Apu’s World

Do beggars annoy you? Does the sight of young children asking for handouts or women with babies dressed in rags make you mutter about ‘people who can’t do a honest day’s work’? Ever wonder why begging annoys us middle-class folks so much?

Sure, I’m not saying that every beggar on the road is deserving of your charity or that you must necessarily handover money. Yet, partly, it is a feeling that public spaces belong to us and they are just an eyesore taking up space. After all, it’s not hard to turn away without giving them a penny, so why the righteous anger? Perhaps it is a belief (which we may never articulate or even know that we have) that the poor deserve their poverty - that they didn’t do enough to get ahead (unlike us, hard-working and deserving folks).

Ex-IAS officer Harsh Mander has been writing about this issue in detail, and in one of these articles, he says, “Beggars are therefore seen not as a spectacular human tragedy but an impediment to traffic.” That says more about us of course than about the beggars on our roads. That article also provides some inputs from a study which found that, contrary to public perception, begging is not the first choice for most homeless people.

Beggars include abandoned children, the abandoned elderly, those from families that have broken up with the men migrating for jobs, the disabled, those ousted from their homes (repossessed for works of ‘public good’) and those displaced from rural areas due to famine and floods. Frequently, they may not know people in the new city/town they find themselves in and so, find it hard to get work. Ask yourself - would you hire a maid or a nanny who doesn’t have anyone in the locality to refer her?

Which is why, this ad (above) released recently by the Karnataka State Government riled me. While it has a few points on the centres set up for destitute people, the overall tone is one of how beggary needs to be penalized. Tellingly, the first 2 points on its list are about legal and punitive measures against begging. At the bottom (not visible in the pic) is a police phone number for people to call and report beggars. In other words, abdicate responsibility for the pitiable condition of people in many of Karnataka’s districts and focus on arresting them instead. Much easier, and a sop to middle-class vote banks that want a ‘cleaner’ city, never mind the human cost.

apu Other Social issues in India

Over at Savadati, Shweta Krishnan has a short story, ‘All that Glitters’, which among other things, is on the humungous amount of money and jewellery that parents are expected to spend on daughters’ weddings. While it is true that parents spend an enormous amount of money on getting daughters married, it also set me thinking about a certain kind of ‘girls-only’ parents - i.e. couples with only girls as opposed to those who have boys or a boy + girl combination.

I have absolutely no data on this and am speaking only from people I see around me - but it sometimes occurs to me that, parents who do not have any sons are actually better prepared for life post retirement. I am of course talking mainly about people from the middle class and upper middle class, who have had the opportunity to save some money; not poorer people who would not have been able to save even if they wanted to.

When it comes to this class of people, it appears as if those who do not have sons are actually more self-reliant and better financially as well as mentally equipped for life after retirement. Why? Because, all their lives, they have lived with the assumption that they will have to fund their old age themselves. Because they do not know what sort of families their daughters will be given into, whether those families will allow a daughter to help her own parents. (And lest you think this is the sort of thing that happens only in movies - I can easily recall a bride-seeing ceremony where one of the questions that the groom’s educated and affluent parents had was: After the wedding, whom will the bride hand over her salary to?) Because a daughter’s support during one’s old age is still a pleasant surprise, a bonus - not something that can be assumed.

So, they plan their expenses much more carefully, they lay by a nest egg for themselves, perhaps they even skimp on things when they are younger. Of course, this is not entirely a bad thing, because it always feels good to feel financially comfortable and independent. Parents who have sons, on the other hand, often seem to feel a certain comfort that their old age will be taken care of. Which may or may not happen. Stories abound in India, of parents left destitute. Even if not driven to poverty, there are certainly parents who do not get the financial support from their sons, that they had anticipated.

The current generation of urban 50 year olds will perhaps be the first generation to start breaking away from the traditional Indian belief in children being an investment for one’s old age. Add to that the fact that disposable income, and therefore investments and savings have grown, allowing people to manage their lives better. (An interesting article, Why the elderly should matter to marketers, that reflects the growing affluence and purchasing power among a small segment of Indians.)

apu Other Social issues in India, Women & Feminism

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

Lately, I seem to be hearing a lot about the break-up of marriages and subsequent divorces. There was the Hiphop Grandmom writing on incompatible alliances and how they’ve led to the breakdown of marriages. Then, today, over the F Word Blog, I read a piece on how British Tory party members want a provision for a ‘three month cooling off’ period in divorce cases. If you look at the comments section on HHG’s piece as well, you will see one line of thought that couples are getting divorced for “frivolous” reasons.

In the last 3 years, I’ve seen a number of people in my own circle applying for divorce. Now, the plural of anecdote is not data, but considering the friends I’ve seen and human nature and Indian society, I somehow feel that people who are going in for a divorce are not doing so for frivolous reasons or on a whim. You may not agree with their specific reason, or you may think they should have tried harder, but whatever it is, I feel divorce is still a very hard route to take, not the easy way out.

Why?

Read the rest, over at Ultraviolet…

apu Other Social issues in India, Women & Feminism

I have a friend, a very good friend, who from time to time will throw in a casually dismissive remark about herself. Because of the colour of her skin - a beautiful, cocoa-coloured one which of course simply is not entitled in this country to be called beautiful. My friend, is one of the most beautiful people I know. Kind, to the point of being unable to say no to people who sponge on her. Incapable of being mean to anyone. Highly accomplished at what she does and hard-working. Loved by everyone who knows her. She is indeed one of the nicest people I know. Now, you may think none of this inner beauty stuff is the sort one can see in the mirror. So let me tell you that she also has a fine figure, sparkling eyes, evenly set teeth and a lovely smile. All of which she can surely see in the mirror, and yet, I can see that she does not think herself beautiful.

Simply because she has a skin tone that is the common skin tone found across our country. Simply because, in this country, there is only colour that qualifies as beautiful, and that is white, the whiter the better.

The recent ruling on a L’Oreal division being found guilty of racial discrimination is only a judicial affirmation of what is already known. Whether in France or here at home, marketers and advertisers believe that dark-skinned people do not sell. If this is indeed true, then it points to an even more pervasive problem, for it is not marketers alone who are pushing on us this idea of whiteness - society as a whole has internalised it.

I’m tempted to agree with that, although it cannot help a dark-skinned child to be constantly bombarded with images of whiteness and to be told that this is the only kind of beauty. Yet, 20-30 years ago, when atleast in India, media and television weren’t so pervasive, the craze for whiteness still remained. Almost as soon as a child is born, that’s the first question asked, ‘How fair is s/he?’ And of course the question carries disproportionate weight for girls, since everyone wants ‘fair and homely’ girls. Dark-skinned boys can make up with their achievements in other fields, but since girls must be beautiful above and beyond everything else, the weight of dark skin cannot be shed so easily.

I remember something I heard years ago when a somewhat dark girl in the distant family was finding it difficult to find a suitable boy. Someone said, well, if the boy is fair, they want a fair girl to ‘match his looks’, and if the boy is dark, they want a fair girl so that atleast the children will turn out fair! Either way, there is relentless pressure to turn into something you cannot.

What does it do to a child to constantly hear that she is in some way inferior? What does it do to a South Indian child to be told that she ‘looks South Indian’, as if that were an infectious disease? Discrimination on colour is well and kicking in this country. Leaving aside the issue of media representations, until parents and schools start confronting it head-on, a large proportion of children in this country are going to grow up with warped ideas of what beauty is.

apu Other Social issues in India, Women & Feminism