Apu’s World

“Becoming Queen tells the astonishing story of Queen Victoria’s passionate youth, her bitter struggle with her mother - and how her life was shaped by the death of her forgotten cousin, Princess Charlotte, the queen who never was.” So goes the blurb for Kate Williams’ book of the same name. One supposes that an account of Queen Victoria is more popular (read, saleable), but in this book of three parts, it is actually Princess Charlotte who emerges as the more interesting character and real ‘heroine’ of the book.

The first part deals with Charlotte, only daughter of King George IV and successor to the English throne, while parts two and three are to do with Victoria, and how she ultimately ends up queen. The book is easily accessible to the lay reader. In fact, sometimes, it is written too simply - readers who like to have the author’s assertions borne out by the facts will be a little disappointed; there are notes at the end, but I thought much of the author’s writing, for instance on the emotions of the princesses or on the (to modern readers) incredible child-raising theories of the time would have fared better with a footnote offering more details.

Having said that, it is a breezy read and interesting enough, especially the first part enthusiastically highlights the warped institution that the British monarchy had become. For fans of the Georgette Heyer novels, there is a bonus in that this part is all about the essentially hedonistic nature of the Regency era (so called because George IV served as the Prince Regent for a really long time, while his ailing father refused to die and give him the kingship). It places that hedonism - the focus on endless entertainment, living above one’s means and obsession with fads and fashions - in the context of the social and political turmoil of the time. The aristocracy doesn’t come off very well when seen against the poverty of most of the country, and it is indeed something of a surprise that the French Revolution doesn’t have a repeat here.

It is in this situation that Princess Charlotte grows up. The focus is on politics, having mistresses (for women - replace that with clandestine affairs) and showing your importance by getting Parliament to give you as big an allowance as possible. Children, naturally are at the bottom of the heap when it comes to attention, although, technically, having an heir is of the greatest importance. Williams really manages to make the first part come alive, placing Charlotte’s life in the context of the dysfunctional royal family she is born into.

Parts two and three are readable too, although attention is focused solely on Victoria’s conflicts with her mother (and her aide, Sir John Conroy). This places us in the position of viewing Victoria solely as a cloistered and rebellious daughter, while I thought it would have been more interesting to know about her views on other things. For instance, she presided over the monarchy’s really becoming ceremonial rather than functional. What were her views about it? We don’t learn much. Her relationship with her husband Albert, I thought was another angle that could have been explored in greater detail. As queen, she is all powerful, and yet, lives in an age where women were taught express obedience to their husbands and indeed, husbands expected to be able to command. The book does mention briefly that Victoria seems to feel some guilt at being a woman and the more powerful person in the relationship, but I thought there could have been more.

Overall, worth a read, but somewhat superficial - don’t expect to really get your teeth into how these princesses became who they did.

apu The Literary life

Many professionals today, especially those who work in areas like finance, consulting, sales or marketing - have no concept of work-life balance. At least, not in the sense it was originally meant, where you put a fullstop to work at some time and concentrated on other areas of your life. Now, even if we get home by 6.30, we still take calls, check e-mail, open our blackberrys or simply, think about work. So, our work lives have eaten away a big chunk of what used to be reserved for other stuff.

At the same time, our role as consumers has gotten bigger too. I remember a time when shopping for new clothes meant buying for the three major festivals of the year - Diwali, Navaratri and Pongal, and one more new outfit on your birthday. Now, we buy for no reason. And we buy even when we don’t have the money to buy, thanks to the generosity of credit card companies.

Out of control, I guess, would be the right way to describe many peoples’ lives.

Which is why, I found interesting these two experiments in helping people control themselves, although in very different areas. The first of these is an experiment by the Boston Consulting Group which forced team members to take ‘complete off-time’ during certain periods. Employees had to be almost compelled to do this, since the prevailing doctrine in such industries is that consultants need to be ‘always on’ (besides the fear of How will I look when I’m taking off if everyone else around me is constantly on?) Not only were they able to develop mechanisms to keep clients reassured, employees who participated in the experiment ended up feeling much more refreshed and stress-free. Surely that will help them to work better and more creatively. While the experiment doesn’t mention any gender differences, I do feel such programs taken up by more large firms will help women - it is usually women who drop out of senior levels in such 24*7 industries, unable to manage a constantly ‘on’ career in the face of childcare and family needs.

Read about the BCG experiment with work-life balance at the Harvard Business website - warning, it’s a really long piece, but if you don’t have the time, at least the first 2 pages are worth reading.

