Also, this blog has just crossed a nice, tidy little milestone - 25,000 visitors. So, a big thank you to all those of you who read me, whether or not you participate/comment. Thank You! And, to all my female readers, a happy women’s day!

On reading her note and that of commentors, to say that I was surprised would be an understatement. Both male and female commentors seemed to agree. Among the comments were ‘long live chivalry’, ‘like to feel pampered’, and ‘A Man Who Lets Women Pay Is Not Man Enough’ (this last one, from a guy).

I placed a note there that I disagreed, but FB didn’t seem like the place to get into a long discussion. Hence this post…

I do have a major problem with the whole idea of chivalry, of which expecting men to pay is one. This doesn’t mean that I’ve never let a man pay for a coffee or lunch. Sure, I have, but on the other hand, I’ve also footed mine and his bill a number of times, and I don’t see why not.

To me, chivalry is part of the whole big idea of what a man should do and what a woman should do - in short the rigid codification of social rules for men and women. A man must pay, a woman should never. If we are sweeping away such rigidity in every other area of life, why persist here?

This rule made sense in an age when women rarely ever had their own money; naturally, men had to pay. Today, when I earn as well as most men of my acquaintance, I don’t see why anyone else should necessarily pay for me. Pampering doesn’t come into it - of course, most people like to be pampered once in a while, but that doesn’t mean you never pay for any meal with a guy. Plus, many such meals/coffees could be with guys I only know peripherally - I don’t see why they need to pamper me.

Expecting a guy to always foot the bill is also unfair - what if the guy is low on cash at the end of the month? Will he not feel uncomfortable saying that? In any case, it’s his hard-earned money too - why does he have to spend it on me?

Expecting a guy to foot the bill always is to me like expecting a guy to open the door or give up his seat for me. I don’t want special treatment because I’m a woman, but I do want courteous treatment as everyone in a civilized society should expect. Which means, everybody, male or female should offer a seat to a pregnant woman, disabled women and men, old women and old men.

I see some disconnect with demanding equality if we are not going to also take up an equal share of responsibilities. Mind, I don’t mean one has to strictly divide the bill into two each time - but, you get the general idea!

What is exotic? The relevant definitions from dictionary.com include:

• of foreign origin or character; not native; introduced from abroad, but not fully naturalized or acclimatized
• strikingly unusual or strange in effect or appearance

Whereupon, the question arises: foreign, strange, not fully naturalized or unusual from whose perspective? Kylie’s shows, I imagine, are made primarily for a Western audience (Australia, U.S) to whom Middle Eastern cooking and its ingredients are likely to be strange and unusual. Hence, the use of the word, exotic.

However, with global movements and globalization, things aren’t quite so simple anymore. The U.S, for instance, is a community of immigrants, and new immigrants, including those from North Africa and the Middle East keep entering. Is harissa or tahini exotic to them?

People travel, meet new people, eat new foods. Global food chains and import businesses ensure that foods from one part of the world are well-stocked in another. Even if you don’t travel and are finicky about trying new foods when you do, television brings new experiences to your armchair.

Once upon a time, exotic and new were framed purely from the viewpoint of Western societies. This is a key thrust of the seminal work, Orientalism, by Edward Said: The Orient exists for the West, and is constructed by and in relation to the West. It is a mirror image of what is inferior and alien (”Other”) to the West.

What is worse, perhaps, Western views of what is different or exotic soon become the norm. For instance, I often see Indian clothing or practices like Mehndi being described in our magazines as ethnic. Again, the dictionary meaning of ethnic is pertaining to or characteristic of a people, esp. a group (ethnic group) sharing a common and distinctive culture, religion, language, or the like. Why would we apply this term when talking about our own cultural groups, i.e. setting them up against a ‘normal’ ‘other’? Besides, it doesn’t really describe the clothing in any way.

The question to be asked is, how will globalization and global movements impact exotification? If Kylie Kwong’s programmes are going to be popular in Australia and the US and India and in the Middle East - from whose perspective are ingredients going to be classified as exotic, or not?

It’s a well-known fact that he who pays the piper calls the tune. For generations, books, magazines, TV programmes, films - all of these transmitters of culture were made by and for the West. With large audiences now coming up in other parts of the world, will this change?

Join Blank Noise’s I never ask for it campaign on Facebook where you choose from their set of fantastic images and upload it as your profile pic. The entire set is here on flickr, my favourite one is below.

The instructions are simple and I suppose you can choose to use one or more of them (change your profile pic/ change your display message or any of the others).

Go on, be an Action Hero!

I know, I know, what good does activity on FB serve? Shouldn’t we be demonstrating in the streets instead, petitioning the government or something ‘weighty’ like that?

First of all, all these are not mutually exclusive. So, you can spread the message on FB and go for a rally and petition the government.

