter how bad an actor they may be. The media too is complicit in promoting a certain kind of look — tall, slim, fair — while eclipsing all others.
A common lament about the cinema industry in India is that the cast, especially the lead actors, is often selected solely on the basis of looks. The country’s theatre industry is usually expected to project a more conscientious alternative, especially given that much of its early history in independent India was shaped by the leftist and socially-conscious Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA). In reality, however, Anuradha and her fellow professionals at The Big Fat Company say theatre is equally rife with prejudices and stereotypes about looks.
Harking back to playwrights like Shakespeare, Anuradha points out that they rarely ventured beyond a one-sentence description of a character’s clothes or looks or props, before allowing the character to speak for itself. These minimal aids to the director never mention a body type or beauty as requirements. If our performative arts are leaning towards certain body types, then that is entirely the doing of deep-rooted cultural prejudice, reinforced by directors and viewers, she says.
The Big Fat Theatre Company of the UK, founded in 2018, echoes its Indian forerunner’s thinking. “Where in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet did he say that Juliet had to be a specific body type?” it says on its website. The plus-size actors reinterpret the classics, “to make real theatre with real-looking people”.
Asked what it would take for her company to keep doing what it does, Anuradha replies: “We do not want the company to be around forever; the whole point is to make it redundant.” She hopes plus-size actors will eventually find space in all plays, normalising their presence. After all, the role of the body in art forms is as “a site for defining individual identity, constructing sex and gender ideals, negotiating power, and experimenting with the nature of representation itself”, she says, adding, “and thus it holds the power to formulate resistance as well.” Her agenda is to offer deeper understanding of personhoods and communities beyond the body image, but using the body itself.
In Head 2 Head, this is achieved by eschewing traditional theatrical devices of narrative, character and dialogue. For example, Padmini interjects with a personal story — through movement — that is not derived from Hayavadana at all. The other personal stories in the play, too, are all about what it means to inhabit a plus-size body— the struggles with eating, relationships, sex, career, clothing choices and so on. Then there is a scene where the characters simply eat a Black Forest cake — one kilo of it — with zero dialogue to explain. The use of huge masks that almost cover the body and stand in for it, or alternately unveil it, is meant to draw attention to the corporeal form, inviting the audience to directly engage with the bodies on stage.
Head 2 Head was made possible by a combination of crowdfunding, financing from Untitled Arts and Anuradha’s own funds . Ahead of the play’s opening, there was a three-month workshop for 13 actors — who responded to an ad calling for plus-size actors — and another three months of production work with director Shabari Rao. The production has on board seasoned professionals such as Kriti Bettadh, Vidya Ulithaya, Sindhi Hegde and Goutham Upadhya. “Understanding and exploring the possibilities and limitations of our own bodies, both as individuals and performers, was the most exciting and challenging part,” says Anuradha.
After seven shows in Bengaluru, the group plans to take Head 2 Head in English to audiences outside Karnataka. Also on the cards is a one-woman show on sexual violence, which will go on stage next month.
Sushumna Kannan is adjunct faculty at San Diego State University
Published on April 04, 2019 in the Hindu Business Line, BLink.
Period. End Of Sentence: Worthy Message But No Riding On Shock-Value, Please!
At 25 minutes, Period. End of sentence achieves a lot. It moves us, provokes us and leaves us right when we wanted more. Yet, it suffers from its tendency to combine shock value with reformist overtones.
Made solely through the fundraising and other efforts of high school students in America, the short new docu-drama on Netflix explains many things, makes meaningful connections, offers hope – all without footnoting its title anywhere. There is no disagreement possible with the point of the film, its message is clear, and we love it too. Quite simply, we need to talk about periods, irrespective of whether we are in LA or in rural India. Yet, this Oscar nominated short suffers from one drawback common to many docudramas made in India and elsewhere.
It thrives on shock value and has reformist undertones. It is yet another agitating documentary with an omniscient interviewer. For instance, the film establishes that there is ignorance about periods by asking rural women, school children and teenaged boys about it. But it doesn’t realize that there is also some knowledge in the answers. To my mind, there is ignorance, but of the scientific findings of the last x years, not of the body basics. And the ignorance that is found is because scientific education has not reached Indian villages as quickly and efficiently as it should have. One lady in response to questions such as—what are periods, do you know why they occur and so on, says, that they occur due to impure blood exiting our body. This is not an entirely useless or unscientific description. The uterine lining shedding itself causes periods—that blood has no use and should not be retained. In this sense, it is impure, and the periods are cleansing. The idea that periods are a cleansing are mentioned in the dharmashastras. These texts also deem women to be very pure because such a cleansing bodily mechanism exists.
Then, when a bunch of teenage boys are asked about the period and they do not know, there is an embarrassing and shocking silence. The viewer feels it burn into her skin. And then comes the Hindi word. At which most of the boys say, oh we know. Hindi, anyone? A bit more sensitivity would have helped here. Treating your informants as also possessing some knowledge is generally a good idea.
Schoolgirls term periods as ‘women’s problem.’ A voice (film-maker/interviewer) asks, why problem? Again, describing periods as a problem is in itself not entirely wrong. Many women suffer their periods accompanied by cramps. So yes, it is a problem. Teenaged boys termed it an illness – which though wrong does not indicate the kind of supposed ignorance. It appears to be a description that took into account the lack of health or ease leading to dis-ease (bimaari) due to cramps. When activists try to change the narrative around a subject matter, they will do better if they build on the existing knowledge within communities rather than mock them.
Due to many such moments, it felt like the unfolding drama of the urban film-maker meeting the rural poor, a repeat of the coloniser meeting the heathen. And oh, outrage! In the viewer, in the film’s narrative, everywhere! A more open-ended inquiry, with questions and seeking would have been far more interesting. For instance, a question that bugged me was whether Indians always kept this topic under wraps or whether they learnt it from Victorian morality. Rural India might have some clues to this, but we must be willing to listen.
What is more puzzling is that from such outrage-narrative mode, the film moves onto a second phase – of whole-hearted celebration. It creates endearing characters and leaves us in awe of the wonderful entrepreneurship women are capable of – with a ‘whoever can stop women’ kind of moment. Suddenly, the film appears to be structured in two disjunct parts.
Leveling a sharp critique first, demanding change and then seeking to celebrate the women as they are, has its share of confusions, I suppose. Going by the excessive usage of such constructions found in the academia and elsewhere, it appears that this is no well-planned narrative technique adopted by the film, but a trajectory that has grown roots in feminist activism beforehand. I think we must challenge this to ask why we cannot celebrate women as they are – strong, pillars of families and societies – and then offer the additional help they need to make things even better. In other words, they are the agents to begin with, and were agents always! Instead, we meet them as ignorant and then they become empowered! This kind of happy-ending is a cliché in docu-dramas with a message and may well have been avoided.
Plus, where is the angle from an environmental perspective? Cloth, for containing period blood is inconvenient and insufficient, yes. But it was at least environment-friendly. There is no mention of whether the pads are reusable.
We would have to wait and see what happens to the film at the Oscars. Countdown jaari hai!
Published on Women's Web, Feb 13, 2019.
Niharika Singh’s #MeToo Story Makes Us Think Of The Precondition To Consenting
There is something called a precondition to consenting – Consent is not just about the ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ given but about the circumstances in which it is given. Niharika Singh’s story illustrates this best.
“This isn’t #metoo …. This is washing dirty linen in public for publicity. She wouldn’t be in a relationship for 1.5 years had he forced himself on her. Appalled at selective #metoo journalism,” says a woman in response to Actor Niharika Singh’s story, when she recently accused fellow actor and ex-boyfriend Nawazuddin Siddiqui of sexual harassment.
Since the #MeToo movement began, people have loved to play judges, weighing in and letting us know what is legitimate metoo and what is not. Of all the #Metoo stories thus far, Singh’s story captures the essence of this movement in full. No one said that Metoo is about sexual harassment at the workplace only. It is about sexual harassment in the various aspects of women’s lives. Consequently, women have documented and called out street harassment, as well as sexual assault within families and at the workplace.
Why cannot women be in a relationship and be sexually assaulted? If we are bracing ourselves to talk about marital rape, that is.
Singh writes, “When I opened the door, he grabbed me. I tried to push him away but he wouldn’t let go. After a little coercion, I finally gave in.” I am not sure how this does not qualify as sexual harassment. Especially since Siddiqui lied about a lot of things including relationships with other women. It is obvious that Singh did not want to be in a relationship with a man committed to others as well. Not knowing this at an early stage, when she hesitatingly gave in to his coercion, she has just behaved like a human being. A being who is open to a relationship with a hithertouncommitted man.
How should things have panned out for one to be able to describe what transpired as consensual?
The man in question would have befriended the lady he would have liked to develop a relationship with, put her first, found out what her expectations of a relationship are, proposed having a relationship and outlined why he thinks they should enter a relationship. After which, the lady would respond with a yes or no whenever she would feel comfortable doing so. This is consent.
Grabbing someone right at their door, not making a full disclosure about other relationships (past and present) and when the lady gave in, proceeding to take things to the next level is anything but consent. A gentleman and non-criminal person would have stepped back from a proposal for something like, sex with no strings attached, if the lady in question was drunk. So why make a proposal when the lady was in the dark and under a misconception about your status as a single person?
What has happened here is deep deception. This may not be a crime against the state yet, but it should become that, and it is definitely a crime against a woman and against humanity. So when you write: “Its no more crime vs innocence now..For women this has become men vs women Its really sad,” really? Is this not why ‘promise of marriage’ or ‘breach of promise’ and a sexual relationship is being debated in the Supreme Court of India?
As human beings with desires of their own, women enter into relationships all the time. There is no crime in that unless you are a petty moralist. They even tolerate lies and deception because they see men as fallible and choose to forgive. This does not mean they will always forgive. If they confront and call out their partners’ unacceptable ways and the partner does not respond humanely, the relationship ends. There is a sense of wasted time and effort at such a point of time. All the times the relationship stood solely on the ground of the forgiveness of the woman feels like what it actually was – betrayal and deception – the man abused her trust, used her and took advantage of her.
And may I remind readers that The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 is only five years old. Before this, women had no strong fora on which to make a complaint. So please stop asking: “What’s she doing till now. Eating pani Puri.” Or: “why didn’t you complain about it then”.
In a 2011 case, consent was understood as: “…voluntary participation not only after the exercise of intelligence based on the knowledge of the significance and moral quality of the act but after having fully exercised the choice between resistance and assent. Whether there was consent or not, is to be ascertained only on a careful study of all relevant circumstances.” Plus, according to section 90 of the Indian Penal Code, “…if a person is under… a misconception of fact,” consent cannot be given. In other words, there is a precondition to consent, and if this is unfulfilled, the consent given is suspect, or even invalid.
Niharika Singh talks about sexual harassment or unwanted sexual advances in a voice that all women who know what deception looks like will instantly identify as true and credible. Siddiqui’s carefully constructed narrative in his memoir, of a naïve man wondrously and comically detached from the events in his own life can only fool a few.
Images via IMDB
-Sushumna Kannan
Published on Women's Web, NOVEMBER 21, 2018
THE VISUAL NARRATIVE OF JANAPADA LOKA, A MUSEUM OF FOLK ART
November 01, 2018
By Sushumna Kannan
Janapada Loka, literally ‘folk world,’ is a museum of folk art and culture spread across 15 acres along the Bengaluru-Mysuru Highway near Chennapattana, in Ramanagaram district, put together single-handedly by the well-known civil servant, late H.L. Nage Gowda. The museum offers a peek into quickly-vanishing rural lifestyles through objects of utility as well as ornamentation.
The huge metal entrance gate has an embossed sun and four bugles, underlined by a row of small terracotta peacocks, with brick and metal pillars on either side. One uses the small gate to enter the premises. Janapada Loka is dotted by a few buildings, each at a short distance from the others. The three museum buildings are: Loka Maatha Mandira, Chitra Kuteera and Loka Mahal. In addition, there is an open-air theatre, a college for folk arts built with bricks and clay tiles for roof called Doddamane, a water tank and a cafeteria called Loka Ruchi that serves North-Karnataka cuisine and is run by Kamat Yathrinivas.
The Loka Maatha Mandir consists of a collection of various objects from all over Karnataka. Framed copies of paintings that were once inside homes in Shimoga, Tanjore style painting of the deity Srinivasa, which is a traditional wedding gift from mothers to daughters over generations, pictures made of bead work, containers of various kinds used in farms and villages, cattle bells, tools, baskets, pots used in village households, big wooden trunks, wooden cribs, writing desks, containers used to store paddy, mirror frames, vegetable cutters and a traditional dustpan are all part of this collection.
The Chithra Kuteera consists of photographs of folk artists and varieties of Yakshagana make-up, a dance form specific to parts of Karnataka. The interior of this smallish circular building consists a collection of H L Nage Gowda’s manuscripts, published books, video footage, awards and photographs. The Loka Mahal holds life-size plaster of Paris moulds of a decorated bull, of characters from various styles of Yakshagana which are based on puranic stories. A life-size Kodava couple, a life-size dasayya or wandering mendicant, tools, bead ornaments used during a marriage in Belgaum, colour-painted terracotta ‘idols’ of Gods and Goddesses arranged in nine steps as during the Navaratri festival, among which are a Mary and Christ. Reproductions of ‘daivas’, Yakshis, ‘vigrahas’ and reproductions of imaginary or mythical birds and animals are also displayed here. Wooden kitchenware, from a rolling pin to measures of various sizes, clay lamps and a rare jangama nail-encrusted wooden sandal are all in glass encased showcases. Life-size wood sculptures of Yakshis and bhootas and sculptures of Ganesha, Raavana and Nandi are arranged within a structure of pentagon-shaped walls. The first floor of this building consists of leather shadow puppet characters of different styles, many centuries old. String puppets of characters commonly narrated along with the many decorated moulds of masks, a queen and a devi are also displayed. Musical instruments, games, and manuscripts are found here. The outdoor museum comprises mainly of sculptures and two chariots.
The visual narrative that Janapada Loka presents is quite clearly akin to that of museums that offer a nation-building narrative. Here, nationhood is synonymous with modernity and there is nostalgia and longing for the vanishing past, as it were, which is rural life. One of the burdens of nationhood is narrativizing tradition or writing history, since tradition must be preserved, celebrated and justified. While Janapada Loka participates in this narrative, through its own historical ‘implicatedness’ and its engagement with the museological discourse, it also evokes reflections on the notions of culture and ‘folk culture.’ Janapada Loka presents a somewhat open-ended narrative of its objects; though deeply invested in the traditions of Karnataka.
The rhetoric of presentation of museums, has, over time, had to change from one of a conversation among connoisseurs to one where scholars imparted knowledge to the unlettered and this motto is what the ideal citizen-subject invests in—as did the late H L Nage Gowda. This lofty aim is reflected in his foreword to A Catalogue: Janapada Loka: “…it is time for one and all to realise their [museum’s] potentials as sources of unlimited knowledge, experiments, research and as MEDIUM OF FIRST HAND EDUCATION.” [sic] And although, museums in the west have long marginalized the collector’s subjectivity to that of a curator’s struggle, one can find Janapada Loka constantly swaying between the two, for, Gowda’s personality and single-handed achievement looms large over Janapada Loka, which is largely a citizen initiative.
The privileging of vision and the selection of objects makes the museum a rationalizer of the natural world, whose diversity and differences are unmanageable in the singular story of the progress of mankind that museums often tend to tell. The question that still remains for us is, of course: how might we understand a collection of objects that are arranged and displayed for hundreds of people to see, which was not the purpose for which these objects were created? However, in postcolonial museums, it appears, it is not art that is preserved, but history. It is not as if the aesthetic object must be emptied of its meaning within the museum walls, but that straightaway what is preserved is preserved for its value in history. Thus, unlike western museums, there is no standard narrative of evolution that Janapada Loka presents in terms of a time frame or skills gained or materials used, although the narrative invests in progress through education and the urgent need to convey the richness of a culture and tradition. Equally interestingly, Janapada Loka combines industrial arts and decorative arts through its display of farming and cooking tools and paintings and representation of art forms, which were distinguished in the early history of the museum in the west.
What drives Janapada Loka is an attitude of seva, another nationalist ideal. Janapada Loka does not participate strictly in activities of attempting to present a coherent narrative, strung together by region, nation, time or material; it is far more open, with a loosely tied narrative. Museumization here is not used for the creation of a secularized state, like in many national museums, rather what runs throughout is a notion of culture. This notion of culture is once a set of practices, once some performative arts, and yet again merely a group of objects, and then suddenly, a way of life. Although, Janapada Loka is largely sold to visitors as an exhibit on ‘Kannada culture,’ one hardly finds a complete regional representation of Karnataka, even in the representations, copies and duplicates. Bengali chao masks, Kathakali masks and so on co-exist sporadically. One single life-size Kodava couple does not go far in capturing the regional and does disservice to the idea of the folk. The problems of boundaries are more than visible here, especially since it is a collector’s museum, and not a curator’s. Equally unsurprisingly, many of the objects in Janapada Loka are collections based on goodwill or are gifts from ‘good’ and well-meaning citizens, as revealed in some of the interviews I conducted there. In general, that for nationalist narrative to come into being, an intermeshing of the principles of civic and ethnic nationalism is necessary is amply clear through the visual narrative of the Janapada Loka.
November 01, 2018
By Sushumna Kannan
Janapada Loka, literally ‘folk world,’ is a museum of folk art and culture spread across 15 acres along the Bengaluru-Mysuru Highway near Chennapattana, in Ramanagaram district, put together single-handedly by the well-known civil servant, late H.L. Nage Gowda. The museum offers a peek into quickly-vanishing rural lifestyles through objects of utility as well as ornamentation.
The huge metal entrance gate has an embossed sun and four bugles, underlined by a row of small terracotta peacocks, with brick and metal pillars on either side. One uses the small gate to enter the premises. Janapada Loka is dotted by a few buildings, each at a short distance from the others. The three museum buildings are: Loka Maatha Mandira, Chitra Kuteera and Loka Mahal. In addition, there is an open-air theatre, a college for folk arts built with bricks and clay tiles for roof called Doddamane, a water tank and a cafeteria called Loka Ruchi that serves North-Karnataka cuisine and is run by Kamat Yathrinivas.
The Loka Maatha Mandir consists of a collection of various objects from all over Karnataka. Framed copies of paintings that were once inside homes in Shimoga, Tanjore style painting of the deity Srinivasa, which is a traditional wedding gift from mothers to daughters over generations, pictures made of bead work, containers of various kinds used in farms and villages, cattle bells, tools, baskets, pots used in village households, big wooden trunks, wooden cribs, writing desks, containers used to store paddy, mirror frames, vegetable cutters and a traditional dustpan are all part of this collection.
The Chithra Kuteera consists of photographs of folk artists and varieties of Yakshagana make-up, a dance form specific to parts of Karnataka. The interior of this smallish circular building consists a collection of H L Nage Gowda’s manuscripts, published books, video footage, awards and photographs. The Loka Mahal holds life-size plaster of Paris moulds of a decorated bull, of characters from various styles of Yakshagana which are based on puranic stories. A life-size Kodava couple, a life-size dasayya or wandering mendicant, tools, bead ornaments used during a marriage in Belgaum, colour-painted terracotta ‘idols’ of Gods and Goddesses arranged in nine steps as during the Navaratri festival, among which are a Mary and Christ. Reproductions of ‘daivas’, Yakshis, ‘vigrahas’ and reproductions of imaginary or mythical birds and animals are also displayed here. Wooden kitchenware, from a rolling pin to measures of various sizes, clay lamps and a rare jangama nail-encrusted wooden sandal are all in glass encased showcases. Life-size wood sculptures of Yakshis and bhootas and sculptures of Ganesha, Raavana and Nandi are arranged within a structure of pentagon-shaped walls. The first floor of this building consists of leather shadow puppet characters of different styles, many centuries old. String puppets of characters commonly narrated along with the many decorated moulds of masks, a queen and a devi are also displayed. Musical instruments, games, and manuscripts are found here. The outdoor museum comprises mainly of sculptures and two chariots.
The visual narrative that Janapada Loka presents is quite clearly akin to that of museums that offer a nation-building narrative. Here, nationhood is synonymous with modernity and there is nostalgia and longing for the vanishing past, as it were, which is rural life. One of the burdens of nationhood is narrativizing tradition or writing history, since tradition must be preserved, celebrated and justified. While Janapada Loka participates in this narrative, through its own historical ‘implicatedness’ and its engagement with the museological discourse, it also evokes reflections on the notions of culture and ‘folk culture.’ Janapada Loka presents a somewhat open-ended narrative of its objects; though deeply invested in the traditions of Karnataka.
The rhetoric of presentation of museums, has, over time, had to change from one of a conversation among connoisseurs to one where scholars imparted knowledge to the unlettered and this motto is what the ideal citizen-subject invests in—as did the late H L Nage Gowda. This lofty aim is reflected in his foreword to A Catalogue: Janapada Loka: “…it is time for one and all to realise their [museum’s] potentials as sources of unlimited knowledge, experiments, research and as MEDIUM OF FIRST HAND EDUCATION.” [sic] And although, museums in the west have long marginalized the collector’s subjectivity to that of a curator’s struggle, one can find Janapada Loka constantly swaying between the two, for, Gowda’s personality and single-handed achievement looms large over Janapada Loka, which is largely a citizen initiative.
The privileging of vision and the selection of objects makes the museum a rationalizer of the natural world, whose diversity and differences are unmanageable in the singular story of the progress of mankind that museums often tend to tell. The question that still remains for us is, of course: how might we understand a collection of objects that are arranged and displayed for hundreds of people to see, which was not the purpose for which these objects were created? However, in postcolonial museums, it appears, it is not art that is preserved, but history. It is not as if the aesthetic object must be emptied of its meaning within the museum walls, but that straightaway what is preserved is preserved for its value in history. Thus, unlike western museums, there is no standard narrative of evolution that Janapada Loka presents in terms of a time frame or skills gained or materials used, although the narrative invests in progress through education and the urgent need to convey the richness of a culture and tradition. Equally interestingly, Janapada Loka combines industrial arts and decorative arts through its display of farming and cooking tools and paintings and representation of art forms, which were distinguished in the early history of the museum in the west.
