Apu’s World

Show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become. It is impossible to talk about the single story without talking about power…Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of another person….The single story creates stereotypes and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ is one novel I really enjoyed reading last year and at Racialicious is a video of Adichie’s fantastic talk on the harm that literature can do by giving us only ‘a single story.’ It’s so relevant in the context of the endless debates on what is ‘authentic’ Indian writing.

The talk is about 20 mins long, but every single word there earns its place and makes it totally worth your time.

apu The Literary life

I cannot remember when I first heard the Ramayana or who told me the story. I imagine it must have been my mother when I was very young, but I have no memory of it. When I was around 7 , my grandfather, a Rama-bhakta himself, gifted me and my sisters a book called The Prince of Ayodhya. And I was hooked. It was a story and at the same time, because it was the story of Rama, it was a true story, one that thrilled and inspired me. It’s been a long time since then, yet, even now as I straddle the fence between faith and disbelief, the Ramayana is so much part of my life that in times of great stress, I find myself comforted by writing or chanting the name of Rama.

One thing that has troubled me tremendously though, is the banishment of Sita. After pining for Sita for over a year, raising an army and building a bridge to cross the mighty ocean, after fighting and killing and much destruction, Rama banishes Sita simply because a washerman doubts her faithfulness? So NOT happening! In the first version of the Ramayana that I read, the story simply ends with Rama and Sita assuming the throne. In fact, I have it with me now, and this is what it says:

The King and the Queen were supremely happy and ruled the kingdom for a very long time….During their long reign, there were timely rains, the crops never failed and famine was unknown in the land…All the people in the kingdom were well-fed, well-clothed and well-protected…The names of their King and Queen were ever on their lips…In fact, the long and prosperous reign of Rama and Sita was a Golden Age, the like of which is unknown in the annals of men.

A ‘live-happily-ever-after’ ending, just like any child would want. It was much later that I heard the other ending, the one in which Sita is abandoned and left to raise her children alone. Even as a young girl, it came as a small satisfaction to me that Sita later expresses her anger at Rama’s unjust abandonment of her and chooses to return to her mother, Bhoomi Devi.

As a practising Hindu and as a feminist, how does one reconcile this unjust treatment of one of a great heroine by someone who is revered as the ideal man? I mention as a practising Hindu, because I assume that for an atheist, the question would be irrelevant. For someone who loves the story, however, it is difficult to believe in the ideal of Rama when confronted with his cruelty to Sita.

One explanation that is usually offered is that while Rama was an avatar of Vishnu, he was still a mortal man, and therefore, he had his failings, one of which was that like other mortal men of his time, he was ready to cast aspersions on his wife. Another is that he was first a king, and then a husband, and as King of Ayodhya, he could not have a queen the public did not believe in. In this version, the washerman is only a symbol of public opinion in general. A third option is to believe that Sita’s banishment is simply not part of the original Valmiki Ramayana, and therefore does not need to be included. Indeed, Ashok Banker’s Ramayana series (which reintroduced me to the joys of the Ramayana) takes this track, and personally, it is the option I find most comfortable.

There is a fourth opinion, based on a more esoteric reading of the incident; for instance, this interpretation by a Vaishnava teacher, which sees Rama’s banishing of Sita as a desire for a more intense experience of love, in the form of separation. To my logical mind, that is a little hard to swallow. After all, Rama already had experienced separation for a year; why would he chase it again?

Do you have a version of Sita’s abandonment that you can live with or has it led you to reject the Ramayana altogether? Is Rama simply an unjust man obsessed with the notion of purity or a righteous man faced with difficult circumstances or do you prefer to believe that it simply didn’t happen that way? Do share!

apu In General

The dictionary definition of a note is ‘a brief record, especially one written down to aid the memory’, ‘a brief informal letter’ or ‘a comment or explanation’. Going by that definition, Notes is an extremely humble, modest, deprecating sort of name for an effort like Atul Gawande’s ‘Better; A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance’. For, this book is no brief record, informal letter, comment or explanation. Rather, it is a highly accomplished work on improving performance in the medical field, the result of much thought, introspection, research, and really what makes it shine through, the result of much heart.

