Apu’s World

Over the weekend, while walking along this little lane off MG Road, an old man came up to me and started asking for some money. The strange thing was, he didn’t look like most people who beg on the road. He wore a (reasonably clean) white shirt and white dhoti, and talked like an educated person. The stranger thing is, I’ve met this man before, on Commercial Street. So, it looks like he frequents shopping areas, looking for people to give him money. I wondered if it could be some kind of a con job, and yet, I couldn’t imagine why a 70 year old man would roam the streets unless he had to. So, I gave him ten rupees anyway.

But it set me thinking about the number of old people who seem to have no one at all. There are some who you know have been poor all their lives. There are some on the roads who’ve clearly been used to something better and have ‘come down in life’ as they say. Perhaps some of them don’t have children who can care for them. Perhaps some of them have children who have abandoned them. I have seen such people in old-age homes, people from ‘decent’, middle-class homes.

And yet, while never being in favour of abandoning an aged person, I also come across old people who are so, so difficult to live with that its easy to see why families split up (I’m not counting here so much the ones that split up for reasons of money and property). I wonder if this is something peculiarly Indian - the kind of pent-up rage and frustration one sees in families. On the one hand, we don’t have the freedom of the West (everyone takes responsibility for themselves, children live independently). On the other hand, we don’t give old people the ‘head of the family’ status that they would have taken for granted 20 years ago. So, we’re stuck in a situation where people have to live together and everyone fights, quietly or otherwise, for the power seat.

I know we sometimes excuse older people for their behaviour by saying that old age is a regression to childhood. But I think that applies only to people who are turning senile or have such issues. People don’t in general change their natures - if you’ve been crabby and dominating all your life, old age perhaps just amplifies that. Many ‘regular’ older people simply don’t want to give up the reins they’ve held all their lives - and at such times, I wonder if it is ever sensible for more than two adults to live together! I can’t bring myself to completely admire the Western system of everyone living independently - there is a lot to be said for children learning from grandparents, and older people may also enjoy themselves more when living in an extended family. Yet, does it make sense to live separately and cordially rather than living together and bickering? Perhaps human nature is to want to control, in which case, it makes sense for everyone to have their own castle!

The ideal situation would be if everyone could give and take a little. But our mindset is so skewed towards accepting ‘tradition’ and the wisdom of elders as a given, that changes are not easily accepted. It’s still largely mens’ parents that a couple lives with, and except in very liberal families, daughters-in-law will be accused of creating trouble if they suggest changes. (Why, many parents-in-law expect that they should be able to dictate what the DIL wears, how often she can visit her parents etc.) In another generation, perhaps this situation will change significantly - I wish we could achieve some sort of a balance, i.e. treat older people with respect, appreciate their wisdom, care for them and yet not have to treat it as gospel or feel stifled. For most people, especially women, this is still a little far away.

apu Other Social issues in India, Women & Feminism

Do parents always have the best interests of their children at heart? What then, of the horror stories one hears of child abuse (sexual abuse, violence, neglect etc) at home? Is this always the result of pure evil or can the desire to do good itself play out in twisted ways when it is backed up by fanatical or other screwed up ideologies?

‘The Apple’ (’Sib’ in the original Farsi) is an Iranian movie based on the real life story of two young girls who were locked up by their parents and never allowed to venture out of the house at all. In the movie, the girls are 12 by the time concerned neighbours complain and a social worker arrives to help the children, who are found filthy and uneducated, unaware of how to interact with anyone.

One of the things about movies with children in them is that regardless of the movie itself, the children are often a pleasure to watch. I’m not talking about the cutesy, precocious children of most Indian movies until recently; even in movies where the children’s world is shown as far from an idyllic one (as in ‘Taare Zameen Par’) - the children are very likeable. And this is one of the hardest things about ‘The Apple.’ It refuses to allow us to feel good somehow by showing the two girls as little birds soaring in the sun as soon as their cage is opened.

Instead, the movie is uncompromising. Even as the girls enjoy their new found freedom, there is no question that they have been deeply damaged by their incarceration. They run awkwardly, like a two year old child out on the road. They don’t know what a friend is. When two other girls on the road invite them to play and teach them hopskotch, they enjoy playing with them and yet, think nothing of hitting them with apples. It is not so much that they have become antisocial. They are simply unable to understand what being sociable entails. They cannot understand that things they want need to be paid for. At the most basic level, they cannot even talk in any manner that is understandable to others.

On watching these girls, the heart and mind are pulled in two directions. One knows that these are the victims of horrific abuse and as such, deserve every kind feeling. Yet, it is not easy to like them. If anything, they are highly irritating and the director (Samira Makhmalbaf, who made the movie when she was 18) makes no effort to make them likeable. There is happiness, but there is no sense that this is a problem easily resolved.

On the other side is a blind mother (who is curiously uninvolved most of the time) and the father who claims to love the children very much (and is indeed somewhat demonstrative) but justifies the incarceration on the grounds that the mother is blind and therefore he needs to shield the girls from harm that could occur if they were to go out. So entrenched is this belief that in his mind, it is the neighbours who are villainous and destroying his ‘family honour’. While agreeing with the social worker that imprisoning the children is bad for them, he simultaneously justifies it and it is evident to the audience that deep down, he is absolutely convinced of his rightness.

The film doesn’t make any explicit judgements, and in fact, constantly keeps the viewer’s sympathies shifting, unlike most movies where we would be led to cheer unreservedly for the underdog. It is deeply thought provoking and worth a watch simply to understand how abuse can arise not just from evil, but even from ordinary human beings with notions of good, gone awry.

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