What drives Janapada Loka is an attitude of seva, another nationalist ideal. Janapada Loka does not participate strictly in activities of attempting to present a coherent narrative, strung together by region, nation, time or material; it is far more open, with a loosely tied narrative. Museumization here is not used for the creation of a secularized state, like in many national museums, rather what runs throughout is a notion of culture. This notion of culture is once a set of practices, once some performative arts, and yet again merely a group of objects, and then suddenly, a way of life. Although, Janapada Loka is largely sold to visitors as an exhibit on ‘Kannada culture,’ one hardly finds a complete regional representation of Karnataka, even in the representations, copies and duplicates. Bengali chao masks, Kathakali masks and so on co-exist sporadically. One single life-size Kodava couple does not go far in capturing the regional and does disservice to the idea of the folk. The problems of boundaries are more than visible here, especially since it is a collector’s museum, and not a curator’s. Equally unsurprisingly, many of the objects in Janapada Loka are collections based on goodwill or are gifts from ‘good’ and well-meaning citizens, as revealed in some of the interviews I conducted there. In general, that for nationalist narrative to come into being, an intermeshing of the principles of civic and ethnic nationalism is necessary is amply clear through the visual narrative of the Janapada Loka.
BEARING TOO MANY BURDENS: BEYOND BOLLYWOOD, THE SMITHSONIAN EXHIBIT ON INDIAN AMERICANS
September 01, 2018
By Sushumna Kannan
Beyond Bollywood is a promising title—to go beyond a culture's stereotypes is as hard as any task could get. As we walk through this much-awaited exhibit on Indian Americans that is currently showing across different cities in the US and will do so until 2020, we realize that perhaps we expected a little too much of the title. For, in attempting to rid ourselves of one set of stereotypes, we often find them replaced with others—others that are somehow better or more positive stereotypes to have than the older ones. This is not to say that Beyond Bollywood is less important and could have been given a miss. Instead, in Beyond Bollywood, we witness a genuine and deep struggle to redefine a community against the current of simplistic, consumerish, dismissive understanding. However, such a redefinition is too arduous a task.
To replace Bollywood with a more realistic understanding of Indian Americans, the exhibit invokes yoga, fusion music born in the US with bhangra and hip hop, Indian art forms, festivals, Indian American doctors, dentists, engineers, motel owners and more. With orange-pink displays of catalogs accompanying large and small photographs--the exhibit is alluring and sleek. It is complete with multimedia installations that allow us to listen to music, watch videos and such. It has a hodge-podge of showcased items ranging from Indian jewellery, footwear, idols, lamps, postcards of miniature paintings, crafted jewellery boxes, musical instruments and other knick-knacks.
In a display titled, Desis, united we stand--a narrative on the aftermath of racial profiling of desis and protests against it is recorded. The "we" here is a proud Indian American community somewhat inclusive of other South Asians. The "we" includes second generation Indian American kids born in the US as well as Indians who migrated a generation ago and still are. This kind of clubbing of a large and diverse set of people makes it hard to understand who the intended viewer of this exhibit might be. The intended viewer appears to shift from the Desi community, to the second generation kid to White Americans who eye us suspiciously in malls, parks and neighbourhoods. While the exhibit is celebratory for the first two groups, it is informative for the last. Yet, it is not clear if talking of yoga and henna helped take the conversation forward.
In an accompanying display titled "divided we fall," we are shown desis demonstrating for women's rights and LGBT rights and protesting against racial discrimination, domestic violence. This nicely contemporaizes the community's involevment in American society, displacing the stereotype of the placid and safe Indian American. In a display titled "Let's Dance," again a celebratory tone takes over--"America has embraced Bollywood style dancing..." In a display titled "Freedom of Religion," --another celebratory note on how diverse Indian Americans are. Yet, the true reference of this celebration is India itself--not just the fact that we enrich American landscapes with different architectural structures. Often, this reference back to India is missing. This leaves us feeling somehwat inadequate about the display...like we might have just heard one half of a sentence with elipses at the end. An underlying assertion in this display is that Indian Americans are indeed a part of America--which is tragic because a number of White Americans do not think so--this sentiment of rejection accentuated by Trump's recent policies.
In a display titled, "Freedom Here and There," there is reference briefly to India and its freedom's struggle. It reveals interesting facts about early immigrants who connected the struggles for freedom in India from British as well as their own for "dignity and rights" in the USA. More history on early immigrants from Punjab is intriguing. The history of Bhagat Singh Thind's citizenship is extraordinarily fascinating. Yet, the ones on Spelling Bee, Cab drivers, motel owners and the like introduces Indian Americans to White Americans too sporadically rather than telling a more complicated story and capturing the less celebratory aspects of Indian Americans with dignity. A display on the American stereotypes on India with an update on how Indian Americans now play themselves onscreen and Bollywood has taken a hold in America is another celebratory voice. A display asking "Who are Indian Americans?" kind of shifts to the White American as the intended audience, taking on the burden of providing information.
Beyond Bollywood has many interesting and arresting moments but no one vision that holds it together. It does not talk about the uncomfortable and the celebratory voice loses its charm after a point. It could have, for instance, talked about how Yoga has adapted to America, with most teachers being non American Indian. Or even invoked controversies about Yoga's religious nature which parents often object to in schools. There could have been something more on Indian contributions to science and philosophy that connected to Indian Americans and something more on Indian dance forms--they appeared to lack details of the spiritual basis that is their bedrock. Arranged marriage, dowry and caste system should have been explained--unflinchingly, even if our theories of these appear impoverished, embarrassed, apologetic and un-decolonized at the moment.
How Indian Americans feel and relate should have been explored instead of an enumerative catalogue. The enumeration makes us wonder if nothing has changed since the British history of India at all and if India's diversity still unnerves the western mind. At least, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, one sees an explanatory note on the excessive classification and categorization that was thought to produce knowledge. There should have been a mention of the summer holidays that second generation Indian American kids spend in India, what they love and hate about them, the parent-child conflict, the H4 work visa issue, immigration as such, home-sickness even when mostly at home in America and so on.
Lacking all these diverse narratives undercutting each other and offering only one grand narrative on Indian Americans, the Smithsonian's curation of Beyond Bollywood reads like the State's narrative through a government spokesperson who aims to please one and all, and educates and informs in a diplomatic manner as well. On the whole, the exhibit bears too many burdens all at once--of being current, proud and useful. Despite this, the exhibit is timely, not because there is a rich narrative played out but because there is widespread ignorance about Indian Americans in American society, in 2018--more than a full century after the East and West met as never before, in the 19th century!
Published in Matters of Art, an online magazine on art.
THE SPECTACULAR CULTURAL-VISUAL WORLD OF BHUTA WORSHIP
September 01, 2018
By Sushumna Kannan
As surprising as it may seem to some, Hinduism hasn’t been concerned with the sacred and the profane in the same way as the monotheistic traditions or the organized Judeo-Christian religions. As a result, we see the sacred appear in many different forms and as a live tradition with fuzzy boundaries. An important manifestation of this is the culture of Bhuta worship in south-west coastal India, known traditionally as the Parashurama Kshetra. The essence of the Bhuta culture as viewed and lived by the way the sculptors who make a living out of eking out sculptures of the Bhuta deities, is that it destabilizes our subjectivities by teaching us to give up our ego while simultaneously solving problems in everyday situations, resolving conflicts and offering ethical guidance—the latter function is unavailable in mainstream Hinduism. What is definitely fascinating is that the Bhutas are considered no less important than the deities of mainstream puranic Hinduism by the practitioners of the worship. ‘Ella daiva ne’ meaning ‘Everything is of divine nature’ is what Gudikar, a traditional sculptor of bhuta murtis for Temples, hailing from Kundapura says. Gudikar who has inherited sculpting from countless ancestral generations of sculptors categorically refuses to hierarchize mainstream traditional Hinduism and Bhuta culture. What is more surprising about Bhuta worship is the visual experience they bring to fore since the sculptures are nothing like the deities of mainstream South or North Indian temples.
Unlike the marble and stone sculptures of deities in temples across India, bhuta sculptures are made of wood. They are painted in vibrant red-orange colours with characteristic features. In short, they are a visual treat. The eyes are prominently carved and painted. And though the style of painting comes close to the Kathakali performer’s make-up, bhutas are distinct from them. Each bhuta has a particular name and form, with particular rules of carving and worship which are diligently followed by sculptors. Female idols are supposed to be smaller than the male ones in conformity with traditional ideals of femininity and beauty. Visually, some of the Bhuta animal bodies, like the tiger’s are exaggeratedly elongated; this is to emphasize their qualities, like agility. In the temples dedicated to them, different sets of Bhutas stand next to each other in rows; there is no sanctum sanctorum. The average size of the murtis are 91 X 22 inches. Made of Jackfruit (Halasu, 10 ft. tall) and Big Jackfruit (Hebbelasu, tree 15 ft. tall) wood, they are painted red with small intricate designs in white or other colours for clothes and jewelry. Sometimes a single temple can have up to 50 bhuta sculptures accompanied by a ‘Naga bana’ or the ‘Nagarakallu’ (Snakes) in stone, in the temple premises.
In the past, there has been a scheme of patronage from temples and Kings that gave a contribution or dakshine to sustain bhuta sculpting. Today, it has been partially replaced by IT and Dubai money, while temples like the Dharmasthala Manjunatha continue their patronage. Typically, a mythology is attached to each bhuta which defines its characteristics in relating to the devotee and dispensing justice. People of different castes, religions and communities seek out the bhutas, promise offerings in exchange for favours or for conflict resolution. Possession and trances are extraordinary features of Bhuta worship. The bhutas dialogue with devotees, responding to them, warning of possible wraths or joy, solving problems, physical as well as psychological.
The Bhutas do not exactly correspond to the meaning ‘element’ as in the word ‘panchabhuta’ or to ‘devil’ or even ‘Bhuta kaala’, which means ‘the past.’ They are housed in wooden structures with sloping roof to combat the seasons of pattering rain the South-west coastal region receives. The general belief is that the Bhutas follow the indifferent principle of Karma and provide instant justice. The Bhutas themselves are said to have no merit or vice- punya or paapa. Though Bhuta worship cuts across communities, some deities are worshipped more by specific communities. For instance, The Bete beera (Hunter) by the Madivalas through sacrifices of goats and hen and, Nandishwara (Bull) by Brahmins. Some Bhutas’ defining characteristics are their jaati and religion, such as one born of parents of different religions or through alternative sexual practices. For instance, Bobbariya is the spirit of one who dies at sea and was born to a Muslim father and Jain mother.
The Bhuta myths and stories detail sexual practices that starkly contrast with Victorian thought and the openness to various forms of sexual practices resembles that of the puranic/mythical world. Bhuta culture is thus a valuable record of pre-Victorian notions of sexuality. While Bobbariya was as real-world as a Bhuta could get, born of an inter-religious union, there are other Bhutas whose origins are fantastic and extra-mythical. Panjurli is the spirit of a boar born from an incestuous affair between a brother and sister boar, also a dead but revived boar. It is possible that such extra-mythical descriptions were the reasons why the Bhutas although popular are not entirely mainstream. The Bhuta Kola, the invocation of Bhutas, and the festival around it has such widespread influence that the Yakshagana and Theyyam dance-drama art forms in Karnataka and Kerala have traces of it.
The model of co-habitation of different castes, religions and communities in Bhuta worship does not appear to be based in known models of secularism or tolerance but appear to arise out of genuine acknowledgements of the higher power of all deities and their essential similarity, though each community must preserve its own interpretation of any number of related myths. This fascinating arrangement of practices is further complicated by the unique history of migration of the Konkani Brahmins from the north and the inter-relatedness of Jains with Bhuta culture.
In a temple, the Bhutas are treated as living being having likes and dislikes, preferences and emotions, even desires. The Bhuta murtis are given an offering of milk and water on special days but are worshipped with flowers every day. The Bhutas are offered gold and silver for the fulfilment of harakes or vows by people, and each Bhuta has a favourite object it likes to receive. Bobbariya, Jataka, Benadakki, Aihole, Nandikeshwara, Masti, Chikka, Mailaadi and Naankaali are some of the common Bhutas. The enormous power of a Bhuta is widely believed in. Gudikar insists that “If a deyya [Bhuta] wants to kill somebody, it just will.” As soon as the Bhuta image is carved, there is consecration and a life-installation ceremony. It is also believed that each Bhuta deity has a specific place reserved for it where it has to be placed exactly after a fresh coat of paint, when it is re-consecrated. Failure to do so is said to incur its wrath. Each new sculpture in a shrine is required to be a little larger than the one before so as to continuously augment the power of the temple. The larger size literally means greater power.
The sculptor who ekes them out takes on a new role in the museum, but what this is, is again dependent on the modern museum-goer’s sensibilities as well his/her interest in traditional modes of being. Far from being the subject of modern art which would represent him/her through structures of realism, the traditional artist, if we could even call him/her an artist without addressing the baggage it brings from western art historical disciplines, stands in a tangential relation to modernist preoccupations with realism and even postmodernist conceptualizations, which allows for multiple voices and multiple meanings to co-exist. It is useful to remember in this context that the Bhuta sculptor does not view him/herself as an agent in delivering the final form of the murti. The inspiration, agency and labor are all attributed to the divine and to the other participants in his/her world. It is also for such reasons that the sculptor is considered close to the divine in Bhuta culture. The protestant work ethic, its valorization of labour and leisure simultaneously, which marks all history of art in the West is clearly amiss with the Gudikars!
Note: The Bhuta sculptures were curated by Dr. Annapurna Garimella for the Devi Art Foundation’s exhibition, Vernacular in the Contemporary, held at Delhi, in 2010. This article draws from the research and interview with the Gudikars conducted by the author as a catalogue writer for the exhibition.
Published in Matters of Art, an online magazine on art.
September 01, 2018
By Sushumna Kannan
As surprising as it may seem to some, Hinduism hasn’t been concerned with the sacred and the profane in the same way as the monotheistic traditions or the organized Judeo-Christian religions. As a result, we see the sacred appear in many different forms and as a live tradition with fuzzy boundaries. An important manifestation of this is the culture of Bhuta worship in south-west coastal India, known traditionally as the Parashurama Kshetra. The essence of the Bhuta culture as viewed and lived by the way the sculptors who make a living out of eking out sculptures of the Bhuta deities, is that it destabilizes our subjectivities by teaching us to give up our ego while simultaneously solving problems in everyday situations, resolving conflicts and offering ethical guidance—the latter function is unavailable in mainstream Hinduism. What is definitely fascinating is that the Bhutas are considered no less important than the deities of mainstream puranic Hinduism by the practitioners of the worship. ‘Ella daiva ne’ meaning ‘Everything is of divine nature’ is what Gudikar, a traditional sculptor of bhuta murtis for Temples, hailing from Kundapura says. Gudikar who has inherited sculpting from countless ancestral generations of sculptors categorically refuses to hierarchize mainstream traditional Hinduism and Bhuta culture. What is more surprising about Bhuta worship is the visual experience they bring to fore since the sculptures are nothing like the deities of mainstream South or North Indian temples.
Unlike the marble and stone sculptures of deities in temples across India, bhuta sculptures are made of wood. They are painted in vibrant red-orange colours with characteristic features. In short, they are a visual treat. The eyes are prominently carved and painted. And though the style of painting comes close to the Kathakali performer’s make-up, bhutas are distinct from them. Each bhuta has a particular name and form, with particular rules of carving and worship which are diligently followed by sculptors. Female idols are supposed to be smaller than the male ones in conformity with traditional ideals of femininity and beauty. Visually, some of the Bhuta animal bodies, like the tiger’s are exaggeratedly elongated; this is to emphasize their qualities, like agility. In the temples dedicated to them, different sets of Bhutas stand next to each other in rows; there is no sanctum sanctorum. The average size of the murtis are 91 X 22 inches. Made of Jackfruit (Halasu, 10 ft. tall) and Big Jackfruit (Hebbelasu, tree 15 ft. tall) wood, they are painted red with small intricate designs in white or other colours for clothes and jewelry. Sometimes a single temple can have up to 50 bhuta sculptures accompanied by a ‘Naga bana’ or the ‘Nagarakallu’ (Snakes) in stone, in the temple premises.
In the past, there has been a scheme of patronage from temples and Kings that gave a contribution or dakshine to sustain bhuta sculpting. Today, it has been partially replaced by IT and Dubai money, while temples like the Dharmasthala Manjunatha continue their patronage. Typically, a mythology is attached to each bhuta which defines its characteristics in relating to the devotee and dispensing justice. People of different castes, religions and communities seek out the bhutas, promise offerings in exchange for favours or for conflict resolution. Possession and trances are extraordinary features of Bhuta worship. The bhutas dialogue with devotees, responding to them, warning of possible wraths or joy, solving problems, physical as well as psychological.
The Bhutas do not exactly correspond to the meaning ‘element’ as in the word ‘panchabhuta’ or to ‘devil’ or even ‘Bhuta kaala’, which means ‘the past.’ They are housed in wooden structures with sloping roof to combat the seasons of pattering rain the South-west coastal region receives. The general belief is that the Bhutas follow the indifferent principle of Karma and provide instant justice. The Bhutas themselves are said to have no merit or vice- punya or paapa. Though Bhuta worship cuts across communities, some deities are worshipped more by specific communities. For instance, The Bete beera (Hunter) by the Madivalas through sacrifices of goats and hen and, Nandishwara (Bull) by Brahmins. Some Bhutas’ defining characteristics are their jaati and religion, such as one born of parents of different religions or through alternative sexual practices. For instance, Bobbariya is the spirit of one who dies at sea and was born to a Muslim father and Jain mother.
The Bhuta myths and stories detail sexual practices that starkly contrast with Victorian thought and the openness to various forms of sexual practices resembles that of the puranic/mythical world. Bhuta culture is thus a valuable record of pre-Victorian notions of sexuality. While Bobbariya was as real-world as a Bhuta could get, born of an inter-religious union, there are other Bhutas whose origins are fantastic and extra-mythical. Panjurli is the spirit of a boar born from an incestuous affair between a brother and sister boar, also a dead but revived boar. It is possible that such extra-mythical descriptions were the reasons why the Bhutas although popular are not entirely mainstream. The Bhuta Kola, the invocation of Bhutas, and the festival around it has such widespread influence that the Yakshagana and Theyyam dance-drama art forms in Karnataka and Kerala have traces of it.
The model of co-habitation of different castes, religions and communities in Bhuta worship does not appear to be based in known models of secularism or tolerance but appear to arise out of genuine acknowledgements of the higher power of all deities and their essential similarity, though each community must preserve its own interpretation of any number of related myths. This fascinating arrangement of practices is further complicated by the unique history of migration of the Konkani Brahmins from the north and the inter-relatedness of Jains with Bhuta culture.
In a temple, the Bhutas are treated as living being having likes and dislikes, preferences and emotions, even desires. The Bhuta murtis are given an offering of milk and water on special days but are worshipped with flowers every day. The Bhutas are offered gold and silver for the fulfilment of harakes or vows by people, and each Bhuta has a favourite object it likes to receive. Bobbariya, Jataka, Benadakki, Aihole, Nandikeshwara, Masti, Chikka, Mailaadi and Naankaali are some of the common Bhutas. The enormous power of a Bhuta is widely believed in. Gudikar insists that “If a deyya [Bhuta] wants to kill somebody, it just will.” As soon as the Bhuta image is carved, there is consecration and a life-installation ceremony. It is also believed that each Bhuta deity has a specific place reserved for it where it has to be placed exactly after a fresh coat of paint, when it is re-consecrated. Failure to do so is said to incur its wrath. Each new sculpture in a shrine is required to be a little larger than the one before so as to continuously augment the power of the temple. The larger size literally means greater power.
The sculptor who ekes them out takes on a new role in the museum, but what this is, is again dependent on the modern museum-goer’s sensibilities as well his/her interest in traditional modes of being. Far from being the subject of modern art which would represent him/her through structures of realism, the traditional artist, if we could even call him/her an artist without addressing the baggage it brings from western art historical disciplines, stands in a tangential relation to modernist preoccupations with realism and even postmodernist conceptualizations, which allows for multiple voices and multiple meanings to co-exist. It is useful to remember in this context that the Bhuta sculptor does not view him/herself as an agent in delivering the final form of the murti. The inspiration, agency and labor are all attributed to the divine and to the other participants in his/her world. It is also for such reasons that the sculptor is considered close to the divine in Bhuta culture. The protestant work ethic, its valorization of labour and leisure simultaneously, which marks all history of art in the West is clearly amiss with the Gudikars!
Note: The Bhuta sculptures were curated by Dr. Annapurna Garimella for the Devi Art Foundation’s exhibition, Vernacular in the Contemporary, held at Delhi, in 2010. This article draws from the research and interview with the Gudikars conducted by the author as a catalogue writer for the exhibition.
Published in Matters of Art, an online magazine on art.
Critiquing the theory of 19th century Nationalist revival of Carnatic Music
Late last year, I had the unique opportunity to teach a course in Cultural Studies to students of music at a reputed university in Bangalore. Music students, who are often also performers, are unaccustomed to such courses that veer towards a history or sociology of music and my attempts to combine this class with an English Literature class earlier had miserably failed. The course had come through not so much by planning as through accidents of all kinds and some adventurous leaps. The experimental course took a lot of time to put together and I struggled to find relevant essays and articles. And when I did find some interesting pieces, lo, my students hated them.What they hated most was the theory of the 19th-century nationalist revival of music; we were especially discussing its Carnatic aspects. The nationalist revival of music is a theory that proposes that during and after the nationalist period, embarrassing aspects of India’s cultural traditions were done away with and were rearranged in acceptable formats. That is, the courtesans and temple dancers who preserved classical forms of music were culturally boycotted, on an occasion jailed and criminalized under the new laws and music for domestic women became increasingly acceptable, which after much struggle could actually be performed in public. The best example for this and a fairly recent one too is the great vocalist, M S Subbulakshmi, who came from a socially unacceptable background for her times and struggled to find success until she was promoted by an upper-caste man of considerable repute, whom she married later.