The second experiment is not so much a single experiment, as a bunch of examples on how people are actually understanding the impulsive nature of their compulsion and taking steps to put a brake on it. As the article says, “We are salad people in the future and Cheetos people in the moment.” So, unless we get someone (or something else) to stop us, we’ll go on munching those Cheetos while making earnest resolutions to have more salad in the future. That’s what this article is about - “commitment devices” that help us control ourselves and behave in the rational ways we know we ought to. Go read - it’s a short one-pager and totally worth your time.

apu In General

Excuse me for being a little angry here but what is it with (some/many?) Indian men and their huge sense of entitlement? Perhaps I should add a caveat here. You may (if you are a man) jump in and say, but, not all of us are like that. True, true. But, here’s the thing - there are enough such scum around that incidents like this one are only too common - a 25 year old woman in Mumbai, a mother of two, was gang raped and then burnt, it appears, simply because one of the assailants had been rejected by her a few years ago. Acid attacks on women who have turned down a man or broken off a relationship are only too well known.

It is a normal human tendency to feel sad when rejected by anybody. But, where is this sense of entitlement and anger coming from? Why this feeling that she must like me, I am too good to be rejected, I cannot possibly be turned down?

In my opinion, this starts out with the preferential treatment that many boys receive at home. Let’s start with simple things like the traditional Indian style of eating where the mother cooks and keeps serving while others eat, and then has her meal once everyone is done. The girls in the family too are roped in to help mother in the kitchen, as soon as they are old enough. The boys? The boys sit and eat their hearts’ fill. Perhaps this is why I’ve often seen men help themselves and even empty the vessel without any thought of whether the women who will eat later will have enough. When the message is that everything revolves around you, why bother to contradict that?

Food is just one of the many ways in which boys are subtly and un-subtly told that they are better, that they deserve the best, that in fact, whoever denies them what they want is simply wrong. In case you think it is only a few backward people who behave like this - unfortunately not. The scale of discrimination may be smaller in urban families but it is still there. Boys may be allowed to set the table, for instance, but in South Indian households, they will still rarely be allowed to clean up after meals the traditional way, where you sprinkle water and use your hand to clean. This is demeaning to them you see, although its perfectly ok for girls. Ecchal Idardu is what we call it in Tamizh, a concept difficult to translate into any non-Indian language, but would roughly correspond to jhoota saaf karna (झूठा साफ़ करना) in Hindi. I remember once going to a relative’s house, where after lunch, their two boys were excused while I, the guest was asked to clean up, because, that’s what girls are supposed to do!

It goes on in many other ways, including the amount of freedom girls and boys are allowed. (Girls are told that this is for their own safety, while the truth is that many crimes against women occur at home and are perpetrated by relatives and so-called friends). Of course, while every other Indian household is this way, not every boy raised this way is going to become a killer or acid-thrower. We can’t deny though that such conditioning is a great way to make boys (and the men they become) think that the world owes them everything. It develops a false sense of manliness based on others kow-towing to you rather than on reciprocal, affectionate relationships.

Movies too have a role in promoting this ideal of manliness. Mainstream South Indian movies have taken this to an extreme with the Cult of the Eve-Teasing Hero, who mysteriously, gets (often, more affluent and educated) beautiful women to fall for him because of or inspite of the tactics he uses, which the more sane among us would only call sexual harassment. Great role models for boys in this country! Should we wonder that some among this lot aspire to darker versions of what their heroes practise on screen?

apu Women & Feminism

Last Sunday, we had a couple of close friends over for lunch. As it happens with close friends whom one has not met for a long time, it turned out as a long, rambling lunch where we were still sitting around at 5 o’clock. By the time they left, it was late evening, and somehow both Mr. B (the hubby) and I were feeling a little tired and coming down with headaches. Probably a result of the hectic, 6-day week we’d both worked and while Sunday had been fun, we hadn’t had any time to relax. And here were all the utensils still lying around, plates to be rinsed, delicate crockery to be put away. I got to it while Mr. B continued watching TV and then joined him, grumbling that he hadn’t helped me one little bit.  I grumbled that I had to do it, I couldn’t possibly leave stuff lying around until the maid came in the next morning.

And that’s when he said, ‘You’ had to do it, I wouldn’t have, which got me thinking. What is it about housework that even the most liberated of us women continue to willing wear it around our necks like a millstone that we are proud of?

Please go over to Ultraviolet to read the rest of the piece.

apu Women & Feminism

I visited Ranganathittoo 6 months ago, while on the way to Coorg. We hadn’t really planned to stop there, but it turned out to be among the most enjoyable things we did on that trip. Below, my piece on that visit. (I had earlier uploaded some pics of the birds at the sanctuary here).

-x-x-x-

Some of us like to think of ourselves as global citizens. Two weeks every summer travelling to distant lands, the occasional assignment abroad, dining out at restaurants where food with unpronounceable names is served, flitting at travel websites, we are ready to christen ourselves. Such vanity must pale when we come face to face with the true global citizens – migratory birds that can rightfully call every part of the world, Home.

When I visited the Ranganathittu bird sanctuary in February this year, such were the humbling thoughts that came to mind. Ranganathittu is of course conveniently located for human visitors – a short detour on the Bangalore-Mysore highway, just before reaching the town of Srirangapatna. Its network of islets with their banks covered by reed beds and surrounded by waters well stocked with fish is even more convenient for visitors of the avian kind. There are some who make it their permanent home too. The paddy fields adjoining the area are also fishing grounds for many of the species that don’t fish in water.