Dr. Gawande is the sort of superstar surgeon who makes lesser mortals feel ridiculous when they complain of the lack of time. A working surgeon and medical professor in the United States, he nevertheless makes the time to write long and incisive works on the medical field, for the New Yorker. Having read and enjoyed many of those, I pounced on Better when I chanced upon it at the Bengaluru Book Festival, and have read it since, in two quick sittings.

In the introduction, Gawande says,

Betterment is a perpetual labor. The world is chaotic, disorganized, and vexing, and medicine is nowhere spared that reality. To complicate matters, we in medicine are only humans ourselves. We are distractible, weak and given to our own concerns. Yet still, to live as a doctor is to live so that one’s life is bound up in others’ and in science and in the messy, complicated connection between the two. It is to live a life of responsibility. The question, then, is not whether one accepts the responsibility. Just by doing this work, one has. The question is, having accepted the responsibility, how one does such work well. (italics mine).

This is the central thought that informs the book, and makes it so enjoyable for the lay reader. For, Dr. Gawande does not focus purely on what many of us may think of as medical marvels - the new discoveries, the excitements in genetic studies, the availability of radical new theories. There is little of these. Instead, he gets down to the basics, which may be applied to hospitals in the US with their cornucopia of equipment, funding and specialized teams as well as to healthcare initiatives in the poorest parts of the world, often managed by a single doctor or surgeon working with a makeshift team. What Dr. Gawande does is to examine improved performance and success in surgery in the context of three essential elements - diligence, medical ethics and ingenuity.

He then takes of each of these elements and with the help of examples from live projects and cases around the world, illustrates how sometimes, simple solutions such as medical professionals washing their hands can make a big difference to infection rates, and at other times, how there are no easy answers at all. In the chapter The Mop-Up, on the drive to eradicate polio in India, he says,

People underestimate the importance of diligence as a virtue. No doubt this has something to do with how supremely mundane it seems… Understood, however, as the prerequisite of great accomplishment, diligence stands as one of the most difficult challenges facing any group of people who take on tasks of risk and consequence.

Part of what makes Better such a good read is that, at every step, he shows us how doctors and surgeons are only human. Even in a developed country like the US, they must not only focus on their individual effort, but constantly keep in mind other things such as hospital logistics and issues with insurance providers. Above all, being human, there is always the possibility that, even if rarely, they will make mistakes. And since their work is to do with people’s lives, doctors’ mistakes are costlier than any other mistakes. Dr. Gawande addresses this issue with much honesty and clarity in the chapter What Doctors Owe.

Overall, it is this sense of I don’t have all the answers, but I’m working to find them that makes Better such a heartening read. In a general climate of cynicism, where medicine is no longer seen as such a saintly and esteemed profession, Better offers lay readers the hope that around the world, there are indeed good people working to make things better. For doctors and surgeons who may feel disheartened by the magnitude of the challenges they face, it offers no easy answers but provides reinforcement that being a positive deviant is a worthwhile thing.

Publisher: Penguin Books

Price: Rs. 250

apu The Literary life

I’ve been following this case of Air India airhostess Komal Singh, who alleged that two AI pilots misbehaved with her during a flight. Pilots, on the other hand, say that she and another crew member, a flight purser, were causing trouble in the cockpit and all they did was push them out in the interests of public safety. (I thought after 9/11, no one was allowed to enter cockpits, so it beats me as to how Komal and the purser were there in the first place).

First, the police filed a case against the two pilots accused, and did record injuries on Komal’s body. Going by the reports however, it is not clear what exactly these injuries were; and in any case, how do you distinguish between injuries someone received when pushed out or received when someone tried to molest her? Sexual intent would perhaps be hard to establish, from the nature of injuries, though at least it confirms that an altercation took place.

Then, Air India established an internal committee to probe the case (headed by a woman as per Vishakha guidelines), but the committee gave the pilots a clean chit and instead accused Komal of concocting the sexual harassment angle. In fact, they charge-sheeted her for insubordination. What is not clear is how the committee arrived at its findings. Was it just a question of whom they believed, and did their belief that Komal was a ‘habitual complainer’ or that she complained ‘too late’ influence their decision?