Quick glimpses of the theory of the nationalist revival of arts in general and music in particular with a few corollaries can be found below:
“The idea of the past that the national struggle sought to create in its early days was one of a pre-historic India of mythic origins that was divine, pure, monolithic and untainted by any polluting ‘external’ influence…” (Sadananda Menon, 2016)
“Bhatkhande’s anti-colonial project for a nationalist music had an in-built anti-Islamic tenor.” (S Gopalakrishnan, 2014)
“While the reformers presented the Hindu temple dancer as a ‘prostitute’ in order to do away with her, the revivalists presented her as a ‘nun’ in order to incarnate her afresh.” (Amrit Srinivasan, 1985)
He [Balachander] began by situating the proceedings historically, amid the late-nineteenth-century revival of interest in Indian music, a revival that focused on standardizing and preserving Indian music. (Weidman, 1999)
Every student in my class had a problem with the facts, concepts and the arguments of this theory. Whenever they objected, I reminded them of the concrete example: MSS. The din would die down for a bit and then they would begin to raise objections again. They kept repeating a phrase, “In my experience…,” this cannot be true, struggling to articulate, for the lack of words and the right kind of language. Since I try not to be a teacher who imposes ideas on students and expects them to accept it, or age-discriminates against them, we journeyed together through numerous personal examples of discrimination, especially against women in various fields and pulled out some statistics that did shock the daylights out of us. They seemed to accept these other facts and examples but were unwilling to give up their initial resistance to the nationalist revival theory.
Even as we read Amanda Weidman’s beautiful narrative prose and exciting analysis from her book, my students insisted: we could not have oppressed others. They had no memory of it in any part of their being, collective or individual, as it were, and they searched within for traces but shook their heads. They had not heard of the nationalist revival theory from anywhere and found it distasteful and unacceptable. When I challenged them to provide an alternative theory, they named the few odd musicians from the “lower” castes, the women composers of different eras, the bhakti tradition and so on. I objected that these may not be enough, when they pointed to the major composers and said they were not courtesans—so there were possibly courtesans as well as others who preserved our music. This was reasonable. But to make sure their problem with the theory did not emerge from their middle-class locations, I spoke at length about sex-work and the many myths surrounding it—they seemed affected by it all—and were open to the legitimization of sex-work.
On my part, I tried to characterize their responses variously—perhaps they were too taken by the nationalist history that is presented in school textbooks? Perhaps, they had a point—femininity was celebrated rather than the category of women in pre-independence era and while this was slowly changing—we were witness to growth pains of all kinds. And so on.
My students were both atheists and believers (for the lack of a better word). Some claimed that it was impossible for them to perform without bhakti, while others said that did not matter—the latter group viewed their art as made up of rasa—locating it purely in aesthetics and emotional expressions. This came up during our discussion of an essay that traced back the origins of music to Vedic ritual and the (soma) rasa therein. Such individual differences did not vary their collective disdain for the nationalist revival theory and my students continued in their surety. I suggested their surety might be stemming from ignorance, they took this in their stride and insisted something was completely wrong with the theory. Of course, they were very early in their research careers (MPhil and PhD) and I could not expect them to come up with well-formulated arguments, yet their intuition should have some value, I thought.
Such intuition, I have had myself as well, when I first met with many theories in the Social Sciences. To this day, though, I am not sure if my own resistance came from my middle-classness or from a deeper source within. But this much is clear, intuition or hunches/guesses are often what lead us to new hypotheses and they further scientific thought. Theory catches up with experience after much struggle; it always lags behind. Perhaps a way of out this conundrum, wherein experience rejects theory is to produce the alternative theory. My students showed tremendous resolve to do this and accepted many a challenge I threw their way and presented bits of arguments in class and through assignments. For me, the aims of the course were accomplished—they didn’t have to agree with me as much as learn to argue with me.
This is not the first-time students have presented to me the category of experience as a means to challenge certain theories in the Social Sciences—they have had problems with critiques of nationalism as well. Even before I detailed the arguments, they would quote verses that mentioned all the rivers of the sub-continent, the odd references to jambu dveepa and bharata varsha and claimed that we might not have been a nation, but we were a culturally unified entity—which demands theorization, because in Europe such formations led to nations. There is indeed some truth to some of these students’ ideas, but much work needs to go in, to shape them into theories.
Despite my own discomfort with a number of theories in my discipline, I must say that Partha Chatterjee’s “The nationalist resolution of women’s question” truly solves the problem it poses. The argument here is that the nationalists resolved the women’s question by creating divisions that correspond with: the home and the world, material and the spiritual and masculine and feminine. Without these divisions, how could women become relegated to the home, and apologize for wanting to work or how could they become bearers of tradition while men chased the material world?
The gendered analysis of the nationalist revival of music, to my mind, is an offshoot of this notable essay by Chatterjee along with “the invention of tradition” theory proposed by Hobsbawm. According to Hobsbawm: “‘Traditions’ which appear or claim to be old are often quite recent in origin and sometimes invented.” It is unclear however that this theorization of Western nations is directly applicable in India. However, academic scholars have gone to great lengths to show its validity, as we glimpsed above. And this is the theoretical cluster from which T M Krishna is deriving his own arguments. The time is possibly ripe for an alternative theory but the point is, it needs to be built with facts, evidence, archival work and arguments.
Since the recent controversy on Carnatic music with Christianized lyrics broke out, I cannot but remember the resistance of my students to the theories that form the premises of one camp. They invoked experience as a category although it is at once fluid and structure-resistant, easily accessible yet prone to misidentifications. Experience is usually the result of a collected set of events and observations over a period of time. In a culture like ours that lacks history and plays upon the usefulness of memory and forgetting, experience is an even more contested and fragile category.
Nevertheless, if I had to take my students seriously for a bit, here are the questions I would like to raise, in order to critique the nationalist revival theory and its various assumptions, corollaries and applications as well as critique those who are using them to make arguments in the contemporary world of Carnatic music.
-We view art as something that should have freedom, but is there some responsibility it should have as well? The demand for art’s freedom comes from a very specific moment in Western history, wherein art was expected to perform social critique. And it was in rebellion to such an expectation that ‘art for art’s sake’ became the slogan of an entire generation of artists. For more on this, one has to read, Peter Burger’s book: Theory of the Avant-Garde. So, what about responsibility?
-If artists argue that with modernity our arts too have borrowed the problematics of art in the West, then are we completely like the West now? Or, at least in this like the West? Did not modernity leave its mark on us in specific ways so that we continue to be unlike other modern cultures? After all, we were not a blank slate upon which modernity was etched; it was etched on existing cultures in haphazard and unexpected ways. So, then is there an alternate history of our arts available to us or can we build such a decolonized theory? How can our experiences aid us in this project?
-When artists argue for the freedom of art or even the freedom to proselytize, are they not viewing the constitution in literal or absolutist terms, when in reality the constitution is subjected to interpretation and that interpretation is steeped in cultural and historical attitudes?
-Since the nationalism within the 19th-century nationalist revival of music was shaped in response to colonialism, it is bound to have been distortive of our cultural experiences in that it either adopted the colonizer’s ways or vehemently criticized it. How can we dissociate with this moment of nationalism and move forward, without losing cultural pride? Further, do we have to view the nationalist responses of the 19th century as entirely distorted or only partly so? –This is a question to which there is no scholarly consensus in the academia, today. In other words, where do we draw our lines about the distortion and the authenticity of 19th-century nationalist arguments, in any case? Should we stop at Gandhi and Tagore or start with someone else? Without a precise history of premodern India, how do we even develop the critical lens required to assess the intellectual surpluses and deficits created by 19th-century nationalism as well as colonialism?
We have been dumb in accepting British laws on a number of topics and in ignoring the vibrant culture of the temples, the annachatras and so on. My students reminded me how it was the British who criminalized devadasis, not us. We are not without fault; our complicity is inexcusable. And without a gripping discussion of culture, we will continue to be complicitous. While some of us grant value to culture, others seem to ride on just the constitution—how can we free ourselves of this all or nothing predicament?
One thing that became clear to me through my own research on Bhakti is that devotion is not the same across cultures. It appears similar at times, but likening Christian devotion to Hindu devotion somehow does not serve a purpose. These two systems of devotion have different starting points altogether. And not just devotion, numerous other categories too are not the same. Why, experience as a category is not the same. Just because some parts of two wholes are similar does not mean that the wholes are similar too.
Even as we struggle to articulate these differences, controversies come and go. What will bring clarity is not a long list of opinion articles but actual theories and the extraordinary amount of hard work that goes into building them. Underneath the fact that there have been threats exchanged and much hullabaloo is a contestation over the 19th century nationalist revival of music—a theory that needs to be contested, critiqued, questioned and re-argued, if necessary. All else is noise, and definitely not music.
References:
Amrit Srinivasan. “Reform and Revival: The Devadasi and Her Dance.” EPW. Vol. 20, No. 44 (Nov. 2, 1985), pp. 1869-1876
Amanda Weidman. 2006. Singing the Classical, Voicing the Modern: The Postcolonial Politics of Music in South India. Duke University Press.
Amanda Weidman. 1999. “Musicology and the Birth of the Composer.” Gender and Politics in India. Ed. Nivedita Menon. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger. Invention of Tradition. 1983. Cambridge University Press.
Partha Chatterjee. 1989. “Nationalist Resolution of the Women’s Question.” Recasting Women. New Delhi: Kali for Women.
Peter Burger. 1984. Theory of the Avant-Garde. University of Minnesota Press.
S Gopalakrishnan. 2014. “The Song of Forgetting.” Indian Express. https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/song-of-forgetting/
Sadananda Menon. 2016. “Bharatanatyam as an Object of Majoritarian Cultural Nationalism.” https://thewire.in/50197/from-national-culture-to-cultural-nationalism-an-extract-from-on-nationalism/
Further Reading:
Bob van der Linden. 2013. Music and Empire in Britain and India: Identity, Internationalism, and Cross-Cultural Communication. Springer.
Janet O’Shea. “At Home in the World? The Bharatanatyam Dancer as Transnational Interpreter.” The Drama Review 47, 1 (T177), Spring 2003.
Janaki Bakhle. 2005. Two Men and Music: Nationalism in the Making of an Indian Classical Tradition. Oxford University Press.
Kaamya Sharma. How to Dress a National Elite: The Case of the Kalakshetra Sari. IQAS Vol. 48 / 2017 1–2, pp. 33–53
Lakshmi Subramaniam. “Contesting the Classical: The Tamil Isai Iyakkam and the Politics of Custodianship.” Asian Journal of Social Science, Vol. 32, No. 1 (2004), pp. 66-90
Lakshmi Subramaniam. “The reinvention of a tradition: Nationalism, Carnatic music and the Madras Music Academy, 1900-1947.” The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 36, 2, 1999.
Martin Clayton. “Musical renaissance and its margins in England and India”, pp.71-93. In Music and orientalism in the British Empire, 1780s to 1940s: portrayal of the East. ed. Martin Clayton and Bennett Zon, Ashgate, 2007).
Purnima Shah (2002) Where they danced: patrons, institutions, spaces: State patronage in India: appropriation of the “regional” and “national”, 25:1, 125-141.
Paul Poovathingal. “Karnatic Music and Christianity: An Ethnomusicological Approach.” Journal of Dharma 40, 1 (January-March 2015), 77-94
Published on IndiaFacts, August 20th 2018. http://indiafacts.org/critiquing-theory-of-19th-century-nationalist-revival-carnatic-music/
The Superwomen and the Feminists
In 2004, when I was researching Women’s Police Stations in Bangalore as part of a paper I was to write, they were still a new thing. The very first one was only a decade old. The local MLA had seen the need for a Women’s Police Station and pressured those in power. I had ended up in a mini-forest in the middle of the city and the Police Station had picturesque stone steps leading me in. I expected to meet feminists highly committed to the women’s cause, who were the most exemplary role-models that modern state institutions had made space for and even nurtured. Instead, what I found was a group of women who cooked, cleaned, pleased their husbands and then came to work—taking on all the double burden one could possibly take. When we met, these superwomen were sizing me up and lecturing me on why the 498a should go and why I should most definitely cook for my husband when I marry.
Read on for my story. Each person had a desk and a chair, the boss lady, aka officer, had the biggest desk and was on the phone. I entered and one by one, the lady constables all asked me what I wanted—as happens a lot in my beloved India. I answered them all too—politely saying I needed an interview for a research project. One of the ladies told me to go on my way, but another nice one led me in to the Inspector, the Boss Lady. I saw that all the women wore shirts and trousers, were somewhat athletic, and completed the look with bindi, bangles, anklets, and flowers. Instantly, I thought, class and a rural background is going to be a category to think through here. To the urban eye, the odd mix of styles would either be weird or entirely revolutionary! My thoughts were loudly interrupted when the Boss Lady asked, “What do you want?”
Me: I am a researcher. I needed to speak with you for 10 minutes, please.
Boss Lady: What about?
Me: Your experience working in a Women’s Police Station—it is still new to the city, so I am trying to understand what is done here. What cases are handled? Also, I would like to understand what parts of this set-up are challenging or interesting.
Boss Lady: No, we don’t give interviews here. Constable, show her out.
Someone steps forward and I want to launch in on a little speech about the benefits of research for society and for women’s well-being and why she should be helping me. Instead I am reduced to a schoolgirl and all I can do is mutter: “Ma’am, please, I have an assignment.”
It’s Boss Lady’s turn to play victim and she promptly screams, “We are doing work here! You are wasting our time. Please allow us to do our work. Look at the number of files on my desk!”
It’s time for me to leave. I depart hesitatingly like I were a lover who doesn’t want to leave! Girl, who knew research was going to be like this? Back at my Centre, I report the impossibility of this project, shake my head and say no no no. Forget being a participant observer, these women wouldn’t answer a single question on my projected interview notepad.
I had read wonderful stories of researchers penetrating the toughest and most hostile communities and fetching data that had eluded the sciences for a long time. Alas, I was not going to be that hero-researcher with a great story to tell, I thought, prone to depressing thoughts as young PhDs are. I whined enough in front my of teacher and she said the trick is go again and again. I shuddered at the thought but had no other option. When I reappeared at the desk and chairs, Boss Lady was intrigued: “Arrey, you are back!”
Me: The interview, so…I have to write something…otherwise…
Boss Lady: Alright, lets see. You do not have a recorder on you. You are not going to use my name ever. You are not going to tell anyone what I say. You were never here. We don’t know you.
Me: OK, no problem. Thanks ma’am, thank you sooo much.
Me: Why this job?
Boss Lady: Why not?
Me: Er…As women, do you face any challenges in this job?
I look at the lady constables as well. A couple of them looked miserable just then.
Boss Lady: Yes, people don’t expect us to be in this job. We have to get used to such attitudes.
Me: What training have you been given?
Boss Lady: Constables are put through nine months of mental, physical, and psychological training to prepare them for the role. The training covers everything from swimming and running to 16 subjects that include law and psychology. These women can no longer walk in a shy manner. They have to walk with purpose.
Me: What kind of cases do you get to handle?
Boss Lady: Mostly family matters, domestic stuff, not criminal stuff. Someone beats up the wife, dowry cases and the like. But one thing I would like to tell you, 498a needs to go.
Me: But, ma’am…Why?
Boss Lady: You don’t get to interrupt me. This is my final point on this issue. Women come here with false cases all the time—it’s got to stop. I can just tell by seeing their faces, which is a genuine dowry case and which is not. Most of them are not. This law has got to go soon.
These were the early days of the 498a of the Indian Penal Code catching the imagination of people. Commonly known as the ‘dowry case,’ the 498a was defined anew in 1983 and made cruelty including Dowry-related ones, a non-bailable offense. Women who could not hold their husbands responsible for any offenses including domestic violence, marital rape and battery, resort to this section of the IPC helplessly and use it as a bargaining and negotiating measure. Since the husband and his family can be imprisoned under the 498a, many families stop their harassment out of the social ‘shame’ of being imprisoned and seek to provide maintenance to the wives, while earlier they would show no assets or escape by paying extremely low amounts of maintenance. This being the story of many married women in the country, I was shocked by Boss Lady’s take on the issue. But then, how does one really help the truly affected? Or how does one help women when all odds are stacked against them? In many households, daughters-in-law to this day are just considered burdensome bodies that need to earn their keep by providing free services to everyone in the family.
Me: So, how do you deal with a Dowry case?Boss lady: We inquire with the parents, relatives and neighbours if they have heard of any quarrels or if the woman has confided in them? 50% of the dowry cases are false cases. The wives do not like the joint families and ask the husband to arrange for a separate residence. If the husband refuses, they threaten to harass him by making a complaint of dowry harassment. Some men are really greedy and harass their wives. I have seen all kinds of people.
Me: What happens in a typical domestic violence case?
Boss Lady: Well, most often, women do not want to split with their husbands and therefore do not file a case. They informally request us to issue some kind of a warning to stop the harassment. I have so far advised 244 cases by way of counseling, as against 117 cases that were formally registered FIRs. The advice given by my team often follows this pattern: As far as possible, do not file a case against your husband because it will cause you to lose your relationship with him. If a case is filed, then the only way out is to fight for maintenance and it could take a long time.
Me: But parents spend huge sums of money on the wedding, which too is actually a form of dowry…And, if maintenance takes too long, then is not 498a…
Boss Lady: So, what? You leave that aside, for a minute. Parents know they have to spend for their daughter’s wedding, it’s alright. Tell me, won’t your parents spend lavishly on your wedding tomorrow?
Me: No, never on my wedding.
Boss Lady and her band of constables: Ha ha ha (big round of laughter). My dear girl, let me tell you. You are still very young. You know nothing of the world. You will gain some responsibility once you marry!
Me: If I marry, its not going to be a conventional one.
Boss Lady: Yeah, yeah, we will see about that, won’t we? You will cook for your husband, you will give him children and then we will see. Ha ha ha, another round of applause with Lady Constables congratulating Boss Lady on the precise nature of her arguments.
Me: You all are role-models to the society in one sense. Although liberated at the work place and by the profession chosen, you appear to be oppressed at home. Do you all cook at home?
Boss Lady and Lady Constables in unison: Of course, we do. Who else would if not us? (Everyone is looking proud! I am quite miserable.)
Lady Constable: I cook, clean, finish everything and then get myself here on a bus. Every morning, it’s the same thing.
Boss Lady: You have to cook ma, you have to ‘do.’ If not, what is there?
Well, I know the joys of giving selflessly but my husband is not going get food cooked all the time by me. So, I said: I don’t think I will be the one cooking all the time.
After another round of unified sarcastic remarks, “Oh, we believe you. Really.” Boss Lady: Oh wait, wait, she is, what is that, feminine! Are you feminine, my silly girl?
Me: Er…feminist.
Boss Lady: Hmm, I challenge you to get married and have a life where you won’t have to cook! I wish you good luck! I mean it. Constables look at me like I don’t belong to this earth. Boss Lady looks at me at like I am a babe, silly, naïve, an idiot and a moron—all in one. She tells me: You got enough from us, I think. Now, go. We have work to do here.
Me: But Ma’am. Being in this job and still cooking and doing everything for your husbands, don’t you think there is a contradiction?
Boss Lady: No, girl, none. What I do for work is just work. Back home is real life, there I have to listen to what my husband says, take care of him, earn his affection. We can’t override him just because we work here. Besides, cooking is not a burden; we are used to it. Also, my husband doesn’t know how to cook! Got it? Now, be on your way.
Me: Ma’am, a few more questions.
Boss Lady: Time’s up, girl. Go be feminine or feminist or whatever you want to be! Another round of laughter.
Me: OK, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am. Thank you for your time. Thanks everybody. If I realize I have more questions when I go home, could I please come back?
Boss Lady: You may not.
Me: Er, OK, ma’am. Thanks again.
I left the police station with a feeling of frustration, thinking that I had not gathered any meaningful data and that there was nothing to interpret, mainly because my questions at that point of time were all to do with feminist methodology, what is feminism, who is a feminist, are these police women feminist, do they identify themselves as such, why did they choose this profession? And so on. I gave up on the project and heaved a big sigh when my teacher didn’t insist on a written paper. Off and on, over the next few years, I would spend a day at a Women’s Police Station observing the goings-on, but the interview method had lost its appeal to me. My intermittent reflections led to me understand things in the following way.
After the women’s movement has insisted for years that the personal was the political, it was apparent that the Indian State was becoming increasingly aware that women generally do not want to talk about their problems and in a public space like the police station and to policemen. When they do, they pay a price. Recall also, how custodial rape (rape in Police stations by Policemen) was a serious problem and still is. In response, today’s reworked policy deems there cannot be any arrests of women after sundown. To counter women’s discomfort in entering a Police Station, the Women’s Police Station employs only women and takes complaints. But the women’s police station is not truly women-friendly. Women in power were like men or worse.
In 20 minutes, they had managed to laugh at me, intimidate me and were too sure of their world. They had endless practical wisdom to offer—only it was all located firmly within the patriarchal world. These women were not feminists but were simply strong women. They were protective of themselves. They knew it was a bad world for women out there. They were clever. They chose their battles maybe a little too carefully. They were feisty and genuine women, no doubt. They were here to lay claim to the equality of job opportunities for women, created for them by a State in which hundreds of years before they definitely had fewer choices. It was all wholly positive. They needed the job security, the salary, the benefits, the pension—the whole deal. It was likely they were dealing with class-caste issues (we cannot unfortunately analyze that more here). In short, they were the first generation of women employed by the government! This is no meagre achievement. Add to this the acceptance of double burden—the challenges of both tradition and modernity! Wow! These were superwomen, indeed, but not feminists.