Secondly, close your eyes for 5 seconds. Can you think of at least one person in your circle who has at some time talked about a woman who was really wearing the wrong things, was in the wrong place, provoked the men, behaved inappropriately blah blah? Easy, isn’t it, to think of such a person, who in many ways, is a decent person?

Your message will talk to the many such decent people who somehow believe that in some circumstances (and curiously, this list is long), women just ask for it.

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.

In the meantime, I find that R’s mom has given me an award for being a creative blogger. Now, she has 7 rules associated with the award, and though I’m not going to follow the rest, the first one states that I must thank the giver, so - thank you, R’s mom, for the award and for your friendship, which I value. (And no, I’m not really thanking you just because the rules said so!)

I also found that the Hip Hop Grandmom had tagged me to participate in a contest for International Women’s Day, the topic being abusive relationships. Again, I’m not going to participate at the moment, but her post set me thinking.

I remember a distant relative of mine, a highly qualified surgeon, who got into an arranged marriage, only to realize after the wedding, that her husband bore no relation to the person he had claimed to be - in terms of education or employment. Her new family treated her poorly, and she was forced to do all the household chores despite her hectic schedule - they would not even allow her to hire a maid. Despite this situation and her periodic return to her parents’ home when things got too bad - she had two children in quick succession. And of course, once that happens, there is no walking out, because, then what will happen to the children’s future, right?

So, what makes such a woman - well-educated and financially stable refuse to think of other possibilities? I don’t know this particular woman’s reasons, but I do feel parents are one of the biggest reasons for young women putting up with abusive relationships. As the Indian Homemaker says, few Indian daughters can say, Mere paas maa hai. Of course, one may say that an educated woman should be confident enough to walk out on her own, irrespective of parental support, but life as a single woman in India is not easy, starting with simple things like renting a place to live. (Read Ramapriya’s spot-on post, Single in the City).

When children enter the equation, things become even more difficult. There is the guilt of taking something away from your children, of not giving them a stable life, of exposing them to difficulty in a society that doesn’t look very kindly upon divorce. It may also be that in some abusive relationships, the decision to use or avoid contraceptives may not be the woman’s. In any case, in most middle class families, there is immense pressure to have children as soon as one is married (or at least in a ‘reasonable’, socially approved time frame.

Inspite of being educated, some women may also have been taught that they must ‘adjust’ and that asking for fair treatment is unrealistic. Such things happen in all marriages, He will change once children arrive etc are common advice given to young women who want to opt out. As long as marriage is viewed as the holy grail and divorce as the end of life, few women will be able to end abusive relationships.

Thankfully, more and more young women are beginning to question such rigid norms and value themselves higher; more and more parents are valuing the real lives of their daughters over imaginary notions of honour. This is a good thing and we should be applauding people who have the courage to end such relationships rather than wringing our hands over the increasing rate of divorce.

(Just to make it clear, I do not in any way look down on women who cannot opt out of such relationships; while it may be very evident to the rest of the world, there could be a hundred factors that influence her decision, and it is not very helpful to look down our noses saying, oh, why does she stay if things are so bad).

No, there is none. Your husband is not likely to pop off (or, if you are male, no, your life is not in danger). You’re not losing out on any good vibrations or other such pseudo-scientific benefit you may have been assured of.

In short, no effect. Not unless you count the disapproving looks of your mother, father, grandparents, sundry aunts and uncles as “effects”. Hope I have helped clear your mind a little.

(You may also find this post useful: Demonstrating Marriage - the comments in particular are very interesting and perhaps a reflection of the changes happening in our society.)

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.)

Set in the opulent, yet fading Mughal court of Emperor Shahjahan,  The Englishman’s Cameo is part murder mystery and part historical novel, for its charms lie as much in its descriptions of life in the Mughal era. It’s protagonist is Muzaffar Jang, a somewhat atypical Omrah (nobleman) who prefers spending time with his books, pets and lowlife friends rather than indulging himself in wine, women and song, unlike other notables of the era. Thanks to one such disreputable friend, he finds himself involved in a murder mystery that soon turns out to be more complex than imagined.

Liddle excels in descriptions of Mughal era Dilli and its noble citizens - their wealth, decadence and hollowness are beautifully captured and the story itself set against the backdrop of an Empire whose best days are behind it. Against this backdrop, she also gives the characters some very natural dialogue that in English, nevertheless manages to create an image of the formal, beautiful Persian that must have been spoken in court. The Englishman’s Cameo is unlike a tightly knit murder mystery where one knows that the murderer will be chosen from an already introduced cast of characters. Here, instead, the plot keeps widening so that motives and murderers are quite unclear until the end.

I’ve never been a fan of tightly defining genres and elevating some books as literary while considering others mere genre fiction. The Englishman’s Cameo proves that a good genre fiction book can be as well-written and perhaps much more interesting than some books that claim literary merit.

Publisher: Hachette India

Price: Rs. 295