On entering the sanctuary, we are very much struck by the well-maintained beauty of the place. Perhaps it helps that at 8:30 in the morning, we are early, well before the crowds will arrive. Still, it cannot be denied that in spite of its proximity to urban areas, Ranganathittu feels a little lost to the world. Its neatly laid out lawns, tree lined and meandering paths, cobbled steps and most of all, the cries of birds that can be heard even before they are seen – offer a vision of a gentler and more beautiful world than what is available to us today. I feel greedy, eager to lap it all up in the short time that we have; but it is an unashamed sort of greed, somewhat like a very large drink of water that someone straggling out of a desert might feel entitled to.

As we approach the lake, the source of the cries comes into view. The banks are too far away to permit identifying any of the birds without binoculars, but the authorities at the sanctuary have got around that. There are boats waiting to ferry passengers around the lake, closer to the islets where birds can be sighted with ease. Thankfully, these are old fashioned row boats that glide through the water silently, not the noisy monsters that pollute the water at so many tourist spots in India.

Almost immediately, we pass a large flock of open-billed storks, their bills joining at the top but not quite closed at the centre. All five people in the boat watch in rapt attention as the birds carry on preening, resting and fluffing up their feathers, paying us no attention. “Open-billed stork, open-billed stork”, we tell one another, with the air of children repeating something new and wondrous.

As we make a circuit of the lake, more birds come into view. The most numerous of these are the egrets. Egrets don’t have the stateliness of pelicans or even the quirkiness of the open-billed stork whose bill won’t quite close. But, what they lack in distinctiveness, they make up for with their abundance. If numbers rule, egrets are the kings (and queens) of Ranganathittu. We saw four species – the large egret, the medium egret, the little egret and the cattle egret.

The pelicans on the other hand, are few in number, but lofty creatures, literally. They occupy higher ground, well away from the water, ensconced in comfortable, large nests. Our boatman acts as a guide, pointing out these surprisingly hard to spot creatures, considering their size. Initially, we advertise our novice stature in the world of birdwatching by mistaking one white bird for another, but soon enough, we start identifying birds confidently. And that is the thing about even a short visit to a sanctuary – very soon, the ‘regular’ world of jobs, commuting, errands and responsibilities starts to seem alien, while this one with its webbed and feathered creatures grows more and more real.

Suddenly, a pair of beady eyes appears in the water, moving alongside our boat for a good five minutes.

“Are there crocodiles in the water?” I ask.

“Oh, over a hundred of them, but don’t worry, this is only a fish”, the boatman tells us. “And they don’t prey on human beings anyway”, he adds, in what is meant to be a reassuring manner.

Only a fish! We find it hard to bring to mind any fish that swims in that peculiar fashion. It disappears as suddenly as it had appeared, but before long, we are greeted by the sight of a crocodile lazing on the banks, about fifteen feet away from us. Motionless, it almost appears dead, until the sight of our boat seems to propel it into action. With a swiftness that I had till now seen only in Natgeo programs on crocodile attacks, it heads straight for us. Hearts go pitter-patter and there is a perceptible movement away from the sides of the boat, as we wait for a thump. Curiously, it passes under our boat, leaving us more than a little relieved. Self. Check. Husband. Check. Ma-in-law. Check. Pa-in-law. Check. Professional photographer sharing the boat with us. Check. Boatman. Check. All on board if a little shaken. The experience also reminds me that despite the ease of sighting birds, Ranganathittu is essentially a place that belongs to the wild.

Sadly, we learn from the boatman that well protected as it is, Ranganathittu is still under some pressure. As the surrounding villages grow, population pressures, he hints, may lead to some encroachment and poaching. There is a larger danger too. If the rural character of the surrounding villages changes and concrete takes the place of paddy and sugarcane fields, many of the birds would find it hard to survive, since it is only some of them that fish in the lake itself.

One of these, a Little Cormorant, breaks into the surface of the water, a speck of black, as it dives for fish. Lighting fast, it is gone before the human eye can spot the direction in which it has flown away. The river tern, a dull-grey bird with a white underside and bright orange beak and legs suns itself on a cluster of stones. The most beautiful inhabitant of the sanctuary, the painted stork, parades itself as I watch enviously. Its wing feathers display a finely traced pattern in black while its tail feathers are shaded a cotton-candy pink. It is a work of art that would find place in any self-respecting gallery.

In the face of such beauty, I feel a strange reluctance to return to urban life with its low quotient of space and quietude. On this trip, Ranganathittu was an afterthought on the highway, a detour while rushing elsewhere. But this afterthought becomes a highlight of the journey. The Salim Ali Interpretation Centre at the sanctuary is still closed when we leave. A kingfisher has eluded us throughout our boat ride – tantalizingly close, giving us a second’s glimpse of its colourful plumage but never deigning to appear. No doubt, other seasons may bring other birds that I haven’t yet seen, or even heard of. I promise myself that I will return, soon.

apu In General, Travel Tales