To identify as feminist, one needs to look at women’s problems with a certain level of generality and overview to spot the patterns of subjugation that patriarchy creates. Instead, the Women’s Police Station was the result of an easy appropriation of the category of “women.” Clearly, there were no deeper issues. Women were added and stirred to the normal police station. Even as I struggled with elitist practices and stereotypes of feminism, I couldn’t bring myself to see feminism here. These wonderful women had left me feeling defeated and distraught, while they were happy, triumphant and unrelenting in their attack on a number of ideas!
In my subsequent visits to other such women’s police stations, years later, I saw firsthand how many underprivileged women came in and complained about husbands who had run away, were into liquor or beat them up. The Policewomen this time around were strong women too. They called in the husbands, threatened them with jail and beatings revealing the very unlawful but quirky, quick-justice methods in various avatars. Some things had changed -- women who came in were first offered a chair and water. Clearly, gender sensitization training had taken place in the interim. Yet, today we still see the Police asking funny questions before registering rape cases and also dissuading women from filing FIRs. For the less-educated women, information that an FIR might result in a permanent break with the husband might be useful. For an educated person it is, “Why won’t you let me file a complaint?” It appears that this counseling on the part of the police is not a straightforward Govt. initiative but something confusing to everyone involved. Over time, it has been lauded and disowned in equal measure. The approach of the police women indicated to me what senior lawyer and feminist activist Flavia Agnes has always insisted upon—that there are enough laws already; it’s their application and the execution in the justice system that needs more work. There is not one feminist around today who would deny that there has been a misuse of 498a but then the real question still is: how do we ensure that women are not abused within their marital households. How do we get them justice? But these were not my only questions then or now. I had a few more.
I had read the remarkably-accessible and brilliant Madhu Kishwar on the topic of the dowry and watched some of her TV interviews of women who narrate harassment from the 80s. Brace yourself if you plan to track these. They are not for the faint-hearted. But Madhu Kishwar’s writings opened up a pandora’s box of questions. She asked why women should not get a dowry -when there was no way they would get any portion of the inheritance. Parental property went to the sons—these inheritance laws are still being reworked! Don’t we hear the Supreme Court speak every now and then about women having to take care of parents in their old age if they wanted property and so on? The truth is, the much maligned Manusmriti ensures better equity for women than do our British-inspired laws. How does one remain sensitive to the Indian cultural customs of giving and receiving and still ensure that women get a fair deal in both the parental and marital home and are not considered burdensome?
498a and its abuse might have more to do with the practices of Family Court lawyers than anything else. I have seen firsthand how lawyers employ some utterly unthinkable claims just to escape maintenance. A couple of decades ago, they would deny that the marriage even occurred if there were no photographs to prove it. They would deny the validity of marriage by claiming it was never consummated if there were no children, or that the wife deserted the oh-so-poor husband or that she was unfaithful and so on. Anything that laws permitted was tried and tested to escape paying maintenance. If these horrendous practices didn’t exist, would we need 498a at all or the new men-rights rhetoric that has developed as a response?
For decades, women’s education and financial independence has been thought of as a solution. But it appears to me that the achievement of these has thrown up a new problem—men and women don’t know how to be in a marriage anymore. While most men love the patriarchal set-up that makes the woman cook and take care of his parents and so on, women can’t be bothered with such extra-tasks anymore. In urban centers, they don’t want to give up their plush jobs and think that child-bearing along with a job is task enough. A marriage with equality has been so hard to envision today that youngsters are choosing to remain unmarried rather than fall into a complicated life. Again, the question persists: how to remain sensitive to the cultural sensitivities of India and ensure equality for women? A harsh dismissal of either women or culture is a rejection of too many Indias and no way forward at all.
-Sushumna Kannan.
Published in Women's Web on July 20th 2018.
In 2004, when I was researching Women’s Police Stations in Bangalore as part of a paper I was to write, they were still a new thing. The very first one was only a decade old. The local MLA had seen the need for a Women’s Police Station and pressured those in power. I had ended up in a mini-forest in the middle of the city and the Police Station had picturesque stone steps leading me in. I expected to meet feminists highly committed to the women’s cause, who were the most exemplary role-models that modern state institutions had made space for and even nurtured. Instead, what I found was a group of women who cooked, cleaned, pleased their husbands and then came to work—taking on all the double burden one could possibly take. When we met, these superwomen were sizing me up and lecturing me on why the 498a should go and why I should most definitely cook for my husband when I marry.
Read on for my story. Each person had a desk and a chair, the boss lady, aka officer, had the biggest desk and was on the phone. I entered and one by one, the lady constables all asked me what I wanted—as happens a lot in my beloved India. I answered them all too—politely saying I needed an interview for a research project. One of the ladies told me to go on my way, but another nice one led me in to the Inspector, the Boss Lady. I saw that all the women wore shirts and trousers, were somewhat athletic, and completed the look with bindi, bangles, anklets, and flowers. Instantly, I thought, class and a rural background is going to be a category to think through here. To the urban eye, the odd mix of styles would either be weird or entirely revolutionary! My thoughts were loudly interrupted when the Boss Lady asked, “What do you want?”
Me: I am a researcher. I needed to speak with you for 10 minutes, please.
Boss Lady: What about?
Me: Your experience working in a Women’s Police Station—it is still new to the city, so I am trying to understand what is done here. What cases are handled? Also, I would like to understand what parts of this set-up are challenging or interesting.
Boss Lady: No, we don’t give interviews here. Constable, show her out.
Someone steps forward and I want to launch in on a little speech about the benefits of research for society and for women’s well-being and why she should be helping me. Instead I am reduced to a schoolgirl and all I can do is mutter: “Ma’am, please, I have an assignment.”
It’s Boss Lady’s turn to play victim and she promptly screams, “We are doing work here! You are wasting our time. Please allow us to do our work. Look at the number of files on my desk!”
It’s time for me to leave. I depart hesitatingly like I were a lover who doesn’t want to leave! Girl, who knew research was going to be like this? Back at my Centre, I report the impossibility of this project, shake my head and say no no no. Forget being a participant observer, these women wouldn’t answer a single question on my projected interview notepad.
I had read wonderful stories of researchers penetrating the toughest and most hostile communities and fetching data that had eluded the sciences for a long time. Alas, I was not going to be that hero-researcher with a great story to tell, I thought, prone to depressing thoughts as young PhDs are. I whined enough in front my of teacher and she said the trick is go again and again. I shuddered at the thought but had no other option. When I reappeared at the desk and chairs, Boss Lady was intrigued: “Arrey, you are back!”
Me: The interview, so…I have to write something…otherwise…
Boss Lady: Alright, lets see. You do not have a recorder on you. You are not going to use my name ever. You are not going to tell anyone what I say. You were never here. We don’t know you.
Me: OK, no problem. Thanks ma’am, thank you sooo much.
Me: Why this job?
Boss Lady: Why not?
Me: Er…As women, do you face any challenges in this job?
I look at the lady constables as well. A couple of them looked miserable just then.
Boss Lady: Yes, people don’t expect us to be in this job. We have to get used to such attitudes.
Me: What training have you been given?
Boss Lady: Constables are put through nine months of mental, physical, and psychological training to prepare them for the role. The training covers everything from swimming and running to 16 subjects that include law and psychology. These women can no longer walk in a shy manner. They have to walk with purpose.
Me: What kind of cases do you get to handle?
Boss Lady: Mostly family matters, domestic stuff, not criminal stuff. Someone beats up the wife, dowry cases and the like. But one thing I would like to tell you, 498a needs to go.
Me: But, ma’am…Why?
Boss Lady: You don’t get to interrupt me. This is my final point on this issue. Women come here with false cases all the time—it’s got to stop. I can just tell by seeing their faces, which is a genuine dowry case and which is not. Most of them are not. This law has got to go soon.
These were the early days of the 498a of the Indian Penal Code catching the imagination of people. Commonly known as the ‘dowry case,’ the 498a was defined anew in 1983 and made cruelty including Dowry-related ones, a non-bailable offense. Women who could not hold their husbands responsible for any offenses including domestic violence, marital rape and battery, resort to this section of the IPC helplessly and use it as a bargaining and negotiating measure. Since the husband and his family can be imprisoned under the 498a, many families stop their harassment out of the social ‘shame’ of being imprisoned and seek to provide maintenance to the wives, while earlier they would show no assets or escape by paying extremely low amounts of maintenance. This being the story of many married women in the country, I was shocked by Boss Lady’s take on the issue. But then, how does one really help the truly affected? Or how does one help women when all odds are stacked against them? In many households, daughters-in-law to this day are just considered burdensome bodies that need to earn their keep by providing free services to everyone in the family.
Me: So, how do you deal with a Dowry case?Boss lady: We inquire with the parents, relatives and neighbours if they have heard of any quarrels or if the woman has confided in them? 50% of the dowry cases are false cases. The wives do not like the joint families and ask the husband to arrange for a separate residence. If the husband refuses, they threaten to harass him by making a complaint of dowry harassment. Some men are really greedy and harass their wives. I have seen all kinds of people.
Me: What happens in a typical domestic violence case?
Boss Lady: Well, most often, women do not want to split with their husbands and therefore do not file a case. They informally request us to issue some kind of a warning to stop the harassment. I have so far advised 244 cases by way of counseling, as against 117 cases that were formally registered FIRs. The advice given by my team often follows this pattern: As far as possible, do not file a case against your husband because it will cause you to lose your relationship with him. If a case is filed, then the only way out is to fight for maintenance and it could take a long time.
Me: But parents spend huge sums of money on the wedding, which too is actually a form of dowry…And, if maintenance takes too long, then is not 498a…
Boss Lady: So, what? You leave that aside, for a minute. Parents know they have to spend for their daughter’s wedding, it’s alright. Tell me, won’t your parents spend lavishly on your wedding tomorrow?
Me: No, never on my wedding.
Boss Lady and her band of constables: Ha ha ha (big round of laughter). My dear girl, let me tell you. You are still very young. You know nothing of the world. You will gain some responsibility once you marry!
Me: If I marry, its not going to be a conventional one.
Boss Lady: Yeah, yeah, we will see about that, won’t we? You will cook for your husband, you will give him children and then we will see. Ha ha ha, another round of applause with Lady Constables congratulating Boss Lady on the precise nature of her arguments.
Me: You all are role-models to the society in one sense. Although liberated at the work place and by the profession chosen, you appear to be oppressed at home. Do you all cook at home?
Boss Lady and Lady Constables in unison: Of course, we do. Who else would if not us? (Everyone is looking proud! I am quite miserable.)
Lady Constable: I cook, clean, finish everything and then get myself here on a bus. Every morning, it’s the same thing.
Boss Lady: You have to cook ma, you have to ‘do.’ If not, what is there?
Well, I know the joys of giving selflessly but my husband is not going get food cooked all the time by me. So, I said: I don’t think I will be the one cooking all the time.
After another round of unified sarcastic remarks, “Oh, we believe you. Really.” Boss Lady: Oh wait, wait, she is, what is that, feminine! Are you feminine, my silly girl?
Me: Er…feminist.
Boss Lady: Hmm, I challenge you to get married and have a life where you won’t have to cook! I wish you good luck! I mean it. Constables look at me like I don’t belong to this earth. Boss Lady looks at me at like I am a babe, silly, naïve, an idiot and a moron—all in one. She tells me: You got enough from us, I think. Now, go. We have work to do here.
Me: But Ma’am. Being in this job and still cooking and doing everything for your husbands, don’t you think there is a contradiction?
Boss Lady: No, girl, none. What I do for work is just work. Back home is real life, there I have to listen to what my husband says, take care of him, earn his affection. We can’t override him just because we work here. Besides, cooking is not a burden; we are used to it. Also, my husband doesn’t know how to cook! Got it? Now, be on your way.
Me: Ma’am, a few more questions.
Boss Lady: Time’s up, girl. Go be feminine or feminist or whatever you want to be! Another round of laughter.
Me: OK, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am. Thank you for your time. Thanks everybody. If I realize I have more questions when I go home, could I please come back?
Boss Lady: You may not.
Me: Er, OK, ma’am. Thanks again.
I left the police station with a feeling of frustration, thinking that I had not gathered any meaningful data and that there was nothing to interpret, mainly because my questions at that point of time were all to do with feminist methodology, what is feminism, who is a feminist, are these police women feminist, do they identify themselves as such, why did they choose this profession? And so on. I gave up on the project and heaved a big sigh when my teacher didn’t insist on a written paper. Off and on, over the next few years, I would spend a day at a Women’s Police Station observing the goings-on, but the interview method had lost its appeal to me. My intermittent reflections led to me understand things in the following way.
After the women’s movement has insisted for years that the personal was the political, it was apparent that the Indian State was becoming increasingly aware that women generally do not want to talk about their problems and in a public space like the police station and to policemen. When they do, they pay a price. Recall also, how custodial rape (rape in Police stations by Policemen) was a serious problem and still is. In response, today’s reworked policy deems there cannot be any arrests of women after sundown. To counter women’s discomfort in entering a Police Station, the Women’s Police Station employs only women and takes complaints. But the women’s police station is not truly women-friendly. Women in power were like men or worse.
In 20 minutes, they had managed to laugh at me, intimidate me and were too sure of their world. They had endless practical wisdom to offer—only it was all located firmly within the patriarchal world. These women were not feminists but were simply strong women. They were protective of themselves. They knew it was a bad world for women out there. They were clever. They chose their battles maybe a little too carefully. They were feisty and genuine women, no doubt. They were here to lay claim to the equality of job opportunities for women, created for them by a State in which hundreds of years before they definitely had fewer choices. It was all wholly positive. They needed the job security, the salary, the benefits, the pension—the whole deal. It was likely they were dealing with class-caste issues (we cannot unfortunately analyze that more here). In short, they were the first generation of women employed by the government! This is no meagre achievement. Add to this the acceptance of double burden—the challenges of both tradition and modernity! Wow! These were superwomen, indeed, but not feminists.
To identify as feminist, one needs to look at women’s problems with a certain level of generality and overview to spot the patterns of subjugation that patriarchy creates. Instead, the Women’s Police Station was the result of an easy appropriation of the category of “women.” Clearly, there were no deeper issues. Women were added and stirred to the normal police station. Even as I struggled with elitist practices and stereotypes of feminism, I couldn’t bring myself to see feminism here. These wonderful women had left me feeling defeated and distraught, while they were happy, triumphant and unrelenting in their attack on a number of ideas!
In my subsequent visits to other such women’s police stations, years later, I saw firsthand how many underprivileged women came in and complained about husbands who had run away, were into liquor or beat them up. The Policewomen this time around were strong women too. They called in the husbands, threatened them with jail and beatings revealing the very unlawful but quirky, quick-justice methods in various avatars. Some things had changed -- women who came in were first offered a chair and water. Clearly, gender sensitization training had taken place in the interim. Yet, today we still see the Police asking funny questions before registering rape cases and also dissuading women from filing FIRs. For the less-educated women, information that an FIR might result in a permanent break with the husband might be useful. For an educated person it is, “Why won’t you let me file a complaint?” It appears that this counseling on the part of the police is not a straightforward Govt. initiative but something confusing to everyone involved. Over time, it has been lauded and disowned in equal measure. The approach of the police women indicated to me what senior lawyer and feminist activist Flavia Agnes has always insisted upon—that there are enough laws already; it’s their application and the execution in the justice system that needs more work. There is not one feminist around today who would deny that there has been a misuse of 498a but then the real question still is: how do we ensure that women are not abused within their marital households. How do we get them justice? But these were not my only questions then or now. I had a few more.
I had read the remarkably-accessible and brilliant Madhu Kishwar on the topic of the dowry and watched some of her TV interviews of women who narrate harassment from the 80s. Brace yourself if you plan to track these. They are not for the faint-hearted. But Madhu Kishwar’s writings opened up a pandora’s box of questions. She asked why women should not get a dowry -when there was no way they would get any portion of the inheritance. Parental property went to the sons—these inheritance laws are still being reworked! Don’t we hear the Supreme Court speak every now and then about women having to take care of parents in their old age if they wanted property and so on? The truth is, the much maligned Manusmriti ensures better equity for women than do our British-inspired laws. How does one remain sensitive to the Indian cultural customs of giving and receiving and still ensure that women get a fair deal in both the parental and marital home and are not considered burdensome?
498a and its abuse might have more to do with the practices of Family Court lawyers than anything else. I have seen firsthand how lawyers employ some utterly unthinkable claims just to escape maintenance. A couple of decades ago, they would deny that the marriage even occurred if there were no photographs to prove it. They would deny the validity of marriage by claiming it was never consummated if there were no children, or that the wife deserted the oh-so-poor husband or that she was unfaithful and so on. Anything that laws permitted was tried and tested to escape paying maintenance. If these horrendous practices didn’t exist, would we need 498a at all or the new men-rights rhetoric that has developed as a response?
For decades, women’s education and financial independence has been thought of as a solution. But it appears to me that the achievement of these has thrown up a new problem—men and women don’t know how to be in a marriage anymore. While most men love the patriarchal set-up that makes the woman cook and take care of his parents and so on, women can’t be bothered with such extra-tasks anymore. In urban centers, they don’t want to give up their plush jobs and think that child-bearing along with a job is task enough. A marriage with equality has been so hard to envision today that youngsters are choosing to remain unmarried rather than fall into a complicated life. Again, the question persists: how to remain sensitive to the cultural sensitivities of India and ensure equality for women? A harsh dismissal of either women or culture is a rejection of too many Indias and no way forward at all.
-Sushumna Kannan.
Published in Women's Web on July 20th 2018.
Learning from Andal, Learning from the Devadasi
Modern women can learn much from Andal’s life and appreciate its beauty, without having to be sentimental about it or evaluating her in a 21st century context.
Recently, the Tamil lyricist Vairamuthu called Andal a devadasi and sparked off some protests, especially by the Tamil Brahmin community (often referred to as tam-brams). Honestly, the protests by this community are a new and far more interesting phenomenon, the historical scholarship, on the other hand, is old, hackneyed, ideological and in urgent need of revision.
In the face of the protests, Vairamuthu apologized and pointed out that he was not calling Andal a devadasi anyway but another scholar from a 70s book that can’t be located easily was (in Indian Movement: Some Aspects of Dissent, Protest and Reform by Subhash Chandra Malik). As usual, the issue spiraled into pointing out the distorted histories of the left and corrective attempts from the right on some fora.
Tradition has it that women are excluded from issues concerning them, so we must ask: what should our take be on this issue? As feminists, we revel in Andal and her exemplary life as much as we do in the devadasis’ contribution to our society, temples and art forms. Yet, the feminist take on the Andal-devadasi controversy cannot be simplistic or shy away from the problems of history-writing. To show why, I draw from my own research into medieval bhakti a bit and present some thoughts you could consider in making your mind up.
Who was Andal? Why does her story still move us?
For those of you yet to google Andal up, here is her story in brief. Andal as a baby is found in a garden by Vishnuchitta, a temple priest who then brings her up as his daughter. She tries out garlands meant for the temple deity, thinking they must first look beautiful on her if they are to look beautiful on the deity. One day, Vishnuchitta catches her doing this and admonishes her, for unworn and pure flowers must be offered to Hindu deities. Soon after, the deity appears in Vishnuchitta’s dream and insists that he wants only those garlands tried out by Andal.
Andal’s devotion is so deep that she asks to be married to Ranganatha at Srirangam when she grows up, another form of the same deity. Upon marriage, she merges with her beloved deity with no traces left behind. She is hailed as a Goddess and is one of the twelve much-revered Tamil Vaishnavite saints of medieval India. Andal composed two works, Tiruppavai and Tirumozhi. Andal means ruler. The story of Andal is deeply moving. Andal’s innocence, sincerity and perseverance as well as her strength and delicateness are remarkable, even when her story is told in unsentimental ways.
When I first heard the story as a child, I was moved to tears and didn’t need to know the history of medieval India to understand it. I say this because there is nothing complete or irrefutable about the history that is doing the rounds aka one that Vairamuthu is drawing his understanding from. Why? The mainstream history that we have today is indeed leftist. It works on the standard format of looking for the feudal lord and the underdog in everything it touches. Even simple inferences about the extraordinariness of Andal makes it paint the rest of the women as super-ordinary. It is such an attempt that makes historians say speculative things like, women took to spirituality because of the oppression of patriarchy in those times or that women never ventured out of the house.
My research reveals many credible historical sources* wherein women ‘converted’ their husbands’ sect from one to another and even demanded to be married to a person with a certain kind of devotion. They are known to have rejected or rebuked husbands for their lack of devotion as well. The birth of daughters was prayed for and celebrated in many parts of medieval India and their loss upon marriage, mourned. Women ruled as queens during this time. In leftist histories, the regressiveness of medieval society and tradition is premised on an assumption of egalitarianism that is attributed to the Bhakti period in comparison with the Protestant movement of Europe. Contrary to the assumptions made, not all Bhakti poetry sought to eradicate caste or gender inequality, it only reiterated what was held to be true in the Vedas: that for spiritual sadhana, class, caste, gender and such worldly categories do not matter. Further, viewing medieval society by premising ourselves in modernity shows our uncritical affiliation with modernity so as to declare tradition as its polar opposite, rife with superstition and backwardness.
Andal’s choice is what makes her fascinating.