But, the matter didn’t end there. The National Committee for Women (NCW) has also looked into the case and its findings seem to be directly opposed to that of AI’s internal committee. The report was supposed to be out on Nov 4th but the NCW has asked for more time, since they are still interviewing some passengers who witnessed the incident. While there is no official report yet, sources (news leaks?) indicate that their report will find the pilots guilty. To add more confusion to the whole plot, Komal has also accused the NCW of altering some of her statements and trying to persuade her to compromise.

The question is, why should 2 committees, 1 internal and 1 external find such varying evidence? It’s not as if the case is old - things happened barely a month or more ago, when witness memory as well as physical evidence, if any, should still be fresh. Perhaps it points to the fact that the procedure for dealing with sexual harassment cases in companies (or elsewhere) is not very methodical or rigorous. Since the case is not yet concluded, it’s early days yet, but such diverging views by two official committees in a short time points to issues with the way we deal with sexual harassment cases.

Not all cases may have witnesses or evidence, but where they do, these should be given importance, rather than just letting them devolve to ’she said, he said’.

Update (Nov 18th): The NCW report is out and it appears as if those earlier news reports were wrong. The NCW report partly matches the AI internal enquiry since it does rule out molestation. But, it also mentions that Komal was indeed pushed and that the situation could have been handled differently.

apu Women & Feminism

The Bangalore Book Festival is around at the Palace Grounds, just as it was last November, and the hubby and I went around to it on Saturday, despite the wind and rain that makes you want to just huddle in bed. Seriously, I cannot remember Bangalore winters being this rainy even 10 years ago. Global warming, I suppose. Still, the book fair is an unmissable at least as far as I’m concerned. And was it totally worth it!

This year’s haul consisted of:

‘Lives in the Wilderness‘ - a collection of 3 autobiographies, that of Jim Corbett, Salim Ali and Verrier Elwin; the last of the trio, I am not familiar with, but I’ve been in the mood for some good autobiographies, so this promises well.

A Jim Corbett Omnibus - The Man-Eaters of Kumaon, The Temple Tiger and More Man-eaters of Kumaon and The Man-eating Leopard of Rudraprayag. I read these when I was about 10 or 12, during a long, aimless vacation spent in Dehradun, constantly looking over my shoulder and expecting to see tiger or at least, a leopard. I imagine these will all be fun to revisit.

Bill Bryson’s ‘The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid’ - I’ve read this one before, and while it’s not my favourite Bill Bryson book (that would be Notes from a Small Island), its still pretty worth keeping.

Atul Gawande’s ‘Better: A surgeon’s notes on performance‘; I’ve much enjoyed Gawande’s writing in the New Yorker, usually incisive work on the American Healthcare system, so - thought this should be interesting.

‘All is Burning’, a collection of short stories by Sri Lankan writer, Jean Arasanayagam. I’ve just finished reading ‘Sri Lanka, Voices from a war zone’ by Nirupama Subramanian, a political correspondent with The Hindu, so that’s prompted me to read a Sri Lankan writer; I actually haven’t read a single one before, I think. Besides, I had to have some short stories!

‘The Pregnant King’, by Devdutt Patnaik - first read about this book at the Jabberwock blog, and thought the idea of a gender-blurring work based on a story from the Mahabharata was something!

Yaamam - a Tamizh novel by S. Ramakrishnan, whose Urupasi I had read and enjoyed earlier. No idea what this one is about,  but thecover looks very attractive! (Good enough reason to buy?) and finally,

A collection of short stories by Ambai, whose work I have always read in English. Somehow the Tamizh original never seemed to be available, but managed to get it this year.

I set myself a budget of Rs. 2000 and managed to get away with exceeding that only by about Rs.700. Not bad, wasn’t it?

Bangaloreans, if you haven’t visited the book fair yet, please make space for it right away. It’s on till Nov 15th, and if the range of books isn’t enough to tempt you, there are great discounts too!

apu The Literary life