We must simply disagree with and condemn Vairamuthu’s position that Andal was a devadasi because it is historically inaccurate with no evidence to back the claim. Devadasis have a rich and varied history—not all women who were devadasis were treated as prostitutes; some were performers of various art forms, others led pious lives within the bounds of temples. Andal lived in the immediate surroundings of a temple because she grew up as Vishnuchitta’s daughter and temple priests traditionally lived within a stone’s throw from the temple. This doesn’t make her a devadasi. Andal lived most of the years of her short life being in love with Krishna, her favourite deity and her compositions express her love in erotic terms. But this too does not make her a devadasi necessarily, she could just be a devotee. She married her beloved deity, but this was no ordinary marriage or devadasi marriage. She was dedicated to the temple deity beyond and above requirements of her, of her own will and inclination. She was not bound by tradition to do so. Her choice is what we should find fascinating. Andal surrendered herself to Krishna, but also chided him when she wanted to, accusing him of anything she wanted to. For her, Krishna was real; she was not deluded. Her life was a miracle in itself and though hagiographies may exaggerate, she is not the first or last in the long line of saints who leave their physical bodies in an unusual way – whatever we may or may not understand or believe of this today. We don’t have to uncritically accept these claims but they are stories alright. It is better we let questions persist rather than propose answers that are baseless.
This said, the protests from the Tam-brahm community are not unproblematic. They tend to emerge from a moral position of superiority that looks down upon devadasis and sex-workers with enormous insensitivity. Though the protestors have put forward a simple demand for apology, the contours of their position are not entirely unknown. Their moralistic position all too often refuses to acknowledge the complexities of caste, class and gender and looks the other way when complicity in forms of oppression are mentioned.
If only they developed a more sophisticated stance towards their understanding of society and history, could we take them more seriously each time they cried ‘hurt religious sentiments.’ I say this despite the fact that the Tam-brahm community rarely comes forward publicly in this manner, remaining quiet and ultra-cautious. The Tam-brahminization of classical art forms that were wrenched from the hands of the devadasis during the nationalist period is a well-known history that we need to remember on this occasion. The point again is not to critique individual left historians or be anti-brahminical and attack them but to be aware of the inaccuracies and inconsistencies in their approaches even if on a case by case basis.
As many ways of being a woman as there are women.
Whether women are religious or not, their cause does not benefit with affiliation to either of these positions. One extols the devadasis and condemns Andal somewhat, the other extols Andal and could condemn the devadasis. If women would like to be respected, not for their sexual choices, which is an intensely personal matter, but for being women, as humans equal to men, then where do these two polarized options leave us? Feminist positions unassociated with the left are hard to find. Yet, in this era of postmodernism where ideology is quite passe, why shouldn’t we hope to embrace multiple, vague and arbitrary positions regarding Andal instead of insisting on one or another history?
The bare minimum of Andal’s story, whether fact or fiction, is inspiring enough for women. We would have a problem with Andal if our understanding of feminism was simplistic enough to admonish femininity, devotion, marriage, family, love, sexual desire because they are patriarchal. The truth is, women embrace all of these or reject them or tweak them, or like Andal interpret each in our own ways. Women of today tend to marry and redefine it, fall in love and opt out of it, have families they care enough to fight with, call out on their children, celebrate and contain their desires and practice any number of variations of all these.
Being feminine does not mean being weak. Strength and femininity can co-exist and has co-existed, as in Andal. It is patriarchy that would like to have us believe otherwise. In addition, it is our general assumption that medieval India did not speak out about sexual desire, which is why we tend to think of Andal as extraordinary or rebellious. Medieval women too negotiated sexual desire anyway.
Even if streedharma was followed during these times, it was considered a path to the highest cultural goal, moksha. Women by tending to their husbands and his family would secure a coveted position for themselves, their labour was of value. Miraculous powers were often a byproduct of their filial devotion, while filial devotion in general had rewards as well. Andal’s love for Krishna followed the marriage model and streedharma which reaped her very rich rewards. She vanished without a trace into the sanctum sanctorum of the temple at Srirangam, uniting with a deity who rules the earth and the Gods!
Within the logic and narrative of the story, there is enough to convey the effectiveness of Andal’s devotion, the perfect achievement of her worthy aims. The characteristics Andal displays in her story are of great value too. Persistence being one. Purity being another. How much control over one’s actions should one have to be single-minded and unwavering like her! It’s not trivial; anyone of us working outside the home or inside it knows that our everyday tasks too demand great focus from us. Cultivating a character is not to be underestimated and inculcating values considered noble are not necessarily futile though there is much cynicism about them today.
If our feminism is not just a bunch of stereotypes and one where we don’t look at our past or tradition as inferior and silly but are ready to learn some lessons from, we may find much that appeals to our critical minds in there. If our feminism is one where we know that traditional women make choices too—within tradition, whatever the repertoire maybe and however it may appear different to those who have opted out of tradition, then Andal and the devadasi would be equally great. We will help ourselves much if we viewed medieval India as we view our own society today with versions of tradition and modernity competing for our attention; the spectrum beautifully diverse, fickle and irreducible.
Let us hope that the young women of today are already asking important questions of their mothers, chipping away at the black-white world of morality into a grey. In her own life, Andal convinced her father to a marriage with the deity Ranganatha in Srirangam, a town far from Srivilliputtur where she resided. Vishnuchitta assembled his family and others and traveled the whole distance as the bride’s party. No ordinary feat. Any of us who has stood their ground on career or marriage with our families would know.
Andal does not have to lend herself to our 21st century life directly, women have the imagination to understand her life and her achievements as per her own context, spiritual as it maybe. Neither does the devadasi have to narrate her woes to us in detail before we feel a burning rage against those who exploited her. Andal, the woman, sans her modern and so-called traditional interpreters, is all we women really need.
*The scope of this article does not allow me to give a detailed account of sources which are often not found online, but I am happy to take more questions from readers in the comments below.
-Sushumna Kannan
Published on Women's Web, January 18th 2018. This piece was reprinted on the Jaggery Lit. blog. Check it out here.
Modern women can learn much from Andal’s life and appreciate its beauty, without having to be sentimental about it or evaluating her in a 21st century context.
Recently, the Tamil lyricist Vairamuthu called Andal a devadasi and sparked off some protests, especially by the Tamil Brahmin community (often referred to as tam-brams). Honestly, the protests by this community are a new and far more interesting phenomenon, the historical scholarship, on the other hand, is old, hackneyed, ideological and in urgent need of revision.
In the face of the protests, Vairamuthu apologized and pointed out that he was not calling Andal a devadasi anyway but another scholar from a 70s book that can’t be located easily was (in Indian Movement: Some Aspects of Dissent, Protest and Reform by Subhash Chandra Malik). As usual, the issue spiraled into pointing out the distorted histories of the left and corrective attempts from the right on some fora.
Tradition has it that women are excluded from issues concerning them, so we must ask: what should our take be on this issue? As feminists, we revel in Andal and her exemplary life as much as we do in the devadasis’ contribution to our society, temples and art forms. Yet, the feminist take on the Andal-devadasi controversy cannot be simplistic or shy away from the problems of history-writing. To show why, I draw from my own research into medieval bhakti a bit and present some thoughts you could consider in making your mind up.
Who was Andal? Why does her story still move us?
For those of you yet to google Andal up, here is her story in brief. Andal as a baby is found in a garden by Vishnuchitta, a temple priest who then brings her up as his daughter. She tries out garlands meant for the temple deity, thinking they must first look beautiful on her if they are to look beautiful on the deity. One day, Vishnuchitta catches her doing this and admonishes her, for unworn and pure flowers must be offered to Hindu deities. Soon after, the deity appears in Vishnuchitta’s dream and insists that he wants only those garlands tried out by Andal.
Andal’s devotion is so deep that she asks to be married to Ranganatha at Srirangam when she grows up, another form of the same deity. Upon marriage, she merges with her beloved deity with no traces left behind. She is hailed as a Goddess and is one of the twelve much-revered Tamil Vaishnavite saints of medieval India. Andal composed two works, Tiruppavai and Tirumozhi. Andal means ruler. The story of Andal is deeply moving. Andal’s innocence, sincerity and perseverance as well as her strength and delicateness are remarkable, even when her story is told in unsentimental ways.
When I first heard the story as a child, I was moved to tears and didn’t need to know the history of medieval India to understand it. I say this because there is nothing complete or irrefutable about the history that is doing the rounds aka one that Vairamuthu is drawing his understanding from. Why? The mainstream history that we have today is indeed leftist. It works on the standard format of looking for the feudal lord and the underdog in everything it touches. Even simple inferences about the extraordinariness of Andal makes it paint the rest of the women as super-ordinary. It is such an attempt that makes historians say speculative things like, women took to spirituality because of the oppression of patriarchy in those times or that women never ventured out of the house.
My research reveals many credible historical sources* wherein women ‘converted’ their husbands’ sect from one to another and even demanded to be married to a person with a certain kind of devotion. They are known to have rejected or rebuked husbands for their lack of devotion as well. The birth of daughters was prayed for and celebrated in many parts of medieval India and their loss upon marriage, mourned. Women ruled as queens during this time. In leftist histories, the regressiveness of medieval society and tradition is premised on an assumption of egalitarianism that is attributed to the Bhakti period in comparison with the Protestant movement of Europe. Contrary to the assumptions made, not all Bhakti poetry sought to eradicate caste or gender inequality, it only reiterated what was held to be true in the Vedas: that for spiritual sadhana, class, caste, gender and such worldly categories do not matter. Further, viewing medieval society by premising ourselves in modernity shows our uncritical affiliation with modernity so as to declare tradition as its polar opposite, rife with superstition and backwardness.
Andal’s choice is what makes her fascinating.
We must simply disagree with and condemn Vairamuthu’s position that Andal was a devadasi because it is historically inaccurate with no evidence to back the claim. Devadasis have a rich and varied history—not all women who were devadasis were treated as prostitutes; some were performers of various art forms, others led pious lives within the bounds of temples. Andal lived in the immediate surroundings of a temple because she grew up as Vishnuchitta’s daughter and temple priests traditionally lived within a stone’s throw from the temple. This doesn’t make her a devadasi. Andal lived most of the years of her short life being in love with Krishna, her favourite deity and her compositions express her love in erotic terms. But this too does not make her a devadasi necessarily, she could just be a devotee. She married her beloved deity, but this was no ordinary marriage or devadasi marriage. She was dedicated to the temple deity beyond and above requirements of her, of her own will and inclination. She was not bound by tradition to do so. Her choice is what we should find fascinating. Andal surrendered herself to Krishna, but also chided him when she wanted to, accusing him of anything she wanted to. For her, Krishna was real; she was not deluded. Her life was a miracle in itself and though hagiographies may exaggerate, she is not the first or last in the long line of saints who leave their physical bodies in an unusual way – whatever we may or may not understand or believe of this today. We don’t have to uncritically accept these claims but they are stories alright. It is better we let questions persist rather than propose answers that are baseless.
This said, the protests from the Tam-brahm community are not unproblematic. They tend to emerge from a moral position of superiority that looks down upon devadasis and sex-workers with enormous insensitivity. Though the protestors have put forward a simple demand for apology, the contours of their position are not entirely unknown. Their moralistic position all too often refuses to acknowledge the complexities of caste, class and gender and looks the other way when complicity in forms of oppression are mentioned.
If only they developed a more sophisticated stance towards their understanding of society and history, could we take them more seriously each time they cried ‘hurt religious sentiments.’ I say this despite the fact that the Tam-brahm community rarely comes forward publicly in this manner, remaining quiet and ultra-cautious. The Tam-brahminization of classical art forms that were wrenched from the hands of the devadasis during the nationalist period is a well-known history that we need to remember on this occasion. The point again is not to critique individual left historians or be anti-brahminical and attack them but to be aware of the inaccuracies and inconsistencies in their approaches even if on a case by case basis.
As many ways of being a woman as there are women.
Whether women are religious or not, their cause does not benefit with affiliation to either of these positions. One extols the devadasis and condemns Andal somewhat, the other extols Andal and could condemn the devadasis. If women would like to be respected, not for their sexual choices, which is an intensely personal matter, but for being women, as humans equal to men, then where do these two polarized options leave us? Feminist positions unassociated with the left are hard to find. Yet, in this era of postmodernism where ideology is quite passe, why shouldn’t we hope to embrace multiple, vague and arbitrary positions regarding Andal instead of insisting on one or another history?
The bare minimum of Andal’s story, whether fact or fiction, is inspiring enough for women. We would have a problem with Andal if our understanding of feminism was simplistic enough to admonish femininity, devotion, marriage, family, love, sexual desire because they are patriarchal. The truth is, women embrace all of these or reject them or tweak them, or like Andal interpret each in our own ways. Women of today tend to marry and redefine it, fall in love and opt out of it, have families they care enough to fight with, call out on their children, celebrate and contain their desires and practice any number of variations of all these.
Being feminine does not mean being weak. Strength and femininity can co-exist and has co-existed, as in Andal. It is patriarchy that would like to have us believe otherwise. In addition, it is our general assumption that medieval India did not speak out about sexual desire, which is why we tend to think of Andal as extraordinary or rebellious. Medieval women too negotiated sexual desire anyway.
Even if streedharma was followed during these times, it was considered a path to the highest cultural goal, moksha. Women by tending to their husbands and his family would secure a coveted position for themselves, their labour was of value. Miraculous powers were often a byproduct of their filial devotion, while filial devotion in general had rewards as well. Andal’s love for Krishna followed the marriage model and streedharma which reaped her very rich rewards. She vanished without a trace into the sanctum sanctorum of the temple at Srirangam, uniting with a deity who rules the earth and the Gods!
Within the logic and narrative of the story, there is enough to convey the effectiveness of Andal’s devotion, the perfect achievement of her worthy aims. The characteristics Andal displays in her story are of great value too. Persistence being one. Purity being another. How much control over one’s actions should one have to be single-minded and unwavering like her! It’s not trivial; anyone of us working outside the home or inside it knows that our everyday tasks too demand great focus from us. Cultivating a character is not to be underestimated and inculcating values considered noble are not necessarily futile though there is much cynicism about them today.
If our feminism is not just a bunch of stereotypes and one where we don’t look at our past or tradition as inferior and silly but are ready to learn some lessons from, we may find much that appeals to our critical minds in there. If our feminism is one where we know that traditional women make choices too—within tradition, whatever the repertoire maybe and however it may appear different to those who have opted out of tradition, then Andal and the devadasi would be equally great. We will help ourselves much if we viewed medieval India as we view our own society today with versions of tradition and modernity competing for our attention; the spectrum beautifully diverse, fickle and irreducible.
Let us hope that the young women of today are already asking important questions of their mothers, chipping away at the black-white world of morality into a grey. In her own life, Andal convinced her father to a marriage with the deity Ranganatha in Srirangam, a town far from Srivilliputtur where she resided. Vishnuchitta assembled his family and others and traveled the whole distance as the bride’s party. No ordinary feat. Any of us who has stood their ground on career or marriage with our families would know.
Andal does not have to lend herself to our 21st century life directly, women have the imagination to understand her life and her achievements as per her own context, spiritual as it maybe. Neither does the devadasi have to narrate her woes to us in detail before we feel a burning rage against those who exploited her. Andal, the woman, sans her modern and so-called traditional interpreters, is all we women really need.
*The scope of this article does not allow me to give a detailed account of sources which are often not found online, but I am happy to take more questions from readers in the comments below.
-Sushumna Kannan
Published on Women's Web, January 18th 2018. This piece was reprinted on the Jaggery Lit. blog. Check it out here.
Wives On H4 Visa – How Do You Deal With The Depression That Dependency Causes?
The American dream is still alive in the hearts of many. Recession, debt and heavy taxes in the USA don’t seem to deter people from believing in it. People, world over, are attracted to the USA, an innovator’s haven, home for the truly talented. But what happens when only your husband can pursue the American dream, not you? Boredom, depression, insomnia, dejection, disinterest in life are just some of the consequences faced by the wives of the coveted H1B visas in the USA. The US Government offers conditional visas, wherein the spouse of the H1B worker cannot work, something that many in India do not know much about, even when they set out to marry the ‘America-settled groom.’ The spouses, majority of them women, who, often highly qualified and in diverse professions, end up at home doing household chores. If they have an IT background, they may work after procuring an American education and a work visa, years later. But, for numerous others, no dreams, American or otherwise! Having resigned from high-paying jobs in India, but committed to their marriages, these women face terrible dilemmas that their husbands and families may or may not understand. A sweet ‘hubby’ could fund your education, which costs at least $40,000 today. A not-so-sweet one will ask your parents to fund it. Remember, the scholarships in the US have dried out; the crises in higher education happened in the US first. For an engineer in his early career, $40,000 is big money or the savings hitherto.
The psychological effects of the H4 or dependent visa on women range from a sense of entrapment to helplessness to self-doubt to self-hatred. A number of them realize that they had greater freedom in India. SA who dreamt of a place where people didn’t ask personal questions or intruded, ended up thinking how much India was a better alternative, compared to the actual place where nobody cared. The loneliness is often the hardest problem. It is not easy to make friends when you are depressed. “I decided I shouldn’t talk to anybody because all I could talk about was my joblessness,” says a woman in her 30s. The battles women face in India, the protest, the politics, the making of a point, a joke, everything had changed in the USA; everything was different. There were no eve-teasers, yes, but without a full-fledged life of activity, KS asks, “Where is the need to get of the house?” The pain in this question is obvious only when one knows how to listen. “The only time I got out was with my husband during the weekend, to buy groceries or visit places.” What did you do the rest of the time--“Binge-watched Netflix.”
A common mistake many women make is not learning driving for the first few years. In many parts of the USA, one cannot go anywhere without a car, public transport is nominal. This runs counter to our idea of a developed country, but that’s how it is. Typically, it takes one and half years for a person who has not driven before, to master it. In addition, right-side driving is alien to the Indian eye. “For the first two years, Indian roads occupied my headspace. I was always attempting to enter the car from the driver’s side leading to comical situations” says Ratna.
Typically, he first few years are usually spent in making applications you never hear back from, registering on job websites and thinking ‘there is a job out there for me; I just need to find it.’ Only a few years later do many women realize that without a work permit, a job is indeed out of reach. Denial as a state of mind persists for many years, unless a deadline is drawn for the job search and professional psychological help is sought.
How come many Indian women who want to work, end up marrying USA-grooms? Well, they are hopeful. Never had optimism played such a misleading role, one might think. Almost always, women are indeed informed that they may not be able to work immedietly, but what they do not know is that there is a general air of suspicion revolving around their educational degrees and that almost everything is done differently in the USA. “They are hopeful that a green card will come through,” says psychologist Reena Mittal who treated several women suffering the H4 “curse” (tag to H4 Visa, a curse, FB page) but it actually takes an average of 10-12 years or more while most assume much less time. Mittal records that the women on H4 felt powerless, inadequate, bored and lethargic. Since the work culture is different and more substantive in the USA, to appear employable, you have to look and talk like an American in most places. This is counter-intuitive to many Indians because they are taught to expect equality despite cultural differences. Being modern, a number of Indians think they can thrive anywhere, or that they are as modern as anyone can get! But in the USA, one has to be modern exactly like how one can be there. If you threw a battle-cry at your family in India and asserted your independence or saw enough hardship to think—if I survived this, I can survive anything—no, you are wrong. This is a different soup you are in. In fact, the American accent is one of your biggest problems for the first x years. Solve this problem by actually watching YouTube videos that train you in it. Recently, the work permit given out by the Obama administration benefited numerous women. But the Trump administration could reverse this, which means years of petitioning gone waste. The resultant power imbalance between the spouses makes the H4 visa troubles an issue for feminism, especially since many families perpetuate the inequalities of the Indian family though residing in the USA and stereotypes of the unscrupulous wife persist.
So, what does one do to cope with the H4 situation?
- See a psychologist.
2. Make happiness a project This is the time to make the master-list of the ‘10 things that make me happy.’ And see it executed. It is easy to say that ‘one must accept what one cannot change’ or that one should not place conditions on happiness. But the real test of this is the H4 visa. So shift your attention from what you cannot do to what you can. Of course, by now you will have sent off an email or petition to your senator, voting for work rights on Facebook and Causes.com. “I would scoff at home-makers who were very accepting of their circumstances,” says SM. “But now I understand better, people are only making the best of their circumstances.” Accepting that you may not be able to work for a number of years and working towards happiness is the best gift you can give to yourself; be realistic. “I would be happy for a bit and then my mind would go—you don’t have a job!!!—and I would become unhappy again. It was like my mind reminded my unemployed status every sixty seconds,” says SM. Keeping a tab on moods through CBT helped conquer the constant depression, she says.
3. Educate yourself Having a plan and making a commitment to happiness sets you up to actually go get the education you need. Research what universities have on offer, what you want to do, the cost, the job opportunities and everything related. Give yourself 3 months to get the data. Once on a course, you will be completely engaged for its duration. If taking a course is not an option, you can continue to update yourself by taking online courses on Coursera, Khan Academy etc. An active professional profile and online presence is crucial, unlike in India. Close the gap years in your CV through coursework and freelance work for India. Read up how-to books, magazines and journals from the public library in your field by the dozen. A book a fortnight is a good plan.
4. You need mentors Sound professional advice has always instructed you to not alienate your mentors, ever. Find mentors in the USA and keep in touch with the ones in India. You need them all always. Freelance work could still be available in India. Keep all options open. Continue to build good professional relationships with your mentors; they could actually help. Be willing to trust their advice. “Early on when I came here, I was unwilling to trust anyone who had a job, no one could be my mentor because no one understood what I was going through,” says Tara. “I was full of conspiracy theories of professional jealousy and couldn’t tell genuine advice from fake reassurance.
5. Cooking is only a life-skill Cooking in India is a battleground in the marriage because men do not do enough household work. In the USA, the approach is far more broad-minded. If both spouses are working, men usually cook and take on chores. So when one spouse is not working, cooking becomes their job. There is an indirect form of equality in the situation, although one may not accept cooking everyday as enjoyable. Given this, cooking simply becomes yet another life-skill. Often, the husbands cook better since they would have been in the USA alone for some time before their marriages. The wives may not know cooking, thanks to their mothers. So, taking up cooking, discovering some hacks, exploring new recipes are helpful. Judgements aside, the quicker this work is done and put aside, the more easily enjoyable work can be done. Restaurants tend to dole out bland food that is never satisfying, so you will end up experimenting. Plus, by age 30, you need to able to invite people home and throw parties—mastering a few items to authenticity rather than an entire cuisine is advantageous. Do not shy away from kitty parties. Embrace their value. At every step, you will be challenged into finding feminism again, redefining it, tweaking your previous understanding of it and so on.
6. Dancing is your call “I thought dancing was cheap,” says Dolly. “It was a waste of time and I swore I would never do it.” Over the years, Dolly has changed her opinion, given up the morality drama and, embraced that dancing is a fun way to spend time, be alert and active. She performed to Bollywood music with her group at events and even enjoyed Zumba at the Public Library. For others who want to remain physically active, yoga is a good choice—again something that is often free at the Public Library. Since money is a big consideration when living abroad and spending a few thousand dollars on every air ticket to India is an expensive must, learning to make use of freebies are important. From scoffing at the stinginess, one progresses to understand the economics of the choices of NRIs.
7. Pinterest is your best friend, The Bucket List, your nirvana Hobbies take up a major space in one’s routine. These are things that one always wanted to do but had no time for, when working. Making use of the dollar store for simple crafts can be quite a thrill in itself. Apart from this, dedicated craft stores and classes can give anyone a taste of a life of leisure. At times, there are Continuing Education classes that offer free classes and, courses in Community Colleges that are not expensive. Otherwise, craft classes cost $ 8 an hour on an average, which is not too much money if you are invested in it. In the US, women could start classical music or dance at age 30—this is where the freedom lies. There are more youngsters seriously invested in Indian dance and music forms there than in India, where the current pulls one towards western dance or music. Using the freedom to the fullest is the way to keep active. Use Pinterest to also find Bucket Lists for travel, happiness goals, dressing goals. Reading challenges are easily done on Goodreads or by enrolling in the tens of book clubs in any city. The thing about surviving the H4 in the USA is to take the initiative. If there is no book club for Indian Literature, you start one. A number of people develop an interest in Indian texts and traditions because travelling has offered them perspective on India. Don’t worry if someone calls you an “internet Hindu.” Read up; this is the time to do it. Follow Indian news too. If there are no activity partners for a hike, you start the club, invite your friends. Make use of Facebook to be informed of the hundreds of events in your city, choose some—this is an absolute must.
8. The Public Library is your go-to place for everything Volunteer here and elsewhere. The volunteer certificate could be a stepping stone to a job. Charity causes are often your group volunteering a dance performance and your friends buying tickets to watch it. But it is not as silly it sounds; the money does help out those in need. From how to garden in your city to World Literature and TV shows, the library has almost everything you need to know. They are connected to universities and can get you specialized books. Read American history and fiction, watch the news. A city is its news, so you will feel more at home and ready for casual conversation. Diaspora fiction will show you that you are not the only one feeling homesick or lost. Free meditation classes and talks add to build a routine; hop libraries close to you for more activities. Check out citizenship classes and seminars on how to buy a home. Buying a home could add a wide array of activities, from gardening to décor. But find out if the city you live in is not suffering from a real estate boom, which often makes things hard. A good amount of research helps you choose better. You are the one who will do it, not your working husband.
9. Travel alone Accompanying the husband everywhere and being accompanied by him everywhere is not the best way to experience a new place. While the perspective of another is needed initially, it bars individual experience in the long run. Spousal relationships in the US can be harmonious, with little interference from in-laws and relatives. This is one reason why many women choose never to return to India; Poornima says her domineering mother-in-law would definitely ruin the peace she has in the US; she “will never ever ever go back!” Some marriages still have the remote-control (MIL) in India, though. And patriarchal societies are convenient for men, so your hubby would love to return, wouldn’t he? Anticipate these issues and explore independence by travelling alone. Visit friends and relatives across the country; take a train if you can. Make a bucket list of what to places to cover with friends and with family. Travel to India for an extended stay, this is when some freelance work can be accomplished too. Get friends and relatives home. This chips away at the loneliness.
10. The right time for having children
“When someone advised me to have children, I was offended. A couple of years later, I am now trying hard and regret not starting earlier,” says Anu. The job search and its disappointments preoccupied her completely, leaving no time for other important plans. When women with jobs are quitting in order to take care of children, in India and the US, having children during the H4 visa phase is a smart choice. The inequality of the care-giving situation though mind-boggling at times, Indian men in the US are actually better parents and share baby-duties. Says, Ragini, “only when my daughter was born did I regain the happiness I had lost and healed from the trauma I had suffered from the H4; it helped me focus on my job search with a proper mindset.” Like in most places, couples buy a home and then plan for a baby. If you are in a reasonable marriage, your husband will register the home in both your names (a common thing here) providing some equality. Child care is way too expensive, so keep avenues open to return to India for a time or get parents’ and in-laws’ help. You need to have your relationships in order so as to seek help at this stage. A visit from parents prior to delivery will help them learn how things work in the US. You need friends too. Don’t rest until you have made 50 friends and acquaintances. Friendships don’t happen on buses and walks, like in India. It’s more organized. You need to seek out people, who will not bother with you unless you explicitly express interest. Do this by joining associations (temple, music, dance, yoga) and support groups. In time, the sense of loss and alienation dissipates.
If you suffered and survived the H4, it is because you are a feminist.
(Names changed to protect identity)
-Sushumna Kannan
Published on Women's Web on August 2nd 2017. This article was nominated for the Laadli Media Awards.
Indian Women and the Pressure to look young
With the buzz for anti-ageing products, have Indian women succumbed to the pressure of looking young? Is embracing your age out of fashion?
By Sushumna Kannan
The reach and influence of the anti-aging research-industry is enormous. It extends to preoccupations with immortality and an end to aging altogether. Promises range from “turn back the clock,” “look upto 10 years younger” to “youthful skin in 5 minutes” or “30 seconds” even. Websites that explain their technology accompanied by “it changed my life” testimonials are now on the rise. We are bombarded with products to use from our teen years itself and the side-effects debate seems to have been overpowered.
A common view is that using anti-aging products is a woman’s preference. For instance, Sarada Balaji, Fulbright scholar and Professor of English at Tirupati says, “Women use anti-aging stuff since they are themselves inclined to look young. Moreover, they are easily influenced when they see other women do it.”
Some interviewees do quickly point to other issues involved. Archana Bhat, PhD in Psychology, Mysore University, uses anti-ageing creams and she does not condemn the use of beautification products. She opines, “Looking and feeling young is a state of psychological well-being and no culture should have a problem with that.” However, she cautions, “Looking young is one expression of feeling young, but the danger is in the unrealistic expectation. A youthful feeling comes not only from good skin but also physical and mental fitness. A balanced, un-obsessed approach is required.” Bhat’s thoughts are particularly interesting because it takes into consideration women’s psychological needs in the here and now, instead of looking down at them from a moralistic viewpoint. This is markedly different from what I’ve witnessed while I was growing up, when women wearing lipsticks would be dubbed as ‘sluts!’
Balaji continues, “I appreciate make up on others but feel reluctant to have it on me. I do not use any anti-aging creams. I am basically too lazy. However, I do use natural ingredients like pure aloe vera gel for my face.”
The importance of women’s beauty
Meghana Shivanand, English Lecturer, Mount Carmel College, Bangalore points out the politics of patriarchy in India. She says, “Women are compared to each other in the institution of the family (for e.g. sisters-in-law, daughters-in-law) and so each one wants to look better and younger than others.”
The marriage market is yet another place where the importance of women’s beauty is crucial. To be dark or old is the worst sin here! Your ‘value’ would go down. You would have to marry beneath you, unless you had other things to compensate, like money, good education or a sound family background (that is, no divorces or single parents). As a wife if you are not beautiful, you would have to “overdo” things to make the “deal” worthwhile, so the lack of beauty is “forgiven”. Additionally, career-oriented women today are marrying late, increasing the pressure to look young all the more. Furthermore, with the advent of social networking websites, we are prompted to post pictures frequently to project a sense of well-being.
Looking good has come to mean looking young! The pressure has hit almost all spheres of women’s lives…
Shivanand hits the nail on the head when she says, “Looking good has come to mean looking young! The pressure has hit almost all spheres of women’s lives, be it professional or personal.” She feels, “Women should not use these creams because they will become dependent on external sources to boost their confidence and thus lose their sense of inner worth and focus. Instead they should channelize time, energy and money towards things meaningful.” And yet, even she admits with honesty, “The pressure to look good is so strong that I might still go in for facials and other beauty enhancing agents!”
While many women accept that embracing and accepting our age is our responsibility, there is no doubt that the male gaze also drives women to despise aging. Dr. Nikhila Haritsa, Professor, Film Studies, EFLU, Hyderabad, says that there is no point in putting the entire onus on women. Instead, “If the yardsticks of assessing women were not men’s or if men’s way of viewing women changes, there may be some hope.”
The importance of women: Beyond youth and good looks
Manon Foucraut, Shrishti School of Arts and Design, Bangalore, in her Master’s thesis (2013) argues that there has been a westernization of beauty standards in India. Exploring beautification in ancient/medieval India, she suggests that we may not have had as many physical preoccupations as we do today. The bindi had a spiritual significance; jewellery enhanced health and worked on the principles of Acupuncture. And the ‘self’ therein was itself perceived not as a body; bodies didn’t matter.
Researcher on ethnicity, Bitasta Das, echoes this thought. Discussing the steps taken by the women’s movement to resist the objectification of women, Das recalls an experience, “I was volunteering in the villages of Assam when one illiterate Bodo woman asked me why I speak of equal rights for the sexes when the life running in each is the same.” Das insists that this is how feminism should be. The “life running…” is called ‘prana’ in traditional terminology.
Celebrating one’s self is not bad but the definition of ‘self’ matters a great deal. For instance, Balaji pointed out that although a beautiful woman attracts attention, it is short-lived if it is not matched with the right attitude and intelligence.
Celebrating one’s self is not bad but the definition of ‘self’ matters a great deal.
Dr. Lavanya Seshashayee, PhD in Women’s Studies, emphasizes on work. She says, “External beauty does help in feeling good but is far from being the summum bonum of one’s life purpose. Confidence can be developed only through the meaningful work that a woman engages in.” Seshashayee is clear that the “fixation with enhancing looks” should go.
This issue of beautification has caused several bitter fights between my mother and me. As a child, I wanted to dress her up but she was never interested. Only other mothers and daughters can understand this, I think. For my mother, actions and the fulfilment of duties and responsibilities matter, nothing else does. I still remind her to unearth a special silk saree to wear on occasions. She forgets half my instructions about what to match with what! Anti-aging products or hair dyes are out of the question for her, but her beauty lies in her enormous strength and detachment.
The time is indeed ripe for Indian women to explore our self-worth and our notions of selfhood to counter the male gaze.
Do you think that embracing our age gracefully is impossible in this world which is obsessed with looks? Do share your thoughts!
*Photo credit: Linda Mea Meoni (Used under the Creative Commons Attribution License.)
Published on Women's Web, June 21st 2013
By Sushumna Kannan
The reach and influence of the anti-aging research-industry is enormous. It extends to preoccupations with immortality and an end to aging altogether. Promises range from “turn back the clock,” “look upto 10 years younger” to “youthful skin in 5 minutes” or “30 seconds” even. Websites that explain their technology accompanied by “it changed my life” testimonials are now on the rise. We are bombarded with products to use from our teen years itself and the side-effects debate seems to have been overpowered.
A common view is that using anti-aging products is a woman’s preference. For instance, Sarada Balaji, Fulbright scholar and Professor of English at Tirupati says, “Women use anti-aging stuff since they are themselves inclined to look young. Moreover, they are easily influenced when they see other women do it.”
Some interviewees do quickly point to other issues involved. Archana Bhat, PhD in Psychology, Mysore University, uses anti-ageing creams and she does not condemn the use of beautification products. She opines, “Looking and feeling young is a state of psychological well-being and no culture should have a problem with that.” However, she cautions, “Looking young is one expression of feeling young, but the danger is in the unrealistic expectation. A youthful feeling comes not only from good skin but also physical and mental fitness. A balanced, un-obsessed approach is required.” Bhat’s thoughts are particularly interesting because it takes into consideration women’s psychological needs in the here and now, instead of looking down at them from a moralistic viewpoint. This is markedly different from what I’ve witnessed while I was growing up, when women wearing lipsticks would be dubbed as ‘sluts!’
Balaji continues, “I appreciate make up on others but feel reluctant to have it on me. I do not use any anti-aging creams. I am basically too lazy. However, I do use natural ingredients like pure aloe vera gel for my face.”
The importance of women’s beauty
Meghana Shivanand, English Lecturer, Mount Carmel College, Bangalore points out the politics of patriarchy in India. She says, “Women are compared to each other in the institution of the family (for e.g. sisters-in-law, daughters-in-law) and so each one wants to look better and younger than others.”
The marriage market is yet another place where the importance of women’s beauty is crucial. To be dark or old is the worst sin here! Your ‘value’ would go down. You would have to marry beneath you, unless you had other things to compensate, like money, good education or a sound family background (that is, no divorces or single parents). As a wife if you are not beautiful, you would have to “overdo” things to make the “deal” worthwhile, so the lack of beauty is “forgiven”. Additionally, career-oriented women today are marrying late, increasing the pressure to look young all the more. Furthermore, with the advent of social networking websites, we are prompted to post pictures frequently to project a sense of well-being.
Looking good has come to mean looking young! The pressure has hit almost all spheres of women’s lives…
Shivanand hits the nail on the head when she says, “Looking good has come to mean looking young! The pressure has hit almost all spheres of women’s lives, be it professional or personal.” She feels, “Women should not use these creams because they will become dependent on external sources to boost their confidence and thus lose their sense of inner worth and focus. Instead they should channelize time, energy and money towards things meaningful.” And yet, even she admits with honesty, “The pressure to look good is so strong that I might still go in for facials and other beauty enhancing agents!”
While many women accept that embracing and accepting our age is our responsibility, there is no doubt that the male gaze also drives women to despise aging. Dr. Nikhila Haritsa, Professor, Film Studies, EFLU, Hyderabad, says that there is no point in putting the entire onus on women. Instead, “If the yardsticks of assessing women were not men’s or if men’s way of viewing women changes, there may be some hope.”
The importance of women: Beyond youth and good looks
Manon Foucraut, Shrishti School of Arts and Design, Bangalore, in her Master’s thesis (2013) argues that there has been a westernization of beauty standards in India. Exploring beautification in ancient/medieval India, she suggests that we may not have had as many physical preoccupations as we do today. The bindi had a spiritual significance; jewellery enhanced health and worked on the principles of Acupuncture. And the ‘self’ therein was itself perceived not as a body; bodies didn’t matter.
Researcher on ethnicity, Bitasta Das, echoes this thought. Discussing the steps taken by the women’s movement to resist the objectification of women, Das recalls an experience, “I was volunteering in the villages of Assam when one illiterate Bodo woman asked me why I speak of equal rights for the sexes when the life running in each is the same.” Das insists that this is how feminism should be. The “life running…” is called ‘prana’ in traditional terminology.
Celebrating one’s self is not bad but the definition of ‘self’ matters a great deal. For instance, Balaji pointed out that although a beautiful woman attracts attention, it is short-lived if it is not matched with the right attitude and intelligence.
Celebrating one’s self is not bad but the definition of ‘self’ matters a great deal.
Dr. Lavanya Seshashayee, PhD in Women’s Studies, emphasizes on work. She says, “External beauty does help in feeling good but is far from being the summum bonum of one’s life purpose. Confidence can be developed only through the meaningful work that a woman engages in.” Seshashayee is clear that the “fixation with enhancing looks” should go.
This issue of beautification has caused several bitter fights between my mother and me. As a child, I wanted to dress her up but she was never interested. Only other mothers and daughters can understand this, I think. For my mother, actions and the fulfilment of duties and responsibilities matter, nothing else does. I still remind her to unearth a special silk saree to wear on occasions. She forgets half my instructions about what to match with what! Anti-aging products or hair dyes are out of the question for her, but her beauty lies in her enormous strength and detachment.
The time is indeed ripe for Indian women to explore our self-worth and our notions of selfhood to counter the male gaze.
Do you think that embracing our age gracefully is impossible in this world which is obsessed with looks? Do share your thoughts!
*Photo credit: Linda Mea Meoni (Used under the Creative Commons Attribution License.)
Published on Women's Web, June 21st 2013
Carnatic in California
CARNATIC STATES The IFAASD festival has emerged as one of the biggest Carnatic events outside India
Indians at home may take their culture for granted, but among those in the US, there’s a pervading cultural hunger. The weeklong festival at the Indian Fine Arts cademy of San Diego is just one of the many ways to satiate that hunger
As India gets a tad more Westernised every day, curious stuff is happening in the US. Among the NRIs, Carnatic music is gaining popularity and flourishing. In the US city I moved to a few months ago, about 750 people pay 200-odd dollars for a year-long engagement with Carnatic music through the Indian Fine Arts Academy of San Diego (IFAASD). Numerous concerts are arranged through the IFAASD every year, and a majority are Carnatic music concerts. The week-long festival this year had so many more Carnatic treats that I felt I was given a crash course, and could suddenly identify more ragas than before.
Carnatic music festivals are organised in any number of cities across the US. Musicians from India typically make a 10-week tour, performing mostly to packed audiences. Is this tryst with Carnatic music for real or is it merely a romance?
While as Indians, we are busy fighting rising prices and corruption, something is up with the software engineers who travelled to places like the USA. It has something to do with the leisure available here (no traffic jams at least), and the perspective made possible by the distance. An interest in learning about the different aspects of India’s culture sans the pressure to appear hip, which still bugs Indians living in India. As a result of this, perhaps, rich diasporic Indians have begun to fund departments of Hindu studies in American universities, while software engineers are reading up on the Vedas, doing yoga and rediscovering, among tons of other things, Carnatic music.
The present generation seems to enjoy the luxury of intellectual pursuit that people a generation ago could not afford. This generation wants to know why ‘we’ are this way and not that. And if you are still the Marxist yet to be converted into Buddhism by age 30, know that there is a ‘we’ despite class, caste, gender, regional, linguistic and other differences, despite the fact we came into being as a nation only six decades ago. They will also tell you that nationality is a European construct and does not matter. And that culture is what you are accessing when you are listening to Carnatic music, even if definitions are murky.
“There is a greater cultural hunger in diasporic Indians,” says Deepti Navaratna, a music teacher in Boston, originally from Bangalore. “Also, identity is a big thing in America.”
Students and teachers
More than 100 young students learn Carnatic music in San Diego alone and the IFAASD hopes to follow the footsteps of Cleveland and its aradhana tradition and expand its work. Many concert attendees here are the parents of children who are learning. And the children bring notebooks into which they dutifully enter kritis and their ragas. Occasionally, you will get to see a small bespectacled girl or boy putting a hand up to identify the raga just sung by the performer. And they get it right! Parents take the effort to bring their children to class and oversee their practice. Navaratna says, “The students are able to value our tradition while holding a multicultural perspective.”
And students make very good use of growing technology, says my sister-in-law Geethanjali Iyengar, who has been teaching in Austin for two decades. There are web resources that provide notations, lyrics and basics. Additionally, YouTube and other music websites make classes and compositions available.
Dr CM Venkatachalam, a music teacher in San Diego, mentors about 60 students from the age of six. They learn for 10 years and may continue into their college years through Skype.
“The demand for teachers is so high that about 40 students are waitlisted,” says Venkatachalam. According to him, children of fourfive years like to listen, while at age seven, they realise music requires serious effort. “I have students who practise for two hours before starting for school. And there are others who listen to the lessons while in the car and then sing for me,” he says.
Students in the US have a lot more distractions unlike, perhaps, those in India. Some are busy with karate, swimming, tennis, chess and even golf. “Yet, children in India may ignore Carnatic music because it’s easily available,” he says. Children in the US learn Western instruments (guitar, clarionet, keyboard ) as part of the school curriculum. It’s a compulsory subject that is graded.
Iyengar and Navaratna both say students learn keenly, and the ones learning dance quickly present arangetrams (debut shows). Friends enrol. “They hang out together after classes and even perform together,” says Iyengar.
Teachers estimate about 25 per cent of the students are serious while the rest are forced by parents to take up classes. And yet, the audience here is traditional enough to sometimes squirm a little at the innovations of artistes like Ganesh- Kumaresh, and at L Subramanian’s world music and jazz-Carnatic jugalbandis. Music teachers also learn from other senior musicians in India who teach through Skype— Neyveli Santhanagopalan and Chitraveena Ravikiran are teachers known to generously do so.
One may already know of John Higgins, the late American singer of Carnatic music, and students at the Wesleyan Centre performing at the Tyagaraja Aradhana in Cleveland in 2009 (look up their performance on YouTube). The other end of the spectrum is students travelling back to India to master Carnatic music. Sandeep Narayan, though born and bred in the US, moved back to Chennai and so did dancer Mythili Prakash.
But dissent is there, too. A singer and teacher who doesn’t want to be identified says, “There is fierce competition to win prizes in Cleveland, parents are crazy about arangetrams and trikala pallavis. The gurus are branded on how many prizes they win in local competitions. It’s such a rat race at some level. I feel it’s really fiercer here than in India.”
The week-long festival
This year, well-known artistes such as Lakshmi Shankar, Sikkil Mala Chandrashekhar, Charumati Ramachandran, Malladi Brothers, Gayathri Venkatraghavan, Ajoy Chakraborty and Tanmay Bose were among those who performed at the festival. Some 86 artistes travelled from India, Canada and other parts of the US to stage Bharatanatyam ballets and music concerts at the festival which honoured Pandit Ravi Shankar. Young and ripe-old artistes were all on stage, invoking kritis a few centuries old or presenting their own compositions as a tribute to Ravi Shankar who had made San Diego his home.
The festival is also a time for the semiliterate in music to dress up and show off their latest purchases from their trip to India—saris, jewellery etc. But a whole lot are as modestly dressed as possible, in a pair of jeans and tees.
For artistes who travel from India, the festival means prestige and recognition. Perhaps it’s another kind of rat race for young musicians to be selected by Sundaram of the Cleveland Aradhana (fondly called Cleveland Sundaram) to perform in the USA! The artistes are hosted at Indian homes and a circuit, quite complex and organised, makes sure artistes perform in as many places as possible. Travel fare is a problem, though. Organisations like the IFAASD are non-profits and borrow visiting artistes and negotiate festival schedules with other organisations. Venkatachalam, also the director of the IFAASD, says, “We don’t bring artistes from India. We invite them only when they are here.”
The hosting arrangements remind me of yesteryears. My parents-in-law, connoisseurs of music, belonged to a generation that believed that this devotional music equalled the purest forms of spiritual sadhana. To simply listen to it was enough and there were no expectations for either hosting musicians or giving them gifts—except perhaps that they sing a song or two before starting for a concert venue. Female artistes who performed at the festival this time had strings of jasmine in their hair, gifts from residents here. If you didn’t look at the organised parking lot outside, you might think for a moment you were in India, the Californian weather only adding to the similarities!
Navaratna, not yet performing in the Cleveland concert circuit, says, “Local artistes are left to find their own ways to capture the stage!” She holds a number of music grants and fellowships from US universities and has been part of many collaborative attempts.
My husband, whose interest in Carnatic music revived only after he travelled West, is today a full-fledged rasika. He is not only interested in music but also reads up on rituals and festivals and deeper forms of spiritual sadhana hoping to make up for lost time. There is a tradition of scholarship in the West that studies Hinduism.
There is no such in India. In the name of secularism, we do not study any religions. While the tradition of such study emerged from Christian universities in the USA, it has somewhat diversified now to other cultures and religions. Students do a course on world religions from the undergraduate level and study Hinduism. The Jewish Community Center, the venue for the festival, is beautiful, yes, but why can’t Indians have such a centre? A fellow- rasika tells me it is because Indians like to save money and return to India sooner or later, unlike the people of other communities who see no gain in returning. The lives of many NRIs are intertwined with the story of Carnatic music. Concerts are attended by luminaries such as Dr VS Ramachandran, the neuroscientist, and Ravi Shankar until recently. The San Diego festival is well-attended by Americans as well.
We saw many Americans and their children enjoying the music, applying appropriate talams. How is this possible? It’s the result of a genuine interest in other cultures. And the well-maintained libraries that give you free information about almost anything you would like to learn. Bud, an American who hadn’t missed a single concert, like us, said Carnatic music had not been disturbed despite several invasions, and hence, was precious.
The Trichur Brothers shone the brightest at this year’s festival. Other notable performances were by Trichur V Ramachandran and K Gayathri. But what also rocked was the combination of singers worked out by Cleveland Sundaram. Brothers or sisters singing in pairs brought to the fore layered music. We saw a conscious effort of getting together singers with different timbres. For instance, Amruta Murali and Sankari Krishnan nicely contrasted, countered and supported each other.
“There is no gender on the Carnatic stage, eh?” whispered my husband as we watched Amruta Murali, Ranjani Ramakrishnan and Akkarai Subhalakshmi—all women on the violin— accompany beautifully in concert after concert. It was true. There was just one thing—music!
-Sushumna Kannan is affiliated to the San Diego State University, San Diego.
Published on 18.5.2013 in Talk Mag, a Bangalore-based weekly.
The Downturn And Relationships
The economic downturn was a difficult time for all of us; for our economy, stability, security, jobs – as well as relationships.
By Sushumna Kannan
A question has been bugging me for quite some time now. You could call it that eternal question about the nature of love and human beings and even dismiss it because it’s a difficult one. But the persistence of this question is somewhat transposed by the given timeframe I am now concerned with, by the very concrete nature of its aspects that binds us humans, as breath does to body. Simply put, it would read like this – how has the economic downturn affected relationships?
I imagine there were households that fought about the sudden cut in resources and changes in lifestyle must have been hard to enforce, upon others and upon oneself. The confidence levels of those who were handed pink slips must have dipped even if there was some consolation in the randomness and the collective nature of the misfortune. And occasionally, it must have felt a little like a natural disaster. Regret, sorrow and a sense of betrayal, and then, many relationships strained.
The counseling services included men this time. It acknowledged the notions of masculinity in place and the pressures they suffer from. Yet, some of the saddest stories I heard during the recession were from women friends with broken hearts.
It’s not even news that women, and Indian women at that, get a raw deal in most relationships, but to end up with a cancelled engagement in the US all because one had lost her job still gave me a jolt. When a friend from the US called, telling me about this, I realized anew that women with jobs were a new form of dowry and much more. Supposedly, you wouldn’t qualify for someone’s love if you were jobless.
Sadly, physical and emotional bonds until then had meant nothing to the man in question — he had just walked out in the changed scenario. A neighbour or relative might chip in quickly and say, “This is why we don’t believe in love marriages. See, what is this ‘love’?” True. Yet, the aunty-logic seems too stoic. So does the new super-cynic generation. After all, love happens and there are men and women who have the commitment to make it last. So, what was happening? Why were women who were already achievers in their own right faced with the demand for more money from well-educated Indian men? I have no answers really. Perhaps the men do.
The economic downturn, strangely or not so strangely, had raised for me, an old question about relationships and wealth that no one can ever really elude. Global markets, capitalism, profits, cheap labour and also love’s labour lost! I was reminded of that infamous word; adjustment and the equally infamous Indian mantra: “svalpa adjust maadi.” It made me think real hard, but in circles somewhat, about the control, co-operation, forgiveness, the support and the blessings as it were, present in all relationships, but especially within parent-child and spousal relationships. The whole ‘deal’ seemed raw from the very beginning. Daughters-in-law are generally supposed to feel grateful for the food, clothing and shelter provided in their marital homes, is it not?
Another friend suffered heartbreak when the man she was in love with said goodbye without much hesitation because, of course, he had lost his job. It is not always funny when people talk of 50 ways to break up with someone or ‘moving on.’ His e-mails declaring eternal love remain with her as relics of passive and cowardly cruelty. Well, relationships are fragile, you say. Yes, I agree. I couldn’t agree more. But that doesn’t mean that I can stop wondering, “But why? Why, why, why?”. Didn’t marriage or love actually mean that people stuck together through thick and thin? Or was this too going to be dubbed ‘sentimental’ soon by the practical Indians in my neighbourhood? At least, we know of both those great myths about women: too sentimental and too shrewd.
“I have lost all hope.” and “I have learnt my lesson“, said my friend from the US in the same breath! There is little consolation to offer either oneself or others. Trust me, the time is just right for Indian women to ask for prenuptial agreements and much more.
*Photo credit: nubuck
Published on April 7th 2012 in Women's Web.
By Sushumna Kannan
A question has been bugging me for quite some time now. You could call it that eternal question about the nature of love and human beings and even dismiss it because it’s a difficult one. But the persistence of this question is somewhat transposed by the given timeframe I am now concerned with, by the very concrete nature of its aspects that binds us humans, as breath does to body. Simply put, it would read like this – how has the economic downturn affected relationships?
I imagine there were households that fought about the sudden cut in resources and changes in lifestyle must have been hard to enforce, upon others and upon oneself. The confidence levels of those who were handed pink slips must have dipped even if there was some consolation in the randomness and the collective nature of the misfortune. And occasionally, it must have felt a little like a natural disaster. Regret, sorrow and a sense of betrayal, and then, many relationships strained.
The counseling services included men this time. It acknowledged the notions of masculinity in place and the pressures they suffer from. Yet, some of the saddest stories I heard during the recession were from women friends with broken hearts.
It’s not even news that women, and Indian women at that, get a raw deal in most relationships, but to end up with a cancelled engagement in the US all because one had lost her job still gave me a jolt. When a friend from the US called, telling me about this, I realized anew that women with jobs were a new form of dowry and much more. Supposedly, you wouldn’t qualify for someone’s love if you were jobless.
Sadly, physical and emotional bonds until then had meant nothing to the man in question — he had just walked out in the changed scenario. A neighbour or relative might chip in quickly and say, “This is why we don’t believe in love marriages. See, what is this ‘love’?” True. Yet, the aunty-logic seems too stoic. So does the new super-cynic generation. After all, love happens and there are men and women who have the commitment to make it last. So, what was happening? Why were women who were already achievers in their own right faced with the demand for more money from well-educated Indian men? I have no answers really. Perhaps the men do.
The economic downturn, strangely or not so strangely, had raised for me, an old question about relationships and wealth that no one can ever really elude. Global markets, capitalism, profits, cheap labour and also love’s labour lost! I was reminded of that infamous word; adjustment and the equally infamous Indian mantra: “svalpa adjust maadi.” It made me think real hard, but in circles somewhat, about the control, co-operation, forgiveness, the support and the blessings as it were, present in all relationships, but especially within parent-child and spousal relationships. The whole ‘deal’ seemed raw from the very beginning. Daughters-in-law are generally supposed to feel grateful for the food, clothing and shelter provided in their marital homes, is it not?
Another friend suffered heartbreak when the man she was in love with said goodbye without much hesitation because, of course, he had lost his job. It is not always funny when people talk of 50 ways to break up with someone or ‘moving on.’ His e-mails declaring eternal love remain with her as relics of passive and cowardly cruelty. Well, relationships are fragile, you say. Yes, I agree. I couldn’t agree more. But that doesn’t mean that I can stop wondering, “But why? Why, why, why?”. Didn’t marriage or love actually mean that people stuck together through thick and thin? Or was this too going to be dubbed ‘sentimental’ soon by the practical Indians in my neighbourhood? At least, we know of both those great myths about women: too sentimental and too shrewd.
“I have lost all hope.” and “I have learnt my lesson“, said my friend from the US in the same breath! There is little consolation to offer either oneself or others. Trust me, the time is just right for Indian women to ask for prenuptial agreements and much more.
*Photo credit: nubuck
Published on April 7th 2012 in Women's Web.
Takka-di-mi of Bangalore Rock
The Bangalore Rock!
Pic: Sushumna Kannan
Thermal and a quarter is a name to be reckoned with Bengaluru's rock scene for nearly two decades. Their new space for rock schooling, jam sessions and recording studio is a culmination of this long journey.
By Sushumna Kannan
12 Mar 2012, Citizen Matters
TAAQADEMY in Koramangala is the result of the band, Thermal and A Quarter's 16 year old tryst with music. This 3-month-old academy teaches music-making and song-writing as well as playing instruments and is also conceived as a space for musicians and bands to practice or hang out: ‘Make Space for Music' is TAAQADEMY's sweet demand of us.
The story behind this academy started four years ago, on Queen's Road. It is intricately linked to the journey its members themselves made since starting as a band in Christ College in 1996. 23 thousand people ‘like' it on Facebook alone; the music has been played to audiences of over 50 thousand. TAAQ is known for its unique collaborations with musicians pursuing different forms and styles.
Rajeev Rajagopal, 35, drummer, tells me that with time and change of setting and activities, the latest of which are the children in their lives, their music has grown as well. They assimilate their various life-experiences into their music and this is itself, according to him, how their music takes shape.
The ‘setting' for the music here is none other then good-old but changing Bangalore(uru). Its many vibrant colours are reflected in the band's musical choices as well as lyrics. The band, in fact, describes its music as ‘Bangalore Rock'! "Do you know what I mean?" asks Rajagopal urgently, he needs to know if I grew up in the city, because otherwise I wouldn't understand.
‘Bangalore Rock,' we need to note, began because of an earlier cosmopolitanism that Bangalore held within it before the big changes. Does this band represent the cosmopolitan nature of the city or was it a result of it?
Rajagopal recalls how they were one of the earliest bands playing western music when one could count the number of bands in the city on one's fingers. No instruments were available and many of the members were self-taught, music lessons were not easy to find: "Proud to say that we survived in a pre-internet era" says Rajagopal.
Bruce Lee Mani, 34, Guitarist and Vocalist, who finished up a class to make time for a chat also, acknowledges the difficulty of being in the creative fields in India. He taught English for a while to support himself and Rajagopal worked for the IT sector briefly. Prakash K N plays the Base Guitar for the band.
Thermal and A Quarter however was caught in the spectrum of opinions that deigned attempts in western music as either aping the west or as the introduction of new form of music. Rajagopal recalls the images of western music at that time-the death and destruction claims of heavy metalists-and says that there were a good share of prejudices and stereotypes to deal with.
Why this music?
There is the British legacy in Bangalore, and we went to convent schools and are comfortable with English, they say. "We must be good at what we do", they insist in an impressive student-like steadfastness and adherence to quality rendition.
Rajagopal recalls how people said they got a bit of Bangalore during performances in other cities and also how villagers in Cochin got seriously hooked on to their music once. "It's been a long journey", he says as he tries to remember more such occasions but gives up because there are one too many.
The sounds of ‘Bangalore Rock' make us pause, listen and experience. The style demands that each piece of music be judged individually. Folk, Hindustani, Jazz, Rock, Pop and more are its verve, but this is no fusion music, its depth comes from elsewhere.
Band with a cause
The band's involvement in creating music and video initiatives for cause-related issues such as corruption, moral policing and voting reveals a nerve of Bangalore and its people. The TAAQ members see its involvement with causes as a way of responding to the events around them, which they consider is inevitable for an artist. For them, engaging with causes is a way of expressing themselves.
TAAQADEMY
TAAQADEMY, is a result of the band's name TAAQ with an addition of the word ‘academy', however I initially read it as takka-di-mi and the band members reveled in the many meanings the name evokes. The studio space at TAAQADEMY is aesthetically appealing, with red brick walls and no cement. It is technically perfected for recording. Expert sound engineer and acoustic designer Didier Weiss, from Auroville has designed the studio. The free-floating walls actually stand on rubber in order to make the space sound-proof.
Small portions of the area are cordoned off in order to isolate sounds from different musical instruments. The recording space is available to individuals and bands for hiring for Rs. 500/- per hour. That musical instruments are offered for use by the Academy is an added advantage. Traveling musicians have been using this space to jam.
A small gallery shows pictures of the different phases of the construction of the studio. And another one portrays the construction workers with musical instruments forcing one to take a closer look at it. This is done in order to remind us of the otherwise forgotten labourers who build all our spaces for us, says Divya Joseph, the manager of the band.
The academy hires other musicians who teach as faculty and currently there are about 120 students. A small store of musical instruments and accessories is on its way to expansion-more instruments will be added soon.
⊕ Sushumna Kannan
12 Mar 2012
Sushumna is a scholar at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), Bangalore
Catalogue on artist Ratnakara Gudikar for the exhibition "Vernacular in the contemporary" by Devi Art Foundation, curated by Jackfruit Design, Bangalore.
(Nandikeshvara, Aakash Nandi,Trimukha Varaha on Gummata Malla,Iritada Nandi, Devi on Panchamukha Nandi)
About the artist: (Text by Sushumna Kannan)
Rathnakara Gudikar has been sculpting bhuta murtis since age ten and is joined by his sons today. “Gudikar” in Kannada refers to “s/he who makes gudi or temple”. “Ella daiva ne” or “It is all divine” says Gudikar, when he refers to the bhutas in relation to the more well known gods of Puranic Hindu culture. Bhutas in Dakshina Kannada are not seen as “devils”; they are worshipped as forms of helpful energies. In their temples, called daiyyada mane, they stand next to each other in rows and each has a specific location so that they have to be placed exactly in the same position after a refreshing coat of paint, when they are re-consecrated. Failure to do so will incur their wrath. Often, two different animal murtis that represent opposing or different principles are placed together. One dominates the other in terms of size and strength but the other is always present, like the small ram paired with the larger tiger. Across much of Dakshina Kannada, bhutas can be females, males or animals. Bobbariya, Jataka, Benadakki, Aihole, Nandikeshwara, Masti, Chikka, Mailaadi and Naankaali are some of the common ones.
For Rathnakara Gudikar, the art and craft of his sculpture is structured by convention and tradition. Bhutas are made of wood from two varieties of the jackfruit tree and then clothes and jewellery are painted with small, intricate designs. Gudikar innovates when making these designs and they incorporate changing tastes and trends. Usually, the murtis are of the average size, approximately 91 inches by 22 inches; Gudikar, however, makes each new addition to a shrine a little larger than the one before so as to continuously augment the artistic energy in the temple. Otherwise, it is believed to lead to a lack of “elige” or prosperity. The murti is considered to have no life until the drishti or eyes are painted; the Gudikars do this with veneration, as part of the pranapratishthapana or installation ceremony conducted in temples. With increasing prosperity in the region, bhutas are offered today in gold and silver for harakes or vows from people, and each bhuta has a favourite object it likes to receive.
Gudikar’s sculpture is the basis for the sanctity of a temple and the worship of the bhutas. His artistry enriches the experience of the worshipper in a myriad ways since it is Gudikar who preserves the rules for making the murtis, adorns them with innovative designs and endows each with a specificity that eventually comes to represent the very way the bhutas are remembered and seen in the act of darshan. The Gudikars have taken up carpentry to financially support themselves but are committed to sculpting bhutas. The growth in religiosity seen in his region, as in other parts of India, along with the growth in income earned from the IT industry among the class of patrons that the Gudikars serve, has meant there is widespread interest in promoting shrine-based worship of bhutas. But new patrons with more money tend to commission metal bhutas in order to represent their higher status through more expensive and prestigious materials. However, Rathnakara Gudikar carries forward historic practices he has inherited and sees no need to question the rules of his craft. Even as new elements are added, like the shiny, commercial paint which covers his bhutas, he sees it as an enhancement of tradition, not a modification or an innovation. The point is to preserve what may otherwise be lost.
Stereotype terror indeed!
Date: 2010-01-11 Place: Bangalore
It's funny how The West looked at The East once upon a time, but things have changed, or have they? Sushumna Kannan questions the stereotypes of India in western media
Star Movies, as part of what it called "Diwali Extravaganza" showed the four Indiana Jones movies this Diwali. To put it simply, I was taken aback. One of the four of the Indiana Jones movies Indians Jones and the Temple of Doom is set in India. The film was made in 1984 and effectively shaped much of Americans' beliefs about India throughout the 80s. Young Americans believed that India was indeed a place where monkey brains made dinner and eye-balls were to be found in soup. Tourists hesitated from visiting India. Diaspora Indians all over the world have been traumatized by the representations of India in this movie and are tired of answering anxious questions posed by their closest friends and colleagues. Yes, this is indeed the scene. And yet, Star Movies showed this movie as part of celebrating Diwali!
And to think that none other Steven Spielberg created these movies shocked me one tad more. Yes, Steven Spielberg of Jurassic Park fame. But wait, actually I think I understand a bit more -- the need for the big, the dramatic, the horrific, all that imagination, the obsession with special effects!
If you thought that Indians selling their labour across the globe was significant culturally, you were wrong. At least Star Movies doesn't show signs of any real understanding. Did they really think that we would 'celebrate' and thrill in Maharajahs serving monkey brains on a Diwali?
Doesn't Bollywood have its stereotypes, you might ask? Yes, it does. The Bollywood biases for the rich and beautiful are an everyday challenge to our well-being and sanity. Its stereotypes about Christian women (who always wear frocks and speak Hinglish) or the occasional white man who appears as a smuggler (ready to take away our gods as substitute for art), the one-eyed villain, the docile wife -- are all there for us to deal with.
But I insist that pulling out a 'thugee culture', probably from prejudiced colonial reports to create a movie with enormous impact is somehow a greater blunder. It is the act of reaffirming the worst colonial stereotypes about us -- that we are horribly immoral, corrupt, lazy, superstitious, unscientific and barbaric (add spiritual to the list). It is the act of not understanding why or how these stereotypes got created. It is simply being insensitive and cannot be defended in the same way we defend works of art. When Obama lit a Diwali lamp; in Star Movies was its perfect counter. I look at the white women (I am told they are from Eastern European nations) who dance in Kareena Kapoor's background, with a sense of wonder, and think if this is some way of us writing back to the empire.
It's funny how The West looked at The East once upon a time, but things have changed, or have they? Sushumna Kannan questions the stereotypes of India in western media
Star Movies, as part of what it called "Diwali Extravaganza" showed the four Indiana Jones movies this Diwali. To put it simply, I was taken aback. One of the four of the Indiana Jones movies Indians Jones and the Temple of Doom is set in India. The film was made in 1984 and effectively shaped much of Americans' beliefs about India throughout the 80s. Young Americans believed that India was indeed a place where monkey brains made dinner and eye-balls were to be found in soup. Tourists hesitated from visiting India. Diaspora Indians all over the world have been traumatized by the representations of India in this movie and are tired of answering anxious questions posed by their closest friends and colleagues. Yes, this is indeed the scene. And yet, Star Movies showed this movie as part of celebrating Diwali!
And to think that none other Steven Spielberg created these movies shocked me one tad more. Yes, Steven Spielberg of Jurassic Park fame. But wait, actually I think I understand a bit more -- the need for the big, the dramatic, the horrific, all that imagination, the obsession with special effects!
If you thought that Indians selling their labour across the globe was significant culturally, you were wrong. At least Star Movies doesn't show signs of any real understanding. Did they really think that we would 'celebrate' and thrill in Maharajahs serving monkey brains on a Diwali?
Doesn't Bollywood have its stereotypes, you might ask? Yes, it does. The Bollywood biases for the rich and beautiful are an everyday challenge to our well-being and sanity. Its stereotypes about Christian women (who always wear frocks and speak Hinglish) or the occasional white man who appears as a smuggler (ready to take away our gods as substitute for art), the one-eyed villain, the docile wife -- are all there for us to deal with.
But I insist that pulling out a 'thugee culture', probably from prejudiced colonial reports to create a movie with enormous impact is somehow a greater blunder. It is the act of reaffirming the worst colonial stereotypes about us -- that we are horribly immoral, corrupt, lazy, superstitious, unscientific and barbaric (add spiritual to the list). It is the act of not understanding why or how these stereotypes got created. It is simply being insensitive and cannot be defended in the same way we defend works of art. When Obama lit a Diwali lamp; in Star Movies was its perfect counter. I look at the white women (I am told they are from Eastern European nations) who dance in Kareena Kapoor's background, with a sense of wonder, and think if this is some way of us writing back to the empire.
I am the sound of my veena
E Gayathri
By: Sushumna Kannan
Date: 2009-03-31
Bangalore
What makes every artiste's music unique?
Sushumna Kannan looks for answers
Sublime: Gayathri says the veena
is an instrument that takes
on the breath of the player
World Space's 24-hour Carnatic music channel, Shruti, interviewed veena artiste E Gayathri recently. The interviews, in this time-slot, are interspersed with music by the artiste. I was fascinated and charmed by what Gayathri said about the sound or naadam of her veena. She said, "If I were to play a veena for about 150 hours, the veena gains a specific sound that is specifically mine."
Her three different veenas at home are all of the same naadam. How does this happen? She says the veena is an instrument that takes on the breath of the player. That is why the sound of an artiste's music is unique, irrespective of his/her style of playing or expertise. If you have listened to Gayathri's music, you will have realised that the sound constitutes a major part of what we enjoy in her music; 'sound' rather than the 'craft'.
This is possibly what art critics mean when they use the word "genius", unable to say if 'everything is craft' and therefore learnable as well.
One's breath, one's personality, one's way of being in this world contribute to the music one makes, and very concretely at that. Gayathri also told us that there are breathing practices she engages in and that she realises when her "breath stops", which she regards as necessary for her music.
"Although for three hours at a concert, one cannot actually hold one's breath, there are practices that when perfected amount to the same," she says. So, contrary to everyday expectations, breath is what needs to be "stopped" in order to create. In moments of full preoccupation and utter concentration, I realise I am not breathing. This runs contrary to the injunction "breathe, deeply" when in a worrying situation. Or do these two understandings arise from the same premise? I need more space to think this through than is available here, so that's for another article. If there is no breath, there is no artiste, is it not? Who then is creating the music?
And is this not true for all acts of creation as well? And even all actions as such? Is this what musicians indicate, when they give all credit to Saraswati? But if breathing in a certain way (or stopping the breath) is learnable, then is Gayathri's sound or genius learnable too, without us becoming her? Perhaps not.
I find myself falling in love with the high-pitched clear-twanged veena or the base-sounding deep-voiced one. My week has begun on a lovely (musical) note!
The writer is with the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS).
Date: 2009-03-31
Bangalore
What makes every artiste's music unique?
Sushumna Kannan looks for answers
Sublime: Gayathri says the veena
is an instrument that takes
on the breath of the player
World Space's 24-hour Carnatic music channel, Shruti, interviewed veena artiste E Gayathri recently. The interviews, in this time-slot, are interspersed with music by the artiste. I was fascinated and charmed by what Gayathri said about the sound or naadam of her veena. She said, "If I were to play a veena for about 150 hours, the veena gains a specific sound that is specifically mine."
Her three different veenas at home are all of the same naadam. How does this happen? She says the veena is an instrument that takes on the breath of the player. That is why the sound of an artiste's music is unique, irrespective of his/her style of playing or expertise. If you have listened to Gayathri's music, you will have realised that the sound constitutes a major part of what we enjoy in her music; 'sound' rather than the 'craft'.
This is possibly what art critics mean when they use the word "genius", unable to say if 'everything is craft' and therefore learnable as well.
One's breath, one's personality, one's way of being in this world contribute to the music one makes, and very concretely at that. Gayathri also told us that there are breathing practices she engages in and that she realises when her "breath stops", which she regards as necessary for her music.
"Although for three hours at a concert, one cannot actually hold one's breath, there are practices that when perfected amount to the same," she says. So, contrary to everyday expectations, breath is what needs to be "stopped" in order to create. In moments of full preoccupation and utter concentration, I realise I am not breathing. This runs contrary to the injunction "breathe, deeply" when in a worrying situation. Or do these two understandings arise from the same premise? I need more space to think this through than is available here, so that's for another article. If there is no breath, there is no artiste, is it not? Who then is creating the music?
And is this not true for all acts of creation as well? And even all actions as such? Is this what musicians indicate, when they give all credit to Saraswati? But if breathing in a certain way (or stopping the breath) is learnable, then is Gayathri's sound or genius learnable too, without us becoming her? Perhaps not.
I find myself falling in love with the high-pitched clear-twanged veena or the base-sounding deep-voiced one. My week has begun on a lovely (musical) note!
The writer is with the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS).
The curious case of a PhD scholar
By: Sushumna Kannan
Date: 2009-05-12
Place: Bangalore
Sushumna Kannan offers a ringside view of time spent fobbing off inquisitive relatives and wise-cracking friends while burning the midnight oil in pursuit of a dream
Recently, a leading newspaper ran a series on the golmaal that takes place in the acquiring and granting of a PhD. But that's not everybody's story.
A PhD, if done sincerely, needs many years of single-minded devotion. No Sunday, and nothing like a weekend. It takes 3-4 years of toil during which you would be constantly asked about your thesis, its relevance and originality. Reading, grasping, writing and other skills are mandatory skills, apart from discipline, patience, perseverance and a genuine thirst for knowledge.
The only danger, of course, is that you may not have been born a nerd, but you could end up one. I am not kidding. Just the other day I was telling a friend that I had slowly forgotten to make conversation because I am on a quest of precision that friends and family invariably find annoying.
A scholar in France once told me that if someone had done a PhD, he/she could do anything at all. The stress that you subject yourself to and the challenges that you face are sure to hone you into fine piece of sculpture. Yes, that was the metaphor that my elders would compare the business of learning to -sculpting!
Saraswati vs Lakshmi
It's not necessary that a PhD holder would find a job, even if she should qualify for the post. That's the flip side. I cannot help but take refuge in another popular saying, 'Where Saraswati dwells, Lakshmi does not'. In Bangalore, I did not even get access to a student bus pass because I wasn't doing my PhD from a government organisation. Sigh!
The 'no-money, no-job, no-marriage' state of a PhD-scholar's life comes as no surprise. What does surprise me is seemingly non-stop justification that I have to give relatives and friends who look at me like I was airdropped from Mars!
20 questions & counting...
I either rise or fall on their very-own-personal scale of success the moment they discover I'm doing my PhD. But the real test is when some of them corner me and demand, 'What is the topic of your thesis?' I've had to answer this question over and over again, and if I was irritated, I wasn't supposed to show it.
I calmly announce the topic, only to invite a long-winded sermon on everything that my interrogator knows about it. Newspapers, magazines, internet web sites are quoted liberally as I struggle to keep my eyes open.
What most people do not understand is that the most difficult thing for a PhD scholar is to put 4-5 years of research into a succinct sentence to fob off inquisitive folks at parties, weddings and various other social-dos.
What drives me?
Why would anyone want a PhD, really? A friend once admitted that existential questions drove him to pursue his PhD in the Humanities. There are those who lose sleep over their PhD, those who get high on books and reading, those that get high on writing copious notes, those that get high on solving problems....you get my drift? The scene in the Humanities and Social Sciences, with which I am familiar, is peculiar. Much of the scholarship reflects activist undertones and so students are often those who suffer from the 'I shall bring about a revolution' syndrome.
As a scholar, you might have barely escaped the self-obsession that the PhD generously bestows upon you, but what remains is the precarious balance of humility and assertiveness you would have to achieve. You cannot declare, 'Eureka, I found it!' C'mon, are you God? And, you certainly cannot allow anyone to think the world would turneth the way it does, sans your PhD. If you don't believe me on this, go to http://www.phdcomics.com/.
True confessions
I was describing the work of a scholar on the Indian Traditions and a friend asked, "You mean, this guy is enlightened? Has he seen God?!" Friends with MBAs look you in the eye and ask, 'You mean you know everything?!'
This made me ask the MBA guys once, "Do I ever claim expertise in your field? So, why do you claim it in mine?" Be warned. No one would ever treat a stem-cell researcher or a particle physicist with anything but a worshipful gaze!
What are PhD holders in the Humanities and the Social Sciences actually supposed to achieve? Knowledge about human beings in their societies? It seems that all men-on-the-street already possess this knowledge. If you started to describe your thesis, you will catch them saying with supreme confidence that only matches superbly with your own diffidence: 'That is not how it is'. To be truthful, a man-on-the-street question, you will realize, is far better than the ones your peers have been throwing at you.
Friends from the US and Europe generally have a better sense of their own discipline, which probably helps them claim some expertise, but students here are a little lost. The reasons, I guess, are historical. The Social Sciences and the Natural Sciences did not emerge here and the way we encounter them today is estranging. They are not a product of this culture and the attempt is still one that gets you to reflect in a mode that is not entirely your own.
Is the dubious-troubled nature of intellectual life in India the result of colonialism? There are no quick answers to this one. It's a PhD topic for sure!
Published in MiD DAY
Date: 2009-05-12
Place: Bangalore
Sushumna Kannan offers a ringside view of time spent fobbing off inquisitive relatives and wise-cracking friends while burning the midnight oil in pursuit of a dream
Recently, a leading newspaper ran a series on the golmaal that takes place in the acquiring and granting of a PhD. But that's not everybody's story.
A PhD, if done sincerely, needs many years of single-minded devotion. No Sunday, and nothing like a weekend. It takes 3-4 years of toil during which you would be constantly asked about your thesis, its relevance and originality. Reading, grasping, writing and other skills are mandatory skills, apart from discipline, patience, perseverance and a genuine thirst for knowledge.
The only danger, of course, is that you may not have been born a nerd, but you could end up one. I am not kidding. Just the other day I was telling a friend that I had slowly forgotten to make conversation because I am on a quest of precision that friends and family invariably find annoying.
A scholar in France once told me that if someone had done a PhD, he/she could do anything at all. The stress that you subject yourself to and the challenges that you face are sure to hone you into fine piece of sculpture. Yes, that was the metaphor that my elders would compare the business of learning to -sculpting!
Saraswati vs Lakshmi
It's not necessary that a PhD holder would find a job, even if she should qualify for the post. That's the flip side. I cannot help but take refuge in another popular saying, 'Where Saraswati dwells, Lakshmi does not'. In Bangalore, I did not even get access to a student bus pass because I wasn't doing my PhD from a government organisation. Sigh!
The 'no-money, no-job, no-marriage' state of a PhD-scholar's life comes as no surprise. What does surprise me is seemingly non-stop justification that I have to give relatives and friends who look at me like I was airdropped from Mars!
20 questions & counting...
I either rise or fall on their very-own-personal scale of success the moment they discover I'm doing my PhD. But the real test is when some of them corner me and demand, 'What is the topic of your thesis?' I've had to answer this question over and over again, and if I was irritated, I wasn't supposed to show it.
I calmly announce the topic, only to invite a long-winded sermon on everything that my interrogator knows about it. Newspapers, magazines, internet web sites are quoted liberally as I struggle to keep my eyes open.
What most people do not understand is that the most difficult thing for a PhD scholar is to put 4-5 years of research into a succinct sentence to fob off inquisitive folks at parties, weddings and various other social-dos.
What drives me?
Why would anyone want a PhD, really? A friend once admitted that existential questions drove him to pursue his PhD in the Humanities. There are those who lose sleep over their PhD, those who get high on books and reading, those that get high on writing copious notes, those that get high on solving problems....you get my drift? The scene in the Humanities and Social Sciences, with which I am familiar, is peculiar. Much of the scholarship reflects activist undertones and so students are often those who suffer from the 'I shall bring about a revolution' syndrome.
As a scholar, you might have barely escaped the self-obsession that the PhD generously bestows upon you, but what remains is the precarious balance of humility and assertiveness you would have to achieve. You cannot declare, 'Eureka, I found it!' C'mon, are you God? And, you certainly cannot allow anyone to think the world would turneth the way it does, sans your PhD. If you don't believe me on this, go to http://www.phdcomics.com/.
True confessions
I was describing the work of a scholar on the Indian Traditions and a friend asked, "You mean, this guy is enlightened? Has he seen God?!" Friends with MBAs look you in the eye and ask, 'You mean you know everything?!'
This made me ask the MBA guys once, "Do I ever claim expertise in your field? So, why do you claim it in mine?" Be warned. No one would ever treat a stem-cell researcher or a particle physicist with anything but a worshipful gaze!
What are PhD holders in the Humanities and the Social Sciences actually supposed to achieve? Knowledge about human beings in their societies? It seems that all men-on-the-street already possess this knowledge. If you started to describe your thesis, you will catch them saying with supreme confidence that only matches superbly with your own diffidence: 'That is not how it is'. To be truthful, a man-on-the-street question, you will realize, is far better than the ones your peers have been throwing at you.
Friends from the US and Europe generally have a better sense of their own discipline, which probably helps them claim some expertise, but students here are a little lost. The reasons, I guess, are historical. The Social Sciences and the Natural Sciences did not emerge here and the way we encounter them today is estranging. They are not a product of this culture and the attempt is still one that gets you to reflect in a mode that is not entirely your own.
Is the dubious-troubled nature of intellectual life in India the result of colonialism? There are no quick answers to this one. It's a PhD topic for sure!
Published in MiD DAY
Pub Culture: Thoughts on a Tangent
Some of my European friends visited India last year and we met. I was eager and waiting to hear every detail about their brief stay in India. As we ran through photo slides of Rajasthan, Delhi and Bombay, I heard everyone say “India is magnificent”. A little later, small irritations surfaced: from why “people stare” to the “so persistent beggars” and the “unbearable traffic” and the “lack of pubs”.
It was New Year’s time when my friends were in Delhi and it had not been easy for them to find a pub. They could not imagine spending their time in any other place if not in a pub, over a drink. “Why are there no pubs?” they asked me. “We take everyone home”, I said. They didn’t believe me. “India is a warm country, people don’t drink” I said. They still couldn’t see how.
A scholar on Asia once told me, “India is cut off from the rest of the world”. The reason he said that was because there were no pubs in Bangalore, unless one went up north. For all that talk of respecting cultures, very well-meaning and benevolent people found it difficult to understand that there is no pub culture here. A judgment that lurked behind their disbelief was asking me “So, where do people meet and discuss things? Where do people conduct their intellectual lives? If not in coffee houses and pubs? Maybe Indians don’t have an intellectual life! Indians, in any case, don’t understand the public-private divide!”
Another time, a Nigerian friend in his earnestness to conform or maybe sound cool, asked me if I “went out” and the conversation turned to India and I said I never “went out” (to pubs, to share a drink) in India. At that, he opened up and shared with me, things about the pressure, “to go out”, instead of the traditional ways of being that involved dance and music in very different settings in Africa.
Being from South-Bangalore, I had little opportunity to go to a pub for many years. But I told myself “one must know these things, just in case” and purposefully went to one some years ago.
My European friends definitely shared a craze for going out in the night. It almost seemed childish to me—an urge to resist a day-night routine that I too had nurtured as a kid. But going out, and to pubs constituted an important part of the social life of a lot of people in the west. And while in India, they were upset that there was no public transport till midnight to bring them back from one. I tried to reason by saying “India is poor, millions of us starve, and public transport till midnight would be such a waste of money. People only want to get home as quickly as possible, eat and get to bed”.
I cannot forget how an Indian friend who had lived in Europe for many years, once said to me in great disapproval that “People here have no idea how to live. They stay out late at night on weekends and come in drowsily on Monday mornings to work and their entire week is one soggy tale because of this, with one thing upsetting the other”.
But zoom back in on India, and what we saw recently was a markedly different scene.
Let’s keep aside the Ram Sene and the call for ‘respecting the rule of law’. Both these groups have not exactly understood how to conduct a conversation with each other; they have not put in the intellectual labour required. But what is indeed clear is that there is an ‘imagined modernity’ that everybody wants a share in or is responding to. And as scholar Mary E John rightly says, this ‘imagined modernity’ is more egalitarian than any modernity that is to be found anywhere at all.
I surely had not expected to see, when I arrived at the airport of a city in the heart of Europe a couple of years ago, a billboard that literally said “…is a modern city, Welcome.” They probably forgot to add “We have pubs open all nights.”
Published in MiD DAY and Citizen Matters.
It was New Year’s time when my friends were in Delhi and it had not been easy for them to find a pub. They could not imagine spending their time in any other place if not in a pub, over a drink. “Why are there no pubs?” they asked me. “We take everyone home”, I said. They didn’t believe me. “India is a warm country, people don’t drink” I said. They still couldn’t see how.
A scholar on Asia once told me, “India is cut off from the rest of the world”. The reason he said that was because there were no pubs in Bangalore, unless one went up north. For all that talk of respecting cultures, very well-meaning and benevolent people found it difficult to understand that there is no pub culture here. A judgment that lurked behind their disbelief was asking me “So, where do people meet and discuss things? Where do people conduct their intellectual lives? If not in coffee houses and pubs? Maybe Indians don’t have an intellectual life! Indians, in any case, don’t understand the public-private divide!”
Another time, a Nigerian friend in his earnestness to conform or maybe sound cool, asked me if I “went out” and the conversation turned to India and I said I never “went out” (to pubs, to share a drink) in India. At that, he opened up and shared with me, things about the pressure, “to go out”, instead of the traditional ways of being that involved dance and music in very different settings in Africa.
Being from South-Bangalore, I had little opportunity to go to a pub for many years. But I told myself “one must know these things, just in case” and purposefully went to one some years ago.
My European friends definitely shared a craze for going out in the night. It almost seemed childish to me—an urge to resist a day-night routine that I too had nurtured as a kid. But going out, and to pubs constituted an important part of the social life of a lot of people in the west. And while in India, they were upset that there was no public transport till midnight to bring them back from one. I tried to reason by saying “India is poor, millions of us starve, and public transport till midnight would be such a waste of money. People only want to get home as quickly as possible, eat and get to bed”.
I cannot forget how an Indian friend who had lived in Europe for many years, once said to me in great disapproval that “People here have no idea how to live. They stay out late at night on weekends and come in drowsily on Monday mornings to work and their entire week is one soggy tale because of this, with one thing upsetting the other”.
But zoom back in on India, and what we saw recently was a markedly different scene.
Let’s keep aside the Ram Sene and the call for ‘respecting the rule of law’. Both these groups have not exactly understood how to conduct a conversation with each other; they have not put in the intellectual labour required. But what is indeed clear is that there is an ‘imagined modernity’ that everybody wants a share in or is responding to. And as scholar Mary E John rightly says, this ‘imagined modernity’ is more egalitarian than any modernity that is to be found anywhere at all.
I surely had not expected to see, when I arrived at the airport of a city in the heart of Europe a couple of years ago, a billboard that literally said “…is a modern city, Welcome.” They probably forgot to add “We have pubs open all nights.”
Published in MiD DAY and Citizen Matters.
Culture watch
By: Sushumna Kannan
Date: 2009-01-07
Place: Bangalore.
No matter what, Indians, who have not travelled to the west, are prey to some very quaint notions about life and times there. We always, and remarkably consistently at that, think that westerners (foreigners) neither have families nor feel pain over the loss of dear ones, although HBO or Star Movies paint somewhat different pictures.
In Europe, Indians are still famous for picking their noses! Yes. Really. So on both the sides, 'east' and 'west', it is the same thing. The west is absorbed through the frame provided by our culture and they absorb us through their own frames.
Some months ago I travelled to Barcelona and stayed there at a bed-n-breakfast kind of a youth hostel for four days.
For nearly two nights the room-heater did not work effectively and I had sleepless nights. I had ignored this, thinking it was a change of place that had kept me awake; sometimes the cold eludes us, if we have travelled from a colder place to a warmer one. On the third night, it was unbearable and I went to the receptionist to complain about the now fully dysfunctional room-heater.
The young man was very worried about bending the rules and giving me another room. I persisted, saying I cannot sleep at all and that he had to do something. He said with a smile that I was very welcome in his own room and we both quickly laughed the joke away.
When I didn't buy the "we-will-see-in-the-morning" assurances, he started to wonder very seriously as to what he could do. He muttered to himself (aloud) that he could not put me in the same room with the German boys who were drunk (Yes, read 'Spain's frame of German history'). And then, that he could not put me in some other place because that was not safe either.
He said he would put me with two other girls and I shifted my room overnight. When he finally decided, he spent a full minute telling me of the significance of this out-of-rule favour he had done for me, something apparently very rare on his part. I was surprised later on when the situation dawned fully on me.
For all the claim of being a mixed-sex youth hostel, here was this man worried about my safety. He had never used the mixed-sex funda as easily as one could have.
For all the rules and deterrents for rape and the supposedly wonderful sexual revolution of the west, it was still unsafe for a woman to sleep in a dorm with men.
In India, the situation would have been this: The man would not worry about bending the rules. Knowing that such problems may arise, no mixed-sex dorms would ever be built.
And as soon as people saw you were a woman and alone, they would lead you away (quickly) to safer zones.
Although this does frustrate me while I am here in India, part of this is the effect of all the background knowledge of possible harm and is not in itself always a prejudice against women or a curbing of their freedom.
Those who think that the lack of a sexual revolution in India poses the threat of rape or that a sexual revolution would solve all our problems need to look closely at the emergence of different ethicalities and their histories across the globe.
I continue to be amazed at how in the west a situation is considered afresh and from the start, each and every single time (and they are rightly famous for obsessing about rules and contracts), although the conclusions and concerns are humane, and in fact quite similar to the Indian ones.
And then, I am somewhat less surprised by the Indian mother's "get-home-before-dark" (curfew) slogan.
(The writer is a doctoral student in Cultural Studies at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore.)
